Spring Fever

I've been feeling a little crazy. That restless feeling behind my sternum that feels like a scream or a laugh or running around outside. Full on spring fever.

It has me wondering about the energies of spring. Several four- and five-year-olds I know have been demonstrating anxiety behaviors lately, and it seems to be a cyclical thing that hits this time of year. I discussed this phenomenon with my husband, a therapist, and he commented on how he could feel the quickening of spring. Underneath the frozen land stirs the lightness of spring. Could this be what is causing our children's restlessness and my own feeling of craziness?

I tried doing a simple search on spring fever and spring anxiety behaviors on EBSCO but came up with nothing. If any of you research types have a moment I'd be curious to know if there have been any studies on spring and mental health, akin to the full moon studies.

Certainly we humans are as tied to the land as the any creature on earth, we just don't notice it as consciously. This connection is part of the reason I celebrate the Pagan Sabbats, which honor the turning of the Wheel of the Year and our place in its unfolding. I feel more aware of my part in the seasons when I honor them not just as a gardener and homeschooling parent but also on a spiritual level. Obviously these aspects of myself are all linked.

How are you responding to spring (if, that is, you live in the northern hemisphere)? What projects are you starting? What is blossoming? Sprouting? What quickening do you feel?

The Proliferation of Urban Gardens

When I was writing Sacred Land, I was on the bus one afternoon, staring out the window. I've never been able to read on a moving vehicle. So I stared and let my thoughts roll by with the scenery. An empty lot between two buildings just begged for green and growing things. It screamed Plant a Garden Here. This lot and my thoughts on the book gave me this vision of every empty lot, every roof top, every yard as a garden. Flowers, herbs, and mostly vegetables and fruits. I wrote Sacred Land with this vision in mind. What would a world be like where we grew half our own food? Where instead of meeting at Starbucks we could meet at a friends' garden to sip mint sun tea? Where parking lots of abandoned malls were bulldozed to grow food?

My idea is not new. I learned from the fantastic book I'm reading, Novella Carpenter's Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer, that in Detroit in response to the depression of 1893 the mayor helped people to set up Pingree Potato Patches where the unemployed and indigent grew food on abandoned lots all over the city. Exactly! And then during the world wars such programs existed again, most famously the Victory Gardens of WWII. After the depressions and wars end, though, we go back to the supermarket and let the lots go abandoned once again.

Why? Why do we only cultivate urban farms if we are crazy counterculture freaks or during times of war and economic depression?

Joanna Macy writes in her article "The Greening of the Self" that "What looks like apathy is really the fear of suffering." We have become, as a culture, apathetic about our food. About farm workers. About the land and the subtle and exquisite balances of ecology in relation to agriculture. Why should we care about such things when we can get a tomato from the supermarket any time of the year? Because really growing tomatoes is hard. You have to know what you're doing. And you have to wait until August, and then you have to preserve or give away all the extras you don't get to eating. Working a garden plot takes knowledge and work.

Ah, but the rewards. I can hardly buy a supermarket tomato. I have tasted the real thing. Same with lettuce, arugula, parsley, spinach... the list goes on. I know that not everyone loves digging in the dirt. But most people love the feel of the sun, the call of birds, and the joy of harvesting an egg or a carrot from the source. These joys are very truly possible even in the city. Even from a condo. For a banker or a paraplegic or a dancer or anyone.

Plant something for yourself this year. Even if it's a single basil plant. Or a whole farm! See what happens in your world. In your heart. We can change the world one garden at a time.

Spiritual Foundations of Homesteading

I'm reading a fascinating book (very slowly, since I've nearly no time for reading!) called At Home in Nature: Modern Homesteading and Spiritual Practice in America by Rebecca Kneale Gould. Gould looks at the history of homesteading as a spiritual practice, from Thoreau to Helen and Scott Nearing to contemporary homesteaders seeking a better life by attuning with nature. Helen Nearing is actually the Helen referred to in Krishnamurti's biography: they were young lovers. She studied theosophy. All homesteaders, Gould argues, seek deeper meaning in life through care of the home and the earth. She writes, "Whether we prefer the term spiritual or religious... we can see in the practice of homesteading a lived response to problems of meaning that are personal and cultural." (xvii) She writes about homesteaders seeking a deeper sense of self by "recentering the self amid the wonders (and resources) of the natural world." (xviii)

I am enjoying reading the history of my work, and I'm appreciating the academic discussion of things dear to me, namely nature, homesteading and spirituality. Most exciting to me is to discover the foundations of non-religious spiritual practice through gardening, raising chickens, homeschooling, and other homesteading practices. They go way back! It's a lot like when my husband, a music therapist, learned that one of his grandmothers was a music teacher, something he had not previously known. There is an historical foundation to our creative madness after all.

If you homestead at all and enjoy history and spirituality, you would likely enjoy At Home in Nature. At the very least it will bring you to explore your own motivations and practices as you prepare for another spring on the homestead.

Is Keeping Chickens Right for You?

So you're considering raising a small flock of hens in your urban or suburban backyard, and you're wondering what it's really like. Is it a good fit for you? Here are a few things you might want to consider, both pros and cons.

• Chickens poop a lot. The poop stinks (the runny kind - they make little round pellets that dry quickly and aren't so bad, and they make little stinky miniature cow pies). It's great for compost - I find the balance of nitrogen to carbon in the poopy shavings you get out of the coop to be just about perfect. It's fairly easy to spray the poop off the patio with a hose (get a sprayer attachment), and the grass likes it. It's not as gross as cat or dog feces.
• They scratch. They love to demolish compost piles, mulch beds, garden beds, you name it. When we let our chickens free-range, we can count on needing to rake and sweep the pathways clean afterward. I contained my compost pile in wire mesh after having it flattened numerous times.
  
• Chickens are curious. They aren't brilliant, but they aren't really dumb either. Leave open the backdoor or the garage door and they will go exploring. And they poop wherever they explore.
  
• Egg production drops in the winter. There will be times when you will want to supplement with grocery store eggs and they just aren't as good - you get spoiled pretty fast. And there will be times when you have to give eggs away to friends and neighbors. We have four hens and we eat a lot of eggs, and that seems to be about right most of the time. We bought two dozen additional eggs a month this winter.
  
• Chickens peck at the color red. So don't put a red shirt on your child when she goes to play with them. They will also peck fingers that are held out to them. And tiny toes.
  
• Chickens are dusty. They take dust baths, they have shavings and hay, and they scratch in the dirt.
  
• When they lay eggs, or when they want to lay an egg and another hen is in the box (you need one egg box for every six hens, although two doesn't hurt), they BAWK really loudly. So far the neighbors haven't cared. But you can't really keep them secret. Also, every child in your neighborhood will know you have them.
  
• Chickens make sweet crooning noises when you talk to them. They have their own personalities (chickenalities?) and dispositions, just like any animal. Some will like humans, others will not. Ours are fine with our cats (the cats don't like the hens, though - but they don't go after them now that they are big as they are).
  
• Hen care needs to be part of your routine. Every morning they need letting out and feeding and watering; every afternoon you need to check for eggs; every evening they need locking up and possibly feeding. You need to clean out the coop frequently. With out flock of four we do it once or twice a week. The deep litter technique of stirring it and letting it compost in the coop doesn't work well for our small coop.
• When you go out in the morning to feed them and they make sweet curious crooning noises and you dump their litter in the compost, life is good. The garden is balanced. You've brought the country into the city. All is well.

Need more information? Check out mypetchicken.com and backyardchickens.com. Great websites with lots of information!

Tis the Season of Imbolc

One thing I love about celebrating the Wheel of the Year, which includes the Solstices, Equinoxes, and the four days at cross quarters to them, is that we get to celebrate an entire season rather than just a day that is then suddenly over. Right now we are celebrating Imbolc, which is on February second and comes six weeks after Yule and six weeks before Ostara. By "we" I mean my family, including our chickens. The girls pace back and forth in the run, anxious to be let out in the yard so they can search for the barest hint of green grass. They keep on scratching deeper and deeper as the ground thaws. Grow! they seem to be shouting at the earth. And as I said in an earlier blog, they are laying more eggs than they were just a few weeks ago.

Today when I let them out in the morning the ground was frozen solid. The dew point was near freezing, though, and we had frost on the ground. Frost is rare in my part of Colorado where it is usually too dry (as I understand frost and dew point and humidity). Where I grew up we had frost almost every morning in the winter and early spring. It's a peaceful sight to me, the gray frosting on the grass and leaves. At my daughter's playgroup/preschool we are discussing patterns and shapes in nature, so I was particularly noticing the shapes of the frost. My favorite little snapshot of the morning was a black chicken feather rimmed with frost crystals.

I know the ground will thaw and we'll soon plant peas. For now I'm enjoying the return of the light (or living room is so bright in the morning!) and the scent of spring in the air, just under the chill.