Henny Penny Farmette

The backyard and farmhouse patio bathed in morning sunlight

Each day on my farmette starts with chores involving plants and animals . . . and writing. The latter might seem a bit strange until you understand that my farmette–with its organic heirloom vegetables, eggs, and honey–has evolved into a brand that includes my forthcoming Henny Penny Farmette novels. It’s business. I have to write three novels in three years. I’ve already written two.

Like any business that involves regular tasks for keeping the enterprise thriving, my farmette novels require a daily commitment to writing. Excellence in my writing endeavors is just as important to me as the quality of my Henny Penny Farmette jams, honey, eggs, and this blog.

Chickens are an integral part of the farmette landscape

I rise early,  at 4:00 AM, to get a jump on my day. The roosters start crowing around that hour, but the sleepy hens remain on the roost until daylight. I like to stroll outside, see the edges of the black sky turning lighter at the eastern horizon, observe the position of the moon and stars, feel the cool predawn air on my face, and notice the silent vapor of fog receding like gray shroud being tugged upon.

I enjoy the scent of pine and orange blossoms (when the trees are in bloom), and take note of the occasional spritzing of a skunk or cat marking its territory while out prowling. These observations become notes in my journal.

At bedtime and when I awaken during the night, I practice yoga nidra, a state of deep relaxation and lucid dreaming. Often, though, the lucidity may be nudged aside as sleep and dreams in which I am not aware of my physical environment take over. Still, I sometimes work through problems in my life or my stories and awaken with a solution . . . sometimes, but not always.

A pretty corner of the garden on the farmette

During the morning hours before sunrise, following a good night’s sleep, I feel sharpest and most in tune with nature and my deepest, inner Self.  One of my favorite writers John O’Donohue observed the profound and numinous presence of nature and wrote in his book Anam Cara:  “Landscape is not all external, some has crept inside the soul. Human presence is infused with landscape.”

The Henny Penny Farmette landscape has echoes from the past in it. I’ve re-created my grandmother’s farm garden where I spent happy hours of my childhood. But also, I’ve got my own personal stamp on this landscape. It’s a lot of work, but I embrace the daily chores and the discipline needed to keep the farmette and a book series going. It’s an ongoing journey to a new horizon.

This lovely Nuttall’s Woodpecker has returned this year, perhaps to watch its offspring peck away at our roof strut

It’s been a week of rat-ta-tat-tat-tating and I’m growing wearing of hearing it. The woodpecker’s sound ordinarily doesn’t bother me, except I know it is pecking the foam, widening the hole of an exterior beam supporting the roof of this old house.

While my husband is away visiting relatives and I’m trying to keep the place tidy, the woodpecker isn’t going along with the plan. It is making a mess on the porch that rivals the squirrels’ messes when nuts are in season.

The bird has pecked wood shavings that fall into a pile on the porch. Worse, it is also pecking out the dry foam that we sprayed into the holes. Stopping the woodpecker’s assault against our beam forced me to take drastic measures.

When I heard the pecking this morning, I circled around the back of the house and sneaked along the side to catch the bird in the act. Seeing me, it took cover in the nearby elm tree.

From the bird’s size, I believe it to be either a female or a juvenile Nuttall’s woodpecker. We had one here last year that I photographed high in the pine tree. See http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Nuttalls_Woodpecker/id

A screen bent to fit around the beam has deterred the woodpecker, at least for now

The solution, I think, might be a screen I found in a frame that clamps nicely over the two holes. Since securing the metal in place with screws, I haven’t heard a single rat-ta-tat-tat  . . . not even in the nearby pine or the elm trees.

Frozen water in geometric patterns

When you are renovating a house, you don’t welcome freezing weather. When I heard frost warnings for the overnight hours, I turned off my outdoor fountain. At the stroke of 7:00 a.m., I slipped into my knee-high rubber boots and trotted outside. There I found the water in the fountain frozen in a fractured geometric pattern, due most likely to the wind blowing across the water as it was freezing. If it’s going to freeze in Northern California, I guess this is the right time of year for it to happen.

Carlos balances on a ladder to work on the wire tree

My husband and I have been laboring away for over two years on this little half acre farmette and cottage and are a long way from being finished. With just the two of us doing all the work, it could take years–a sobering thought. Already the close of 2012 approaches. Christmas is five days away.

Driving to the local do-it-yourself (DIY) store in our little red truck to buy materials and tools, we are visually reminded of the time of year and the season, too, with outdoor decorations, lights, and Christmas trees covered in ornaments displayed in living room windows for miles.

I refuse to buy a cut tree. First of all, I’d really rather have a living tree in a pot or rosemary or some other herb sheared into a cone than to support the cutting and harvesting of a living tree such as the pine and spruce, so beloved as Christmas trees.

Sorry, it this offends, but my philosophy is that the trees we have on Earth are our planet’s lungs. Trees take carbon dioxide out of the air. They store carbon in their wood. They give off life-giving oxygen that each human needs.

Wire tree with lights

But beyond my philosophizing, I look around my tiny, unfinished house and see no good place to park a tree of any type. So my husband, ever the architect, dreams up a plan to build a holiday tree on the back lawn and cover it with energy-efficient led lights.

He hammered a tall pole into the ground and then stretched wire from the pole top to 16 ground stakes. Using a board to draw a perfect circle around the base of the tree, he drove the stakes along the circle line. Each of the metal stakes had a slot or hole at the top through which the wire could be slipped through and tied off. From top to bottom, he strung the lights.

We can see our holiday tree through the glass patio door. Our little farmhouse now feels a little more festive, even without interior decorations. It also smells good inside with all the baking I’ve been doing. This year, we’re putting together baskets for gift giving.

We’ll fill the egg gathering baskets with jars of my summer stone-fruit jams, homemade cookies, loaves of pumpkin spiced bread and banana nut bread, fresh oranges and tangerines from our trees, and mini jars of honey tied up with gingham fabric and ribbon. Our baskets of homemade items  find resonance with the way farmers of my grandmother’s era gave gifts. Somehow, the holiday seemed less commercial back then. So from our hearts to yours, we wish you have a lovely holiday season and a fantastic year ahead. As for us, the renovation goes on.

Finches dining on small black seeds known as Niger seed

Back in my old neighborhood I spent many happy hours watching the birds that flew into the massive pines behind my San Jose home. Then when I moved to the Miami area, I felt thrilled to spot a long-legged, white egret, a small but determined sandpiper, or a bald eagle or two visiting my home on the lake. The visits of those exquisite creatures were always brief and all too soon they would fly back to their nests in the brush or tall pines of the Florida Everglades, only a mile or two away. Now here on the Henny Penny Farmette, I am serenaded every morning by songbirds, often sweet little yellow finches feeding at the feeder five feet above the fence at the back of the property.

Closeup of a wild finch, bright eyed and curious

If you feed them, they will come. Finches love the black nyger seed. Our local feed store sells the seed in bulk and also in white mesh sacks with tiny holes perfect for finch beaks, which are quite small. Of course, some seeds will drop to the ground and, in my experience, easily sprouts and grows into a tall, skinny plant with a blue bloom. I’ve heard that you can sterilize birdseed so it would not root and grow if you toast the seeds for a short time in the oven on high heat. But be careful not to burn them. Not even birds like burnt food.

A robin surveys the world from the top of a tall pine

While making coffee this morning, I peered out the kitchen widow to see a beautiful bird with a rust colored breast perched atop the fifty foot pine. I believe it was a robin. Grabbing my camera, I got off a couple of shots before the bird took flight. I’m pretty sure I haven’t seen the last of that bird. Rain is coming again in a few days and robins love to hop around searching for worms. So regardless of what neighborhood I’m living in, I create habitat and put out food for the wild birds. It welcomes them and their presence nurtures my spirit.