Sharing a bit of myself - paying it forward

How do you give back to your community, be it local or global?

Besides trying to lend a hand to neighbors when needed, my two favorite ways to give back are through Heifer International and Kiva. These two organizations are very different.

Heifer seeks to improve the livelihood of people all over the world, the US included, by giving those in poverty livestock and the education they need to raise the livestock and profit from it. For example, this might mean learning how to tend to and milk the goats, learning how to compost their manure to till into the garden, learning how to milk the goat to improve the family's nutrition and how to safely sell and make cheeses from the goat's milk to sell at market AND every April to pass the gift on - to give an offspring, a baby goat, to another family in the community and to teach them what you know about raising goats (or whatever the livestock happens to be). Through agriculture (bees, chickens, ducks, cattle, rabbits, goats, yaks, water buffalo, sheep, trees, etc.) Heifer teaches people how to raise themselves up out of poverty and then asks them every April to continue this gift so their entire community may benefit from the knowledge and prosperity that caring for livestock and farming the land can bring. If you ever want to give us a gift, please do so through our online gift registry with Heifer. We LOVE this gift! I can no longer give someone "food" at food drives because that helps them for what, 1-2 meals? Giving through Heifer lasts a lifetime or more and teaches someone how to help himself or herself. The Chinese Proverb rings true: Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.


Kiva is also a wonderful organization through which you can give microloans to people all over the world. I like being able to choose who to loan money to because mainly, I care about improving the lives of women and their children around the world. I also love the randomness of being able to help a complete stranger who will never meet me but will hopefully feel how small a place the world really is by asking for help and receiving it and how good people are, despite the governments under which they live, to want to help them prosper peacefully. My Kiva profile is here and as I receive money back from a loan, I find someone else to lend it to. $25 is the minimum amount you can lend but that goes a very long way in some countries. 100% of the money you lend goes to the person needing the loan, however, I recommend donating an additional 10% of that amount to help Kiva maintain the rest of its costs so that in the future, Kiva can continue to do the same.


Most of all I love that these two organizations help me see people from other cultures as just ordinary people who want to improve their circumstances, usually for their children's sake. I think it is important to have a lens through which to view others that is devoid of any government's filter. We are all human sharing the same basic biological needs and we are all citizens of the world.

Critters on the farm

Farm girl Savannah dressed head to toe in her tick-resistant clothing made by Insect Shield. Ready to get to work!


Can you believe how small these little frogs are? We find them all around our barn, hopping through the grass. The chickens will eat them when they chance upon them, but they prefer insects and worms to frogs.


Nap time! Roosting in the rhododendron bush near our front door.


Without the flash, this moth blends in remarkably well.


I wish we had more snakes to eat bugs and small rodents. The water snakes in the pond eat the bullfrogs so I can get a good night's sleep now and then.


During egg laying season we saw 6 painted turtles and 2 box turtles lay their eggs (plus 1 unidentified turtle). Most of them chose the same patch in our yard to lay in. We enjoyed watching their treks to find the perfect spot to lay in.


Frogs and toads and more frogs and toads. Savannah likes to observe them all.

So this is what five looks like

I can't believe that I've had five years to get to know this wonderful little person, my daughter. At age five she loves the great outdoors and her chickens, reads more than a hundred pages a day, is creative, often inventing her own paper purses, laptop holders, bird nests, or other items of perceived necessity, and she's extraordinarily sensitive and kind (unless you interrupt her when she's reading!). I'm so lucky to have this little person to be responsible to in my life. She makes me a better person.

Savannah's great loves at age five:

Pirates
Chickens (our girls)
Reading
Baby brother, William
Outdoor activities
Ice cream and parade candy
Beauty Cat and Bunny (her stuffed animal loves)
Arts and crafts activities

Strawberry fields

We try to eat as much as possible the fruits and vegetables that are in season in our local area. The first berry harvest to take advantage of is strawberries. We picked over 25 pounds of them this year, making one batch (8 cups) of low sugar jam, which wasn't nearly enough.


The idea was to make all of our own jams for the year and since my husband claimed to not like strawberry jam, I only made one batch. Turns out, we all love it! It's brighter in color and tastes very fresh like a cross between regular jam and the fresh fruit itself. We hope to do the same with blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries.

Our girls, the chickens

Of our original six Rhode Island Reds, only three remain. Our neighbor's dog killed two and injured a third that died two days later after appearing to be fine. I miss them, I'm really attached to our girls. They are all so sweet with distinct personalities. Some like to be held, some are nervous nellies, some think their proper place is inside our home and try to run inside each time they see the front door opening. One jumps on my arm when I'm carrying their dinner to the barn to get first dibs. They all greet us when we drive home.

Since our coop is on its way this month and this is the last chance to acquire more chickens before the end of the season, we got some more chickens from a local farmer. We now have four babies in the brooder, all Rhode Island Reds.


Here is cousin Emma holding one at four days old. The sweet little things think they're under their mommy's breast when you hold them this way and fall asleep within seconds. I think the curve of her wrist is pretty in this photo.


Here are two of the four Buff Orpingtons that we acquired greeting us on the front doorstep. They are almost 5 weeks old and like to stick together. They are also excellent egg layers and ideal for our climate. They have gorgeous golden breasts when mature.

We also have two 8 week old Silver Laced Wyandottes but it's hard to get a good photo of them - they run everywhere and are well camouflaged. They are not as easy to handle as our other girls but we didn't raise them. They seem to be the best bug eaters in the bunch when they're out free-ranging and they trust us enough to return to the barn each evening for dinner and water.

Brown paper packages tied up with string

Today William received a cute crew neck sweater from my friend Jess. It's hand knit in Rowan's all seasons cotton. I love the slate grey and can't wait for the next chilly day to see William in it. I've always been a shoe and sweater girl! If you're on Ravelry, you can look up Jess's other amazing knits under her name "midwifejess".

Jess also remembered big sister who received a beautiful sundress. She was very happy to model it right away. Jess also sent some tea biscuits cleverly shaped like the letter "T" so of course we had to have a tea party in Savannah's new sundress. Jess is also expecting a baby this year so I am adding a baby quilt to my list of projects.

I also received two interesting fabrics from Elizabeth in Holland who sent them as a surprise thank you for the baby fabric squares I sent her last month. She's making a surprise baby quilt for her sister's baby with fabrics from all over the world. Can't wait to see it!

Spring Blooms Mini Quilt Swap

Today I finished my mini quilt for the Spring Blooms swap. I changed my mind about a dozen times when it came to what I was going to make. Partly, I was anxious about having received a professional quilter to create for when my skills are more novice or intermediate level in the quilting department and partly, I was just occupied with other things; work, books, garden, recovering, baby...

In the end I decided to just play around and see what comes of it. I made a quilt that is totally "me", playful and imperfect with Kaffe Fassett and Martha Negley fabrics that I love and to me scream "spring". I quilted it with a meandering stipple.

I did use one new technique - I've never made yoyos before and I made two this time for the funky flower and its center. I also don't use applique very often so I hope it turned out well enough.


My favorite part is the tree. I love trees. This one is fun because the fabric I used had an enormous lettuce or cabbage print on it, so I fussy cut it out to serve as the foliage. There's a hole in the tree waiting for new tenants.



Maybe this bird lives there.



Tomorrow I package up and send out my mini-creation. I'll update this post on Friday with a link to my quilting partner's website so you can see her amazing quilt artwork. Until then, it's still a secret!

Solar installation complete

We are now officially a solar farm (with the exception that the paperwork hasn't yet caught up to the work so the power we are generating now isn't being collected--ahh! bureaucracy getting in the way of "free" green energy!).


Here they are installing the panels. Even on a day this foggy, the test run showed it was collecting 4.9kW of energy on our 5.2kW system, pretty good!


I think the solar panels standing in a row of three arrays and turned up to the sun like sunflowers are beautiful, our own modern art sculptures. We plan to seed the area beneath with grass to keep the wild tall grasses and saplings from putting down root there.

The best part about this project? I haven't had to lift a finger, which is great because most days I haven't been well enough to do so. Instead I get to spend my time:

collecting laughs on my camera,

and first practices at tummy time,

and homeschooling this beautiful, smart, and rascally big sister.

Solar installation continues - cemented, trenched and wired

The initial work on our photovoltaic system is complete. The three poles for our pole-mounted system are up, cemented in place and wired. They look great and they have a great view of the pond.


The poles stand about 15' apart. The grass will grow back in no time, hopefully the ticks and poison ivy will not. The poles are mounted on the berm we've called "Tick Hill" because we always had ticks when walking there.

The electrical wiring that goes from the PV system to the inverter is also in place. The crew dug a trench for the wires, which feed the DC from the solar panels into the inverter box in the garage.


In order to mount this 4' by 4' panel, the electricians had to rewire the air compressor on the left, but they did so so quickly that they didn't charge us extra for it. We have a grid tied system so we can benefit from net metering. We can't wait for the panels, that are sitting in the barn, to be mounted!

Spring chickens

Now that the chicks are almost five weeks old they have entered their awkward teenage stage where they no longer resemble chicks but don't yet have their full adult plumage. Plus, their combs are emerging as awkward skin-colored growths over their noses. In short, the girls look ugly, but they are as sweet as ever, especially towards Savannah.

Savannah feeds them by hand in the morning and afternoon. When I clean the brooder, one or two of the chicks will sit quietly in her lap as she pets their feathers. The distinguishing marks they had as chicks are covered by their feathers now so we can't tell them apart any longer, although some are more plump than the others.


Here they are enjoying the sunshine in their A-frame mini-tractor (I made it from leftover bits of lumber in our garage while recovering from mastitis). The top bar hangs over the frame to act as handles for easy carrying. It's light enough that Savannah can help carry it. The girls are acclimating themselves to the outdoors and to eating buggies. We should have ordered 60 chicks to control the bug population out here. The girls provide constant amusement. Today Savannah gave one a clover and she ran around with her prize in her beak, trying to keep it all to herself while her curious sisters chased her around in circles.

I was able to complete this project today because William helped out in his own important way:

Fast asleep in his carrier looking a little like a turtle and a little like a Buddha. (I think of Oogway, meaning tortoise in Mandarin, the wise Kung Fu master in Kung Fu Panda.)