My 84 year old boyfriend... Or As The Garden Grows....

My garden partner or as my husband calls him... My 84 year old boyfriend!

Planting under plastic.

I heard from my uncle that a family friend was having some health issues. He's 84 so I expect him to start slowing down. He always gardens and I believe this has a lot to do with how mobile, smart and kind he is. Jack Dorsey helped me last year when I planted my first garden. He shared his decades of experience with things like how to plant my potatoes and why it is important to keep it measured out so that after the tops die off I will easily be able to find my little gems. Without him I would have been lost!

<--- notice the size of the tomato plants to the left and the row of bean plants to the right of the plastic.



June 23



In June I called him and offered to be his garden slave. The next morning I went over with some fresh eggs and we had breakfast & talked about how I could help. We started working together June 23rd. (Keep in mind that the big storm hit on June 29th.) He had some sheets of thick plastic and he wanted to try an experiment. The month had already had several days above 90 without rain it was creating a real drought situation.

We broke out the plastic on a tilled up section of bare garden and I got busy cutting holes into it. He also wanted to try planting some plants closer together to see how they would do. We had 3 corn seeds per hole spaced about 5 inches apart. Some never sprouted and the ones that have seem to be doing just fine. I fertilized them like normal when first planting then again two weeks later and one more time in July. In between, I continue to water them with Miracle Grow. All the rest of the other plants get Miracle Grow and/or Epsom Salt at a rate of about 1 heaping T per gallon of water.

After just over a few weeks the beans & tomato plants had grown nearly to the same size as the plants he had planted outside the plastic. The dry conditions seemed to have no impact on plants under plastic while the other plants had been stunted a bit. We did continue to water the rest of the garden with collected rain water.

So far we have been super excited about this and Jack even decided IF he gardens next year it will be by plastic. He doesn't have to get out and hoe weeds etc which makes it easier for sure. It just seems to be lower maintenance over all.



July 20th
Notice the tomatoes to the left and bean plants on the right



Then today, I was listening to The Chicken Whisperer radio show and their guest was Richard Freudenberger, Owner of Back Home Magazine. He was discussing compost and I brought up the plastic and learned that it can cause exposure to endocrine disruptors, or hormone disruptors.

That sounds scary enough to make me want to avoid doing it in the future. It is amazing really, the common every day items we are exposed to. I have never really given any thought to any of these things being carconages.

Last year in my garden I did not use any pesticides as I wanted to see how difficult it would be to have an organic garden. I did have some problems with bugs eating leaves on some of my plants but it didn't seem to be too destructive. It certainly wasn't bad enough to make me want to use poison on my food.

 I did make the mistake of fertilising my tomato pants after they had started bearing fruit. But my single biggest issue was with my chickens. Paul & I had put up an electric fence (solar powered) with the though of keeping them out. Even though the unit stated it was made for smaller animals like chickens it did nothing to deter them and they had their run of my garden. I didn't get a single tomato and they even found the watermelons I had cleverly hidden among a significant weedy section.

So far this year I have been enjoying squash, zucchini, potatoes & Roma beans from our partner garden. The peas haven't done much growing and I despair of them bearing any peas at this point but you can never tell.



Aug 3rd



<-- my bean plants outgrew Jack's. This time tomatoes on the right and beans on left.

Jack picked off a ear of sweet corn and after removing the leaves we stood in the middle of the garden eating raw sweet corn. I had never eaten raw corn before and it was great! I had a grin on my face from ear to ear... pun most definitely intended!

Friday evenings are a favorite time for me to go to Jack's and spend some time in the garden. It is my truly "Happy Hour". Working until the sun sets picking a Sugar Snap pod as I go... or grabbing an apple off the tree.

Last week when I went over for breakfast Jack had boiled some apples and put them in a hand crank food mill pot. Nothing but apples and a splash of sugar.

Tomorrow morning I will be back at Jack's to get my hands dirty, have breakfast, laugh at his stories and learn about food.

Lions lying down with lambs.

March 5, 2011



Well.... not exactly lions or lambs for that matter but more like chickens and ducklings. Day three with the babies has come to a close. I am really surprised that the chickens and ducklings are quite content to cuddle together in one large pile. At this stage they even sort of look alike with their coloring, the black and yellow combination. However I as I've watched them I'm sure I can see little quote bubbles form over individuals heads at times. For example one of the chicks was watching, transfixed as the ducks were doing their very messy ritual with their food and water.

To the untrained eye it looks like they are just crazy messy fowl going back and forth between their water dish and food dish. They are also very noisy while doing this. They first go to the water and rapidly run their beaks back and forth like they are eating the water. Then they turn to the food dish where I'm sure they drop buckets full of water (really only a drop or two) into the feed. They make their own sort of mash mix. when all three of the ducklings are doing it at once it is something to behold!

Why ducks? To be honest, I just really miss Edgar. He had such an amazing personality. I wouldn't want to replace him even if I could. It just seems a nice fit since the farm does have 3 ponds on it. They aren't sexed so I've no idea if they are all boys or girls or a mix. We could never figure out how to sex Edgar for that matter. We did try once. Edgar was very put out with us over the attempt. It required him to be in a very undignified, un-goose like pose. He was very firm in his expressing how much he disliked what we did we just never bothered to try again. It didn't really matter in the end if he was a boy or girl, Edgar was "his" name, end of.

The goslings were quite taken aback when I stuck my hand in the cage and one of the chicks flapped it's tiny wings and flew up to a perch. They all stopped at once and stared at the little chick up on the perch. You really can see the gears turning.

There really are a couple of different things that I missed without realizing... I miss the peeps and squeeks that Edgar made his whole life with us. For months after I would be walking or driving and I could swear I heard his soft little peeps calling me. Once he became an adult he did realize that his mom and dad slept inside the house while he slept outside with the dog. He would do this thing when he couldn't see us for a period of time, he would let out a call. It was just a couple of honk, honk sounds. I would answer back, "honk, honk" and he knew we were still close by. Aside from the odd proper honk it was always these constant, soft peeps and squeeks.

One of the other sweet things the ducks do that I adore is turn their head sideways to look at you. They do this mostly so they can just get a good look at you since their eyes are really on the sides of their heads. I prefer to not think of it as a thing they must do to see me well but would prefer to think of it as curiosity and understanding of what I am communicating to them. Hey... you live in your world, and I'll live in mine!

I forget how rapidly the chickens wings develop. It was just Wednesday they were little fuzzy nubs. Now they have proper feathers. It's amazing really. You can see them if you look close at some of the pictures.

Though I did not actually forget how much their little poopies smell I can say I did block it out of my mind. When I walked into the house yesterday afternoon I could swear I smelled sour milk. Nope... it was the wood shavings mixed with the water the ducks splashed and the feed and poop. That was the end of the wood shavings in the tray. I thought the pine shavings would have a nice smell. I was wrong. I did fold up a puppy pad and place it in the back. The cage I have them in is wire and I worry about them having to stand on it all day. I wonder if it hurts their ity-bity feet.

I'm sure I will continue to fuss over them for the next few weeks. I hope I can place these four chicks with the rest of the flock in the next couple of weeks so that I will have plenty of space for the arrival of the 8 chicks that I ordered. Plus..... I hope to have success finally with the fertilized eggs I have collected in their new incubator. Note... while I was willing to hand turn the eggs originally I realized it wasn't practical for me to stop whatever project I was working on outside to run in the house to turn the eggs. The automatic turners do it for me and I don't constantly lower the temperature by opening and closing the lid to the incubator. Automatic egg turner is as essential as the incubator itself.

It's 530am and I think I can drift off for a little nap. The sound of the water dripping in the living room is finally manageable. I'm sure that among the other constant projects that need doing, we will need to build an ark for all the rain we have received. The roof needs to have the new aluminium panels installed and that is something I just don't know how to do. Plus I think it actually needs to stop raining for a bit so that Paul can climb up on the roof and start installing them.

Oh... did I mention that I had a revelation in bed last night? Yep... I sure did. I rolled over, cuddled my husband and whispered.... "I don't think the coop you built is big enough now". Please keep in mind the coop was built in January. Never mind... there is plenty of room inside the barn to expand it as we need to. I feel like hwy 62 in Minneapolis... obsolete before construction even began.

Lesson Learned... 'Nough Said

February 23, 2011

Lessons learned.

This week I learned a hard but important lesson. I learned that if I wanted to order a rare chicken breed I better get an earlier start than waiting until the end of February. 

In August last year I came across The Chicken Whisperer on the Tractor Supply’s website. I started listening to his show because it was only luck that someone gave me three bantam chicks. I had no idea how to care for them or what to look for in case I thought something was wrong. http://www.blogtalkradio.com/backyardpoultry      

(I will try very hard to list correct photo credits for these pictures in captions.)

I still listen to the show regularly as even though I feel pretty confident now that I’ve had my chickens for almost a year the show offers more than just chicken info. Twice a month they have Christine Heinrichs, historian for the Society for Preservation of Poultry Antiquities. From her I have learned of so many breeds that I have never heard of. She did a segment once on French breeds and I learned of the Black Copper Maran. I was fascinated by the thought of a chicken that could lay dark brown nearly chocolate colored eggs. How beautiful they are!  http://albc-usa.org/    



Should be obvious but Maran eggs from FeatherSite.com



They are a very rare breed here in the US and the blood lines continue to be thinned because the lack of fresh bloodlines coming from France. The USDA does not ban fertilized eggs from entering the US but they do make it difficult which has contributed greatly to their scarcity.




Ameraucana eggs from http://www.mypetchicken.com/

  My goal is to have a true rainbow carton of eggs to sell. Can you imagine waking up to beautiful colors for breakfast? Such a small thing but I promise you when you see them there really is an Ohhh Ahhh factor!

The other problem I’m finding is the Speckled Sussex Paul wanted me to get. He has shown virtually no interest in the chickens until he picked up a hatchery brochure and discovered English breeds. It only makes sense since he is after all, English. So he asked me to order them for him. He said he would want to spend time with them as long as I was still going to be the one to care for them. I was able to easily get the rooster but if I wanted to get the Maran & Sussex hens I would have to wait until May. That simply will not due! As it is, I will have to wait until fall until I start getting eggs from the new chickens that I did get.

 This is going to force me to get creative and research much more on breeding. Since I was able to only get a Black Copper Maran rooster I decided to order two Welsummer hens to try and breed with. I don’t know as of yet if it will work in carrying the dark brown color gene. The Welsummer also has a dark brown egg shell color, just not as dark as the Maran. http://www.zooeasy.com/en/



Welsummer eggs from FeatherSite.com



I decided to order 2 white egg laying hens (Ancona) and 2 Ameraucana hens in addition to the Speckled Sussex & Maran Roosters & Welsummer hens. It’s my first ever “chicken order”.  http://www.meyerhatchery.com/       



Last Friday I went to Southern States & Lowe’s to start buying seeds and starter trays for the garden. It felt so wonderful to get my hands in dirt again! In another life I worked on weekends at a nursery close by my home, The Greenhouse in Glen Allen, VA. I did it to learn about plants and so that the money I earned there I could justify spending on plants. Very rarely did I ever bring home an actual paycheck.



One of the things I loved most about the place was going there in the winter months when everything was brown and dull. Just walking around in the greenhouses smelling the soil and living plants was very therapeutic. I could get over the worst day in just a few minutes walking around in there.



One of my favorite rites of spring was the Maymont Flower and Garden Show. That would be the final sign that winter really was over and I could finally start to plant again. I never had a big vegetable garden, just a small raised bed with lettuces, tomatoes etc… but I would buy plants for the outside of the house and inside. I planted wisteria on both ends of my front porch that slowly but surely climbed up the lattice fence, over the railing and made it across the roof. How lovely it was to see it come to life once again each spring.  http://www.maymont.org/Page.aspx?pid=419       



There are bulb flower greens peeping up out of the dirt around the house and I look forward to seeing them all bloom. I bought a bag of shady grass seed for the front of the house where the huge Maple tree shades the front. I have dusted off my planters and washed them out ready for new flowers. If I do all of this do you suppose I will force spring to come sooner?



What you eat & how you vote.

It's not like me to go on the war path and openly declare my distaste for political issues but I am genuinely confused by the seeming disconnect between political parties in what they say and what they actually do. To be honest, I had great reservations about voicing my concern in this forum as it is really meant to be a light hearted look at this new chapter in my life. I have in fact gone back and changed it from my initial rant that I wrote at 2am. I have tried to remove some of my cutting sarcasm. I have not done this because I am backing down or realize the error of my ways but more to make some corrections and try to better connect the point of what we eat and how it affects our politics.

I have bundled up a few different issues and I'm finding it very difficult to make it a coherent thought.

Among all of my rantings below I have a few key points:

1. The meat packing industry paid about $18.00 per hour to Americans plus benefits in the '80's.

2. The meat packing companies started consolidating like many business today in order to control their market, this led to the opportunity to bust up unions and hire cheaper labor.

3. The meat packing industry along with many other "American" companies started hiring illegal immigrants to work for less money which led to Americans loosing jobs.

4. Illegal immigrants are forced to work in conditions that are on equal to third world countries right here in the good old USA.

5. Illegal immigrants have to steal or buy fake & real Social Security numbers to work which leads to identity and job theft.

6. The unsafe practices forced on the illegals are also making us sick!

Where is the outrage over large American companies who actually advertise in Mexican newspapers to recruit workers? For years our government has turned a blind eye. As long as the companies help the INS "capture" 15 illegal immigrants a month they can avoid having their plants raided. Nearly 80% of all the meat processed in this country is done through four plants. Since they hire so many illegal aliens they can save more money by cutting back on safety. That also affects the handling of your food. They keep the line moving so fast that feces gets on the meat we eat and this is how we get E.coli. Over 76 million Americans are stricken by foodborne illnesses each year in large part due to these money saving practices.

Illegal immigrants are not "undocumented", they buy Social Security numbers and pay taxes into the system. The Social Security Department is fully aware of this problem. States with high levels of illegal immigrants also have proportionately higher than normal job and identity theft. Job theft is when an illegal immigrant (or anyone) uses your social security number to get a job . Then if you tried to apply for the same job you would be denied being hired because that social security number has already been hired.

Here is a bit of generic background on the meatpacking industry in regards to my issues. If I am incorrect or missing key elements please let me know:

You see at one time the meat packing industry was dominated by unions. Meat Packing jobs were well paying jobs with good benefits for Americans. But once the large companies realized they could bust up the unions and import bus loads of illegal immigrants the doors were opened. It is now one of the most dangerous jobs in this country. You won't see Mike Rowe doing it! The companies cut back on safety and push the workers not to file workers compensation claims. That of course saves the company money so they could afford to keep you in your job. That leads to satisfied share holders. My own husband was asked to not go to the doctor when he sustained an injury on the job because that would harm their "days without an incident". There really is no end to corporate greed.

Much of the money the illegal immigrants earn gets sent back to their home countries. In the month of October 2008 over 2 billion US Dollars were sent to Mexico instead of being fed back into our economy. So not only are we trying to support our own economy we are helping to support the economy of other countries.

 I know for a fact that the INS calls ahead to companies and advises of them when they will be giving audits. Large companies deny good paying jobs to Americans so they can hire cheaper illegal immigrants. The either directly hire illegals with falsified documents or... they hire "temp" workers so that the legal burden is not theirs. Either way Americans are now being "outsourced" in their own country. When will we wake up and realize what is going on? I saw this first hand when I lived in Minnesota. There was a temp agency in my local shopping center that was notorious for hiring illegals. They photo copied what ever social security card you brought in and sent you of to work.

 One of the things I find appalling is that in the 2008 elections the meat packing industry contributed 70% of it's funds to Republicans who are supposed to be anti-illegal immigrant and are all about Americans working in American jobs. In fact, 3/4 of the 10 million of it's contributions made since the 1990 election cycle have been to the GOP. According to Opensecrets.org. This is what I find so confusing. Maybe someone could help me better to understand this. On a side note that year the single largest contribution went to a Democrat.

I am also confused with the desire to have less government when time and time again we are shown that companies simply can not and will not actively police themselves. The USDA came out with a new law to help protect us after so many millions become ill and about 5000 die annually . The Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point laws allow much of the safety testing to be done by the plants themselves. Do we really trust them to over see the safety of our children and our selves when they knowingly break the law every day?

Most of my friends are Republicans. Maybe they can help me understand the connection of campaign contributions from large companies that take jobs away from Americans, hire illegal immigrants and make us ill. It could be that I am very misinformed and I welcome any and all opinions! I would not class myself as a bleeding heart Liberal. I am pro gun and have other conservative leanings.

If you are interested in learning more I encourage you to learn how our government turns a blind eye while Americans go without jobs. There are many more sites I can point you to if you are interested... just let me know.

http://www.foodincmovie.com/

http://www.cis.org/identitytheft

http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.php?Ind=G2300&cycle=2006

http://www.vosizneias.com/76233/2011/02/14/washington-republicans-question-proposed-meatpacking-reforms
http://www.sustainabletable.org/issues/processing/
http://www.fsis.usda.gov/Regulations_&_Policies/index.asp
Ok... I am now stepping down off my soap box.

Touch your food~!

February 11, 2011

Count Down To V Day!

I'm actually counting down the hours until Paul gets home. He has had a miserable few weeks at work and it will be very good to have him home again. He will even get to be home for Valentine's day.

This last week I saw my predator friend only twice which is a blessing. It has been bitter cold and the ground covered in snow so the chickens didn't mind being cooped up. Next week things are supposed to warm up again so I need to try and figure something out before then. They love to eat the fresh grass that is starting to come up. Last time when we had a thaw I sat outside in the grass watching them eat. You could tell they were so happy. On my last post I mentioned that O'Brahma Boy was killed by the hawk. It tuns out I decided to feed him to the dogs. The hawk had put a few puncture wounds in him and I was concerned about bacteria.

I quickly learned that I didn't have any good sharp knives. That will be a must to fix before I process chickens in the fall. So I did it the old fashioned way of chopping off his head and feet with my little ax. Zoe saw the flash of yellow flying in the air and quickly chowed down on his feet. I panicked... what if she choked???  I quickly ran in and jumped online to google dogs eating chicken feet. That is when I came across a very interesting website about feeding dogs & cats raw food. http://www.rawlearning.com/  I got so excited about this I just cut up the small bantam chicken into quarters and fed him to the dogs after I cleaned out his innards. They loved every bit of it, including the bones!



A couple of days before the thaw



If you haven't touched your food that intimately before I encourage you to do so. Two summers ago we went camping on the James River with my friends small group. Paul & I had caught some fish and our friend Chris offered to clean them up for us. He turned it into a basic biology lesson for the children. They gathered round and watched with fascination when he gutted the fish and explained how they breathed and taught about their different organs. One of the kids dared him to eat a fish eye and well... next thing we knew he popped the little sucker in his mouth! Hat's off to you Chris! There were many lessons that day but the most important was to not dare Chris to eat anything.

What I'm trying to say is that it is sad that we have become so far removed from our food. I am just as guilty as I would guess anyone is from my generation. We stopped growing our own food. We stopped touching our own food. In come cases we stopped cooking our own food. This I believe has led to all sorts of health issues for us that we are only beginning to understand. I do not think there is a misconnect between our current eating habits and things such as obesity and food allergies. I believe these things to go hand in hand.

Zoe & Rocky

On the next step of raising chickens I am trying my hand at hatching eggs. I have collected 9 eggs which I hope are fertilized and placed them in my old fish aquarium. I'm using a grow bulb on the tank in addition to a desk top lamp with a 40 watt bulb. So far I have been able to maintain the temperature around 99 degrees with 65% humidity. I candled some of them today and I can see the heart! I just hope I don't goof something up and they don't hatch.

I remember as a child when my grandmother would bring home a chicken from the store and clean it up. I would then proceed to beg her to make the chicken dance. She would stick her hand back into the cavity she had cleaned out and sing a song in French and make the chicken dance around on the counter. I would laugh for ages over that. She and my grandfather grew a lovely garden one summer and in a coffee can they let me grow my own corn. They taught me how to take care of it as it grew. I remember fluffy yeast rolls raising on the stove. I also will never forget all of the clothes she lovingly made for me. Sadly, she died before she could teach me about any of those magical things she could do. My mother had these same skills but she was very busy raising two children on her own and never got around to teaching me. Now that she too is gone I have a longing to be able to do all of the things these amazing women could do.

I am baking a fresh loaf of bread for when Paul comes home. I am learning day by day... article by article, blog by blog.

Lastly, with help from Jonathan Jones (Thank You!) I was able to get a logo for my travel business. I feel that things are coming together very well indeed! Now I can finally start doing some advertising. After 20 years in the travel industry I can't believe I've finally gone out on my own. Yeahhhhhhhhhh me!