Fox: 0, Jackie: 1

Yesterday afternoon I was sitting in the sunroom when suddenly a flurry of feathers screamed by the window, followed by a fox. I leaped out the door to find the fox with one of the chickens, aracauna, in its mouth. I surprised it enough to let the hapless chicken go and it retreated to the edge of the woods while I made a lot of noise.

After the imminent danger was over, we looked to find the other one of the chickens that the fox was chasing roosting in an impossibly high branch of a tree. Sure, chickens can fly, but they're not eagles. Except for our white one ("Whitey") who really does have some species confusion. With the adrenaline she had, I feel confident she could migrate at least 100 miles....

There was also a whole lot of feathers on the ground from aracauna, but no trace of the attack victim herself. I was positive that the fox had released her, and that she had gotten up, but she remained in a top secret hiding place all afternoon and didn't emerge till supper time.

The fox then slunk around to our coop and started harassing the chickens in the chicken yard. Of course, our chickens didn't have the sense to be herded inside the coop itself, so we were pretty sure we were going to lose one (or more) over the course of the afternoon.

Maybe Ben put off enough canine scent to make the fox think twice, but all hens were on deck when we put them to bed. I have a feeling, though, we haven't seen the last of this fox.

How many illnesses can we collect at one time???

If you're wondering why this post initially published totally blank, all I have to say it has nothing to do with an attack baby trying to press all the buttons on his mommy's computer.

Anyway, in other news, we are a hotbed of illness still. We spent the morning going first to Tucker's doctor, and then to mine. The results? Bronchitis and an ear infection and wheezing for Tucker; bronchitis, a sinus infection and wheezing for me.

So now all three of us have inhalers, and two of us are on antibiotics. Have I mentioned that winter's over and I'm DONE being sick?????

I am even more done having Tucker be sick. I think lying down hurts his ear, because he's been choosing to stand up and scream in his crib the past few days rather than sleep. Ahhhhhhhhhhhh.....

It is only uphill from here!

Getting caught up

We've had a busy week of being sick. And no, it was NOT from the chocolate doughnut that Tucker ate at church... it was a good old fashioned cold that Tucker and I both got, complete with fevers and coughs and all that fun stuff. Isn't it supposed to be Spring yet??????

In other news...
*We've embarked on cloth diapering this week. I got a whole lot of bumGenius and Haute Pocket diapers off craigslist this week (don't worry, they were all well cleaned). So far, so good. It really doesn't seem to be much more hassle than a couple extra loads of laundry a week, which I can handle. Buying diapers is definitely getting old.

*I've determined I'm insane. Remember, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting a different result. Tucker has already drained my car battery once because we let him play in it and he turned on the hazards without us noticing. What did we learn? Absolutely nothing. Because yesterday he did it again, only this time by turning the headlights on unbeknownst to us. What did I learn? Time for him to play in Daddy's truck, not Mommy's car! (Maybe I have learned a lesson, after all....)

*We discovered buried treasure in our yard. We've been wanting to put in a patio in the back of our house, near the grill, but there are a lot of other things that need to happen around our house first (fun things like roof painting, brick re-pointing, rotten siding replacement, etc...). Anyway, we've been running into random pieces of buried flagstone over the past year around our yard, like when digging in flower beds, and installing new drainage from the gutters. Two nights ago we got serious and started hunting for this buried stone. We uncovered enough stone for a small patio!!! (There's more stone that didn't even make it into the picture).

Is this my son?

We are slooowly making our way through Tucker's Easter candy. Mostly, I've been using it in the car, on our way back from our morning outings, to bribe him to stay awake. If he falls asleep even for 10 minutes in the car, it destroys his afternoon nap.

He has this big blue lollipop that JoJo gave him, and I'll give it to him in the car. He will suck on it for a couple minutes then say "Mama" and hand it back to me to put it away. A minute with the lollipop is enough for him... after that, no more interest.

I am still in total shock. I'm not sure I EVER let sugar go uneaten as a kid.

I dig dirt!

I dig dirt, I dig dirt
Scoop it in a shovel
Pour it in a pile
Pick up more. Pick up more.
(Sung to the tune of Frere Jacques)

This is the song that's running through my head. It's the theme song to Tucker's new favorite video that I checked out of the library. The video is of big construction equipment basically digging a lot of dirt. Tucker is fascinated by it, which is a good thing because he is sick AGAIN. Here's hoping he didn't infect the whole church nursery yesterday....

A whole new world

Tucker got clearance from his allergist to begin eating milk and egg in baked products. He's still allergic to them in the raw form, but the potency of the allergy is decreasing and his allergist said Tucker would be find eating them in baked products.

This is a whole new world.

At the fellowship time after church, Tucker could eat ANYTHING on the whole table, except for the cheese cubes. He picked a chocolate doughnut, and needless to say REALLY likes these new rules.

Clowns are scary

FYI. We saw one yesterday and Tucker screamed every time the clown tried to make Tucker smile.

Chickens say more than "bok"

There are a lot of chickens in our life right now: chickens outside, roast chicken for dinner, and 8 baby chicks upstairs. Sometimes I wonder if Tucker knows which one I'm talking about. I'm trying to teach him that baby chicks say "cheep cheep" instead of "bok bok." I'm not sure that lesson is taking hold.

In any case, the more important lesson for Tucker right now is how to treat the baby chicks. Another thing that is different with baby chicks is that you can't just throw food at them. The grown chickens think it's a treat when Tucker comes near with a handful of corn, but the baby chicks are terrified.

Tucker also tries to hang over the side of their box so he can touch them. Thankfully, the box is too tall for him to get his hands on any of them, but the end result is that the chicks get a little toddler earthquake when Tucker rams himself into their box.

He is pretty good at being gentle with them when I hold one in my hand and let him pet her. He also is getting more content with just watching them quietly from the edge of the box.

The chicks are absolutely darling to watch. We have four different varieties: barred rock, aracauna, white rock, and rhode island red. The aracaunas that we have look like little chipmunks, but it's hard to pick a favorite breed over another. They are all darling. They're like little puppies, or infants--they just fall asleep whenever, wherever. One of them has a habit of falling asleep in the middle of eating and sleeping with its head stuck in the feed bowl.

Oh, and I just need to clarify we didn't get these chicks on Easter on purpose... they were supposed to come in early March but our order was delayed. I was talking to someone this week who was given a chick on Easter as a kid... and rolled over it in her sleep. Personally, that doesn't seem such a good idea. I'm all for chocolate and jelly beans on Easter, and save the chicks for when you want to raise chicks.

He understands more than I think he does...

On Easter morning before church, we were talking a bit about the resurrection. I turned to Tucker and said, "Who are we talking about?"

He immediately answered (clearly): "God."

I had to get confirmation from Helen that I had correctly heard and wasn't just making it up. Tucker has never said the word "God" before, much less in a context that suggests he is picking up on what we're talking about. I was blown away.

On a related subject, you really have to check out my friend Kristan's entry about her twin 20 month old girls and what they say about God. It totally blew me away, especially the part where when her girls cry they say "Jesus" because they know he's going to wipe away every tear.

http://piercebestbabies.blogspot.com/2009/04/gospel-according-to-20-month-old.html

Totally done

When 5 pm rolled around, Tucker was totally done. He had come in from a serious afternoon of puddle jumping and pushing his stroller, and filling his watering can, and helping Austin with some carpentry in the shed. We took his boots off, and his soaking pants off, and next thing we knew, Tucker had found his ducky and his pacifier, and his yellow blanket and was crashed in the middle of the floor. When Austin went upstairs, Tucker moved enough to join me in the kitchen, again, totally sprawled out on the tile.

He rallied enough to eat a few bites of dinner, but was in bed before 6 pm. Silly little man, this is what happens when you wake up every hour all night long and then take a short nap!!!

My little yogi

Tucker is really into going into the yoga pose "downward dog." He loves putting his head down and his bum in the air and looking behind him. It's hard having the camera handy to catch him in the act, though.

Easter fun

We had a nice Easter in Annapolis, and are glad to be back home. Our chicks have safely made their way to our house, and Ben is sleeping on the sofa, recovering from the kennel. Some of the highlights from our trip:

Tucker enjoyed his egg hunt, and especially enjoyed the eggs once he found that a few had jelly beans. Do you think the jelly beans he ate had any correlation with the fact that he was so wired he couldn't fall asleep in the car till 8:45 pm?



This is Tucker feeding one of Henny's bunnies a carrot.



Easter pictures as a family! We're bad at taking pics with all three of us in them.




Exploring the Naval Academy while waiting for the Easter service to start. Tucker found a John Deere machine that he carefully inspected, and we managed to even keep him out of the puddle.







And some other odds and ends....

Eastern Shore

Today we went to Austin's old stomping grounds on the Eastern Shore of Maryland to visit some of my college friends and their son, who is a day younger than Tucker.

The idea was that the two boys would play on the beach, but it turned out to be about 45 degrees with a cold, driving wind. Did that deter Tucker? Unfortunately, no. He would've jumped into the Chesapeake Bay if we had let him, and made several dashes to try.

In other news, we're up in Annapolis for Easter. Tucker is enjoying the limitless attention, and Austin and I are enjoying very few parental responsibilities.

The burden of a book

I was just talking to my father-in-law, David, about what to do with all the books you collect over a lifetime that you don't want. You know, the mediocre books, that you're not going to give to anyone else or read again.

It's a burden to see all those books staring me in the face. Where do you donate them? I don't feel like Goodwill does a very good job with books. No one goes to those stores to pick up old books. I guess I should donate them to the library which has an annual sale.

Speaking of the library, I love the library. It is the antidote to this problem I'm talking about. I can just return a book I don't like and never have to see it again. It is such a commitment to buy a book... you have to be SURE that it's the perfect thing, but even after tons of research, I still feel like there are a lot of duds, books whose covers are WAAY better than their insides. And why spend your time reading a mediocre book when there are so many amazing books out there?

It is true riches to be able walk into a library and to pick up every book you could ever imagine wanting to look at, to walk out with about 20 books, and to have no obligation but to explore them to my heart's content.

Easter Chicks

Our chicks arrived at the Post Office in Charlottesville on Wednesday evening, but since our friend who is splitting the order picked them up, we didn't get to see them until today.

I am in love.

Tucker is not so sure WHAT the tiny little creatures are, but he quickly warmed up to them. Maybe a little too much... we need to work on what gentle means.

Good gardening books

Anybody who knows both Austin and I, knows that Austin is the real gardener. He's the one who plants things, and it just works. I plant things and... well, it's getting better. :)

My friend Halvey wants to know what a good gardening book is, so I did the natural thing, and asked Austin. Here are his recommendations:

*Four Season Harvest by Elliot Coleman
*Ruth Stout's No-Work Gardening Book
*Weedless Gardening by Lee Reich (according to Austin, this one is the best)

As soon as Austin suggested these two books, I realized he's trying to make converts into our way of gardening. Of course, these books are good how-to manuals, but they also have a lot to say about the philosophy behind a certain way to do gardening (no tilling, few inputs other than compost/mulch, etc.). I'm not sure there IS an unbiased gardening book, because at some point one book is going to say "now you go and dig up a bed": and our book is going to say "now you're NOT going to dig up the bed."

What is our gardening system? Last year we established a dozen fixed, permanent, semi-raised beds, with paths in between. From now on, no human foot is going to step on those beds and compact them. From now on, we're not going to unnecessarily mess with the soil structure in those beds (apart from the specific act of planting/harvesting) and adding lots of good compost on top. We won't till our garden every season. We plant in beds, not rows, so we don't follow all the spacing requirements on little seed packages. And we suppress weeds by thick mulch/compost layer, not by chemicals.

Regardless of what you decide a good system is, the above books are good reads. It is pretty amazing what Elliot Coleman does for eating fresh out of his garden throughout the four seasons, even in Maine.

Oh, and good luck, Halvey!

Beasts at the Little Gym

Tucker and I went to a free trial class with Hilary and Henry at the Little Gym today. Of course I have no intention of joining (Tucker can have fun at a MUCH lower price), but why not get the experience once? The class was called "Beasts" for his age group, which I think is a really funny and apt name. I feel like he has been in attack mode lately... like he's on a personal search and destroy mission for anything in his path.

The highlight of today, though, was actually not the Little Gym. Instead, at about 8 am a flat bed semi truck pulls up at the circle in front of our house with lots of sod for our next door neighbor, and a forklift to get the sod off the truck and down their driveway. Tucker was in little boy heaven watching that forklift. When he gets excited, he kind of stands on his toes, trembles a bit, and shouts, he just can't contain his excitement.

Recycling, Part 2

It is pretty difficult to actually find concrete information about which products have the most and least environmental gain from recycling.

The two clear winners for household recycling are:
Aluminum cans
Cardboard

Glass recycling can be either environmentally positive or negative, depending on the application. If glass is made into new glass bottles, that is a positive environmental transaction. But, a lot of recycled glass is of low quality and can only be crushed to use as road fill and other similar applications, which is a net environmental negative.

And I gather that #1 and #2 plastics are much less energy-intensive to recycle than #5.

So... all that is to say, reducing and reusing are much better environmental choices than recycling. Thankfully, as the recycling technology improves, the environmental benefit increases.

Q: Why did the chicken cross the road?

A: Because it was dumb and thought it should try to run under our neighbor's car.

I am so proud to have discovered the secret to one of life's profound mysteries.

Busy Saturday

We had a busy Saturday doing projects around the house. Tucker exhausted himself helping Austin build a sandbox, helping me garden, pushing his stroller unassisted to get the mail, practicing driving the truck (with no keys in the ignition, of course) and about a thousand other activities. He is already in bed (it's 6 pm here).

Tucker has an obsession with our shoes right now. There are at least 10 pairs of shoes strewn around the house, thanks to Tucker's busy day. He was walking around in a couple pairs of my church shoes and my clogs, which I tried (unsuccessfully) to get a picture of. When he saw the camera, he came over and decided it was time to snuggle (hence some of the Jackie-and-Tucker close ups).

The sandbox that the boys built today still needs a lot more sand, but Tucker seems to think it needs less. He was very busy this afternoon trying to throw all the sand out. At first I tried to convince him that sand was supposed to go IN the sandbox, but it took me about two minutes to realize this was not a battle I cared about fighting.

In other news, I just want to say that kids are germy little things (those are actually the words of a friend of mine, but I've adopted the phrase). I swear, Tucker and I have been sick just about every 3 weeks all winter long. Thankfully it's just the sniffles for me, but really, I thought it was spring already!!???

Recycling, Part 1

I've had some requests to talk more specifically about recycling, and what makes sense and what doesn't.

The basic idea is that when you are deciding what should be recycled, you have to take a bunch of things into account:
1) how much raw materials are required to make the product in the first place?
2) how much energy is required to make the product in the first place?
3) what (if any) are the industrial by-products of the virgin product's manufacture?
4) how much landfill space would this product take up?

And then, for a recycled product you need to ask:
1) how much energy does it take to convert the product back into a usable form?
2) how efficient is the collection process?
3) how easily does the product get contaminated in the recycling process?
4) are there uses for the recycled product?

You get the idea about all the questions that go into recycling (I'm sure many more could be added to these lists).

The answers to some of these questions depends on where you live. If your locality gets power from coal-fired power plants grandfathered into the Clean Air Act, the extra energy required for recycling could have way more of a negative impact environmentally than if you're in a community that is purchasing energy from a better source.

Also, when you are comparing the environmental effects of recycling versus garbage disposal, you're really comparing a bundle of different types of effects and you are then in a position of comparing apples and oranges. So you need to balance the energy cost of recycling versus the landfill space issues and the raw material issues of virgin products.

So, even in recycling it becomes a values dilemma... what do you care about more, landfills or energy consumption?

Here's a real world example:
"Yet Stonyfield sells yogurt in containers that aren’t recyclable – for a surprisingly green reason. Instead of using recyclable High Density Polyethylene (HDPE; #2 plastic) for its containers, Stonyfield uses hard-to-recycle Polypropylene (#5). The company’s life cycle analysis study indicated that the vast majority of a plastic container’s environmental impact occurs in the manufacture and transportation stages, and polypropylene's structure produces a container with thinner and lighter walls that still hold the same volume of yogurt. The seemingly intuitive notion that recycling always is best for the environment turned out not to be true. Indeed, Stonyfield discovered a fact that would shock many a would-be recycler: Because wide-mouthed HDPE containers like yogurt pots have a higher melting point than more common HDPE products like milk containers, trash haulers usually route those yogurt pots not to recycling facilities but to trash dumps, and only accept them as recyclable to reduce consumer confusion. Had Stonyfield not conducted an LCA [Life Cycle Analysis], it would not have been able to make its informed decision to prioritize genuine waste reduction over recycling practices that only seemed ‘green’."
Source: http://www.awarenessintoaction.com/whitepapers/Life-Cycle-Analysis-Data-Environmental-Business-sustainability.html

To be continued....

New Orleans, II

I didn't expect to like New Orleans as much as I did. I expected a hard-partying city with not a lot else going for it, which was definitely not the case. First, the areas we walked through were lush and lively. There was great architecture, water around, a nice river walk, and lots of great food and music. I would've loved to drive around and get more of an understanding of Katrina's impact, and to have had the chance to visit the coastal wetlands. But we really only had about 36 hours together, and it seemed like most of that time got taken up by eating. (Hey, we used to be swimmers after all.)

Some of the interesting sights:

*There really were lots of beads. Suspended in trees, thrown from balconies. Linda and Emily even brought some back from their late night on Bourbon St, but they swear they didn't earn them the conventional way.

*We stumbled upon New Orleans' Spring Fiesta, which seemed to involve teenage girls dressing up in big antebellum hoop skirts and getting announced and escorted by their closest male relative on three loops of the big central park. I didn't think that teenage girls could be paid enough to wear that sort of costume. At least it wasn't a debutante thing.

*Half of the French Quarter lost power for our whole trip, including our hotel. If this had happened in another city, I suspect this extended electrical problem would've caused quite an outcry and been remedied faster. Instead, people quickly filled up the hotels that did have electricity as if nothing out of the ordinary was happening. We moved into a historic hotel that featured industrial green carpet (a step above fake turf, but not much). The bathroom door couldn't open even halfway without slamming into a bed. We all agreed that we have turned into hotel snobs since college.

*It was bizarre to me the diversity of people on Bourbon street at night, and the number of people with open containers I saw traipsing by police officers. I expected the throngs of drunk-out-of-their-mind young people, but there was a surprising contingent of much older people, like the group of preppie women in their 50s with sweaters tied around their neck. Tourists?

Of course, the best part was seeing old friends. It's amazing how you can not see people regularly for seven years, but pick up where you left off. Dr. Grant, Ilener, we missed you!!!

New Orleans

I came back yesterday from a weekend trip to New Orleans to celebrate my friend Linda's impending marriage. New Orleans is quite the city, and it was not my run-of-the-mill weekend.

It all started with the plane, where the New Orleans native next to me told me stories about Katrina. Apparently this guy decided to go back into the city 8 days after the storm, and called his friend who was on a SWAT team to know how to get back in the city without getting turned away. He snuck back in through some back way, and found his house in tact, except for the roof which had completely blown off.

He proceeded to put on a respirator and clean out his rotting fridge, when National Guard troops came into his house, guns pointed at him, as a suspected looter. They were not happy when he announced he was back to stay. Apparently over the next few weeks the sergeant in charge of the company came back to make sure he was safe three times a day, as he was the only civilian in the entire district the troops were working in. Each time the sergeant visited this guy he would ask him to leave in his most commanding military voice, and each time he would not. But despite his disapproval, the troops brought a steady supply of water and food.

The second week back, the guy met a friend down on Bourbon street for a beer. Power had not yet been restored and the city was still in dire chaos, but apparently this one bar had not shut down at all, the entire storm. Anyway, so this guy and his friend are drinking warm beers outside this bar when a New Orleans police cruiser comes by and stops in the middle of the street. The guys watch while the police open the back of the SUV and start bringing in cases of liquor to the bar. A few minutes later, a fire truck stops in the middle of the street in front of the same bar. Firefighters jump out and start opening the auxillary compartments of their ladder truck to reveal bag after bag of ice, which they proceed to bring into the restaurant.

The guy turned to his friend and said "New Orleans is back."

More to come about New Orleans later....

Playdoh = Playdog?

No. Playdoh does NOT equal a playing dog. We learned this first hand last night when Ben ate some of Tucker's playdoh. It didn't seem like a lot--maybe half a cup? Remember, Ben has eaten lots of terrible things. Playdoh didn't even register on my radar screen as being a problem.

And then he started compulsively drinking water. Playdoh is not toxic, but it is almost pure salt. He went through two full bowls of water, drinking continuously for 10 minutes. We couldn't let him outside because it had just rained and there were puddles everywhere that he was tempted to drain as well.

I always worry about bloat, which can kill a dog in a matter of hours and is often caused by excessive drinking/eating in a short time period. We limited Ben's access to a couple cups of water every 15 minutes or so (which is, of course, still a lot of water). He stared us down between those intervals, begging us to relent and give his parched body just a drop more.

His "parched" body of course needed to pee approximately every three minutes, he had so much water in him. So Austin was up till midnight on doggy duty (well, really, watching Duke get pounded in the round of 16 of the NCAA basketball tournament). And then I came down and slept on the couch so I could ration the water and open the door for Ben's potty breaks.

Thankfully, Ben is none the worse for wear now, and seems to have enjoyed his middle of the night snuggling. I, on the other hand, am a bit tired.

Cold Tangerines

Here are two quotes from the book Cold Tangerines by Shauna Niequist that I really like:

"Bitterness is like when you drink poison, hoping the other person dies."

And

"Hope always feels impossible until you commit to it."

Belly

Tucker discovered his belly this weekend. He REALLY likes to look at it.

P.S. This pic is not him, of course, but is pretty cute.

Pa

Tucker calls every man with gray hair "Pa" in honor of Papa. It's really special. The first time he did it, I thought it was just his random babbling... but it happens now almost without fail. Today we were walking in town and an older gentleman smiled at him. He looked at me and said "Pa." I told him that he was going to get to play with his Papa soon.

Incidentally, I'm trying not to be offended that he says Papa and Dada before he's even tried Mama, (though he made the mmma sound for the first time the other day, so it's close!).

Next up: learning to say Henny and JoJo.

Getting ready for Spring

Have I mentioned that Tucker's an outdoors boy? Well, here he is this weekend helping Daddy to tune up the lawnmower, and then yesterday, helping me to garden. He was still in his church clothes when he got ahold of the peat moss and potting soil and turned into Pigpen from Charlie Brown.

It was pretty cute, though it tired him out so much he put himself to bed on the family room floor at 5:45 pm last night and slept for 13 1/2 hours! (Of course, we did move him to his crib....)

Going green

When I went to my 10 year high school reunion and an acquaintance discovered I was in the environmental field, she said "that's so cool! My company just went green last week!" I smiled politely, of course, but really I am more than a bit tired of the current amount of green wash going on. I'm all for environmental sustainability, I even think corporate "design for environment" type programs really neat and sometimes truly innovative. But how does a company "go green" on a certain day? It's not about switching to recycled paper and putting out recycling bins.... Also, every decision has some externality, some environmental consequence, and those consequences aren't always black or white. Take recycling, for example. There are some things that are so inefficient to recycle in terms of energy that it is actually better NOT to recycle a product. Environmental sustainability is truly complex, and a lifestyle, a philosophy, and a process.

Anyway, Austin and I recently installed our forested riparian buffer. The trees are just wee little plugs right now, inside the green tree tubes, but hopefully in not too long it'll look more impressive. Austin is still going to plant the native grasses, and has plans to restore a wetland, bucket by bucket, in the ditched area in the center of our floodplain.

Subtlety is not Tucker's strength...

Tucker can't say "outside" yet, but he makes his intentions really clear. In this picture, I put my coat on him when he kept pointing at it. Of course, I knew he was pointing at it because he wanted to go outside, not wear it. There are really only so many times I can visit the chickens in a day or haul Tucker and the basketball up the hill that he likes to roll the ball down.

It's great that Tucker loves to be outdoors... but it will be even better once he can be outside unsupervised. :)