Lovely morning in the Northwest

Titles are hard for me.  Often I don't know what I am going to write until I sit down to write.  I can just feel something bubbling at the surface waiting to be said.  Maybe I could start writing the title at the end of the entry.  Think I will try that today. 

Well, it is another gorgeous day here in the Northwest.  Wow.  The birds are up singing now at 4:30 or maybe earlier.  That is when I often hear them.  And it is almost full daylight at that time too.  Today, in spite of the cat jumping on me at a much earlier hour, I luxuriously slept in until almost 7:00.  Ahhhhhhh...that was nice.  What woke me up was pretty nice too.  I woke up the impatient chickens yelling about the fact that all other birds were up and singing for a long time and they had not been let out yet.  It was a lovely sound actually. 

Thinking about the chickens, who are happily out pecking about our yard by the way, makes me laugh.  We now have three girls, having lost one recently to stress...more on that later.  One of them has decided that she is the rooster.  She has been crowing like a rooster every once in a while.  She flaps her wings and gets really big when she does it too.  It makes me giggle.  (I have to admit that the picture above is not of our chickens or our backyard.  But it was a good stand in.)

I have to admit that at this time last year we had our garden all planted, the grass all mowed and we were on top of things.  This year...not so much.  And on top of that, we did not participate in our CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) this year either.  I make is sound like we are deadbeats.  But it really isn't true.  We have been working diligently to help people get a handle on their finances and to help them get a plan to get out of debt.  It has been exciting!  But, it makes me sad to see our garden.  And I miss our CSA people. 

Ok, the CSA was a serious decision though.  Throughout the winter I have studied more and more about the differences in organic and otherwise produced food.  I have also been looking more and more into GMOs (genetically modified organism) and the effects that these have on people.  And really, we have decided that this is not for us.  I realized that even if the farmer doesn't realize it, they can be buying seeds that are genetically modified.  Our sweet CSA family's farm is not organic, the fruit that they get from Eastern WA is not organic and the seeds that they get are from big retailers.  I love their family.  We have bought from them for several years.  I love that they are a small, family-run farm.  I love that they produce within an hour of where we live.  But, I just couldn't get past the other stuff this year.  I plan to write them a letter to let them know.  But I need to do it once we have decided who our next CSA provider is going to be. 

And by the way, our yard is trashed.  I like to think of it as natural.  But one good-sized dog and one giant dog is just too much for our poor backyard.  There is a patch of absolutely no grass right now.  And there is a patch of seriously happy dandelions too.  Can we really eat these?  Because if we can, I know what we will be eating all summer long!  They are HAPPY!  That chicken poop makes them VERY happy!  Tim just says the yard is trashed. 

We are finally finding some down time in the midst of the crazy schedules of financial coaching/teaching, baseball, and work...oh yeah work.  That needs a little more time and attention than it has been getting.  It is going well in spite of it all though. 

In any case, Tim mowed our front lawn and then weed-eated.  We still have some weeding and such that needs to be done, but it looks a lot better than it did yesterday morning!

And I did get out in the wee hours just before night and worked on getting the garden beds in shape.  I know that not disturbing the beds is the best option for gardening.  But I have to admit that there are two dogs who really like to dig in the beds.  And I had to work them to get the soil back where it was supposed to be.  My goal was to have the chickens help...they are great scratchers and movers of dirt!...but they wouldn't cooperate.  They kept running into a different bed and only digging in one corner. Guess all the lovely worms lived in that corner only.  :-) 

Well, I rambled here and there today.  But while I did, I kept sneaking peeks at our lovely, overgrown back yard.  And I listened to the birds out there loving it.  And I pet the dogs once in a while when they came up to see what I was doing.  Over all, I would have to say that this has so far been not just a successful morning, but a very pleasant one.  Hope yours was too.