The sky is crying today... Which is probably why I am blogging. I guess the rain was the only thing that could bring me back to my blog this week... I've been so caught up in what is happening all around me. Which is really the way I prefer life to be... It's far better to be caught up in what is happening all around you versus what is happening on the news ... especially when so much of that news is negative. There is nothing negative about the changing of the seasons or watching my chickens forage while I forage... These things bring joy to my soul.
All of the leaves have turned red, orange and yellow and have laid down on the ground to feed the earth. There are still a few colors here and there waiting to fall, but what is mostly left for viewing are the evergreens... We will have pine needles falling in our driveway year round. Which is convenient, when our friends or ourselves need a little pine straw... The chickens seem to really enjoy scratching through it too. Which, by the way, the chickens have been turned loose! Our friends were visiting and brought up a conversation in which we imagined the chickens foraging freely around the house and returning to their coop at night. We really like the feeling this conversation gave us... so later that evening we pulled by the run that is connected to the coop and let them go.
They pretty much spend the entire day rotating around the house. The pine straw in our front yard has been sculpted into hundreds of little circles, where they've scratched then moved onto the next promising location. Occasionally they wonder off onto the outer edges of the field, but they mostly spend all of their time around the house. Scratching and pecking... on and on. Then just before all of the sunlight has left us, they walk themselves back into the coop for the night. Most of the time we walk them back to make sure they all enter at the same time.... I think it's mostly our fear that one will go missing... We don't want the coyotes to have one of our chickens for supper, when it could have been our (and sasha and gaia's) supper. I've had a pretty decent amount of dreams since we've moved here where in the dream one of the chickens wonders off into the woods and is lost and I have to go out and search for it... I don't like those dreams.
Lately is seems all of my "nightmares" are of really simple things that could actually happen. A chicken being lost or our earth oven being rained on. Landon and I are in the process of building an earth oven, and the first night of the day that we began the actual part of the oven, where we added our clay mixture... Landon and I both had dreams that is was rained on. I actually had two separate dreams that night that the oven was rained on, and one where it just sort of melted away... A terrible sight, for a dream. Luckily, the next day we beat the rain by running out just as is began sprinkling and throwing a tarp over it. Wheeeeeeew, that was close.
So now it's the waiting game. We have to wait for the clay to dry a little more before we can carve out the door and get on with the next layer... I really do love this process though. My younger brother has been coming over and helping us through every step. It's going to be so nice when it's finished and I can invite him back over to taste the bread, pizza, veggies, pies and much more that comes from it!
This was originally a bale...then the chickens discovered it...
watching them through the kitchen window...
Gaia watching the chickens...
Stomping the cob insulation mixture of clay and oat straw...
I love doing this!
Filling it with glass bottles (beer, wine, olive oil, etc) that we have collected this year.
The very bottom of the ring is filled with 1/2 yard of gravel.
Finished with the insulation layer! Woot woot!
leveling it for the fire bricks...
the fire bricks are down! the fire will be held over these, then removed, and the breads, etc will be baked on top of these...
the treasure chest of clay!
stomping area...
TAAA DAAAAA!! We still have a ways to go...
No comments:
Post a Comment