confessions of outlaw chickener

The following is a guest post by the outlaw chickener. His name, for obvious reasons, has been withheld.

"Eating is always at least two activities: consuming food and obeying a code of manners. And in the manners is concealed a program of taboos as rigid as Deuteronomy." -Guy Davenport

It been just over four years now since I first hatched the idea of raising backyard birds in my small town neighborhood. I liked the idea for all of its reasons- raising chickens for the fertilizer, the farmliness, the bug control, the cuteness, and of course the eggs. I liked the idea of having my own source of eggs and knowing what went into them- and what didn't- as I scrambled some for breakfast for my daughter. It made me feel more secure and sounded fun; as if I would be a little more responsible for feeding my family and able to enjoy raising some of my own food. There was just one problem with my plan. Where I live raising chickens is illegal.

As a land planner I know all about city ordnances and zoning laws and how they’ve come to shape communities all across America. The process isn’t centered on community gatherings where by city planners and concerned citizens write up elaborate rules to govern the look, feel and touch of their town. No, what happens more often is that municipal officials copy existing zoning rules from other municipalities, make a few changes, offer a public input session or two and largely adopt the documents wholesale without enough consideration of the details. This sort of generic governance doesn’t sit well with me but nonetheless, I read the rules, found that they did indeed exclude chickens from my backyard and decided to inquire about what sort of variance it would take for me to bring birds home legally.

As a long time citizen of my small town I know enough about the politics of my area to understand that if I tried a frontal attack on the establishment I was likely to run up against knee-jerk resistance. Four years ago when I was exploring the idea of backyard chickens, the media, tired of reporting on the 30,000 people who die of regular influenza in America each year, was focusing diligently on the incredibly small number of avian flu cases around the world and offering pandemic predictions about the wildfire of disease that backyard birders in Asia and elsewhere might ignite. Never mind the evidence that it is in fact the commercial poultry industry who is more to blame. The only avian flu outbreak on record in America happened at a commercial poultry operation in Virginia. All surrounding backyard birds tested negative. It’s likely that if backyard birds and small scale chicken raising operations were the way most people got their meat and their eggs, bird flu wouldn’t be nearly as big of a problem. But terror is more contagious than bird flu and I was afraid that fear would outweigh fact in any variance hearing I might attend and that my chances of ever having my own chickens might be gone for good if I approached it in that way.

Still curious, I poked around the periphery of local governance to see what my chances were. I requested an acquaintance of mine to ask all the right people, hypothetically, what the chances were of allowing someone like me to legally raise chickens in the city. The results of my informal investigation were disappointing. I seemed likely to lose any appeal, said my trusty informant, reporting that prominent councilmen and commissioners sounded ready to up hold the letter of the law, which said rather straightforwardly,

“No livestock [which includes chickens by definition] shall be kept, maintained or stabled within any Residential Zoning District,” with the caveat that, “The provisions of this section shall not apply to dogs, cats, or other similar household pets.”

My plan was already taking shape. If caught, my neighbor’s cockatoo would serve as my main defense.

While I do believe laws like these that summarily dismiss my ability to safely raise certain foods for my family in my very own yard are foolish and out of date, I do understand one of the reasons they have been in enacted. These days they serve as a stand in for neighborly communication. A rule against chickens in a neighborhood takes the place of a good old fashioned democratic meeting where those in favor of chickens debate those opposed. An agreement is reach where by the basic rights of the minority are hopefully protected but the majority vote takes the day. These days though we mostly have mandated rules, heavily influenced by insiders. (You can decide for yourself whether I'm talking here about my city, my state or my country) But I did understand that if I was going to ignore the rules that meant replacing their authority with consent from my neighbors. I talked to each of them and was given permission, emphatically as I remember, with one caveat- no roosters, to which I agreed. My wife wouldn’t allow one anyway.

So having gained permission- in fact whole hearted support- from those who lived around me, I got ready to raise a flock. I did what most new backyard birders do. I looked over the Internet for information on how to raise chickens and downloaded images of clever chicken tractors. I read a few books and talked to a few people. I built a coop, bought a little gear and brought home a few chicks from the local feed store around Easter. I settled in with my outlawed birds.

Now that I've done my best to convince you that I had no choice, that it was way too risky to try and confront the mechanically adopted rules against raising chickens inside my city's limits I should come clean and let you in on another fact. I like being an outlaw chickener. I should not tell a lie. It's fun to be part of an underground movement raising healthy, responsible food and I enjoy all the other trappings that come with keeping city chickens. Something about breaking the rules feels especially invigorating.

Anyone who looks at the food industry up close in this country will undoubtedly come away angry. Sure we've given up our control over what we eat. That is, we were on watch over the years as multinational corporations came to dictate what we eat. But take a spin through the US Farm bill and I can't imagine you won't come away completely pissed off. It's corporate welfare straight from the mouths of a government that seems not to concern itself with the fact that more than 35 million American live food insecure in this country. 72% of the billions of dollars Doled out in the farm bill go to the 10% largest companies growing 5 crops: corn, wheat, soybean, rice and cotton- in virtual lockstep with the processed food industry. And if that's not enough to get you riled up, stand back and take a look at the grocery store, held up as a model of choice. Take a look at the supposed bounty of food we've received in the deal. Here I'm going to borrow from Helena Norberg-Hodge et al because this passage from _Bringing the Food Economy Home_ explains it so well.

"It's easy for Northern consumers to believe that industrial agriculture and global trade have actually led to an increase in food diversity. A well-stocked supermarket can overwhelm with its apparent food choices: fifty different kinds of breakfast cereal: eighty feet of shelving devoted to fruit juices, soft drinks, and other beverages: six different brands of cottage cheese; ten varieties of potato chips...Much of this apparent diversity is illusion, however, since 80 percent of the supermarket that consists of processed foods offers little choice. A close look at several different packages of crackers of canned soup will reveal virtually identical lists of ingredients. In many cases... the only diversity is each one's distinct packaging. ...dozens of apple varieties once may have grown within a few miles of a supermarket that today sells just three or four- those favored by large growers."

Then start to look at all the health problems with the way we eat: the chemicals, the hormones, the antibiotics, the genetically modified organisms not to mention the lobbying by specific sectors of the food industry. Read up on the politics of the food pyramid and you'll realize what a corporate controlled joke that campaign really is!

Whew! Look what I've gone and done- gotten all worked up just writing a little post about being an outlaw chickener and I guess that's my point. Our relationship with food in this country is all kinds of screwed up. At the heart of the problem is people making boatloads of money off of this sick system. And, I might add, sticking it to the farmers who grow food as well. It's enough to make a person want to do something radical, to throw caution to the wind, to purposefully break a law that seems to support this broken system of eating. I promise it is a good feeling to knowingly participate in a counterculture revolution by being someone who knows raising eggs in the backyard is illegal and does it anyway. There is a sense of sanity, a sense of retribution, a sense that I can do it anyway even if the entire system seems stacked against me and my ability to be in charge of my families nutrition. And it feels good. It's also infectious as others talk about my underground operation as if I'm a resistance fighter, and in a way, I am. Plenty of others want to join, even if that only means using some of my eggs. In my town, those eggs are starting to grow a following.

The process of becoming a successful chicken outlaw has been great. Eating great tasting eggs and showing off my hens to delighted small children has been great. I have learned about roosting, about dust bathes, about getting the hen house up off of the ground. I’ve met other people with a passion for raising chickens, I've chased off hawks and I’ve had a few close calls with law. The people in my neighborhood enjoy eggs and I give them away to others in my community too; especially those whose silence is best bought with the makings of an excellent omelet. There’s nothing like good food to keep people quiet.

My yard is certainly too small for a cow and even goats would require an enormous act of marital compromise even Jimmy Carter couldn’t help my negotiate. It is true that there are both proper and improper places to keep animals in our neighborhoods. But those decisions should be made on the basis of meeting the needs of our neighbors and the resources available in any given yard. They should not be based on an aging notion that houses are dormitories where we sleep between shift but rather that our homes can help us become more than consumers. They can help us regain our status as producers and sharers- whole citizens capable of talking and acting in ways that foster self sufficiency and interdependency in our respective communities. I’m looking forward to the day when more people in my town and in others raise more of their own food including their own animals, and can do so without violating superficial laws. Until then I will keep my underground flock in my backyard. I will share eggs with my neighbors who are happy to have chickens near by and I hope to inspire others to do the same- to be prepared and ready to help many more of us raise backyard birds in the future.

Because I think this is really important and because it feels so good, I will remain...

the outlaw chickener.

you can reach the outlaw chickener at: outlaweggs 'at' gmail . 'com'

hunger means some business is booming

So it looks like while the price of food is skyrocketing, average farmers aren't exactly raking it in.

"When it's all said and done, we're still making what we did before," said George Zmitko, an Owosso farmer with about 8,000 acres spread across five counties.

Over the past three years, the price for staples like wheat and corn have risen dramatically. While that has made for painful grocery bills, Zmitko and other local farmers say they are coping with price increases of their own.

Fertilizer, for example, has quadrupled from $200 a ton to $800 while diesel fuel is more than $1.50 a gallon higher for farmers than it was a year ago… Costs for buying seed and crop insurance are up, as are the rates for borrowing money to operate a farm.

The net effect? All of that extra money people spend at the grocery store is not going straight into the pockets of farmers.

This is important because it suggests that even if the price of food continues to rise, there is no guarantee that the conventional method of growing food is going to get more lucrative. Amidst rising input prices, a linear system like industrial agriculture might become even more of a seasonal gamble with pricey pesticides and fertilizers- not to mention fuel costs- the ever more expensive 'ante up' on the bet of a big harvest. The article mentions higher interest rates on loans for those inputs and higher insurance premium on crop insurance. That makes sense given the increased stakes. But I wonder, are those bankers and those underwriters also talking to the climatologists?

I'm also wondering just how come all these guys are making tons of money? From the Independent,

The World Bank says that 100 million more people are facing severe hunger. Yet some of the world's richest food companies are making record profits. Monsanto last month reported that its net income for the three months up to the end of February this year had more than doubled over the same period in 2007, from $543m (£275m) to $1.12bn. Its profits increased from $1.44bn to $2.22bn.

Cargill's net earnings soared by 86 per cent from $553m to $1.030bn over the same three months. And Archer Daniels Midland, one of the world's largest agricultural processors of soy, corn and wheat, increased its net earnings by 42 per cent in the first three months of this year from $363m to $517m. The operating profit of its grains merchandising and handling operations jumped 16-fold from $21m to $341m.

It also makes me wonder just where I put my torch and my pitchfork.

Read the rest here and here.

civilization!

Thanks Eric.

what does hunger look like?

image

Question. What does hunger look like? If you live in America it’s likely you don’t know. It’s true that in the US 12% of our population is food insecure, meaning about 1 in 8 of us don’t regularly get enough nutritious food to eat. But the majority of us don’t see those people or their hunger very often. It’s more likely that most of us associates hunger with a dark skinned and dusty child sitting quietly with flies buzzing about, a la Sally Struthers commercials and her plea to save the children. I’d like to speak for a moment to the politicians, the leaders in this country so that they might get a better idea of what hunger really looks like, because not all hungry people are going to sit quietly and die waiting on someone to send donations.

Haiti’s government fell on Saturday when senators fired the prime minister after more than a week of riots over food prices.

Stone-throwing crowds began battling U.N. peacekeepers and Haitian police in the south on April 2, enraged at the soaring cost of rice, beans, cooking oil and other staples… The unrest spread this week to the capital, Port-au-Prince, bringing the sprawling and chaotic city to a halt as mobs took over the streets, smashing windows, looting shops, setting fire to cars and hurling rocks at motorists.

“It has not been lowered enough,” said a young man who identified himself only as Givens. “If they don’t further lower the price I think people are going to protest more. There will be problems, more unrest. Even the National Palace could be set on fire because we are in trouble.”

[President] Preval reiterated that Haiti could not afford to cut taxes on food because it needed the revenue to pay for longer-term projects that create jobs and boost agriculture.

And here in lies an interesting point. The future is almost certain to mean less energy available and fewer resources with which to grow food, including less fresh water and healthy topsoil. It’s easy to imagine how hard it will be, in such trying times, to launch a cohesive, coherent, top down change in our model of agriculture. Just as it becomes obvious that change is absolutely necessary, those who currently have the power to institute large-scale change will find their power waning. I remain skeptical that even a major change in terms of who holds office will provide the capability of those in political power to significantly cope with the scope of this problem- the growing shortage of a basic human necessity.

Need proof? The World Bank announced today that, “The world is moving towards a food crisis that may lead to wars and riots…” You think? Thank you for such a clear “prediction” of what lies ahead. Of course when asked about hunger around the world and specifically in Africa World Bank President Robert Zoellick suggested, “that sovereign wealth funds around the world allocate $30 billion – 1% of their $3 trillion assets- to investments for African growth, development, and opportunity,” which means he just doesn’t get it. Mr. Zoellick suggests throwing money at the problem. What a novel idea! The problem is we’re eating their food you moron, with our land export model of agricultural commodity production; to say nothing of the food we are burning in our gas tanks, our overly meat-intensive diet.

Ready for the scary part? The resulting rise in price has already caused instability with only 6.5 billion people on the planet. Population projections point to more than 9 billion people by the middle of this century. The people of the African continent don’t need to grow their economies and develop as Mr. Zoellick suggests in order to feed themselves. To be sure there is ample room for a rise in the standard of living of the average African but what they need more than anything is for us to stop acting like we’re somehow entitles to more than our fair share of this planet.

ABC ran an article today entitled, Food riots ‘an apocalyptic warning‘. What are they thinking? That’s the kind of headline that could ruin a rich world leader’s day. Because anyone with half a brain must realize that people are not going to just sit quietly and starve in the real world. This is not a television commercial. Recently there have been food riots in Haiti, Morocco, Egypt, Bangladesh, Mexico and in others Countries. Last October the Director of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization had this to say. “If prices continue to rise, I would not be surprised if we began to see food riots.” There’s at least one leader who saw this coming. But the rest of them, and to be fair many of us, haven’t given much thought to the day when our gluttonous eating habits might bite back. Because of our abusive attitude towards our environment and its resources, which we have taken for granted, that day might be arriving shortly.

But here’s another question. How long until we see food riots here in our country? Do you think the citizens- ur, ah, consumers in this country haven’t noticed the rising price of everything, including food? Do you think we still believe in the stupid core rate of inflation thingie that doesn’t include the cost of food, let alone the cost of the gasoline needed to drive to the store and buy that expensive food? The following is from Forbes (that leftist, conspiratorial, commie rag)

Kimberly Stevens, a 42-year-old resident of Lewisville, Texas… is also refusing to buy into the official Washington line that the nation’s inflation rate is only 3.4%. This outraged reader says, “As far as I am concerned, Bernanke, President Bush, Clinton, Obama and the rest of them live in a fairy-tale world. They do not go shopping each week and have no idea what the cost of goods is.”

A gallon of the Horizon organic milk she buys for her two boys has soared from $1.99 to over $5, an increase of 250%. In the past year, a loaf of bread has surged nearly 50%–to $2.29 from $1.59. Her Kraft cheddar cheese has gone from $1.99 to $2.50 for an eight-ounce package–a 25% rise. A dozen extra large eggs are up from 79 cents to $1.19, or about 50%, while ground beef, Stevens insists, is up more than 60%, from $1.79 a pound to $2.99.

Croesus’ source in small-town America doesn’t think “people will be able to afford to go to work this summer” when she predicts gasoline will hit $4.50 a gallon. “My Jeep cost $35 a week to fill in 2005 when we bought it. It is now over $60 to fill. In the past month gasoline has gone up over 75 cents (a gallon).”

The cost of food and fuel for a month are $1,300 higher, “a big hit in a family budget,” she insists. “American people cannot continue to survive and fund our great economy with more and more of our income going to pay to get us to work and home again.”

“You cannot tell me that is 3.4% inflation,”

Please don’t assume I am actually in favor of food riots or that I condone them. I think that form of violence is counterproductive, not to mention a calorically expensive activity! Better to stay home and grow your own. But I’m wondering, as food gets more expensive everywhere, including here in the United States of America, will everyone think like me- that we should have a homegrown agricultural revolution in light of resource depletion, energy descent and widespread political impotency- or will they come for those who play politics while the world begins to go hungry? Perhaps those in charge should stand aside and allow us a more peaceful revolution. We’d like to grow our own food in local communities all over America. And we’d like to work with others all over the world who would like to do the same. When I talk about WWII Victory Gardens people ask me what victory might look like this time? Perhaps it’ll look like anything other than people rioting in the streets over food.

The following are all really interesting, at least to me.

Russian oil production drops for the first time in a decade.

Potatoes! A staple food that isn’t getting ridiculously expensive. Note: They are also ridiculously easy to grow. And don’t forget about sweet potatoes. The good news is I still have sweet potatoes from last year. The bad news is I still have sweet potatoes from last year.

A great audio recording of Tim Robbins almost speaking to, and then yes, actually going through with his speech to the National Association Broadcasters. This is one of THE BEST bits I’ve listened to in a while. Highly recommended and an excellent example of the power of the Tubes.

How might the gov’t best assist in food rationing, even if it will never come to that here.

Quick, leak-proof and consumer-oriented distribution of affordable food is critical to our nutritional security in these inflationary times. But a tectonic shift in efficiency will only come when two drivers stop controlling the same car.

And lastly, good news! Brazil might have located enough petroleum to power us for all of 2018!

converging environmental crises teach-in

Converging Environmental Crises:
A Teach-In on Energy, Climate Change, Water, Agriculture and Population

Thursday, April 10, 2008
11:00am to 4:00pm EDT
http://sg60.oar.net/Environmental_Crises/
Select "Converging Environmental Crises" in the Pull-Down Menu

If you're having trouble use the following directions.


The presentations are archived. Take advantage of this wonderful resource.

sprouts beget sprouts

We have a new sprout in the house. As many of you know (because I haven’t posted anything new in almost a month and returning visitors have been greeted with her photo during that period) my wife gave birth to a baby girl in early March. Her name is Salem and we’re quite pleased. Her arrival coincided with the beginning of the planting season here in Southeastern America.. I know that sounds weird for those of you in the Northeast or in colder climates throughout the world but so does the idea of solid water floating down from the sky. What do you call it, snow? Sadly another winter has pasted with almost none of that white stuff and spring is fast approaching here in the South. Officially our last frost free date is April 15th and it’s usually a good idea to get potatoes and onions and some spring greens in the ground early in March. This is made more difficult though if you have a precocious two year old and a new born, even if you have an understand wife. Not to mention the fact that this spring I have the extraordinary opportunity to write a book about where we might ought to be going in terms of growing food and eating it in light of peak oil, climate change and widespread social injustice.

All of this means less time to actually spend in the garden which is a reasonable price to pay for a beautiful new baby daughter and the chance to finish this book with Ms. Astyk. It also got me thinking about all the people who are strapped for time and who might balk at the idea of having enough time to start garden. Now as I’ve mentioned before that there are a considerable number of us Americans who say they don’t have enough time to garden because they spend so much of it watching the idiot box. Just because they call it reality television doesn’t necessarily make it so. Reality will be on display when the world wakes up to our enormous dependency on petroleum, a nonrenewable resource which largely peaked in global production almost three years ago. Reality will settle in as we begin to recognize that burning petroleum (and the other fossil fuels we send up in smoke) is causing unpredictable and potentially devastating changes in our climate. Yes that is the sort of reality that will eventually trump the kind we can flip back and forth from this channel to that eating packaged processed foods and thinking about how well we would do on Fear Factor or American Idol. There is an enormous amount of time we waste in this country every year as we pretend to live by watching other people act out made up scripts.

However, as evidenced by my lack of a television and my still rather busy schedule it seems possible to fill up ones time without the idiot box. It also seems likely that as the growth economy falters under the weight of limited resources and the resulting rise in prices, many people are going to struggle to keep up. I was talking with a friend recently who argued that what we won’t see is a large number of people suddenly starving to death as food becomes more expensive in the US. What we will see is an increasing number of people eating cheaper, less nutritious food. It’s reasonable to expect that more people will try to work more hours to earn more money to be able to buy food as it gets more expensive. This will leave them less time to spend on projects like learning to grow more of their food. I think in part this means helping to share the message that more self-sufficiency means less of an obligation to make money which can translate into less time needed for making money and more time available for even more self-sufficiency.

This requires, as I know from experience, a transition however. One does not simply wake up and stop going to work and instead head off to tear up the lawn to plant potatoes. For a while at least it will be necessary that those seeking a higher degree of personal food self-sufficiency keep one leg in the formal economy and one leg out in the garden. Decreasing dependency on the cycle of: spend time, make money, buy food requires a stretch. And so with that in mind I am using this busy spring season of mine to stretch and to try and feel a bit of what it must be like to try and do lots of stuff and still have time to devote to growing food. IN thinking of how to do this, one idea jumped to mind early on- sprouts. Sprouting seeds in any windowsill takes very little time, a low level of green thumbness and requires a very low level of financial investment. It’s a pretty quick, easy and cheap source of excellent nutrition. So let’s start with that last part.

During the process of sprouting, most seeds because more nutritious as a food source. "Sprouting grains causes increased activities of hydrolytic enzymes, improvements in the contents of total proteins, fat, certain essential amino acids, total sugars, B-group vitamins, and a decrease in dry matter, starch and anti-nutrients." Eating sprouts is actually more nutritious than eating the seeds themselves. This isn’t a reason to give up on legumes but it is interesting to note that sprouts, one of the most nutrient dense foods available on the planet, can be grown indoors on any windowsill by even the busiest of souls.

And as I mentioned above, is doesn’t take much money to start sprouting. All that’s needed is a jar or several jars if the seed sprouting process is to be staggered over several days, making sprouts continuously available. A wide mouth jar will make extracting the sprouts easier. The jar will need a lid that is porous so water can be flushed out without losing any of the seeds. The low tech, super cheap version is a strip of old panty hose stretched over the opening of a mason jar , held in place by a rubber band. Or you can upgrade to a mesh lid that is easier to get on and off, allows rinse water to move more easily out of the jar and is easier to clean. I purchased my jars with mesh lids for about $5 each; not an exorbitant investment.
Next you’ll need a sunny windowsill. It seems reasonable to assume that almost everyone will have one of these. Any seeds to be sprouted will need to be rinsed and then soaked over night. Drain them the following morning and then rinse and drain at least twice a day. That’s it. It is possible to mess up sprouts. You can leave too much water in the jar for too long and the sprouts will rot. You can let the sprouts dry out and they will die, but that’s about all you can do wrong. If you stagger your jars you can keep an ample supply of sprouts around for a consistent source of healthy greens.

And this is important because when I talk to people about food storage there is often a focus on the stables. People naturally focus on storing carbohydrates and proteins and some stable fats. And this is reasonable because it doesn’t matter how nutritious your food is. If you aren’t getting enough calories you aren’t going to have enough to eat to stay healthy and happy. But it’s also important to have a steady source of the vitamins offered by leafy green vegetables. This could be tough to accomplish for those of us accustom to having such vegetables shipped to us in the winter in areas where it is harder to grow such greens with snow covering the ground. It is possible however, to grow a reliable source of nutrients, including those all-important B-vitamins with a low investment of time and money, in any climate. And the seeds themselves are cheap to ship, being dry, and they store for relatively long periods of time. It’s possible to order an enormous amount of nutritious green food for your diet for relatively little money and store it in a small amount of space in your pantry. Sprout when needed.

Now, I’m sure there are at least a few of you thinking, "I think sprouts taste yucky." And this is not just a problem I’m suggest others might encounter. My wife is one of you. Currently she’s a nursing, hormonal mother who is working to keep our older daughter from being, um, overly helpful, which is just another way of saying she keeps her from force feeding the baby carrots, in addition to all the other things she does. This is not a woman to whom I am willing to suggest stuff she doesn’t think she likes to eat; not right now. ;-) The goal instead is to find methods of presenting the sprouts in yummier ways. The task of finding a way to grow nutritious food in a pinch has become the task of finding a way to cook this nutritious food in a way in which my wife and daughter will eat it. Luckily it isn’t illegal to eats sprouts in other ways rather than just on a veggie sandwich. Stir frying them has been my most successful accomplishment on this front although I’m scheduled to try them in a few loafs of bread real soon and next I’ll dry dehydrating them and making crackers. Everyone like crackers right?

I will continue to experiment with different types of seeds for sprouting, different combinations of those sprouts and different ways of using them in meals my family will enjoy. I was excited though that out of a desire to do more to feed my family without investing much time or much money I found another way we can be more self reliant and healthier. This past month, while enjoying the labor of being a new double dad and a bread winner and an author I cast about for a way to quickly grow something good for me, and I remembered sprouts. Even as we deal with the chaos of life at the beginning of the 21st century- peak oil, climate change, small children who’ve learned how to shift the car into neutral- it is necessary to make change even while we deal with the current realities of our world. As we learn how to do so we become stronger, more flexible and more resilient. Imagine what we’ll be capable of when the spit really does hit the fan.

a new daughter

Salem Reynolds Beatrix Newton

A baby girl born on March 6, 2008

I am blessed.