An old movement returning

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/8295443.stm

Sewing is the new hip thing to do!

We just purchased a brand new sewing machine for 74 bucks from Craigslist!




http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8283615.stm

First Winter Storm of 2009

Our house

Down Geigel Hill Road

The barn

Cooper

Milton

Toby

Christmas time at Longwood Gardens

Even though it rained relentlessly last Sunday, we stilled braved the drive through freezing rain in the morning to see the beautiful displays at Longwood Gardens!

The beginning of a new hobby!

My dad sent me 3 packets of seedlings last Spring from Ireland with Hellebores seeds, finally after waiting patiently, 2 out of the 3 packets have germinated. I just read that it can take up to 18 months to germinate. Not only that, it takes 3 to 4 years before you get a flower, but I think one can agree the wait is worth it. My dad specializes in these plants in Ireland. I'm hoping to get into it here and carry on the love he has for this plant.

this is what they will look like (hopefully)

http://www.hellebores.org/

Oprah the exploring chicken!

"Do you have chickens" the voice came from the old man living across the street from us. We had been here 2 months now, and had yet to meet the folks who lived in that house. We had been hesitant to approach them and introduce ourselves. I had seen the woman a few times, she would sit in her car, and honk relentlessly until her husband came out to help her carry bags into the house. She followed with the aid of 2 walking sticks. She had long hair, mostly gray with reddish brown tips. Her husband would sometimes pass me on the way from the post office but I would just get a nod from him. They probably talked about us, and I imagined them sitting by the fire and saying things like, "who are those men living in that house, and where are their wives and kids." "All I see are those strange looking dogs with cruchies on their heads."


"Yes!" I replied, "We do". At the time we only had 2 chickens, Elizabeth the Araucana, named after Elizabeth Hasselbeck from The View, because she was very vocal and opinionated when we first got her. And the other chicken we name Oprah, because well, she was plump, black and compassionate. We had come home from running errands, only to find Oprah missing. With the help of John our neighbor from the new development of mc mansions behind us we searched the area in hopes of finding her. At first we thought the fox got her. he had been seen walking nonchalantly through our property recently, but there were no signs of a kill. Assuming those signs would have been splatters of blood on nearby bushes, that after swabbing with my CSI kit I bought from HSN would reveal poultry DNA. There wasn’t a feather in sight! Maybe she had been grabbed by a hawk, evidence of them was confirmed a few days earlier when I saw two circling around our yard, much like a discovery episode of Earth, waiting for a chance to dive down and swoop up our beloved birds.



"Is one of them black?” the old man asked, to which I replied with much hope in my voice, "Yes!" “Have you seen her, we seem to be missing her." He continued by telling us that she had crossed the road (Kent, don’t go there!) into his property and was walking along the creek, he had picked her up and threw her over to our side only to spot her a few hours later, back along the creek on his side. Both David and I, John at this point had given up and was back on his porch nursing a beer, telling his wife Kelly of brave attempts at trying to locate missing Oprah, traversed both sides of the creek trying to spot our beloved Oprah.



Properties here in Erwinna tend to just blend into each other. There are no fences our real visible separation between yards. Even though the old man gave us permission to walk on his land, we weren’t quite sure where it ended. Being new to the neighborhood we weren’t sure what the proper etiquette was. Now of course we know better, just as we had seen the old man come on our property a few weeks earlier and watch him cut daffodils, it became apparent that there were no borders and with good enough reason it was acceptable to "trespass". I noticed David was ahead of me and talking to another man, who also had seen Oprah, Cap who lives behind the old couple, thought he was dreaming and got his wife to confirm that yes indeed that was a black chicken walking across their yard. A few moments later I spotted her, pecking away at the ground not a care in the world on the towpath which was separated by a canal with Cap's property on one end. We could not figure out how she got over there, short of her flying to the other side. Yet chickens don't fly, or do they? A biker happened to pass by her, stopped and asked,” is this your chicken?" “Is she friendly?" He swooped her up under his arm, and brought her over to us. We spent the next 20 minutes talking to Cap and his wife about the neighborhood, who lives where, this house used to be the whore house, that house used to be a general store, until Oprah became restless in my arms. Once back in our yard, she resumed to pecking at the ground, no harm done. A few weeks later she disappeared again, unfortunately we never found her again.





So, the couples across the street are named, Pus and Millie, Millie grew up in the house we live in. She sometimes gets in her car, drives across the street to our house to give us apples, strawberries and blueberries. She loves coming in the house to see it and talk about what used to be here. She talks about her husband, "Daddy said.......now you don't mind that I call him that do you?” We in turn, give them eggs, or whatever we have plenty of in the garden.

Mr. Squirrell hit the jackpot!

The other day I took the dogs for a walk in the woods behind our house, on our way back we took the path along the creek, and I filled a bag with black walnuts since they were in abundance along the creek's banks.




I left the bag brimming from the top on the patio table, thinking I'll just take care of them later. Last night when I returned from firehouse drill, David asked me if I had seen the walnuts outside. A squirrel had discovered the bag, and had gone through about half of them. Can you imagine the excitement he must have experienced upon discovering the mother load! As David imitated, mmmm, I didn’t know they opened a convenient store in this neck of the woods!



Lesson learned!

amazing story of hope!

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/11/13/60minutes/main5635191.shtml

eliminate plastic bottles from your life!

As I searched for a coupon to replace the britta filter I came accross this great site.

http://www.filterforgood.com/index.php

Trader joe's??????

I am surprised that Trader Joe's is one of the companies listed in the latest beef recall.




http://www.eagletribune.com/punews/local_story_306105148.html

another sign we need to wake up and get back to basics

I remember a few months ago I was having coffee at the Ottsville coffee house when an older gentleman striked up a conversation with me.  We talked about David and mine transformation, and how fortunate we were to have realized the important things in life. He had just read an article on CIT, and how bad it will be for the economy when it falls. I agreed with him that we have not seen the worst of it yet. Here we are, CIT has filed for bankruptcy, not only do they provide lending for some major retailers, they also provided funds for small businesses. As we go into another Holiday Season, it will be interesting to see if people finally start to realize the true meaning of the Holiday Season!


http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/01/cit-to-file-for-bankruptcy-soon/?emc=na

One of Sodexo’s 14 Better Tomorrow Commitments is to source sustainable fish and seafood.

https://sodexhoinfo-usa.com/CS/Csresp.nsf/41337f848af0a40c85256b1b00671a9f/dc4c41e46ae577df8525757700531dd3?OpenDocument

Sodexo gets in on the game

it's nice to know that the company I work for shares some of the same ideas and values I have

https://sodexhoinfo-usa.com/CS/Csresp.nsf/41337f848af0a40c85256b1b00671a9f/89ebd5b2f033ad0285257656005ffe0a?OpenDocument

The Beginning (part 1)

First of all I want to thank Ted LaDuca for coming up with "Simple Living 101". Ted, David and I have had many conversations about integrating our new lifestyle in this new economic environment and perhaps broadening this into something bigger. He has been very gracious to let me use the name for my blog.

8/17/2009

This blog is intended to follow a path David and I took last January when we moved across country lock stock and barrel from Reno to a farm in Bucks County. Our dream has always been to live on a farm one day, and sort of live off the land. Due to severe economic hardships we decided to go for it and found an 8 acre 150 year old farm to rent. It came with the quintessential red barn and creek. And to top it off, there is a covered bridge right outside our front door. On it we would grow vegetables, keep more chickens, ducks and whatever else comes our way. We would get involved in the community by volunteering and sharing in our bounty. Hopefully people who read this will be inspired by it.

I know I have started this kind of late, that is why I am back tracking and hope to catch up to the present!





We rented the place sight unseen, except for pictures we saw on the internet. We knew it was a risk, but for those who know us, risk means jump right in, we'll worry about the small stuff later.

We arrived at the end of January when the ground was still covered in ice, snow and another layer of ice. Our 2 chickens Oprah and Elizabeth survived the 7 day trek in the back of our suburban in -30 degree weather, and were now subjected to more of the same, but at least they were stationary. Our dogs and 17 year old black cat were also happy to have finally come to a stand still.

In true fashion, we had about a week to get the place in shape, unload the 28 foot pensky truck, suburban and Uhaul before I would leave for a week to visit my Dad in Ireland. David pointed out to me this is what I do, we move somewhere and I conveniently leave so that he is left to unpack everything.

The house was extremely cold when we arrived, it had been closed up for several months and it being a stone house, we discovered it would take several days to warm up the place! At least we were keeping warm with moving furniture and boxes. First up was figuring out how to traverse through the treacherous ground from truck to house. We found some planks and wood boards in the barn that we laid down over the ice-snow-ice to create a path to the house. 3 days later we got everything inside without to much trouble, except for me getting crushed by the big Sub Zero fridge we brought.

Oprah and Elizabeth where held in temporary housing in the ruins for now. We created a small area with accordion dog fencing and created a roof with wood. Since we did not know what dangers lay ahead of them as far as predators go, we didn’t want to risk loosing them. The weather continued to be extremely cold, but they seemed to be fine and adjusting to their new environment.

The next few days before my departure was spent exploring the area and receiving kind neighbors who welcomed us to the area and brought us gifts, such as homemade pound cake, wine etc. It all seemed so magical to us, especially after where we traveled from. We drove up and down the Delaware River on Rt 39 through quaint little towns; it was as if we had been transported back in time somewhere in Europe. We would drive around all day, stopping here and there, discovering great food stores, get back home, light a fire and cook dinner.

Then the time came for my trip to Ireland. David drove me to JFK, a neighbor told us it would take no longer than 1 and a half hour. Yeah, that was wrong. We forgot about city and rush hour traffic. It was a delight to see the city again though. It had been so many years, and even though we both love the country we were very excited to know that we would be a short drive to Manhattan. The skyline is just breathtaking as you approach the Lincoln Tunnel, especially at night. It also took us about an hour to get trough the tunnel......needless to say tension was high, as I was now faced with possibly missing my flight. I made it with about 15 minutes to spare before boarding. We swore we would never drop off or pick up anyone from JFK or LaGuardia :)

While in Ireland I would get updates with pictures from David as he rearranged furniture in the house, or discovered things around the property. Or the quart of wood he purchased, which he then stacked against the wall to make it look picture perfect. Everything just seemed to be falling into place effortlessly.

Upon my return, next up would be finding jobs and planning out a vegetable garden. Daily searches on Craigslist, emailing resumes, checking out Monster.com (which by the way sucks) I would get these off the wall job matches that no matter how much I fine tuned my profile would get more obscure. We continued exploring the area, finding off beat stores, such as the General Store in Sergeantville, NJ owned by a Chinese family that make the best hum bow and dumplings. There's also a butcher shop, the Maresco Brothers, whom are well into their 80's. They have the best lamb sausage!

Finding a job took some time, but considering the climate we were in it was not that bad. There were jobs available; however it seemed more competitive for less money. One of the important factors now though was to find something that came with insurance. After many interviews from supermarkets to fine dining I landed a job at a retirement community in Telford. It wasn’t the ideal job, but it was a job none the less. I took the position of Cook (which is pretty low on the totem pole) but it felt right at the time, since I was not interested in to much responsibly at work. Which by the way took some convincing while being interviewed, this was the first time I had to downplay my experience and sound believable that I did not want a high paying big responsibility job! At this time a job was a job, and once I got my foot in the door I could see what else was out there.

Slaughterhouse live

A great article on a movement of co op's teaching how to butcher your own meat!


http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/25/fashion/25meat.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=butchering%20meat&st=cse

Dolly the Rooster!

We bought our baby chicks and ducks from a small time breeder, so that we would not have to worry about getting roosters, you see the breeder is suppose to sex them and sell only females if that's what you ordered. That was the main reason why we paid more for the birds. It became evident early on that one of our Rhode Island reds was outgrowing the other chicks. Not to worry, we thought, maybe she will be a giant chicken. As the weeks went by, Lucy kept getting bigger and her feathers more colorful, she was clumsy, her feet hardly able to support her giant upper body, it was amazing to watch her navigate her way down the ramp from the coop, more often than not kind of stumbling down.


Then it happened, one morning, a hoarse call at sunrise. It reminded me of the scene in Phantom of the Opera when the phantom taunts with the leading soprano, taking her voice so that she just croaks like a toad. In addition to this revelation that Lucy was obviously a rooster, he tried mounting anything around with feathers. David was horrified when Giant Lucy plopped himself on top of Diana and Josephine (our ducks) and flattened them. It was evident that his days with us were numbered. A few days later Lucy took up residence at a nearby chicken farm that housed about 300 chickens. In return David could pick out a chicken from the flock. He came home with a white pullet, and we named her Dolly.

Dolly kept to herself the first few days, she was checked out and pecked at every now and then by the other birds, kind of letting her know where she ranked we guessed.

Then one afternoon I noticed something white floating in our make shift duck pond. Since our ducks are mostly white, I assumed it was one of them. But i grew somewhat anxious when I didn’t notice any movement. Ii decided to walk over and investigate and as I approached I realized Dolly had fallen into the pond. There she was floating with her eyes closed! I frantically yanked her out of the water, huddling her against my chest I ran into the house yelling for David to get towels. We bundled her in towels and took her outside into the warm sunlight to help her get dry. She looked exhausted and near death. David started giving her mouth to beak resuscitation (I kid you not) which actually seemed to work, because she was showing signs of life. Meanwhile I tried to find a hairdryer, without any luck. We decided to take her into the laundry room and place her in front of the dryer allowing the hot air to dry her feathers. A few hours later we had a saved chicken!

We placed her back in the coop and hoped she would fully recover after a good nights sleep. We wondered if perhaps the other birds convinced her to come over to the pond to get a drink of water and then nonchalantly pushed her in. She was after all new to the flock, maybe it was a form of hazing....

Dolly recovered fully and stayed clear of any unattended puddles or ponds!

A few months later, Nancy at the Post Office asked me one morning if I was missing one of our chickens. Apparently there was a white chicken at the Ever May, an abandoned hotel up the road. I told David about it and he and Janet who was visiting with her husband decided to investigate. Upon my return from work they told me that yes indeed there was a white chicken and friendly too. So he and I went back to get her. As David enticed her with food I snuck up behind her and grabbed her. Yes, I think I am becoming a chicken whisperer. Looking closely at the bird in my arms, I had a sneaky suspicion we had a rooster on our hands. This would explain its unfortunate abandonment. Roosters are not very popular, and are often killed or left at vacant properties. We weren't entirely sure, or just in denial. We placed the new bird into our coop, while the other birds were roaming around, Dolly bolted up to us to see what was going on, so we decided to put her with the new bird. Unfortunately that was a bad idea, as both birds started fighting intensely. We quickly intervened, and took the new bird out and placed her in the dog pen (a sort of holding area for rowdy animals). About 5 minutes elapsed and we heard...cockadoodle doo!

Here we go again!

The next day we packed up the new rooster and drove to the farm that had taken Lucy. Unfortunately they did not want him, and they also informed us that Lucy had mysteriously died. I'm still suspicious about that mystery. I think they made soup out of him. David believes he died of a massive heart attack, due to his rapid growth.

Luckily there was another farm up the road who gladly took the rooster off our hands. Mission Accomplished! We had rid ourselves of 2 pesky roosters. Harmony was again restored within our flock, our so we thought!

About a month ago while David and I were having coffee, David asked "Did you hear that?" "What?" I asked, "I just heard a rooster" he replied. "Can't be!" "That's got to be somewhere in the distance" I stated. I walked outside looked at our flock, who where contently pecking at the ground, except for Dolly, who stood tall and proud, she looked at me puffed up its feathers and said "cockadoodle doo" I just burst out laughing, and stood there in disbelief, out of 300 chickens David picked a rooster!

Rules to Eat By

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/11/magazine/11food-rules-t.html?_r=1&ref=health

Jamie Oliver Puts America's Diet on a Diet

Click on the link below for this great article and one of my heroes:)

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/11/magazine/11Oliver-t.html?ref=magazine