Photos
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Apfelpfannkuchen, or Dutch Baby Pancakes with Apples
Apfelfannkuchen Breakfast. Sigh. My favorite meal. Too often it consists of a bowl of healthy cereal, orange juice and my fistfull of vitamins and supplements. Once in awhile when I have a child or two at home I’ll make these very easy, extremely impressive and delicious pancakes. One pancake per person. Just with some egg, milk and flour in a buttered dish you make this glorious puffed pancake that is a delight to eat. I copied this recipe from my mother’s recipe files back in 1977, my second year of high school. Where she copied it from I don’t know, but I do know that puffed pancakes have been a restaurant sensation on and off for decades. They can also be made plain for dessert and served with fresh fruit or even ice cream and chocolate sauce. Instead of apples make them savory with the addition of mild vegetarian sausage (you don’t want strong flavors to overbalance the delicate pancake) or cooked mushrooms.
Two kinds of pancake You can dress them up with powdered sugar at the last moment, or serve with syrup. It is important that you serve them right out of the oven so that your guests see them in all their risen glory, because the pancakes will deflate to some extent but still be gorgeous. If you pour a little syrup between the pancake and the hot dish it will sizzle and bubble very dramatically. Because the pancakes are served so hot, they take a little while to eat, which makes breakfast more of the leisurely time of enjoyment it should be. Make certain your guests know how hot the dishes are, and protect the place settings with potholders.
Apple filling Apfelpfannkuchen, or Dutch Baby Pancakes with ApplesAuthor: Diane C. KennedyRecipe type: BreakfastPrep time:Cook time:Total time:Serves: 1-6Ingredients- 1-2 apples, peeled and diced (or 1 vegetarian sausage link per person such as Morningstar Farms, cooked and chopped)
- Use the following chart (going across) to measure ingredients:
- Pan Size Butter Eggs Milk Flour
- 2-3 quarts ¼ cup 3 ¾ cup ¾ cup
- 3-4 quarts ⅓ cup 4 1 cup 1 cup
- 4-4½ quarts ½ cup 5 1¼ cup 1¼ cup
- 4½ - 5 quarts ½ cup 6 1½ cup 1½ cup
Instructions- Choose oven-proof bowls, preferably clear glass (for effect). I use one quart Pyrex bowls.
- Divide butter between bowls and set bowls in cold oven.
- Heat oven to 425 degrees F.
- Meanwhile, cook apples in a little butter or juice in a frying pan for a few minutes to soften.
- In a blender or with a hand mixer, whirl eggs at high speed for one minute. Gradually pour in milk, then slowly add flour. Whirl for 30 seconds. You don't want to overmix because you don't want air in the batter.
- With oven mits, remove hot dishes from oven; butter should be melted.
- Pour batter carefully into melted butter in dishes, dividing the batter equally.
- Divide apples (or veg sausage) evenly between bowls, if using. Dust with cinnamon, if desired.
- Return to oven and bake until puffy and browned, 20-25 minutes.
- Pancakes will be like a firm bread pudding at the bottom.
- Serve immediately. (Pour syrup around the inside edge and listen to it sizzle! It impresses children and easily impressed minds like mine!) Nom!
Vegetarian Sausage Filling -
Permaculture Garden Update
Entrance Lots of hard work is being done on the property, and the garden is taking on character. Bits of the palms that were cut down are being used in so many ways. The upright trunks that were left have been stripped, and metal poles were tied between them. I didn’t care for the look of the poles, so Roger immediately came up with the idea of wrapping them with palm fronds… and it looks great. The above photo is of the future ‘formal entranceway’ to the garden. Francisco and Juan were working from the tops of ladders in full sunlight on this unseasonably hot day… it must have been over 90 degrees out there. Summer weather too early! I’m glad that it is going to cool down a little starting tomorrow.
Arbor They also covered metal poles that they criss-crossed the trunks in the palm walkway. Up all of the trunks are a variety of flowering vines, and also climbing heirloom roses. I ordered the roses from Heirloom Garden Roses (http://www.heirloomroses.com/), and the plants are small but healthy and virorgous. I made little cages out of leftover chicken wire from the chicken tractor to set over them; otherwise, the bunnies would nibble the young rose leaves down to nothing. Beneath the palms, many plants that will create the plant guilds are in the ground and mulched with chipped palmsand surrounded with rocks. Rocks have also been placed around the property to add character and interest. The palm sheaths that were skinned from the trunks will be used on top of the mulch as a secondary layer; its interesting to look at, is textured and therefore makes interesting hidey-holes for lizards, salamanders and all sorts of creatures. Most planting will now cease until the important decisions about installing the rainfall retention ponds, dry creek beds, swales and the permanent (swimming?) pond are made. We met with more people this week about the pond installation and are awaiting bids and ideas. I’m looking for the most sustainable, least impact and easiest way of installing them, and we may have found a company that understands this. More about the ponds when decisions have been made.
Other work has concentrated on the embankment and the erosion areas there. This is the area below the fence; the embankment with the streambed is on the right, and the main property is beyond the upper left corner of the photo. This area had been leveled, firmed, mulched, and old broken pipes and wires that had been a junky retaining wall was replaced with old chainlink fencing and aluminum from the sheds. Then palm logs were used to line the cut-out area around the left to help hold the soil. Palm fronds were installed all along the top of the chainlink on the right…
Erosion area and also on the next level which is in the process of being firmed, repaired and made available for bird watching, including a very
- Lower level
handy bench. This area had been greatly eroded, especially by the December deluge. An enormous toyon has tipped over and its roots are exposed on the embankment. From this vantage point out over the embankment my daughter and I could watch a lot of birds flying between the canopy of the streambed trees. You can see from this photo also how the palm fronds have been used to block the lower side of the fence. In the bottom left corner is some of the old corrugated aluminum that had been there from the previous owner, and which is still holding up. It will be blocked by fronds as well. Past this point and around the corner is a big erosion area which ends the pathway. It is being worked on. With the ponds, streams, mulch and swales in place, as well as these bulwarks of wire and aluminum, the chance of such heavy erosion happening again even in the worst rainstorms is almost nil. The property will be augmented to deal with excessive waterflow as well as insufficient amounts.
I am still tossing around ideas about buildings to replace the sheds. I need a tool/mower storage shed, a small ‘bee house’ where we can store our bee equipment and work on honey extraction without the bees bothering us (we’ve extracted honey in our kitchen), and I’d like a small greenhouse or growing house for seedlings. I also would like small building or trailer that could be used as a guest house, as well as an area for groups of people to gather for teaching purposes. I’m getting prices and ideas on how to do all this cost-effectively. I’ve looked into Quality Sheds in Menifee, asked the carpenter who did my other projects to give me a bid, and have researched trailers, yurts, geodesic domes, straw bale… everything. So many decisions! But how fun it all is. That’s all for tonight, and thanks for reading. -
Chicken Update (or The Pulletzer)
Rooster To follow my previous post about my darling chicks, who are becoming more colorful and lovelier in their scrawny-necked way every day, I thought I’d update the chicken-fanciers out there. You know who you are! I still wanted two more kinds. I waited on a local feed store for their order to come in yesterday, ran over there today… and they didn’t have what I wanted. We have, if you remember, a Buff Orpington, a Rhode Island Red and a Silver-laced Wyandotte. I wanted a Barred Rock, which is the traditional black and white rooster that is reproduced on tea towels, collector’s plates, etc. I also wanted an Araucana (also known as the South American Rumpless, but I won’t tell the girls that). Apparently they have ‘improved the breed’ and renamed them Americaunas. These are beautiful birds, with brown swirled patterns and each chicken a little different. They lay eggs that range from blue to green (just the shells, mind you!) and are very nice chickens. They are also extremely popular and sell out right away (so the feed stores were telling me) and the hatcheries were out of them. Frustrated and brooding (!) about it, I felt a little peckish (!!) and had some lunch then scratched around (!!!) for a phone book and called Country Feed Store in Vista. They had both kinds! Off I flew (!!!!) and bought two 4 week-old Americaunas (my ladies are about a week younger, so I put them together and so far no pecking),
Americaunasand two one-week-old Barred Rocks.
Barred Rock So cute! I went into the Brood House there and they had so many little chickies! I crowed with delight (!!!!!).
When my daughter and I looked for chicks there a week ago, it was between the rains and we didn’t see what we were looking for. However, as we were standing there in the wet straw we turned and saw a little rooster with wild wet feathers standing just around the corner of one of the pens and staring at us.
Frizzle We stared back. He kept watching. He looked mentally unstable. We moved on and were a ways away talking about a couple of free-roaming geese when I looked past my daughter and nudged her, “Look behind you,” I whispered. There he was! He was doing the same thing, just standing there just around the corner of the last pen, staring at us, feathers all crazy. Creepy! He eventually wandered off but I managed to take a photo of him. Today he was there still, wandering around with feathers in a little better shape. He was crowing mightily for his small stature and listening for a return crow from somewhere distant. I asked the young man who was helping me ( a great guy he was, too. It was about ninety degrees and he was loading bales of straw, helping customers and dealing with animals all with a sweet smile on his sweaty face!) about the rooster, and he said he was a Frizzle! The rooster, that is. The rooster had come to them with messy feathers, and he said he’d cleaned up a bit. I love that rooster. If I didn’t think my neighbors would snap and come over with torches, I’d have that rooster just as a pet. A mean, deranged, cantankerous pet, but so what? I have cats who are the same way. The store had two-day-old Frizzles, too, but at that age there is a 50/50 chance of getting females, and I want hens for eggs. Sigh. So the little Barred Rock are in a box next to the other older ladies, sharing a heat lamp (not today they weren’t… so hot!) and with a little antibiotic and vitamins in their water. I tossed some cauliflower leaves in with the older girls, but they thought they were monsters for awhile, then laid on them for a nap instead of pecking away at them. Still kids.
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Genetically Modified Foods, and a curious, unrelated photo
Genetically modified food (GMs) are what happens when scientists manipulate cells or even nuclei by inserting genes or viruses to change the DNA. Before GMs farmers would hybridize plants by breeding for preferred character traits. GMs may or may not cause damage to human DNA, but it’s use has escalated the use of pesticides, herbicides and animal cruelty. Since Monsanto, the makers of the herbicide Roundup(tm) are also the leaders in GM food, it seems that they are lining their own pockets by selling products for both cause and effect. If eating GM food is something you’d rather not do, I have just come across a useful article that might help. In the April/May, 2011 Vegetarian Times, there is an article by Neal D. Barnard, MD on the subject. In the article he reveals that manufacturers in the U.S and Canada aren’t required to label GM food. However he says that most US-grown corn, soy, cotton, Hawaiian papaya and canola is GM, but most other fresh fruit or vegetables aren’t, such as apples, oranges, bananas, broccoli. (These, however, are often heavily sprayed with pesticides and need to be washed before eating. The Environmental Working Group http://www.ewg.org/ updates a Dirty Dozen and Clean Fifteen list of produce that is effected most or least by pesticides; you can see that list here: http://www.healthyreader.com/2008/05/13/12-most-contaminated-fruits-and-vegetables/ .)
Dr. Barnard goes on to give these interesting tidbits: The labels on fresh produce carry a four-digit standardized code for cashiers to look up the price of the item, called a PLU (price look-up). If the code is preceded by an 8, it is genetically modified. If preceded by a 9, it is organic, and organics cannot be genetically modified. So watch your tofu packages if you don’t want GM soybeans.
Since becoming a vegetarian some sixteen years ago, I’ve been a label reader (even now when it requires pulling out my glasses or holding a can at arm’s length!). The amount of sodium in foods is outrageous, as is the amount of sweetners such as corn syrup. High amounts of salt and sugar is in there not for taste, but for its addictive qualities. When you eat salt or sugar, just like drinking caffeine, you crave more. As a vegetarian, it’s amazing what meat products are slid into foods, even those toted to be vegetarian. Now there is a more dangerous enemy than bad nutrition in packaged food. In my opinion, it is that of GM food and heavy herbicide and pesticide use. Even more reason to shop locally and organically, or to grow as much food as you can, and read all the labels. I am an ethical vegetarian, meaning that I decline to eat animals because I am protesting their horrible treatment and slaughter. GM animals are bred to continuously give milk, to grow enormous, to provide more of what humans eat off of them, despite the physical agony it brings. That coupled with already nightmarish living conditions is a monsterous state of affairs. Then humans injest the modified DNA, the herbicides that the animals eat that was sprayed on their food, and the pesticides that was sprayed directly on the animals. It is not a practice of which I will be a part.
Okay, I’m stepping off my soapbox now. As promised, I have a curious, unrelated photo. I have to balance reality with humor to keep sane This was taken by my daughter as we left the area on our recent Oregon sojourn, and we ask ourselves, “Huh?” A really big blowhorn faced the wrong way? A jet engine, faced the wrong way? A hood ornament…. faced the wrong way? Something unusual that fell out from under the car? A neutron accelerator? I love the care of placing a skid under the thing to protect the hood, but cinching the straps so tightly it dents the sides! Another funny incongruency in life, which keeps that humor in living. Any suggestions as to what? Or better yet, why?
Hood Ornament 
Horn? -
From Willow, CA to Corvallis, OR. and back to Lodi, CA.
Snowy Mountains I’m at a hotel in Lodi, CA, which is a truck stop south of Sacramento. I’m halfway home, but, I get ahead of myself. Let me tell you about the second part of the trip to Corvallis…only two days ago!
Grain silos After spending the night at Willow (North of where I am now), we headed up past San Francisco. We could see the city from the freeway. In the surrounding areas were miles of farmland and many immense grain silos.
Sacramento; photo Miranda Kennedy Then the land became more beautiful, if less productive, as we passed Red Bluff, Redding, and the Mount Shasta area. Only we didn’t get to see Mount Shasta because it was covered with clouds. It was snowing.
Snowplows (photo Miranda Kennedy) I haven’t driven in snow before, but it wasn’t blinding and the twisty mountain two-lane highway loaded with trucks wasn’t icy. The most trouble I had was avoiding being blinded by the spray from the semi’s wheels. We were surrounded by very beautiful pine forests loaded with snow. Then we hit the next mountain range of Ashland in Oregon and it began to snow in earnest. The road was very wet and ice was on the sides. Big fluffy flakes were circling around. We pulled over to a lodge to use the restroom and through the dining room windows the snow swirled as if made for a movie, and juncos were eating at bird feeders on the porch. We would have loved to have stayed to enjoy the sight, but my daughter and I were both afraid of the roads becoming more hazardous. I certainly didn’t have snow tires on the Prius. There were snow plows and whatever the red stuff that they use instead of salt on the roads.
Lodge We carefully edged back on the highway, and I now drove behind the trucks, keeping my wheels in their tracks figuring their weight and heat would have de-iced as they went. It was a bit tense heading down the hill. Why are there always people who have to speed, even in bad conditions? Once we were off the mountain the snow vanished and we had rain showers, especially once over the Oregon border where it rained almost solidly. After coming off that icy truck-filled narrow mountain path, rain wasn’t even an issue. We made it to Corvallis at about 3:30; a 1,014 mile drive from home.
Old House Corvallis tries hard to be a cute town, and it mostly succeeds. It has historical interest and lies in the beautiful Willamette Valley. Corvallis is on the agenda for those touring wineries, but more to our interest is that it is very attractive for migratory birds. There are preserves and parks all over with wonderful birding hides, walking paths and hiking.
Tree-lined streets Since school started the next day (today), birding sadly wasn’t in the books for us this visit, even if the rain let up. However we did see magpies as we drove through Sacramento on the way up, which was a first on our lifetime birding lists for both of us. Corvallis is surrounded by farming areas, growing blueberries, grains, corn, and feed. This time of year there are thousands of bright yellow daffodils along the roads and in front of homes. Another welcome splash of color in the usually dark grey sky is from forsythia bushes which are in full gloriously yellow bloom. It rains a lot here. This school year, in fact, it stopped raining only to snow a bit, with occasional glimpses of blue sky as a tease between rain storms. Moss and lichens are very happy here, as are Canada geese. Berry bushes and wild apple and pear trees fill the preserves, but being wet and cold is the price for the fecundity of the landscape.
On the way back today I was anticipating heavier snow and ice storms, but to my delight the weather was clear and sunny the whole way.
Snowy mountains The mountains were covered with snow and beautiful. Mount Shasta’s volcanic shape draped in white suggested a more aggressive personality than the rounder surrounding mountains.
Mt. Shasta What beautiful rivers, pine forests and mountains. A couple of young elk were grazing by the side of the highway, and startled by a semi, ran back into the woods. I have a real love for this kind of scenery, perhaps born from my New Jersey birth, or cultivated from my first vacations with my parents and sister to Yosemite and Oregon, staying in rustic lodges, smelling pine resin and woodsmoke and listening to quiet.
Once I passed Red Bluff and Redding, then the scenery became more humanized and flat. Lots of buildings, old vehicles, signage… the poetry was gone from the view. And here I am in Lodi, CA, which may owe it’s interesting name to Chief Lodi. In fact, I compiled a list of the names of places I passed that were delightful to me: Tangent, Calpooia, Umpqua, Drain, Yoncalla, Edenbower, Riddle, Azalea, Jumpoff Joe Creek, Louse Creek, Merlin, Indian Mary Park, Valley of the Rogue State Park, Talent, Weed, Yreka, Hilt, Siskiyou, Jelly’s Ferry, and Yuba.
Tonight I dined at Rocky’s, which most certainly doesn’t have a veggie burger option, but does give you the ketchup right away with your food, knowing you’ll need it. Apparently I just missed the migration of thousands of starlings which cover the area through the winter, dining on the bugs in the surrounding fields. There are still hundreds left, and if you look closely you’ll see them on the sign in the following photo, taken from my motel window. To the lullaby of the traffic of Hwy 5, I bid you so-long. Tomorrow back to Fallbrook, and lots of walking!
Rocky's Cafe -
From Fallbrook, CA to Corvallis, OR
Tonight I’m sitting on a very promisingly soft bed at the Hilton Garden Inn by OSU in Corvallis, OR. This will be the last time I’ll see my daughter for several months, which is a heartache I just can’t get used to, but that’s a mother’s plight. The trip took 9 hours yesterday and 7.5 hours today. My hinder is quite angry with me.
We traveled Hwy 5 the entire way. Because of the late rains, the hills and mountains through Southern California were covered with
Velvety mountains a green velvet that accentuated their worn contours.
Up through the Angeles National Forest there were clouds touching the hills, and we could see some snow on the Tehachapi Mountains from Tejon Pass. This was big deal for San Diego residents like us. If only we knew then what we’d be driving through later! Of course the bright yellow Runaway Truck Ramp signs,
Runaway Truck Ramp made large enough one would suppose for truckers who are desperately tugging at their emergency brakes on icy, twisty mountain slopes to see with one wild glance, give drivers of small cars a wonderful feeling of adventure.
Hungry Valley Once over the Grapevine we entered the long stretch of Central California where mostly almonds and wine grapes are grown. There are many other crops as well, such as olives and rice, but these are the most evident.
- Grapes
At first we passed some oil wells,
- Oil rigs
with the monster bird-like extractors tipping up and down. Then there were miles of crops. Miles upon miles upon miles of crops. Acre upon acre upon acre of crops. It is an awe-inspiring sight.All the waterways, ponds, rivers, ditches, etc. were filled with water, which was a very good thing for these farmers desperate for water. I couldn’t help but think about how permaculture could help with the fields of nut and fruit trees and vines. The ground under the trees were almost bare dirt; I can’t give it the name soil. Having them clear allows for machinery to get through the rows to spray and harvest.
Almonds What if the trees were underplanted and not crowded? A harder time of harvesting, and not as many trees per acre. However the lessening cost of water as the soil deepened and the lack of need to purchase and apply pesticides and herbicides must balance it out. We did pass one plantation where there were lots of weeds under the trees, but whether it was organic or just not seen to yet I don’t know. It still didn’t practice permaculture.
We made it past San Francisco, just getting a glimpse of the towers of the city. I attended school at UC Berkeley back in the early 80’s and visited the City several times and have wanted to go back. Especially back to the bakeries in Chinatown where they had these incredible steamed buns filled with a green melon-flavored jelly that was – obviously – memorable. We drove until just before Mount Shasta, which we couldn’t see because of the clouds. Stopping for dinner at Black Bear Diner in Willow, we decided to go across the street to the Travelodge and make it a day. Tired, headachy and eyesore, there was no way at 7 pm that we were going to drive another seven hours that night. And, no reason to.
More on the trip tomorrow, for tomorrow morning will be an early one to begin the trip back.
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Gardens Taking Shape
The recent abundance of rain is wonderful, and I surely wish that the catchment ponds and swales were in place to capture what is running off my land. However, with the newly planted trees and tilled soil some of it is percolating down instead of flowing out. The rain has also slowed progress to some degree, and the soil is too wet for any large vehicles to drive on. Our next big issue is: water. How best to capture roof run-off, greywater, watershed, and how to keep it until its needed in the hot, dry days of summer. In the coming week we’ll be talking to many authorities on water to come to a sensible solution that fits in with the tenets of permaculture. For one thing, this rainy winter probably won’t be repeated often, and so less water will be filling the swales. However, as the loam deepens and the plants mature, less and less water will be needed until the property takes care of itself. That’s the goal, and it has been done successfully elsewhere.
Meanwhile, tomorrow morning I drive my daughter back to Oregon State University (Beavers, not Ducks!) and I’ll report from the road.
A lot of planting and shaping has been going on despite the rain, and the garden is taking shape. As I walked down yesterday evening, I had the feeling that the property was larger, because there were pathways and destinations gradually emerging. It was an interesting feeling, that I couldn’t take in the property in one glance around anymore. The destruction phase is in the past and a new life has begun to emerge. For every garden has a character – a personality. It is more than the feeling you get from being in it. It is the interaction between ponds, soil, shade, plants and all the animals and insects that call it home. All that nuance and chemical exchange that makes a habitat. With permaculture, humans fit into the puzzle, not as lords and masters but as part of the interaction. It is a wonderful feeling to enable a garden such as this, which will be organically teaming with life from soil microbes to circling raptors, and not feel as if I were intruding.
Here are some photos of the progress:
Skinned palms The palm trunks that have been left standing were painstakingly skinned to create a different effect (rather than just a beheaded palm tree!).
Arching bamboo Bamboo not only will supply building materials, but it provides upright, arching interest in the garden. Some rocks have been placed near planted areas as focal points and resting spots. All around the fruit trees and bamboo are smaller plants, which are the beginnings of the plant guilds which will become much larger and take up most of the property. The palm logs and piles of boulders are awaiting use in the rain catchment streams, ponds and swales. Our dog, General Mischief, is making sure the garden smells right, in his own special way.
Entrance-way This is the entrance-way to my front door. The geraniums climb up a chain-link fence on the left adding vivid color most of the year. There is also on the other side of the fence a pyracantha, a honeysuckle, a Double Delight rose, and a purple butterfly bush that I’m training to arch overhead. Once in a garden in Hawaii I walked through a tunnel formed by two butterfly bushes planted close together. I don’t want to remove any of the lantana that lines the right side of the path because it is such a great nectar source for butterflies, so I just have the one butterfly bush. I’m not bothered by the low branches because I’m short, but my visitors often have to duck. As it fills in I keep pruning it higher. If you see something brown by the front door, that would be my other dog, Sophie, who wants back on the couch even though the weather has cleared and it is warmer. So spoiled!
Frustrated gophers These are the holes of a frustrated gopher. My raised garden beds I constructed out of old unpainted bookshelves and lined the bottoms with aviary wire. In the top bed is Swiss chard, shallots and garlic. In the bottom bed are white and red potatoes. Sorry Charlie!Tomorrow starts early for a long car trip, so I’ll say good-night now. I’ll keep you posted! Thanks for reading. -
Chicken Tractors
To most people a chicken tractor sounds like some lame joke. Until fairly recently, I did too. However there are whole websites devoted to them. And as of this week, thanks to local carpenter Jay Tull, I am the proud owner of one!
Chicken Tractor One of the fundamental ideas of permaculture is a holistic approach to land management and food supply. Keeping animals that produce food in a compassionate, healthy and useful manner is part of the puzzle. I am a lacto-ovo vegetarian and want dairy products that are produced using humane methods. Therefore, a chicken tractor! A chicken tractor is a movable coop with an unlined bottom. The chickens root around eating bugs, digging up weeds and pooing within the safety of their lovely tractor. You throw in some straw and they mix it into the soil and poo on that, too. In a few days or a week, that square of soil has been dug up, mulched and fertilized and it’s time to move on! So you move your tractor, chickens and all, to wherever you would like them to work next. Meanwhile you collect enriched eggs that have been laid by unstressed chickens who supplement their mash with bugs and greens out in the fresh air.
Back view If you have ever eaten eggs from backyard chickens, it may take a little getting used to. That is because the flavor is so interesting and fresh. Going back to supermarket eggs is like switching from chocolate to carob: as a satisfying substitute it just doesn’t fit the bill.
Chicken tractors come in all shapes and sizes. Check out these images: http://home.centurytel.net/thecitychicken/tractors.html. I must admit that my chicken tractor turned out heavier than I’d like, but it’s beautifully made and I’m very happy with it. We’ve joked about entering it in the Christmas parade. If you’re interested in chicken tractors (or chicken arks as they are also called), read Chicken Tractor: The Permaculture Guide to Happy Hens and Healthy Soil by Andy W. Lee. The San Diego County Library system has copies. (Did you know that you can order books from any County library online and it will be shipped to your local library? Visit https://dbpcosdcsgt.co.san-diego.ca.us/search).
This tractor is large enough for maybe four or five chickens at most, which would provide more than enough eggs for me. There are hundreds of web pages that focus just on chickens, and a handy chart that lists egg-laying characteristics can be found here http://www.mypetchicken.com/chicken-breeds/breed-list.aspx, as well as other places. Many birds lay brown eggs or bluish eggs; they don’t have any difference in any respect than white eggs other than shell color, so to pay more for brown eggs at the supermarket is criminal.
Oh, and of course, if there is a chicken tractor, there must be chicks:
Two week old chicks These three ladies are two weeks old, and are from left to right a Silver Wyandotte, a Buff Orpington, and a Rhode Island Red. I want an Ameraucana (which is a hybrid of Aurucana, which lays the greenish and bluish eggs), and a Barred Rock, which is the traditional black and white chicken, but there were none to be had today as they are very popular. When some become available I’ll raise them seperately until they are mature and introduce them to these three so there is no bullying. Chickens lay eggs without a rooster, and do quite well without being harrassed and pecked at, too. My neighbors wouldn’t forgive a rooster, either. Right now my little chicks are too young for the Tractor, so they live in a Rubbermaid 50-gallon storage container with a 60-watt lamp on one side, water and mash in separate containers, newspapers and shredded bark underneath, and wire across the top because they are Chickens make wonderful pets and have a welcome spot in any permaculture system. Besides, they’re very cute.
Sleepy chick (Photo credit: Miranda Kennedy)
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Brief Garden Updates
Palm Throne I spent the day making two birthday cakes for my two children, both of whom will be flying in from different directions tomorrow. Recipes will be the next thing I post! So for now, just a few garden updates. As you can see in the photo above, I have yet another palm throne, this one at the entrance to the garden. These are so fun. As the palms decompose, I can always plant in the seat!
Six loads of rock A total of six truckloads of rock have been delivered, and are piled in various areas on the property. At about 12 tons a load, that’s over 700 tons of rock! These will be used to surround the ponds, line the dry streambeds, and as interesting features in the natural garden.
- Garbage Can Enclosure
Jay finished the enclosure for the garbage cans, and it is pretty ritzy. Those incredible hinges are hand-made and you can see the imprint from the blacksmith’s tools on them. Jay had several sets and I had to have them. I go nuts over skilled craftsmanship, such as woodworking and metalwork. Right now there is only a latch on the outside, so it would pay not to close the door while inside. It would be a little climb and a long reach to get out again.
- Frond Fence
Along the radically improved and stabalized area above the embankment, some of the chain link and posts used to hold the soil were showing. So today lots of pond fronds (hey, we have a lot of them!) were being attached to the exposed fencing as camafloge. It looks great in that area. Also, little birds like house wrens love nipping between old palm fronds, and they’ll provide some hiding areas for the Western fence lizards, too. The stairs were made from railroad ties, and the area around them planted and then mulched with palm chips.
In the bulb beds, one of my favorite daffodils has opened today, and unfortunately I was snapping photos in the evening and the close-ups were blurry.
At the bottom of the bulb photo are Hoop Petticoats, and at the top, Little Witches, which I wrote about the other day. The little center unruffled hoops are so unique; besides Rip Van Winkle (which haven’t bloomed yet) these are my favorite.Also, Double Delight rose has bloomed. It is a double delight because its coloration is gorgeous and ranges from almost pure reddish pink to almost all white with some red on large, softly ruffled blooms. It also is extremely fragrant; my daughter said that it smelled the way rose water tastes, and that is perfectly true.Meringue Mushrooms coming up soon!
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Hiking the Observatory Trail
- Pines on Palomar
For those of you who are waiting for an update about the permaculture garden, I’ll do that tomorrow or the next day. Many small things, although labor-intensive, have been happening, and some big things are happening tomorrow, so I should have good photos to share.Meanwhile, today was hiking day, and a gorgeous day it was. My hiking buddy Alex came up with an old magazine article about the Palomar Mountain Observatory Trail, which neither of us had heard about. You drive up to the gate that leads into the Palomar Observatory parking lot and look right… and there is the trailhead.
The Observatory closes this season at 3, and the parking lot at 3:45, so we parked on the street past the ‘no parking’ signs. (Disclaimer: These photos were taken with a lightweight cheapy digital camera which I use now when hiking instead of the big heavy camera, so the resolution isn’t superb.) To our surprise on this warm Spring day, there was still snow along the roadsides.
Snow Flower Alex made a Snow Flower instead of a Snow Angel. So artistic.
If you decide to hike this trail, at the sign there is a well-worn path to the left and a not-so-well-worn path to the right. We, of course, not taking Robert Frost’s advice, took the well-worn path, which led us into a maze of cut brush piles, fallen logs and criss-crossed paths. We laughed about survival skills just to get through the first five minutes of the trail. On our return we clearly saw the real pathway that was beautifully laid out, skirted the brush pile maze, and came around to the other side of the entrance sign. Of course. This trail is supposed to be 2.2 miles one way, and it travels downhill through mixed pine and oak forest, paralleling the roadway a lot of the time, until you reach the Observatory Campground. Then you have to hike uphill on the return. During the time of year that the campground is open (it isn’t now), you can park there and hike uphill first to the Observatory, take a tour and hike back down. Not all of the pathway is shaded, and it wasn’t a hard trail at all (if you didn’t get stuck in the brush piles!).
Woodpecker Tree If you are a birder, this is a wonderful area. I saw red shouldered hawks, nuthatch, spotted towhee, banded pidgeons and of course plenty of acorn woodpeckers. Woodpecker families ‘own’ trees. In the Fall when oak acorns drop, they compete with many other animals who eat the nuts for their high protein value. The acorn woodpeckers grab an acorn with their beak, fly up to the family tree, then nod and shake their heads slowly measuring the acorn up and down. Then clasping it in their feet they drill a hole exactly the size of the acorn. They jam that acorn in so that no one can get it out. They fill trees (and the sides of houses, too!) with acorns, and this is their pantry. Since acorns fall only once a year, this storehouse has to help feed the family for a year, with the addition of insects to their diet. During the year the woodpeckers will check on the acorns buried in the bark, and if the nuts have shrunk, they redrill a smaller hole for it. At this time of year and on into early summer you should be able to spot activity in tree cavities.
What a wonderful thing it is to see later in the season little red and black heads peering out of their nest!This area had been burned in the past, and the trees still show the burn marks.
Many of the deciduous oaks are still bare, and there are stands of very old incense cedars,oaks and pines. The heavy smell of resin permiated the air, making me feel a little sleepy in the sunshine. What a fragrance! The terrain changes a lot, from shady forest, to streambed with a log crossing, to open areas bordered with manzanita just going into bloom.
Against the bluest of blue skies some of the white-barked bare trees made wonderful designs. A little more than two-thirds of the way down, you get to a platform jutting away from the trail, and from there is a view well worth the hike (if the beauty of the forest wasn’t enough). Down across the tree-studded mountain you can see the sweep of Mendenhall Valley, with brilliant green grazing land studded with cows and ponds.
Mendenhall ValleySnow We also passed an area where there had recently been a controlled burn to clear out the undergrowth. Then we’d dip down and cross a streambed with mossy rocks and deep, spongy loam.
Streambed 
- Along the pathways were boulders ranging from gigantic, mossy troll-like beasts, to well-constructed stone retaining walls.
Stone Wall 
Smaller Observatory From the path you can see the smaller of the two observatories glinting in the sun. How fortunate we are to live so close to such a famous research facility! You of course know that there are two roads up to the observatory because the first one switched back and forth too much for the truck to navigate that was hauling up the huge lens, so the second one is more straightforward. When traveling back down the mountain there are many scenic pull-outs. Take advantage of them, even if you’ve stopped many times before! The view down into Pauma Valley, and across the shapely mountains and hills that roll right out to the Pacific, is a reminder of how beautiful the land is and how lucky we are to live here.
Out to the Sea I apologize for the random craziness of the photos. I’m trying to insert them where I want after uploading them one at a time (whew!), and the program doesn’t agree with my placement. In fact, I just posted this and about four of the photos had disappeared, so I had to readjust. A work in progress!
