Community Supported Lifestyles

I’ve been thinking about how the community that surrounds us, the structures that has been put in place over the years, enable us to live as well as we do, and as low on the carbon foodchain as possible. We do what we can, the community supports these choices, and there is the beginnings of a model for how we all need to live in the future, if the planet is going to survive. We are far from perfect, but we are better off than most of the country.

1. We have Blue Sky power, which supports local alternative energy projects; my fee pays for Marge’s solar panels, which is good because she has better solar access than I do. There is similar program for natural gas.
2. The Bean and Grain project’s Fill Your Pantry event lets me purchase wheat, oatmeal, beans, onions—all of the winter staples—directly from farmers in bulk. How cool is that?
3. There is also an all winter farmer’s market, a CSA that allows me to jump in for the last nine weeks of the season, Sunbow farm…we can eat totally local fresh veg all year. I can even bike out to pick it up directly off the farm. Really—I could HARVEST it.
4. Allied Waste will pick up our trash twice a year and our recycling whenever we put it out. Recycling is free. They are also composting kitchen waste. We can even dispose of weird, dirty plastics at the co-op.
5. People rake leaves and pile them in the street for leaf pick-up in the fall and no one cares if I gather them all up to pile on my garden beds. Free organic matter.
6. There are sidewalks and bike paths all over town and enough people bike to work that the cars know we exist. We are a Bike-Friendly town. Corvallis does not sprawl, either, thanks to urban growth boundaries.
7. There is an ethic of repair here. We can take our old reel lawnmower down to the local hardware store, on a bike cart, and someone will sharpen the blades, replace some bolts, and tighten the whole thing up, without suggesting that we buy a new one. When we converted our garage into the dining room, Mark Meyer bought old lumber and worked as much of what was already there into the final construction as possible—and took pride in the list of recycled materials we generated later.
8. There are several excellent bookstores—new and used—and an award –winning library. There is always something to read.
9. There is green space surrounding the town. We can take an eleven mile hike through second and old growth trees, following the ridgeline. On one trail, we will see thirty species of wildflowers next weekend.
10. We are not considered weird because of the way we live. It is normal for a large segment of the population.

Year above the garden, so far

George the Boss Chicken

George The Chicken passed away last week. She was our best chicken, our boss chicken, our first chicken.

We began keeping chickens in the fall of 2002. We bought four from a man who was reducing his flock—two for us and two for friends who were also moving into an urban flock. (We had heard that chickens kill pillbugs….). George was clearly the boss. The biggest, the loudest, the first to do everything. She was beautiful, too, a pattern of black and white feathers with a proud red comb again the green winter grass. We built a coop, balanced it on the garden beds, and checked on them every night before bed. I remember slipping out the night we began bombing Iraq—Shock and Awe—and feeling her soft warm feathered body snuggled into the straw. She burked quietly at the touch and settled back down—unlike those thousands of human beings being bombed across the world.

George had a good life. She never stopped being the boss, despite a steady flow of new coopmates. She controlled the compost heap, the perch, the dust bath. Even as she grew old and hobbled around on arthritic feet, she was still the boss. Younger, bigger chickens might think they were in control, but, when she hopped over, they all ceded the Chicken Treat to her. She spent hours sunbathing, eating overgrown kale plants, talking to us about bugs and how we were digging up a garden bed. She even laid eggs early last summer. Eggs, at ten years old!

This winter, she has been showing her age. Rather than coming out of the coop, she nodded off in a sunny corner. She perched quietly in a flower bed, watching the world go by and napping. Her feathers were not coming in after her molt; her comb was battered. But, she still hopped over for a treat and maintained a running commentary on backyard life.

When I came home yesterday to chicken carnage, she was tucked into a corner of the fence and looking stunned. I picked her up and moved her into the coop, where she could eat a bit. She was not stable on her feet, but she had things to say. I buried Gertrude and Agnes and then came over to check on her again. She was wounded and shaken. We sat together on a bench in the sunshine for half an hour; she nodded off while I held her gently. When I stood up, she hopped down and followed me over to the Chicken Treat, so I brought her inside for the evening. Maybe, I thought, the tough old bird wasn’t dead yet.

In the morning, she was still alive. I promised her an outing this evening and left for school. When I came home, she was gone. Her head was down, her wings gently spread, her final nap over. We’ll buried her in a garden bed, with a headstone.

George, the Boss Chicken. 2001-2012.

Potato Planting

The moon is waning and there has been no rain for three days, so it is time to plant the root crops. On Friday, I turned over one bed and planted the Ruby Crescents and Yukon Golds, but the other bed, which is right next to the neighbor’s downspout, was still too wet, so I waited until today to plant the blue and red potatoes. It’s a lovely task: cut the sprouting taters, dig trenches, push them in, and cover them over. Easy. Unlike seeds, you always know where you left off. This is the first year that we are growing the entire crop in our back yard. For several years, we raised them in the community garden, and, when that became problematic, we moved into the backyard of our rental down the street. However, it was clear to me that all crops need to be looked after closely, so the entire operation is now in the back yard. I have high hopes for a bumper crop, come August.

In between potato plantings, I also put in the other root crops: carrots, parsnips, and beets. I made some signs, trimmed the grass around the beds, and mowed the garden. There are still tufts of grass that the push mower didn’t catch, but the whole back yard looks tended and lovely. The bees are out, the chickens commenting on my every move, the cats lounging on the sunny benches, and I have a small callus forming from the hand trimmers. The back neighbors are all watching the progress avidly. The space is alive once again.

Al and the onions

My neighbor Al and his big black dog Sweetie showed up on my doorstep a few days ago.

“Hey,” he shouted (Al always shouts. You can hear him greeting a passerby a block away.) “Thanks for the bread! It was great.”

“Anytime—the wheelbarrow was really helpful.”

“I’ve brought these over for you.” He waved some greenish stalks that looked like straw. “Walla Wallas. Thought you might have some room for ‘em.”
“Cool. I’ll find a home for them.” I patted Sweetie, a well-named dog if there ever was one.
He nodded and tugged on Sweetie’s leash. A few moments later, I spotted him hauling a table out of the dumpster across the way and checking it for stability. It passed inspection; he hoisted it up on his shoulder and took it home, where it would wait until next week, when he went into work at Habitat. I went out back and tucked the onions into one of the new beds, right before the next deluge.

Two days later, I was sprawled on the floor, touching up some trim paint, under Lucy the Cat’s watchful eye. I never did this for a rental, I thought. I just moved when the back corners were grubby, about once every two years. My life changed and so did my address. It was good. But now, I live here, and I’m not moving, so I’m painting. It’s pale purple paint, under a sage green wall and butter yellow ceiling—a radical shift from the cheap white paint the pervious owners sprayed one weekend before they sold the house. We paint colors we love—we make changes to the yard and structure to make living here more pleasant for us. We don’t plan on selling our home—and neither does Al, who’s is quite stubborn about not letting the Lutherans, who own the other houses on his block, buy his place and turn it into a church parking lot.

And maybe this is what we all need to do—inhabit our spaces like we are going to spend our lives here, because, the truth is, we are. We need to paint for ourselves, not for the next buyers. Build shelves to hold our books and canned goods. Put in a fruit tree that we love and harvest the apples six years later. And get to know our neighbors, send bread and eggs, onions and tomatoes, information about city council meetings and new senior rescue dogs up and down the street. This is my home, and it very clear to me on rainy March afternoons.

March...snow and city meetings

Snow days…I used to sneer at Oregon snow days: “In New Hampshire, we eat snow like this for breakfast.” Or “I’ve driven in much worse weather than this—a foot of snow doesn’t stop me.” Or “Even The Ark can cruise through an inch of snow.” But now, I love it. I’ve been out on the roads often enough with Oregon drivers to see the wisdom of closing down the world for two inches of snow and slush; I’m even MORE worried on cold clear mornings, when they think Black Ice is a damp roadbed. I’m staying home today. I’ll drink tea from my new Dogwood patterned tea cup, wash some clothes, and set the sleeve on my new sweater. Maybe make some yougurt and take a walk. Talk to the cats, who will be restless when the fascination of falling snow wears off. NOT grade papers or plan, but be thankful that I am not exposed to the very nasty flu that is traveling the halls of CHS. A snow day is a gift from the weather gods, to be embraced and treasured. Snow Day….


Corvallis has a tradition of Citizen Involvement, which means, when you are feeling positive, that city officials listen to the folks who live and pay taxes here before making decisions—and when you are cynical, that they allow the peasants to testify before going ahead with the plans they have already confirmed. Either way you look at it—and my opinion shifts, day to day—I’ve been testifying quite a bit lately. No matter where you are, the ritual is always the same—officials sitting behind a long table in front of the crowd, speakers facing the official people, with the entire group staring at their backs while they talk, a nervous line clutching notes on one side. You step up to the microphone, sign in, and speak. Time limit—three minutes. If you are good, the officials ask questions. If you ramble, they look through the piles of papers in front of them. Waiting in line is nervewracking. Testifying, once I have stated my name and address as incantation, is fun. I like to drop a phrase or two into the discussion and see if it takes off. “Party bay” for garage, “Mega-parties” that are “too big to fail,” “late adolescents” rather than students…I really like to answer questions, or, if allowed, to ask them. Afterwards, as you climb over others on your way back to your seat, people smile at you. “Nice job,” they whisper in the pause while the next speaker signs in. Then we all turn to listen to the next in line.

March Gardens

The weather always comes from the West in Corvallis, so, if you look out of our living room window, you can see what will be happening in the back yard in about forty-five minutes. It can be very handy. This morning, after This American Life, I saw deep dark clouds on the way, so we headed out ahead of the storm. Yesterday, we had moved the chicken coop onto one of the new beds in the back of the yard and we needed to construct their summer run so that they could dig in the compost without destroying all of the delicate plant starts around the house. One swoop of a chicken’s foot has been known to take out a clump of crocus.

We quickly unwound the new spool of chicken wire fencing I had purchased from the farm supply store; I am done with kludging together rusty misshapen wire fences and being caught by it in awkward positions all summer long. The new wire snaked its way through the new garden, under a trellis and between two beds. Mark went inside—he had a meeting to go to—and I stayed out, wresting with the laurel hedge and garbage cans, bringing the new fence over to the edge of the yard; the chickens love our neighbor’s driveway and I wanted to keep them on our side of the property line even though our neighbors are very tolerant folk—they have been known to catch and repen our rabbits…. I pounded in the big fencing stakes, created a gate, and let the ladies out. They hopped out, commenting positively on the new run all the while.

Another glance to the West—the clouds were closer, but not here yet. I moved quickly. The broccoli, mustard, kale, cabbage, and cauliflower seedlings were outgrowing their six-packs and needed a new home. Fertilizer, plants, trowel. Hoop house opened. Plants popped in. Plastic pulled back over. Clamps in place. One bed full. Clouds are overhead, but there was still time to take the windows off of the coldframe and plant the mustard and kale inside. Just as the windows went back on, the rains came. I tucked the tools back in the shed, considered the scene for a moment, and hurried inside.

Inside, the house still smelled of breakfast waffles and tea, lentils cooking in the crockpot. Kayli was curled up on the couch next to my knitting. The clock ticked loudly on the mantle and the hail hit the windows. March in Oregon.