the chicken days of summer

just when you start getting all comfycozy in the slow of summer, you get hit by the heady smell of school supplies and the dedication of them in the back forty at the big box stores and the supermarkets. school supplies are definitely summer's buzzkill.

this summer has been amazingly slow and wonderful. nothing was rushed and we were aware of the methodical planning of meals by what the garden held, trips to the library after work, time in the studio together and the daily living in a small town.

this was the summer of the journey into organic and unprocessed food. my idea of heaven used to be that it was paved with hostess sno balls and edged with hot tamales. to say that it was a slow journey is an understatement.

early summer mornings find me in the garden before work. with the rain that we had this summer, the garden has flourished this season and is growing in how i envisioned it. that is awesomely exciting.

there is a daily cadence to raising chickens and one that i didn't expect to love so much. the chickens are out from under coop arrest and have the day's run of the garden again. in may, a neighbor brought us an orphaned hen so now the count is up to five again. oh, and we named her claudia in honor of our favorite claudia in the world.

the sad thing is that the only real school supplies needed here are mechanical pencils. no pastel puppy notebooks, book covers or schoollockerware of the days of old. no manic begging to go schoolsupplyshopping. while cleaning out a bin in the studio this summer, i came across a glue stick with my son's name written in sharpie. i almost cried except that the shock of it not being dried up blocked that saline, like, real quick.

*yeah!* for the chicken days of summer.