The value of neighbors...

Today, I bought 50 pounds of chicken feed with one dollar bills. We have been selling eggs to neighbors almost daily. Some days I have to steal the eggs right out from under the hens. They're super cheap at $3 per dozen. Folks bring their own containers so I don't have to worry about stock piling anything. I could sell them for twice that amount, but this is paying for chicken feed and keeping us from "having" to eat eggs 3 times a day. It works.

I've even had a complete stranger or two knock on the door for eggs. Nice.

We're headed out of town for a couple of days soon and will need someone to let the girls in and out. Usually, our closest neighbor does it but she's been swamped lately so I'm thinking of asking the 10 year old girl up the street. The question is, can she handle it if something gets eaten??? What if she arrives in the morning and there's a mutilated chicken body on the lawn? I better give it some more thought.

For now, the "house" chickens are having some free time wandering the boys' room and I'm off to work.

Experiment over

Earlier this week, I was sweltering in jeans and a t-shirt. Yesterday I was shivering and huddled in front of the heater. Today it's raining. So much for the Olla experiment!

Feeling exotic

They say one of the first things we'll miss when global commerce slows down is the bananas. They have become one of the "everyday" fruits for so many. They sit in fruit dishes along side apples and oranges as if they are nothing special. Let's not forget how precious oranges once were and that, in these parts, locally grown apples have become increasingly special. My local landscape was once covered in apple trees and cows. Now we have grapes and houses. Anyway, we have 2 apples trees espaliered in the back garden and that should be plenty. We've got a few different citrus trees but should add an orange. But what of the now ordinary banana? Prices are rising. Sure, we can bring them from Central America and then as Winter grows cooler, South America but can we grow our own???

I found a website www.bananas.org filled with "yes" men. It turns out that I can grow bananas in Northern California. They won't taste just like those Chicitas and they may take more effort but I bet they'll be worth it. I even found a super nice guy who's found a variety that may work right here in my microclimate...AND he's willing to share! He offered to give me a pup (a sprout). It has to be indoors or in a greenhouse for the Winter and then hopefully it'll grow big enough to produce during the Summer months.

With the 2 kiwi vines I intend to purchase when bareroot season arrives, I may as well call this a little slice of Chile. I better break out the bikini and the rum!

a quiet buzz

Well, my crazy, freecycling husband came home with a new lawn mower the other day! It's a rechargeable electric mower. I was on the phone in the garden when he unloaded it and turned it on. Wow! is that thing quiet. It starts right up and just purrs across the lawn. It's so quiet that I wonder about it's power. It was free which is always my favorite price and will replace the gas mower that hates me. Jonathan always has to start the gas mower for me. It makes me feel like some helpless little girl and that's just not okay. So now I have a happy new mower to mow my husbands lawn.

Speaking of Jonathan and buzzing, he's been helping the bees ready themselves for Winter. He checked in on them last week and found that one hive had plenty of honey but not enough brood and the other had plenty of brood but not enough honey. He's been feeding them the appropriate sugar solutions to help them find their balance. He pulled out a couple of frames and we bottled one jar of honey. It was our first and it's gorgeous! I cannot wait until Spring when we can harvest some more.

We haven't lugged the fountain out of the truck yet but will have to this weekend as I need the truck to transport the dogs to the dogsitter (going to Disneyland, yay). Hopefully, when we get home, we'll have some time to start weeding the West garden and get some flower seeds planted for Spring. The bees are going to love the selection. I'm thinking I'll add an All-in-one Almond tree too. It'll make tons of early blossoms for the girls to work.

Jonathan has decided not to harvest pollen from either hive. He feels like it's just not nice. I say that we sure could use the money but he's right. The bees will have to work extra hard to make up for what we steal. We'll only pull honey when they need the room. If you let them get too cramped, they'll swarm and depart. We want our happy girls to stay put so we'll make sure they have everything they need.

I'm working on one of my many "jobs" this week. I'm making artisinal chocolates for Thanksgiving and an upcoming wedding. It's busy work and I won't be in the garden until it's done.

I'll post on the olla experiment soon. So far, so good.

Sweet Beef

We opened our first package of grass fed beef from the freezer today. It's gorgeous. It's quite lean and I swear it smelled of corn. Funny thing, to smell like corn when there wasn't any corn in the cow. It just had a nice sweet smell, different than what I buy at the grocery. It cooked up nicely and was very tasty. I can't wait till we try one of the steaks!

The Olla experiment

I'm constantly on the search for really great lazy gardener tools. I've been reading about Ollas but thought that the cost seemed prohibitive. I decided to try to fashion some of my own. I don't have a pottery wheel or a kiln so I went to Home Depot for some terracotta pots. They were $.98 each. I also bought some silicone sealant for about 5 bucks. So, for around $11, I built 5 ollas.

I've read that you should drill out the top hole a bit so that you can see when they need to be filled. I worried that I would shatter the pot if I tried to enlarge the hole. Plus, then they'd be more likely to fill with soil and stuff once planted. I left the hole as is but added a chunk of styrofoam inside the olla. I'm hoping that once filled with water, the foam will float to the top and it's whitey whiteness will be easily seen. This should make checking the water level rather simple (I think).


I picked all of the green tomatoes and pulled out the old tomato plants. I removed all of the soil from the galvanized troughs and moved them closer to the patio. I then refilled them. They hold a surprising amount of soil those things. I made the mistake with the first one to remove only most of the soil and my back is sore today. I also began to move the brick path AGAIN. I just can't quite figure out the perfect route. It'll come to me soon.





Into the newly moved troughs will go some new plants (I'm off to the nursery today) and the new ollas. In one trough, one medium olla. In another trough, 2 medium ollas. In the third trough (a shorter one) two small ollas. I'll keep an eye on the plants for the season to try to determine the ideal olla placement.

I've also been wondering about moving the sunset maple I planted 5 years ago. I have a friend with an array of excavation equipment and I think I'll call him to see if it's even do-able. I realized that it's the perfect tree for the back corner where the neighbor removed all the trees last week. Plus, moving it means that we could expand our gate to include a driveway dip in the sidewalk. This would make motorcycle movement a whole lot easier. We're still working on restoring my old Honda but there's a bike for Jonathan and a bike for the boy (when he's ready) in the shed. You just never know when you might need a set of motorcycles! Now I need to squirrel away some gasoline for them. hee hee, I've lost my mind.

Happy Anniversary

Today is our 11th wedding anniversary. We celebrated by driving to Mill Valley very early this morning to pick up my new lion fountains. The folks giving them were quite nice and the boy played with their son while we loaded. Boy! are those things heavy. The fountains are identical with the exception of color. One is a pale sandstone color, the other a blue green. I think the bees will get the lighter colored one. Right now they're still in the back of the truck. Getting one over the porch and over to the bees is going to take some doing so we'll wait a day or two. I'm exhausted from working late Friday night and still have to work tonight. Jonathan and I joked that the fountains were his gift to me.

When we got home, we switched to the car and drove to Willowside meats to pick up our beef order. In the end, our quarter weighed 167 pounds. The cost break down is this:
$586 to the rancher
$18.75 to the executioner
$125 to the butcher

We brought home about 135 pounds of meat which means we paid roughly $5.40 per pound of organic, grass fed, range beef. Pretty good I think.

Here's a photo of the bounty....




3 bags of bones for soup or dogs
41 pounds of ground beef
8 pounds stew meat
4 pks swiss steak
4 pks fajita meat
3 chuck roasts
3 london broils
1 cross rib roast
1 tritip
1 rump roast
2 pks short ribs
1 pk filet mignon
3 pks rib steaks
3 pks t-bone steaks
3 pks sirloin steaks


The freezer is well on it's way to being full and the hog will be ready in about 2 weeks. We can't wait to break into those grass fed rib eyes. mmmmm mmmmm. Happy anniversary to Jonathan!

freedom and free things

When I built the new chicken yard I wasn't ready to commit to it wholly. I never gave it a gate. I just left two little tabs of metal which I hook to the other side of the wire fence to "seal" the "gate". One of those tabs has broken off and every afternoon I find my backyard filled with happy little hens. The Cali Whites can be found wandering the sidewalk or even the road. I don't know why they refuse to stay in the yard. The funniest part is that they somehow manage to get out but then spend the day pacing the fence line as if they don't know how to get back in. A stranger actually stopped her car and knocked on my door to tell me that I needed to do something about them because she almost ran one over. Perhaps I should put them on leashes??? I've already clipped their wings. We must get to building that gate.

Still reading about Almond trees. There's an awful lot of sun in my back yard today with all of those trees gone. Oddly, the yard looks smaller without the trees in the background. I never would have guessed that.

I search the Free section of Craig's List religiously, many times a day. It is one of the first things I do in the morning and the last thing I do before I go to bed. I NEVER manage to be the first to respond though. I get all worked up and then my hopes are dashed. NOT TODAY!!! Today I got a call from a nice man with not one but two lion fountains that he has no room for. I told him that I didn't want to be greedy and take both but he said it would be easier for him if I did. Who's gonna argue with that? Not me. Bright and early Saturday morning, we'll drive to Marin to pick them up. I am so excited. We rigged up a fountain for the bees but it's totally ugly. I can see it from the dining table and I just hate it. Now the bees can have something pretty over there. I may put the other in the back garden. Maybe in the herb garden. Maybe I'll give it away. We'll see.

I spoke with my cattle rancher yesterday. My beef is almost ready!! I can't wait. The freezer is all ready and Jonathan is about to burst at the thought of all you can eat beef. She's been doing chicken raising experiments too. Hopefully they'll have some chicken in the Spring. Susan was remarking about how delicate the broilers are and how strange they look. Such a different thing, she said, than killing and eating your Rhode Island Red. I saw some at my dog sitters and I thought the same. They are actually bred to have fewer feathers so they're easier to dress. If you try to keep them past about 3 months, they are unable to stand up. They have been created to be eaten and somehow that makes them easier to slaughter. The idea of raising meat birds is creeping slowly further forward in my mind. I wonder if in 3 years I'll be a natural part of my life??

trees come and go

I planted a tree today. We've had a fig tree in a terra cotta pot for a few years now. I've seen so many fig trees in the ground trying to take over the world so I was quite hesitant to give ours that kind of power. It was ready for a bigger space though and I didn't really want to spend the money on a super huge pot just to get 20 figs a year. I killed a dianthus in front of the shed this Summer when I refused to water flowers for a while. It is the perfect space for a small, manicured tree. I decided that the fig could live there but that it would be subjected to vigorous pruning if it got cocky.
I also bought a new Bartlet pear. This is the third and final pear I'll buy. Our little pocket gopher seems to really enjoy pear roots. I'll buy a heavy duty gopher basket and plant this one in the West garden among the cutting flowers and bee hives.

The parcel behind us was purchased recently. It was on the market for $375. I don't know what it sold for but I do know that the new owner demolished the house last week. this week, he removed all but 2 trees, a little oak and a gorgeous magnolia. He removed 2 big (80 feet or more) conifers which provided my only shade. Sadly, the chicken yard I just built was based on our chickens love of that shady corner of the garden. The neighbor has offered to buy us a new tree. We can't decide what kind of tree.

At first, I ruled out anything food producing. This new tree will hang over Jonathans last patch of pretty grass and I don't want to be out there picking up gooey peaches or finger ruining walnuts all of the time. We decided that the chickens might do better with a deciduous tree so that their yard gets some light during the rainy season and is a little less soggy in the Winter. Off we went to the Urban Tree Farm....This place is great. They have tree experts who take you out on a little electric cart. They ask all of the important questions: location, soil, size, etc. And then they drive you around pointing out trees that would be suitable. We did this but didn't fall in love with anything. One of our biggest concerns is that the tree not be so big as to infringe upon the food growing portions of the garden. On the other hand, We want it to grow quickly so that our grass doesn't die this Summer and the chickens don't swelter.

Not being able to agree on nonfruiting, I've decided to look into nut trees. Jonathan has promised that he'll pick them out of the grass, we'll see. Since no one in the house enjoys walnuts, I'm reading about almonds. Hopefully, we'll both find a variety that suits us and be able to find a nursery carrying that variety.

Labels

I've been a PACIFIST for as long as I can remember. I've just never thought it was okay to hit another person, let alone shoot one. I've never been a quiet pacifist. Everyone knew how I felt about violence. I walked the walk one night at a kegger about 20 years ago. There I was, the teenage me, sitting there enjoying some socializing, when a young punk girl named Julie asked to talk to me. I said "sure". She said, "alone". So I followed this girl and a handful of her friends (so much for alone) out to the front yard. I glanced at my friend Nikola on the way out and she followed excitedly. Next thing, this girl is accusing me of something I hadn't done and is trying to pick a fight. She was not just asking for the usual teenage battle of words, this girl actually wanted to hit me and expected me to hit her back. Long story short, the confused young woman was removed by her boyfriend and two other guys. They knew, even the skinheads among them, that there was not going to be a fight. They knew about me. Now, Nikola, was dying for this girl to lay a finger on me so that she could "take care of things". I, on the other hand, waited nervously for the watchers to bring her to her senses. I wonder still, what would have happened had she hit me.....

For a short time (college of course) I was a VEGETARIAN. My body didn't agree. I began to crave steak for breakfast. These days, I am learning to embrace my meat craving body. I am an OMNIVORE through and through as are my husband and our boy. In truth, husband might be more of a CARNIVORE than omnivore.

In our community, people gravitate toward HIPPIE or PROGRESSIVE. The crazies connected to those terms make some of us try to avoid wearing those labels. So, when I do really greenish things, Jonathan gets nervous about me becoming a HIPPIE. Funny, then, when in a moment of weakness, I declared that I was going to spray the crabgrass with Roundup, he was the one who put on the HIPPIE label. "But what about the bees?"
So, I've covered the crabgrass with sheets of cardboard and even an old cotton rag rug and topped that off with a few bales of rice straw. I'll add chicken manure as it comes and we'll see what remains when Spring arrives. My newest label, PESTICIDE FREE FARMER. Until the aphids arrive anyway.

This being election day, my label reads clearly DEMOCRAT.

I mentioned the pacifist label because I can feel myself slowly leaving it behind. That darn movie (note to self, watch more romantic comedies) left me feeling like I need firepower to protect myself from looters, zombies, vampires, etc. And also to fetch food. The time could come that I need to hunt for deer, turkey, jackrabbit. The time could come that I need to shoot a bobcat to save my chickens. What about the arrival of a time when my front door needs to be locked, that strangers may try to come into my home and will have to be forcibly removed? My brain has been tucking these little bitty fears away for years. I Am Legend brought them all screaming to the surface.

I've decided to learn how to shoot a gun. I'll begin with a handgun and move on to a rifle. I don't know if we'll stock the house. I'll begin with comfort and knowledge. So much for pacifist. What then, will be my label?

strangeness

I haven't posted in a couple of weeks. I haven't felt like I had much to contribute. I've met so many people growing food, canning jam, even raising livestock. So many people with the time, money, and/or skills to be so much more Permie than I. I began to feel sort of insignificant. I've been reading a lot. I have either the time for reading or time for writing. Both seems impossible. I've been trying to take in more information so that I can grow in this process and so that I can present my readers with something new, something interesting, something other.

So, I finally finished the urban homestead and backyard beekeeping. I've just begun The omnivores dilemma and am so intrigued by the first 30 pages. I am struck by my own personal corn irony. According to the book, the world is basically ruled by corn (just behind oil). There is corn in just about everything we create and we humans, especially Americans, are practically walking cornbread. Funny, then, that as I tore out my lawn and declared myself a farmer in training, I chose 5 rows of corn to represent my transformation. Those rows were tall and graceful, they grabbed the attention of all who walked by. They somehow gave me legitimacy. Or so I thought. I have a few hundred pages still to read and I'm looking forward to whatever change comes about.

I haven't spent much time in the garden. We got so busy that many of the beautiful bell peppers we were going to can became compost. That just added to my self loathing. We made a list of all of the greenish improvements we'd like to make around the house and became SO overwhelmed by the length and cost of our list.

This week, I wandered the garden doing little things, pulling weeds, pruning unrulies, moving the brick path which leads to the chickens. I am trying to remind myself to take it slowly, there's time.

At the same time, I've had a weird week:
One of our little foster kittens died suddenly for no apparent reason. It happens but it's still so sad.
I found a beautiful cat on my way home from work and had to find him a home. One woman said she'd come for him after she finished house sitting for the week. When she finally arrived and saw his beautiful white coat, she decided that he would shed on her furniture too much and went on her way. People bother me. Here's this amazing cat but she doesn't want to have to vacuum? His companionship wasn't valuable enough for her. In the end, he got a great home with a little help from a friend at the shelter. He was here so long though that I was really sad when he left.

I watched I Am Legend this week and immediately freaked out and decided that we need guns in the house and that we need more emergency supplies. So I made another list. This list included a Berkey water purifier, a generator or two, a couple hundred gallons of gasoline and some serious firepower. I'll get into the detail of my list later because the week just kept getting more and more strange....

Yesterday,as my self preservation freak out was dwindling, I got an email from Texas saying that my show chickens had shipped and would be here by 3. I walked over to the Postal Annex and traded them some COD money for a box of chickens. I walked home carrying this cute little box with a handle filled with chickens. I put them into a rabbit cage in the boys room and went to fetch him from school. When he arrived home, he fell in love with his new 4-H project and we gave them the once over. Mites! They have mites. Now, although Dr Dan the chicken man insisted that our hens will get mites, they have not yet and we don't want them to. Sooooo, the boy called our favorite chicken adviser, Catherine, and she said to bathe them and sprinkle them with Sevin dust. And so it was, I bathed and blow dried 3 small chickens. They took it like the champs that they are. Chances are that they've been bathed before. The Male actually enjoyed the blow dry. Then we drove to Lowes (50% less expensive there than my local Ace Hardware) to buy some Sevin. Wow is that stuff toxic!! Instead of the backyard as Catherine suggested, I dusted them in the shower so that there wasn't any risk to the bees. Of course, doing so put anything further down the water line at risk. We have to apply it again in a week and hopefully never again.

After I tended the chickens and fed the neighbors cat, and folded the laundry, and washed the dishes, and scooped the litter boxes, I went to bed. I was startled awake at 5 am by a cockerel still on Texas time. I draped them with a sheet and he began again at 7. He crows every time the puppy cries in his kennel, when the phone rings, when the doorbell rings. I guess he's a little nervous. Hopefully, he'll chill out because we are not allowed roosters in the city. And seriously, how am I to be self sufficient if my livestock can't reproduce???

I am hoping the week gets a little more normal but with Halloween on the horizon, it's unlikely.

The one Pip

There was never another Pip. We are so grateful to have had the one. We would have been so sad if not one had hatched. As it is, we are just heart broken over the many eggs that never hatched. Six of them almost made it but we think our humidity was too low for them to escape their eggs. There were pretty well formed chicks inside but they had huge air pockets. So, we have just the one. She made her hole in the morning and was out around lunch time.

She's so tiny that the boy had to build her a special ramp to get to her water.


We spent $72 on the eggs and $22 on the Marek's vaccine. Little Pip is one expensive chick. She had better be a SHE. We aren't allowed roosters even if they are for a 4-H project. Fingers crossed.

A Pip!

I thought I would be writing this morning about how none of our little eggs were hatching. We began with nearly 30 eggs and each week have candled and eliminated some. We lost two to an accident when removing the egg turner on Monday and finally, there are 11 eggs left in the incubator. It has officially been 21 days and 12 hours. I woke this morning to a little "Peep, Pip pip". It could have been the early morning robins or not, I don't know. What I do know is that I rushed into the bathroom and found one little egg with one little hole with one little beak sticking out. It's one of our Mille Fleur d'Uccles. I quietly went downstairs for breakfast. Mmmm, strawberries, I love this time of year.

About 30 minutes later. I heard a scream upstairs followed by a desperate, "Mom, Pop, come quick!". I would have been worried if I didn't know what the boy had found. We rushed up and there her was, naked, in the bathroom, all teary eyed, showing us that one of his chicks was hatching. He was so excited he cried. He puffed with pride when I told him that he was about to be a Papa. Only one is trying to escape so far and she hasn't done much damage to her shell yet. I'll be checking all day and night. I'm so excited. We're a family full of instant gratification seekers so this waiting is a real challenge for every one of us.

Mr. Science is on it: Jonathan is checking the temp regularly and has figured out how to increase the humidity with a sponge.

I'm waiting and talking about it.

The boy is anxious and quiet about the whole thing.

Oh, and speaking of this time of year: The tomatoes have finally come in. It's tomato sandwiches for lunch and eggs with tomatoes for breakfast, tomatoes on the salad, tomatoes with mayo (Jonathan's fav white trash snack). We lost a lot of plants to the chickens so it's really nice to enjoy at least SOME of them.

The Shape of Community

This weekend I responded to an ad on Craig's List for free Quince fruit. Fruit from my computer?!

I never thought I'd be so dependent upon my computer. I NEVER thought I'd have a laptop stationed on the dining room table 24 hours a day. My husband pointed out that I was surfing Craig's list during dinner recently, I didn't even realize that I was doing it. It's just that the power of the internet is amazing. I am instantly connected to everyone, mostly. I have lived in hippieville for nearly 18 years and have never been so connected to this town and it's people as I am through my slim white Apple.
I have chicken friends through the Chicken Chat Coop.
I have Hippieville friends through Wacco.
I have greater County friends through Craig's List and Freecycle
Jonathan has beekeeping friends through the Bee Forum.
I am learning to make cheese, bake bread, make cocktails all from my dining table.
I have taught others how to make beautiful chocolates and where to drink wine through eGullet.
A friend from the chicken chat was going to come show me how to vaccinate the soon to hatch Bantam Belgians but I looked it up on the internet and now she can save the gas.
I can learn about survival and water use, vegetable growing and jam making. It's an amazing thing to be so very connected to so very much without ever leaving my house.

The downside is that I'm a talker. I think while I speak so if I'm not talking, I'm not working anything out. It's not a great system but it's mine. So, I kinda miss people. Lucky for me, I work in restaurants so I get lot's of people time. I learn tons then too. Sadly, all of my political info lately comes from the bar at the Seafood House. I've been not really home to watch the news or debates. I do hear quite a range of opinions at the bar though.

Anyway, my point is that I wouldn't be half the homesteader I am becoming without my internet community. I would have an eighth of the things in my pantry and I'd have chicken eggs coming out my ears. In these times, when backyard farms are still few and far between, it's nice to find someone 5 miles up the road with Quince to trade on the internet.

Now, what to do with these incredible smelling quince?

Good Trades

Today we traded figs for eggs. We have a fig tree but it's outgrown it's pot and didn't produce very well this year. Jonathan has been craving fig jam and there just happened to be an ad on Craig's List. The poster said she would trade 2 pounds of figs for 1 dozen farm eggs. Our girls have been producing pretty well lately so we had 2 dozen to spare. Somehow, Jonathan only came home with 3 pounds of figs. She obviously didn't weigh them. Nonetheless, we'll have some great jam in a few days and we couldn't have eaten all of those eggs anyway.
I love to barter, it always feels like I'm getting something for free and then doing something nice for someone.

I brought 2 little kittens home from the shelter today. They are only 4 weeks old and will spend the next month or so hanging out with us. They're scared and tiny and desperately need a bath. This is one of the ways we are charitable. We find it feels good to help these poor little critters who are only suffering because people are so stupid. They come to the shelter from all sorts of terrible places, orchards, vineyards, car washes, fast food drive-thrus, gutters, etc. People, please spay and neuter. Thank you.

incubation gambling

Well, we candled the eggs in the incubator again today. All but one of last weeks questionable eggs are headed for the garbage today. We've 13 eggs left in the bator, 7 of which had somebody moving inside. We'll be removing the egg turner on Monday and listening for peeps. Fingers crossed.

My first workshop

Okay, so if you've read my little rant you know that I just attended my first Water use workshop. It was given by Daily Acts out of Petaluma. Lucky for me, my city council sponsored the event so it didn't cost me anything to attend (except the wasted bagels). It's a great thing when cities partner with groups like this to make information more available to the masses.
The workshop was described like this:
Your Water's Worth
Sustainable Household Water Use
Get empowered by this fun and informative Permaculture/ecodesign workshop that'll help you get a grip on water use inside and outside. Inside the house we'll explore domestic water use and a host of easy techniques for minimizing waste of this precious resource. Outside we'll get lit on small scale techniques for harvesting and storing rainwater for reuse and soil percolation, installation of drip irrigation systems, and design concepts to move you towards a more sustainable landscape. You'll be refreshed by the ways seemingly small changes can radically improve our quality of life.
The class was led by Rick Taylor and Trathen Heckman.

We went to a private home and explored the garden. I flirted with Lizzie the kitten and Kona the dog while we waited to begin. Trathen began with an introduction and a 10 minute grounding exercise which included a bunch of Tai Chi. We eventually got to know each other a bit by breaking into groups of 2, talking about ourselves and then being introduced by our partner with our name and a three word Haiku. We talked about the challenges of life, the economy, time, balance, etc. We talked about the value of water. Trathen discussed the overall value, not just monetary value. That was a nice reminder for me because we, at our house, always think of cost first. He discussed the value of keeping water in your land as opposed to letting it flow into the sewers. He said he would give us some tools for doing so.


When Rick arrived, we broke into 2 groups. Rick led us around the house to show us the timer for the drip irrigation system. He showed us his meter. Rick insists that your irrigation should have a dedicated meter and that it should be checked regularly to be sure that you are using your water efficiently. The meter he used would cost about $300 to install. He told us about his timer and that he wants to start using a super high tech timer that connects to a satellite and will adjust according to the weather. He didn't really have any answers for those of us who water by hand. He didn't suggest Ollas or self-watering containers. I don't have a drip system or an extra $300 for a meter. I got a little bored.


When my group went off with Trathen, we went into the house. We discussed the various ways that attendees salvage water in their homes. Buckets from the shower, grey water pipe from the bathtub to the orchard, pasta water on the plants, etc. I joked about my nightmare of dragging a full bucket of water through the house and someone suggested I use a bucket with a lid. I also joked about my old, corroding pipes naturally restricting my water flow thereby saving plenty of water. Trathen showed us a little aerator doohicky on the bathroom faucet which slows water use there. Okay, usable and cheap, finally something. He showed us the dual flush toilet. Handy enough, my Mom has one. He told us to do a whole house audit to be sure there aren't any leaks. One little leak at one drop per second will waste 2,700 gallons of water in a year. That's a lot of water! We did this years ago.

We came back together, talked about the front garden, discussed it's fountain and how much water it wastes, discussed the pathways and how much water they cost to create, the willowwood fencing that no one could actually afford. Rick told us about this lovely little garden and how things are dire enough that no one should be allowed to be so wasteful anymore. And then he told us that he plans to remove some of the plants because they don't look as tidy as he'd like. It's nice to know that we all suffer from the same angst. The fight for truly sustainable beauty is alive and well.

We then sang a song about lunch and Mother Earth and ate lunch. I had a brief talk with Trathen about beekeeping and mostly kept to myself.


After lunch we checked out a big crazy greywater system. It was essentially a little greenhouse with a floor that had been excavated and replaced with baffles, drains, and soil in order to create a sort of wetland filtration zone. Above ground were 5 big barrels making noises like a washing machine. Each barrel held plants, fish, snails, even freshwater clams. The water moves from the kitchen sink and dishwasher into these barrels to be cleaned and then is sent via pipes to some bamboo in the garden. I asked how many man hours went into creating the system and was told it probably cost somewhere between $6000 and $10,000 to create and that it could probably be recreated by 4 men in a week, 160 hours. Rick admitted that this was in no way a cost effective measure. Trathen discussed his greywater system and what he did to get it permitted by the county. Still, no one suggested that you water anything but flowers or orchards with the greywater. Trathen suggested that there are no reported cases of greywater induced illness but gave no more info.

The guys talked about living roofs and how important they are. It was great information but I'm not installing a living roof anytime soon. All in all, I wish I had stayed home and taken a nap. But, I did learn a handy new phrase for something that I think about often:
Embedded Energy: the amount of energy it takes to create something.

I think I'll stick with my own research for a while. Which reminds me that Jonathan and I are doing lots of research on tankless water heaters and recirculators right now and we'll report soon.

The cult of Conservation

This may be a bit of a rant tonight.

I've been working lots lately and have been neglecting my garden. The money I was hoping to spend on the garden is now being saved for what seems like a lifetime supply of meat. That's okay but it bums me out a little. I'm feeling like I'd better spend some time learning more about gardening since I can't be doing and spending more in the actual garden right now.

There was a course being offered by Daily Acts today. It was free to city residents and I thought it would solve a lot of my water angst. I had hoped to leave there with some wonderful new plans to simplify my water use.
I was tired this morning. Really tired. I really wanted to skip the workshop but was afraid that I would be missing something groundbreaking. I had to bring something to share for lunch. I've been working a million restaurant shifts a week and my kitchen is filled with drywall dust and it's 9 in the morning and I should bring something to share with people I don't even know? I went to the bagel shop around the corner. I brought bagels, cream cheese, and homemade peach jam. One person ate one half of one bagel. They sat out on the table in the heat of the day and are now chicken food. $15 worth of bagels and cream cheese, but it wasn't good enough. It wasn't vegan or veggie, organic or homemade. No one wanted my sorry ass bagels. This lunch exclusion just added to my overall feeling of not fitting in. Occasionally, around here, I feel like I've been transported back to high school. I can't be green enough, conscious enough, vegan enough, hairy enough, stinky enough, organic enough, spiritual enough, whatever.
The workshop began with a series of Tai Chi moves. They discussed honoring the Mother, the others discussed the Goddess and native American ways and bringing spiritual principals into ones garden. DUDE! I just wanted to learn about water use. I wanted to learn about different options for watering my garden. I wanted to hear more than that I should fill a bucket in my shower or use my pasta water on my plants. Perhaps I was expecting too much. I wasn't looking for a dose of religion. I am not really interested in learning a blessing song for my meal. What if I had asked them to sing a hymn or kneel before a cross? Ooooh, how about an animal sacrifice? Why is it that alternative religion is okay to force upon people. Why is it that it is assumed that because I want to conserve our natural resources that I must be a pagan or goddess worshiper? I am so irritated by this assumption and the exclusion it creates.
I've said before that I want to find easier ways to conserve. I still do want things to be pretty. I truly think it's okay to want to have something traditionally pretty in your garden. I think it's great to create a balance in your home and in your garden. Temper your need for a stretch of green with some great water permeable pathways. Grow veggies under your roses and feed them with worm tea instead of crap from Home Depot. Life is all about balance. Can't I believe that without rubbing my chakras? I betcha a lot more people would take a little action if things were a bit more mainstream. I guess we mainstreamers will stick with the library and our blogs.

Honestly, I did learn a thing or two at the workshop. I took some interesting photos. I met some nice folks. I'll tell you all about it in a day or two.

Eggs in the Hand

With 2 Ameraucanas and 2 CaliWhites laying and our brown layers coming into their first molts, we are suddenly overrun with white and green eggs. It's so strange to peer into the fridge and see green and white. Especially the white. White seems so "grocery store". I can't wait until my little Orpingtons start laying and we have a better looking assortment. I know, color is not important. It makes me happy, though, to see such a wonderful mish mash of colors. Even Dottie's speckled eggs seem to come less frequently now. Hopefully soon GiGi will begin laying her mahogany colored eggs. Oooh, I can't wait!

We also have a pile of eggs in the incubator. We candled them on Wednesday, exactly a week after we began the incubation process. Some seemed to be void of life and were disposed of. It was hard to just throw them away. I wasn't sure if they could be fed to any of the animals after being kept warm for a week. We marked about 12 with a question mark because we just couldn't quite tell if there was anyone inside. But, we did see some with a definite somebody inside. We even saw a little movement. That was super exciting. The incubator has some pretty wide temperature swings now and then and we're real nervous that our little peeps won't make it. We're taking deep breaths and thinking sweet thoughts. 2 more weeks and we should see some new friends.

Forward with or without me

While I've been traveling from couch to work and back again, my man-servants, as my neighbor calls them, have been busily fixing and breaking things. A freezer full of meat was just the motivation Jonathan needed to finally finish up the insulation and drywall in the mudroom. It's great because, well, it's nice to have proper walls and it'll save us some money in heating costs. It is rapidly becoming Fall around here and our little Rinnai will be cranking soon.
Where's the correlation between meat and drywall, you ask? We were given 8 sheets of drywall for our combined birthdays a good three years ago and they've been leaning against a wall in the kitchen ever since. Move the drywall and there's room for a freezer. Leave the drywall and opening the fridge will be challenging. So, my love moved that drywall. I'm very proud. It required a little rewiring of things which he's quite good at and does with ease. Drywall and mud, however, were totally uncharted territory for him. He's doing a great job and I'm planning to smear some paint all over it next week. Then perhaps a trip to IKEA for some cabinetry. We'll see how the budget looks.

Also on his agenda was to unclog the sink in the upstairs bath. His go-to for clogs has for many years been Drain-O or something like it. A couple of years ago we bought a little drain snake and it's been great. No more caustic chemicals for us! This clog, however, beat that little snake to a pulp. Jonathan poured some kind of really nasty junk into the sink and then proceeded to plunge it. He set the plunger into our clawfoot tub and went back to the drywall. I took the boy up for a bath and found that our well loved clawfoot tub is now etched with 2 circles where the plunger sat and a stream all the way to the drain. That was yesterday. Today it's even worse. This evening it's etched and rust colored. This blows! Now we're going to have to have the tub resurfaced with some more seriously toxic shit AND the sink still isn't draining.
Gotta love old iron pipes. They're rusted and filled with hair. My hair I'm sure since I'm the one who uses that sink the most. Jonathan bought a snake that attaches to the drill but the water still won't budge. Tomorrow, he'll open up the pipe that runs down the back of the house and have a look see.

I'm trying to cost this out in my head:
2 trips to the hardware store $10 gas
new tools $I don't want to ask
toxic drain cleaner $10ish
bathtub resurfacing $ I'm afraid to know

plus, we'll certainly have to replace the 1930's sink that was rotting away before we tortured it. $200ish


BUT, we've learned a lot. Jonathan will feel so great when the problem is solved. And maybe, just maybe, it's still cheaper than calling a plumber? Last time we had to call a plumber we ended up having the gas lines for the whole house redone. $thousands!

I wish we could find a nice plumber who likes jam. How many jars of jam would a plumber charge?????

a week on the couch

Farmer Trish has the flu. Meanwhile, the chickens are wishing for more food (Jonathan feeds them a bit less), the tomatoes are waiting to be harvested, the fridge is getting empty, the winter starts are getting leggy waiting for a new planter box, and the crabgrass is plotting to take over the world.
Thank goodness the mornings have been foggy and the days mild so nothing is dying. The eggs in the incubator are slowly maturing and the bees are storing pollen.
I'm going to snuggle up on the couch and hope the farm can wait a few days.

more thoughts on saving money and shopping local

I was speaking to a friend this morning about shopping locally. We were talking about how the term has so many meanings. It's become one of those slightly irritating catch phrases, used so often that it has almost no meaning at all. I explored it a bit here last week but I have a few things to add.
The are both side benefits of shopping locally and side benefits of shopping cheaply. I think it's important to note a few.
When you buy products in your town, the business owner gives some of your sales tax to your town. They employ people who live in your town, they probably donate to the soccer teams in your town and donate gift certificates to charity events in your town. Plus, you save gas and time staying closer to home.

When you leave town in order to shop with the big boys, you save money and often time, getting everything you need in one huge building. The money savings is important in our household. It allows us to live in this very expensive community. It allows me to work a only few nights a week as a waitress so that the boy doesn't have to go to day care. Saving money means that when the girls scouts come by I can donate some money. When the bloodbank calls, I do have time to give them some of my blood. When the elementary school needs volunteers, I am available. Saving money allows me to be a better parent and be a larger part of my community.

It's a tricky balance. I'm looking forward to the day when we will be judged less for the seemingly little choices we make. I think every decision has so much more thought behind it than most people assume. Nothing is as simple as it seems and each of us makes the choices that allow us to live in whatever fashion we think is right for us, our family, our community.

Musical chairs with chickens

Well, this week our dear sweet Rosie the Rhode Island Red has begun to molt. This is our very first molt at City Mouse Farm and it's kind of sad and exciting all at the same time. Exciting because it represents a forward motion. Our first chickens are all grown and experiencing their right of passage as the "elders" in the coop. Sad because Rosie looks rather pathetic, kinda gangly and balding. In big egg production, Rosie would be bound for the stock pot as she will lay fewer eggs after her molt.
At the same time, Meyer and Pepper, the 2 month old blue Cochins have begun to spend their nights in the coop with the big girls. Jonathan had to add a third perch so there wouldn't be any fighting over space.
And as we move the teenie boppers out, we prepare the incubator for eggs arriving from Tennessee and Texas. The boy has joined 4-H and we're going to try our luck at hatching a few varieties of bantam chickens.

Chickens are truly so fun and easy. I highly suggest that every garden keep a few. Our chickens enjoyed a winter squash as big as my thigh and some fresh grass clippings today. They sang praises to the chef as they ate.

extra information

In our busy lives with a 6 year old interrupting us every time we try to have a conversation, some of the details get lost. Long ago, when it was just the two of us, we each had a more clear understanding of the knowledge the other held, a sort of table of contents if you will. These days, it takes the family blog to reveal some of the smaller bits of knowledge.

Jonathan just told me about something called a water recirculator. I've done just a bit of reading on them this morning and they're quite interesting.

It goes like this: You buy this gadget for somewhere around $500 and install it. It is connected to both your cold water pipes and your hot. When you ask your shower to deliver hot water, the gadget forces all of the cold water sitting in the hot water pipe into the cold water pipe and back to the water heater. It then sends the very warm water straight from the bottom of the water heater into your shower. No slowly warming water slipping down the drain. Is there a cost savings? Well, the jury is out. I'll run the numbers another day.

We hope to install a tankless water heater in the next year or two so the research is pending.

We did it, meat all around!

We got really excited about meat. Truthfully, I got really into the idea of shopping from the kitchen and not wandering the aisle at Safeway or Trader Joes or standing at the butcher counter at Fiesta. I hate standing there, trying to figure out not only what protein is for dinner but what cut and how to prepare it and then to have to figure out if what you're buying is healthy for you or raised responsibly or killed without terror or or or. All the while considering cost. It makes me a little crazy. Especially when I'm pressed for time, which is just about always. I've been working at 2 different restaurants lately which means that with a little planning, I can afford to buy all the meat I want.

I did the research. I purchased a quarter of a steer from Freestone Ranch and a whole 120 pound hog from Gleason Ranch. Gleason Ranch is interesting in that they have containers set up in the kitchens of a number of local restaurants. Chefs and prep cooks put all of their mis en place trimmings into these containers to feed the pigs. These pigs are getting a great variety of organic produce and grains and bread. Gleason Ranch is recycling and feeding their livestock at the same time. Plus, this allows them to offer a really reasonable price. I've committed to a 120 pound hog at $1.40 per pound (live weight). I'll pay the executioner $30 and then pay the butcher about $.75 per pound for his work. I had a very funny conversation with Ryan at Willowside meats. He walked me through all of my options. I chose 3/4 inch chops and plenty of roasts for carnitas. My only disappointment is that you can only choose one kind of sausage. They won't do half Italian and half maple breakfast. I chose Italian thinking that we'll just go with bacon for breakfast and the Italian will be the most versatile for dinners and lunches.

We bought an 8.8 cubic chest freezer and are awaiting the call from the butcher.

Now, I don't have to worry about which grocery I'm at and where they buy their meat and how far it traveled to get here and what it ate while it was alive and how the rancher treats his land, etc etc etc. This means a clearer head for me. I could use a little extra space in there.

More preservation

Jonathan made a small test batch of pickles this week. Because the chickens destroyed our cucumber harvest we were forced to buy a lot of grocery cukes this year. We eat a lot of salad and each of us enjoys the crunch of a nice cuke. We've been buying the expensive pickles because they're the yummiest. We buy a lot of them because all of us love pickles on sandwiches and out of hand too. We had intended to make tzatziki and pickles from those garden cucumbers. Hmph!

I ended up buying just 2 pounds of pickle cukes from Imwalle Gardens so that Jonathan could give it a try. Next year, with the girls contained, we'll make a whole lot of pickles for crunching all Winter long. He made 4 jars last night and says they'll be ready to enjoy in a few weeks. The brine has both cinnamon and red pepper in it so there's beautiful sort of ruby color in the bottom of the jar. I can't wait to taste them.

I've got pesto on the brain today. I've been waiting to make it because the bees were really enjoying the basil flowers. I can't wait any longer so the bees will have to find something else to eat. My very simple recipe is from an uncle. In a food processor:
1 cup packed garden basil
2 cloves fresh garlic
1/4 cup parmesan
2 teaspoon pinenuts
2/3 cup olive oil

It freezes well and stores in a jar in the fridge pretty well too. I froze this batch in ice cube trays and then transfered the cubes to a big bag and tossed it into the freezer to brighten those dark days of Winter.

Where should all the money go?

Shop local or go to Home Depot and grab a snack at Costco? Well, this is an interesting philosophical dilemma. I like to support the folks in my community but I like to be able to afford to live in my community. I want to keep businesses nearby but I like to be home, and not off in an office somewhere, when my boy gets home from school. I want to make projects and I want to get everything I need in one place. Apparently, I have the wantsies.

Recently, I wanted to make a cookie bouquet for my boys first school concert. I needed an inexpensive terracotta pot, some lollipop sticks, cookie ingredients, spray adhesive, and a big round of foam. I found the cookie ingredients at Safeway. Yes, I could have gone to Whole Paycheck but I don't have a sugar daddy. Plus, how is Whole Paycheck any better than Safeway? I went to the hardware store for the spray adhesive and terracotta pot. I bought a pot but it was much larger than what I wanted because the selection was kinda sad. I drove all over town looking for the foam ball and found none. I had to buy the lollipop sticks at a specialty store 1 town over. I really tried to shop local and support the little guy. The little guy didn’t have everything I needed. I wasted a lot of time and gas looking and in the end, I paid 30% more than I would have if I had driven straight to Walmart.
Also, I recently wanted one of those galvanized metal troughs. I happened to be at the big feed store in the next town over and asked about them there. They were out of them so I stopped at a Ranch supply on my way home. They were $10 more there, I didn’t buy one. I zipped past home and went to the local Ace hardware. They had them there for a full $30 more than the feed store. Where do you think I bought one? Why must things be 30% more expensive in town? I know. Rents are a bit higher and they don’t buy in the same volume.
So, what about the big feed store compared to the little feed store? The big feed store in the next town has everything we need for the furballs, the bees, and the chickens. Plus they have a great selection and even little 5 pound bags of chick starter. There’s a smaller feed store in my town but they don’t have the same selection. They have only a 20 pound bag of chick food which will not be used quickly enough to retain its vitamin content. They don't carry anything for beekeeping. Jonathan can stop at the big feed store on his way home from work so gas is not an issue. Both stores are locally owned. Both employ local people. One employs more local people than the other. Is there any difference in shopping at one or the other? I don’t really think so.
But then, what about the bigger guys like local chains? What of the locally owned hardware stores? Ace which is simply a locally owned franchise, the huge Friedman Brothers, or Yardbirds which had many local stores (before they sold to Home Depot).
Is it more responsible to shop at one or the other? If I have to pay 30% more at Ace then I won’t be able to build as many raised beds or tomato cages, which means I won’t have as much food to eat. I could shop at Friedman and often do because it’s huge, they have great service and they don’t always look at me funny when I ask for things like rebar for a teepee. Sadly, they are a bit out of my way. Lowes and Home Depot are right on my path to other things like Trader Joes. I like Lowes better and often choose it. Is it bad to support the big chain? Wasn’t it once a single store? Shouldn’t we be celebrating Mr. Lowe for being such a great businessman and smacking his name on huge home improvement warehouses all over the country? Afterall, he employs hundreds of people in each location and is probably able to offer some pretty great benefits because his company is so large. Or should we be celebrating Mr. Ace for talking a bunch of other guys into paying him to be part of his big purchase to get a better price? -This reminds me of co-op shopping. Each household orders what they want. They pay less because of the large quantities. It all arrives and is divided up.- Or do we take pity on the little guy who can only afford to buy a few at a time and must pass on his lack of savings to the consumer?

I guess, for me, I try to support local people doing great work. That means choosing businesses that treat their local employees well. Not just businesses who's owners live in town. I am picky about who I give my money to and want to choose businesses run by honest people who choose to act with integrity. I don't always have that information but will behave accordingly if I am aware of a lack of integrity. Bottom line, I shop where I can afford (financially and emotionally)to shop. Living in beautiful California is expensive and we do our best. Our family is slowly moving toward buying less altogether and shopping in the garden and the pantry more. We are building relationships with other farmers, citified and countrified. We hope to spend less time in the car and more time doing so very may other things. This works for us.

What about farmers markets? Are all those fruits and veggies local? Or did they drive 5 hours to get to you? Ever wonder where all the peaches that aren't perfect enough for the restaurants go and whether or not they're worth $3 per pound? Check out your "local" farmers market. I find great local stuff at the market and great far away stuff and stuff that is so much more expensive than I think it should be. For me, I think I'll dig up some more grass and shop in the garden. Each farmer's market is different and you should do the research for yourself.

What about buying American? That’s another discussion entirely.

Meat Math

I took a local coop tour a few months ago and one of the participants was asking questions about broilers or dinner chickens. I’ve been thinking about the subject ever since. I’d like to look more carefully at the numbers.
Now, let’s pretend I have a garage to raise a pile of little dinners in. I don’t have a garage, but let’s pretend for now because I really don’t think I can stomach the idea of raising dinner chickens in the upstairs bathroom. I don't know, maybe I can, if the numbers work……

I can purchase 25 newborn chickens from McMurray Hatchery for approximately $35 plus $15 in shipping. These will be Cornish Rock crosses and will grow into dinner quite quickly. They arrive here and I set them up with water, a heat lamp and some food. I feed them organic food for about 10 weeks. At this point they will weigh about 2-3 pounds each and can be “processed”. So, there’s the cost of set-up, which is minimal. Heat lamps and chick feeders will cost you less than $10 and can be used again and again. The more important numbers are these:
$54 for chicks
$50 for 100 pounds of organic feed (half that if organic is not important to you)

That’s about $4 per chicken or $2.00 per pound of organic chicken. Great price right? Sure but you’ll pay the same price at Trader Joes plus a little gas money. Grown at home you’ll know they’ve eaten and lived well but then you have to “process and dress” or kill, pluck, and gut your little chickens.

How to kill them? Well, you could ring their neck, stab them in the head, use a chicken guillotine or hang them upside down from a tree and bleed them. Then you have to drop them into hot water and pluck the feathers. THEN you have to cut them open and remove all the innards. Last, but not least, you must wait for rigormortis to release before placing them into the chest freezer for dinner another night. After spending your day processing 25 chickens, my guess is that you eat vegetarian for dinner. After all the reading I’ve done on the subject this week, I may be eating vegetarian for a while.

So, the numbers prove that it may well be slightly cheaper and better for your body to raise your own roasting chicken. I don’t know how good it is for your psyche. At least you’ll be truly in touch with what you’re eating. I’d love to find a local processing plant that would do the dirty work for me so that I can continue to live in denial while enjoying the best nutrition. Sadly, I’ve spoken to the guys at Santa Rosa Meat and Martindales and they said, “No, you have to do it yourself.” You MIGHT find someone to do it for $6 bucks a chicken but you may as well buy a good organic free range chicken for that price.”. I think they’re right.

Fine then. What about beef?
We live on a small downtown lot so raising cattle isn’t really an option. If we had a small rural lot we could raise Miniature
cattle but they’re way too cute to be dinner. I found this great farm through my friend Laura. It’s called Freestone Ranch. They grow grass fed cattle that is tender, lean, and tasty and really well priced. The numbers really do pencil out here too. After you pay the rancher, the harvester (rifleman) and the butcher, the meat costs about $5.50 a pound. This includes all the cuts from soup bones, to rib roast, and from T-bones, to burgers. Plus, these folks are acting as stewards of the land. They are concerned with the native grass and take grazing very seriously. They are respectful of the cow as an animal and don't feed him foods which would be unnatural, like corn, just to fatten him up. They harvest quickly and on site so the cow isn't confused and stressed when he meets his end. This means a better life and death for the cow and more tender meat for dinner as it's not full of adrenaline from a stressed out cow. I am very interested in this, so much that I began doing the research on chest freezers. I certainly can’t fit 150 pounds of beef in my regular freezer!

Just a bit more math: An energy star rated freezer from Sears will cost you at the least $370 for a 13 cubic foot size and will store 455 pounds of frozen food. If it’s full it’ll cost you around $44 per year to run. Of course, you’ll need to actually keep it full or the energy costs go up. You could process your 25 chickens, buy a quarter of beef, keep a good stash of frozen garden veggies and apple pies and even homemade popsicles and maybe fill it. Then you have to remember to shop from it when you’re in search of dinner. I think this may be a great idea. I’m not sure we have the commitment needed though. Sounds like we should discuss it over dinner. Not chicken tonight.

On a slightly side note: You can buy a smaller freezer but it won’t be Energy Star rated. While it may cost you about $5 more per year in electricity, a smaller freezer will cost you less to purchase. I guess the savings is in the environmental guilt and not just your pocket book.

A Good Day

It's been a really nice day on the farm today. Yesterday we were all freezing our knickers off when the temp dropped into the 50's from the 90's. Today, it's a normal California day with mellow sun and a gentle breeze.

Amelia Redheart, one of our CaliWhites, laid her first little white egg. I rewarded her with first dibs on the Boys leftover lunchbox innards. She and her sister are supposed to be very prolific layers as they are some sort of Leghorn cross. That's pronounced Leggern for those of you who don't speak barnyard.

I harvested a bunch of corn today. I ate 2 small ears raw with some leftover peach and blueberry tart. Ah, nothing like straight sugar for lunch. If you've only had corn from the grocery, you probably can't imagine eating it raw. Well, let me tell you, fresh garden corn is like crunchy, juicy, candy. It's incredible! You should grow some just to taste the difference. I husked the rest, tossing the silks and all into the chicken pen. There was a silly chicken frenzy, they love corn! I carefully cut all the beautiful kernels off and tossed them into a bag and into the freezer for later. We still have some corn that's not quite ripe yet. I noticed a small pollination problem at the tops of the ears. I've never planted so much corn before and I think I left too much space between my three rows. Next year, I'll do a more dense planting.

Years ago, when I planted my first six pack of corn seedlings, a friend told me that she never grows corn because of all the bugs. Knock on wood. I've never had a real problem with bugs in my corn. I have the occasional earwig which I toss to the girls but that's it. Maybe I've been lucky, I dunno.

Now I need to go pull all the weeds that have been hiding in the corn field and toss those to my girls as well.

We'll be making Pesto with garden basil today and picking up some free Quince fruit. The end of Summer is always so yummy!

Fun with Doors

I have to admit it. I have a thing for architecture. I really like the details found in things like hardware, iron fencing, doors, gingerbread and just the general shapes found in turn of the century homes. I love to wander places like Ray's Trading Post on Hwy 116 to see what treasures have been reclaimed from crumbling old homes.

My living room is quite small and when I was spending a lot of time sitting on the couch nursing a baby, I started to feel a lot claustrophobic. We have a door on almost every passageway. These doors work great for temperature control and energy savings. But, again, they can really make a girl feel closed in. So, for my birthday one year, Jonathan bought me a door full of little windows for the living room. It's great. I love it. It allows us to keep the heat in the room while still being able to see out and about. This left me with a door. One lone door who's 16 layers of paint I began to strip. Then I realized, I had nowhere to use it. Every other doorway in the house already has a door.

hmmm....you know what I don't have? A proper bed or headboard. I am always eyeing the king sized reproductions in Pottery Barn, Restoration Hardware, and the like. I love the simple rectangle shapes I see in some of the brass or iron beds. I decided to turn that unused door into a headboard. I coated it many times with polyurethane to lock in the lead paint-wouldn't want lead paint sprinkling onto our heads all night! I added 3 very small eye hooks to the back of the door and secured it to the wall. Behind the mattress, it rests on a few pieces of plywood. Just a little something to support it in the event there's a shake-up. I used only the little hooks because I wanted the door to be able to return to the house someday, if it was needed. I wanted to use it without stealing it from it's original place.
I really love it. It looks like it belongs and is still just a tiny bit quirky too.


Laying in bed one morning, it occurred to me that I could use doors for my new planter boxes. I'm always thinking of my Santa Cruz friend, Anders Olsen, who used old signs from the University to make his raised beds. It was a great use of tossed away items and looked great too. So, off I went to the county dump. We've got this nifty and thrifty area we call Recycle Town. I bought 4 doors for $20. I plan to give them a good coat of lead abating paint so I'm not leaching anything yucky into my soil and then I'm going to screw on some short sides and fill them up with soil and compost. They'll degrade just like any other wood would but they'll be cute in the meantime. Plus, they cost me a heck of a lot less than sheets of plywood from Lowes.

Quick, turn that fruit into food!

More than a week ago, we bought some peaches. We don't normally buy a lot of fruit. We buy bananas and for now we buy Kiwi Fruit (next year, hopefully, we pick it from the garden). But, I saw an ad on Craig's List for organic peaches for $.50 per pound. My boys LOVE peach jam and we didn't get very many peaches on our new peach tree thanks mostly to the little dog and his chewing phase. So, I sent Jonathan off to buy 20 lbs. $10, great deal!
Well, we've been really busy and those peaches have been sitting on a sheet pan for a while. The hens have enjoyed quite a few bruised and spoiling ones. Last night, before Bee Club, Jonathan finally had some time to make some jam. Here's what he got from what was left of the 20 pounds. He calls it Heaven in a jar. Cost to make:
10 fruit
8 jars
5 sugar and pectin
$23 for 17 jars of jam, not bad.



I swiped a few of the peaches and while the Boy was building a pizza on Trader Joes crust, I tossed together a rustic tart. I had some pie crust left over from making chicken pot pies last week. I rolled it out, hacked up the peaches, skin and all, and added a whole mess of blueberries which had gotten a bit too squishy for morning parfait. I covered the whole thing with a makeshift struesel topping of butter, brown sugar, white sugar and toasted almonds. Into the oven for about 40 minutes. It's not the prettiest thing but it sure is Summer on a plate. It was made even better with a scoop of organic vanilla ice cream.

In the above process, Jonathan learned first hand about cling verses freestone peaches. He asked me what freestone meant just last week and now he REALLY knows. He made me promise never to plant a cling peach no matter how yummy it is touted to be!

Eye Candy

The boy and I recently spent the afternoon at the Copia Edible Gardens Festival. If you haven’t been to Copia and you live in Northern California you need to scoot on over there. Not only is it interesting and full of gardening eye candy but it’s populated with people who can actually answer questions. The newest bonus is that the whole compound is surrounded by all the yummy food at Oxbow Market.

We listened to Serge Lebeque of the Bee Club talk about honeybees, why they’re disappearing and what we can do to help. It felt really good, sitting there listening, to know that my family is actively helping. We are not just sitting around worried about what might happen or even worse, oblivious. We have 2 happy hives being cared for in our very own garden. Serge is a fount of information and Jonathan is looking forward to learning even more from him in a two part class offered by our local Junior College.

We were disappointed that we missed the talk about backyard chickens so we went over to the children’s garden and flirted with the Copia hens a bit. We were also checking out their lone rabbit. How any rabbit could survive a Napa Valley Summer outside is beyond me. That rabbit never looks happy. It’s about a million degrees out and all he can do is lay there panting. I guess they keep him because his poop can go directly into the garden. Rabbit poop need not be composted and is a great source of nutrients for plants or your worm bin. Plus, they’re cute and cuddly. Next time your kid asks for one you might consider your garden before you say “No”.
The whole garden there is amazing. It’s a great combination of wild and tamed. They use some great classic growing techniques, three sisters, espalier, and plain old straight rows. For those unfamiliar with three sisters, it’s a Native American technique. You plant corn, add pole beans which will use the corn as their pole and then add a big leafy squash at the bottom to create shade, keep the soil moist and deter weeds. It’s a great system for even the most novice gardeners. The gardens at Copia are also filled with things of more interest. They have really unusual varieties of flowers and fruiting trees. One of the things I love most is their use of different things for trellis and support. The gardeners there get a little creative and I like it.

Inspired by a lush, green covered teepee, I went to the hardware store this week for rebar. I quickly built a rebar teepee for the boy. I planted one Passion flower on it and will add pole beans when the time is right. He’s going to love his new little fort. My teepee consists of 5 poles now but I think I’ll double it for better hideout coverage. We recently saw pink Passion flower at the zoo and the boy has asked me to put some of that on his teepee too. It’ll attract both hummingbirds and girls!



I also had my eye on this arch built of rebar. I took some photos and know just how I’ll tweak it to work for me. Bending the rebar into perfect arches will take some thought but I’m guessing that it’s just a matter of creating a form out of lumber. The stuff we saw at Copia was so simply constructed. They used wire and zip ties to connect the rebar. So MacGuyver!



The boy wandered through the garden plots taking little nibbles here, there, and everywhere. I probably should have discouraged him but the plants were loaded and you just gotta love a kid who eats multicolored beans off vines and asks you to please bring a big torpedo onion home for Papa.

Places like Copia are great for inspiration and motivation. That simple rebar teepee will make a great addition to my garden. It’s useful for flowers, beans, and people, it was inexpensive to build, and I love the slightly quirky look.

Is Causal Green a crayola color?

We have some things in common with some of the other urban farming bloggers out there. We feel good when we can feed ourselves. It makes us feel strong and powerful even. We like that we can achieve this strength while respecting the earth and mother nature. We enjoy the idea that we have something to contribute, to share, to trade. But the truth is that we don’t want to make all the sacrifices. We, like our LA blogging comrades, enjoy a nice cocktail. Not sure one can buy organic vodka. We don’t want to work so hard to make it all work. And, we don’t think one has to work so hard. We hope to prove it.

Water is a constant issue that I struggle with. I’d love to use the water flowing down my shower drain while it warms up. I could divert the whole shower to a holding tank or right out into the garden. "Hang on, garden, here comes the grey water!" However, if I can’t use grey water on my food crops or what’s left of my lawn then I’ve very little use for it. Sure, I could fill buckets in the shower with the clean, warming water and then carry those through the house to the herb garden. But, I don’t want to carry buckets full of water through the house, over the wood floors, and out into the garden. A great buffalo of a dog will surely trip me and gallons of water will go splashing through the house. Then the little dog will come prancing through and all the dirt on his paws will turn to mud which he will promptly put all over the Ikea (thank goodness for slipcovers) couch. Then the boy will wander through and decide to run his hotwheels through the “carwash”. Plus, what do you do with the bucket/s while you’re actually in the shower? Carry it/them into the bathroom while standing there naked, leaving it/them in the middle of the tiny room so you can trip over it/them on your way out? Or drop your towel into it/them? I just don’t think so.
If someone could invent a lever system actually inside the shower enclosure that allows the clean water produced while waiting for the shower to "warm up" to be diverted directly into the garden onto any plant that would be fantastic. Easy! Enter bathroom, reach in, turn on diversion lever, turn on Hot water, take off clothes, have conversation with child about toothpaste, step in, turn off diversion lever, adjust temperature, shampoo rinse repeat.
And what about irrigation? Fill your garden with plastic tubes and hoses so that you can use less water and spend less time watering? I’m not so sure about all that plastic. Aren't I supposed to be using less plastic? Dig a bunch of trenches and lay pipe for some serious bigboy sprinklers? Well, sure, but what of the cost and the time, and the wife who is notorious for changing her mind? I love the little clay watering vessels you plant in your boxes. They’re called Ollas and everything I read sounds great. You can see them or buy them while supporting an amazing homesteading family here…Ollas

The problem for me is the price. At $25 each with approximately 3 large ones needed in an 8x4 raised bed, I can’t afford them. I asked my kiln owning friend Heather and she says they'd be quite inexpensive to make. If one had the skills and the tools!
I saw one website which showed a thrifty gardener using silicone to attach 2 terra cotta pots together. He sealed the drainage hole on one pot and buried that end. You then use the remaining hole to fill. Maybe it’ll work. That would run you approximately $10 to $15 for the pots and a tube of silicone. Then you have silicone in your garden and all over your hands and probably your patio as well. I don’t know. I think I’ll try it in one of my new beds and let y’all know if it works. But, what do you use for things that are grown in the dirt, not in fancy soil filled beds? What about the herbs and artichokes with are tucked in between lavendar and snapdragons surrounding the lawn? Must I have 1 olla for every other plant? Who could afford that? So then we’re back to hand watering which, when I’m in charge leads to stress, or rubber and plastic running through the garden. Yes, I could make those self watering containers out of 5 gallon buckets like the 215 growers use. But, they’re ugly. Yes, you heard me, ugly. Ugly is a problem. They’re small too. I don’t want 40 million of those ugly things all over my garden. Nope. I must research more options.
Lucky for me there's a class being offered at Daily Acts in 2 weeks. I'll check it out and report back.

Rotten Bananas

From rotten bananas to yummy banana bread made with city chicken eggs and greek yogurt.

Those darn chickens!

So, in the beginning, remember that I promised Jonathan that I had no intention of letting the chickens free range? But then they were so cute. They’d come when you called them and rush to see you when you opened the backdoor. They sing happy little songs as they peck and scratch and rid the garden of all those gooey bugs and earwigs (why are they called that??? Yuck!). The girls love to eat the only bug that makes my boy and I both squeal like girls….the potato bug. They really enjoyed their chicken days clucking around the yard.

They have this great coop with a double-wide nesting box, two roosting perches and a nifty slide out bottom for easy cleaning. The run, however, was small, difficult to move, kinda sad and the chickens didn’t like it. Soon, we had too many chickens for the little run anyway. So there they were, free ranging singing their songs. Turning the garden into moonscape (thanks to urban evolution for the term). There are crater-like pits in the pretty green lawn, and the strawberries are gone. As are the beans, cukes, oregano, thyme, garlic chives, squash, tomatoes, figs, limes, kumquats, you get the drift. They do not like the regular chives or the bell peppers. Those were allowed to live.
I already mentioned the poop. Everywhere. Gross.
So, we tried to corral them. I bought 50 feet of 3 foot high chicken wire and some inexpensive metal poles that look like green bamboo. Why? It was what I could afford. Have I mentioned that I’m a part time waitress? Money is tight. Plus we have priority issues, that cruise to Mexico sure looks like fun. Okay, getting sidetracked. Another day we’ll talk about money and credit and Jonathan’s big plan.
Today, we talk chickens.
New corral, plenty of room. I used the entire 50 foot roll of chicken wire and they should have been happy. Then Indy started to dig under to steal their kitchen treats. A visiting dog, dug under and promptly killed one young chicken. The chickens started digging out and flying over and landing on the wire and bending it over and then even the fat ones could just jump out. They were everywhere again. The Caliwhites were even hopping the picket fence and exploring the neighborhood. Neighbors knocked on our door to tell us a chicken was out. They were eating the corn and the pumpkins on the East side. They were lolling around in the middle of the street. They were out of control.

I want to plant things and see them fruit. I want to eat that fruit. I spent a week or so trying to make everyone happy. I watched the chickens in the garden and discovered their favorite spot. It turned out that they love the Southeast corner of the back yard. We have 2 fruit trees there. One Nectarine and one grafted Apricot and Plum. There’s lots of shade thanks to neighboring trees. The soil is damp and nice for a little dust bath. The more I thought about that spot, the more I liked it. We moved the coop just under and between the 2 fruit trees and off I went to find some fencing.

Again, not a ton of money, also a little afraid of anything too too permanent in case they hated the new spot and wouldn’t stay put. I found some galvanized steel fencing in little rectangles. 5 feet high, 50 foot roll, $50. With that I bought Steel U posts. I began the project and then went back for more wire fencing. All in all, I think I spent close to $200 to reign in the chickens.
I added a temporary little brick pathway to check for aethetics and function. I think I like it. It brings the farm into the back end of the garden. There’s more continuity now. I’ll have my eye on Craig’s List for some more free bricks and I’ll set a proper little path with sand. The girls seem happy back there. They have sun and shade and a bench to sit on and under. There’s a pot to perch on and an umbrella to hang out under. They like it. We like it.
One problem: 3 chickens keep flying out. Miss Mary, our newly laying Ameraucana. And the twin Cali Whites, Pearl and Amelia Redheart. Those Calis are on my list. If we decide we want new chicks next year it’s the CaliWhites who will find themselves living with someone else. Hello internet, grab scissors, catch chicken, clip wing, replace. Problem solved. Nope. Still flying out. Rinse and repeat. The clipping of wings is hard to watch. It’s sad. They lose their long pretty feathers and their liberty all in one little snip. Not to mention their ability to fly away from predators. Sadly, we just can’t have them wandering the yard and the neighborhood anymore and needed to remind ourselves that they are indeed livestock.

They seem to be staying put now. Like I said, if they don’t they’ll be rehomed. Having a local network of chicken lovers is really helpful for us backyard flock owners. It’s nice to be able to get just the right mix by moving one or two around.
Next I need to get some of those cute scalloped shingles for the front of the house. A little solar porch light would be great and Jonathan will build a real gate. We love our new chicken land.