Lisa Zahn

I'm really trying not to get too political on this blog, but I just gotta link this! John Stewart on Sarah Palin and the Gender Card...

Okay, first for the chickens. They stayed in their coop until 4:30 yesterday afternoon, when George went in and got Lily to come out of it and into the run to eat. The others stayed far enough inside to be unreachable, but I suggested we just leave them be and see what happens. Sure enough, seconds later the other three came out and started eating with gusto. Moral of the story? Chickens really are the dumb animals they're said to be. As one commenter said on yesterday's post, they will do harm to themselves if we don't take good care of them. Our new neighbors are moving in, right next door to the side of the house that the chickens are on. The house has been a student rental for three years but now the landlord and his fiancee are fixing the place (back) up and moving in for a couple of years to save money and have more time to work on his other student rental properties in St. Cloud. Yay ! We are delighted with that, but I was quite worried about their reaction t...

What a(nother) crazy day this has been. Life seems full of them lately, I must admit. I started out by cleaning the chicken coop. We've had the girls just a few days over a month now and it was time for the first monthly clean-out. It took me a few days to work up to this. On Sunday the 31st of August, the one-month "anniversary" of getting our hens, I really started to think about the need for the clean out. Then on Monday it was Labor Day and really hot outside and, well, I wasn't going to do it on a holiday! So on Tuesday I was thinking about it really a lot, but that was about it. Then on Wednesday I went and got a couple bales of straw to use as bedding, but still didn't do any cleaning. So finally today was the day. I kept the hens "cooped up" in their house while I cleared the old bedding and all its other contents (poop, food scraps, etc.) out into the wheelbarrow and then into the compost piles. This was tricky as the space both inside ...

From my friend Devin's blog, The Quince Urban Homestead . They and others in the Twin Cities are much more aware of what's going on down there than we are an hour north. News reports are incomplete and, of course, skewed to the "need for order" and fear tactics. Of course we don't want violence, but come on! Has it come to this? This could be my family! Or anyone's family, simply doing their thing...Read on...(emphases are mine) Some links first: Youtube Video Twin Cities Daily Planet news with photo Flickr photos Happenings at the RNC here in St.Paul Minnesota. POLICE SEIZE PERMIBUS At approximately 6:25 pm on August 30, 2008 Minneapolis Police, Minnesota State Troopers, Ramsey County Sheriffs, Saint Paul Police, and University of Minnesota Police pulled over the Earth Activist Training Permaculture Demonstration Bus (Permibus) by exit 237 on Interstate 94. Initially the police told the people on the bus to exit. When the people on the bus asked if they wer...