GLIMMERS OF GARDENS

BIRDLAND HAS A DAMP CHILL, BUT THE CHICKENS DON'T SEEM TO MIND IT. Yesterday the door to their coop somehow blew shut, and at dusk I found half of them circling the coop, trying fruitlessly to join their friends inside. Those outside were wet and bedraggled. They didn't seem to mind that much, but they were glad to go inside to the coop. I keep a light bulb burning in the winter for warmth, and I imagine it helped them dry off once they went in. On warmer days, I turn off the light, but last night it made the plastic covered chicken yard glow like a lantern.

This morning they are roaming the yard, looking for snacks. My chickens have a varied diet. I take a scoop of food out to them each morning, but they don't spend much time in the coop. They are more interested in what they can scratch up in the yard. My red rooster has found some kind of treat. He bobs his head, clucking excitedly and three of the hens come running. He is chivalrous, as most roosters are, and steps back to allow the hens to snap up the delicacy—maybe the light winter has allowed some grubs to survive and the damp weather encourages them to come up to the sunlight. Either way, my chickens seem to enjoy living off the fat of the land.

The varied diet of my hens (greens, grubs, seeds, even small mice when they can find them) gives their eggs the rich yellow yolks and sunny flavor we enjoy so much. I've been listening to an audiobook of Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food, and he makes some sobering points about what we eat. In our agricultural practices, we have gotten really good at maintaining levels of macro-nutrients in the soil (Nitrogen, Potassium, and Phosphorus) simply by adding them. And by keeping those levels constant and in balance with scientific testing, we can produce big yields. I've lived on a farm long enough to be able to tell when the corn is low on nitrogen—it gets that sallow, yellow color you sometimes see at the edge of the rows. But we also have need for micro-nutrients in the food we eat—things like zinc and selenium, and I've never heard of a truck spreading selenium on a field. Pollan explains that the nutritional makeup of common foods, like apples and broccoli, is going down, so that we have to eat 2 apples grown today to get the amount of some important nutrients in an apple grown in the 1950's. If you think about it, if micro-nutrients are absent from the soil, how can they possibly end up in the fruit grown on that soil? The best way to get these into the soil is via organic methods—the slow breakdown of organic matter in the soil is so complex that we can't really understand, let alone replicate it. Somehow that process adds hundreds of complicated chemical compounds. Years ago, a friend who was studying soil science told me that soil, like us, is an organism. Like us, it can be healthy or sick; in balance, or out of whack.

Plant in Beauty; Eat in Peace;
Blessed Be.

All this thinking about good food has me planning my garden. Because of my school schedule, I tend to get a late start on gardening. The past few years my “garden” has been mostly a dependence on the generosity of others. But today, I'm determined to revive the garden coop—the frame house with the chicken-wire walls that we built to keep the chickens from pecking holes in my tomatoes and cucumbers, to keep them from shredding my lettuce and chard. I'll plan to order heritage varieties—those vegetables that were bred before the agricultural industry started breeding for things like shelf life and size of harvest (which Michael Pollan points out often comes with a nutritional trade-off). But for today, I think I'll pull out some leftover seeds and plant a few pots of lettuces and herbs for the window sill. In a few days the seeds will sprout and green will show, a promise of the spring to come.

Head East Young Man

FOR OUR LAST NIGHT IN SEATTLE, CHAD MADE CHANA MASALA FOR US, and naan on the grill. My oldest is an ambitious cook, making the dough from scratch, turning the flatbread on the grill with tongs. The meal was delicious and next morning we packed ourselves back into our little car and headed east to do our drive in reverse. Going out of town on I-5 we had a last look at the city where even a chink in the pavement becomes a garden. One small triangle of soil at the corner where Olive Way goes over the interstate is a wildish patch that looks weedy at first glance, but a closer inspection shows it has some kind of golden Asters in bloom and something with delicate stalks of lavender gray petals.  Hollyhocks stretch up to the sky with their tight, green buds that look like tiny Vidalia Sweet Onions. This patch is behind a chain link fence and surrounded by concrete, which juts out over the cars speeding by below. On one of our walks I showed it to Chad and he said that nobody tends it. “Probably it just grew there, or somebody seed bombed it.” I said, “I know. That's the point. Gardens just grow here for no particular reason.” Then I went home and googled “seed bombing.” Turns out it is a form of guerrilla gardening.

Ellis drives across the plains.

On the way home we did the longest leg first, across the state of Washington and the thumb of Idaho, then through the long state of Montana, which is aptly named. We passed the exit for Anaconda, where my grandmother was born. Anaconda is an old mining town, and I could see the smokestack in the hills. I have at home a copper spoon with a picture of that smokestack, proclaiming it the “World's Largest Stack.” I regretted not taking that exit as soon as we passed it. When would I travel this road again? 

A few miles later another sign marked the exit for the road to Opportunity and Anaconda. This time I took the opportunity to visit the land of my grandmother's birth.  We had to backtrack about seven miles, but it was worth it to see the rows of close set houses and imagine my grandmother walking here as a child one hundred years ago, looking up at the smokestack in the hills. It was worth it to call my mother from the grocery story there, and say, “Guess where I am?” 

"The World's Largest Stack"

We decided to sleep a little in Montana, and then continued on to Claire's ranch in Wyoming. On the way to Seattle we stayed with my childhood friend, but did little more than wrinkle up her sheets. This time we arrived in time for lunch and I asked to see the new foals she had been facebooking about. Claire's ranch home is in a natural bowl formed by the rolling hills. A road of red clay leads up to her house. I imagined we'd walk over one of these hills and find a little paddock with the horses. But this is a cattle ranch, and this is Wyoming. If Claire's house were at Birdland, the horses would not be in a pasture in the back 40 where I could see them from the kitchen window; they'd  be up at the ball diamond in town, and we'd have to drive there to see them. We got into the truck and drove out through two gates, Claire hopped out to open and then shut each gate, until I suggested that Ellis could do it. My youngest got an introduction to a wire gate, which is not common in the Midwest—simply fence wire stretched between two posts, one of them moveable so you can walk it across the drive and let the truck through. The foals were just 10 days old. One was a little skittish, but the other we could pet a little.

After the visit, Claire offered to call up a horse we could ride, and I thought I was in heaven. But my goodness, look at the time! I've got chores to do, so our riding adventure will have to wait til next time.

Journey in Beauty; Ride in Peace; Blessed Be.