A Country Girl at Heart

Lately, I've blogged mostly about the more cosmopolitan side of me.
(Cosmopolitan: adj, 1. Well traveled, cultured, sophisticated, urbane, etc...) The part of my personality that enjoys black & white photography, ultra-cute technology, poems, chic interior decor, and shopping trips.

But there's a whole other side of me too. I'm not all girly-girl, photographer extraordinare, and stylish interior designer.

I live in the country on 13 acres of woods tumbling down a rocky hill, in a log home. We raise chickens for their eggs and are considering raising up a batch for meat. We hang our laundry on the line. We've harvested basket after basket of three kinds of lettuce, tons of tomatoes, oodles of onions, and bunches of beans from our garden already, along with a nice amount of green peppers, a pumpkin, and a few squashes.
We can't even see our neighbors through the woods when the leaves are on the trees (about three seasons out of four).
The loudest things we hear are the cicadas buzzing in the woods at night and our roosters crowing in the morning. No road noise or traffic to speak of.

Here are the little darlings... some of our Buff Orphington hens and our 'extra' rooster, Constantine. (Named by my history-loving brother Mark after the great emperor himself) We think he's a Partridge Cochin... he has feathers on his feet. :D

We have another rooster that's a Buff Orphington who isn't in this shot. We called him "Oddly", because we only ordered hens, and oddly enough, he's a rooster. :D

The buffs are known for being 'broody'. They're grumpy wanna-be-mommies and they sit on the nests waiting to peck any hand that tries to steal the precious eggs below them... but we've found that if you grab them from behind you can lift them off with not much trouble. So I wrangle chickens with the best of them. ;)

My brothers Mark and Steven have the main care of the chickens, and go to work landscaping with Dad, while I do the bulk of the housecleaning and helping out with the dishes & laundry and all the cooking. They do the outdoor, I do the indoor. It's a nice division of labor. :)

Our garden is Daddy's paradise.

 He has done an amazing job this year raising up beautiful plants that give off bountiful produce. The tomatoes, especially, have been incredibly fruitful, and the green beans were (and continue to be) great! :) What's coming on now is a jungle of lush squash plants spreading out their broad-leafed vines in a wild ramble across the garden paths. Daddy loves plants, and there is ample evidence of his green thumb in our garden. :)

 Today, we plan on going up to play Ultimate Frisbee with a big group of our friends that play every Friday during the warmer months. It'll be a lot of fun. Frisbee is one of the games that gets me all pumped up and excited ... and oh, dear, very competitive. :D I was super-athletic when I was younger (not as much now) and still enjoy a close game of Ultimate Frisbee. I'll see if I can get one of my parents to take pictures of the game today so I can give you all a glimpse of how much fun it is! :)


And lately, my brothers and I have been highly enjoying this guy:

 Perry Mason! He's a defense attorney in L.A. in the late 50's - early 60's. There are complete videos of almost the whole first season of Perry Mason on IMDB.com (internet movie database) that you can watch for free online with only a few interruptions from commercials. We've been loving it. Perry Mason always manages to pull out a victory over his arch-nemesis, prosecuting attorney Hamilton Burger, and his sidekick Lieutenant Tragg.

My favorite character in the show is Della Street, Perry Mason's secretary. My youngest brother and I think she and Perry Mason should have gotten married, they make such a cute couple! :D But apparently they were just good friends in the series.

Well, I hope you all have a great weekend! I'm off to bake a tasty treat to bring as an after-game snack to Ultimate Frisbee.