Humor
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Emerson and the Frizzle
Emerson in Rooster Row Do you remember Emerson, the hen that turned into a rooster? (Read about it here: http://www.vegetariat.com/2011/07/segregating-rooster-building-bachelors-quarters-pvc/ ). To review, last year we chose several breeds of chicks, all of which were supposed to have been pullets (females, rather than cockerels). My daughter chose the smallest Rhode Island Red chick, knowing that she would grow to be one of the larger hens and not wanting her to be a bully. That adorable chick turned into Emerson, a huge, handsome rooster. And vicious. After growing up as a pet, as soon as his hormones kicked in he became a nasty attack rooster, flying up to try for our faces, hitting us with his wings (they really are strong and it hurts!), and practicing with his feet for when his spurs grew in. Since we didn’t want fertile eggs, Emerson lived a life of frustrated celibacy next to the girls. I’d asked around at feed stores if they wanted him, but no one did and they said they’d eat him or just kill him. Until a month ago when on a visit to the Vista Country Feed Store I asked again, and they wanted him! They had about thirty one-year-old Rhode Island Red hens they were going to throw him in with. Sorry ladies!
Getting Emerson out of his pen and into a dog carrier was hazardous and scary. My daughter used strawberry on a string as a lure, but darn him, he just wouldn’t step into the box. We tried for almost an hour. Then Jacob came to work on the ponds, and volunteered his services. He said he thought it would be fun! Using his jacket and sheer determination, he captured Emerson without injury to anyone. Amazing!
At the feed store a pen in a line of pens was made available for Emerson. He was temporarily in Rooster Alley. There was a Polish rooster, with the funny head feathers, and a couple of others, all of whom Emerson tried to challenge through the wire. Testosterone Central.
And then there was the frizzle rooster.
Mr. Frizzle and the Forward Feathers I saw the frizzle rooster there last year, after someone had dumped him there. He strutted around crowing and posturing, with his curly feathers and diminutive size. I fell in love. He was funny all over.
Mr. Frizzle Means Business. He Really Does. Everything he did was funny, although it was all rooster behaviour. Well this year he was still there, and apparently had been turned out of his pen for Emerson.
Mr. Frizzle Takes Time Out From Attacking Emerson To Pose For Video. That didn’t make him back down, though! That little guy challenged Emerson through the pen.
"If only this wire wasn't here I'd show YOU who is bigger!" What was truly hilarious was that after he’d crow, he’d breathe in air while still making sound, like a wheeze or a deflated bagpipes. Listen carefully on his last crow; you can see him (with Emerson) here: http://youtu.be/ivtpeHfOSDM . Thanks to my daughter for the video. Happy Days, Emerson! And much love Mr. Frizzle!
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Seven Hundred Gallons of Cooties
That's a lot of tea. One of the amazing and useful things I learned in my Permaculture Design Course was how to brew microbes in a bucket. Yes, I know, most women like champagne and jewelry. I like compost and worms. Whatever. Microbes are the microscopic creatures that make dirt into soil. By brewing a microbial tea you can so supersaturate the water with microbes that giving your plants just a small drink of it will greatly improve their health. That is because microbes eat plant litter and other decaying things and make available (and by ‘make available’ I mean ‘poop out’.) (Sorry.) more of the nutrients such as minerals that can be locked in the soil. Adding microbes to poor soil is a good thing.
Fish tank water, paint strainer and aerator: tools for microbial brewing. To make a microbial brew, you put good compost in a mesh bag such as a paint strainer or layers of cheesecloth. Obtaining compost from various sources gives you a good mix of microbes because not all the same microbes live in all soils. Suspend this bag in a five-gallon bucket of water, add a little organic molasses for the microbes to eat (like sugar to yeast), and if you want other soil additives such as rock sulphate, blood or bone meal, etc. I used water from my fish tank. Then you oxygenate the water with a fish tank aerator. After thirteen hours the microbes will have reproduced to a maximum capacity and the brewing is finished. You should use the brew within a few hours.
I'm not sure what made it foam, but it looked more like a brew. So, I did this a couple of times last Fall. Meanwhile, Jacob, who still maintains the Aquascape projects and volunteers some time here, managed to have donated to me a 700-gallon tank. It had been used for organic fertilizer.
The tank. The target: under the balcony. Jacob brought it over in his pick-up, and with the building of an impromptu scaffold he, my daughter and I (but mostly him) rolled it into place by my garage without damaging the propane tank or each other. Then he re-routed a rain gutter from my paltry 50-gallon rain barrel into the 700-gallon tank.
Trying not to crush the propane tank. The tank filled after a few rains, and I used most of the water recently between rains. Then the last two rains filled it to the top. Jacob, who is into aquatic microbes with which to balance natural ponds, microbes being referred to as ‘cooties’, suggested turning the entire tank into a cootie-brewing container. That way I’d not just be watering the plants, I’d be giving them a microbial smoothie. A cootie cocktail.
The tank, full of rainwater from the gutter, becoming a microbe farm. Always up for doing the improbable, I filled a paint strainer with some fine samples of soil from several long-established areas of my yard, and suspended it inside the tank. In went an entire bottle of molasses, which is a drop in the bucket, so to speak. Then in went my little fish tank aerator, quivering in fear at the impossible task of aerating 700-gallons of water. I took a water sample and then plugged the thing in. That was a few days ago. I have no idea how well the microbes are brewing, since the aerator is barely stirring the water. The water has turned brownish, which I take to be a good sign. The warmer temperature is perfect for the little guys; springtime for microbes. I think I may have a microscope left over from my older brothers – circa 1950-something – in the garage somewhere, with which I can compare water samples to see if anything is happening. I figure, even if it isn’t, there is no harm done, and even if some microbes have flourished the water has improved.
The aerator down inside the now-brownish cootie water. There are many quips I can make about this whole project. For instance, here are several million pets I don’t have to take to the vets. Or, I really love to cook, and since I enjoy making soup this project is a natural. However I just think the whole idea of making 700 gallons of microbial tea is so funny that no matter how the project ends up, I think the laugh is worth it. If I can’t do something bizarre, it isn’t worth doing!
Microbes are amazing, aren’t they?
And so are tadpoles, which are thriving not unlike microbes, but in my pond. (A belated happy April Fools.)
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How Desserts Lose Calories: My Theory
After years of careful scientific research, I have discovered that food can lose its caloric content under certain conditions. I’m not talking about after you eat half of it, either. This thesis, which I firmly hold to be true, gives a little break to all of us who gain weight if we even see a drawing of a donut. Here it is:
High calorie foods, such as cakes, cookies, ice cream, pastries, pies… you get the picture… lose caloric content when:
They are dropped on the floor.
When they are stale.
When they are given to you by someone who doesn’t want them.
When left over.
When eaten from the container.
When slightly burnt.
When overcooked (different from being burnt).
When eaten reluctantly (food guests force on you and you have to eat some to be polite).
When someone who is a bad or indifferent cook makes them.
After the cat has sniffed them.
When reduced to crumbs in a pocket/purse/backpack.
When eaten other than in their native environment (i.e., ice cream on a cold day, pie in the garden, batter-dipped cheesecake-onna-stick at the fair. No, wait, that is its natural environment!).
When eaten onna-stick, unless they are supposed to be onna-stick, such as ice cream bars.
When eaten with an unusual complimentary food (donuts and Corona) (something about food combining, like making a whole protein).
When taken medicinally.
When washed down with a diet drink.
When eaten en masse at one sitting (like the heavenly cranberry biscotti my wonderful neighbor makes every Christmas. They are MINE.)
When eaten with a plain green salad (they cancel each other out). (If you add sprouts to the salad, you can have seconds on the cake.)
When eaten instead of a regular meal.
Of course, this theory doesn’t work if you plan to do any of the aforementioned. You can’t drop a cookie deliberately and then eat it (ten second rule or no) and expect calories to break off and go skidding around the floor. This works only when you forget to set the oven timer and the brownies come out dry, but you eat them anyway. Or if you are laying kitchen tile and someone brings donuts and someone else brings a six-pack. So what it comes to is this: there is a reward for clumsiness and forgetfulness. We should embrace and reward our faults. With sugar.
I hope this theory aids you in your diet. If you have any corroborating evidence of your own, please comment. Someday I’ll write a paper on my findings and send it to medical journals. Won’t they be surprised!
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Questionable Carpentry
A carpenter's nightmare. I’ve said it many times: I can’t build. I envision what I want. I go about the deed full of instructions and positive energy. Somehow during the attempt I go haywire and what I create isn’t what I’d wanted. I am the Cakewrecks of building. Does that stop me? Noooo! Always optimistic, and without a handy carpenter, I seek to build. This time it was a couple of trellises for the two passionvines which had taken over each other, a fence, a pathway, a dead tree, a live tree and a walkway.
The vine mess. I didn’t want to cut the plants back. They were fruiting and the small one was flowering. So I spent hours untangling vines. I finally sorted out the small one. Then I began to be creative. I had all this old bamboo that I had cut from plants at my mother’s house years ago, and it really wanted me to use it. So I wired it together over the fence, going for a creative look that turned out looking more as if a couple had slipped, but no matter! Then I got the idea to put some wire along the fence, behind the vines, so they would have something on which to grasp. That took some interesting maneuvers as the wire curled and clung, as did the vines.
Up, I say, UP! The small passionvine I tied onto the wire and flipped over the bamboo, without doing much damage to the plant, and felt pretty happy about the result.
The little vine looking much happier. Then I looked at the huge, vigorous passionvine which was eating the world, and decided it would be good to make it grow over some trellises that spanned the pathway, and use old wire and wood for the project. (You should be squirming uneasily in your seats about now).
Untangling a broken dead tree from the vines. Now here again, I KNOW what I wanted. I saw it in my mind’s eye. I can do that with cooking, just envision a dish or a taste and I can recreate it. Probably because I can use measuring cups and spoons like a pro.
A crysalis of a Gulf Fritillary butterfly, which lays eggs on passionflowers. Using a measuring tape is another story. It always lies to me. Oh, and I try not to cut wood, because I screw it up so easily. Anyway, I found wood that was pretty equal, nailed on a crosspiece, made a ‘T’ with scraps for the bottom, and found some unrusted wire that would do well.
Strategically placing ladder to hold up post. To make a long story short, leaving out the wrestling with wire, using my head to hold pieces in place, hammering yet more reinforcements onto the bottoms to keep the whole thing from pulling itself down, I managed to get them up and the vines over the top. They aren’t bad looking from a distance. Just don’t get too close. And in the big windstorm that is due Friday, don’t even come onto my block! Who knows where these things will land!
The trellis looks deceptively good... from a distance. Oh, and then glowing with the success and ease of that project (just short term memory loss), I wanted to make a wire walk-through squash thingy. I bought the heavy gauge fencing wire, t-stakes, and measured and remeasured. All looked okay, although the stakes looked a little short (perhaps I should have bought the six-foot rather than four-foot?) until I began playing with the wire.
Dealing with reused wire... trying to get the bends out. As much as I dislike working with wire, I certainly end up tangling with it a lot. I had a 50-foot roll that I wanted to cut in half, so I layed it out on the ground, walking on it to keep it from viciously curling and scraping my back or imprisoning me. I wired one side onto the t-stakes, and then thought they weren’t high enough and found… what else? Old bamboo! On they went to hold the wire. Then I did the opposite side. And at this point the realization that I’d been trying to fight came to me. It did so as the wire, instead of reaching into a graceful dome, sagged so much in the middle that the structure now spelled out a capital letter M. I had bought the wrong gauge wire. It was too floppy to ever make a nice dome.
The Vine Alley. So I did what I usually do when faced with the product of my ineptitude. I took a walk and did something else for awhile. I do this often. Coming back to the M, I thought of making two very slender passageways, but that wouldn’t work. I considered tearing it all down, but I was pretty tired by then and I hadn’t screwed up the placement of the stakes, after all. So I decided to make two parallel vine walls, like a viney alley. No wonderful squash hanging down from overhead, but I’ll get over it. I planted four kinds of viney veggies, and am now getting my mind convinced that walls are what I really wanted anyway. Otherwise, between the viney alley and the wobbly passionvine trellises, this won’t be so much a garden as an amusement park! I also have another overgrown passionvine that needs to grow over a trellis, in a very visable area of the garden. Anyone know a courageous local carpenter?
Sigh. It would have been lovely with a domed top! -
Monday Morning Surfing
Okay, so its Monday morning at ten o’clock and I’m trying to make an unsweetened cup of tea stretch out as an excuse to read funny stuff on the Internet. That’s one of the benefits of living alone… no one but the little taskmaster in my head to crack the whip. Oh, and the bank, but its President’s Day so they should all be closed. Oh, and the animals, but I’ve fed them all, with the exception of Gammera (“Feed the tortoise today, Diane! Remember to feed the tortoise!”). The unsweetened tea is a kind of torture because I usually take it with honey, but I am trying really, really hard to lose that twenty pounds that I thought I had lost for good a couple of years ago, but which found me again. I’m also using the excuse that its the Great Backyard Bird Count weekend to watch the birds swarming to the feeders as I surf. All of this, of course, is an excuse to not go dig bamboo and transplant enormously heavy trees like I did yesterday (that ingrate of a lemon tree poked me in the eye while I was trying to rescue it! I left that sucker partially dug out last night as punishment. See if it learned its lesson by now…). Oh, and its a little cool outside (what a California wimp I am!). I am also feeling the afterguilt (new word?) from having ranted on the blog yesterday. Besides, funny things happen.
For instance last night, while I was watching a couple of Rowen and Martin’s Laugh-In episodes I had waited forever for the library to get in (and can’t renew because its on hold), my fat cat Pippin was zonked out on my favorite chair. Pippin is about 18 pounds. He was a skinny boy that showed up in our yard a couple of years ago and never went away. He sucked down food as if he needed it for emotional support (um… that sounds familiar!). Only one of my other indoor cats will tolerate him. Matthew is a kind-hearted soul. He’s a peace and love kind of cat, at least he’s become that after spending his first year of being in the house hiding behind the bookcase hissing at everyone. Matthew has a deep throaty whirr when he plays wildly with cat toys. Anyway, Matthew, in search of a warm spot (I don’t turn on the house heat), perched on top of the lovely ribbon-embroidery pillow next to Pippin. Somewhere around the point in Laugh In when Miss Greer Garson hit Henry Gibson on the head with an inflated hammer I glanced over to the chair (myself wrapped in several blankets, a robe and two cats), and saw that Matthew had found a warmer place to perch!
A warm, firm mattress that purrs! Pippin is solid, like a beached whale. He protested a little by waving his paw ineffectually (his front legs stick out straight when he lays on his side) and then going back to sleep.
When Pippin moved, Matthew... didn't. So my Internet search started with Facebook, to see if there were any humorous links from my more sophisticated friends (I’m always at least a year behind in finding out the funny stuff. At least three years behind in technology!). Then I checked out Cake Wrecks ( http://cakewrecks.squarespace.com/ ) , which is a hilariously funny blog that posts disaster cakes with wonderful commentary. From there I went to The Bloggess (http://thebloggess.com/2012/02/her-name-is-juanita-juanita-weasel-unless-you-can-think-of-something-better/ ). This blog has pretty ‘mature’ language and topics, but it is laugh-till-you-choke hilarious. From there I went to Know Your Meme (http://knowyourmeme.com/ ). A meme (rhymes with cream… I looked it up) is whatever has viral popularity on the Internet. This site lists current memes, some of which are actually funny, but most of which make you really wonder about the average intelligence of the US Internet audience. Then I followed her link to Pintrest (http://pinterest.com/thebloggess/kick-ass-stuff/) which is a virtual bulletin board where people ‘pin’ interesting things they find on the Internet. Think of it like a workroom pinboard with cut-out jokes and photos hung all over it. I swear, I don’t know how people find the time to do all this Internet stuff and yet conduct normal lives or get enough exercise.
Speaking of exercise, I need to go see if that lemon tree has learned its lesson yet. Oh, and feed the tortoise.
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Building a Rion Eco-Grow Greenhouse
Greenhouse in a box! Yes, I finally decided upon which greenhouse to buy. It took a year and a lot of research and waiting. I did go back and forth about just throwing some plastic over bowed PVC pipes, but I wanted something that lasted and didn’t look like a piece of junk. Most greenhouses that I wanted were over $1,000, and that was just not going to work. Also, I needed diffused light rather than clear glass or plastic because most of the year here the sun really cooks things. Diffused light will help keep the seedlings from scorching. Since I’m absolutely not a carpenter, and would be assembling this myself, I needed something that went together fairly easily. I found the Rion Eco-Grow, a small greenhouse that snaps together and yet can be enlarged later (http://www.riongreenhousekit.com/rion-ecogrow.php). It isn’t made of aluminum, which can bend easily, and the double plastic ‘windows’ diffused light. It is delivered by standard carrier, not flatbed truck, so the packages are manageable and you aren’t expected to help unload them. It came with a seven-year warrenty and had very good customer reviews on other websites. I not only bought it on sale, but it came with a choice of a gift, and I chose the solar light.
I guess they didn’t fit through the little package door! Last Wednesday I came home to find a couple of friends waiting for me. The boxes were about 60 pounds apiece, but I just levered them onto my garden cart (the best thing I ever bought!) and hauled them down to where the greenhouse was going.
Sorting the parts and leveling the ground took a whole afternoon. Well, it wasn’t easy, putting that thing together. After sorting parts, many of which were not labelled, and then leveling the area where the base would be constructed, it was already an afternoon shot. The next day I started fitting pieces together and trying to figure out the miniscule diagrams. It really is ingeniously thought out.
Pushing together the hardware was fun. Only when it came to fitting glazing on over the roof panels did the very, very bad time happen. I worked for a day and a half on just those glazing; they wouldn’t go in! They recommend soapy water. I had so much soapy water that it was dripping in my shoes. Finally I brought down my electric kettle and poured hot water on some of them. It worked for all except one end, which still isn’t going anywhere. It will have to stay like that.
In pergatory they make you try to assemble the roof parts… forever. When I started work, the ground was pretty dry. Then a puddle was forming in the mud at my feet and I realized that there was a leak in the pipe nearby, so I shut off the outside water until I can fix it. Then I was hurrying to be done before the rain last week, and I didn’t make it. Then, since it was very muddy and I was having so much trouble with the roof I thought I’d back out my riding mower out of the shed and haul the roof inside onto level flooring constructed using waterproof materials Miracote to see if that made any difference. I didn’t get far. I started the mower, tried to reverse, couldn’t clear the entrance way with the mower deck, then realized in only about two minutes time that the exhaust had filled the shed and I was getting sick. I shut off the mower and got out of there. That was the end of that work day, as I recovered my breathing and severe headache in the house. I tasted exhaust in my mouth for a long time afterwards.
Sophie checking on my progress. Then it rained again, and I spent a day running errands. Today I constructed the door and then noticed a spot in the middle that wouldn’t brush off.
What is that mark in the middle….? A spider had worked its way down between the lines of the panel and made a little web! He would certainly die in there, and I’d be watching him do it. So of course I took apart the entire top part of the door, wedged out the panel and blew down the lines, and he popped out the other side. Nothing I can do about the web he left, though.
A spider! Had to get that poor guy out of there I managed to complete everything except for placing the roof on the top. Tomorrow I’ll have help and we’ll do a ‘barn raising’, or, at least, raise the roof, after that, I’ll finally be able to start my project on organic greenhouse production.
All ready to raise the roof! Assembly tips: sort out every piece of equipment. Not all of the pieces are labeled, and some of the panels are only a hair’s difference in size, so measure and mark them all… it will save a lot of re-doing and cursing. Wear gloves. Not so much that the panels will cut you, but they really help save your hands when you are pressing and pressing and pressing and sliding your hands up and down plastic pieces to get them to fit together. If you have issues with your hands and wrists (as I especially do now!) this will be tough on you. Use lots of warm soapy water, and for pieces that either absolutely won’t go together, or for those that did and now need to come apart because they popped out of place, pour boiling water slowly down all pieces concerned. It really does help! Be sure to work on a level surface, even for constructing the roof. Give yourself a break and go do something else for awhile, then come back to the problem. Don’t use a rock to force a piece into place because the plastic will chip off. Ahem.
I’ll post a final photo when I set up shop!
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Becoming Very Behind in my Cleaning
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Mrs. Two Shacks Builds a Fowl Go-Kart and a Hen Harem
And its a... go-kart? Okay, so… my chickens are currently in a deluxe San Diego summer unmovable chicken tractor. The tractor is too heavy for me to move, and the wheels (reused) have literally crumbled apart. Now it is November and the nights are becoming chilly, and we’re on the weekend rain schedule, unlike our other dry years. (Normally it rains the weekend after Thanksgiving when all the holiday events are happening, which gives the weeds time to grow so that everyone is mowing just before New Years.) My hens are cold. I know, it isn’t Minnesota; the nights are in the 40’s, but that is nippy to Southern California-bred chickens. I’ve been pondering what to do for some time now, and my Libra self has vacillated so much that now I’m up against it. Yesterday I devoted to trying to build a warm place for the chickens. I ended up with a go-kart.
I have a cage and a crate: I'll put them on wheels! I am not one to cut wood. I go out of my way to find matching pieces of wood in my huge and glorious scrap pile just so that I don’t have to measure and cut wood, because invariably I will cut it the wrong length. Fabric, too, (I have some interesting curtains). Determined to make a warm, cozy hen structure that was safe from predators (a coyote jumped the fence and killed Kakapo and took Linnet on Saturday. I was and am heartbroken and angry. I have three hens left. Oh, and Emerson.) I found a huge wooden crate that was used for a sculpture of a rodeo rider, which belonged to my parents. This thing has been taking up space for maybe twenty years in various locations. It looked the perfect size for three hens. I dragged it down the hill to the newly-straw-covered area in front of my new two sheds.
Hammering together four pieces of wood on wheels takes skill Fifteen years ago, at another house, in another life, I built a movable chicken coop that was gosh-darn good. I didn’t cut any wood for that one, either. Anyway, I still had the casters left. Pulling two long and two short pieces of 2×4 (notice I don’t give a length) out of the wood pile, I hammered them together and attached the casters, although not in that order, which made the hammering together more difficult. I purposefully didn’t use screws: I wanted to bang away with something hard on something yielding. I attached the crate after scraping out the spider webs. Now I wanted a caged area for the hens to be able to graze and get some sun. I still wasn’t completely sure where I was headed with all of this, but I was driving anyway. I dragged down an old large animal cage, which used to support a heat lamp for my African Spur Thigh tortoise until he outgrew it and tore the door off. I could fit it onto the front part of the… thing… and the casters would go through the holes in the bottom with a little help from a PVC hacksaw. (Cutting PVC is NOT the same as cutting wood, by the way, and I have oodles of experience with it. Red Hot Blue Glue nearly runs in my veins.)
The wheels fit through the wire! Wheee! I found some brackety-gizmos that made an L shape, and attached them to the bottom so that the cage hung down closer to the ground so that the hens could get at the grass.
L-shaped thingies, and the hammer head that kept flying off I attached two pieces of wood in a ‘T’ as a handle (trying to hammer it onto the frame through the cage), and then found an old dog choke collar with some lead still attached, and wrapped that around to help pull.
The pull handle, complete with choke chain. So, what if it rained? It needed a roof. There happened to be three of these triangular things left from the shed removal. I’m glad they were put to use. They had been a failed attempt to put up cat fencing (to keep them in the yard) on top of the shed roof by a friend who was a contractor. (He’s also the reason why the 8-foot wooden fence I asked for turned into a 5-foot fence up on bricks with a teal slanted cap running along the top… which makes a nice foothold for the cats.)
I knew there would be a use for these, if I waited long enough! I nailed these suckers on the crate, (ever try to nail something triangular?),
Ever try to hammer something triangular? (The successful nail is on the outside end!) then pulled out a piece of corrugated aluminum that wasn’t too sharp (and was also conveniently on top of the pile). It was too long, and not wide enough, so I grabbed some big scissor things I’ve had in the shed for years and cut the aluminum in half (they were tin snips!). Roughly. On purpose. Of course, the piece I cut didn’t fit, so I had to bend it in half, stepping on it, and drape it over the triangles then nail it on. The larger of the two I used towards the front, to give a little shade. The sun was going down and I had to hurry.
Then stuffing straw in the gap for insulation, adding a milk crate and straw inside for eggs, I stepped back to enjoy my creation.
Ummm, doesn't quite fit. Well, it wasn’t quite a chicken tractor, and it wasn’t quite a warm and cozy house. It was a go-kart.
Hay insulation I had thought to move it and the hens up into the relative safety of the tortoise and cat yard, since the cats were not allowed into the yard right now because two naughty individuals escape (so everyone else has to suffer, just like in school). With much pulling and pushing, I managed to get the kart around to the front of the hen house, and there it stayed overnight. I couldn’t get it any farther. The casters would work fine if the mulch wasn’t so thick, and if I didn’t have to pull it uphill. There was no way I was going to be able to get the kart uphill through the mulch into the tortoise yard.
Today I managed to move the kart over some grass, and one by one brought the hens over and popped them in. I got some very curious looks back from them. The chickens thought it was pretty fun, and enjoyed pulling at the tops of the grass sticking up through the cage, but after awhile they set up a chorus that couldn’t be ignored. And I still hadn’t solved the problem of their being cold at night! It was again about to be dark.
Hens wondering how to make it go Grabbing a rather stinky dog blanket, an old flowery sheet and a pillowcase (they were there, all right?) and the staple gun, I went to work. I stapled the blanket all across the back of their regular hen house loft, across the roof and let it dangle down in front of where they roost at night. Sticking my head in there (and holding my breath…. very doggie-smelling) I noticed a slight breeze still, so I stapled up the sheet and pillowcase. Emerson was quite baffled as to what I was doing next door.
How to make an expensive, well built chicken tractor look like junk in ten minutes. Then I brought the hens back, and figured it would have to do until after the holiday. A day and a half’s work and I have a heavy fowl go-kart and taudry drapings around the hen house, but I think the hens are warmer tonight. And, I must say, I think the kart is pretty cool-looking.
Gipsy hens Happy Thanksgiving!
- Chickens, Gardening adventures, Humor, Permaculture and Edible Forest Gardening Adventures, Vegan, Vegetables, Vegetarian
Planting Easter Dinner (in November)
Creepy white fingers I finally was able to work in the vegetable garden today; me and my helpers, that is.
Kakapo, Miss Amelia and Lark, helping I am by no means done, but I did some major cleaning out of old veggies. Out went the tomatoes that aren’t producing, dead squash vines, weeds, a volunteer avocado tree and the two enormous zucchini plants which, although having been cut in half, abused and ignored, have still been putting on a squash a week. I have one more zuke plant left, but these big guys had to go. The compost heap is… well… a big heap.
White potatoes in the closest bed, root veggies and brassica seeds in the back one As I study Permaculture, I’m more aware of the millions of microbes in the soil and the fine network of fungus that enriches plant roots. The less I disturb my garden soil, the better. After pulling the weeds, I sprinkled on GardenAlive’s soil enhancer, which are more microbes, as well as their organic Roots Alive fertilizer. I used a trowel to lightly work it all just under the soil surface, then topped it with compost from my compost bin. Having soil that is healthy, rich smelling and alive is any gardener’s dream. All those microbes free up nutrients in the soil so that your plants can suck them up and use them, which makes your veggies not only healthy and more resistant to bugs and diseases, but produce … um…. produce that is loaded with vitamins and minerals. Its like the old gardener’s joke: A gardener asks a man what he puts on his strawberries, and the man answers, “Cream.” The gardener shakes his head in disbelief and says, “I always put manure on mine.”
Potatoes from spring, which I’d stored in a dark cabinet under the house, decided they didn’t want to wait any longer.
Eager potatoes Fall is a good time to plant potatoes, as long as you keep their greenery protected from frost. Since potatoes can be grown from cuttings (as well as tubers and seeds), and to produce more potatoes you slowly mound up compost or straw around the stem as it grows, I tried something with these long white fingers. I lay each potato on the soil, with the long white stem laying flat, and covered them all up with light mushroom compost.
Laying down the potato stems to form new plants I’m betting that the stems will all take root and send up greenery along the nodes, using phototropism. That will multiply the number of potato plants by a lot. Then as the greenery grows, I’ll add more straw and compost around them. If all works out, sometime early next year I should be Potato Queen of Fallbrook! Of course, I had lots of help with the project.
Lots of helpers. I fenced off the beds after I planted A few months ago I planted pieces of yam that had started to grow in the house. The vines flourished outside of the bed. Now that I’ve cleared the massive zucchinis out of the way, I’ve pulled the vines back into the bed, layed them out so that they (mostly) touch the soil, and have dumped mushroom compost on parts of them. The object is to allow them to root along the vines and make more yams. I’ll let you know if this works or not.
Taming the yams I’m also planting carrots and parsnips. The ‘nips won’t be ready until next spring, having improved in flavor for any frost we may receive. I’m hoping there may be some small carrots ready for Christmas dinner, but I really should have put them in last month to be sure. In will go the brassicas: Brussels sprouts (did you ever wonder if it smells cabbagy in Brussels?), broccoli and cauliflower. These guys all like a good chill, as long as they are protected from frost. More cool-weather lettuces will go in, as well as lots of endive for my tortoise. Onion sets and seeds can go in, as well as radishes. The arugula has reseeded itself again and is coming up in all the pathways, with even an elegant specimen right next to the large pond by the rushes!
You remember the pond, which was put in to attract wildlife, right?
Wildlife gathers at the watering hole.... I still have tomatoes and eggplants producing. I tied up the lazy ferny stalks of my first-year asparagus to get them out of the way. The horseradish plant seems to be doing well; I have to consider what to serve it with at Christmas. My dad loved horseradish sauce, as do I, and I grow it as a memory of him and our Polish heritage on his side. I used to make him his favorite soup, borscht, but I would never taste it because I just don’t like beets.
Tomorrow, if I can move my joints after many days of weeding, I’ll clear out the remaining ’empty’ bed and cover the unused ones with compost and straw to sit until spring. I am so glad that I can garden almost year-round!
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Oh, Whatta Night
