What you do not see

Man in Black: Inhale this, but do not touch. 

Vizzinni: I smell nothing

Man in Black: What you do not smell is iocane powder. It is odorless, tasteless, dissolves instantly in liquid and is among the most deadly poisons known to man.

Princess Bride

We've been working all summer on cleaning and organizing.  We moved 11 months and 3 weeks ago and the only nice thing I can say about moving is that eventually it's over, 

assuming one survives.  

Yesterday, Kiley, our 9th grade neighbor stopped by to work.  She's been my right hand all summer in this mess.  She's swept and re-swept every grimy space.  She's carried piles of craigslist free stuff to the curb.  She's carried shingles to the attic.  She's moved and re-moved boxes.  She's hauled mouse poop encrusted linoleum and carpet rolls down narrow garage stairs in the heat and wrestled them into the garbage can.  She's helped me gather my resolve and face another catastrophic mess on yet another sweaty day.  

She's been my hero.

 

She comes over yesterday after being on vacation for a week, walks into the basement, stops in shock, and says with pleased amazement in her voice, "Whoa!  Wow!  It looks good in here."

by Fiona and Anjali

When your 14 year old neighbor is pleasantly shocked by your neatness, you know it's been a year to survive.

And today is the day we finish the house cleaning and organizing in time to start homeschool next Tuesday.  Monday we are taking ourselves and Kiley to Wild Mountain water park as our spoon full of sugar.  I can see Monday's fun and Tuesday's school coming.  But this morning, I awoke weary and a bit disheartened at the medicine yet to go down.  So I've treated myself to these moments blogging, imagining all the photos I will take after the broom is hung up and the vacuum is put away.  

  

curtain rods by Tim

I told the kids that I was going to take photos and blog about it and Anjali replied, "Mom, we should have taken Before photos."  

Towel hook by Aidan

But even photos of that first year's mess are too much to take into this second year. 

These are my Iocane photos- what you do not see is the point. 

Moving boxes piled up in an impassible heap.

Remnants of the builder's wood working business sadly propped in a corner.

A maze of new farmer mess in the garage.

Kids' rooms after a spring and summer of Mom being a first year farmer.

 

by Mark and Fiona

by Anjali

Mouse poop encrusted rolls of linoleum and carpet left in the attic from repairs made when the pipes broke.

A combination of bedding dust, oil from feed, and chicken poop which hardened like mortar over everything in the downstairs bathroom when I violated #4 on the No Can Do List this last spring.

 Chicks in the bathtub, Good Friday 2013

  End of August after two deep cleanings, towel rack by Aidan

Four years of dirt and dust in the laundry room.

swept 5 times by Kiley, shelving assembled and moved by Aidan and Kiernan

What you do not see are the unfinished projects reminding us of our lack of know-how: towel rack pieces stacked on toilets, 

 

Towel rack by Kiernan

electrical sockets minus their covers, 

 

New light switch by Dave, socket covers by Kiernan

milk crates wedged in a corner to hold towels.

Shelves by Aidan and Kiernan, pencil planning line removal by Anjali

What I do see is the order brought by hands of new friends and neighbors- the many teens and 'tweens who've worked so cheerfully in such nasty, hot, unfortunate circumstances.

  

Kiley after we finished

 

Tim's handmade shelves which he challenged himself to build.

 

Hooks installed at my request.

 

by Tim and the kids

The walls Tim and many others repainted the color I picked.

 

Tim et al

The crank covers to keep the bugs out.

by Tim

I see a lot of love.

It's the revised draft of living and farming and learning which a year of hard won experience has earned us.

New vanity and sink by Dave and Jason

It's our new best guess at shaping our environment as we reinvent ourselves.

 

I'm so glad we're here and I'm so glad to have made it through this first year and to the threshold of the second.

Sipping Wedge-style blueberry smoothies in front of the fan

Water slides and Year 2, here we come!

Green egg and ham

Yesterday, Mark found 

our first chicken egg!

Yep, it's green.

Green egg and ham- Anjali's idea.

Egg shell color comes from a combo of two things- 

the color of the shell and the color of the coating called bloom.

internet photo

Shells come in main two colors- white and blue.

Crack an egg and hold the shell up the the light and 

look at the color inside the shell.

It will be white or blue.

 

Auracana chickens from South America lay blue-shelled eggs and blue shells are a dominant trait so all offspring 

will also lay blue eggs.

Bloom, a coating over the shell, 

comes in white and various shades of brown.

If you look carefully at the eggs above you will see irregularity in the shell color aka bloom. 

Bloom adds color and creates a breathable barrier which allows oxygen in to the chick while keeping germs out.

The bloom of various chickens differ in color and 

I imagine in chemical composition.

internet photo

Therefore, by combining different shell colors with different shades of bloom, a rainbow of egg colors can be achieved.

 

internet photo

These hybrid chickens are called Easter Eggers.

 

internet photo of my dreams

Andrea, the lady who sells us eggs, has many chickens which lay brown eggs- white shell covered in brown bloom.

And she has two who lay green eggs- blue eggs covered in bloom.

our refrigerator

I look forward to that green egg in every carton.

It is my delight.

So when I bought chickens, I selected for good foraging skills, ease, broodiness and ability to raise their young, gentle personality, and colored eggs.

While egg color has nothing to so with 

the nutritional quality of the egg-

the chickens' diet and lifestyle do, just like people-

variety makes me happy.

So I went for it.

I have a few brown eggers (Swedish Flower Hens), 

a couple of blue eggers (Americaunas- hybrids of Auracana), 

 and many hatched from pink eggs 

with the hopes that our eggs will come in many hues.

 Each chicken lays a single color egg for life and in home flocks each chicken's eggs may be distinct enough to be identified.

A green egg is an auspicious start.

Glorious Techniflavor

Do you remember in The Wizard of Oz 

the moment when you switch from black and white

to glorious Technicolor?

It surprised and delighted me and I'd grown up on color tv.

Imagine what it must have been like for people in 1939

who had never seen a color movie before.

We're not in Kansas anymore, Toto!

 This is how I feel about eating vegetables this summer.

I have never truly tasted broccoli before.

 Broccoli is sweet.

Eating fresh from my garden is