Living with chickens

“May you live in interesting times.” Sometimes, that thought is all the solace I can take away from the relentless drone of the day’s frightening news. Insecurity grows with stories of foreclosures, job losses, store closings, bankruptcies and suicides. I obsess over blogs like that of James Howard Kuntsler, check in on the stock market at Bloomberg.com, or quickly check the latest headline at the Huffington Post to see how much further the world has fallen apart while I was on that last phone call.

But other times, I adopt a more sanguine attitude. I’ve been through tough times in my life, and I know how to survive. I make a mental note to dissociate my concept of who I am from the trappings around me. I am not what I “own,” nor am I the job that pays me. I’ve started changing my myriad of passwords to affirmations instead of cynical constructs full of @ signs and !s. Using words like “light,” “new” or “hope.”

I’m getting as fit as possible. That’s why I’m swimming a half mile three times a week and have kept it up for three months now. A new personal best.

I’ve looked around at the resources at my disposal, and they are vast. Based on them I’ve developed a plan to expand the list of things I can do to survive—whatever happens next. The plan includes:

• utilizing the wood all around me. We’re culling trees, using the tops for firewood and turning their trunks into lumber. Oak. Cherry. Poplar. Pine.
• further utilizing the wood around me by taking a woodworking class at the university craft shop.
• getting serious about getting chickens. Living with Chickens is my current favorite book.
• focusing on the garden. We need to make it better than last year’s.
• apprenticing myself to the region’s best wine-maker. He says his business is recession-proof. No doubt.
• toying with the idea of turning our walk-out basement into an apartment. Help with the mortgage might be good down the line.
• also thinking of becoming a B&B here on the lake in the Shawnee Hills Wine Country for a couple of months next fall.

It’s a lot better to think about positive things.

~