Christmas Date

Let me start by pointing out how proud I am of myself that instead of baking another gajillion cookies, or decking one more section of hall, this night I went out with my Huz!

First, before my date, I asked Eldest to show me how to take a "selfie". This is useful as in order to stay current one must learn how to take pictures of oneself. It turns out my phone has a button that makes this procedure simple!

Step one: learn something.

 

 This is the way we left our children as we departed for our date. As I said to them, you'd think we had a really small house.
Step two: Say Au Revoir!

 Huz took us downtown to Milestone 229. It is right on Bicentennial Park, and the river. The park was lit up with colorful lights and there was a psychedelic screen in the park projecting "holiday" images.
Step three: Restaurant

 The restaurant is fairly small, I counted 15 tables, and then another dozen in the bar. We were on the edge of the bar/main floor. I considered it bar because my feet couldn't touch the ground.
Step four: Martini

Dinner was delicious. I had the special, scallops on the creamiest polenta, ever. Pesto, microgreens, balsamic walnut reduction, something spicy... all came together for a fab plate. Huz had a pork chop. My vegetarianism (pescatarianism?) has led us to having very few meals that have "meat". So, when we go out, the rest of the family nearly always chooses MEAT.
Step five: Eats!

 Our way back to the valet stand was very pretty!
Step six: Shiver a bit while valet finds car.

 Then, on to the Palace Theater. It is such a beautiful old theater, I never get tired of looking around.
We had tickets for Flashdance, the musical. Again, amazed at the talent on the stage just there. Singing, dancing, acting, the whole enchilada. It brought back memories of seeing the movie for the first time, well, a while back. I was still too young to see "R" rated movies!
Step six: settle in and read the Playbill.

 After the show, we were photobombed by Marie Antoinette?!
Step seven: Demonstrate acute hipness with both "selfie" and "photobomb".

The folks leaving the Palace Theater. Into the cold! Until next time....
Step eight: Home! Date, accomplished. Excellent job, Huz!

Chicken State of the State 2013

Chuck Up-Date ( vastly better than Date Up-Chuck).

Chuck, Cowfeathers Farm Blog faithful will recall is the little "chicken-duck" hatched out by a duck this fall. Which, yes, makes the duck Chuck's mother. Biological mom was evidently an Ameraucauna chicken judging by Chuck's physique, but Duck is definitely his Mom. He has learned how to preen like a duck from her, and we have had to teach him how to roost, as ducks do not. We are out of the woods as far as letting him out with duck unsupervised, because he's too big to drown now if duck decides to take him for a swim. And, as you may have surmised by now, Chuck the Chicken-Duck is a rooster! He has started to crow in a "my voice is changing" kind of way. Not really a cock-a-doodle-doo, it is more of a "Er Er Roooooooo!"
He and Duck still spend all their time together, and even though he is a little thing, the geese are curiously cautious of Chuck. Perhaps they are unsure of the chicken/duck status. Looks like a chicken, acts like a duck?
He is getting very pretty, mostly black with streaks of tawny red/brown feathering. In the past, our more hand-raised roosters have turned out to be terribly aggressive. I have discussed this with Chuck, and advised him to remain faithfully kind to his humans.

We have also gained a new hen. Victoria is her name. She is a deep black Australorp hen, and named after the famously black-clad Queen. She is the remaining hen from one of our graduated 4-H'ers who has gone to college, and her flock has been slowly reduced until Victoria was alone. Hens don't thrive alone. So, she has come to live at Cowfeathers. She is very sweet, enjoys being held when we go to the barn, and is an accomplished singer. She chortles and coos happily.

And, we lost Margaret last week. Margs was 9 years old, one of our senior hens. An Ameraucauna, she was an unassuming member of the flock. I noticed her listing to one side, and picked her up. She had an enormous baseball sized crop, as hard as a baseball too! I couldn't massage it into softness atall, atall. So, I put her in Chicken ICU, and slated her for crop surgery the next day. She went to work with me, and I could tell from her odor, she was very unwell. It turned out the enormous crop was all just a very dry abcess. I won't describe it further for those who are disinclined to hear about truly nasty medical conditions. In any case, I decided it was kindest to euthanize her, and she died quickly and peacefully. We are now reduced to Junior, Ebony, Imelda and Poppy from our original flock born in 2004.

The Chicken State of the State, end of 2013.

Creativity undriven.

Albert Einstein is quoted as saying "The key to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources." I can see this as a truth. I look at magazines and get ideas. I go to my mom's house and I get ideas. I think this is the truth on which Pinterest rides. But, I think my greatest creativity comes from really, really, really NOT wanting to leave my farm.
Today, along with waiting for the new dishwasher to be delivered (yes, my status as dishwasher-fixing hero is greatly diminished having declared the dishwasher "unfixable", and ordering a new one), I wanted to take advantage of the amazingly temperate weather and get the outside of Cowfeathers decorated for Christmas.
Sure, I could have gone to town, and bought a wreath, and roping, and great big colored ornaments. I could've shopped for the ribbon I wanted and the glittery spray paint. And, then I could've created holiday decorations. But...that would mean starting the car.
Thus my deeper well of creativity. It started with the flowerboxes on the mudroom building. I had envisioned green with green and more green. Shining and glowing and green. What I got was a pair of gardening shears, some sticker proof gloves and muck boots and a walk. Branches of pine, cedar with berries, the huge seed pods of trumpet vine, Russian sage, cone-shaped umbels of hydrangea and digging around at the bottom of seasons of rejected Christmas decorations yielded some glittery garlands of frosted fake fruit.

My Christmas present from my parents is a tall, wonderful handcrafted (by Dad) tuteur for my garden. I have it placed in the center of the perennial bed, visible through the doors of the mudroom building, centering the beds from perennial through the kitchen garden. I love it! So, I have wrapped it with white lights for the season.

And then the front of Cowfeathers. It is so pretty, and in an antique-y, 200 year old way, kind of grand. I didn't have a vision for what I wanted. So, I just strode around cutting stuff and before I knew it, I had the urns full of greens. Yew and cedar and holly. Just natural and green. Then, for the front door, a wreath. Hmmm. A walk down the lane in pursuit of grape vine headed me instead to the willow trees, and in a few minutes I had a simple braided willow wreath. Not grand atall, atall.
I added a small stuffed pheasant culled from the fall decorations, and then a plaid ribbon left over from wrapping Christmases past.

Simple and sweet. I may have to make a trip to town, and get a bigger wreath form and then make a fragrant evergreen wreath, cover it with ornamental colored globes....ribbons, glittery branches... or maybe I'll just enjoy the simple-ness of the willow?

The Sunroom tree was treated to my collection of nests gathered from all over Cowfeathers, when ever they fall to the ground. Tiny birds found in various shops over the past few years perch on it's branches and then, because it needed some ornaments, I added goose eggs  Huz and Youngest and I blew out last spring and hung them with ribbon.
The main tree will get the traditional family diary of Christmas ornaments. Read like a book of where we've been, who we are, what we love.
And the car remains undriven, I remain happy.