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?