The Fever that Laid Us Low

The last few days quite sleepy for Leona. She's had a fever for days and hasn't left her bed since Friday evening. Here's what she has to say:

"On Friday night, we watched an episode of Cupcake Wars in my sister's bed, and my Mommy said I was getting hot. She took my temperature, The first thermometer wasn't working. And then I was 100.7.  I was having a rumbly voice, and by the time we went to bed, my fever was up to 101.5.

The next morning, Gloria got up, but Mommy and I kept sleeping. Finally, Mommy got up, but I kept sleeping for half the day. I just wanted to stay in bed and play video games. I wasn't even hungry. I just drank sweet tea. Sometimes I felt like the bed was tilting and I was about to fall off the bed. It was weird, and I was dizzy. That night, we watched Chopped and another episode of Cupcake Wars (one of my favorite shows). My highest temperature was 102.7. My mom tried to wake me up and take my temperature in the middle of the night, and I kept slapping at her to go away because I was still asleep.

Sunday was mostly the same. I didn't get up until today. I feel better, but I still can't go to school, so I'm staying home with Mommy. I am feeling JUMPY today. I am not looking forward to going back to school."

She has a lot to say for herself, and it's a relief to see her feeling better. I hate the flu, and so does Leona. It made me realize, though, that we haven't been really sick for a couple of years. I hope our luck hasn't completely run out.

Good health to everyone!

"Mama, You Want to KILL rabbits, RIGHT?"

Another attempt at ethical eating, also doomed to failure.

What animals can you raise in your back yard for food without annoying your neighbors too much?  Not all that many if your backyard is as small as mine.

But what about rabbits?  They're small, provide fur and meat, and seem to be easy to care for. There's that whole problem of them being so terribly cute, which could really get in the way of the project.

Then I had the entirely unrealistic idea of letting each of my daughters designate one rabbit as a pet that would not be subject to our culinary needs and desires.  Rhonda just shook her head. The girls looked at me in horror, but then they seemed to decide that I was crazy and couldn't possibly mean what they thought they had heard.  Not really.

So a week or two later, we were in Austin and went to our favorite pet story there: Zookeeper. They always have a bin of bunnies and guinea pigs in the back, and the kids run straight for it to hold and pet the furry little things.  Then there are the furry tarantulas, but we usually just watch them through the glass. It's always good for a cheap thrill.

This particular Saturday, Leona was cradling a beautiful gray bunny against her chest, tucked under her chin.

Suddenly, in her so-far-from-quiet voice, Leona calls out, "Mama, you want to KILL rabbits, RIGHT?"

I froze and refused to make eye contact with anyone. "Leona, put down the bunny. Put down the bunny NOW."

We escaped.  I don't know how long it will be before I feel like I can go back to Zookeeper.

Baby Elvis and the Chinese Princesses

We were in China this summer--my sister, my nephew, my daughters and I. The last time we were in Beijing, Gloria and Andrew were toddlers, and everywhere we went, people treated little blond, blue-eyed Andrew like a celebrity. We called him Baby Elvis, and I have a picture (I can't find right now) of Rhonda holding Andrew while at least half a dozen families snap pictures of him and he looks worried.

He didn't like being a celebrity any more this time than he did last time, but he was such a good sport this summer, now 10 years old--always standing politely and smiling in picture with family after family. It's funny to think of how many homes in China have pictures of Andrew in them.

Anyway, when Gloria was 3 years old, she wasn't bothered by people as much as Andrew was, although there was occasionally a family who wanted a picture of her holding hands with their little boy. She wouldn't do this without holding on to me, so each picture has my arm reaching in from the side to hold her hand.

This summer, Gloria and Leona were feeling left out while Andrew was getting so much attention. Then, one day we were eating lunch at a KFC (most popular fast food chain in China with a few items only for the Chinese market, like a seafood burger). We were all huddled around a too small table, and the kids were chattering to each other--probably bickering because that's what they do. And suddenly Rhonda realized that there are several women around the restaurant staring intently at the girls. I looked back and them, and they didn't even seem to notice. They were completely focused on the girls--not smiling, not relaxed.  They were studying them.

We talked about the difference between the reaction people had to the kids. Many people there were curious about Andrew because of how he looked. But these women wanted to know about the girls' lives. As the girls looked around and realized how much silent attention they were getting, they got very uncomfortable and said they weren't jealous of Andrew anymore!

I have a friend who has read a lot about comtemporary Chinese culture. She believes the girls must have seemed like miracle girls, like Cinderella, like Chinese princesses. But I wonder. Their lives are so different from the lives they were born to. Where the women angry about that? Did they think our American girls were behaving inappropriately exuberant? Did they think the girls were lucky?

I don't know what they thought about us all, but I love my loud, brash American girls and wouldn't have things any other way.

"Quick! Catch that Chicken!"

Most people buy or raise their chickens. At least that's what I've always assumed. I myself have never bought or hatched a live chicken. Instead, I catch them or adopt them from schools. It's not the most predictable or flexible route toward chicken farming, but so far it's worked for me.

I remember well the call from a friend, "I saw some chickens out on the greenbelt. They're going to be dead if somebody doesn't catch them." So my sister and I packed the kids and a large dog crate in the minivan and went chicken hunting.  Those chickens made up my original flock of three--quickly named by the kids Ellie, Zebie, and Heather. But that's not the only chicken hunting we've done. Oh, no.

One Sunday, we went to brunch at Cafe Brazil on Greenville Ave. in Dallas. Think busy, urban, overcrowed--in other words, not pastoral.  Nevertheless, as we're walking in, we spot a small red hen pecking between parked cars behind the restaurant. The chicken is faster than we are and wants nothing to do with us. It gets into a dumpster enclosure out of our reach, and we go in for brunch, letting the chicken fly out of our minds.

After a lovely, decadent brunch, we left Cafe Brazil and found the little red chicken still pecking around between the parked cars and the dumpster. We are certainly no faster after our yummy breakfast than we were before it, but perhaps the children was getting thirsty and tired, because after climbing around cars and behind bushes, we finally managed to trap the frantic little hen.  (Andrew immediately named her Foxy to prevent any possibility that she would be eaten.)

Believe it or not, that little red chicken--who we later learned was named Middleton--found her way back home to her friend chicken Pippa. Middleton had been a runaway before, but East Dallas' backyard chicken lovers helped reconnect little Middleton with her family.

We've helped stray dogs get back to their families before, but I don't think a rescue was ever more exciting (and certainly not more funny) than the great chicken chase on Greenville Ave. that Saturday morning.

Happy New Year, Middleton.

"I Only Eat Stranger Chickens"

I worry. I feel guilty. And the more I read, the more guilty I feel. Specifically, in this case, about eating industrially raised meat. I have laying hens, and I love them. They are low maintenance, pseudo-pets who give us eggs and make lovely clucking noises outside my window as I wake up. I feel awful thinking about the way the saran-wrapped chickens at my grocery store lived. I am pretty sure they didn't come running from the bushes to be fed mealworms by hand. They didn't get a chance to find a little snake in the yard and play keep away with it (it's really funny if you can avoid any empathy for the snake).

My daughters have no interest in becoming vegetarian. On the other hand, they have no interest in eating any animals they have ever met. I know this because I've asked them--sort of.

When we were first getting used to having chickens, I asked, "Isn't it cool how happy our chickens are? It would be wonderful if the chickens we ate had happy lives like this before they died, wouldn't it?" By now my nephew, the only one really listening to me, looked very suspicious.

"Really, if we're going to eat chicken, shouldn't we take care of them and be sure they have great, happy lives first?"

"No," my nephew said emphatically. "I only eat stranger chickens."

So what became of this ethical dilemma? Not much, at least so far. We still eat meet from the grocery story and my nephew has become very diligent about naming chickens the moment he meets them.  You see, once they have names, they aren't stranger chickens and can't become food.

But I still feel guilty, so this isn't over yet...

Random Thought of the Day: Subsistence Farming

More random thoughts.  I've been thinking about the use of the term subsistence farming. Subsistence farming is a practice of farming and raising enough animals to feed one's own family without a lot of surplus to share.

So I looked up subsistence, and as I thought, it was defined as " A means of subsisting, especially means barely sufficient to maintain life." That is a term of scarcity, of fear. Subsistence carries no sense of abundance. No one wants to merely subsist! Is that really all farming is?

Okay, It's hard work, farming, and I don't mean to idealize it.  Farms can fail, and poor crop yields can threaten an owner's ability even to pay taxes and hold on to his or hand.

This sort of family farm is necessarily diversified, unless most commercial farms. At its best, it reflects a whole system of interconnected plants, animals, people, and earth. When my children and I went to pick peaches a summer or two ago, we piled the warm fruit in my pouch made from the front my thread-bare oversized T-shirt, and I felt this sense of accomplishment and abundance--even though I had not a thing to do with the cultivation of the orchard. Okay, maybe I do idealize farming.

I just think that it's interesting that we talk about farmers subsisting, but we don't use the same qualifier for low-paid work generally.  And there are certainly many, many people in our urban and rural areas who are doing no more than subsisting, and sometimes not able to do even that.

Farmers bring food from the earth. Family farms can improve the quality of the land rather than deplete it when they are operated thoughtfully. And from what I've seen, farmers often build tight, interconnected communities that offer one another physical and emotional support and hard-earned knowledge.

You can't count on a family farm to make you rich in terms of U.S. currency. In fact, it is not uncommon for farmers today to work another job away from the farm. Again, farming is not a cushy life.

Let's not use earning potential as the only way to judge a life. If subsistence farming offers nothing more than the means to barely sustain life, go do something else! But if it offers something more, maybe subsistence farming needs a new name.

Random Observation of the Day: Laura Ingalls Wilder did not harvest salt or grow orange trees

I've been reading books lately about urban farming, little backyard farms that represent abundance and ingenuity and the productive life I wish I had. I do dream of having such a backyard. I really like our chickens, but the thickest grass in my front yard grows in the flower beds and there's a significant portion of my backyard that grows nothing so well as dandelions (at least they're edible!). So I don't seem to be on my way.

Anyway, a common theme in my reading selections seems to be feeding oneself off one's own little urban farm for one month.  I suppose the significance of one month is that it's long enough to suffer but not long enough to die?

The rules seem to be fairly strict--really nothing that is not from your own little domain unless perhaps you barter with another farmer from your own stock. What exactly is the point here? I mean I love a gratuitous challenge as much as the next person--maybe more than the next person--but is this a test against something real?

This leads me to a beloved story from my childhood--Little House on the Prairie, etc.  I haven't reread the series for a while, but I don't think even they were completely self-sufficient.  I remember an orange for Christmas that did not grow on the prairie, and maybe occasional salt, sugar or coffee? (There are afternoons when I think that a cup of tea is the mark of civilization.)

My point is that they didn't deliberately deprive themselves of things that they could actually get. On the other hand, we can get anything from anywhere now by driving just blocks, so we can't test anything without adopting restriction.

Maybe the issue is about eating locally--as locally as possible--more than it is about being self-sufficient? About testing the limits of urban self-sufficiency? That I like.

But I have no intention of going without tea and salt and probably a few other things.  I won't happen.  Even if I do manage to grow more than dandelions in the backyard.