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Category: Happiness
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Stormy Night Ahead
An approaching storm is a good reason to make an apple pie. Chickens come in handy when making an apple pie. I have a bowl of apple peels and cores, and bits of pie crust left over after weaving a top crust. A flock of chickens is like having robotic garbage disposals running around, cleaning up all your scraps. And they turn those scraps into lovely eggs to boot.
Lucky comes running, bringing her chicks. A careful mother hen, she peers up to make sure I mean no harm to her chicks.
Lucky’s chicks check on me too. I wonder what they see and think when they look at me. They’ve been such good garbage cleaners, I should have baked them a pie too, for them to enjoy this stormy night.
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Love Is Not Human
Love is not human, love is universal. I spend many hours a day with other animals, and their lives are as dependent on love as ours. Baby chicks are bathed in love from the moment they are hatched until their mother decides they are old enough to be on their own. Without such constant love, they would have gone extinct eons ago.
Our cats, Woody and Rusty, are best friends, and often spend cozy afternoons snuggling together. Loving and being loved is as important to them as it is to us.
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It’s Summer Again
It’s summer again … for one fantastic day. Resting and sleeping in the warm sunshine is pure bliss for my chickens.
Often, the only view you have of a chicken is their butt. Much of the day, they have their head buried in thick grass, hunting for bugs, mice, frogs, and other good things to eat.
The dogs are having fun too. They are after a chipmunk hiding in a woodpile. BB and Echo have demolished woodpiles before, looking for chipmunks. Fortunately, they gave up today before damaging this woodpile.
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Animal Love
These are Woody (the white cat, 15 years old) and Rusty (the orange cat, 9 years old). Nine summers ago, Woody lost his sister, Winnie. She died suddenly from cardiomyopathy. He was so depressed afterwards that it was clear he needed another cat to be with. We brought little Rusty home from The N.O.A.H. Center for him. Rusty was a feral kitten who was rescued by the center. It took just a few days for Woody and Rusty to become best of friends. Below are some pictures from 2005 soon after we brought Rusty home.
Love and companionship is a basic need of many animals, not just people. It’s impossible to farm without love. It’s like a fundamental nutrient which plants and animals won’t thrive without.
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Late Summer – Expected and Unexpected Wonders
If you keep your eyes open, life can be a wonderful mix of the expected and the unexpected. But you have to put your mobile phones away (maybe lock them up for a day or two) and actually look at things as you walk about outdoors. In late summer in the Skagit valley you expect to be able to pick blackberries by the handful. You not only expect it, you look forward to it.
What you don’t expect to see in August are wisteria blossoms. Wisteria bloom profusely in spring. And yet, the other day I happened to see a few blossoms on one of the wisteria vines. What a pleasant surprise. Maybe someday the blackberries will surprise me and have a handful of ripe berries in May.
