It is pouring rain and lightening and cracking thunder so close the house shakes with it. I can feel it in my feet, the windows rattle. We've had so much rain that there's standing water everywhere. I took a walk and the ground was just plain damn soggy. Squish, squish on the dirt paths. And the air is so heavy with moisture that it's a bit like trying to breathe underwater.
Well. Florida. And by god- the aquifer is getting refilled and for that and that alone, I would be grateful.
Chicken news- okay, Mrs. Baby is the little black hen who eats sometimes at the bird feeder because she can fly. The third hatchling died yesterday and I feel terrible and guilty because in a way, it was my fault. Baby was ignoring her completely and Mr. Moon and I had her in the little off-the-ground shelter in the pot where she'd hatched and was drying out (this is a process) and we were so STUPID and put a waterer in there and she got out of the pot and crawled to the water and she drowned. All this while Glen and I were debating going and getting her, bringing her in the house and putting her in a box with a lamp because of Baby's ignoring her.
So.
I'm not only not a good chicken mama, I'm a chicken killer.
Live and fucking learn. I guess. But as of an hour ago, the other two little puffballs were completely alive and following their mother around the coop, scratching and picking at whatever they could find. I hope in this rain she has taken them to shelter. I've had enough with drowned chickens for this week, at least.
Can I say that I am very glad that at this moment at least part of the world is a little obsessed with a woman having a baby? I hope all the best for Kate Middleton and her child and I hope that she does indeed get the natural birth she wants. As I would wish for all women. And I would wish that every day the news was about women having babies which were wanted and desired and hoped for and planned for and which, once born, would be cherished and protected and honored.
That would beat the shit out of what the news is mostly about.
On to another subject. I am reading a book called The Humans by Matt Haig. I had never read anything by Mr. Haig and I am enjoying the book. I looked him up, as we do, and he has a website and a blog and I am enjoying that too. He wrote a thing about depression on it and I think it's as good as anything I've read recently on the subject. You can find that here, if you would like to read it. I am adding him to my Feedly Reader. Because I FUCKING WELL NEED ANOTHER BLOG TO READ.
Oh well.
Here's one more thing I wanted to say before I take a shower and get to town to go to the store and the library with Lily and the boys. It is this- I am eternally grateful to the internet for the way in which it has enriched my life. Sure, yes, sometimes I think we all overdo it and it drives me crazy to see people, everywhere I go, glued to their tiny devices and I do it too. BUT, this very morning I have been able to "talk" to people whom I actually and truly do care about a great deal, sharing worries and concern and offering and receiving reassurance and information.
Not to mention being able to access information about authors, musicians, actors (who IS that guy who played blah-blah-blah in that movie?) chickens, recipes, and anything else I can wonder about.
And I can find pictures like this.
Pioneers in Central Florida near Orlando probably in the mid-nineteenth century. I am fascinated with the sort of people who braved the snakes, the jungles, the heat, the bugs, the malaria, the bears, the panthers, the hurricanes, the...well, every damn thing in the world except mountains, to make a home in Florida before roads, electricity, air conditioning, DEET, and Publix.
They are heros to me.
So okay. Was all of that scattered and random enough?
Happy Monday, y'all.
Love...Ms. Moon
P.S. I do not have a recipe for sweet potato biscuits. I just make them. The ingredients are self-rising flour, shortening, baking soda, a little brown sugar, buttermilk and mashed baked sweet potato.
Does that help at all? Probably not. I am sorry.
You are the best kind of cook. The kind that just knows how to do it. It's becoming a lost are.
ReplyDeleteOk, that would be art, not are. I hate my bifocals.
ReplyDeleteI love the Internet, too. It allows my very introverted self to reach out all while in my home.
ReplyDeleteI hope Kate gets the birth she wants as well. it is a sad case that births have been hijacked my the pharmaceutical companies.
I love this all over the place post. You bring comfort to the world a million times over and over, even if you allow chicks to drown, too.
ReplyDeletexoxox
sorry about the baby chick you lost. but thank you for the recipe, which is one I can work with because I dont have to go all cross-eyed at measurements.
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry about little chick.
ReplyDeleteAll the rain you're getting now sounds like Oregon in January. Hopefully it dries up for you soon. But not too much. That's not good either, but Nature does what she does.
I feel the same way about the pioneers who braved the Oregon trail. I would NOT have had it in me! My husband and i mobed here in 1995 when the going was easy...
That's moved for goodness sake. Maybe i can't type right 'cause it's Monday morning?
ReplyDeleteSo maybe the little chicken wasn't supposed to make it anyway, what with all the rain and stuff. I once was a very bad hen keeper myself before I proceeded to cats. You are doing a great job. And many thanks for that and all.
ReplyDeleteYes, the internet, it has saved my life, I think (sometimes) and this guy says it so nicely and in a Dublin accent: http://youtu.be/H1whMHpwg4Q
Ah, Ms. Moon - that IS a recipe! You don't have to have it in a fancy book with staged pictures to make it a recipe. A list of ingredients, an implied set of directions (because you know I know how to bake) - that's a recipe.
ReplyDeleteHm, I'd have to change it up a lot. No buttermilk there, I don't use shortening (though there should be an abundance of coconut oil). I never understood self-rising flour, but I'm not a southerner. So, who knows what I'll end up with - maybe I could use breadfruit instead of flour.
NOLA -I use this one. http://www.budgetbytes.com/2011/11/sweet-potato-biscuits/. Although, I dont know what is up with them wanting to grate in frozen butter -- I just use regular refrigerated butter.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I use almond milk instead of real milk for absolutely no reason other than it makes me feel virtuous.
I have been in awe of pioneers since I was a child. On a vacation out west one year my dad said "We are going sixty miles an hour. That is a mile a minute." I was dumbfounded. In fifteen minutes we traveled as far as pioneers traveled in a day. I was humbled.
ReplyDeleteAnd I'm grateful for all this rain, raising up the water table that supplies my well.
I got The Humans out of the library too. I started it and liked the way it was written, but I guess I just wasn't in that kind of mood. I hate that about me--sometimes I have to hit just the right book and I've had a hard time with that lately.
ReplyDeletePlease send rain. We need it badly. Send thunder too. New Jersey is drying up.
Sad about the baby chick, but I'm glad that others are doing well.
ReplyDeleteWe have had more rain here as well. Today though seems to be bright and sunny. I'm glad.
I am glad you are home to a wonderful surprise of baby chicks, I am sorry about the lost one, you are a fie cook and a fine grand mom and so many other things, not the very least one very fine woman. Sweet Jo
ReplyDeleteAllison- Darn keyboards and eyeballs. And fingers. I got it. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteBirdie- Not just the pharms. The whole Medical Device Industry. And doctors who can't just patiently...wait. And who doubt a woman's ability to give birth. Don't get me started.
Elizabeth- You made my day. You seriously did. Thank you.
Angella- And your biscuits will be your own and lovely.
Mary- The mis-stroke is going around. It's okay. I often wonder if I could have been one of those pioneers and I think that yes, I could have until I killed myself from the utter despair and pain and work.
Sabine- No, do not try to comfort me. That tiny chick's body will forever be an image I will recall with great sorrow. Darn it. I'll check that link out.
NOLA- Oh my. Those will be very different biscuits. You CAN use yogurt instead of buttermilk or put a tiny amount of vinegar in regular milk. Look it up. I should know but I just always have buttermilk.
SJ- As if anything about biscuits could be virtuous! I like almond milk though. I really do.
Joanne- That same thought struck me as a child because I was always reading those books about the pioneers. Boggled my mind. Still does.
Lynne- I understand about the book thing. It seems to me that it either rains or pours and maybe it is nothing more than my attitude. I am sorry for your drought. I know how horrible that is. This is the first year in forever that we have gotten so much rain.
Syd- I hear they're getting an especially rainy summer in Cozumel too. Why do I even care? Oh, because I just do.
Sweet Jo- Lord. We try, don't we? Sometimes though, a failure such as a drowned chick can make us feel a failure in all ways.
Sabine- What a lovely poem and how beautiful are the planes of his face, his voice. Another reason to love the internet. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteThat's too bad about the third chick. But I suppose Ms Baby was ignoring it for a reason. Maybe it wasn't healthy somehow.
ReplyDeleteI'm always amazed by the thought of people moving to Florida back in the days of yellow fever and rebellious Seminoles and, as you said, no a/c and no Publix. When my great-grandparents went there in the early 1900s it was already somewhat civilized.