Poultry Update

Tweedit, our guinea hen, has been patiently setting on her nest out front since the middle of April. It's way past time for them to have hatched though. So a few days ago, when she was off the nest to eat, we picked up the eggs. She came back to the nest and was calling the rest of the afternoon, but that evening Aries went out front and walked her back down to the coop and she went right in. All three guineas are now flocking together once again.

For the last three years, both Tweedit and Missus have brought in clutches, but it's looking like no keets this year. Missus is Grey's mate (that's Grey, above, in defensive papa mode); Tweedit was the only survivor from Missus' first clutch, hatched in late September four years ago. This Spring, our neighbor found Missus' nest in his shed and threw all her eggs away. They each might lay and set on another clutch late in the summer, but it's hard to raise the babies when the weather starts getting colder so if we catch them at it we'll clean out the nests too.

The chickens are now spending their days inside the pen instead of free-ranging. It's easier to find all the eggs (9-12 a day now) when they're in the nest boxes, and it saves a lot of destruction to my landscaping. PheasantFace and Junior have been flying out, but they've pretty much stayed out of the flower beds and the garden, and are both laying in one spot up by the garage, so I haven't tried to clip their wings. The guineas fly out first thing in the morning, but they prefer to range out in the sagebrush. Last year's hens, the ones raised with Coach, our bantam rooster, are looking pretty rough. He's been getting on them so much he's taken most of the feathers off their backs. I saw an ad in a poultry magazine for little protective chicken jacket/vests that fit across their backs and then velcro around their chests. I might have to make some for Coach's girls if he doesn't let their feathers grow back.

This year's new girls, Flopsy and Mopsy the Buff Orpingtons, and Cottontail and Penny the Red Stars, have now adjusted to life in the coop. They're lowest in the pecking order, so they're always on the move, staying out of everyone's way. They're the last ones in at night - taking advantage of everyone else going in to get an extra bit of food from the feed box.

We have a routine around here. Aries gets up early, so he goes down to the coop to open it up in the morning. We'll often let the flock out to free-range a bit in the evening, and then I'm the one that makes sure everyone is back inside before closing it up for the night. Last week, Aries had gone to work and I was sitting out on the deck later. I could hear Coach crowing non-stop, one right after another. Finally, I went down there to see what was going on. Aries had forgotten to open up the coop that morning. Everyone came piling out when I opened the door, and since the guineas were bullying everyone away from the food and water I went ahead and opened the pen gate too.

As I started back up to the house, I called to Boris, our hound dog, to get away from the nest box hatches and follow me. He wouldn't, despite my yelling at him to leave the chickens alone. He still just stood staring at the nest boxes, so I went back down to see what was so interesting that he wouldn't leave. One of the little Buffys was standing in the lower nest box - I figured she must have been hiding out from everyone, trapped inside the coop like that. But she wouldn't come out when I opened up the hatch - I had to get down and pick her up and set her outside. When I did, I noticed Cottontail had wedged herself headfirst in between the nest box and the wall, with the tip of one wing up around the edge of the box. Poor thing!

I managed to get her wing back next to her body, and then had to get inside the coop and crawl under the roosts to get my hand back in there to where she was. I had to reach underneath her to lift her up enough to pull her back out of there. If her feet touched the ground, as soon as I'd get her a bit backward she'd try to push forward again. I finally got her up and out, but her wing got scraped up pulling her backwards out of there. So I took her in the house to check her over, spraying liquid bandage over the scraped wing to protect it until it could heal. Within an hour she was out with her buddies like nothing had happened. I'm just glad Coach, Flopsy or Mopsy, and Boris made sure I noticed something was wrong.

Where Have I Been?

After spending a week visiting Mom in Colorado, without computer access, I got back with one day to myself. I spent Friday doing laundry, a bit of grocery shopping, catching up on mail, and writing about tomato problems for my turn on the Simple Green Frugal Co-op.

Saturday, I was up and out the door early enough to catch a hot-air balloon trying to land north of the garage. I was headed over to pick up Donna and then we were going to work a display booth for Muscle Powered in the Health Fair section of the Oodles of Noodles street fair in Dayton, Nevada - about 20 miles east.

May is Bike Month, and Muscle Powered had put together lots of events the following week for Bike to Work Week, so it was perfect timing to get the word out to lots of people. Probably not everyone has to contend with our afternoon winds - the Washoe Zephyr - but if you're putting together an outside information booth you might take note of my bungee cord set-up. Originally an idea from my mom for restraining a camping tablecloth, it works really well for keeping handouts in place and still easily available. Large bungee cords are wrapped width-wise around the display table and hooked together underneath. During a wet Earth Day street fair a few years ago, I had a piece of clear plastic the same size as the table I just tucked under the end bungees. Items were visible and it was easy to just reach underneath the plastic to pick up anything. It sure beats chasing litter down the street.

Sunday morning I was up even earlier. I spent the next six days working the early-early morning to mid-afternoon shift as a shuttle coordinator for the Intel Science and Engineering Fair in Reno. The tourism destination management company I work on-call for was manning all shuttle bus pick-up areas, back and forth from the hotels to the convention center from 5:30 a.m. until 11 p.m. plus all outside tours. The sagging economy and the proliferation of Tribal Casinos in California means tourism has really dropped in my area, so I was glad to get the chance to pick up some hours.

According to our pre-Fair briefing, about 1,600 high school students from 50 countries participated. Counting parents, teachers, and judges, around 6,000 people stayed the week. Four million dollars in scholarships were awarded. About 20% of the kids already have patents on their projects and inventions (I was talking to one of the judges - lots of major corporations send representatives to this fair. I was thinking "how nice, they're looking to recruit these kids when they get out of school." Wrong - they're there to steal ideas - thus the need for patents).

After a long week, I got home Friday just in time to get my things together for a weekend on Lake Tahoe's north shore.

Our friends own a time-share in a little resort up there. It's a funky little place - this building was originally built in the late 1950's as athlete housing for the 1960 Winter Olympics at Squaw Valley, plus little old-Tahoe cabins. The time-share management hosts a pre-summer season work weekend - feeding us on Saturday and Sunday in exchange for work raking the beach, painting, flower planting, and various other fix-up chores. My friends often attend, and this year had reserved a two-bedroom unit so asked if I'd like to go with them (Aries was working until Sunday).

I rode with Larry to pick up Krista at the airport in Reno that evening, and then up to North Shore via the Mount Rose Highway. The summit of the two-lane road between Reno and Tahoe is almost 9,000 feet. The ski areas are all closed for the season, but there was still snow in the trees alongside the road and covering the mountains above. We had a nice dinner out in Tahoe City, and I spent all day Saturday and then Sunday morning setting out annual flowers and working on the landscaping.

Aries came up Sunday morning on his motorcycle. He pitched in working for a while too. He brought my helmet and jacket, so after lunch I let our friends take my things back to Carson and Aries and I took the long way home. We went west and then south around the Lake, stopped for a while above Emerald Bay, and from South Shore headed south away from the Lake over Luther Pass. At Hope Valley, we turned east to head down the canyon. At the bottom, as we came around the corner from the canyon out onto the sagebrush valley, the temperature increased a good 20 degrees - it was over 90F! I was so glad I'd missed most of the heat up in the mountains all weekend. And glad to finally have some time at home again too! I've had lots of things to catch up on around the house and out in the garden - more on that later.

Home Again

Miss me? I've missed all of you. I just spent a week in Denver visiting my Mom. She doesn't (didn't, anyway) have internet access, so my only time online was a couple of 15-minute sessions at the local library - just long enough to check my email. But all five of us siblings (I also have a Colorado Brother and a California Brother) had pitched in together and bought Mom a new laptop for Mother's Day. Colorado Sister lives near Mom, and California Sister flew in for a visit the same day I flew out, and she brought the new laptop (and even put together a personalized how-to manual). So in between our flights we three sisters went to lunch with Mom and gave her her present - with a new email address already set up for her and all her contacts notified. California Sister will spend her time there getting Mom's new internet access all set up and give her some internet lessons. I think she'll really enjoy it once she learns how to maneuver in cyberspace (and that means there will be home internet access next time I visit).

It was a wonderful little get-away for me - the perfect little space on my calendar, spent just hanging out with Mom and Colorado Sis. I walked with Mom when she played in her 9-hole golf league one day (great view of Red Rocks Amphitheater from a high point on the golf course - top tiers of the seats visible between the two big rocks on the left, Lookout Mountain beyond),

and spent another day with my sister out geocaching up on Lookout Mountain (even nicer view of the Rockies from the parking lot for Buffalo Bill's grave).

Now I'm back home again, with bunches of things to do in the garden and my calendar booked solid for the next two weeks. The lilacs are in bloom, and so are the last of the fruit trees - the apples and the pie cherry. The netting is still intact over the garden, and my peas and lettuces are coming up. Guinea Tweedit is still sitting on her nest out front - I haven't heard any peeping out there yet, but it should be any day now. It was my day to post on the SGF Co-op blog. My Colorado Sister has had problems with blossom-end rot on her tomatoes, so I thought I'd write about Troubleshooting Tomatoes for her over there. And with that, I think I've done enough writing for today.

Lizard's Alive

I'd just hung the big laundry items out on the clothesline, and came back in to get the little collapsible rack to set out on the patio for the socks and underwear. Albert, the cat, met me at the bathroom door with a mouthful of lizard (see last paragraph of April 27th post). He promptly spit it out, but this time I was faster. I scooped up the lizard and took him back outside (the cat is still looking for it in the bathroom). Most of our lizards are a dull dark color, but this one was quite pretty, light and dark grey with some almost iridescent turquoise scales on his back (and with his tail still intact). Let's hope he's learned to stay away from the cat!

In Pursuit of Peas

I garden in a pretty harsh climate - it can freeze any time until early June, and then the daytime temperatures can be up in the 90's overnight. Nights cool down to the 40's so using mulch too early in the season cools the soil too much for effective germination of many seeds. We average only seven inches of precipitation annually, and most of that in the form of snow November to March. Most years, we have no rain at all from May through September so everything has to be artificially irrigated. Afternoon winds and hot daytime temperatures make spray watering wasteful, so I use 50' soaker hoses on my wide garden beds.

The land also slopes downward towards the east so instead of long rows, I've free-form shaped each bed into a flattened "S" shape to create a terraced effect on the slope, and arranged the four "S" shapes of the main garden into a decorative four-square. With wider paths between the beds and a small central circular flowerbed with a sundial, my garden is attractive as well as productive (bottom center on the aerial photo of our lot; the grey roofed buildings are our neighbors' below us). I rotate my crops around through five beds, so don't have any permanent structures as part of any one bed. Everything gets taken apart and stored at the end of the season, and reconstructed anew each Spring. And this year, I've resorted to something different in my ongoing pursuit of peas.

Fresh-picked home-grown peas - nothing like what you buy in a store: memories of shelling English peas in the backyard as a child; flat Chinese pea pods still crunchy in a stir-fry; grazing on raw Snap peas right there in the garden. I love peas, and haven't had a decent crop for years. The past couple of years, I was able to protect the young plants with wire until they got tall enough to survive assaults by bugs and birds, but wasn't getting many peas. Finally, I caught the guineas in the act of stretching up to eat the flowers before they had time to set fruit. And then this year, sparrows or quail got under the wire to the little pea plants as soon as they emerged from the ground (they got all the lettuce seedlings too, and almost destroyed the spinach that overwintered). Desperate for some fresh green things myself, it was time to take desperate measures!

It's getting late in the season for pea planting - if I wait too long the summer heat sets in, and that's it for the pea plants. So before replanting my pea patches, I soaked the seeds overnight and then kept them wet down with paper towels a couple of days until they started to sprout, then planted the sprouted seeds (I reseeded various lettuces too). My pea support trellises are t-posts pounded into the ground and then wire fencing wired between them - strong enough to both support pea vines and withstand our afternoon winds. And then, something desperate - I draped netting, originally designed to cover an entire fruit tree, over the entire "S" shaped bed, supported by the pea t-posts plus a few more here and there, held down with rocks and bricks. I think this just might work! I can leave the netting in place, and sit underneath when it's time to harvest. As long as the wind doesn't tear it apart, or a late heavy snow rip it down, I just might get good crops of both greens and peas. The heart of a gardener is ever hopeful.

Countdown to Denver

I've had so many different things going on lately, I feel like every day is just something more to cross off my list of things I have to do. I'm planning on taking off for a week to go visit my Mom in Denver, so I'm also trying to get garden things onto automatic pilot so Aries won't have to worry about plant stuff while I'm gone.

Saturday, the Democratic Women put on our annual fundraising Spring Luncheon and Fashion Show . In previous years I've been one of the models, but the past couple of years we've had local celebrities as models instead, so I was part of the raffle prize committee (which involves begging prize donations from local businesses). Sunday I spent in Reno at the Soroptimist Region Conference, with a few hundred other women from 60 clubs throughout Nevada and California.

Today, Aries helped me finish getting compost spread and dug into the last of the garden beds. I dug the last of the leeks from last year, put a few into the leek nursery bed to make more leeks for subsequent years' plantings, put some down into the cellar to keep for a bit, and made potato and leek soup for dinner (with cellared Yukon Gold potatoes, still keeping nicely down there, and my last stored garlic bulb; plus One-Hour French Bread). I thinned some of the seedlings I've got under lights in the guest room, and am debating whether I want Aries to start setting some of the cole plants out to start hardening off while I'm gone or just wait until I get back to do it myself. It snowed night before last, so there's really no hurry.

This year's four new little chickens - I guess they'd be called pullets now - are fitting in with the rest of the flock and spending their nights out in the coop. They still come back up to the dog run in the evening, so I catch and carry them down to the coop each night and then they go right in. Pretty soon, the dog run will be taken over by guinea Tweedit and her clutch - she's still patiently setting on her nest in the Oregon Grape out front. I hope she waits until I'm back from Denver to bring in her babies.

And one more thing: the cat brought something in the house this afternoon. I had the doors and windows open, and could hear him meowing inside when I was outside. I went in to see what was wrong, and he was squatting down with his back to me in the living room. I thought he might be sick or something, but when I came up to see if he was ok, something (not sure if it was a mouse or a lizard - I'm thinking the latter, I haven't seen mice around here since the owl moved into the pine trees across the street) scurried away from him and under the couch. So now I'm paranoid that I'll find out what it was when I go to put on my shoes in the morning.

Echo Summit and a Birthday Party

We took off for a couple of days to visit some of Aries' relatives near Sacramento. This trip, we took Highway 50 over the Sierras. First, we drove up out of our valley, over Spooner Summit and then down to and around the south end of Lake Tahoe.

Tahoe is said to be a Washoe Indian word, meaning Big Sky Water, and scenes like this make it easy to see why they named it that. The natural lake, more than 6,000 feet above sea level is so deep that it never freezes, and almost always reflects the color of the sky.

Once around the lake, we start to climb up out of the Tahoe Basin over Echo Summit. This narrow mountain road is one of the major routes between the Lake and California. The snow is finally starting to melt from the hillsides above, sending rivulets of water cascading down next to the road. The granite rises straight above the road on one side, and drops more than 1000 feet on the other; rooftops and trees dot the valley far below.

Dropping down the western slope, Desolation Wilderness is north of the highway. Despite the name, this wilderness area is one of the most accessible in California. It is 100 square miles of glaciated granite, dotted with many small lakes. Above the Twin Bridges trailhead, a quick glimpse of Horsetail Falls (in the middle of the photo, right below the saddle) shows quite a bit of water coming down. During the winter, the falls are sparkling white, blue and green ice; by September the water will slow to a trickle sliding down the rock face.

As the highway drops lower in altitude the snowbanks get smaller and smaller. By the time we've dropped down into the American River canyon, they're gone completely. As we continue westward, Springtime advances and by the time we reach the Apple Hill area above Placerville the trees are in full bloom; the Sierras just a snowy line on the eastern horizon.

We had a nice visit. One of Aries' cousins hosted a barbecue for her dad's 85th birthday. The brother of Aries' dad, his uncle is the only one of that generation left on either side of Aries' family. His other cousin flew in from Salt Lake City for the party, so it made for a nice reunion. While Aries and I had visited his uncle and aunt before, I'd never met these cousins. They're all great people and we had a wonderful time.

It was sooooo hot and humid down there though. After a couple of days, I'm so glad to get back to my cool and dry desert. I can wait a bit longer for summer to arrive, thank you.

Good Day, Bad Birds

I spent the better part of today working a garage sale. A little over a week ago, my Soroptimist Club decided to put one together as a fundraising event. We all needed to do some Spring cleaning anyway, and one of the members had an empty rental house we could use to stage it in. So, this past week we've used her empty garage to gather all our donations and get everything priced and sorted and ready. We made $1,200 to put towards our next year's Service projects! And we have the local domestic violence shelter coming by Monday to pick up everything left for their thrift shop.

When I got home, I went out to check on the early plantings out in the garden. The peas were (notice the past tense) all just starting to come up, and it's supposed to get hot the next couple of days so I turned on the water on them for a bit. This evening, when I went out to turn off the water, NO PEAS! They were covered with 2"x3" wire, shaped into boxes a few inches above the plants - just in case one of the the chickens got into the garden, they wouldn't be able to reach the new little plants or scratch in the wet dirt. But something (I'm thinking quail), got in under the wire and ate up every little pea sprout! Arrrrggghh!! I really want fresh peas, and haven't had much of a crop the past few years. I really thought the wire would do it, but now I'm thinking I'll have to try some kind of netting. I want peas!

Longtime readers of this blog might remember I occasionally write about my concert-ushering adventures with my sister. I expanded that idea for my most-recent post over on the SGF Co-op blog - lots of ideas about free fun by finding volunteer opportunities in your community; spending time instead money. Check it out!

Our Real Easter Egg Hunt

Now you see them:

Now you don't:

We get the fun of real egg hunts around here. Last week (April 10th) Tweedit, one of our guinea hens, stopped coming back to the coop at night. That meant either something got her or, more likely this time of year, she was now setting on a nest. So I started looking for her, and found her out front between a shed wall and some very prickly Oregon Grape (that's her tail feathers in the second photo - pretty good camouflage). Then, yesterday, when I saw her eating and getting a drink of water I ran to see what she was setting on. I counted 22 eggs. Usually a few don't hatch, and a few of the baby keets won't make it out of the nest, so I'm predicting she'll bring us a dozen babies on May 8th. My Old Farmer's Almanac says 26-28 days for a guinea incubation period. Anyone else care to place their bets?

April Update

Now that that Spring is peeping 'round the corner, I've been busy out and about. This means more things than ever to post about, and less time to post.

Monday was Aries' birthday, so I made him an apple pie (he'd rather have that than a cake). I used an unknown variety of apple, gleaned from an old tree in the old part of town (probably planted some time between 1880 and 1920), stored in the cellar since fall. The apples have kept well, and made a wonderful pie. After reading the post by Matron of Husbandry about grafting fruit trees, one of my projects this summer will be to grow out some crabapple shoots to use for grafting stock for scions I'll cut from that old tree next January. It's a wonderful apple - does well here, stores well, and works for applesauce, pies, and fresh eating. By grafting to crabapple rootstock, I'm thinking I can have those apples in a smaller-size tree in my own orchard.

I've started doing Pilates a couple of times a week. Each day after, I've been a bit sore but feel good about doing something for myself (this getting old is not for sissies). I've got this year's baby chicks out of the living room and into the dog run full-time now, moving the dog crate into the doghouse out there to shut them up in at night for predator-protection (great horned owls live in the pine trees across the street). I've started my garden seedlings in the bedroom, so made a lights set-up using a couple of old shop lights, drapery rods, a plank, and ladderback chairs. My daffodils are in full bloom outside. Some big double ones are too heavy for their stalks, so I use those for bouquets inside. I think a single blossom floating in an antique dessert dish on the bathroom counter looks like a water lily. Tomorrow, Oz-time, is my turn over at the SGF Co-op blog, so I posted about my pepper plans for this year. I've got a chicken roasting in the oven for dinner, and I'm off to Reno for a Sierra Club meeting this evening.

Can You Believe This?

I've been writing about our little Missy chicken - a Brown Leghorn that was given to us at least 10 years ago that just died a couple of days ago. When she died, I asked Aries if we should call or email Alan and Mary, the couple that gave her to us, to tell them about Missy. They'd moved over the Sierras, to a town hours away, years ago. Aries had no idea how to reach them anymore, so we just said oh well. That was two days ago.

Today, Aries' day off, we decided to go for a ride over the Sierras to Daffodil Hill (I'll write more about that shortly). So off we go, up over the snowy Sierras via Carson Pass. About an hour into the drive, I ask Aries for a potty-stop (I'd been drinking coffee) at the Snow-Park just past the top of the pass. Most folks stop at the rest area on top of the pass, but I like the parking area where no one else stops, just a quarter-mile down the other side, better.

So we pull into the almost empty parking lot - only two other cars there. One is empty - they must be out cross-country skiing or snowshoeing. The other car is up near the restroom, both passengers out near their open trunk, as we pull in. "Can you believe this!" Aries says, "Look! That's Alan and Mary." He honks and parks, they're looking at us wondering who's honking at them until we get out of the car. I ask if their ears have been burning - we've just been talking about you! Really!

They were driving the other way over the Sierras to spend the day at Tahoe, and had made a quick restroom stop. It was freezing cold out - not really a place you'd want to hang around any longer that it took to get in, get out, and get on your way. Now, really, what are the odds that we'd run into anyone we knew in that particular parking lot at that particular time? Each of us headed in opposite directions. And then, have it be a couple we hadn't seen in years, but had just been thinking and talking about? Can you believe it?

A Quick Update

Just a quick update before I turn everything off for Earth Hour. Nevada is notoriously slow to get on any bandwagon, but amazingly enough, it said in the paper this morning that the Capitol will go dark (and the Las Vegas Strip - that should be interesting). Carson City itself does not plan to do anything - not too surprising. Aries is resistant to turning off the television, but I think I can get him to do it again this year anyway. I have to confess, despite turning everything off in the house, we're not really cutting our electrical use down to zero. As with last year, I think we'll be out in the hot tub. It's the biggest energy-sucker in our household, but with the night temperatures below freezing I don't want to take the chance of cutting the switch on it and having it freeze up overnight. Oh well, at least it makes it easier to get Aries to turn off everything else. I guess we all have our justifications.

Missy was dead in the nest box when I went out this morning. We can't really remember how old she would have been - at least 10 - 12 years, and we think closer to 15. We buried her out in the sagebrush part of the lot.

The four baby chicks are all feathered out now, looking like half-size chickens. They spend the day out in the dog run, but with the nights still so cold I'm still bringing them into the dog crate in the living room each night. To try and get them on a daylight schedule, when I bring them in at night I've been covering their crate so they'll settle down and sleep. Maybe next week they can go outside for good.

More of my daffodils are blooming, the grape hyacinths too. There are a few more blooms on the apricot each day, but I'm not sure if they're surviving our night temps in the 20's. There were a couple of honeybees and one big black and yellow bumble bee working the blooms early this morning before the wind came up, so we might, just maybe, get apricots this year. Once the flowers get fertilized and set fruit, the fruit can take colder temperatures than the blossoms can. And I know winter isn't through with us yet.

Our Little Missy

At least 10 - 12 years ago (maybe more?), one of Aries' co-workers asked if we'd like a chicken. A little Brown Leghorn hen had flown into their yard earlier in the year. They started feeding her and she stuck around so they named her Missy. They had no idea where she'd come from - no one nearby had chickens. She was already fully grown and laying eggs. But they didn't really have anywhere for her to stay, and they didn't think an only chicken would be very happy. Firesign Farm has long been known as a home for wayward chickens, so we said sure, we'd take her.

So Missy came to live with us. She always did fly well, and after a year or two she figured she didn't need to stay in the pen with the rest of the flock. For a few more years she'd lay her little white egg in a nest box, then fly out, spend her day scratching about around the lot, and then stand waiting to go back into the pen in the evening.

Then, one evening, she wasn't there. We thought we'd lost her to a coyote or a loose dog. But maybe a week later, I spied her getting a drink of water from the birdbath. I went out to give her some feed, and she quickly gobbled it up and then took off. I casually followed her, pretending not to be looking in her direction, but she was really sneaky - she lost me. A few days later, we did it again. Eventually, I found where she was hiding. The next time she came to drink, I snuck over there to see what she was setting on, and figured I'd better make our dog run into a brood pen. Three weeks after she first disappeared, she came down to meet me at the feed shed trailed by a dozen day-old babies. I put food and water in the dog run, and she marched them all right in.

This happened every April for years. She'd disappear, and I'd mark the calendar. I'd usually be able to follow her and find her nest eventually. In three weeks, she'd come marching back with another clutch. Half our flock are her offspring - some from when we had a RI Red rooster, later from an Amerucana. And they all drive me crazy. They all can fly out of the pen and it seems like I'm always chasing them out of the garden. They'll all go broody on me too; stop laying and want to hunker down in a nest box for weeks (so far, none of them have hidden and set on a nest, although last Spring I did find 25 eggs under a shed).

Missy stopped laying a couple of years ago. She's always had spurs, and she's so old now they're grown into complete little circles. Every day when I'm out in the yard, she comes up to me squawking and talking, begging for a handout. But today when I was outside, giving the girls a bit of corn, I noticed she didn't come over. Then, when Aries got home, he agreed with me that she didn't look like she was feeling very well. She let him pick her up (she never does that - she'll eat out of our hands, but she doesn't like to be held), and then when I offered her some corn she wouldn't eat. We put her in a nest box for the night, but I don't think she'll last much longer.

An Award from my Fellow Soroptimists

My Soroptimist Club made me cry yesterday. Our Foundation Committee put together a presentation to honor this quarter's high school Girls of the Month and the recipients of our club's various Soroptimist scholarship and recognition awards - the Women's Opportunity Award, the Making a Difference for Women Award, and the Violet Richardson Award.

This program meeting is a favorite of everyone in the club, so there were lots of members and guests. The high school girls honored are always such amazing young women - active in both school and the community, exemplary students, and their plans for their futures are always so inspiring. Then, in the middle of the presentation, the MC said, "This year, we are starting a new award for our club, called the Above and Beyond Award. Our first honoree was born and raised in Denver, Colorado."

I was born in Denver. I'm trying to think who else in the club is from Denver. The MC goes on, "She spent 10 years tending bar in Leadville, Colorado."

Oh my, she's talking about me! The MC continues (she gave me a copy of her presentation speech. Since we rarely hear how others see us, please indulge me as I quote her):

"She worked at Harvey's Casino, then at Eagle Valley Golf as Administrative Assistant. She met her husband through friends at a party - they married October 11, 1989. She has two children (no, I don't) - Boris the dog and Albert the cat (oh, ok). After 25 years, she received a degree in Human Ecology from UNR (ok, it took me a while. I worked full-time, and incurred no debt).

"She loves pizza and cheeseburgers (she's right - I don't eat them very often any more, but I could happily live on either). She's been all over the world: Tanzania, Tahiti, Honduras, Costa Rica, Machu Picchu, Belize, Curacao, Rarotonga, and has even taken a barefoot cruise on a real sailing ship (the girls, their parents, and the other guests just listen, but my club members start turning their heads to see where I'm sitting).

"She has 15 chickens - if you like eggs, let her know. She has three guinea fowl that love her and follow her all around (did she interview my husband?). She has her own garden and orchard - pears, apples, peaches, nectarines, Asian pears, plums, apricots, cherries, figs. She even has her own root cellar.

"She has a Honda Pacific Coast motorcycle which does not get out much (so, she did talk to Aries - he never said a thing!). She lives with her husband at the Firesign Farm.

"Please congratulate the first to receive Soroptimists' Above and Beyond Award. She loves to volunteer. She is involved in Muscle Powered, the Democratic Women, and Soroptimists. This year, she's been busy as our Treasurer, started a new fundraiser for our club selling garters during Nevada Day, and she is always willing to help out."

I was so surprised! The MC called me up to the podium. Recognition by your peers can be so moving - it's a good thing I had a handkerchief in my pocket. All I had to say was, "Thank you. I'm honored."

Ash Canyon

It was a bit chilly but the sun was shining, so I got out for a walk with a couple of friends yesterday. We met on the edge of a subdivision on the west side of town, to hike a mile or two up Ash Canyon.

We parked next to a couple of city water tanks and walked up the dirt road heading up the canyon. Behind us, the silver dome of the capitol building in the center of town glints in the rays of the afternoon sun. This area burned in a wildfire four and a half years ago - the lower hills are covered with last year's dry grass and weeds; the sagebrush still small, just starting to grow back.

Just over the first rise, we left the road to take a small dirt trail down to the creek. Snow still lingered on the north-facing sides of the canyon, but had melted away on the south-facing sides. The creek sparkles in the sun shining down through the leafless trees. The water was icy cold - in fact, icicles still hung where water had splashed up and froze the night before.






It's been five years since the Waterfall fire burned through this area. The underbrush next to the creek has come back. But many of the big pines and cottonwood trees are gone - only skeletons standing against the sky.

We could see the tracks of mountain bicycles on the damp trail. It's still a beautiful place, close to town, to hike or bike. In the black and white of the winter landscape, the black peeling bark, the bleached dead wood and the charred interior of a burned poplar tree becomes nature's work of art.









There are signs that Spring is coming. Small plants and grasses sprout in the damp soil. In sunny places alongside the creek, we stop to stroke the fuzzy little catkins on the willows.












We see an odd pile of rocks, a small branch sticking up out of the center. Upon closer examination, we see there's carving on the stick, and realize it's a grave. "Hear [sic] lies the stinky dog RIP," it says.


The trail crosses the creek, and meanders along the shady north side for a while. It's colder on that side, but the effort of the uphill climb keeps us from getting cold. Another bridge brings us back to the sunnier side. We're warmed up enough now to take off our top sweatshirt layers and tie them about our waists.








We stop often just to listen to the sound of the creek as it tumbles down the bottom of the little canyon. It's obvious that someone else comes here for the same reason when we come upon a little rock chair, just big enough for one person to sit and meditate on the sound of the water below.









As we follow the creek uphill, the canyon gets narrower and the walls steeper. The trail climbs farther above the creek. Finally, we come to where the trail switchbacks up, away from the creek, to meet the dirt road above. We decide we'd rather return the way we came, so turn around and retrace our steps alongside the creek. Such a wonderful outing, right on the edge of town.

New Things for the Garden

I sat down with my box of garden seeds this morning, checking to see what I'm lacking, and then put in an internet order for the seeds I know I can't find locally. One hybrid I just had to have was Joi Choi, the only bok choi I've found that doesn't bolt to seed once our summer heat gets here. I also wanted Kuroda carrots, an Asian type that handles our summer heat nicely, yet keeps well in storage until the following summer. And I'm trying Delfino Cilantro in my on-going search to find the slowest one to bolt.

I also ordered seeds for a few more heirloom vegetables. I'm trying to move more and more to heirlooms, so I can save even more of my own seeds. This year, I'm trying Lutz Green Leaf for my beet crop, and Danish Ballhead for storage cabbages. I found the things I wanted in the Jung Seeds catalog.

I like additions to my perennial plant selection even better. I ordered a Wolfberry herb plant, also called a Goji berry. It's supposed to be a hardy, drought-tolerant, vining perennial shrub, and the berries, high in anti-oxidants, are commonly dried like rose hips. Sounds like it will fit right in around here. I wanted a couple more blueberry plants. I already have a dwarf Northland that is doing ok in a little bed where I've added sulfur, plus mulched with pine needles and coffee grounds, to make the soil more acid. Blueberries are supposed to do better with three varieties cross-pollinating each other, so I'm trying a dwarf Northblue and a Rubel to complete that planting group - I need to find varieties that can both take the heat of our summers and survive our freezing winter weather without snow cover.

Then, I'm trying something new for my sweet husband. He likes to make beer, getting the ingredients from a brewers supply place in Reno, but has always wanted to play with home-grown hops. So I ordered both Nugget and Willamette plants. Before they get here I'll have to decide if I want to just grow them as summer privacy screening on the fence and treat the hops flowers as a bonus, or set up a trellis system designed for efficient harvesting of the flowers. I've thought about growing them up a string outside the south side of the chicken pen to a pole just inside to give the chickens some more summer shade, or maybe I'll design a hops arbor. Aries is pretty good at figuring out how to make my design sketches a reality, and we've got quite a bit of salvaged wood for building projects.

The Second Day of Spring

Oh, brrrrr! Four inches of snow this morning, cold wind all day, and temperatures forecasted to be way below freezing tonight. At least the days are getting longer!

This is our normal Spring weather. Just as something else comes into bloom, it snows on it. Oh well, we really do need the moisture. This is high desert - we only get an average of seven inches of precipitation annually; all of it as snow November through April. Those black hoses you see in all my garden photos are soaker hoses. Just about everything I grow here has to be artificially irrigated, all summer long. So whether it's recharging our ground water or filling up our reservoirs, we'll take all the "weather" we can get.

Hello Spring!

The first daffodils are blooming, and buds are swelling on the lilacs and plum trees. The first apricot blooms opened today, just in time to get snowed on tonight.

Nights have still been chilly, but the days the past week have been sunny and warm. I've been able to get out in the yard, cleaning up some of the landscaping and moving a few perennials around while they're still dormant. To me, gardening is the slowest art form, so if something isn't quite working where it is I'll move it. I also use a part of the garden edging as a tree nursery, moving little self-seeded trees around the property to where they'll get plenty of water and protection from the wildlife for a year or two, and then transplant them back out once they're bigger.

The new chicks are now almost seven weeks old. They've been spending their days out in the dog run, running and flapping about; and then back inside every night. I was talking to my neighbor over the back fence today, and he told me a couple of days ago he'd found a nest with a dozen eggs in it, hidden by one of our guinea hens. He cleaned it out and threw the eggs away. I wouldn't mind not having any keets this year, but I figure they'll probably both bring in a clutch sooner or later this summer - they're pretty good at sneaking and hiding, and the reproduction urge is quite compelling.

The clouds moved in today, the temperatures dropped, and it started to rain at nightfall. It's expected to turn to snow tonight, and be cold for the next few days. As soon as the nice days come back, I think it will be time for the chicks to go outside full-time, time to plant some peas and lettuces out in the garden. In the meantime, it's about time for me to start my tomato, peppers and eggplants inside. C'mon Springtime!

Leeks for the Lazy Gardener

Most home gardeners growing leeks start them from seed each year, or just buy transplants. Some smaller varieties are said to mature in 90 days, but the big inch-or-more wide ones like you'll find in the markets take almost 200 days to grow to that size. In order to get a pencil-sized leek seedling ready to set out in April, you'd have to start the seeds in January, tending and transplanting and keeping them under lights. That's too much work for me. I prefer to let my leeks start themselves.


Leeks, if left to themselves, are actually hardy multiplying perennials. Many members of the allium plant family are, and I take advantage of that fact so that we can eat home-grown onions year-round. I have a permanent allium bed around one corner of my garden. In that bed, I grow perennial clumps of bunching onions for Summer scallions (background right), plus clumps of walking onions (background left; sometimes called top-set or Egyptian) for the earliest Spring scallions (I've started eating those this week - more about them here). I always replant some to replace each of the clumps I use each year. The center part of that background bed is my leek nursery; this year's eating crop, set out last year and over-wintered, is in the foreground.




















I started with a few of my biggest home-grown leeks years ago, transplanting a couple of the last plants left each year and then just letting them come back year after year until I need them. But if your local market has leeks with the root section still intact you can use those too. In fact, you can have your leek and plant it too. Just cut off the root section and bury it somewhere it can grow undisturbed for a year or more. The following year the root will send up a seed stalk, and also some little leeklets. Every year thereafter, if left undisturbed, the clump of leeklets will increase. I let the seed stalks grow too. They add a nice ornamental edging to that corner of the garden.


Early each Spring, I transplant a clump or two of the biggest set of leeklets into my regular garden, setting the plants in at least 6 - 8 inches deep (pruning by poultry, as seen here, not recommended - I need to clip some wings). In June, each transplant will send up a seed stalk, and I break off the flower bud on the top. By August a new leek plant has grown up alongside the broken stalk. By October, the remains of the seed stalk have dried up and are easily pulled out, leaving only a big beautiful leek plant. The leeks continue to grow, slowly, into at least December. They then spend the rest of the winter out in the garden - either buried in snow, or as is usually the case, exposed to the wind and below zero temperatures in the barren ground. The long-season leeks, the kind you want to be using for this type of over-winter growing anyway, are extremely hardy.



















I might dig a few during the darkest days of winter, but usually that time of year I'm cooking with my globe onions from storage. But now, with my yellow onions almost gone, the leeks I transplanted a year ago are an especially welcome addition to our meals. Besides, their lighter and mellower flavor just seems to go better in Spring dishes. We'll eat fresh leeks for the next couple of months. By then, they'll be gone and it will be warm enough for the corn and bean plantings to rotate into that bed. The last couple of leeks get moved over to the nursery section to grow and multiply for future plantings. If you've got a little space for a permanent leek nursery, try this method and you'll never have to buy plants or contend with seeds again.

Anything Oatbran Muffins

Muffins are the quick bread-of-choice around here. In the winter, I'll leave the oven door open afterwards, to warm up the kitchen; in the summer a 20-minute baking time won't heat up the house. With my flours and grains kept in gallon glass jars and various measuring cups for scoops, it's easy to just scoop and mix, and have hot muffins in 30 minutes or less.

Last night, for dinner, we had sausage-stuffed squash. There was enough room in the pan to roast a little butternut squash along with the two Carnival squash we had for dinner, so I had some fresh mashed squash to make breakfast muffins this morning.

This is a great whole-grains recipe and is endlessly adaptive. It can be a sweet breakfast bread or a savory dinner muffin depending on what you have on-hand. I'm always changing up the fruit (or vegetable, as the case may be), the herbs or spices, and the extra add-in(s), which is why I just call them my Anything Oatbran Muffins.

Anything Oatbran Muffins (12 muffins)

1⅓ cup oat bran
1 cup rolled oats
¾ cup flour (I used whole wheat pastry flour)
½ cup sugar (white, packed brown, raw, whatever you've got)
1 tablespoon baking powder
up to 3 teaspoons herbs or spices (today I used 2 t pumpkin pie spice + a bit more cinnamon)

¾ cup fruit puree (I mashed up the squash and didn't have quite enough so made up the difference with some applesauce)
1 egg
2 tablespoons oil (I substituted more applesauce)
1¼ cup milk (I used buttermilk)

½ cup chopped nuts or dried fruit (I added a handful of raisins; sometimes I'll add both nuts and fruit, or fresh corn kernels, or whatever else sounds good at the time)

Preheat oven to 400º, grease or non-stick spray muffin pan. Mix dry ingredients together. Mix wet ingredients together in a large measuring cup. Stir wet into dry, just until moistened. Stir in the extra add-in(s). Divide among 12 muffin cups (cups will be almost full, but that's ok). Bake 20-25 minutes, and try to cool on a rack before your husband burns his mouth snatching one up as soon as it's out of the pan.