So Long Henna
(and thanks for all the eggs!)

Henna is the dark reddish brown hen third from the left.

The day opened with a blanket of heat over the city. From there on the day just got worse. I know so many people who are really happy to have the heat here ("at last") but I am not one of them for the following reasons:

Heat makes people more likely to kill other people.

I don't like heat rashes and I've got a real nice one under my boobs right now.

It makes my animals extremely uncomfortable.

Iced coffee isn't nearly as nice a way to wake up as hot coffee.

It makes people sweat. I don't know anyone who wears sweat attractively.

It makes people smell. Because of the sweat.

Plus other malodorous things get really ripe in the heat.

In spite of the heat I was enjoying a little moment of complete contentedness with my house and chatting with my sister who is coming with us in the hot-box* to California tomorrow. All was well in spite of the skin blistering sunshine until Philip came in and told me that our hen named Henna had died.

I don't like it when my chickens die. What's worse is that she died of a mysterious cause. We don't know why. I am thankful that she didn't die from being mauled by a wild beast. But I am so sad to lose one of my girls. She was such a hard worker and such a lovely hen. Chickens are not Olympian animals with really long lifespans so if you keep them you must get used to losing them from time to time.

Philip buried her in the yard. So begins the pet cemetery at the new house. We are leaving and now I'm worried to leave my other girls behind. A good friend is going to care for them and the house but what if I come back to no hens?

I have to get up ridiculously early so I am going to simply say that I hope you all are staying cool and if the next time you see me I'm turned inside out, pay no mind.

Goodbye Henna. Thanks for all the eggs and the excellent company. You will be missed by your family and your flock. We send you love to whatever place chicken spirits go when they die. May you feast on a thousand snails a day and never have to lay another damn egg!

*the car

Around The Farm Today
(With the intrepid farm-girl Mathilda)

I wanted to follow up my spice cabinet post with a comparison shot. The brown leaves in this picture are oregano leaves that I inexpertly dried at too high a heat last year. They did not taste good. I had trouble throwing them out after the work I put into them. However, an urban homesteader must develop an iron sense of purpose and quality around their work. So after one whole year, I have finally dried a new harvest of oregano and tossed out the batch that I never used after the first time since it was gross.

That green sprig you see here is how freshly dried oregano should look. Appetising is a word that comes to mind. (The proper heat for drying herbs well is between 95 and 100, not a degree hotter than that.)

Digging post holes is a fact of farm life. Even if your farm is no bigger than a city lot. Digging posts without a "post hole digger" is insane, certifiable behavior. If you have to dig a couple of posts see if you can borrow some one's post hole digger instead of buying one. Sharing tools is one of the ways reciprocity can bind you to your neighbors and friends. Just be sure to return it to them. Farm girl Mathilda is a bad seed who married another bad seed and we came by our post hole digger dishonestly. It belongs to my very kind FIL. It was borrowed and then not returned before getting packed up for a move out of state.

You will notice how little progress has been made in the above photo. I would like you to observe the nature of the terrain in which the deep narrow hole is being dug.

ONE HOUR LATER....

After taking a break to get some weeding done to free a choking peony by the fetid pond, I finally broke through the one foot of gravel/dirt mixture that almost rendered my left arm paralyzed for life and got to the fairly easy to dig (by comparison) solid clay.

Using a post hole digger is extremely simple. You grip the handles firmly in your grasp, raise the post hole digger high and then plunge it strait down into the spot you wish to dig the hole. Then when you have loosened enough soil you pull the handles away from each other which will force the metal scoops to pick up the dirt and you lift it straight out and start of pile of it close by. You repeat these actions one or two hundred times and Voila! You will have a two foot hole. However, if you are a very anal person you may decide that the proper depth for a post hole is at least 2.5 feet deep. Good luck, sucker.

I have some helpful tips on how to dig a post hole:

• Be sure to only dig post holes in well composted sandy loam. `

• Keep your feet as far away from the soil cutting metal edges of your post hole digger as possible.

• Don't dig post holes at all, instead, build psychic walls around your property. Animals totally respect psychic walls. Especially deer.

• Wear gloves unless you are one of those freaks who enjoys getting big painful blisters.
  

• Hand the post hole digger to your spouse and promise them a dirty reward for doing it.*

• Sing old southern grave digging songs while you dig. Your neighbors will love the macabre flavor you bring to the street.

• Don't worry about your palsying arms afterwards, the shaking will stop sometime in the next twenty four hours, or at the very longest within a week.

*Don't worry about having to pay up, they'll be so dog tired by the time they're done they won't be able to lift a bottle of beer.