What did you learn today?

One of my goals in life is to always be learning something new everyday. Whether that be through experience, reading or other means. I'm guessing many of us Permies have a similar attitude or at least, are very likely learning all the time due to trying things most don't. And we can all learn more if we share! Maybe it could be fun to share something you learned today, whether it's silly, serious or just interesting. Maybe the story of how you learned it, if you feel called.

I'll start. Today, with the help of one of my 11 week old chickens who loves sitting on my shoulder even though she's getting too big to fit and is subsequently having a hard time staying balanced there, I learned that chickens have claws on their wings! And they're quite big and sharp. As if the scratches on my arms from talons weren't enough to make people who see me in the normal world wonder what the heck I'd been doing, now I've got a giant one on my face. Lesson learned.

What did you learn today?

Oh, what a nice thread!

I gave up New Year Resolutions several years ago and instead decided I'd use the new year to learn a new skill. So I'm totally on board with trying to learn new stuff!

I'm sorry to hear about your chicken injury. At least you've got a good story to tell about it! Ha! But I do hope you heal up.

Today I learned a bittersweet skill: my family took in an orphaned mockingbird about a month ago. It had no feathers. It was a goner if we didn't take it in. So we put it in a 5 gallon bucket and raised it. We called him/her/it Zipper. I taught it a special whistle whenever I'd feed it, so she'd associate that particular whistle with food.

She grew, learned to fly, and we taught her to feed herself. She'd spend more and more time outside, but she always flew back to me whenever I gave the whistle. She has a particular chirp that I recognize, so if I called her and she was up in a tree somewhere, she'd chirp at me so I could find her.

Two nights ago, I whistled for her to come in for the night. (She still slept inside for safety.) She called back from the woods, but never flew to the back door. So I figured she was ready to be on her own, but I was worried! The next morning (yesterday), I got up early to whistle for her. She chirped back to let me know she was ok, but she never came for food. I only saw her in passing yesterday as she sat on her favorite perch but flew away if I got too close.

So I'm glad and sad today. I got to rescue a baby bird and it "graduated." It was an interesting month of learning about mockingbird behavior. Honestly, I never cared for mockingbirds. They often dive bombed me if I unknowingly got too close. They are very territorial. But I have a new appreciation for them now that I've been able to raise one.

Monsoon season here in New Mexico. A couple of days ago, we had 1.5 inches of water in 20 minutes. Runoff from the roof and out buildings filled the dry swales that I’ve been digging for the past decade. Due to extended drought, I never actually knew if the depressions would hold the vast amounts of water that would fall suddenly on dry earth during a healthy monsoon season. The holding ponds work and all the water stayed in place without running down the street.

Today, just two days later, the water has caused the depressions to explode with new sprouting seedlings. I have no idea what is growing in these low spots but am so eager to find out! The next few days and weeks will reveal the plant types. If nothing else, I will have mulch to reinvigorate the foundation plantings. I learned that the wonder of this new growth from mystery seeds in the low spots is incredibly enlivening and hopeful.

My boss is an incredible font of knowledge, and he's almost always happy to share - especially when it comes to his passions - coffee beans and music. Today, he told me how our Indian Monsoon Malabar coffee came by that trade name. It's grown in Malabar, India, and when it was shipped to England, it would get wet, on board the ship, so they'd drag it out of the hold, and open it up to the sun and wind, to dry it out. This would happen repeatedly, on each trip, with the beans being somewhat fermented and sun-bleached, by the time they arrived in port. Over time, their shipping methods improved, and the constant getting wet/drying in the sun cycle didn't happen anymore, and the Brits receiving it didn't like how the flavor changed, so they producers started trying to figure out what was different, and how to mimic the previous flavor. What they finally settled on, that worked perfectly, was to leave the beans out, prior to shipping, in the coastal monsoons!

Who'da thunk there would be such an interesting history behind one specific type of coffee bean!