Relocalizing my life

Maybe it's my mood, but all kinds of red flags are giving me this sense that the giant rotary fecal disbursement mechanism is nearly operational.

Slowly, very slowly, I'm making progress on things that are important to me. It's probably not really that slow, but it seems like it.

One thing that's really important to me is supporting local businesses and products. Making my community stronger and more resilient... more self-reliant. More "crisis proof" - especially when it comes to food and farms.

Thankfully, this is a region where it's much easier to do these kinds of things than where we were before. We're working on fruits and veggies and eggs on our own property, but you can get those locally in most places. But check out what else we're working on:

7 miles north - Milk & butter (& ice cream!) from a solar powered dairy farm
13 miles north - Beef, pork, lamb, & chicken from a diversified farm running a "meat CSA"
11 miles west - Locally grown and milled organic chicken feed
17 miles south - Biodiesel made from locally sourced waste oil

So not only can we be locavores, so can our chickens. And so can my car.

But I don't have to drive to all those places. I can get most of those things in town, within just a few miles. The dairy products actually cost less than the organic from the store. The chicken feed is a bit more expensive, but still pretty reasonable. The meat is not cheap, but I'm okay with that. And at $3.75 a gallon, the biodiesel is actually cheaper than either diesel or gasoline at this point.

There are days when I think the relocation is going to blow up in my face - especially with the job not always living up to its billing, and the Ohio house still sitting up there empty. But we're getting some showings again, and, well, I'm still employed.

But when I look around at what this area has, and what our old place didn't, I don't feel any hint of regret.

--

Some nice milestones, and a loss

Well, let's see.... Lots going on here.

We lost one chicken. There was snow on the ground, but I couldn't find any non-chicken tracks. I couldn't find any breaches in the chicken pen. No blood, no carcass. Just a handful of feathers inside the coop. My best guess is a raccoon, or maybe a possum, came down a tree. But who knows. We don't have a CSI: Chicken Coop team. Emily, we hardly knew ye.

But today was a big day at the new homestead.

The metal roof is done. And I have to say, it looks fantastic. And it should be good for half a century or more. The roofers even replaced our skylights with more efficient ones for free. (I was going to tell him we didn't want to do the roof after all, so he threw in the skylights to get me to close the deal.)

The gutters and downspouts are done too. The installer was nice enough to notice one of my rain barrels, and set it up for me. Bonus!

And last but not least, the wood burning stove is in too. A week ahead of schedule. We're supposed to burn only small fires the first few times, so we did a little test fire tonight. The boys were fascinated, of course. I'm looking forward to getting the hang of it's nuances. I'm really looking forward to getting a real fire going.

No pictures because I leave when it's dark and I get home when it's nearly dark. Maybe I'll snap a couple tomorrow.

Good times...

--

Time off at last, and putting it to some good use

During the first half of this year, I didn't take many vacation days. Scattered days off here and there, but not much. Then I got a new job. The unused vacation turned into money, which was much needed. But with the new job I lost the ability to take time off for the first three months. That was tough, especially while trying to relocate, unpack, settle in, learn our way around, and generally adjust to a whole new life.

But now, at long last, I have some actual leisure time. These short days are a bit demotivating, but I still feel like I'm finally getting a chance to whittle away at various things. And with a milder climate, I'm appreciating the ability to make sporadic progress outside.

Because deer are so abundant on our property, I'm trying a different garden strategy. I don't have any pictures yet, but I'll try to get some at some point.

We put in a five-foot chain link fence in our back yard. That wouldn't stop a hungry deer by any means, but it's something. So, I dragged a cattle panel (yes I have an unnatural love for cattle panels) to one corner of the chain link fence. Using the fence as a brace, I bent the 16-foot panel so that it formed an arch about 6 feet tall, and 8 feet wide. Then I pinned the side away from the fence it into the ground. I arched another panel next to the first one. Then another, and another, essentially creating a welded steel tunnel. It's now about 36 feet long if I counted correctly.

I then went back with some fencing wire and tied the arches to each other, since many of the panels had their own ideas about what constitutes an arch. Tying them together made the tunnel somewhat uniform.

On top of the abundant unraked leaves, I'm putting a layer of packing paper from our moving boxes. Then the boxes themselves get deconstructed to make up the next layer. On top of that will go another layer of leaves. (I'm still in the stage where I see the leaves as a huge blessing, after spending years with barely any leaves.)

Anyway, leaving a narrow path down the center of the tunnel, that should give me at least a couple hundred deer-free square feet to work with.

Plus, I can cover it with plastic for an instant greenhouse, or cover it with shade cloth at the height of summer, or grow vining crops up it, like a trellis. Hmm, I could grow vining crops in the sections where I want summer shade and skip the shade cloth. And if I want to get a little creative, I can probably turn it into a winter chicken run to get some free weeding, tilling, and fertilizing.

Sometimes I think planning and plotting and scheming is half the fun of gardening...

--

Chooks, Take 2

We've been missing chickens ever since we sold our flock at the end of last summer. It's been more than a year since we've had the little cluckers around, but it seems like at least two.

That ended today. I drove to pick up half a dozen assorted chickens from a guy named Russ. He's got 70-80 chickens of almost every breed imaginable, on a small suburban lot. His setup was impressive, and despite the numbers, I think most of his birds had names.

At any rate, six was about all we have coop and pen space for at the moment. We'd love to add more, but then, some chickens are better than no chickens.

With six chickens and six different breeds, we are, for the first time, naming them. Previously, we had a lot of hens of only two different breeds. They were numerous and not really distinguishable. But we thought this time it would be more fun to name them.

So we now have: Sarah (Black Australorp), Emily (Blue Iowa), Sophie (Araucana), Diana (Welsummer), Clarissa (Barred Rock), and Brigid (Speckled Sussex)


(And a million bonus points to anybody who recognizes where those names came from...)

--

Making progress

It's been a bit of a slog since moving. So many boxes to empty, so many things to learn, so many places to find... so much chaos. It seems like the progress has been slow.

But when I stop and think back at the projects we've gotten done so far, it's a pretty good list:
- Got rid of all incandescent bulbs
- Fixed constantly running toilet
- Set up two rain barrels
- Fenced back yard
- Fixed door locks
- Got plumbing leaks repaired
- Got stove repaired
- Replaced dead fridge & dishwasher with high efficiency models
- Built compost bin out of old pallets
- Established a system for trash & recycling (took a little figuring since we'll be transporting it all to the county facility ourselves)
- Put in a new over-engineered clothesline.
- Put a gate on the front porch (to keep Amelia from wandering off)
- Fixed and reinforced the front porch swing.
- Set up a workshop in the garage
- Joined a bio-diesel co-op
- Came up with a plan for where to put the garden and how to (hopefully) keep the deer out of it

Not a bad run for under two months. There's still a lot of work to do, including some pretty big stuff. But that's another post.

In the meantime, I have to share the one that's most exciting to me: The Return of Chickens.

We have been DYING to get chickens again. We've really been missing them. But with so much other work to do, building a chicken coop was looking like a daunting task. Building a coop inside our old pole barn was fairly easy. Building one from scratch, while certainly doable, was something that was going to take some time.

I made the mistake of browsing the Farm & Garden section of Craigslist. (Always a dangerous idea...) Lo and behold, a stunningly well designed (and handsome) chicken coop for sale, for less than what we imagined spending on materials. And October was a three paycheck month. It was like Fate screaming at us to go for the instant gratification option.

And so, here it is... It's being delivered on Sunday.









Next we just have to get ourselves some chooks!

--

Multi-use homestead outbuilding

So I've been tinkering with a design for a multi-use outbuilding. Thinking way too much I suspect.

In the past we built several goat shelters, a chicken pen, a chicken tractor, along with milking stanchions for goats and another for a cow. We also planned the design for our pole barn. I never did get around to building a greenhouse, but I did finally finish my grape arbor.

So I'm trying to combine things I've learned from experience with things I've learned from others, and create something new. Or at least interesting. I'm not sure if I've succeeded at either, but I've at least kept myself entertained and occupied through this long winter.

Below is what I came up with. This is a first pass. Suggestions and constructive criticism are always welcome. Also, if I ever build it, it could use a catchy name.

--

Design:

The structure will be a long, narrow outbuilding composed of five square compartments or pens aligned in a row, running along an east/west axis. Each pen will have an interior space a little over 5 feet on a side, giving about 25 square feet of floor space. Each pen will have a 32-inch "doorway" in the center of the south wall. One pen should be able to provide shelter for up to six standard sized goats, or up to a dozen chickens, assuming they are given adequate run or pasture space.

click image to enlarge

Each of the five pens will serve a particular role in a given year, and functions will shift each year, giving a five-year rotation. The five functions are: Goat shelter, chicken coop, compost finishing, greenhouse, and woodshed.

The lower portion of the pens will be three courses of standard 8'x16' concrete blocks, but double the usual thickness (i.e. 2 blocks side by side or 16 inches thick). Standard dimensional lumber will be used to create a simple framework for the upper part of the structure.

The upper walls and roofing material will vary by function, as follows:

click images to enlarge

Goat shelter: The walls will be made of stacked straw bales. The roofing will consist of corrugated metal attached to lightweight (2x2) wooden frames. The roof will be designed with a slight slope for water runoff. It will overhang the straw bales slightly in all directions.

Chicken pen: The chicken pen, like the goat shelter will have straw bale walls and corrugated metal roofing on lightweight frames. However, movable nesting boxes will be inserted into the north wall in place of one of the straw bales. The nest boxes will be constructed to match the typical dimensions of the bales. A wood-framed door covered with chicken wire will be used to close the pen at night. Branches or rods can have both ends stuck into the straw bales to act as perches for the chickens at night.

Finishing compost: The compost area will consist of the remains of the goat bedding from 2 years prior, the chicken litter from the prior year, and rotting straw bales used for walls in previous years. Any excess rotted straw bales will be laid around the outside of the structure to act as insulation (and additional compost/mulch). This area would have minimal roof and wall coverings beyond those shared with neighboring pens.

Greenhouse: The roof, walls, and door of the greenhouse will be glazed with lightweight, durable material (polycarbonate maybe?) attached to lightweight frames. However, the rear (north) wall of the greenhouse will be painted plywood. Just inside the plywood, on top of the double-thick block walls will be 55-gallon rain barrels. They will be used to store rainwater. The barrels will supply water for the goats, chickens, and plants in the greenhouse. The warmer environment of the greenhouse will reduce the chance of the water freezing, and the thermal mass of the water will reduce temperature extremes within the greenhouse. The concrete block side walls should be entirely enclosed within the greenhouse, allowing for more shelf space. The concrete block could also be used as bench supports for shelving that extends the length or width of the greenhouse.

Woodshed: The woodshed area will have lightweight covering of whatever material is available, to keep rain off the stored wood. If extra glazing material is available to be used for this area, it would minimize the possibility of casting shade onto the greenhouse. However, caution should be used to make sure the stored wood is not subjected to excessive humidity.

Functional Rotation:

Each spring, the functions of each pen will shift one pen to the west, as follows:

Year 1: |  goats   | chickens | compost  |greenhouse| woodshed |
Year 2: | chickens | compost  |greenhouse| woodshed |  goats   |
Year 3: | compost  |greenhouse| woodshed |   goats  | chickens |
Year 4: |greenhouse| woodshed |  goats   | chickens | compost  |
Year 5: | woodshed |  goats   | chickens | compost  |greenhouse|

The upper portions of the pens would need to be taken down and moved as needed, which explains the emphasis on lightweight materials. However, the actual amount of work should not be great, since two of the pens have straw bale walls, which, if rotting, can simply be knocked down in place. The compost area has essentially no walls. The remaining roof panels and wall panels should be built in such a way that they can be moved easily. The rain barrels can be emptied for moving. The rotation should happen in spring, when rainwater should be plentiful.

The rotation is designed to cut down on incidence termites in the wood storage area, manure-borne parasites, while keeping a constant supply of fresh, rich soil for the greenhouse, and hopefully cutting down on all types of pests and pathogens.

The logic of the rotation is as follows:

The goat pen will build up a certain amount of bedding and manure over the course of a season, especially in winter. By moving the chickens into the goat area, the will scratch the bedding somewhat, encouraging the composting process, while at the same time adding fresh material in the form of droppings and litter. In the third year, this material, along with old straw bales, will finish composting, while still providing plenty of mulching material for the gardens. In the fourth year, the finished compost can be spread to the gardens and used with greenhouse plantings. The fifth year will be something of a "fallow" year, acting only as a dry place to store firewood through the winter.

In the warmer months, when no firewood storage is required, the pen could be set up as a milking area for the goats. In the winter, the milking station could be moved to the warmer greenhouse area.

By keeping the chickens and goats side-by-side four years out of five, the fencing needs are simplified. The chickens and goats would not be restricted from entering each other's pens during the day. Flexible stock panels could be used to channel the goats and chickens to pasture areas.

--

Fresh inspiration

As I've whined too much already, it's hard to garden from Limbo. Everything is either tentative or hypothetical. I'm not ordering any seeds this year as I have such a large stockpile and a lack of motivation to try new stuff. Most of my winter garden reading attempts have tended more toward frustration than inspiration.

But I've found a wonderful exception: The Permaculture Home Garden by Linda Woodrow. It's a bit hard to come by here, since it's out of Australia. I'm not sure why it isn't more widely available. I got mine from a third-party seller on Amazon.com for about $35.

I love some of the ideas that permaculture strives for, but you almost have to be an expert botanist to pull off some of the techniques. They're often heavy on cool concepts, but light on detailed examples. Other techniques require loads of labor or money or resources up front (teams of workers, earth movers, materials, etc.) that aren't always feasible.

Where Woodrow's book shines is that she's come up with a system that implements the concepts of permaculture in a way that:
- works on a home scale
- doesn't require a huge up-front investment (probably comparable to starting a traditional garden from scratch)
- incorporates lots of familiar annual vegetables, fruit & nut trees, and chickens (these are a few of my favorite things)
- can be adapted to use a worm farm if chooks aren't a good fit for your site
- can produce an amazing quantity of food from a relatively small space
- is small enough to fit in most suburban yards, but that is modular enough to scale up quite well
- is aesthetically pleasing enough to work almost anywhere

The basic unit of the system is a circle. These are combined to form a larger building block she calls a "mandala". A mandala has a circular bed in the middle, surrounded by six more circles. These circular mandalas can even be made into a sort of "super mandala" if you're feeling really ambitious or want to make a living from it. (My inner geek loves the "fractalness" of it all.)

Each circular keyhole garden is 2 meters across, and after adding in paths, a full-sized mandala is about 15 meters across - or 20 meters if you extend out to the eventual drip lines of the small fruit & nut trees. I think not being in Australia, I wouldn't plant trees all the way around the circle. We don't get nearly as much sun. But trees around the southern edges might work. Then again I'm all about the trees, so I might push the limits myself.

Woodrow uses a clever adaptation of the chicken tractor to make a "chook dome" - a circular chicken pen 2 meters across (and about 2 meters high at the apex) that covers up one circle. The pen moves from circle to circle through the season with the chickens taking on the tasks of tilling, fertilizing, pest control and waste management.

But if you don't have room for a 15m mandala, there's no reason you couldn't break it into 2m circles and rearranging them to fit your space. And there's no reason you couldn't have less than 7 circles. You'd lose some of the benefits, but it seems modular enough that it'd still work pretty well.

So no matter where we end up or even if we stay put, I can while away the hours soaking up the details of her system, making minor adjustments to account for the climate differences, and being able to plop it all down as is in almost any location. Not to mention scouring the internet for people who have tried this system to see how it worked, what changes they made (like the geodesic chook dome)

I still can't necessarily start doing it, but it's enough to get me through the rest of winter with my sanity intact.

It's probably a little iffy to recommend a gardening book that uses unconventional techniques that you've never tried which were designed for a different climate (and a different hemisphere) that you haven't even finished yet.

But I don't care. I highly recommend this book. I've danced with many of these concepts before. I've just never seen them put together into a system that is so elegant (in every sense of the word).

One last note - as I was reading the book I was entertaining my brain by always converting metric to non-metric, north-facing to south-facing, east to west, etc. Well, until I realized halfway through the book that while Australia is a long way off, the sun does still rise in the east and set in the west there. The Southern Hemisphere doesn't rotate the other way around. Duh...

(Oh, and Linda has a blog that I will be devouring perusing shortly.)

A few images from others who have tried some of this stuff:





--

Recipe for Free Soup

First, buy a whole chicken.

I know, I said it was free, but as any physicist can tell you, there's no such thing as a free lunch. Free always has a price, even if it's sometimes hidden.

Anyway, soup.

So buy a whole chicken. If you buy it from a nearby small farmer, you will be helping your local economy, your local ecology, your health, your taste buds, and your soul.

Oven roast the chicken, and serve it for dinner with your choice of sides. If you don't have a good recipe, see if your local library has a cookbook called "Best Recipe" or one of its kin. Be amazed at how good a home cooked meal can be.

I know, soup. We're getting there.

Put away the leftovers. Pick the remnants of good meat off the carcass. Set them aside. You can leave plenty on the bones - fat, gristle, meat that's tough to remove, etc.

If possible, cut the bones in half, either with kitchen shears or a large knife. It's not absolutely necessary, but it will release marrow, which will really give some life to your soup.

Put the remnants of the carcass in a big stock pot, and add a bunch of water. At least a gallon, maybe more if your stock pot is big. Add some salt -- maybe tablespoon or so, and another tablespoon of vinegar. (Don't worry if your soup smells like vinegar for a while. It'll go away. The vinegar is supposed to help draw out some extra nutrients.) You can throw in a bay leaf if you have it. Turn on the heat. You want to keep it just shy of boiling - A few bubbles every now and then, but not a full boil.

Now, get out a stalk of celery, a carrot or two, a couple cloves of garlic, an onion, and a potato. Substitute other veggies as you see fit. In mine, I left our celery because we didn't have any. I included a little corn, because we had some left from the roasted chicken dinner. Soup is great for using up leftovers.

Peel the papery skin off the onion and put the skin in the pot. (This will give some color to your broth.) Wash and peel the carrot(s) and potato and put their skins in the pot too. Pull off some celery leaves and put them in the pot.

Cut up all the vegetables and mince the garlic. Heat some oil in a large pan. Wait for it to shimmer. Then add the garlic and all the veg to the pan, along with a good healthy sprinkling of thyme and some salt and black pepper. You can add other seasonings if you like.

When everything in the pan starts getting tender, take it off the heat. Put it in a bowl with the meat you set aside earlier. You want your broth to cook for a good hour before you go any further, so you may want to put these veggies and meat in the fridge for a bit, depending on how your timing is going to work out.

Once the stock pot with the bones, peelings, etc. has been heating for an hour or more (more is fine), get out a big bowl and a strainer or colander. Pour the broth through the strainer into the bowl. Skim off the top of the bowl if necessary, to catch any bits that came through the strainer. Discard the bones and scraps.

Put the broth back in the stock pot, along with your sauteed vegetables and meat bits. Simmer for another 30 minutes or so. Toss in a couple handfuls of egg noodles. Then toss in another handful, because it's hard to have too many noodles in your soup, as far as I'm concerned. Cook until the noodles are appropriately soft. Add salt or seasonings to taste, but taste it first. Depending on how you roasted that chicken back at the beginning of this process, it may be plenty salty. Or it may need a good bit of salt.

Congratulations - you just made some excellent soup. And it didn't cost you anything. Let's look at the ingredients: Chicken bones and meat scraps - You were going to throw them out, right? Vegetables - You had them in your kitchen already. You just used the ones that would have gone bad waiting to be used. Herbs and/or spices - That much less going stale in the bottom of the jars. Tap water. Noodles.

So maybe not COMPLETELY free, but pretty effin' close. For a few pennies worth of ingredients, and stuff that most people would throw away, you have the equivalent of about a dozen cans of some damn fine soup.

Besides, "Free Soup" does sound a lot better than "Chicken Carcass Soup."

--

Favorites, Part 2: The Bearded Lady

When we first got chickens, our plan was to hang on to a couple of the Buckeye roosters. Unfortunately, they were way too aggressive. They could draw blood with their spurs. They'd attack each other, me, Lori, the kids, the mail carrier, the neigbors, inanimate objects... So we decided to try to find a full-grown rooster whose temperament was a known quantity. We found somebody with two roosters available, both well-tempered and both from desireable breeds. And both with ironic names. The Buff Orpington, Rocky, was afraid of his own shadow. And the Araucana (Ameraucana? Americana?) was named Sherry, because his original owners thought he was a hen when they named him.

Unfortunately, Rocky didn't last long. He died of unknown causes. Sherry never liked him, so he may be a leading suspect, but without the CSI: Special Poultry Unit, we'll never know for sure.

At any rate, Sherry is everything we want in a rooster. He's protective of his flock, but he's never shown any signs of aggression toward people. (Despite that, I still flinch from time to time when I cross paths with him, and then remember he's the new guy. I don't miss punting roosters across the yard.) He's much more handsome than any of the other roosters we've had. And anytime he finds food, he alerts the hens with a very distinctive clucking. And he waits for all within hearing range to get there before he takes his first bite.

Here he is, calling the girls for a snack:



...and digging in.


--

Green grass, blue skies, brown eggs, and purple flowers...

I'm excited that I can finally, I think, get some planting done this weekend. We've got sunny skies and nice temperatures forecast for the weekend, and a couple days without rain leading in, to dry things up a little. It's always hard to go to work on a beautiful spring day, but somehow working from home makes it even harder. I can see the garden, the sunshine, the things that need to get done. They're right under my nose! Not that I'm complaining. I wouldn't trade it. But at this point it has surpassed the kids running around making noise as the #1 distraction.

I'm also excited that we're getting about 4 dozen eggs a week already. Probably more, in fact, but the chickens do love their secret nesting spots. I think (though I may be wrong) that this is higher egg production for this time of year than we usually get.

I'm excited that the redbuds are starting to bloom. My favorite tree blooming always coincides with my favorite time of the year.

I'm excited to hear news this morning about possible high speed rail service in Ohio. But rail service of any kind in Central Ohio would be a nice option. Columbus is the second largest US city (after Phoenix AZ) with no passenger rail service of any kind. The nearest non-industrial rail lines are about 70 miles away. Personally, I'd be willing to lose the "high speed" prefix. It sounds like we'd need to lay all new rails and build & pay for expensive trains. I'm probably naive, but I'd love to see them try to use existing rails and technologies. I'll hold most of my excitement until I see anything actually happen, but talking about it is a good start.

And finally (and I never thought I'd say this), I'm excited about mowing. It won't last, but for now, it sure is nice to be able to cut down the waist high dried up weed stalks filling our pastures. I'm scattering weed seeds everywhere in the process, but what can you do? At least the grass has a head start. It's amazing how much greener the fields look after cutting (or at least knocking down) the dead stuff. I've got some plans to make some minor fencing adjustments to make rotational grazing easier, so hopefully I can find a couple hours to do that this weekend as well. (Have I mentioned how much I love cattle panels? It makes fencing changes so much easier.)

Yet another positive post. Must be spring...

--

A flurry of posts, part III

Top Ten Things to Do When You're Snowbound

10. Lay around in your jammies and vej out.
9. Pretend you are a flamingo

"Cold! Cold! Cold! Cold!"

8. Make Doughnuts
7. Take cover until the sun comes out

7. Bask in the sun when it does show up

6. Take advantage of a ready-made snow fort


5. Do some renovation and remodeling on the snow fort's front entryway4. Install a personalized "Memory Snow(tm)" bed for your snow fort

3. Try a new formulation for soil blocks that is, hopefully, somewhat further from concrete than last year's batch. (Sorry, forgot to take pictures.)

2. Forget your Tech Break commitment twice, by watching the bonus features from The Business of Being Born DVD, and the last five minutes of an exciting basketball game involving your alma mater, both of which your wife was watching and that you got sucked into. Then get two calls from work requiring you to get online briefly, really throwing off that whole low-tech thing.

1. Find out your blood pressure is rising and your extremities are getting puffy while you are 39 weeks pregnant and really hoping to have a home birth, once again riding the Emotion Roller Coaster; Consulting with the experts who advise bed rest and various other possible remedies, and keeping fingers crossed.

I don't recommend that last one. It's kind of a pain.

--

Some photos... because I can

Prairie Chickens
NO CHICKENS ON THE PORCH!

Yeah, that's working great...

"Squaawk! Kiki want a cracker!"

Kiki is the kitty who has adopted our barn as his home base -
which is fine by me. I haven't seen a rodent in weeks.
The squadron of feed-thieving sparrows are still present,
but they're not nesting in there any more.
(Photo credit to e5...)

"Pssst. Alice.... Check her out."

"Aw, %!$$ off. Ain't you ever seen someone molting before?"

--

And yet...

I'm feeling mostly human again, and yet, I apparently have nothing of interest to say here. It was cold and snowy for a couple days, and now it's cold and rainy. The snow melt plus the constant rains have made quite a mess.

The chickens wanted nothing to do with the snow, and stayed in the barn for about 48 hours straight. They've also decided that it's pretty much too miserable to lay eggs. At the end of summer we were getting upwards of 15 eggs a day. Now we're down to about three a day.

A wandering cat has adopted us. Our neighbors were (and perhaps still are) feeding it, and named it Kiki. But his heart is apparently with us. Or at least the warm soft hay in our barn. He's very friendly, and I've got no problem whatsoever with a cat in the barn. The mice and rats seem to have moved on. Thanks Kiki.

I planted some sunchokes over the weekend, as well as a few dozen trees. Well, okay, I buried some apples that were way past their prime, some hazelnuts, pecans, and walnuts from a bag of mixed nuts, some acorns and a chestnut that e5 collected from various places, and some apricot pits from somewhere or another. I'll be shocked if they amount to anything - especially the mixed nuts and apricots since they are from parts unknown. But what the heck...

Other than that, we're mostly just hunkering down and waiting for some non-icky weather. Maybe I'll have some good stories by springtime!

Question

Which is weirder: To steal bagged leaves from somebody's front yard, or to knock on somebody's door and ask them if you can take the bagged leaves from their front yard?

I'm on a never-ending quest to add all kinds of organic matter and nutrients to my garden soil, to the extent that I may need professional help. So far that has included organic dairy compost, Com-til from the local wastewater treatment plant, hay, straw, ashes, charcoal, cardboard, newspaper, shredded paper, goat/donkey/chicken manure and bedding, garden crop residue, wood chips, dried molasses, and now, leaves.

You see, we don't have any mature trees on our property. We have a few beech trees and a thicket of willows growing around the edge of the pond, but as this was cropland just a few years ago, most of the trees are the ones I've planted, and few are taller than me.

So while I was in town running some errands, I snagged some bags of leaves. (I asked, in case you're wondering. I didn't want some nice old lady calling in my license plates to Circleville's Finest.)

A secondary benefit to this particular facet of my little organic matter problem (I can quit whenever I want) was that my kids, for once in their lives, got to play in a big pile of leaves.




The chickens didn't really need to be introduced to the scratching potential of the leaf pile, but e5 was more than happy to show them around anyway.

Six garbage bags of leaves in a big pile, and within an hour our feathered friends had spread them in a nice even layer across the whole garden expansion area.

Hello, my name is e4, and I'm an organic matter addict.

--

Four season gardening

We planted eggs in our fall garden, and look what sprouted!


Actually, they're just taking some dust baths in the soil, now that I've pulled the last crops out and tilled the ground up a little. They do love their dirt.

--

Yes, our chickens have a collective sense of humor

Two eggs found on the same day
(with a quarter for reference)

Update, Part 1: The Animals

Sorry for the lack of posts. We're still cranking away on a hundred different things. Stand by for a multi-part brain dump of what we've been up to... Are we doing too much too fast? Absolutely. But by now many of you know that I hear a big clock ticking whenever I sit still for too long. But I digress...

Up first, the Livestock Report.


The goat kids are getting bigger by the minute. It's a bit comical to watch a 50 lb kid nursing on a 100 lb mother. They essentially have to lay down on the ground to get under there. (They'll be weaned pretty soon. We've been waiting on our pole barn to be done in order to separate them. I've a feeling that the mommas are probably already working on it.)

We seem to have lost our buyer for two of the bucklings. No worries, there are plenty of other buyers out there. And we can probably get a little more for them now that they're bigger.

It hasn't rained here in at least a couple weeks. The bad news is that means our pastures are thinner than we'd like. But we did get the donkey and the bucks integrated into one pasture, thanks to some extra prodding from Contrary Goddess. I think one of the biggest tricks to this lifestyle is knowing who to listen to when. It's not all wine and roses out there in the obnoxious animal paddock, but it'll have to do for now. Now if I could just teach that donkey to pull a plow he could start really earning his keep. In the meantime, we're looking for a buyer. Need a donkey?

The chickens are awesome. We especially like the Buckeye breed. The Dominiques are nice enough, but they are definitely more homebodies than the wandering Buckeyes. The Buckeyes are constantly popping out from under bushes, or the tractor, the car, a tuft of grass... We removed the truck cap that came with our pickup, and it's become a sort of home away from home for the chickens. They're nice enough to keep the grass trimmed under there for me too. Now if I could just keep them out of the garden until the seedlings are a bit more established...

In case you're wondering, yes, they're still in the garage. Well, they range during the day and use the garage as their home base. Lori built a chicken tractor for the roosters - we've only identified three so far on a straight run of 12! Woohoo! And meanwhile we're building a pen in the pole barn which is finally finished. (More on that in another post.)

A funny thing about the Dominiques is that they roost on the top rung of the cattle panel that used to form their pen in the garage. They have other perches, but for some reason, they like the precarious top rung, even though the most insignificant event sets them all to wobbling. Funnier still are the few who are a little slow on the uptake, perching on the second or third rungs, directly below their flock-mates. I don't think sleeping on a perch directly below another chicken is the greatest idea in the world, but maybe it's just me. A few Buckeyes join them on the panel, but the rest seem to prefer bedding down on the ground floor in a big clump.

The best chicken trick so far? Plucking flies out of mid-air. How cool is that?

Projects

Life has been on the verge of chaos since Winter released her icy grip.

Amelia is sick with an ear infection. Well, the ear infection is waning (we think/hope) but the antibiotics are causing her to have an upset stomach. Today was the first day in almost a week that she's seemed anything close to herself.

E5 is also sick, with a fever. Poor kid woke up during the night last night, very alarmed that his bed was "doing something by itself." "What's it doing?" I asked. "It's tipping way over," he said, his voice quivering a bit, and then added, "Let's get out of here!"

We also got new neighbors. They have five, count 'em - five, kids. From fourteen years (hello babysitting!) down to eighteen months. E5 has been in heaven, asking to play with them nearly every day. And they've all been thrilled with their new playmates too. They seem like really good kids too. They were very polite, inquisitive, and conscienscious as I gave them the grand tour. (What kid can resist a donkey, baby goats, and baby chicks?) They even let E5 borrow some of their toys for a few days.

The parents seem to be on a similar wavelength with us. They're interested in getting some sheep or goats. They're putting in a huge (huge!) strawberry & blackberry patch. I noticed compact fluorescent bulbs in all the outdoor fixtures just a couple days after they moved in. They don't care that their vehicles are slightly beat up, as long as they get the job done. They've already given our kids a stack of hand-me-down books and a stuffed animal, and they met us for pizza one night last week.

As if all that weren't enough, we've crossed off a number of quick-but-necessary projects in the meantime.

Clothesline

Our dryer died. We're getting a replacement. In the meantime (and for future use), I put in a clothesline. It's just temporary, until our pole barn goes in. Metal T-post plus baling wire, a hook, a couple of pulleys, and some crappy clothesline that stretches like crazy. I actually had to use a fence stretcher to tighten it enough to keep the clothes off the ground. Who sells something stretchy as clothesline?!

Mother Nature played a little April Fools joke on us, bringing down the rain 30 minutes after we put some clothes out. The good news is that with our constant breeze, the clothes actually dried faster on the line than they did in the dryer.

Mason bee home

With honeybees mysteriously dying in droves all over the country, I decided to try attracting some native pollinators - namely mason bees. It's pretty easy. Some scrap lumber and a drill was all that was required. I'll write something up on this if I get a chance.

Mini-bridge

We had some drainage work done last spring, which alleviated a very soggy area in our back yard. The drainage path leads the water into one of our ponds, which is wonderful. Unfortunately, the path of the water and the path out to the pasture intersect, which left us with a frequently muddy ditch to cross. Now we have this handy little boardwalk.

More baby goats

Our last pregnant doe, Lolly, had her babies last week. A boy and a girl. They look so tiny compared to the brutes born last month. They're already climbing on top of their shelter like old pros. We (particularly Lori) had the unpleasant task of disbudding (de-horning) two kids and wethering (neutering) two more today. Man I'm glad that's over.

Growing chicks

They're gettin' bigger. Their wing feathers are coming in, leading to some interesting striping and coloring, especially on the Buckeyes. They've also figured out how to escape their pen in the garage. Luckily, they're not venturing too far to date.

More projects on the way, so stay tuned

Chiquenox

As promised, pictures of baby chicks!

The yellowish ones are Buckeyes,
and the blackish ones are Dominiques.

"Peep! Peep peep! Peep!"

"Yeah, so I'm a fluffy baby chick.
What of it??"

E5 wanted to kiss every single chick.
Twice. I hope he grows out of that.

Gee willikers

I thought I'd post a quick update on all the stuff that's been happening in our lives - but only those subjects that start with G. Because I'm feeling geeky.

Goats

We've finished the unpleasant task of disbudding all of our baby goats. This is an un-fun process that will keep them from growing horns. Unfortunately, the breeds we're dealing with get non-trivial horns, and we've already learned that our one fully horned goat is quite a nuisance, and verging on dangerous.

We also sold all three of our male goat babies. Well, there may be one or two more to come, but the three we have are all sold. The bottle baby has left us already, and he'll be joined by his brother and his half-brother as soon as they are weaned. The more sensitive readers out there will be happy to know that they won't be sold for meat. They'll be living out their days together on a brushy hillside with a running stream. No word on whether daisies grow there. But an animal-loving granddaughter and aspiring vet will take good care of them, I'm sure. And it won't be long now before we can stop buying milk at the grocery store again...

Glamour

I've been asked by BlueGreenEarth (no relation) and The European Social Ecology Institute for permission to republish a couple of my posts here. I am honored. Not bad for somebody just a year and a half removed from a life in suburbia. And further vindication that I am not crazy. Or at least that I'm not the only one who's crazy.

Gadgets

Speaking of crazy, I bought one of these on eBay:
This scary-looking cast-iron contraption can press apples for cider, grapes for wine, sunflower seeds or shelled nuts for oil, meat for lard, and any number of other things. Should be fun.

Garage

Our baby chicks were scheduled to hatch yesterday. They should be arriving any time now. And since our pole barn isn't done, they'll be moving into the garage.

So if you're keeping score, so far we've had nesting mice, rats, mourning doves, goats, and now chickens in our garage. Our attached garage. Can't wait for that pole barn...

Gawking

Lori spotted a flock of hooded merganser ducks in our pond. There were about 10 of them. I tried to take a photo, but they're a bit shy. I dug this up on the Ohio DNR web site:

What a handsome devil.

We've also seen a pair of whistling swans (the big white ones), and we get daily visits from a hungry great blue heron.

Garden

Seed starting resumed yesterday. Not exactly on schedule, but it'll do. Into the seed blocks went:
- Diamond eggplant
- Applegreen eggplant
- Cilantro
- Sweet basil
- Purple basil
- Flat-leaf parsley
- Oregano
- Catnip (to draw a beneficial predator or two to our rodent-laden fields)

As you can see, I was feeling rather herbal.

Some of my small (3/4-inch) seed blocks collapsed when I tried to work with them. I'll have to work on that soil block mix. Other than that one row, they seem to be working pretty well so far.

But I have a confession to make. I don't really like starting seeds indoors. I'd much prefer to plant the seeds once, outside, in the ground, and let them do their thing. Gardeners are supposed to relish the start of gardening season, inside, in tiny little plots of earth, or something like it. But as happy as I am for spring to be approaching, for some reason I don't get too excited about the indoor stuff. In a few months, I'll be glad I got it done though. [Mental note: Look into floating row covers.]

Goodbye

... and stay tuned for fluffy baby chick pics.