Book Notes: Free-Range Chicken Gardens

My love affair with chickens began when I was a small girl living in the undeveloped mountain terrain of Southern California. We lived on a farm, and we had horses, goats and a pen full of chickens, as well as a cat here and there and a cocker spaniel named Cherry. One very early photo of me shows me sporting a large ruffled sunbonnet, carrying a small woven basket, full to the brim with chicken eggs, which I had gathered myself.

I was the keeper of the chickens, the one who cared deeply about them. When they managed to scamper through holes in the fence I was the one who would track them down in the orchard, who caught them gently, and lovingly put them back where they belonged in the safety of their pen and flock.

~from Plant Whatever Brings You Joy: Blessed Wisdom from the Garden

Thus I was delighted when I noticed Timber Press was publishing Jessi Bloom’s book Free-Range Chicken Gardens. While I have had free-range chickens as an adult, and those who have now read my book will recall the story of my finding my rooster Chanticleer roaming on his own through the woods of Sonoma County, I do not have chickens now, and I’m hoping this book will prove to be one more step in that direction. I’m guessing so, as even the photos leave me longing to have chickens gracing my garden again. How charming is this?

I say VERY! If you have not experienced the gentle clucking of companion chickens scurrying about your beds, you are missing a most wonderful experience, and Jessi Bloom does pave the way for the uninitiated. As she points out in her introduction, “When I first got chickens I made a lot of mistakes.” However her intro has a happy ending, having learned “the hard way”: “Fast forward, and now our girls will come when called…Their housing is clean, rodent-proof, and an impenetrable barricade from night predators.” I’m sure we all know someone who has tried their hand at raising chickens who did not have adequate protection for their flock, so I was glad Jessi includes a good chapter called “Friends and Foes of Hens in the Garden” and begins the chapter writing of predators and pests. Discovering your good intentions were scoffed at by a bear or fox or coyote is a painful experience and leaves its mark especially hard on your children. So a good foundation is the best starting point! Different environments have different requirements. Here’s a lovely example of a chicken coop that would work well as long as you don’t have bears. One thing I learned which I never forgot is this: “Chicken wire keeps critters IN, not critters OUT.” Good to take note.

Jessi outlines the “3 c’s for the chicken garden”. They are the COOP, the CHICKEN RUN and the COMPOST AREA. In considering the coop she advises you to check your local laws. Frequently you might be able to have chickens but not a rooster. Each area is different. She points out that exposure and climate are important considerations, as well as easy access. The chicken run is an area that allows your chickens to have fresh air, sunlight and earth. This area can be permanent or rotating. The compost area is where you keep that rich chicken manure you now have access to for fertilization. Jessi uses two bins so she can rotate materials from one bin to the other.

In addressing chicken manure for fertilization one might find a chicken tractor as the one above as a possible choice, for one has the ability to move ones chickens around, to eat your bugs, till your soil and spread their fertilizing gifts, all while being contained. This requires the ability to move such a structure however. But lucky if you can!

For me the ultimate gift of chickens in the garden is the simple pleasure of having them about. I find them infinitely charming. They always bring a smile to my face and open my heart just a bit wider. This is enough reason, surely.

Love and chickie blessings,
Kathryn xoxo

Book News: I’ve at last joined the ranks of millions on Facebook, launching a Facebook Fan Page for those who have read Plant Whatever Brings You Joy to be able to reach out, and for those who have not to obtain more information. I’m also in the process of securing pics of my book on shelves around the country, and this one from San Francisco International Airport, in Compass Books in Terminal 3 was a recent highlight, I must admit!

Posted on July 5th, 2012 by Kathryn
Filed under: Book Notes | 10 Comments »

Coco, a Fairy Tale


Once upon a time there was a wee small kitten wandering the vineyards of a very small village in the rugged county of Mendocino. The village had once been home to a tribe of Native American Pomo Indians. But that was long ago and now the village was on the decline, a place where people passed through merely to get to the next town, or the next. There were no welcoming facilities for lost or homeless kittens, very especially not for those who were falling through the friendly cracks of civilization, headed for a life of feral existence. Oh, no. As fate would have it a young couple noticed the kitten and had the decency (or perhaps they were annoyed by her presence) to take it to a neighboring town a few miles up the road, where she was locked in a large room dedicated to large cats with wicked tempers and glaring eyes, destined only for barn catdom, such as it is. The wispy woman in charge of this lot of felines perhaps noticed the frailty of the little kitten, who had not yet progressed to the point of no return on the Road to a Feral Life, and moved her to a second room, a room where those felines had a slim chance of making it back to a family life and a warm heart. And as Destiny would have it, the small critter, maybe only because she was very cute, and very small, and seemingly so innocent, was moved from there to a third room called The Adoption Room. People came and went week after week, however, and paid the little thing no mind at all. Not at all.

One day a sprightly woman with cornsilk hair entered The Adoption Room, where only four other inhabitants lived, if truth be told. A large black cat with grape green eyes, rather foreboding. The teeniest of black kittens spitting fearfully at all who approached. And a very large ginger cat who was content to be left to herself, thank you very much. The woman who entered smelled of roses and lavender and spotted the wee kitten crouched quietly in the back corner of her metal cage, making herself very small and quiet, without losing presence. Indeed, the woman took one look at the kitten and a spark flew between the two Earthly beings. Oh, the teeniest of sparks, but undeniable, nevertheless.

“May I see that kitten?” the woman said. A young girl kindly pulled the kitten from its safe corner and placed her on the ground. Snap.

“Well, hello there!” The woman slowly bent down to touch the kitten, and the kitten met her touch with a harsh clawing.

“Ouch.”

The woman rather abandoned the idea of the kitten who scratched, but returned to her home and that night in the dead of her sleep her eyes opened and a voice inside her said, “Her name is Coco.” Drawing herself awake she laughed to herself. “Oh, dear. I’m naming that cat.” What does that mean?

What it meant was that she returned to the shelter and within another day she was writing a cheque and filling out paperwork for a cat she was, in all honesty, afraid to pick up. Yet her heart and spirit told her this kitty was hers, and meant to be with her in this lifetime. And that was what she honored.

However, not all gifts and blessings are straightforward. Not at all. Some paths require detours. And effort. And so it was with Coco and her new friend. For the woman had it in mind, and rightly so, that it would be both wise and kind to visit the kitten as often as she could afford, to allow them to begin to bond and to know each other, as they awaited a needed spaying to take place. She brought tiny bits of “wet food” from home, the kind the kitten would soon be eating, she thought. And she brought a blanket. And a small toy. And a comb to comb her. And as questions arose she asked the people who worked there about her. Might she have mites? How long had she been there? Did she have her shots, yet? These were good questions. And yet they were met with increasing resistance, until, upon asking the most dreaded question–might she have a bath prior to surgery?–when it became clear that the people who were charged with the care of the (mostly feral) animals, were themselves now slightly feral and they descended on the loving woman and sent her out the door without her beloved new charge. And she was heartbroken.

“You become like what you contemplate.” ~Anonymous

As it had not been long since the tender-hearted woman had lost another beloved cat, she found herself weeping a torrent of tears until she at last picked up the phone and asked her vet for help. “Do you need grief counseling?” Apparently she did. So she listened to the kindest of nurses, a woman named Michael, who told her to do two things. And she did. She got immediately into her car and drove north into the country to a second shelter about which she had known nothing and walked among cage after cage of well adjusted cats, mature cats who had lived there for years. “It feels like a cat monastery,” she told herself. But the cat in her heart was not among these contented beings. No. She was stuck in a tiny steel cage, now missing the woman who had shown her kindness, the first she’d ever seen.

What to do?

The second instruction was to call a woman whose life was devoted to rescuing cats.

“If you want to rescue a cat, call a cat rescuer.” ~Kathryn Hall, in retrospect

The Cat Rescuer listened to the strange story of the little kitten, and found herself agreeing it would be very strange, indeed, to deny the little kitten a loving home simply because an abundance of love and care had been shown her. Where is the wisdom in that?

“Enthusiam is not always well received.” ~Nurse Michael

Blessedly, a plan was hatched that evening during that fateful phonecall. And the Cat Rescuer, whose entire life was devoted to saving cats, offered to have the little homeless kitten, little Coco, released into her care, whereupon she would be delivered into the safe hands of Nurse Michael and her staff. And so it happened.

Imagine the flaxen woman’s happiness when she received a phone call from her vet saying, “Coco is here and we are giving her a bath!”

Two days later little Coco was taken home to her forever home and she was given her own room in which to adjust, for her new life included two well meaning Border Collies and a Siamese cat named Sweet Pea, who was, in actuality, an old lady and not inclined readily to accept a new cat in her home. Oh, well.


Coco with her new bunny toy

Love and kitty blessings,
Kathryn xoxo

Book News: The biggest news to date is simply that I at last can be found on Facebook at www.facebook.com/TheKathrynHall Please let me know if I might friend you!

Posted on June 19th, 2012 by Kathryn
Filed under: Animals | 7 Comments »

The Virtues of Mullein

One the basic tenets in my book Plant Whatever Brings You Joy is “Never pull up and discard what you cannot identify.” So when a soft grey-green plant emerged in the side garden, sporting a lovely green rosette, I was not inclined to pull it. I was more interested in identifying it, and exploring what it had to offer. And somewhere inside myself was an old memory that this was a plant I’d seen before. Hmmm. A brief description to an old friend of mine on the Cape brought the memory to the fore. It was mullein. Now what the heck is mullein and what is it doing here? What does it have to offer and to teach me? Let’s explore!

“To know a plant you must work with the plant.” ~Kathryn Hall

I turned first to well-worn reference books that have served me over the years as starting points, Back to Eden by Jethro Kloss, which every self-respecting back-to-the-land woman owned in the 60’s. Then, of course, there is Culpeper’s Complete Herbal, the work of Britain’s Nicholas Culpeper (1616-1654). For a modern interpretation I refer again to Practical Herbs by Henriette Kress of Finland, recently here reviewed. I rounded out my research through google readings and a trip to the health food store to purchase a small quantity of mullein (Verbascum thapsus).

Interestingly Culpepper describes two other varieties of mullein, Verbascum Nigrum (Black Mullein) and Verbascum Lychnitis (White Mullein), so this was not a good resource, other than to know that in the 17th Century the British were also exploring the virtues of mullein! Back to Eden, published originally in 1939 in Tennessee, does address Verbascum thapsus, and begins by describing its various common names, which include velvet plant, white mullein, blanket herb, flannel flower, and hare’s beard. Any of those familiar in your locale? It is not surprising to find the names alluding to the soft leaves of the mullein. They are most attractive. Back to Eden reflects the most common use of mullein I could find–that as a relief for coughs, for lung problems, asthma, croup, bronchitis. I’ve decided this will be my focus, to experiment with the tea for coughs as they emerge during certain seasons. My intuition tells me this is a good remedy to know. As with all herbal use one must do due diligence in researching many sources, and check for any contraindications.

Moving into the 21st Century, Kress focuses on the flowers of mullein, counseling to pick the single flowers, which you dry in a shady spot indoors for a week to ten days, or until very dry. She then instructs us to store them in an airtight glass jar in a dark cupboard and use within a year or so. And how does she use them? She goes on with a recipe for mullein ear oil, saying mullein “reduces both inflammation and pain,”, reassuring that mullein is nontoxic. Encouraged by her work I’m going to take a page from her book on gathering and drying leaves, so I will have my own store of herbs at hand. Always better, don’t you think?

Although I saw one or two references to mullein possibly being “invasive” [the dreaded “I” word] my reading and observations tell me otherwise. There are two other plants in this large garden. One little one, which I may or may not keep, and one rather artfully tucked into a very large buddleia, keeping watch over the myriad butterflies attracted to the just emerged purple blossoms. I like it and it will stay. I treasure the herbs growing here, that I always have access to: spearmint, oregano, rosemary, peppermint, lemon balm and more. To know they are at hand when needed is a blessing for which I am deeply grateful. I hope you also have an abundance of herbs at your ready.

Love and garden blessings,
Kathryn xoxo

Book News: OdeWire has graciously run an excerpt from Plant Whatever Brings You Joy. And, I continue to play with my iPhone’s new feature–that of being able to take pics of oneself, in this case, still enjoying my new hat!

If you’ve not visited the trailer for Plant Whatever Brings You Joy yet, click here!

Posted on June 12th, 2012 by Kathryn
Filed under: Plants | 15 Comments »

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