Chuckwillow Farm

On April 22, Jordan and I finalized the purchase of the five acres adjacent to the Sanctuary on its eastern border. We now own the whole dead end. if that sounds like I'm gloating, I absolutely am. I am so excited--building my farm, at long last.

Shortly after I bought the Sanctuary in 1995, another man bought that land next door. His name was Rodney, and he was a classic central Florida redneck. He had mad homesteading skills and connections and quickly cleared, fenced and rolled in a single wide. He built a run for his hunting dogs and at one point brought home a stud colt, black with white markings like lightning strikes down his shoulder. Nice colt, but Rodney was clearly not an experienced horseman.

After a few years, Rodney's crack addiction got the worst of him and his life ran off the rails. The land was repossessed and he vanished, leaving behind some of his hunting dogs and a couple pitbulls--including a little white one with a black ear, who ended up being my best dog, Camille. Camille lived with me for 14 years and was my dearest companion.

Before long, the land sold to a woman named Connie, who arrived from California with 17 aging cats and a the desire to live deliberately, in homage to Thoreau. She pulled in a small RV, and lived in it for a little while while trying to decide how to build a house. In the long run, she got a yard shed and fixed it up for habitation, and she lived there for nearly 10 years.

Connie's beloved friend Chuck took care of the land like it was his own. He planted hundreds of ornamentals--gingers, bamboo, azaleas, gardenias, hydrangeas, fruit trees, ferns, and much ore that I'm just now starting to figure out. He was a sweet, kind, hardworking, tenderhearted man. But only a few short years later, he fell sick, and died. Connie changed her name to Kit and grieved. Chuck's boyfriend Duke stepped in to help with maintenance and mowing, but again after a few years, his life became too busy and he wasn't able to do as much. Kit herself lived quietly, working at a hardware store and taking care of her cats, now down to six. A couple years ago, she too got sick, and had to move into town to undergo surgery and chemotherapy for cancer. She began to talk to Jordan and me about buying the place, and we agreed that we had always wanted to, but it took another 3 years before we worked ourselves into a financial position to afford it.

I started work on it this week, clearing out all sorts of old lumber, junk, broken tools, overgrown storage areas--you name it. There is a ton to do--some of the detritus dates back to Rodney. While I work, Kit is sometimes there, moving her things and her remaining two cats out, and she walks around with me naming plants, and showing me the important landmarks: property corners, her cats' graves, and the area where Chuck's ashes were scattered. Today she handed over some treasures: Chucks arrowhead collection, and a manuscript her friend wrote and beautifully illustrated, all about Florida native plants and their uses as food or medicine.

During our morning walk today, Jordan named the place: Chuckwillow Farm. For Chuck, and for the chuckwillows, long absent, that returned this spring to sing home the dusk each evening.

For us, Debbie was the perfect storm.

 

 Here in the sanctuary, the winds were gentle, the rains lavish and sustained, with enough breaks between downpours to allow the land to absorb.  No trees lost.

 Cpyress Pond, full for the first time in recent memory. at least 7 years.

 Our creek, flowing, even singing, on its way to the Santa Fe River.

 Beyond this point it got a little too dank.

 Camille can never resist a good swamp.

 The homeplace,  looking a little messy, I know, but all living beings here very happy.

 A flower I never learned the name of.

The pride of this years kitchen garden.

And, a tiny little Happily Ever After.

Last night at dusk, as Starboard and the other kids were starting to get ready for bed, we brought Punt out to the nursery. We gently placed her beside Starboard, close enough the baby could nestle under mom if she wanted, and where Starboard could see her but hopefully not deliver a killing blow before she recognized the intruder. The three sibs stood up tall as geese and watched the newcomer carefully. We watched carefully, too. We didn’t know if Starboard would recognize Punt, after her week in neonatal sick bay. Grown chickens are so astronomically bigger than week-old chicks. I had seen a hen reject a baby before, and it only took a couple blows of that dinosaur beak to cause real damage. Punt was scared. She started beeping her Red Alert (Lonely), the one that had me regularly running to the bathroom (where sick bay is) to crouch beside the box and dangle my hand inside, to give Punt someone to interact with. I used my fingers to indicate things to try, some food or water, and to encourage her to preen, and to scratch in the hay for tidbits. As she got stronger I taught her to run back and forth across the box to find the hand and receive tickles. When she got tired she’d sit on my palm and sing to herself.

As soon as Punt started sounding Red Alert, Starboard went into action. She began clucking in a particular way that—judging from the actions of the other siblings--means, “just come right over here under my wings, dearie, Mommy’s got you.” Punt tried to hide. Starboard picked up her skirts and followed, trying to settle over her, but Punt dodged. It was like watching someone try to catch a bug under a cup.

Starboard never stopped clucking the safety song. Punt gradually went quiet. We stole away, but Punt followed and initiated Red Alert again.

I managed to stay away a full 15 minutes. In the uneven flashlight glare, I saw that Starboard had settled with the other chicks, and Punt was right in front of her. Starboard was still singing. Punt was quiet, but uncertain. Starboard reached her big teradactyl head toward the baby and I held my breath. Would she peck? But she just rubbed her cheek along the baby’s side, and Punt took a hesitant step closer.

At the next check, all was quiet and there were no chicks visible. Punt had made it home.

In the morning, Punt still remembers her hand mom, and paid me a visit, though she soon wandered off after her family. She’s a bit smaller than her siblings, and not as sure of what her mom is saying. But it looks like happily ever after, to me.

The delicacy and tenacity of a tiny life.

When Starboard finally arose from the nest after her latest clutch hatched, we discovered one little brown chick not doing so well. The last to hatch, maybe it was a little premature. Maybe it got chilled as it emerged, since mom was already busy with the three older chicks. While its three siblings bopped around, fluffy and beeping, this one sprawled helplessly in the detritus of the nest, amid broken shells and the extra stinky poop bombs a broody hen leaves behind. We opened the cage to start cleaning up the mess, upsetting Starboard (who is a particularly intense mom), and in her protective flurry she trompled the weak chick.

We successfully extracted the baby, which seemed a little chilled, and not in control of its muscles. I gave it to a friend to hold and warm while I cleaned out the nest and put in some fresh hay and starter crumbles.

And when my friend opened his hands so we could examine the rescued chick, it popped off his palm like a jumping bean and plopped four feet to the ground. Thankfully, gravity is merciful on the little creatures, and it seemed no worse off than before.

So we brought the poor wee mite inside, put it on a heating pad, left it to warm up. So tiny, so frail, it slept like a dead thing for nearly 24 hours. Since we lumber all of Starboard’s children with the nautical names, and because life-drop kicked this one into existence, we named it Punt. During that first day I was equally sure each time I checked that Punt would die any second, and that Punt would be fine. Optimistically, because it would be annoying to expend all this rescue effort for a rooster, we decided Punt is a pullet. Her troubles seemed neurological, so we hoped she would get better as she grew up. Gradually, she found her feet--not without some drama, like a near-death tumble into her water bowl--and I succumbed to the charm of her exceptional effort to live, and the scary, rigor mortis abandon of her sleep. After 36 hours, to my great relief, she started showing interest in food and water. After 48, she was able to motivate around her box, although at first her walk was more of a semi-controlled tumble.

She’s nearly a week old today, and we’re thinking we might be able to re-introduce her to her family tonight or tomorrow. She interested in everything, and moving around pretty well, though she remains a bit unsteady on her pins.

Little Punt’s first week has been especially poignant to me, coinciding as it has with the week I underwent laproscopic abdominal surgery. Watching her struggle and try, rest and explore, she seems to exude a perfect trust in her world, and her process. We’re getting better together.

Shiitakes happen...

Our latest addition...one four foot shiitake log. When we got it home, we found the perfect little copse for our future mushroom farm, and I started the fruiting process by soaking the log for 24 hours. Then the weather did us a solid and turned rainy and cool for several days. One week from purchase, we have mushrooms started. Happiness.

in just spring

There is no better weather than this.
The woods are waking, noisy with birds, vivid with tender bright leaves budding against the blue, blue sky, and the first flush of flowers. Azalea, jessamine, plum, huckleberry, violet. On the forest floor, the first lovely shoots of nettles, greenbriar, pokeweed.
All six hens are laying, even the youngest, who are no older than six months, and the oldest, who must be near seven years.
This week the sandhills flew over, great skeins of them, trumpeting, coursing straight north, their v-formation like the wake of the Lady's trailing fingers, drawing the new season along the sky.

Eggies!

This morning when I let the birds out, Starboard made a beeline for the stack of dog crates over by the studio. Oh, ho, ho, I chortled, because we have had to BUY eggs all winter, and let me tell you it's annoying to buy eggs when you are feeding 13 birds! I sneaked this picture. You can just see her, the brown lump in the second floor. I dared not come closer, for she is a canny beast! So canny, in fact, that she did not tip me off by singing an egg song when she hopped down to joined the others for breakfast.
Good thing I was watching.

After checking to be sure she wasn't looking, I went to collect MY breakfast.
And what did I find? NINETEEN eggs! Oh, what a sneaky bird! Some were obviously oldest--pale, and grubby. I left two of those, as bait, and once inside I opened one of the most dubious looking--it's fine, sweet smelling and clear. Most folks don't realize that a clean eggs from a healthy bird will keep at least two weeks without refrigeration, even in hot weather. Think about it: a hen lays roughly one egg a day. She will plop out those eggs for as long as it takes to get a clutch size she likes--usually 8-12 eggs (apparently, Starboard, flush from her first success as a mom, was going for broke with 19!). It stands to reason that the first eggs can't spoil before the last one is laid, or the clutch would be doomed.
Chickens also tend to lay eggs communally; that is, more than one hen will use the same nest. That's why we sometimes get a lot of variation amongst one clutch of biddies. Because our birds are uncaged all day and have a roughly three acre range, one of our tactics for actually finding any eggs at all takes advantage of this habit. We set up several high, dry, and hay-filled spaces for the ladies to nest in. The dog crates Starboard is using are one, and there are a few rusty old parrot cages, courtesy of my parrot-crazed sister, which we've set up in quiet corners with a roof and maybe a burlap sack for privacy, and a temptingly thick bed of hay.
It helps if the ladies never see you take the eggs: only a few seem willing to knowingly accept the food-for-eggs bargain. Fiddler, a pretty little Ameraucana and one of the most affectionate chickens we've had, was one. Given the chance, she'd come inside and lay her lovely sage-green egg on my pillow.
And so at last, the long barren winter is over and the spring egg laying season is upon us! I can't wait to see Ginger's eggs. If her mostly-likely mom, Audrey, is any indication, she'll be laying great big rosy brown 3x's. But now--if you'll excuse me--it's way past time for me to make a homegrown omelet. I think...broccoli, cherry tomato, and the Wainwright's excellent sharp cheddar.