Stock Show

Colorado is an interesting place.  For one reason the cowboy is not dead here.  Cowboy boots and hats can be worn without a drop of irony.  It is here that the Western National Stock Show has taken over each January for over a century.

But although the animals were interesting (the best petting zoo EVER).  But most fascinating was the realization that this subculture has been sold a lifestyle "look" just as much as any other.  I somehow expected the folks involved in ranching would be like the stoic Norwegian dairy farmers that Garrison Keillor talks about on Prairie Home Companion.

 Instead it was all glitter and perfectly manicured nails.  Plaid shirts and boots that had never seen the inside of a livestock pen.  It was new country pop music and christian rock.

It was explained to me that the stock show is like prom to the far flung ranching families, and Taylor Swift wannabes.

We'll stick with the Denver County Fair instead.

New Morning Routine

It starts earlier.

I should have always been getting up around 5:30.  I have been meaning to, but it wasn't until the need to take a puppy out for a morning walk that I am actually doing it.  Reilly (Riley? we decided on a name but not a spelling yet) is 6 months old and need to go out IMMEDIATELY upon being let out of his crate in the morning.  So I bundle myself up (I do so hate being cold) and we walk before the sun is peaking over the edge of the horizon.

While the rest of the family sleeps.

While we are gone, though, the coffee pot is doing its job and we walk in to the house smelling of the dark roast Bob just sent us (Thanks Bob!)  I enjoy a cup before heading outside with a bucket of hot water for the livestock.  The poultry and the rabbit (much happier outside in his 2 story hutch than he was inside in the dog crate)  are enthusiastic about their newly thawed water this time of year.

On a side note:  I finally found a book that told me why the quail and ducks are not laying.  In no other book that I have read does it mention that these birds, like hens, need 14+ hours of light to produce eggs.  Since there is not power to the areas of the yard they live I will go without - and instead make a trade with our neighbor who also has ducks (and a light).  Hubby and I are not planning to keep the quail anyway.  We are down to 3 now, one male flew out yesterday while I was getting them fresh water.  The eggs are too small to more than a novelty and the meat - tho tasty, is a lot of work for a small amount.  I would rather have 2 more hens.  Or a dairy goat.

But back to my morning.  Reilly and I go back in the quiet house, and herein lies the reason I have wanted to get up and do the chores earlier.

A second cup of coffee in peace and quiet before the rest of the family gets up.

Priceless.

You gonna eat that part 4

This past Sunday while I was working the girls went with friends to Miller Farms Harvest Festival near Fort Collins.  We were told they would be coming back with vegetables they would get to pick themselves.  

We were thinking a plastic grocery sack.

They brought home FIFTEEN plastic grocery sacks. 

Our dining room table seats 6 if you need a reference.

Some went to the food bank, some went with me to work, but most of it has found a home in our fridge or freezer.  I may even be able to save some of the potatoes for seed (how cool is that?)

Thanx Miss Mary!

where did the time go?

I don't think I have ever gone this long without posting since I started writing this.   I just did not feel like sitting down and writing at the end of my day.  No real reason.  Even with harvesting and canning I don't think I was doing any more work than usual.

I guess I just needed a break.

Expect to catch up on what has been going on over the next few weeks.

The tenacity of spearmint

This cutting has been in my kitchen window since late June.  It has been dried out from the heat at times and nearly out of water at times, and yet it is rooted and growing sprouts (underwater no less).  I love that it grows and takes over in the yard, but unlike vinca and Virginia creeper, it is useful.

I feel like spearmint sometimes.  When I carry water from the duck pond to the parking area garden.  As I replant beans again and again.  While working in the Ppatch until dark after getting off of work.

But I also feel like a hot house orchid more often than not.  The times that I look at weeds and overgrown vines in our yard and think it is too much.  When nothing comes up after we plant and replant pollinator flowers at the Ppatch.  When I let the seedlings I nurtured inside die because I didn't feel like planting them after work.

Maybe I should have been a Gemini.

With the drought throughout the farmlands of the nation it is more important than ever for us to produce more of what we will eat.  This year I increased our food budget for the first time in 5 years, and I expect that I will have to do it again each year going forth.  But now is also the time to make a difference where we spend it.  Meat from local farmers is much more expensive than from Costco, but I will know the animals raised have had the same good life as our own hens.  Vegetables from the farmers' market are in season and local, again higher in cost, but also higher in ethics and flavor. But if I wish to spend more of our budget on better items, it is necessary to produce all that we are able to offset the cost.
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These statements are not anything new or surprising.  We have already heard and read them to the point that the ideas have become ubiquitous, blending into the greenwash marketing, of well, everything.  But that doesn't make them less valid.

So today I strive to be more like spearmint.