Chickens, Cows, Music and Philosophy

Warning: this is going to be a long post, I fear. Sorry! I have fallen behind on posting with all the activity of life in Boulder.

Where to start? Well, I should give you the setting of the moment. I am sitting at the Burr Trail Outpost, which I think I have referred to in prior posts. There are three restaurants in Boulder – HBG, Burr Trail, and Boulder Mesa. HBG feeds us breakfast and lunch on work days, so I get to eat lots of HBG’s wonderful food. On the occasions that I treat myself to dinner out, I’ve chosen Burr Trail. As I begin this post I am dining on garlic saffron soup and jasmine rice cakes. I’m on the patio, the restaurant owners, Jenn and Eddie, are at the next table and a local singer is singing. I know this all sounds very high-end, but it is really so low-key, backyard comfortable. Folks in Boulder just really like their food and their music.

Anyway, where to start with the events of the past week? How about chickens, since I told Pat I would post here the next episode in my education as a chicken wrangler. Last week Blake, one of the HBG owners, had to be out of town for the day, and needed somebody to put her

chickens to roost for the night. I was selected for this great honor. I’m being almost not at all hyperbolic here. Blake is very attentive to her chickens and they are important to her, as well as the business. I was just a little nervous about this task, because I have not had much luck in catching chickens. Nathanial (the farm manager) promised me that getting chickens into the hen house is easy: essentially they just all file in when it gets dark. He said to just go by the hen house at sunset and I will find the chickens in the hen house and then I only needed to close and lock the doors. He advised that I bring a bucket of compost just in case I needed to lure chickens in – chickens love compost. At the designated time – sunset – I arrived at the hen house to find all the chickens in the hen house. Only one problem: four chickens had decided to roost in a room that did not have doors. Slowly it dawns on me: “I have to move these chickens, and they don’t want to move. They are bedded down for the night!” What ensued was my trying to entice the chickens with compost. They ignored it. Arghhh. Then I tried to pick one up. It flapped its wings and dropped to the ground. “Oh no, I dropped a beloved HBG chicken!” Then the chicken takes off for the yard, and I’m back to running around after the chicken swearing at it, then remembering that I’m not supposed to swear at the chicken, so I start calling it sweetheart. I was calling a chicken sweetheart! Meanwhile the 30 or 40 other chickens that had roosted in the correct rooms were beginning to get upset by all the ruckus. Finally I managed to chase the chicken into a roosting room with a door. This process was repeated for each of the remaining three chickens. Phew! So, the saga of Kelly, Chicken Wrangler continues.

Wednesday and Thursday was my weekend. My habit is becoming 1 day in town getting to know folks a little better and one day hiking in any of the incredible wilderness areas surrounding Boulder. I discovered last week that I could meet members of the community – folks who live in Boulder – if I go to the little coffee/juice shop midmorning. I can only do this on my days off, as I am usually knee deep in weeds midmorning on work days. Last week I met Mare, Nina and Aleesa. This week when I walked in the door everybody greeted me hello by name – they remembered me. Not only did they remember me, but they remembered that I had been heading out for a hike and asked how my hike went. This week a man whom I had seen at the farmer’s market was sitting in the shop. I sat next to him and joined the group conversation; everybody in the shop was engaged in conversation together. This is how I met Anselm. Anselm is probably about 60 or 65. He came to Boulder from Germany in 1985. Somehow Anselm and I ended up talking about sense of place, and coincidentally I had with me the book that I am reading on place. Before long we were talking about the American ego (as in the ego and id) and how it expands to family, town, community and nation. I was working hard to remember my German philosophy. Turns out that Anselm is a photographer by profession. The next morning I stopped by the coffee/juice shop as I was heading out of town for my hike. The moment I walked in the door Anselm told me he was waiting for me and that he had been thinking about our conversation. I sat down next to him and he invited me to his house, he said, because he thinks his house has a unique setting and he wanted to see what I thought of the sense of his place. Anselm lives on top of Boulder Mesa (you can see a picture of Boulder Mesa here

http://etkj.smugmug.com/photos/553280443_dXuUu-L.jpg). I was honored and accepted, although admittedly I was a little outside of my comfort zone. After we determined that I could probably make it up the steep gravel road to his house in my Honda, we decided on that evening. And after a little more philosophical conversation, I was off to Boulder Mountain (yes, everything is named Boulder here) and Dixie National Forest for my hike.

At first it seemed that I would not have anything very interesting to say about my hike in the Dixie National Forest. Boulder Mountain is the 10,000 ft mountain between Boulder and Torrey/Capitol Reef National Park. In contrast to all the surrounding slick and red rock of Escalante and Capitol Reef, Boulder Mountain is a high alpine aspen forest. It was a hot day, so I thought the change of pace of the aspen forest would be refreshing. The sights and place of the hike turned out to be fine, but didn’t inspire me in the way that the red rock does. It was a rigorous hike though, and I enjoyed the exercise. The first few miles were almost straight up 1000 feet starting at ~8600 feet and going up to 9600. I am still not completely acclimatized yet, so it was good exercise. I also enjoyed the challenge of hiking completely alone with topo maps and a poorly marked trail. I didn’t see anybody the entire hike . . . except the cowboys. 4 or 5 miles into the backcountry I ran into several hundred cattle being herded from one range to another. This brought my hike to a screaming, or mooing, halt. So, I took video with my trusty little point-and-shoot. I will let the video tell the remainder of the story. (See the video at the bottom of the post.)

The views of the Colorado Plateau from Boulder Mountain are amazing.

After surviving the cattle drive incident and successfully returning home, it was time to visit Anselm up on the mesa. The Honda almost didn’t make it. Anselm’s home up on the mesa was inspiring and a work of art in itself. Turns out that Anselm is not just a photographer, but a painter, journalist, artist and musician. He even has an outdoor amphitheater and stage built into his home. We sat on the patio/stage and talked philosophy of becoming. Then I sat in the amphitheater and Anselm performed 8 of his songs for me. I feel so lucky for this bit of welcoming into connection. It was an honor to be invited, and my co-workers at HBG confirmed as much when they heard about it.

That brings me up to today. The orchard. This afternoon we ventured off the farm and the usual harvesting tasks of peas, arugula, carrots, etc. to the orchard and summer apples. I was excited for the change-up of crop. That was until we discovered that the one summer apple tree is surrounded by ant mounds. The best place to be was, therefore, in the tree. I put my rock climbing skills to work and scaled the tree. An hour later covered in scrapes, apple mold and ants, we had a few bushels of summer apples to show for the effort.

Finally a bit of exciting news. Alex asked about what I’ve been doing in the restaurant, since I’ve mostly been reporting on my farm tasks. At the restaurant I have mostly been in the farm-to-restaurant processing of farm produce. This means washing and pre-prepping produce. Two weeks ago on my first day off I asked if I could hang-out in the kitchen, wash dishes to learn more about how the kitchen works. I learned a lot that day about cooking and about dish washing. I also have been fairly involved in selecting and collecting herb and flower garnish. This past week we received a bumper crop of apricots from the man who brought us the bumper crop of cherries. Those had to be pitted, processed, and frozen, which I and two other volunteers did. All of this has allowed me to get to know Jenn and Blake. This is the exciting news: today Jenn asked me if I would like to cook next Sunday! I will be a prep cook, which means I will cook with Jenn during the day preparing things like biscuits and desserts and side dishes for the evening.

This blog thing is decidedly one-way, which I am not fond of. I am wondering what all of you are up to, and look forward to hearing your adventures!