Bloggy Bling

Sorry - I know I've been a bit missing-in-action here lately. I had family visiting, presentations and events leading up to the Primary Election (I lost), a husband on vacation for two weeks (including a week spent camping at Tahoe), and my harvest season is here. I'll catch you up on all that shortly. But first, look what I got:

Texas Poppet, "a suburban homemaker struggling to make peace with the globe trotting action hero living inside", sends me a virtual hug. She says my gorgeous pictures of livestock, garden and home always leave her smiling. Thank you! Her blog is a perfect mix of information, humor, and bloggy neighborliness. Go check her out at Canned Laughter - preserving peaches and domestic bliss.

And now, I get to pass this bloggy love around. I'm to choose five blogs that "make my day". Hope you'll check out the following (in no particular order):

I've been reading Lorisdoris' posts since she started her imaginary blog (since she was always imagining what she'd write, she started an actual blog). She's now reorganized it into a beautiful site over at Frugal Domesticity. Recipes, knitting, simple living - just like Grandma used to do.

So often, women seem to be the driving force behind their family's efforts at sustainable living. It's a refreshing change to see a man posting about living lightly on the land. James, at Simple Living in a Complex Society, writes about his delight at learning to can, provides recipes, and some wonderful tips on the frugal life.

I love the creativity over at Wardrobe Refashion. For some great ideas on refashioning or sewing your own clothing, check out these reader-generated posts. Maybe you'll even be inspired to take the pledge.

So sorry, but the fourth blog no longer makes my day.

When I want some food for thought, or just a different way of looking at things, FoodShed Planet always seems to have something to chew on. I hope my readers agree, and that the above bloggers continue to pass this on. Cheers!

Deterring Critters

After my last post about mice stashing olives under the hood of the truck, I got an email from a friend saying that when he had problems with squirrels in his attic, he soaked a few rags with Pine-Sol and stashed them around the edges up there. No more squirrel problem. That reminded me: last summer, while camping in bear country, our campground host would come around each evening with a spray bottle of Pine-Sol to wet down the doors of our bear boxes (all food and fragrant cosmetics have to be kept in a bear box - a big strong metal box, on legs cemented down, with a tricky latch bears can't reach - bears have been known to bend a car door down or go right through tent canvas to reach anything that even smells like food: vanilla air fresheners, old to-go cups, mints tins, cinnamon-flavored dental floss). Anyway, the Pine-Sol treatment works. Even though we had bears around camp just about every night, they stayed away from anything that had been sprayed. (Another bear tip: I camp in a tent. At night, I take my car's electronic opener into my tent with me, and use the alarm button to make the horn honk and the lights flash if a bear comes sniffing 'round my tent. My sister still takes a big spoon and a pan to beat on to bed with her.)

Our winters are too cold to worry about fleas, I've never had cockroaches, and it's too dry for ticks. We did have a couple of cracks in the concrete floor that termites got through. We sealed those with silicone and haven't seen any more. Outside, the guineas love termites - they'll come running if I'm moving wood piles around. The guineas are probably why I don't have too many garden pests to worry about either (plus letting the chickens free-range after the garden is harvested, burying my fencing wire down and out in an "L", and keeping poultry feed in pest-proof containers). About the only other pest that can be bothersome are ants.

To keep ants out of my kitchen, I've got a few unopened packs of Wrigleys Spearmint gum unobtrusively placed at the back of my counters, and Bounce dryer sheets underneath the cracker and cereal boxes. The dog's dish is a no-ant one with feet that really works. Boris will eat the cat's food if he can reach it, so Albert's food dish is in a greenhouse window, lined with carpet, that extends outside the exterior wall. Albert jumps up there from the back of a chair, and loves to lie there, windows on three sides. To keep outside ants from getting to the catfood dish, I've sprinkled talc baby powder under the carpet and pushed it into the cracks around the edges. Ants won't cross talcum powder.

Ants won't cross a chalk line either. Down in the cellar, we have a french drain in the middle of the floor. Ants can come up through that, but I can stop them from getting to my stored vegetables. In late summer, I clean out the cellar, washing down the racks, storage containers, floor, and walls. I then get a box of chalk sticks at the back-to-school sale and draw fresh lines around the french drain, under the door and along the walls, and around the legs of the racks (I also make sure none of the racks touch the walls). Last year, while I was sitting down there with my chalk, I thought if I made it look like an ant mass murderer had been there they'd be sure to stay away. Voila! CSI:Cellar

Somebody's Been Busy

Aries' work commute to Tahoe is 25 miles, one-way - up 2,000 feet over a 7,000' pass then dropping back down 1,000' to lake level and around to the south shore casino zone. Some of the days, he carpools with a couple of co-workers. In the summer, on days when they're off, he likes to ride his motorcycle.

We also have a pick-up truck. Aries often needs its four-wheel drive for his winter commute. But this time of year, he doesn't use the truck very often. A couple of days ago though, he was offered some big trees, killed by the Tahoe fire last year, for firewood. We heat our house with wood, and really like it when we get the chance to get some big logs, already cut, free for the hauling. So Aries drove the truck to work for a couple of days, fetching home a load of wood afterwards.

He was a bit concerned, however, when the electrical system blipped on the way home the second day. So today, on his day off, he popped the hood to check the wiring. If you look past the bundle of colored wires, you can see lots of little, tan, round things. We have a couple of Russian Olive shade trees between the house and driveway - those are some of the little olives. Between the fender and the engine compartment, on both sides, someone has been building a winter stash. Just imagine how many trips it took some little mouse, up and over the tire into those nice steel storerooms, an olive in each cheek. Sorry, little fella, all gone now.

Baked Zucchini Sticks

I just picked my first three zucchini, so it's time to make my favorite snack. If you like the deep-fried zucchini sticks appetizer in restaurants, you'll love this quick and healthier version. This is best made with small, young zucchini - a good excuse to make this frequently all summer long. I use my toaster oven to avoid heating up the kitchen.

Baked Zucchini Sticks
3 - 4 small zucchini, 1 - 1½" diameter, 6 - 8" long
1 egg, beaten (or a liquid egg substitute)
fine dry breadcrumbs (add seasonings to suit your mood, my favorite is salt, pepper, and dried oregano; when Aries is cooking, he likes pepper and parmesan cheese)
your favorite dipping sauce(s)

Trim ends of zucchini and cut in half lengthwise. Cut each half lengthwise into three wedge-shaped strips. Put egg in one plate, crumbs in another. Dip the cut sides of each strip in egg and then the bread crumbs, then place side-by-side, peel-side down, on a cookie sheet or the tray for your toaster oven. Bake 400º 10-15 minutes. The zucchini should be soft and the crumb coating golden brown. Serve with your favorite dipping sauce (I like ranch dressing or salsa, Aries prefers barbeque sauce). **an added note: this summer, Aries has been cooking the crumb-covered strips on the barbecue grill - turning to brown each side. Yum! and no heating up the kitchen.

My Happy Place

I love my garden, and especially this time of year. I wander out there all the time, just looking - pulling a weed here, checking for bugs there, snacking on the first, perfectly ripe, blackberry (or two), guiding a bean tendril over to a support pole. The smoke has cleared out, and our sky is blue again. But, things to do, people to see.

Soroptimists luncheon today - I got the books closed out for the fiscal year, and have just about finished up with the annual dues paperwork. After that I'm volunteer-ushering a Shakespeare For Kids show at our local Community Center. The same company puts on full-fledged plays at a summer outdoor theater on a beach of Lake Tahoe, and I'll be working a few of those nights too (and even got Aries to join me a couple of nights - a free, fun outing for the both of us, working the crowd, in a wonderful setting under the stars).

And politiking too. The Primary Election is August 12th, and I have to place first or second to go on to the General Election in November. Both local papers are running election special editions this weekend, just in time for the start of early voting. So I've been researching and crafting my answers to their questionnaires to meet their deadlines.

We gave away eight guinea babies, via Craigslist, but still have seven left. We've had lots of initial responses, but then they don't follow through. I think the price of feed might be affecting people's decisions on acquiring any more mouths to feed. And I'm expecting Missus to bring in her clutch any day now, too. Three adult guineas are enough for us around here. They're really good on weed and bug patrol, but we really don't want to keep any of the little ones. The chicken coop would get too crowded. Oops, time to move - later!

Housewarming Tradition

We went to a housewarming in our neighborhood tonight. Two generations have owned the house above us in the twenty-some years we've been here. The "grandparents" lived and raised a family in a little cottage on the original 5-acre homestead. The "parents" later inherited the place, eventually adding on to the house, but splitting off some of the acreage. A couple of years ago, their son moved back home after a divorce, bringing with him his children, "the grandchildren", the fourth generation in that house.

The son is a contractor - they divided the lot once again, and he started building a house above his parents house. Long story short - he met someone and they got married only a couple of months ago. And he finished building his new home. Tonight, they invited friends and neighbors to an open house to celebrate/meet his new bride/housewarming.

As a housewarming gift, I baked a loaf of my One-Hour French Bread, added the recipe card, plus a jar of sea salt and a bottle of honey. Since this is practically a forgotten tradition, I then wrote a card explaining the significance of such a gift:

"The bread and salt tradition come from an old Russian folk custom. Back in the day, when the emperor and empress would pay a village a visit, merchants and gentry would present their esteemed guests with a loaf of bread piled with salt - a sign of hospitality. Peasants were honored using a similar ceremony upon introducing a new spouse to the village, with the gift of bread and salt signifying that the new couple would always have the necessities of life. When given at housewarmings, therefore, bread and salt represent the wish that the recipients' pantry will always be full. Honey (or sugar), on the other hand, symbolizes the hope that their life together be sweet." (~quoted repeatedly all over the internet)

I wasn't sure if they drank alcohol, so didn't include a bottle of wine, but the German version of this tradition replaces the honey with wine: "Bread so you'll never go hungry, wine so you'll never be thirsty, salt to ensure your good luck."

Propagating Alliums

Around one edge of my garden, I have a perennial allium bed to provide plants each year for the garden. Alliums are the onion-family vegetables - onions, shallots, garlic, leeks, and some raised just for their flowers. I just wrote about saving the best of my garlic bulbs to plant each fall for the next year's crop. I'll also do that with the shallots now ready to harvest. Big bulb onions are about the only plants I don't propagate myself. My local nursery sells onion plants by the bunch in early spring. I buy a bunch or two to set out so I'll have lots of onions when I'm ready to can batches of salsa and tomato sauce in late summer.

These are walking onions, also called top-set or Egyptian onions. The plant makes a little bunch of onion bulblets at the top of a stalk, sometimes reaching two or three tiers high. If left alone, the stalk falls over and the bulblets grow where they land - the plants thus "walk" around the garden over time. The plants are extremely hardy and the first onions to come up in the very early spring. I use them then as green onions, but later in the summer they can get tough. I plant a couple of the top-sets each fall to replace the plants I've used.

I also grow bunching onions - multiplying clumps of green onions that never form a bulb shape - that come up later in another part of the bed. These are the scallions I use throughout the summer, making sure to replant one or two, for next year's supply, when I pull up a clump. Leeks are the last of the onion season. I harvest them fresh all through the winter, digging them out of the frozen ground. The last section of my perennial allium bed is for my leek supply. Once you grow one leek, you'll never have to start seeds or buy plants ever again.

Years ago, I transplanted 6-8 leeks into the supply bed. The following year, they sent up a big flower stalk, but also a clump of little leeks came up from the root. Early each spring, I'll pull up a clump, break it apart, and set the little plants out in my regular garden bed for harvest later in the year. I'll put one of the last holdouts from the year before in the propagation bed to replace that clump, leaving the rest to continue growing into even bigger clumps. This method even works with the cut-off root end of a supermarket leek. Don't throw it out - bury it out in some place where it can grow undisturbed. It will come back as a clump of little leek plants, ready to plant, the following year.

A Universal Language

I dare you to not smile watching this:



Even better, go to YouTube and click the "Watch in High Quality" option

I first saw this on Molly's blog, and loved it so much I wanted to share it too. Enjoy!

Harvesting Garlic

I plant garlic and shallots (and sow spinach seeds) in late October, just before our winter cold and snow starts. The following July, when the tips dry out and and the plants lose their shiny green look, it's time to harvest the garlic I'll use throughout the rest of the year.

Garlic needs to cure in order to last in storage. I dig and pull the plants, then lay them out on a table under the shade of the trees for a day or two to dry (if you're in a rainy climate, try to harvest after a couple of dry days, protect the bulbs by spreading them out under cover, like a shed or patio, but don't cover with moisture-trapping plastic). The drying kills the root system at the base of the bulb (rub or cut them off up to ¼" from the bulb), and any dirt can then be rubbed away too. Oldtimers used to braid their garlic - it's both an attractive and effective way to cure and store garlic.

To braid garlic, you'll need to do it soon after harvest while the tops are still flexible, starting with three bulbs and then adding more into the center as there is room (you can braid some string in with the tops for reinforcement, but I don't). Since I use the garlic from the bottom up to keep the braid looking nice as long as possible, and bigger bulbs store better than small ones, I lay out my braiding garlic according to size and start with the smallest, working my way up to the biggest. Once at the top, I continue braiding for a bit, then bind the top with knotted, wrapped, and knotted string (tie it tight - the tops will shrink as they dry) and then make a hanging loop at the back. Hung to cure in my open, airy pantry, I've had top bulbs still good more than a year later.

I planted a couple of different kinds of softneck garlic last fall (hardneck garlic, with one ring of cloves around a stiff stalk, is tasty but doesn't last very well in storage, so I rarely plant it). One variety matured earlier than the rest. On those bulbs, the tops were too dry to braid, so they're stored in the basket below, and will be used first (so I can keep the decorative aspect of the braid as long as possible - I really like the way it looks hanging there). I also kept a couple of nice, big, pretty bulbs in reserve (I have to hide them from Aries, or he'll go after those first if he's doing the cooking) to plant this fall.

So, the basics of curing again: sun-dry for just a short time, then rub off dirt and the wiry, dried roots; separate out any with thick necks or with cloves that have started to separate, and use those first; cure in a warm, well-ventilated, shaded area; when the skins are dry enough to rattle, they're ready to store (in a braid, a basket, a net bag, the leg of a pair of pantyhose - some way so that air can still circulate) in a cool, dark, airy place.

Red Sun in the West

California is still on fire, and we're still in the smoke. When I got back from donating blood this evening, a couple of hours before sunset, a blood-red sun was just barely visible to the west, and it was already dark enough that the chickens were going in to roost. July is usually our hottest month, and today was the first, of forecasted many, over 100 degrees . Summer has arrived, with a vengeance (thank goodness our nights still cool down to the low-50's).

I was late getting a lot of my vegetable garden planted this year, and then some of my corn had a poor germination rate. So, a few days ago I tried sprouting some corn seeds. Just like growing salad sprouts, I soaked the seed for an afternoon in a little bowl. I then drained the water out, covered the seeds with a damp towel, and kept re-wetting it morning and evening for two days. Then, I took the just-sprouted seeds and poked them into the blank spots in the corn patch, with the little root pointing down. This evening, most of them already have little green shoots above the soil. I'm nowhere near my grandpa's old saying about sweet corn, "knee-high by the Fourth of July", but I'm still hoping for lots of fresh sweet corn later this summer.

Poultry Update

The chicks purchased from the feed store this spring have grown into a lovely bunch. They're right at home in the chicken coop now. Also part of their "bunch" is a little Buff Cochin bantam rooster. He was in the "free to good home" pen in front of the feed store, and looked so cute (and lonely) I couldn't resist. We put him in with the babies and he now looks after "his girls" in the big pen. Since we lost our big rooster and our male guinea is busy these days, outside the pen with his harem, there's no one to pick on the little rooster, so everybody is happy.

BlackFluff and Baldy are still broody, sitting in there on golf balls and whatever other eggs they can get. I take them out and make them walk about and get some food and water, but they insist on getting right back onto the nests. Anyone have any tips on getting brooding hens back into production? The rest of the flock have all settled in, staying in the pen (I'm keeping an eye on them - the clipped wing feathers are starting to grow back) and laying regularly in the nest boxes now. It's so much easier than hunting for eggs all over the lot. We're getting from two to five eggs a day now.

Tweedit brought her family in, and they're at home in the dog run. She has six striped babies, that will end up black speckled like her, and nine lighter grey ones, that will look more like Grey, their dad (I can't differentiate sex until they get big enough to start calling - males make a one-syllable call "buck", females two "buckwheat"). Grey is a good dad, but he tries to keep an eye on his mate, Mrs. Guinea, too (Tweedit is their offspring, but obviously Grey is now mating with her too). Tweedit stays in the dog run with her keets at night. I moved the eggs left in her nest in with her, and she sets on them at night but I don't think any more will hatch so should get them out of there. Grey sleeps in the chicken coop, but EARLY each morning Tweedit starts calling for him. So I get up, go out and open up the coop, Grey flys over the fence and runs up to the dog run. I let him in and he stays the day inside with his family. The keets follow him around, same as they do Tweedit, and come running if he clucks to say he's found something good to eat or there's fresh water here.

Mrs. Guinea has a nest hidden in the neighbors' front yard. I followed her the other day, and then snuck back when she was eating a day later; she's setting on 21 eggs. About June 25th, Missus wasn't coming back to the coop at night, so I'm expecting her clutch to hatch in a couple more weeks (July 25th?). She comes up daily for a bite to eat and a drink of water. That's when it gets a bit noisy in the guinea pen. Missus wants food, and wants her mate to join her. Grey wants out to be with Missus. Tweedit doesn't like being left alone. If I'm home and hear the squawking, I'll let Grey out (he can fly over the fence if he wants, too). He'll run over to Missus as she eats, and then escort her back to her nest. Once she's settled back in, he'll come back over to the family, and stay with them until dusk. Then, Tweedit gathers the babies underneath her for the night, and Grey wants out. He'll wander about for a bit, looking for weed seeds or bugs, then flys up to the coop gateframe and goes in for the night.

Pie Cherries

Due to intermittent Spring freezes, I'm not getting much of a tree-fruit crop this year (again). The black (sweet) cherry tree had only a few cherries, and the birds got most of those. No plums, no peaches, no nectarines, no pears - and only a few apples.

I did get some Montmorency pie cherries. Sometimes, that little tree will bear so heavy that I can just sit in a lawn chair underneath and pick the cherries into a bowl in my lap. Picking pie cherries is a two-handed job - pulling the branch to you with one hand and then pinching the cherries off their stems with the other. This year, there were only a few cherries here and there, so I had to move about to be able to get to them. So here's what I came up with, and it worked great! I put a big plastic bowl into the "lap" of my granny apron, and then held it in place by clothes-pinning the skirt to the bib. I was able to duck under and around the branches and found enough cherries to fill the bowl.

Since I didn't have very many cherries to play with this year, I'm only doing my most favorite pie cherry storage option. I'm drying all of them. Dried pie cherries are wonderful - tart and sweet and chewy, just like the sweetened dried cranberries (sometimes marketed as "craisins") but with no sugar, nothing, added. Plus, no heating up the kitchen canning them, no freezer dependent on continuous electric power, and only a fraction of the storage space needed to keep them indefinitely. My various dried fruits are kept in gallon bags in tins in my pantry - easy to get to for a snack, to use in cooking (dried cherries in my Christmas fudge - yum!), or a handful in a baggie when I'm off on a hike.

After washing the bowlful and picking through to remove any bird-pecked ones, I sat down to pit them in front of a TV movie. I use a plastic soda straw, bent into a "Z" shape so that it fits into my hand (and also so the cherry goo can't push all the way out the other end). I don't even need to watch what I'm doing - I can just pick up a cherry, feel where the stem was, and then push the pit out the other end with the straw. I have a dehydrator, but this time of year sun-drying works just fine. I put the fruit on the screened trays from the dehydrator, and then to keep bugs and birds away, put the trays between two old window screens on the table out on the deck. I'm experimenting with a few strawberries too, but think I'd rather freeze them (slices on a cookie sheet until frozen, then put into a freezer bag so I can easily take out only as much as I want), or make them into jam.

Too humid where you live, or no dehydrator? You might try dehydrating fruit on cookie sheets in the back window of your car, parked in the sun with the windows cracked just a bit to let out the moisture.

Just a Quick Peek

I was out in front just now, changing the water hoses around, when I heard some scuffling noises where Tweedit, one of our guinea hens, has her nest. I didn't want to bother her, so I took just a quick peek under the bushes where she's hidden. I could see some broken eggshells and a couple of little fluffy balls on legs scampering around her. Looks like we've got some chipmunk-striped dark ones and some greys. The keets (baby guineas) can live off the remnants of their yolks for a couple of days while others hatch out so I let her be for now. When she's ready, in another day or two, she should bring out her family (I'm hoping Sneaky Snake leaves them alone - he winters under that same shed, but not sure if he's under there now). I have the dog run/brood pen ready for her, with a low dish I'm keeping full of water - it's hot out, so they'll all need a drink as soon as she brings them out. It would be nice if she'd just walk them all in there, but usually it's more like a guinea rodeo when someone brings in a family.

A Little Bit of All Kinds of Stuff

Lots of little bits and pieces to talk about - where do I start? The smoke here is worse than ever. This morning I could barely see across the highway, two short blocks below us. That's Boris, our German Shorthair/pound hound, looking so regal lying there in the dirt. I had to do some laundry this morning, and used the electric dryer instead of hanging things out. I didn't want my clean clothes reeking of smoke. It's so thick it hurts my eyes to even be out in it.

The fires in California were all caused by lightning, but it's got everybody worried because we usually don't get the dry thunderstorm weather coming through here until late July or August. If the fire season is starting this early, it's going to cost a lot more tax dollars to fight the fires and, coming off a dry winter, lots more property could burn. Also, this week is the one-year anniversary of the big South Lake Tahoe fire that burned over 250 houses, so that brings up some bad memories. That fire last year was started by a teens' party campfire left unattended. Four years ago, a disastrous fire here in Carson City started the same way. The fire burned for four days, and over 50 houses were destroyed.

That fire burned towards our house the first day, but they stopped it on the ridge just to the north of us. We had fire trucks on both corners of our lot, and could see the line of fire fighters silhouetted all along the ridge. We were under a "be ready to evacuate" order then, so had the cat in the carrier, the dog inside on his leash, and the sleeping bags, some clothing, a few mementos and computer backup discs ready to go. The chickens we'd have to leave to fend for themselves, and in the past when we had horses we had to walk them down the street out of danger. That time, I was also packing to leave for my Africa trip the next morning, so I had all my things just thrown into garbage bags and I figured I'd finish packing in the evacuation center if necessary. It's scary. Do you have a list of what you'd take if you were in that situation?

But the fires aren't anywhere near us at present - just the smoke. I have to admit - it makes a nice filtered light for photos. So, let's move on to some other items: I love watching how our animals interact. The new chicks are doing fine in the coop with the rest of the flock. We had a little bantam rooster in the pen with the babies as they were growing up, and he's now taken charge of watching out for them. Yesterday evening, when I went out to shut up the coop (predator protection measure), a couple of the little Reds were still outside. I was just puttering around in the garden waiting for them to go in when I heard one of them squawking. I went over to see what was the matter, and that little rooster had come back out and was pulling the feathers on one's back. It was time to go in and he was telling her to quit messing around. As soon as he let go, she hopped through the door, with him right behind her, and I could close them all in for the night.

Mrs. Guinea wasn't in the coop last night, so she must have a nest somewhere now too. Male guineas don't stay with their mate by the nest during the night, so Grey was back in the coop as usual. But this morning, very early, Missus woke me up (guineas are very loud) calling for Grey. Of course, he was shut up inside the coop, so I had to get up and go open it up so he could fly out and join her, and then she was quiet. What's interesting to me is that tonight, when I went to shut up the coop, Grey wasn't inside. He was perched up on the gateframe of the pen, right next to the coop. Missus wasn't there again. He looked a bit uneasy, like I might try to chase him off the gate, but I told him he was fine. He's figured out she's not inside, and he can't get out until one of us opens up the coop, so he wanted to spend the night outside the coop. His reasoning ability amazes me.

I'm off to the San Francisco Bay Area tomorrow. My sister and I are going to see Allison Krause and Robert Plant in concert at the Greek Theater on the University of California at Berkeley campus. We both love live music, so this is quality time together for us. It will be a quick trip, because I have to be back up at the Lake Saturday afternoon for a training session for volunteers working the Shakespeare Festival at Sand Harbor this summer (how to do things for free, again).

A Hazy Day, and the Pecking Order

I heard on the news last night that there have been more than 800 lightning-caused fires in California since last Saturday. A lot of the them were knocked down quickly, but at least 200 aren't under control yet. Being downwind, we get the smoke - lots of smoke.

Last night, we could actually smell it. I even went out front to check things out because, as always, the smell of brush smoke makes me nervous. Today, standing on the deck looking east towards the garden, I can barely see Prison Hill less than a mile away, and nothing at all towards town to the north or over the ridge towards Carson Valley to the south. It's thick enough to make my eyes hurt, so I think I'll stay inside as much as possible today. Our weather forecast says more dry thunderstorms (lightning without rain - it evaporates before reaching the ground) Thursday and Friday - fire season is here.

This morning, Aries went to open up the chicken coop. As usual, first out were Grey and Mrs. Guinea. The hens are used to this - staying inside until the guineas grab a bite to eat and then fly out of the pen for the day. But the bigger of the Barred Rocks is used to bossing her penmates and getting to the food dish first every morning. When she tried that today, Grey let her know that was against procedure. He had her cornered against the fence and was pulling feathers off her backside before Aries stepped in. He said he was afraid Grey would kill her - that he was ready to drop-kick the guinea out of the pen if he could have caught him. Aries put the little one back into the nest box and came in to tell me about it before he left for work.

When I went down there later, the rest of the girls were on the perches, and then later had even gone outside. But the one Barred Rock (I usually wait to see personalities and physical characteristics before naming anyone) was still hiding out in the nest box. So I got her out of there and had her join the rest of the girls out in the pen. I pulled three spinach plants starting to bolt and threw them into the pen in different places. The hens staked out two, but let the new girls have the third, so it looks like everyone will be just fine (as soon as they learn that Grey is the cock of this walk). When I went out to check just now, the newcomers have one shade porch and the big girls have the other. BlackFluff and Baldy have gone broody again, so they're hunkered down in two of the nest boxes. I keep making them get up and out - without a rooster, there's no way they'll be hatching out any babies now.

Chicken Update 2008

I practice a system of integrated pest control instead of using chemicals. After the garden is harvested each fall, the chickens are allowed the run of the entire yard. They have a wonderful time scratching in the dirt looking for bugs and weed seeds. But during the growing season they can be too destructive to little plants just getting started so wings are clipped (on just one side only, we stretch the wing out and clip the end 1 - 3" of the big feathers - the idea isn't to prevent them from being able to lift off, but just to make them unbalanced enough that they don't want to try) and they're confined to their chicken yard for the summer.

The new girls, the six baby chicks we bought the end of April - two Barred Rocks and four Rhode Island Reds, got moved from the dog crate inside out to the dog run once the weather warmed up and they had most of their feathers. They've grown into lovely and happy pullets there, but I'm hoping for a family of keets (baby guineas) any day now, and they're gonna need that space. So the girls, plus a meek little wayward Buff Cochin bantam rooster that's been sharing the dog run, now have to move in with the rest of the flock.

So this evening, after we closed up the coop for the night, we went out and moved the girls. The nest boxes open from the back to allow for easy egg collection without going into the coop, so we just put everybody into a couple of the boxes for the night. In the morning, that will give them a bit of protection until they're ready to venture out. Then comes the tough part. Chicken communities have a definite pecking order, and the new girls will have to learn their place is at the bottom. At least they won't have a rooster jumping on them. We took in a neighbor's dog for a couple of weeks after he couldn't keep him anymore (and have now found him another home), but while he was here and the chickens were still on the loose, he pounced on our rooster (just playing, not to kill, but he's too big to play that rough - we found the rooster dead inside the coop later on, so he must have been internally injured). The hens seem happier without a rooster around anyway, and Grey Guinea is a lot calmer not having a rival male around so I guess everything worked out for the best. It's certainly a lot quieter in the mornings.

Little Critters

Organic gardening practices and living gently upon the land allow for a wide variety of little critters about the place. Most are welcome, a few are tolerated, some are fenced out, and only occasionally is someone removed (ie. rattlesnakes). With the return of warm weather, lots of our little friends are back.

Sneaky Snake, our resident gopher snake seen here peeking around some plant pots, has come out of hibernation from his den under the shed. He's a quiet fellow, helping keep the mouse population under control (field mice, believe it or not, can be deadly - merely sweeping up their dry feces transmits Hantavirus, a fatal respiratory disease). Gopher snakes are not venomous, and kill their prey by constriction instead of poisonous bite. But as a defense mechanism, they do a really good rattlesnake imitation. They can flatten out their heads to the viper's characteristic triangular shape and mimic the "rattle" sound by hissing, all the while shaking their naked little tails.

The carpenter bees are back too - buzzing about around the wood pile. These big shiny black bees live solitary lives instead of the communal life of honeybees. Each female creates her own little egg-laying tube in fenceposts or other scrap wood we have piled about. They share pollination duties with the honeybees - also back out and about - ensuring that I will have plenty of zucchini again this year.

Speaking of honeybees, Aries had an interesting day at work yesterday. He works in Facilities Maintenance for three of the resort hotel/casinos at South Lake Tahoe (fixing and maintaining everything from toasters to the big steam boilers in the basement to running the electrical for the big summer concerts - obviously, he's very handy to have around the house too). Yesterday, he was the Supervisor, so he was the one that took the call - a huge mass of bees was in the planter box right next to the sidewalk. "Should we call the exterminators; do we spray them with poison; we're scared - bees are dangerous!" Luckily, we've had bee hives in the past, and Aries has dealt with swarming bees before. He knows they're only looking for a new home, clinging to their queen while she rests, and very rarely sting while swarming. So Aries got a cardboard box, held the branch they were clustered on while a nervous co-worker cut it, and put the whole bunch into the box. Since he'd ridden his motorcycle to work, he couldn't bring them home (darn! I wouldn't mind having a hive around here again), so he carried the box out to the woods behind the casino and let them go there. Everybody's happy, and he's a hero.

Just a Born Lunatic Here

I love watching the night sky. In the dark of the moon, I love seeing the stars, but full moon nights can be so glorious (I even check the phase of the moon when booking vacation and camping reservations). To the east of us across the valley, Prison Hill runs north and south for more than a mile. The various ridgeline bumps and saddles, as seen from my house, are good references for seeing the difference in where the full moon rises throughout the year. The full moon just past rose surprisingly waaaaaaay to the south. It wasn't over any part of Prison Hill at all - it was so far to the south southeast that it rose over a low spot on the distant Pine Nut Mountains.

Years ago, when I first noticed a full moon rising way over the northeast end of the Hill, my first thought was akin to Chicken Little's - "oh no, our earth's axis is wobbling, we're all gonna die!" How terra-centric of me. I've since learned that it's the moon's orbit that varies over time - kinda like a spot on the edge of a plastic plate, dropped face-down, would wobble and tilt about before finally landing flat. That wobbling, tilting effect, above and below the plane of our equator, is what the moon's orbit does over an 18+ year cycle.

Then too, there are the seasonal variations. The full moon is always completely opposite the sun in the heavens; the new moon closely follows the sun's path. Since it's now summer in the northern hemisphere, the path of the sun is high in the sky with respect to our horizon and along with it, the new moon. In contrast then, the full moon runs low this time of year (and how convenient that in the winter the full moon runs high, providing more light during the longest nights). It's rising even more to the south than usual right now (here in the U.S. anyway - did it rise at all in northern Europe or Canada?). Quick, go look.

The Rest of the Garden is Planted - Finally!

I'm only a couple of weeks behind. Our last freeze is usually around the end of May, so I never plant most things until after the first of June anyway. But this year, what with going to Colorado and everything else happening around here, I'm a bit later than usual getting everything into the ground. But now it's done!

In this year's "early" bed, the last of the arugula has been harvested and replaced with kale plants, and parsley plants have been set in among the last of the spinach. The three varieties of peas (English, snap, and snow) are blooming, so I'll have fresh peas any day now.

In the "roots" bed, the potatoes - Yukon Gold and Russet, held over in the cellar from last year's harvest, are planted a few inches deep and then topped with a foot of straw inside a stake and wire framework. I created this method after reading about people putting cardboard boxes over their plants and then filling them with straw to make harvesting easier. I didn't have any boxes, but this way I re-use the wire year after year and the straw goes into the compost pile in the fall.

The blue bedsheet stretched over a wire frame and held down with another piece of wire is shading the carrot seeds. They dry out so easily that I never had a very good germination rate until I started covering them until they've sprouted. On around the rest of the bed are beet seeds, then cabbages, broccoli and calendula plants. One good thing about being so late is that I didn't bother putting the Wall-o-Waters around my tomato, eggplant, and pepper plants. When I set them out around Memorial Day, they need the protection because the nights are still so cold, and then I usually leave them on until the first of July. This year, I'll see if they get going ok without them. My plants are quite small compared to what people buy in the stores, but I think that lessens the transplant shock and then they catch up quickly.

We make a big compost pile every autumn, grinding up the green garden waste, leaves from our trees and the straw mulch, and from cleaning out the chicken coop. Before planting, each of my five garden beds gets an inch or so of compost dug in along with a light sprinkling of my fertilizer mix (equal amounts of bonemeal, bloodmeal, and greensand mixed together in a bucket). In the "fruiting" bed, the tomatoes, eggplants and peppers also get a big pinch of Epsom salts (magnesium) and crushed eggshells (calcium) in each of their planting holes to prevent blossom-end rot. In the "vining" bed - cukes, zukes, and squash - squash bugs have been a problem in the past, but last year I planted a big Chinese storage radish (called Watermelon radish) in between the squash plants and didn't see a single bug! I'm trying that again this year - the radishes grow to the size of baseballs over the entire summer under the squash leaves, don't go to seed, and then keep all winter long down in the cellar. Can't beat that!

Last of my five raised "S"-shaped soaker-hose beds is the "corn and beans" bed. I used to try seeding more corn every couple of weeks to extend the harvest, but that was bothersome and it seemed the earlier plantings were delayed by the cold nights so that everything ended up getting ripe all at the same time anyway. Now, I seed all my corn at the same time but plant different varieties. Some are ready in 60 days, some in 80, and some take 95-100 days. This works great - I eat fresh-picked corn for more than a month!

Home for Wayward Guineas

We currently have three guinea fowl - Grey Guinea, a male that took up residence in our chicken coop years ago after a neighbor tore down his coop and set all his chickens and guineas free when he moved away (the jerk! If we'd known he was going to do that, we would have taken them all in. As it was, the coyotes had a field day. Grey was the only one smart enough to move up into the trees, and then when the weather turned cold, he was smart enough to figure out that inside our coop would be nicer. He's been here ever since); Mrs. Guinea, Grey's mate and one of a brother/sister pair given to us half-grown (her brother, The Bachelor, disappeared two years ago - moved on or more likely, coyote chow); and Tweedit, a single chick Mrs. brought home in late September three years ago. We hand-raised Tweedit inside the house that winter, and she'll still eat out of my hand.

Guineas are semi-feral. They easily fly out of the pen and roam about. About a week and a half ago, Tweedit didn't come back to the coop at night. That meant either we'd lost her, or she'd hidden a nest and now was going to set on it. Happily, I've seen her every now and then, grabbing a bite to eat and a quick drink of water and then she'll disappear again. A couple of days ago, I was able to follow her, and found her nest out in front, next to the shed between the house and the garage. Outside the fence is a dangerous place to be nesting, but at least she picked a pretty good place, down underneath some very prickly Oregon Grape.

And then today, while I was out working in the garden, I saw her getting some food. Since now I know where the nest is I ran to see how many she's setting on. I counted about 25 eggs. Usually, not all of them will hatch. Last year, both she and Mrs. brought in a dozen keets each (we put a notice on Craigslist and gave all of them away within six hours). My Old Farmers Almanac says a 26 - 28 day incubation period for guinea fowl, so I'm thinking we should have some babies around here about the 25th. When she brings them to me, the new chickens will have to move from the dog run to the chicken coop, so Tweedit and family can move in.