Chickens, etc.

Well, I know we don't post much anymore. I guess we've gotten kind of bored with the blog these days... And of course we have a lot of other things on our plates too. After we spend most of the day on the computer at work and/or studying we just don't feel much like getting back on for blogging.

I have also joined the board of our neighborhood's Chamber of Commerce, and have been working on that website, which expends some more of my computer energy. I know a chamber of commerce might not seem like my cup of tea, but I have actually been enjoying it quite a bit. Since our neighborhood is so diverse, ethnically, racially, and socio-economically, it is a really cool organization, working on lots of issues for all of our neighborhood's residents and businesses, not just the "big ones."

The chickens have been in a lull lately, not laying much because of the changing weather and daylight hours. We got good eggs through the winter last year, and hopefully as they get settled into the cold, and get used to the light bulb in the coop (instead of sunlight), they'll start laying better. Yesterday I was in the kitchen making green tomato lasagna and I heard a brief flurry of squawking out there, so I popped outside to see what the racket was about. Well, when I opened the door there was an egg sitting there in the laying box. In the last month or so, we've really only gotten 2 or 3 eggs, so I was glad to see another one. Well, the water bowl was completely frozen since I had refilled it the day before, but the egg was still very warm, so all the squawking must have been from that egg popping out!

Our other recent chicken story happened a couple months ago. It was still nice fall weather at that point, and we had our windows open through the night. Trinity was awakened by a whole lot of chicken commotion outside about 2 or 3 am, and well, I am such a heavy sleeper I just rolled over and barely new anything was going on. After a while, the noise finally broke into my barrier (with a little help from Trinity's anxiety about the noise), so we grabbed a flashlight and went out to investigate. There in the corner of the coop was a medium sized possum that had squeezed through the door!

A couple of the locks had been sticking pretty bad, and I hadn't oiled them up yet, so we only had one out of three latches secured well, so he was able to squeeze through one corner I guess. I know possums can be pretty mean, but I don't think the chickens were in too much danger - they were holding there own pretty well in there in fact, and I think the possum was in over his head! He looked terrified of them! We held up one end of the coop and scooped the Ladies up to safety and then I chased the possum off with a broom.

About a week later, after I took the trash out one day, I left the lid off to air the can out. The next morning I went outside about 6:30 am with a fresh trash bag and when I looked in the can, there was the possum staring back up at me. He had climbed in looking for a treat (there was none to find) and he must not have been able to get out! Well, I was only half awake at that hour, and quite startled, so I slammed the lid down on top of him and locked him in. I didn't have time to deal with him then, so I just went to work and left him there! I wasn't sure what I would do, so I decided to call a pest company and they came and picked him up while I was at work a couple hours later. In hindsight, I don't think I would call them again (it wasn't free, that's for sure). They just "relocated" him... I have since spread the word to any lurking possums in the area that if I catch another one I don't think I will be so nice by paying for their relocation, or even chasing them off with a broom! Hopefully they have gotten my message, so I don't have to resort to more drastic measures. But I will if I have to!

Family photo

I was cleaning out my inbox today and I found this picture from a recent trip to my parent's house, so I thought I would share. This includes the current roster of humans and dogs in the Jerry Honse branch of the family tree. Lots of fun getting this one!

Phone

To help prepare for Trinity being a full-time student, and going on one paycheck for a year, we are cutting bills, and the phone/internet/cable TV bundle had to go. We have switched to just internet, which means no home phone number anymore. Hopefully anyone who needs to call us already has our mobile numbers, but if you don't, just drop us a note here, or email, or somewhere else in the cyberspace. There are still plenty of ways to track us down!

This also means we are going without TV, at all. Right now we don't have one of those digital converters either, and a pretty old TV, so it is just going to be DVDs for a while. Maybe we'll even keep it that way, who knows. Notice this news is coming AFTER the Lost finale. There was no way I was cutting the TV off during Lost!! Now, I am moving on.

Support Access to Local, Healthy Food in Kansas City

Last week, the Planning and Zoning Committee held their second hearing on our proposed Urban Agriculture codes for the City of Kansas City, MO. They looked at two different proposed amendments, and heard testimony. The ordinance discussion and testimonies will continue:

Planning and Zoning Committee Hearing on Urban Ag

Wednesday, May 12, 1:30 pm

414 E. 12^th Street, either in the Council Chambers on the 10^th floor or in the Hearing Room on the 26^th floor (ask at the Info Desk when you get there)

We have heard and are recommending changes to the ordinance based on some very legitimate concerns, but what we see, on the ground, in Kansas City neighborhoods makes the option of on-site sales and green businesses/jobs a healthy, community building choice for the city.

Did you know that in Jackson County:

· There are nearly 37,000 low-income people who don’t have a car and for whom the nearest grocery store is more than a mile away?

· That more than 63% of adults in the metro area are overweight or obese?

· That 14% of preschoolers are already overweight?

There are too many neighborhoods in Kansas City where:

· Liquor stores and fast food joints are easier to find than a fresh carrot, head of lettuce, or home-grown tomato.

· The people who suffer disproportionately from diabetes, hypertension, and other diet-related diseases can’t easily follow the doctor’s orders to “eat more fruits and vegetables.”

In communities like these, the city ordinance that we have proposed which would allow a home gardener or someone running a garden micro-enterprise to sell fresh-grown produce to their neighbors could be an effective strategy to help people get access to healthy food.

If you think that Kansas City, MO needs to support this small step to increasing access to healthy foods, please:

1. Show up at the Planning & Zoning Committee Hearing on Wednesday, 1:30pm, at City Hall, 414. E 12^th Street. The hearing will be either on the 10^th floor in City Council Chambers, or on the 26^th floor, in the Hearing Room. (Stop in at the info desk in the lobby to ask.)

2. Email city_council@kcmo.org and tell them that you want them to support the ordinance because our city needs to support neighborhood-based access to healthy foods!

Kansas City needs to support healthy, lively communities where residents can grow food and feed their neighbors-

DHBC

Our friends at DHBC have been in the national news lately. I just wanted to take some space and say good work and godspeed. Keep up the good and important work I read about weekly in the email updates - the real work of ministry - rather than getting caught up in denominational politics like those throwing stones at you. Thanks for remembering that God has given us more important things to do than "defellowshipping" and excluding. There is enough of that in the world without churches doing it too.

I am especially glad to hear that Mimi will be attending the meeting at which you all are defellowshipped, saying: "I don't think it will change their minds, but hopefully it might inspire some women who are struggling in Southern Baptist churches." Thanks for being a pioneer Mimi, and thanks to our DHBC family for always supporting your ministry staff so courageously, past and present. Trinity and I are with you in spirit.

For our other blog readers, if you want to know what I'm talking about here are some of the news links:

ABC News National
http://abcnews.go.com/WN/baptists-planning-disown-church-female-pastor/story?id=10252735

Atlanta Journal and Constitution
http://www.ajc.com/news/atlanta/southern-baptists-may-cut-414925.html?cxtype=rss_news_81963

Fox 5 Atlanta
http://www.myfoxatlanta.com/dpp/news/woman-pastor-causes-stir-with-convention-032910

WSBTV ABC local
http://www.wsbtv.com/news/22992013/detail.html

Associated Baptist Press
http://www.abpnews.com/content/view/4954/53/

Baptist Today
http://www.johndpierce.com/2010/03/fundamentalism-continues-and-continues.html

Harvest Hill Community Garden at WJC

Announcing the Harvest Hill Community Garden at William Jewell College! Many folks here at Jewell along with some dedicated Liberty community partners have been working hard to organize the garden and applications are now being accepted. Find out more at http://harvesthill.ning.com/

Andy and I are planning our CJS plot - if your in the Liberty area, we hope you'll come to the Hill and join in the fun!

[Yes, I am in fact planning an additional plot up here at Jewell. I plan to make Andy do most of the work ;) ]

Quotes & Phrases

"Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect."
-Mark Twain

Quotes & Phrases

I have a little notebook in which I have been writing quotes and phrases that inspire, encourage, or challenge me that I have kept and added to since college. Sometimes I have added to it more than others. I was thinking I would begin putting such quotes on here instead of only writing them in my little notebook. I hope you appreciate them as I do.


Here's one that caught my attention for the first time this morning while listening to a Bob Dylan record that I've had since high school:

"Well, I try my best
To be just like I am,
But everybody wants you
To be just like them.
...
I ain't gonna work on Maggie's farm no more."

--1965, "Maggie's Farm" by Bob Dylan

Guilty pleasure

I have a confession to make. Every once in a while on my way to work I stop and get "breakfast" from QuikTrip. Contrary to all of my food values, I don't know what it's really made of, or where it came from, or how it was "raised," "grown" or processed. But in my early morning stomach growling state sometimes on the commute to work, by the time I get to Liberty I have talked myself into stopping for my guilty pleasure of a reheated sausage & egg biscuit wrapped in paper. On a really bad day I add a chorizo burrito to my order.

And then I regret it for a couple hours after I scarf it down...

Two months later...

Well, it's been 2 months since our last post. Another busy stretch... On the good side a lot of the busy-ness has been seeing friends and family that usually only get to "see" us on here!

Since Nov. and Trinity's birthday here's what we've been up to:

• Thanksgiving celebrations with our families.
• Our so-far-annual return trip to Atlanta (Congrats to the Smalls for your new small one by the way!!!).
• We made some great progress in our never-ending bathroom project, and then put it back aside for more other busy-ness.
• Finals & final papers (Trinity taking them, and Tim grading them; not each others though).
• Christmas celebrations with families and friends.
• A mystery dinner theater with friends to ring in the New Year - I was the murderer, and I almost got away with it too!
• Trinity went to Phoenix for work, and then I left for 10 days in Honduras while she was gone (I don't think I'll be blogging much about that trip, but the whole team is adding photos and informative captions here: http://picasaweb.google.com/jeffbuscher58/HondurasJan10#).
• Thanks to Kate, Chris & Steph for taking care of Trinity and the dogs while I was gone for so long!
• Trinity had a clothing exchange at our house, and painted the kitchen cabinets.
• I returned from Honduras on a Thursday night and woke up less than 12 hours later to kick off our first CJS Summit at Jewell. We got to meet and spend the weekend with two of the authors of a favorite book of ours, The Better World Handbook.
• As soon as the Summit was over, we were both back to school again, and this semester is turning out to be our most intense yet, for both of us.
• I had a flashback of 2 years ago with a major, days-long headache. It was actually almost 2 years ago to the day, and it was so eerily similar we were really freaking out. It was time for a follow up MRI anyway, so I went in for that and I am happy to say the report says there is no evidence of a return tumor. That just means my major, days-long headache was something else, like maybe stress related or something... I don't know what I have to be stressed about!? Oh wait, maybe one whole month of non-stop work...
  
• I turned 29 years old and my friends all got me new vinyl records for our collection! Records are great headache prevention, so we have made sure to get our daily dose of the turntable ;) Sunday I listened to all the new ones at least once through, some more than once - which means I had a long and wonderful stretch of more than a few hours of prevention.
  
• The final season of LOST has begun... (yes, this is significant enough to make it onto my "what we've been up to" list!)
  

See, I told you we'd been busy! I think this weekend is looking pretty calm; hopefully we can keep it that way.