calamity jane

These days I mostly try not to write. My life is so full of work and family and weeding. But every now and then, my brain starts to itch and the only way to scratch that itch is writing. This is where you will find my most recent scratchings.

  • Egg Shells to Egg Shells

    Laying hens need calcium to form all that good strong eggshell, almost one shell a day! That’s a lot of calcium! You can give them ground oystershell, it’s very good stuff, but I can’t find it locally and ordering it is pretty expensive. Instead, I grind up the old eggshells and feed them back to the hens. There’s something undeniably uncomfortable about feeding hens their own eggs, and surely it’s not as nutritionally superior as oystershell, but it’s common practice with apparently no deleterious effect. And of course much cheaper and ‘closed loop.’ I think if chooks have access to…

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    Calamity Jane

  • For Love Nor Money

    Dear friends, I’d much rather just move on with a post about anything else and forget about this whole money issue. But to be very frank, it is a weight on my heart, I feel like I have a few things to say, and moving on isn’t working, I tried. I feel like as a ‘writer’ I am supposed to present a cohesive, consistent, confident self to you all. But isn’t that what I so fight against? The bullshit image? I am a real, live, fallen-from-grace person over here behind this screen. With many layers of confusion. When I say…

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    Calamity Jane

  • The Root of all Evil?

    I started blogging more than two years ago. It started innocently enough. I would write a bit, now and then, when I had time and inclination. But as any of you with your own blogs will understand, this shit is addictive. I slowly wrote more and more until it usurped any remotely ‘hobby’ status. Now I spend far too much time writing, and furthermore thinking about writing. Any time off from my mama job, I can hardly wait to get to a computer. Disgusting. But also, wonderful, validating, rewarding and downright fun. I write for myself, above all. Let that…

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    Calamity Jane

  • Fighting the System vs. Embracing What Is

    Yesterday was my daughter’s birthday. A whole big FOUR. And she had a perfect 4yo’s birthday, everything she might have thought to want– balloons, streamers, bear cake with chocolate coconut ‘fur,’ all her best friends, and her favorite party dress. Oh yeah, and lots and lots of presents. And lots. On and on, all day long. More and more presents. Are holidays just cursed for me now? I used to love Christmas and birthdays before I had kids. They meant special rituals, glittery lights, people I loved, decadent food. Now they both mean stuff, loads if it. Mostly cheap plastic…

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    Calamity Jane

  • I Get Around

    We are a one car family. It works for us right now because we are lucky enough to have the right set-up. Before we moved here, I did countless hours of research to figure out where we would live to minimize our need to drive. Inevitably, it is the expensive part of town. But we do in fact live within a few miles of most everything we frequent. We are a few blocks from two grocery stores (one of which is a Wh*le Foods), and within a one mile radius we have two libraries, a big city park, several playgrounds…

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    Calamity Jane