Summer Begins

 "It was June, and the world smelled of roses. 

The sunshine was like powdered gold over the grassy hillside."

~ Maud Hart Lovelace

Summer is here. Real summer. 80 + degree-summer. 

Oregon-strawberry-summer. 

Reading-in-the-hammock-summer. 

The beach-with-cousins-summer. 

Outdoor-chores-and-projects-are-enjoyable-again-summer.

We headed into summer with some excitement. In May, our red Irish Dexter, Nutmeg, gave birth to a perfect bull calf.

Due to some (mis)adventures in cow fertility, it had been 3 years since calving occurred on our farm. Because Nutmeg is small and this was her first calf, I was really nervous about it. Caleb and I came out early one morning to find her in labor. Progress appeared to be slow, so I kept my finger on speed-dial to our farm-vet and eventually Caleb ended up helping to pull the calf out. It made him late for work, but I told him he was probably the only person in his office who had pulled a calf that morning. I love my gentleman farmer. 

3 hours old, just snoozing in the sun

Since the bull was black, we were very pleasantly surprised that our calf was red, or actually more of a strawberry blond. He is truly beautiful.

Our only disappointment lies in the fact that he is a he. Because when you're raising beef cattle the hes don't stick around for longer than two years. Our previous two calves had also been bulls and we longed for a calf we could raise and spoil and name and love and keep. We briefly considered keeping him as a bull, but since his mom is our only female, that didn't make any sense. So Caleb and our neighbor made him a steer, and we will enjoy his cuteness while we can. 

For two years we have fantasized about clipping our chickens' wings. They have 8 acres to free range on but mostly prefer to be all up in our business: dust bathing in the flower beds around our house, eating the plants near our front door, and pooping on our driveway and front walk.

This is an action shot: see the dirt flying?

I'll never forget when we were remodeling our kitchen and our contractor was storing his tall, standing tool box in our garage. One of our chickens was obsesssed with nesting in his box of nails. I kept booting her out and she kept returning. Finally one day he walked into the house with a look of distaste on his face, held an egg out, and said, "It's still warm." I sent him home with a complimentary dozen eggs, including that one, and told him to tell his kids it had been laid in his nails.

I have felt the need for more flower-beauty in my life, but knew I had to ensure the chickens would not dig up my flower beds by first clipping their wings. This would ensure they could free-range in the pastures but not fly up over the fences to be in our yard space. We watched a Youtube video, pulled them off their roost one-by-one under the cloak of darkness, and clipped those suckers. 

Feathers are like fingernails - they have no feeling, so no pain. We just clipped the eleven flight feathers half-way up. It was suggested that just clipping one wing was enough to hinder flight, so that is what we began with. The next day, all the chickens were out as usual, so we snuck back in that night, plucked them off the roost again, and clipped the other wing.

Wing-clipping will likely need to be done yearly, but was so much easier than we expected, and has literally changed our lives with chickens. I have lovely flowers growing near the house, the kids can go barefoot in the grass (watch the dog poop!), and the chickens are relegated to the pasture where they belong. We wish we had done it sooner.

Many summer glories still lay before us: 

Sunshine, 

growing animals,

garden bounty,

 long afternoons.

and a very full bucket list.

(We might be the only family with "dentist" on our summer bucket list.)

We can now scratch S-mores off, but we've still got a lot of adventuring to do. And we're off...

Inscape

"I do not think that I have ever seen anything 

more beautiful than the bluebell ...

 I know the beauty of the Lord by it."

~ Gerard Manley Hopkins

Spring will depart in days, and I am looking ahead to summer. It's been a strange year, weather-wise and otherwise. We had the wettest winter on record, which is saying something for Oregon. February and March, when normally we are planning the garden and readying it for planting, were unsalvageable with snow and excessive amounts of rain. April was just as gross. Rosie and I managed to run out in between storms and get some peas planted, which are doing pretty poorly.

 I didn't even look through a seed catalog until April.  

With the constant cold and wet, I felt my zeal for homesteading draining out of me. In contrast, I was putting a lot of energy and attention toward activities that were less farmy in nature, but challenging to me in new and different ways. My favorite poet, Gerard Manley Hopkins, is best known for his concept of "inscape" - the notion that every living creature has a given essence, characteristics, an essential nature, that tell us about God and His character. I suppose I've used these past months to grow and refine my inscape. 

My best friend Emily and I started a classics bookclub, plus (nerd-alert) I'm reading along with a podcast bookclub; I began tutoring at our Classical Conversation co-op; I spoke at two different events; and I ran a Ragnar Trail relay in Zion National Park. So now I'm actually realizing that this lull in farm life was a gift for this season to allow me to pursue some different, but stretching and worthwhile activities. It's also given me time to really ponder what God has for me in the future and where He wants me to most focus my time and energy. 

   

There have now been a few sunny days and enough beauty to be found that I am again feeling the love and looking forward to the coming season of bounty. 

We have been busy making up for a lost spring. Here are a few snapshots of some Good Gifts: 

There were very few days during bloom that were hospitable to pollinators, so we are hoping our fruit trees will produce. Caleb is enough concerned that he has come around to the idea that we should probably have our own hives. (Woot woot!!!)

We have many new chicken faces (and stories) around here... I'll save those for another day.

Egg production has picked up and my egg business is still not paying the chicken-bills. Haha. 

My kids are wild and free.

We likely have a thriving fairy colony here at Good Gifts Farm.

No matter the weather or the difficulty or the unknowns, I know Him who holds my days in His hands.

 God's Grandeur

The world is charged with the grandeur of God. 

It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;

It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil

Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?

Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;

And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared

with toil;

And wears man's smudge and shares man's 

smell: the soil

Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;

There lives the dearest freshness deep down

things;

And though the last lights off the black West went

Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward,

springs---

Because the Holy Ghost over the bent

World broods with warm breast and with ah!

bright wings.

~ Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889)