For me, serenity includes confidence and the ability to deal with things on my own.  It sounds funny, but a part of that is being able to make my own clothes.  I had always been a sewing person and I crochet.  But until recently I did not know how to knit.
A couple years ago I sought out a teacher at a knitting shop and learned the basics.  I took a couple workshops on advanced techniques.  Here is what I learned: it takes work and time to do anything well.  So while I understand the techniques of cables, 2 color knitting, etc, I prefer to just do the easy stuff and relax.

My obsession is with variegated sock yarn and socks.  It is wonderful to work my way around a sock and watch the  color changes made by the yarn.  I cannot wait for the next color stripe to appear.  It seems silly but it is entertaining.

And if I start the sock too big, shazam!  I have started a mitten!

Three years? Update.

This blog was about my attempts to make my life smoother and more serene.  I had a serious illness and in order to (hopefully) live a long time, I have to slow down.  This blog was chronicling that.

I deleted it a couple times, but I want to continue the journey and attempt serenity.

Yes, I understand the irony of making an attempt to be serene.  Like rushing to yoga class (which I have done).

If you like what I am doing, leave me a comment.  Thanks.  And if you don't, well feel free to comment too.

I should be embarrassed

I started this blog a long time ago.  The blog-format maker-thing created something far more professional than I ever could on my own.  I marvelled at it all.  And promptly got busy with something else.

I get busy with a lot of things.  Some times I think I have some sort of attention deficit disorder. I worry about it for a couple seconds.  Then I forget.  (insert smiley here)

The blog will get updated once a week, I think.  Trying.

Speaking of (trying) this has been making me crazy.

Timeline: January 2012 every hen wants to sit on eggs.  I oblige them, leaving all those delectable bantam eggs under hens.  Then I go to ebay and buy a bunch of bantam Ameraucana hatching eggs, to place under the sitting hens.

Ameraucana chickens are a mix of Araucana and various types.  The Araucana is from Chile (according to Wikipedia) and is a smallish chicken that lays blue/green eggs.  They have no tails, and have funny tufts near their ears.

Here is Pearl.  She is an Ameraucana (can you see the tufts by her ears?  In Araucanas the tufts are more pronounced)

Actually the tufts make her look like she has puffy cheeks.  Anyway, according to the Internet, pure Araucanas are rare because the gene that makes the tufts causes a high percentage of chick deaths in the shell.  So people crossed the Araucanas with other breeds that are hardier.

The legend is that the chicken will lay the same color egg as the color she hatched out of.  Wrong.  In the front is a piece of Pearl's hatch egg (off to the left).  It is turquoise.  In back is one of her eggs, which is olive.

See how I have drifted?

So, January 2012 the hens are sitting on their eggs and a bunch of Ameraucana eggs I got from ebay.  Nothing.  I mean, chicks did develop in some eggs, but nothing hatched and eventually Chibi

ATE the eggs.  She looks so innocent in this photo, doesn't she?  Chibi is the size of a softball when she is fully fluffed out.  But she can be the meanest.

Fast forward to April 2012.  A hen wants to set eggs.  She produces and egg and sits on it.  She encourages other hens to lay eggs in her nest.  Oh boy!  I mark each egg with its mother and the date.  A second hen scrunches herself into the nest, sharing setting times with the first hen.  In my past experience this means only good things: a nest-full of chicks and two moms who share the work.

I wait 24 hours then I (you know what's next, right?) order eggs on ebay from the same person who sold me Pearl's egg.

Two hours or so later, both hens abandon the nest.  They occasionally drift by and sit for a few, but no one is incubating with intensity.

Over the next day, I buy a big box from the UPS store and turn it into a chicken maternity ward.  I place it in my dining room and try our eggs with a hen.  No.  Okay, I move it to the garage by the other chickens.  No.  I put each hen, one at a time, for 3 or so hours, in the box.  Nothing remotely resembling motherhood is going on.

Meanwhile the eggs have arrived (fast!).  My mailman understands such things as fresh hatching eggs and places the box right by the door.  He knocks insistently, calling out, "Hey, they're here!"

Chicken people are a generous lot.  I ordered 10 bantam eggs.  I received 18.

Out of time, out of ideas.  I call the local feed store (God bless El Mel, Florissant, MO) and John confirms that yes, he has a good incubator.  I could always make one since they are just glorified styrofoam fish boxes, he says.  Yes, I agree.  But I am out of time.

An incubator tries to duplicate the underside of a hen, minus the smell.  (Incubating hens smell odd-all the hormones they generate in order to sit on a nest smell really strange).  So, the incubator has heat, humidity, and some circulation.  I turn the eggs 3 times a day and constantly monitor the temp and humidity.

This is easy since the only place the whole she-bang can go is on my kitchen counter, which I pass many, many times a day.

This has been a trying experience.  Trying to get the hens to set.  Trying to understand how to use an incubator.  Trying to get it all right.  Trying my patience.

Only 18 or so days to go.

why do I keep chickens?

Fresh free-range eggs are available to buy just a few minutes from my house.
Within 30 minutes, I can find several places to buy tasty large eggs.
So, why do I keep chickens?

Above, eggs from Topknot (far left)
Chibi (top middle)
and Racer (right)
They are all smaller than a regular medium sized egg

When I got sick, got treated, and got well, eggs were the main food of my existence.
When I was sick, they were a food that did not cause pain.
When I was in the hospital, eggs were one food the cafeteria could not screw up.
Once I began the long road to recovery, one egg was all I could eat-and it took 60 minutes to get it down.
That is a long time to ponder one egg.

When I told the doctors I would not be seeing them anymore, one said,
""If you don't return to eating, and if you don't gain strength and weight,
there is still a problem"

I was going to get that egg down every day.

I do love eggs anyway.

And I love the taste of a good egg.

So the eggs went down and I gained back what I lost to the illness.
Thanks to eggs.

And I wondered how to best thank the chickens who were supplying me with...basically the building blocks that reconstructed my life.


(Rooster Louie, watching and Topknot, grazing)

My earliest recollections were of being in a baby buggy surrounded with chicks.
When my grandma would count the chicks and clean their box, she put them in with me.
I was probably a year old. Do I really remember this or is it a fake memory?
I don't know.
I remember fuzzy, peeping chicks all around me.
(we will not reflect on the inevitable poop)
My grandma raised bantam chickens, which are miniature chickens, perhaps half the size of the usual suspects.

I knew the rudimentary work involved with chickens.

I had always loved chickens.

How hard could it be?

And it was a way to give back to the chicken community for all they had given me.


(The roosters never rest-always guarding. Chibi is the little yellow hen)

Even typing "chicken community" is funny. But you know what I mean.

After our neighbors' disasters with poultry and raccoons, we knew the simple solution of a pen in a fenced yard would not work.

Our chickens live in a house with a small pen, inside our garage.
In good weather they are outside most of the day.
When it is 10 degrees F outside, they are let loose to run around the garage for an hour, while I clean and put in fresh food and water.
This is my time with them, and I handle every one, every day.

It's not as much cuddly-wuddly as it is preventative maitenance.
Since these birds live in such close contact with us, I need to know if any one is ill-birds and humans share disease.
And since birds are flock animals, they will NEVER reveal if they are ill
(for fear someone else will take over and kill them)

I won't deny that I hug and pet them. I sing to them, as well. Birds communicate and recognize by sound.
(They hate "Old MacDonald"-my fake rooster crows disconcert them)

Chibi had a run-in with egg binding (the egg gets stuck inside the hen). She is a tiny thing and it was a harrowing experience for both of us.
So I check each hen every day-I pat their undersides. If I feel a lump, it's an egg.




(Chibi and her best friend, Topknot)

So far, so good-the eggs get passed without too much trauma.

Chibi HATES being checked. Racer screams, Topknot clucks, but Chibi flies into my face, cursing me in poultry, bringing every other chicken to fret and scold me.
Yesterday Chibi was alone-everyone else was off watching the chicks play.
I gently went for her, and she lunged for me, yelling.
I had her down but I could not get a hand around her.
Topknot rushed over, evaluated the situation quickly and for the first time in her life, attacked.

Topknot, bless her heart, is one hot mess of hen.
She can barely see for the fuzz covering her face and eyes.

But she got in a peck to my wrist and a squawk.

I was so proud I let go of Chibi and picked up Topknot, giving her a cuddle for her ferocity.

In the midst of the cold, the mess of newspapers, poop, and dirty food dishes, the cleaner, the paper towels and the dust-there was total communication.

I am not doing a good job of explaining why I keep chickens.

what's with the title?

Why do we search?
Why do we learn things, buy things, do things?

I really think we do these things to ultimately achieve a level of peace, security, comfort, lack of fear.

All wrapped up, these things equal a BIG CALM PLACE.

Serenity.