Wednesday, April 27, 2016

Pieces Of Peace

This has been one of my favorite kinds of days. The kind that I get to be a housewife, a recluse, a pretend farmer. I've cooked and I've picked a few peas and I've cleaned up chicken domiciles and chopped grapes and greens for chickens and walked and hung clothes outside and listened to books and even did a little ironing.
Here are my peas.


Not so many, but enough for Mr. Moon and I to both have a sweet taste with our dinner.

I am hoping that tonight's supper will make up for last night's disaster. The sauce was so salty that although we ate it, we decided that for our health we should throw the rest away, which I did, pouring it out by the woods where the coons and possums could get to it. They should probably go get their blood pressure checked today.
Tonight I'm cooking chicken with onions and garlic and wine and balsamic vinegar and capers and olives and carrots and mushrooms and tomatoes, herbs and spices. It's been simmering in the slow-cooker for hours and as I was preparing it, browning the floured and rosemary-spiced chicken, I was listening to the end of the Ruth Reichl book and they were interviewing her and they asked her what she thought about audio books. She said that being read to was one of her greatest joys and that one of her favorite things in the world is to cook all day, listening to an audio book.
Sigh....

Baby chick is doing so well. He or she is feisty as hell and I do believe the little bandage thing is working. S/he is running about and when I put cut up grapes in their ice chest, s/he stole from the larger siblings and ran to eat her grape piece in peace. The leg, which up until today seemed as substantial as a cooked noodle, now seems to be strong and normal.
How can something as tiny and weightless and seemingly delicate as a baby chick be so resilient?


If they are all hens, I think I shall name them Zora, Marjorie, and Louisa. 

The other baby chicks are good and growing so fast. When I open the lid to their little coop, they come running now, knowing that treats are arriving. 

And so it's been a good day and I just put the air conditioning on and although I feel a tiny bit guilty about it, I am also so grateful for the way the house will feel soon and I know we will sleep so well. I'm just all-around grateful that I've had this day to do the smallest things and walk in the woods and have the time to be mindful of all of it from noting the healing of the chick to wildflowers and swelling blackberries on my walk, to the way the porch plants look, shining with beads of water after I slaked their thirst with hose water, to the peeling and chopping of garlic, to the way the wine smelled when I added it to the onions and garlic and tomatoes, to the way the eggs I gathered today felt in my hand, and yes, even the way the chicken-pooped hay smelled as I removed it from the nests and the way the new hay I replaced it with smelled in the warm air. 

This day has been a poem, lived.

We all deserve that sometimes. We do. 

Love...Ms. Moon

6 comments:

  1. I love that sentence...'today has been a poem...lived'. I must admit that I'm a teeny bit pleased to know that someone else's dinner occasionally doesn't work out as planned. You, especially, seem to have the knack to throw stuff together and create a masterpiece (you had me at balsamic vinegar!).

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  2. I am glad you had such a day, dear Mary. Ordering up more of those.

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  3. A poem lived. I will hear that in my mind. And thanks for the chick update. I tend to get caught up with your animals.

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  4. I'm glad the little chick's leg is improving. That video was very encouraging, and here you are, with a mended chickie.

    I love a domestic day. I miss the days when I had those five days a week. Now it feels like such a treat to have one once in awhile.

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  5. Well shit, we deserve that every day, don't we?

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  6. I love days like that. and wee ones have to be resilient or else how would they survive at all.

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