Tiptoe, Through the Lego

 Spring is here! Our world is bright and colorful, as flowers bloom everywhere in our garden. This is always an especially exciting time of year, because the kids know our Lego plant faithfully blooms on the first day of April.

What's that, you say? You buy your Lego blocks at the store, or from strangers on the internet? Well, in this family, we believe in self-reliance when it comes to all things, including toys. You might have guessed we'd figure out a way to grow our own.

But do not despair, dear reader! Because we also believe very strongly in sharing information with others, so that we can all fight the man and live off the grid and stop wearing shoes!

All you need are a few Lego "seeds," some soil, a tool to dig it with (egg spoons are perfect, btw, yw) and a container. Any cup or pot will do. We use peat pots, because we feel it is so important to utilize biodegradable items, even when growing chunks of plastic.

You know, go green.

Don't forget to dampen the seeds and soil with a generous splash of whole milk. Nothing makes them sprout faster!

Thanks for reading, and best of luck trying this project at home. Be sure to check the BU YouTube channel for our Bionicle pruning and grafting videos!

Tails and Tidings: Weirdos Welcome

Tres! Trois! Something in German!

Today marks the first day of Backyard University's third year online, and rest assured, we are only taking things up a notch.

You see, when one decides to homeoschool their young, one may come to depend heavily on the internet. For everything. TED talks, Oregon Department of Education, Kid President, All The Blogs, Pinterest, and YouTube*

*because how else to convince your Hungarian husband, and young children that Milli Vanilli was actually a thing?

So, there is a tendency to want to give back, so to speak. To make the sort of resource one might rely on if one were someone else.  To capture up some of our crazy with words that can be understood, and even used, to recreate mushroom logs, pumpkin bread pudding, a week-long family film fest; it feels like the natural thing to do after being enriched by the bountiful creativity and work of others.

Part of the shenanigans needing to be documented was the keeping of our backyard beasts. The BU started out with a resident pig and goat frolicking, napping, munching, and sadly, dying. So, chickens filled the land and we resigned ourselves to waiting until we can have a big farm before welcoming more off-beat critters.


Until I got a call from the local shelter, telling me they are in need of a home for an animal that had recently come into their care. I have a hard time saying no to such calls, especially when I heard what sort of creature they needed to place.

Meet Justine! She came to this rainy land all the way from Tasmania, as an exotic pet of a wealthy local. She's young, lays eggs, and is comical-looking. Plus, being female means her ankle spurs aren't venom-filled! So having her as part of our menagerie seems only natural. And, seeing as how the platypus is an endangered species, I am checking petfinder every day, to find her a boyfriend, so that we might help bring the global platypus count back where it should be.

In order to accommodate what may be an indefinite number of water-loving mammals, we are putting in a pond; a platypus pond, which will hopefully be overrun with bottom-feeding, splashing little oddities for us to name and cuddle. So, watch for more posts on Justine the platypus, a lovely bizarre animal once thought to be a HOAX, as she wiggles her way into our hearts. 

Tails and Tidings: Twisted again, try to keep up.

I was going to write an introduction of the all the animals we keep and clean up after, but the spirit of the holiday has overcome me. Besides, we're down one chicken. Hot Sauce started talking smack and I said to myself, "You know what? Maybe a little chicken tetrazzini would be just the thing for dinner tonight."
Oh, look at that, Hot Sauce! Somebody just cut off your head and feet! Whatcha got to say about that?

AprilFoolzJKLOL?

Not bloody likely! You may not eat chickens, but I feast greedily on meal worms and losers!

And, scene*

*No chickens were beheaded in the making of this blog post. They were, however, humiliated, and reminded that their owner is a dork. Maybe tetrazzini isn't a worse fate than that.

Tomorrow marks six weeks with our lovelies. They have gone from silky puffs of cheeping sweetness to big scratchy mottled pullets whose cheeps turn to hoarse clucks when they're startled, or thirsty, or peevish. We got them from the Urban Farm Store, in Portland, Oregon.

Here they are, waiting for me to finish cleaning their "cage". It's more of an "area", but I'm afraid that makes me sound like a "total slob", so let's go back to "cage". I've got tarps enclosing part of our laundry room. It contains them somewhat, but they could get out if they were really determined to do so; say, if someone forgot to dump and refill their water bowl after they meticulously packed it with shavings and feces. They'd cross the barrier, fashioned from crates, buckets, and a bag of goat feed, to find said owner, and cluck at her hoarsely.

So let's do a pullet line-up. Pullet is what you call a female chick when she's not cute anymore. That's just science.
Lenore is a Black Star, or Black Sex-Link. She is so-named because her gender is linked to her color. Males of her breed are brown. This is a great chicken for us because we knew from the get-go that she was a she. We're beginners in the world of chicken-keeping, and we have neighbors to think of. No roosters allowed. They are rumored to be prolific layers, so we have high expectations for Lenore. No pressure, girl. Just crank out enough high quality organic eggs to feed me and my enormous family. Think ovulatory thoughts.

You may remember Hot Sauce, from our prankery earlier. She's a Rhode Island Red and she's feeling much better than she looks. Not everyone has to be cute in the face, you know.

Candy is a Buff Orpington. She is starting to seek work as a model. She just looks so ideal. So chickeny.

I was saving the best for last. Cora, rocking the cheek puffs. She's an Ameraucana, has dark bluish gray feet, and will hopefully grace us with blue eggs. Most of the time, she can be found playing their drum (an overturned empty humus container) and touching up her eyeliner.

These girls will move outside in a month or so. I'm planting seeds for their outdoor yard: flax, vetch, clover and buckwheat. Geza is designing a two story coop/in-door yard out of an old kitchen table. Enticing, eh? Old kitchen table? What? You want to know more, don't you? You want to see pictures and squint at your screen and whisper "wow" to yourself, right? I know! Stay tuned!