Hens and Chicks

When I was a kid, I spent part of several summers at my uncle and aunt's chicken farm in Vineland, New Jersey. I helped feed and water the chickens. I collected the eggs, sometimes from under the bellies of the recalcitrant hens, placing them gently, one by one, in the enameled wire basket. I learned to work the simple but ingenious machine that candled the eggs -- shining a light through them to inspect for blood spots, embryos, and multiple yolks -- then chugged them along on a tiny conveyor that gently tipped each one into the appropriate chute, sorted by size and weight. On at least one occasion, I accompanied Uncle Sol on a trip to the slaughterhouse. Aunt Hansi was a fabulous cook and baker; most of the double yolks went into her cakes.

Though I loved going about my chores in their dusty midst, the chickens themselves seemed to me, for the most part, an undifferentiated white clucking mass, sometimes somnolent, sometimes excited. My vacation reading at the farm one summer was a thick, profusely illustrated manual of poultry diseases. I was particularly fascinated by the color plates of Newcastle Disease. I intended to be a doctor at that point, so the interest was professional.

Years passed. In the early '90s my friend Mary Carter wrote a charming series of essays about her small flock in Marin County. The "Chicken Lady" writings are archived as part of The Best of the WELL, and available to members of that pioneering online community (www.well.com). Chickens came in colors, I discovered; some breeds were temperamental in one direction or another; individual birds might have personalities as unique as humans.

Mary was a forerunner of the urban poultry movement. Now, at least here in Portland, it's a chicken on every plot. Actually, we're allowed three hens (more with a permit), though roosters are forbidden within city limits. Our back-fence neighbors have constructed what they refer to as a chicken Taj Majal; neighbors two doors up have a coop; a couple of houses up from them there's another. I hear telltale clucks from yards throughout the neighborhood whenever I take a walk.

Two years ago, my friend Jackie gifted me with the charming couple at the top of this page. They've been living in the southeast corner of the backyard, exactly where the coop is going now. I thought of them as mere garden ornaments, but it's clear that they've been placeholders all along.

Here's a shot of the coop in progress. I bought the plans from theGardenCoop.com and Mike, our builder, modified the design to fit our somewhat-constrained space.

The most labor-intensive part of the job was trenching the base around the perimeter, avoiding damage to major tree roots in the process. The bottom edge of the hardware cloth -- a sturdier, finer mesh than so-called "chicken wire" -- that covers the coop will be buried several inches, as a barrier to burrowing predators.

When the coop's completed, I'll do some exterior painting, cueing off the colors I used on this old and extremely tall wooden ladder I found a couple weeks ago, which I plan to place picturesquely... somewhere. After that we'll turn to the serious matter of acquiring chicks, pullets or full-grown laying hens. What and when depend on timing and availability. I'll keep you posted.

The giant ladder is currently sharing deck space with several container gardens I potted up last week, following a trip to Xera Plants, a remarkable local nursery that's generally wholesale-only. (Hardy Plant Society members got a special tour plus discount shopping opportunity; that alone is worth the price of membership.) Most of the plants I bought are succulents, a broad and fascinating family. One of the best-known species is sempervivum, which typically grows as a central rosette surrounded by smaller offshoots. Its common name is hens and chicks.

Disquieted

Berry Botanic Garden is on the endangered list. I’d been wanting to go, and when a visiting friend asked about it, seized the opportunity. We went this morning and saw dozens of new-to-me plants, including the exquisite Agapetes serpens from the Himalayas (above) and a kiwi relative (below) called Actinidia kolomikta, which appeared to be suffering from a beguilingly lovely fungal blight, but is actually healthy and normal.

I’m nowhere near knowledgeable enough to qualify as a plant geek. You think I knew these names? Any civilized garden -- and Berry is certainly that -- like any civilized social gathering, offers name tags to its guests.

My friend and her husband are staying downtown, in the Park Blocks, and I asked her to drop me off there so I could check out the current exhibit at the Portland Art Museum. The show is called Disquieted, and it lives up to its name: skewed, often creepy, images involving the human body. This highly detailed and realistic sculpture of a boy, for instance, by Ron Mueck. For scale, the mirror behind him, which is part of the piece, is about 18” tall. It’s like some freakish taxidermy, and yet so realistic that you half expect him to turn his head and start talking. Deeply disturbing, yet I couldn’t turn away. It reminded me of that plastinated cadaver exhibit that toured a couple of years ago, only without the flaying.

The show was interesting, though off-balancing and ultimately kind of depressing. I knew I’d find a welcome counterpoint downstairs, in the permanent Asian collection. I spent a few minutes with Quanyin, strolled through the hall of Buddhas, and headed for the bus, quieted.

Flushed with Success

Saturday was our 28th wedding anniversary. We spent most of the day hanging out while the tile guy/floor guy installed the subfloor and then the Marmoleum flooring. It’s covered with protective paper at the moment, but I think the color will be fine. That evening we celebrated (marriage, not Marmoleum) with a lovely dinner at Iorio. Still adore you, Jer, after all these years. (Oh yeah; that’s a closeup of the recessed shampoo/soap shelf, above.)

Sunday was the warmest day of the year so far, with temps in the 70s. I’d committed to volunteering at the Hardy Plant Society spring sale, a huge event at the Expo Center. I spent three hours processing credit card payments: Swipe card, enter last four digits, enter amount, wait for approval, present merchant copy for signature, print customer copy, stamp register receipt “paid.” Lather, rinse, repeat. I got into the rhythm pretty quickly -- a good thing, since at times the traffic was non-stop. I hadn’t felt an adrenaline rush like that since my restaurant line-cooking days. Afterwards I connected with my friends Deb and Maureen, and got to relax with them for a while, snacking and schmoozing in the warm sun.

Early in my shift, I watched a customer proceeding toward the cash register in the midst of his forest of perennial picks; it looked like Birnam Wood creeping toward Dunsinane. His purchases added up to a mind-boggling $663.00. I will never again feel guilty about dropping a few dozen bucks at a nursery.

Some time later, I spotted a guy wearing a brown t-shirt that read “I take mine with cream, sugar, and the 2nd Amendment,” an obvious, if eye-rolling, reference to the recent Starbucks-gun rights controversy. I hadn’t been taking particular notice of the names on people’s credit cards, but I did on this one. It was Lars Larson, Portland’s home-grown equivalent of Rush Limbaugh. Ick.

We’re taking the prudent path and not talking politics with any of the tradesmen who’ve been swarming around our bathroom-to-be. This morning at 8 a crew of three arrived to install the custom cabinet next to the shower. We’re still waiting on the glass-fronted upper door, but the main structure is in (facing the toilet, above) and lookin’ good. Notice the magazine storage shelf midway; that was Jerry’s idea, which I fought at first but now concede is brilliant.

Steve had scheduled the plumber for noon. The cabinet guys were finished, cleaned up, and out the door at 11:57. The plumber is here as I type (a little after 2). We just heard the first flush from the new toilet. This is at least as exciting as the first robin of spring. (6:30 PM update: Followup user test flush: Successful)

So here’s the gorgeous designer (Philippe Starck via Duravit) sink. We did run into a glitch with the installation. Most pedestals, we learned today, are open in back so you can just slide them in around the fittings. This one? A hollow column, sealed most of the way up, with an opening too high to line up with the existing fittings. Solution? Either open the bathroom wall (argh) and re-plumb the piping by a few inches. Or, if you have nerves of steel, take your diamond-blade sword... I mean saw, and enlarge the opening on the back of the pedestal -- without, of course, shattering the custom-ordered item into a million pieces. Steve chose option #2, and succeeded. Whew.

Steve had hoped to set the tile for the backsplash this afternoon, but because of the sink issues, and the fact that the p-trap is still not tightly sealed, will hold off til tomorrow. Hopefully that and a few other incidentals will wrap up the active phase of this project.

It was a difficult day in some ways, especially for the plumber, who is experienced but new to this company, and wants to demonstrate his competence and unflappability. Sophie has great confidence in the outcome, and so do we.

Out of one, many

I mentioned my good deal at the garden show -- a deceptively top-heavy aloe vera for $12.95. Aloe is an amazing plant; pinch off a portion of a leaf, spread the gel on your owie (it's especially good for kitchen burns), and you heal, miraculously, sans blisters or terminal bleeding.

Today I separated and repotted the monster plant. When I bought it, it was in one of those tall black plastic (half-gallon, maybe?) pots, and incredibly root-bound. I now have thirteen pots-full of aloe vera. Want one?

Spring Tease

I see signs of spring everywhere. Chalk art on the sidewalk. My colorful sock drawer. Even the compost bucket looked particularly beguiling this morning. It's supposed to start raining again tomorrow, but this weekend has been glorious.

Friday morning Jer and I went to the yard and garden show at the Convention Center. Our official mission was to scope out deck builders and get answers to a few existential questions, e.g., which comes first, the hot tub or the lumber. My own sekrit, stealth mission, though, was to score some plants. We were successful on both fronts, though I'll poke around some more in Angie's List for contractor recommendations.

I found primo specimens of all three of the plants that I wanted, including an aloe vera for kitchen emergencies (I brought several from California, where they thrived, but all of them mysteriously turned to slime in Portland); a tiny witch hazel with adorably weird winter-blooming whirly-birdy flowers (I'd noticed a couple around the 'hood in the past few weeks and was completely taken with them); and, eternal optimist that I am, a Meyer lemon. It has two ripe lemons on it already, so even if the tree-ette doesn't make it, we'll still have had a crop. At $22.50 per lemon.

Saturday I pruned the "big" rose bed, which I didn't get to last weekend, and yesterday I spent a couple of hours on the stepladder, loppers in hand, trying to tame the out-of-control climbing-rose arbor on the east side of the house. It's President's Day weekend and I got the roses pruned; I feel like part of some vast and ancient tradition.

Today I planted the little witch hazel (shown here on the kitchen table). I'll probably try the lemon in a container, at least for this season; I have a beautiful pot that's just the right size. The aloe is top-heavy; it desperately needs dividing and repotting -- I got my money's worth on that one -- but another day. I also cleaned the grill and the grill cover, which has been off most of the winter because, duh, the grill was too greasy to put it on. One small gesture in the face of entropy.

Another highlight of the weekend was hearing the great Michael Smith in a small venue up by Ladd's Addition. He's a low-key yet utterly compelling performer. If you like singer-songwriter-type stuff and don't know Michael's work, you're missing some wonderful music. (note: He's Michael Peter Smith, not to be confused with the "Christian music" Michael Smith.)

The road goes on forever, the party never ends

It's been a full and satisfying couple of days. Yesterday we had a visit from my ex-sister-in-law, Sheri, her husband Mark, and their almost-three-year-old, Josh's half-brother Matthew. Jer hadn't met Mark before, and neither of us had met Matthew, who's very blond, sweet and funny, and of course adorable. I served two salads for lunch -- smoked chicken with blue cheese, peaches, hazelnuts and greens; and broccoli with whole-wheat rotini, peanuts, scallions and a vaguely Asian dressing. The former in particular was a winner.

After we ate, I led Sheri and Matthew to Berkeley Park while Mark and Jer did guy-talk for a while. The park is just a couple of blocks away and we often stroll through it on our daily walks, but this was the first time in the two years we've lived in the neighborhood that I had an opportunity, or a reason, to focus on the playground aspect. While Sheri and I attempted to carry on a conversation, Matthew went happily from climbing structure to sliding board to bouncy chairs to swings to rings and back to climbing structure. Repeatedly.

After they got back on the road and we (by which I include the cats) had recovered from all that toddler energy, Jer and I went to dinner at Nostrana. I've been wanting to check that place out for ages, and we finally got there. It did not disappoint. We shared an heirloom tomato/mozzarella/basil salad, one of my favorite combinations. I ordered an eggplant, chickpea and farro soup, which was quite tasty, and Jerry had a fish dish the details of which escape me, but it involved a great deal of butter and was exquisitely delicious. My entree was pizza with caramelized onions; I took almost half of it home and am looking forward to having it for dinner tomorrow. For dessert we'd preordered the berry-nectarine crisp, which took 20 minutes to prepare and was served hot, with almond cream poured over it at the table. Oh my. It sounds like a lot of food, and I suppose it was, but we didn't feel stuffed; it was Just Right. I look forward to going back.

Jer was off to Denver for a conference at dark o'clock this morning. Ironically, his takeoff was delayed almost three hours; had we known, he could have gotten a normal night's sleep. My day was incredibly productive in a boring, low-key, checkbook-balancing kind of way. I made a run over to Jeannette's to pick up some crocosmia and "Autumn gold" sedum that she'd culled from her garden. Now I must ponder where to stick 'em in ours. Then I sat in the back yard for a while and finished Bee Season, a remarkable book. I'd enjoyed the movie and wondered how much more there was to the story; now I know.

Around 6:30, I headed toward the Bite of Oregon festival at Waterfront Park. Last year we attended this event thinking it would be all about Portland's top restaurants offering savory snacks; nope, that's Taste of the Nation, which is about 10 times more expensive to attend, but worth it. Bite is much more corporate/mass market, but the entertainment this year is top-notch. The draw for me was Robert Earl Keen, but I got there in time for Todd Snider's set, and he was a revelation. A home-town boy (well, Beaverton), based in Nashville now, with a funny (though, I suspect, scripted) rap and some great original songs.

Keen rocked; I titled this post after the song he did for his encore. The audience let him go after just one because it simply couldn't be topped -- except, perhaps, by a full-out fireworks display, which began on the final downbeat. Perfect timing! I watched most of it from the walkway on the west side of the river, directly opposite the barge, took a dozen or so photos (I like the shakey one; it's, uh, dynamic), then walked back across the Hawthorne Bridge to where I'd parked the del Sol. She and I were home in less than 15 minutes. Lordy, I love this town.

Eat, Play, Shop

My friend Anita, art quilter extraordinaire and mother of the delightful and talented Zoe, was in town for a short visit, and yesterday was gurlz day out. Our ultimate destination was the Cracked Pots garden art show at Edgefield. We stopped for lunch en route at Om Seafood on SE Powell at 70-somethingth. I bought crab at the market several months ago, but hadn't yet gotten to the adjacent Chinese restaurant. Anita and I both ordered rock cod; the fish was impeccably fresh, our dishes were tasty, attractive, and well-prepared, and the service was friendly and flawless.

Everything sold at the Cracked Pots show -- bird houses, bird baths and feeders, benches, tables and trellises, whimsical sculptures and what-have-you -- is made from recycled materials. The opposite of flawless, in a way. One artist, for instance, transformed hundreds of pieces of flatware into a single giant fork. Another built a charming tractor out of rusty god-knows-what. (That's Anita in the green top, standing to the left.) Someone else turned old kitchen drawers on edge and called them shelves. I loved it. Edgefield itself is a recycled property, the former county poor farm, repurposed by the McMenamin brothers and folded into their funky yet picturesque hotel/restaurant/pub empire.

I lusted in my heart for several items, including a 12-foot-tall fire-breathing dragon with a price tag of $8,000-ish that surely would have been the talk of Rural Street. But heron sculptures have been calling out to me consistently since we moved to town, so I could easily justify my purchase of a two-dimensional Great Blue. S/he seems perfectly at home by the marshy-looking clump of grass just in front of our porch.

On the way back from Edgefield, we made two more shopping stops. Anita wanted to go to Fabric Depot, where I have no trouble killing time. She found yardage and incidentals she needed for Zoe's wedding, while I picked up a few random items, including Shiva paintsticks, a book on using same, and a new, ergonomically-friendly pair of scissors. I resisted buying a set of plastic, pre-formed, textured sheets (op-art, triangles, ethnic motifs, etc.) specifically designed for stamping and rubbing. I'd rather hunt for random objects, though the animal skin set was actually pretty cool. I did love the bolt of day-glo orange fabric on the display marked "camouflage." In what universe?

Finally, we detoured into Portland Nursery on SE Stark. It was another Anita-driven stop, but it gave me an excuse to cruise the shade house in search of the elusive toad lily, which Grace had recommended for the spot in the backyard from which she'd rescued and transplanted three or four struggling roses. I managed to wrest two variegated tricyrtis from Cornell Farm several weeks ago (long story), but they weren't in bloom, and here were several in full, glorious flower. I bought just one, a different variety from those you can kinda see in the background here, and will plant her, I hope, tomorrow.

So, a very satisfying afternoon. Several relaxed hours with a friend, sunny but not hot weather, a good meal and new restaurant discovery all in one, plus modest indulgence in my favorite kinds of shopping: fabric/sewing notions and plants/garden stuff. The only thing missing was a side trip to Powell's, but that would have been too much of a good thing.

Three small joys

One of the less prepossessing plants that Grace installed in our garden -- okay, it looks like a rangy piece of grass -- decided to strut its stuff a few days ago. I noticed that it had flowered; from the living room window, though, it didn't look like much. But then I inspected it more closely, and holy moly, what a show. Worlds within worlds. It's gone now, but hopefully it'll perform again.

My Moo cards arrived, and I love them. I'd been thinking for a while about upgrading my business cards from the plain D-I-Y style I've been using since the advent of laser printers and perforated stock. On Kaua'i, my pal Art, Flickr God and photographer extraordinaire, showed me the perfect solution: Moo cards let you upload photos of your choice, or import them from Flickr or a number of other applications, crop them, and add the appropriate text to the other side. Voila; cards with art, almost instantly. You can use as many different images as you want; the more you upload, the more variety, obviously, and the fewer copies of each. One or two favorite pictures, and you get 50 or 100 of each. Like that. I had lots of fun using the cropping tool to select provocative sections of some of my quilts and favorite scenic vistas. They're about half the size of a regular business card, which I suppose might create some problems, but which I think just adds to their distinction. They print and ship from the UK; I had my order, in a neat little plastic box, in less than 10 days. I am so pleased; I can't wait to reorder. Here, would you like my card?

The retaining wall outside my studio window is in its full green glory. The delicate viney thing with tiny flowers is cascading over the stones, and the ferns are at their peak. Later in the season it'll all dry out and look not so wonderful, but right now it's exquisitely lush. I must get back into the studio, if only to spend more time staring at the wall.

The Easter Bulby's been here

This is not an April Fool's set-up, I swear. Jer and I spotted this charming little scene on our walk yesterday morning. Can someone illuminate me as to eggzactly what's going on here? Maybe these are the kind of bulbs you plant if you want to grow Christmas trees. Well, at least we have it on tape, yuk yuk.

Okay, I'll stop. Clearly it's spring in Portland, and I've got a case of the giddies. I spent a while surveying what a friend referred to as "the emerging biomass" around our house. The little Japanese maple I planted a year ago is leafing out in delicate peach and pale green. The rose arbor needs pruning already. My tarragon didn't get the memo that it's supposed to be a perennial, dammit, but the other herbs made it through the winter in fine shape. The plum tree is dusted with white blossoms, and the chestnut leaves are unfolding like origami. Pretty soon the house next door will disappear again.
And, oh joy, the three hostas I stuck in the shady southwest corner last fall have finally poked their pointy heads through the sodden earth. I had my doubts, oh me of little faith. But spring really is about rebirth. That was far less apparent in California, where winter means more rain but temps seldom dip into the 30s. Of course it's even more obvious in regions not blessed with Portland's relatively mild winters. But we had just enough snow and sub-freezing weather these last few months, enough unrelenting it-might-rain days in a row, for the arrival of spring to feel like a real and profound change. This is such an exquisite, vibrant time of year. I could fall on my knees in gratitude.

And while I'm down there, I might as well do some weeding.

Road Trip, Sky Trip

It's been a busy couple of days. I finally made it down to Coos Bay, with my friends Beth and Mary, to see a pair of art quilt exhibits, Speaking in Cloth and Fine Focus '06, at the museum there. Mary's husband Farley drove, and we made a two-day art tour of it, taking in the Coos Bay art walk (such as it was) on Thursday night and some galleries in Eugene en route home on Friday, after breakfast at the excellent Zenon Cafe.

Speaking in Cloth was co-curated by two local textile artists, Jeannette DeNicolis Meyer (with whom I've studied) and Ann Johnston, and includes their work and that of four other artists. Fine Focus consists of small works (no more than a foot or so on a side) by 50 different artists. Both were inspirational in the very direct sense of making me want to get back into my studio and create.

Apart from the art, the Coos Art Museum has, in its lobby, the largest angelwing begonia plant I've ever seen. A typical leaf was six or seven inches long, about the size of an entire plant, in my experience. As I was oohing and aahing over it, the volunteer receptionist pressed a cutting on me, which of course I had to baby for the rest of the trip. I'll try to make a good home for Little Bertha.

Speaking of large plants, we called in a tree guy to prune some low and otherwise iffy limbs from the two sweetgums on our parking strip. Most of the work happened before I got home on Friday. It sure makes a big difference; lots more light in the living room, for one thing -- and, I hope, fewer of those hateful spiky seedpod balls to deal with during the fall and winter. We also gained some firewood, which Jer toted around back and I spent an hour or so stacking. Yes, I did ache the next day.

The city is still offering free aerial tram rides on Saturdays during February, so yesterday we decided to check it out. The new tram connects the South Waterfront area with the OHSU (Oregon Health & Science University) complex on Marquam Hill. It was a controversial project for all the obvious reasons -- cost, neighborhood impact, and so on -- but, from what I've read, it's quieter and less obtrusive than originally feared, and most of the neighbors seem to have made their peace with it. The line was long-ish, with lots of kids and a definite Disneyland vibe. It moved quickly, though, since the ride is just three minutes long and each of the two cars (cabins? capsules? gondolas?) holds more passengers than you might imagine.

The view en route is spectacular, and the structure itself a gorgeous piece of engineering. I took the equivalent of two rolls of film and posted a bunch on Flickr. At the top, we strolled along the observation deck, which is studded with sculpture. The adjacent corridor is hung with some interesting paintings and prints. Who knew? Obviously we'll have to add another stop to our standard tour-guide itinerary: "We'll take you to the Japanese Garden, the Rose Garden, the Classical Chinese Garden, Powell's Books, and then we'll go to the hospital."