Inside Chickens

Since the chickens moved outside a couple of weeks ago, they mostly were in their house at night. They spent all day digging in the dirt in their fenced run, or around the yard when we let them out to play. On Sunday afternoon Marc installed windows on either side of their house and they LOVE it. In the evening we go to the window in the back of the house and they are all lined up with their beaks an inch from the glass looking. They are so mellow then that I can open the back door and pet them without protest. Since the windows were installed they come outside to eat and then go right back into their house. Yesterday we finally opened up the front of their house (the whole wall comes off for easy cleaning) and coaxed them into the yard to play. They never cease to amuse me!

Sad Energy

I was at a Naturopathic appointment at the Bastyr Center today and one of the student clinicians told me I have a “sad energy” about me and wondered what that was about. I told her I wasn’t sure, but the truth is that I just didn’t feel like talking about it. I am a little sad—I’m sad that my internship is going to force me to only see my husband on weekends for 9 months. I’m sad that so many of my very good friends from school are leaving Seattle in the next couple of months. I’m also exhausted from doing graduate school full-tilt while working several jobs for two straight years. And to some degree I’m still sad I didn’t get into the Bastyr internship. Are any of these horrific traumas in my life? No, and for the most part I go into each day with gratitude and have many happy moments. I don’t spend a lot of time sitting around wallowing in it, but there is in fact, a low level of “sad energy” that seems to follow me around lately. I would imagine some summer sun and finally getting an academic break would help a great deal.

Crossfit Fundamentals: Day 1

This morning I headed back to Crossfit for my first fundamentals training-- three sessions of one on one work with Jesse, my trainer, to both teach me proper form for the basics and to show Jesse where my weak spots are (there are many!)

First: after a little warm up on the rowing machine, I did countless squats while Jesse tweaked my form. I have a real tendency to turn my knees in and to favor my right leg, so we worked on trying to correct this before adding a dowel (basically a broom handle with no broom) for me to hold and attempt to hold properly without choking myself and still maintaining good form in my legs. By the time we finished that part my legs and hips were tired and we hadn't even started working out yet!

Second: Today's workout consisted of 15 of those perfect form squats with the dowel over my head followed by a quarter-mile run, which we repeated four times. Many of my friends are runners and probably could have sprint all of that easily and been bored out of their minds. NOT ME. I haven't run in at least four years due to ongoing knee issues and even before that I was never much of a runner. So today's cumulative mile was killer and I did end up having to walk some of it (not to mention those fun squats every quarter mile!)

I can tell I'm going to be sore tomorrow-- I'm already walking a bit gingerly.

As for food, I decided to clean up my act a bit. The national cross-fit org promotes a zone diet/paleo-diet type thing which is mainly a lot of fruits and veggies, good fats and lean, organic meat. I'm doing my own spin on that (true paleo shuns beans for some reason, and doesn't use starchy veggies which I'm not buying into). Above is my lunch today: Salmon salad with a little mayo, mustard and dill, olives, olive oil and vinegar and carrots with a side of berries. It was very filling-- I couldn't eat it all.

One day down-- who knows how many to go until I find my abs again. I took "before" pictures yesterday too , but I will not be sharing those until there is an "after" to compare it to!

Goodbye to sugar

Dear Sugar,

I'm sorry to have to say this, but we can no longer be lovers. We have been off and on for a number of years now, and every time I think you are out of my life you slowly creep back in. At best, it has been a tumultuous relationship. You have certainly been there for me during hard times, comforting me at my lowest points, but each time you turned around and kicked me when I was down. I don't like the person I am when I am with you-- you make me moody, emotional, cranky and bloated. Each time I tell you I need some space, you find your way back, telling me you can be more natural this time-- you are less processed, have more nutrients, are made by bees. You say, it's mostly chocolate I am hanging out with-- that I will barely notice you there. But each time you slide back into my life you are not content to stay a rare acquaintance-- each time you get me in bed with you and you have your way with me. I admit it's fun while it lasts, but the next day I hate myself for giving in to your charms and at the same time I crave more and more of your presence. So this time I'm saying goodbye for good. I have a feeling you won't even miss me-- I certainly will be better off without you in my life.

Love,

Sabrina

A chicken update

Picture 1: the big kids hanging out on top of their house like Snoopy. Front is Olive, middle is Miss Kitty, left is Muffin, right is Liz Lemon, back is Skittles
Picture 2: Roxie, Flea & Marc

If you had asked me a few months ago if I thought chickens had wildly unique personalities I would not have thought so-- however my seven do.

The "big kids"
Liz Lemon: the leader of the pack, the biggest and the bossiest. She also has recently developed very large dark "eyebrows" that bear a strong resemblance to groucho marx's making her look rather menacing. She is definitely the top of the pecking order.

Muffin: definitely the noisiest. She makes this funny sound to announce everything she does, kind of like a little kazoo. She talks constantly and was the reason the chickens had to be moved to the back bedroom when they were inside because she is so loud! She is also my favorite as she talks to me and doesn't mind being held (once she gets over the trauma of being picked up). Muffin also seems to eat twice as much as the others and is a very enthusiastic digger, wiggling her chicken hips to get deep into the earth in search of bugs and worms. We also call her the bulldozer because she will barrel through whatever the other chickens are doing in an attempt to participate, including sometimes jumping on their heads or into my lap.

Miss Kitty: Is Muffin's sister but really has much less personality. She is often the last one eating after everyone else is asleep. Her adult feathers are half grown-in on her head making her look a bit like she has a mullet.

Olive: is the phoenix and the dainty girly-girl. She doesn't make much progress when she digs in the dirt and daintily wipes her mouth on the grass after she eats a worm. She is like the little girl on the playground in the party dress that doesn't want to get dirty and sits primly on the sidelines while the other kids play in the mud.

Skittles: is the baby of the big kids-- by far the smallest but she makes up for it by being the smartest and the best hunter. She is the only one that doesn't run away when I refill the food dish and she finds more worms than any of the other chickens. She will sit nicely beside me and let me pet her and is the easiest to catch.

The little kids:

Flea: is into everything. She has no fear and is constantly looking for ways to escape her box. The few times we have let the little chickens out with the big ones she immediately goes flying up to (or into) Liz Lemon which results in her getting pecked on and everyone getting yelled at. I'm not sure if she thinks she is challenging Lizzie, or just wants to make friends, but Liz does not appreciate it! She is also lightning fast which makes me nervous when she is outside because she's hard to catch.

Roxie: is the tagalong little sister. She goes wherever Flea goes and tries to do whatever Flea does, but she's a lot smaller and more fearful so she is not always sucessful. If Flea gets more than a foot away and Roxie can't see her Roxie freaks out and starts crying and searching for her.

So those are my kids. They are very entertaining.

Crossfit: an adventure in ass-kicking

This chick does Crossfit. You can see her before picture here.

So my experiment with Jillian's book died before it really got started, mainly because I went out of town two weekends in a row, but also because for the last couple of months I've been dealing with serious energy problems (i.e. I have none) which I think my naturopath is on the road to fixing now. Last week my hairdresser was telling me about her one time attempt at doing Crossfit. Crossfit for the uninitiated, is a military/police type workout which combines serious weight lifting with circuit training and some other stuff so hard you want to throw up all in a small class. It is somewhere between personal training, and a big group workout class. I thought I would only find such a thing in Seattle proper which is too far for me to go, but Crossfit is so popular that there is even one in Lynnwood.

This morning I went for a free let's see how it goes session. For the first few sessions you are not in a group. A very nice trainer who reminded me uncannily of my brother, had me doing squats (where I learned I've been doing it wrong for years), push-ups, pull-up type things since I'm not strong enough to pull up, and a lot of rowing on the rowing machine. Once I got the form down the workout went like this: 500 meters as fast as you can on the rowing machine, then 40 squats using perfect form with your arms over your head (my shoulders hurt WAY more than my legs), then 20 pushups (which I might have been able to do without my knees down if I hadn't just held my arms over my head during all those squats), then 30 sit-ups, and finishing off with 10 of those jump-up pull-up deals. Oh, did I mention it is timed? The Crossfit record is 4 min 30 seconds for the above. My time? 11 minutes and 8 seconds. My trainer told me the goal of the first day is not to die. I did not die, though during those squats I thought I might.

I have always liked working out alone. I hate aerobics classes because I am uncoordinated and it's too frustrating. Yoga is ok if the teacher is good, but other than a few months of going with my friend Laura last year, I pretty much do that alone too. I put my headphones in at the gym and zone out. But in doing that I also give myself permission to give up sooner than if I had someone pushing me. I'm also realizing that I am someone who needs people. If I don't have people to talk to all day for a couple days, I start getting depressed. Which is why I'm thinking a workout that has a social aspect as well as someone standing there making sure I do all 40 squats might be a good thing.

Crossfit is not exactly cheap, but it isn't that much more than I was paying for yoga. I'm seriously considering signing up to get my ass kicked all summer long.

Faux Phad Thai

One of the handful of dishes I make that does get Marc excited is what he calls "Phad Thai" though it really only vaguely resembles real Phad Thai. It's a great meal for Friday night if you are like me and scouring the cupboards for something to make for dinner on the day before shopping day because I tend to throw a lot of left overs in it.

Faux Phad Thai
Serves 4-6 (I make lots and we eat it for lunch for a couple days too).

Sauce:

1/2-3/4 cup almond butter
2 T peanut butter
2 T Ume Plum Vinegar*
1/2 cup Wheat-free tamari
1/2 inch piece of fresh ginger
1/4-1/2 red pepper flakes
1 T sesame oil
1/2 cup of either soy, hemp or almond milk OR 1/2 cup of commercial phad thai sauce (gluten free is not easy to find though).

Blend all ingredients in a blender until smooth-- you may need to adjust amounts according to taste.

Phad Thai:

2 T olive oil
1 package brown rice "spaghetti"
14 oz extra firm tofu, drained and diced into small cubes
3-5 oz cooked chicken breast (optional)
16 oz vegetables (I use whatever I have on hand-- frozen stir fry veggies work well this time I used chard, asparagus, frozen artichoke hearts, corn, carrots and chard (including stems)
1/2 cup chopped almonds for garnish.

Cook noodles according to package instructions.

Saute tofu in olive oil until browned. Add diced vegetables and continue to saute until tender. Drain noodles and add veggies, tofu and top with sauce. Toss well and garnish with chopped almonds.

*Ume plum vinegar is fantastically delicious (it is kind of sour and tart -- I put it in lots of things). If you don't have it, rice vinegar will do.