Driveway & fence

A couple months ago, I poured a new track on the driveway so we could actually park on concrete instead of dirt, which always was a horrendous mess during the wet winter months.

Now I'm done with a fence and gate in the new driveway. Well, I'm not totally done as I still need to finish laying the bricks and other filler stuff between the wheel tracks, but the fence is done. We have three kinds of pole beans growing on the mesh of the fence, and the second gate (not shown) is up, and pretty well color-matched with the re-used cedar fence boards shown.

The deck in use

IMG_7903
Originally uploaded by mcnattyp

A couple weeks ago, Sarah had a new-mother blessing ceremony on our new deck. That event was the impetus for completing the deck, the arbor and the new lawn. As you can see from the picture, everything looks pretty good! I still need to repaint the arbor and the deck railings. It never ends.

"You Walk Wrong" (Or, "Why I Go Barefoot")

Please note that this is not a diatribe about how great going barefoot is, nor is it a slight to those people who prefer shoes. I wish the best for everyone, no matter how you are shod.

When we lived in San Diego, I went barefoot a lot. First off, the weather was fantastic, so my feet never got cold. Secondly, I worked at home, and being something of a homebody, I didn't leave the house for days at a time. Consequently, I didn't wear shoes for days at a time.

Fast forward to the Portland life, and for the past few summers, I've gone barefoot as much as possible. I used to commute downtown on my bike and so while I wore clip-in bike shoes for the ride, I would go barefoot during the day in the office, and generally got by being barefoot for any errands I had to do while at work. During the winter months, I would only wear thick woolly socks at the office.

I'm back to working at home now, and I'm taking a cue from Lily, who simply doesn't like shoes. As soon as we're done with a trip some place, she takes her shoes off, no matter if it's winter or summer. I joke with her that she's wearing her "hobbit shoes" whenever she's barefoot.

And in a natural extension to the unschooling philosophy, I've been questioning the "norm" of wearing shoes at all. Lily frequently goes out on errands without wearing any shoes. No one has ever stopped me (or her) to ask us to put on our shoes. We do, however, wear shoes in restaurants and grocery stores because I know the proprietors can get fined should any customers be shoeless.

All this time, I had some nagging suspicion that going barefoot is "better", in the same way that eating organic foods is "better" and getting enough sleep is "better". I've just not been exposed to any one who espouses the better-ness of going barefoot.

So I've been going barefoot a lot this spring and summer. Much of my gardening has been barefoot (except when I'm digging and spading, for which I use my feet to push on shovels). All of my work days at home have been barefoot. I've always slept barefoot. And I'm finding myself going barefoot alongside Lily at various other times: On walks around the block, on errands and picking berries. When I'm not barefoot, I'm wearing flip-flops which let me go from barefoot to shod depending on the terrain.

I'm also a runner, and I came across a new shoe called the Nike Free, which is supposed to emulate barefoot running. Further Googling led me to this article from New York Magazine, titled "You Walk Wrong", which has pushed me over the top. I'm now striving to go barefoot.

Of course it helps that we're going to be installed a radiant floor heating system before this winter comes around :)

Wednesday Potluck: finger-food, appetizers, hors-de-oeuvres, whatever you call 'em

Hot days call for light eatings, or so says Portland's $73,000-a-year Community Emergency Services Manager. Around these parts, we don't question authority, so this past week we did a "light eatings" theme.

I killed a bunch of greens from the garden and Sarah made meatballs from scratch, soaked in an apple jelly-mustard sauce. 5 days later, and I just finished the last serving!

Now we can open our egg store!

"Now we can open our egg store!" Lily said yesterday. We've been regularly getting 4 eggs per day for a couple days now, and even the Araucanas are pitching in with an egg here or there. We think there's one regular double-yolker since we see them with some high frequency. The four regular layers (two RIR and two Plymouth Barred Rocks) are all laying mid morning, so I can make one visit per day to collect. A couple days ago, there was a scuffle because one RIR was momentarily broody, and another hen needed to get on the nest, like, "now". The end result was that I discovered that the nesting box is big enough for two hens to fit in at the same time, with a bit of a squeeze.

Four eggs a day is just about too many for us to eat, so I either need to commit to eating an omlette every morning, or we can start using up the stack of cartons we have by giving some away at the Wednesday potlucks. See - another reason to attend!