Life

Spring is a season of renewal, and while the environmental changes aren't as big here as I'm used to up north, I'm trying to appreciate the subtlety. I thought this would be a good time for a "garden" update!

I had originally planned to plant more, but since I'm moving back to MN this summer (thanks to your help at my Indiegogo campaign!) I'm keeping it simple. Jordan will have to take over when I leave.

The strawberries and rosemary I planted back in December are doing well. You may recall I initially had some trouble with the strawberries.

Freshly planted

A few weeks later

I picked off all the browning leaves and checked on them frequently. I also brought them inside on the rare night the outdoor temperature dropped below 40. They were pretty small with all their big leaves gone, and I thought maybe they were suffering from a nutrient deficiency. Either that, or they were just shedding old leaves for winter. I'm leaning toward the latter. Having never grown anything in this climate before, I didn't know what to expect.

Today

I still get a dead leaf here and there, but for the most part they're doing great! I've been pinching the flowers off the little one (it's so painful!) so it can recover a bit more, but I'm letting the big one produce. It gave me one weird looking berry with a brown spot a few weeks ago, and I thought maybe it was because it was touching the dirt. I put down a layer of aspen shavings and that seems to be working well!

Tiny but tasty!

I should have clipped the flowers on the large plant too, but I was impatient. It has a few larger berries growing now, though I know it would help the roots establish better if it didn't have to focus on producing fruit. I'm a harsh mistress.

Our Sassy rosemary plant is doing well too. I didn't realize how much it had grown until I looked at this old picture!

Freshly planted

Today

Huge! The plant hasn't been entirely problem-free though. I had an issue with white mildew a couple months ago, likely due to over-watering. I took the plant inside and physically washed each affected leaf to get rid of it, and then I sprayed it with a watered down milk solution on a sunny day. Apparently milk can act as a fungicide when hit with sunlight. It's doing much better now, though I may have let it go a little too long without water as some of its leaves got a little crispy. I cleaned it up and gave it a good soak before I took that last photo. (If you click the picture and make it big, you can check out a lady's super long colorful hair.)

A couple months ago I brought garbage down to the dumpster to discover someone had left a whole bunch of  used plant pots and planters there, mostly terra cotta. Jordan accompanied me and we picked out a few.

Free pots!

About six weeks ago I decided to add another little something to our balcony. Our onions got a little old and one of them had a nice healthy sprout, so I did a little Googling to find out if it was possible to plant it. According to what I found, it's possible to replant and eat the same onion. I followed the instructions and stripped off the onion layers until I was left with just the stem and roots, and planted it in one of the nicer pots we found. 

I don't know if I'll actually get an onion, but it's doing well and growing like crazy! There appear to be two stalks. Does that mean I could get a double onion? I know so little about this, but I'm learning!

A couple weeks after I planted that one I had another onion sprout, but rather than plant it right away I stripped it down and set its roots in water. I changed the water daily for almost a week because I didn't make time to plant it. I think it got a little shocked going from water to soil, and it's not doing so well.

After taking this photo I moved the plant off the grill, just in case the sun has been heating up the metal too much. I don't want to cook the onion until after harvest! Maybe if I keep watering it it'll perk back up.

I can't wait to do more gardening in the future. The best way to learn something is to do it!

Moving

Thanks to the support of some of you wonderful people, even if I don't make my Indiegogo goal I should have enough (even after 9% is taken) from the campaign to move back to MN this summer. I might have to crash on my parent's couch for a while, but if that's what has to happen, we'll make it work.

At least I'll be home!

That said, I'm still working to promote the campaign in hopes of reaching the goal. If you receive my home town's local newspaper you'll see an ad in the next one with a link to the Indiegogo page. I'm hoping to generate a little local interest from people who might know me and my folks but are not following me online.

I don't have a moving date set yet, but I'm planning for June to give me enough time to get done what needs to be done. I want to at least make sure all fursuit work is complete so I don't have to haul unfinished costumes and fur back north with me, so they're my first priority.

The Minnesota move will be accompanied by another move of a different sort. When I'm "back in the northwoods" this blog will come to an end. Why? I'm moving to Wordpress and building a website.

After literally years of saying I would, I'm finally building a professional presence on the web. I've seen just how important it is to have a website if you want to make any kind of income online and build a brand for yourself, and I'm excited to start building it. I've already purchased my domain, but I'm holding off on going public with it until the site is more than a skeleton. Exiting stuff though!

I spoke with my mom the other day and she's doing alright. She's been sick from the chemo and has lost her hair, but she apparently has a few fabulous wigs to wear that she was able to pick out for free. My dad almost thought there was a strange woman in the house when he saw her wearing one when he got home from work haha. She's got a fighting spirit, and hopefully this summer she won't need to continue the chemo and she can do radiation instead. That still means a lot of trips to Duluth, which means four hours of driving there and back. 

I'm really hoping I'll be able to afford a used car in order to help with that. The car I was driving in MN was my dad's old, rusty Oldsmobile. It likely can't handle many more Duluth trips. With the rusted out bottom I'm afraid to drive it long distances. If my Indiegogo hits its goal I should be able to afford a down payment on a decent used vehicle, but I know the costs don't end there. Insurance and gas add up quick, so I'll be taking a second job in addition to my work-from-home writing once I'm back in MN.

Big moves, big changes. They're coming. I'm ready. You can help.

Snakes are my livestock

I was cleaning boa constrictor bins today and I started thinking about homesteading (I do that often), and I realized that these snakes are my first livestock. I may not be raising them for food, but I am going through all the other motions. I feed them, clean them, give them water, mist them to keep their humidity up, take them out for exercise, treat them when they're sick, strategically breed them, and sell their offspring. 

I have purposely put male animals with female animals and brought new life into the world. I didn't realize it until now, but breeding boas has been an odd sort of introduction to the lifestyle I most want to live. Someday alongside boas I'll be breeding chickens, goats, rabbits, and possibly pigs and reindeer. 

Snakes aren't most people's first pick for pets or as animal breeding projects, but that's partly why I was drawn to them. I have a passion for misunderstood creatures and I celebrate their place in the world. Snakes have had a bad rap for far too long, and so have rats, spiders, insects, bats, and to a lesser extent wolves and skunks. All of these creatures are beautiful. If people could get past their irrational fears and learn a little bit about the animals that scare them, they probably won't be so scary. If you let your fear turn to hate, that's unfortunate because you're missing out on a fascinating part of our world. Sorry for the mini-rant, but I'm passionate about the topic. 

Admit it, he's cute.

Ever since I learned what a snake was I enjoyed looking for them and attempting to catch them. I brought a garter snake to show and tell at school in an ice cream bucket with holes poked in the top when I was in 2nd grade. When I got my corn snake Nathara in college (November 2004) I was smitten.

I still have her. :)

Nathara was a great introduction to keeping snakes and provided me with some great lessons, such as the fact that baby snakes can disappear in an instant. I lost her in my dad's Suburban after she sneaked (snaked? haha) out of my sleeve on the way home from college, and she was found in a rolled up poster tube three days later. Or rather, our dog Rosie found her on the grass after she fell out of said rolled up poster. She was cold but otherwise fine!

Boas are my true snake love though. They have personality and style, and while some subspecies and localities can grow to 10+ feet, they're not unmanageable and tend to tame easily. Mine are considered dwarf localities originating from Southern Mexico and Central America and they tend to be darker and not get as big. I love all the different color and pattern morphs there are, with many more yet to be discovered. The idea that a new, never before seen morph could come out of a boa litter is very exciting, but baby boa day is exciting no matter what.

You may notice I said litter and not clutch. Boas give live birth, which is another plus in my opinion. If I bred corn snakes like Nathara I would need to get an incubator, but mama boa grows her babies while coiled up by the heat source in her enclosure for four months. It just seemed easier.

I'm not breeding anything this year, even though my male boas really want to and I feel bad denying them. I don't want to ship pregnant snakes and have to worry about babies this summer when I have moving to think about. My finances are still rocky so I'm working on downsizing what I can before I head north.

If anyone is interested in a boa as a pet, I have care sheet information available as well as baby snakes for sale. I can ship to any of the lower 48 states as soon as weather allows! Feel free to toss me an email - aurorawolf@gmail.com. They start at $100 (includes the $50 shipping fee).

Snakes are wonderful, misunderstood creatures and I will do what I can to spread their beautiful message.

Tiamat

Dreaming

Jordan and I are sitting on the back porch, sipping home-brewed apple cider and looking out at our property - a modest homestead on eight acres next to a forest. A few chickens walk about the grass, picking at bugs and other tasty things they find. They're entertaining to watch - "Farm TV" they call it. I don't even miss cable. The sun is going down and they'll be in their coop for the evening soon. I'll need to latch the door to keep any weasels or foxes from stealing our food.

I finish my cider and tell Jordan I'm going to do the last round of chores before the sun goes down. I get up and my dog, a beautiful Llewellin setter, also gets up and accompanies me on my rounds as he always does. I head over to the shed to get food and water for the rabbits. We have several meat rabbits and a couple pets. I check and refill their food and water as necessary, and give them a few handfuls of dandelion greens. On the backside of the shed are two honeybee hives, and I take a moment to watch a few bees come in from the fields, legs full of pollen. 

I make my way over to our small barn and the goats greet me loudly in their run, ready for supper. I feed them and give them fresh water, and add some more hay to their bedding area. It's going to be chilly tonight - even summer nights in northern Minnesota get cold. 

On the other side of the barn is Officer Bacon, our big female breeder pig and her young ones. I fed them earlier when I brought out the day's kitchen scraps, so I just lay down some fresh hay and give the big girl a pat on the head. She's been an amazing mama, and while her young will be raised for food and sold, she'll always have a place here. 

I close up the barn and meander past the edge of the meadow toward the chicken coop. Wait, is there something out there? Someday soon there will be reindeer on this hill, but in the fading light I can make out the shape of a whitetail doe and her fawn. They're a beautiful sight, but I can't help but think of hunting this winter. We still have a few steaks in our freezer from Jordan's 8 point buck last year.

I check the chickens in their coop and everyone seems to be settled. They have plenty of water and food, so I latch their door and bid them good night.

Walking back to the house I pass the garden. Everything is doing well, though I make a mental note that I need to pick some strawberries in the morning for breakfast. Soon I'll have enough to sell at the farmer's market, but not yet. I pick one and eat it, enamored by the sweet, fresh from the earth flavor. 

Walking back up the steps I can hear Jordan inside playing a video game, but otherwise the farm is quiet. I call the dog, distracted by an interesting smell next to the deck, and he bounds up the stairs and comes inside with me. It's time to get some art done.

Health

I've never had a problem with my weight, but I've always had a weight problem, and those things are one and the same.

Let me explain. 

I've pretty much always been fat, and let's get this out there right now - I'm totally comfortable using the word "fat" as a descriptor. It should not be an offensive term. I have fat on my body. I am fat. Not a big deal. 

Fat. Also happy.

But it is a big deal. It's a big deal in society, but society can take a hike (to put it lightly). I'm fat, but I like to exercise. I like being active. I enjoy many outdoor activities like hiking, biking, canoeing, snowshoeing, and exploring my world. I also enjoy eating healthy foods, including vegetables and salads. Society will tell you otherwise. Society is full of lies and slander.

That's my first weight problem. My second is health.

I fully believe people can be fat and healthy at the same time, and there are doctors out there who believe the same. However, I'm not one of them, at least not at the weight I am now. 

And that's unfortunate, because I kinda like being fat. Weird, right? But I do. I feel attractive in this body, and despite everything my peers and society have told me during my developing years I was happy being me exactly as I was. I've always been comfortable with who I am, no matter my pants size, which hasn't changed much at all over the years. How many of you can say you're the same size you were when you graduated high school? I can!

What I mean by my opening statement is this: I've never had a problem with my weight mentally, but I've been neglecting the physical reality of my situation because of it. I was comfortable, complacent, and a little lazy. It was easy to get used to the side effects as part of my every day experience.

With my mom fighting her second round of cancer (she beat breast cancer, now she's facing stage IV-B lung cancer), I've decided it's time for change. I have a family history of disease: hypertension, diabetes, cancer. I don't want to go through these things when I'm older. I've been battling hypertension, depression, and PCOS for a long time. I had a scare with pseudotumor cerebri. I had my gallbladder removed and I have some digestive issues. I'm also a year away from 30, and I might kinda want to have a kid some day. These are the factors driving me to pursue a healthier lifestyle. The time to fix this is now.

Some of my friends have successfully followed the paleo path and the idea resonated with me. I hesitate to call it a diet because a diet implies something you do for a while and stop, whereas I'm changing the way I eat overall. I'm not ready to go full paleo, but I've stopped drinking soda for the most part, and cut a lot of extra sugar from my diet. I've been eating more fresh vegetables than I ever have before, and I've been cooking more too (which Jordan has certainly enjoyed)!

Delicious paleo frittata!

I'm also forcing myself to get out of the apartment and walk more, even if I have to be surrounded by strangers who may or may not look at me weirdly. I've never felt comfortable walking around a city by myself, but I've found it gets easier the more I do it (and the more confident I feel).

I'm never going to be "thin," and I don't want to be. Big beautiful woman is part of my identity. I just want to be healthier, and in my pursuit of that I know I'm going to start taking up a little less space. 

Another journey begins.

Indiegogo - Help?

This is a short blog to let everyone know I have a crowdfunding campaign live on Indiegogo here: http://igg.me/at/backtothenorthwoods/x/8366308

The whole story is there at that link. Please check it out and pass it on, even if you can't contribute yourself. This means everything to me. Please help me get home to help my family!

Thank you to those of you who have contributed and shared the link so far. I'm at 20% of my goal with 54 days to go!

Perks start at $5 and include access to my book and custom artwork (wildlife, pet portraits, fantasy illustrations, and more).

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/back-to-the-north-woods--3/x/8366308

The worst news

The last couple weeks have been a tornado of thoughts and emotions. I've been doing a lot of escaping, crying, planning, and worrying. I've been thinking about things too much, and then running and not thinking of much of anything at all. I'm not ready, but no one can be. Not for this. 

My mom has stage 4 lung cancer. 

She's an amazing woman, and my biggest role model. She's strong and tackling this struggle with "the power of positive thinking." They found the cancer when she had a lung x-ray after suffering from a respiratory infection. She's feeling better than she has in months now that she's on antibiotics, though the spot on her lung has supposedly been there many years. I wonder if that could have been the origin of the breast cancer she survived. She begins chemo this week. Chemo is a treatment for stage 4-IV:B lung cancer. There is no cure.

I need to do everything I can to get back to Minnesota to be with my family and help them through this. I want to make sure my mom enjoys some of the best years of her life. She spent all of hers taking care of others. It's time she saw some of that treatment.

What this means for me:

- I need to get my affairs in order and move back to Minnesota as soon as possible (likely this summer). I will have to leave Jordan behind until next February because we cannot break our lease.

- I need to find a place to live in MN.

- I need to find a car (my 28 year old car in MN is rusted out bad on the bottom and may be unsafe to drive).

Unfortunately I have no money for any of this to happen. Even though I'm employed now, Jordan and I are still just scratching by and relying too much on the credit card. 

I plan to start a crowdfunding campaign, likely on Indiegogo, to make this happen. I will be offering several "perks" to people who donate, including custom animal artwork and access to the book I'm writing about my experiences living between two worlds (the north country and a southern city). 

This is going to be a hard road. I'm doing my best to focus on the happy and the good, rather than the fear and the pain. I know my mom is doing the same. 

Why I Want To Farm - Part 1: Meat

What do you picture when you think of a farm? Do you see cows grazing on a hillside? Chickens pecking the ground between goats and sheep? Lush vegetable gardens and red barns? Or do you think of large factory farms with hundreds of chickens confined in large buildings that never feel grass under their feet, and pigs standing shoulder to shoulder in cages barely big enough for them to turn around?

I know which I prefer.

There are many different kinds of farms and many reasons to farm. One of my personal reasons for farming is simple - I don't want to be part of the problem anymore. 

I eat meat. No offense to any vegetarians out there, but science shows that our bodies are made to eat meat, and I'm generally not one to go against science (also meat is delicious). Unfortunately, at least here in America, people are eating an unsustainable amount of meat and that has caused quite a few problems. Factory farming is basically a necessary evil in order to keep up with meat demand. How that ground beef in your grocery store or sausage on your pizza got there is probably a horrible story (and not one I'm going to detail here - look into it). Aside from obvious animal cruelty issues, large factory farms are not sustainable and they cause a lot of environmental harm, and they're not going away any time soon.

Unless you always buy free range and organic meat, you're part of the problem. I'm still in that category myself, and like you when I bite into my chicken breast sandwich I try not to think about the animal it once was and the life it lived because it's an unpleasant thought. However, that's exactly why this problem exists.

As a society, people have a disconnect from the origin of their food. When you can buy everything you need to survive in packages from a grocery store, you rarely stop to think about where it came from and how it got there - you just cook it and eat it. Someone else took care of the rest. It's easier now, less to think about. Some would say it's better this way, especially the baby boomer generation. That's when convenience really took off and took hold. Unfortunately all those chemicals and additives are likely causing a lot of the illnesses and disorders we're seeing today, but that's a different topic.

The problem is we've lost an appreciation for our food. Once a year at Thanksgiving we come together and give thanks for our meal, but the rest of our days are spent opening packages and eating whatever looked good at the store (dat marketing). When you stop appreciating your food, you stop caring about where it came from, and that's what allows factory farming to continue. They rely on that disconnect.

I don't want to stop eating meat, but I don't want to be part of the environment-destroying animal-abusing problem our society has created. Right now buying organic is out of my price range, and I feel a little guilt when I eat meat I'm sure came from unsustainable farms (that's why ignorance is bliss - sorry if I ruined it for you too). Yet still even with that knowledge I eat it because I have for years and it's still relatively easy to take comfort in that disconnect. Old habits are hard to break, but I'm going to try.

I want to farm because I want to raise my own meat so I know exactly where it came from and can ensure the animals live a comfortable life, at least until harvest time. A lot of people have trouble when it comes to the idea of harvesting animals you raise yourself. My mom has told me she could never do it, that she would get too attached, and I wonder that about myself too. I've been hunting and fishing since I was a kid, and I still feel bad (and sometimes even say "sorry") when I have to whack a fish on the head to kill it quickly. However, I think the act is an important part of being a meat eater because it instills a sense of reverence. You become less wasteful. You appreciate that animal's life more because you took it, because it's going to sustain you. It places you back in the grand circle and you become part of something that's been taking place for generations, long before grocery stores ever existed.

Raising livestock for food is really just hunting without having to chase down the animal. The entire reason there are so many people on this planet today is because long ago people figured out that it was easier to keep and breed meat animals than it was to constantly chase them in the woods and fields. 

Breeding, raising, and harvesting chickens, rabbits, turkeys and maybe pigs for meat is not glamorous, but it is sustainable, economical, and it puts meat in the freezer that's way better and fresher than anything you get from the store. Instead of being part of the problem, I want to create my own solution. I want to farm.

I have a brown thumb

I've researched it a bit, but I still can't figure out why my strawberries are turning brown. Is it just because it's winter? I know nothing about growing things in SoCal. I brought the plants in on a couple uncharacteristically cold nights (below 40 degrees) but they may have seen a few nights in the 40s. 

I'm determined to turn my brown thumb into a green one. I'm going to need to if I want a successful garden, and I know I have a lot of research ahead of me. Should I remove the leaves that have turned brown in order to encourage the new growth?  Strawberries are supposed to be easy, and I've grown them without problems in MN. Not sure what I'm missing here.

At least Sassy's rosemary plant is doing well!

The perfect hunting dog

I mentioned in my last entry that I have a penchant for the exotic, but I have a practical side too. On my future farm I would like goats so I can make goat's milk soap (which is the most divine and luxurious soap there is). I want bee hives for honey and wax (and pollination, of course). I plan on raising rabbits for fiber and meat, and I will have a hunting dog. 

I grew up with dogs. When I was very young my parents had a little Pomeranian-Poodle mix named Toto and a huge Newfoundland named Bruno, but they were old and passed not long after I began school. Then my dad wanted to get a grouse hunting dog. I was 7 years old and obsessed with 101 Dalmatians at the time and wanted one of those black and white spotted dogs more than anything. What we got was a black and white spotted English Springer Spaniel puppy. I picked the runt of the litter (with a tail docked a little too short), and named her Rosie.

Not actually Rosie, but she looked similar!

Rosie was a special dog. My dad was raising her during the low end of the grouse cycle so there weren't many birds around to chase, and though we took her hunting and she went through the motions, she never found a bird. Instead, she developed a love for rocks. She wasn't a big fan of tennis balls, but if you rubbed a rock in your hand and threw it into the woods, in a few minutes she'd come back with the same rock and bark at you until you threw it again. Carrying rocks actually rubbed her lower canine teeth down to stubs, but we couldn't get her to stop. She was also the happiest dog ever and her tiny tail was vibrating almost constantly.

Springers are better suited to hunting for things like pheasant in open fields since the dog is used to scare ground birds into flight. They're called flushing dogs for that reason, as opposed to pointing dogs. The third type of gun dog is the retriever. While I loved Rosie, I don't think the hunting style of the breed works as well for ruffed grouse - especially early in the season when the brush is thick.

These birds can disappear in seconds.

I decided long ago that when it was time for me to get my own hunting dog, I was getting a breed that points. I hunt for meat and prefer to shoot birds on the ground as opposed to sport hunting "on the fly," where the chance of missing is higher. Hunting grouse on the ground also offers the least amount of suffering possible, and that's important to me. 

There are several options when it comes to pointing breeds. There is a breed actually called the Pointer, but I'm not a big fan of short-coated dogs. Brittany Spaniels look like red-brown Springers and they hunt like pointers, though they tend to be hyper and I also prefer a dog with a long tail.

Enter the setter. There are several breeds of setter that look slightly different but hunt much the same way. Gordon Setters are large and mostly black with brown features. Irish Setters are a rich, classic red. Irish Red and White Setters are gorgeous, but rare and expensive. Llewellin English Setters are perfect. 

My, what a big tongue you have!

Like many working dogs, the English Setter has two breed types that are still considered the same breed - show and field. Llewellin Setters are field type English Setters that have been specially bred for generations to possess strong instinctual hunting skills. They also have a slightly different, more attractive look.

Tricolors are my favorite.

They're my perfect hunting dog. They're beautiful, intelligent, loving animals that don't have the hyper qualities of the Spaniels nor the size or restrictive coloration of the Gordon. They also apparently make good watch dogs, and that's important when you want to raise animals that need to be protected from other animals. 

Did I mention they're adorable?

It took some time, but I convinced Jordan that this is the dog for us. We're both fans of the Irish Red and White Setter too, and there happens to be a breeder in Duluth, but they're a little too expensive. Llewellins are around $800 themselves. A hunting dog will likely be the first major animal purchase we make after we move to MN, once we're settled and ready for the commitment. 

You might be asking, "Why drop that kind of money on a dog when you can adopt one at a shelter?" For a family pet I'm all about adopting and  highly encourage it, but when you're getting a dog that helps you do a job, there are other things to consider, and the difference is in the breeding. I don't mind paying more for the assurance that the dog comes from a strong hunting line, and I look forward to the incredible journey that is working with and training a puppy to become not just a beloved companion, but a working dog that can help us put dinner on the table. 

Jordan has expressed an interest in a corgi as a future dog. Maybe when we have a group of reindeer to herd...