Return to the Farm

Chicken Eggs
Originally uploaded by jessajune

The garden has been busy while I've been gone. So have the chickens, who started laying just before I left and are now putting out several eggs a day. Yesterday we had 5, which is the record so far (there are 6 chickens altogether).

Since I've been back I've eaten these eggs, Sungold cherry tomatoes, zucchini (oh yes, it is zucchini time), and green beans - all from the garden. I love summer.

Fishy... I mean, suspicious.

Two guys in what could have been a refrigerated truck just pulled all the way up my driveway. The passenger got out, came to chat me up, not very effectively, and tried sell me some meat or fish, entirely unsuccessfully.

Now, the logo on the shirt did match the logo on the truck, and did involve a steer head. And it's possible they were making a delivery in the neighborhood, as they claimed, and saw me alllll the way back at the end of the driveway, where I was raking, and decided I looked like someone who might buy meat out of a truck, and came expressly to make me a customer.

But it seems pretty fishy to me. And not the kind that comes out of the back of a truck. He was anxious to know if I was a worker or an "owner", and the driver never left the vehicle. It's possible they were casing the house.

I made sure to let him know I wasn't working, and therefore home all the time. And you can bet I'll be watching for that truck around the neighborhood.

Discoveries

Cleaning the chaise, I found:
- 1 vacuum bag full of cat hair
- 1 pecan
- various crumbs
- 1 wrapper for Sky Blue Alpaca's organic cotton yarn

Then I covered it with a nice, purple jersey-knit sheet, so that when company is here on the weekend I can just whisk it off to reveal cleanness beneath. Loki is not particularly happy with this turn of events. He sniffed the whole thing very suspiciously before grudgingly curling himself up into a very tiny ball in one corner.

Funny story about that chaise. It is maybe not a good idea to take casual dating partners furniture shopping with you, particularly if you are indecisive or a pleaser-type personality. P made one such mistake, and I certainly never would have TOLD him to buy a chaise lounge - it is, after all, not very masculine, no? - but when he asked me if I LIKED it, well, I wasn't going to LIE about it. He bought the chaise. We dated for a while, then stopped. 6 months later, he called and asked if I wanted first refusal on the chaise - it really was just too big for his living space, and unless you're VERY friendly, only one person at a time can sit on it, making it not so great for entertaining.

Which is how I acquired this very loungy, cat-attractive piece of furniture. Which I never would have bought first hand, because it was too impractical. But used for half the price.... well, okay then.

***

Side note: I will mention that since my regular internet connection is dead, I am STANDING OUT IN THE YARD stealing my neighbor's wireless to post this. I've been using their connection for weeks, but for the last 2 days, it just won't work from inside my house anymore. Le sigh.

Emotional Hangover

I can only describe today's headache as an emotion hangover from yesterday. It wasn't a deliberate overdose, but man, it was a rough day.

I'm still recovering, but I am functional now. Chipping away at my to-do list, for pretty much the first time this week. It's kind of a long one, but making process is good. I feel a little better now.

Also, the results of my poor impulse control are in - I made a scarf. No, this one isn't on my list of things to do. I needed to channel my anxiety into something else. I used enormous yarn on big needles, so it only took a couple of hours over 2 days to make. Actually, I was really glad to have something to do with my hands during yesterday's board meeting. I was coping pretty well until I finished the scarf entirely - the last 20 minutes I was shaking like a leaf. Next time, I'll bring a backup project.

Anyway, there it is. It's toasty warm, which is good, since my neck is all wacked out with tension headache funtime.



Man, I need a haircut.

Publicity

We made the front page of the Mercury News. The whole story is here.

Later edit to add:

They're now making me register to see the article. Bleh.

Note: the "threat of condemnation" concern was mine - I asked them about it at the board meeting to see what they would say - they've been telling my father they aren't considering eminent domain at this time... but the only words they could find in the meeting to explain "threat of condemnation" were "friendly eminent domain".

Maybe it's me, but a threat doesn't sound very friendly.

Excerpts of the article follow.

Owners fight Saratoga Cemetery District effort to buy them out

Just under a month ago, Nikki Teeter answered a knock at the door to find Drew Reid, a real estate agent who told her he represented the Saratoga Cemetery District - which wanted to buy her home.

Reid said the district intended to expand the Madronia Cemetery, which surrounds the Saratoga house on three sides. Despite Teeter's protestations that her family's home of 29 years wasn't for sale, Reid persisted in trying to set up meetings - including one with an appraiser.

"I was astounded," Teeter said. "They want to take my house for a larger driveway."

Since that unsettling encounter, the Teeters and a group of neighbors have grown increasingly worried about the little-known cemetery district, whose five directors are appointed by the county board of supervisors but apparently aren't subject to county oversight. Some neighbors are convinced the district is planning to seize the Teeters' home and another nearby through eminent domain, the legal process by which a government agency can seize property from unwilling buyers for the "public good."

Phil Boyce, a well-connected local banker and investor who chairs the cemetery district, says any talk of eminent domain is wildly premature. But he refuses to rule it out.

...

Residents grew especially concerned after an aide to Supervisor Liz Kniss, whose district includes Saratoga, helped obtain board minutes that show district officials have been quietly making plans to buy the two homes near the cemetery for more than a year - without informing the homeowners until last month.

Neighbors also are alarmed that, according to previous minutes, the board has discussed whether the two homeowners would get a tax break if they sold to the district under "threat of condemnation." And they note that prominent attorney Norm Matteoni, the district's legal adviser on land matters, was at the center of one of San Jose's biggest eminent domain battles in recent years; he represented property owners at the Tropicana Shopping Center who successfully fought the city's efforts to seize their property.

...

Boyce told the Mercury News he had personally tried to visit both homeowners three times before Reid's visit, but they were never home and he didn't want to leave a business card.

Boyce said he understands why homeowners wouldn't want to sell at a time not of their choosing. "But there are needs for the greater good," he said. "We wanted to sit down in person, without any threats or cajoling, and hopefully we'll come to a meeting of the minds."

If the homeowners continue to refuse? "I don't know what we'll do from that point on," Boyce said.
...

Kniss said she has county lawyers and the county clerk doing research to see what authority the district has to invoke eminent domain, should it come to that.

"It seems a stretch to imagine a cemetery district would need additional land, unless they have run out of burial plots," she said.

That Sucked Donkeyballs

Getting pushed out of your house is a lot like getting laid off. Except it is your fucking HOUSE. Hi, your life is in our way, get out.

"We know change is hard."

Bullshit.

Oak St. Neighborhood

I said I'd get back to the depression thing... I don't really have the energy for it now, but here's some of what I've been doing today: oakstneighborhood.googlepages.com.

One of the properties that the cemetery district wants to take is where I grew up. The same place I'm living right now, in fact. They've been planning it for a year; we just found out a few weeks ago.

It's really fucking scary, but I think the worst part of it is knowing that the cemetery board meeting minutes (that I used to make up this timeline) are available to the public if you know to go and ask for them. But why would we have known we needed to?