Cari-d Away

Achieving Chicken Integration

2012-02-05T09:00:00.000-05:00

Jay and Sylvia

In November, we had our first chicken funeral. Jay's favorite, our most docile and sweet girl, Sylvia, passed away somewhat unexpectedly. She had had a whistling sort of breathing sound for months, and several of the resources we consulted indicated that if she was still eating (check), not losing weight (check), still laying (check) and still acting normal (check) that she was probably fine and just had a scarred airway. Sadly, they were wrong, and I went out to let the girls have some free-range time one afternoon and she was laying on the floor of the coop. We had a funeral for her when Jay came home from work. It was a hard thing. I felt terribly guilty for her passing because I kept thinking we needed to do more for her, but hadn't acted on my instinct. Lesson Learned: Find a good old-fashioned country veterinarian who would see poultry as part of the normal practice, so next time one of the girls seems out of sorts we have a place to take her. (check)

Francine

That same week, our friend called to tell us that he had a hen for us. Months earlier, he had hatched a mixed nest of Cochin and Marans eggs. Cochins are large and somewhat docile and have feathery feet. Marans are a breed that lay extremely dark colored eggs and also have feathery feet. The babies grew up, and our friend had an 'extra' Marans pullet (teenage girl chicken) that he wanted to share with us. We were really excited about having a Marans, because of the unique color of their eggs, and because they are also very pretty chickens.

We were a bit concerned that we didn't know how to introduce new chickens to our small group (made smaller by Sylvia's passing) in a way that would keep all the girls safe both from one another as well as any germs, bacteria or diseases that might be transmitted between the birds. To compound the concern, the new girlie was totally flea-infested. I thought she had brown feathers around her eyes.... but it was just a dense mat of fleas that were incredibly 'sticky' and stubborn. She was crawling with them. I felt so horrible for her. It became even more important to isolate her, until we could get the flea situation under control.

Chicken Tractor

We went to a local farm supply and bought a portable chicken tractor to keep our Newbie in. It's about 4' x 8', with a little sleeping loft. At this point we were still deciding on a name. I wanted to have something French, since Marans are a French breed. She was called "Newbette" until we settled on a name (Francine). She was used to living with a large flock of birds, and now she was alone in a strange place, with airplane noises and traffic sounds. Jay and I dusted the yard, the chicken, her new coop with Food Grade Diatomaceous Earth. It's fossilized algae, that cuts and slices up the insides of the fleas and causes them to dehydrate and die. It's safe to use on your yard and around your plants. You do need to wear a mask so you don't breathe in the dust because it can damage our lungs if inhaled in large quantities.

During this time, we let Phyllis and Pearl out of their coop and they made a bee-line over to the new tractor to check out their guest. Everyone seemed to be adjusting well, and when we let Francine out, she went straight to the big coop and the ladies clucked and talked through the fencing. After a few days, we decided to let everyone out together. We had sat with her wrapped in a towel, pulling fleas off her with a tweezer a few times, and felt that we had enough of them under control to let them out together.

At first, it went well. Phyllis and Pearl were nice enough, but they were occasionally bossy and a bit mean to her. She would fly away a bit, and then come back towards them. When evening came, we'd put her back in her tractor, and she became used to putting herself back at nightfall. Finally we decided that it was time to try to let her integrate into the big coop. That led to one of the most heartbreaking sights we'd ever witnessed in Chicken Land. Apparently Phyllis and Pearl were okay with playing with Francine's toys, but did not want her to share their bedroom with them. She would follow them gamely up the ladder to their henhouse, only to have them flip out on her and scare her away. It was getting dark, and she got a bit panicked. So we had to rescue her and put her back into her tractor.

Francine's Egg

We decided to build a second henhouse (Francine's Apartment) in the big coop. In the meantime, we would take her out of her tractor at night, and put her in the henhouse after everyone was asleep. The idea was that waking up together would make Phyllis and Pearl think that Francine belonged with them at bedtime. No dice. So Jay built her a little room like theirs, complete with her own ladder. The next sad night Phyllis and Pearl again objected loudly to her following them to bed... and she trudged up and down the ladder a few times, trying over and over to gain access to their roost until it got too dark for her to see. We had to place her in her own coop, so she could settle down.

Then we had a cold snap, and all of a sudden there was an attitude shift. Pearl and Phyllis decided that three chickens were warmer than two, and stopped chasing Francine off when she tried to go to bed with them.

Eggs

Everything has been fine ever since. They all sleep together, dust bathe together and hang out together. They all take turns laying eggs in both hen house nest boxes. Francine wasn't as used to being handled as Phyllis and Pearl and she is still really skittish, but we're working on it. She will now eat sunflower seeds out of Jay's hand, and is getting more brave about coming out of the coop in the afternoon even if I'm standing in the doorway. She and Pearl squawk incessantly when Phyllis is laying her egg, and right now they are all looking for cool stuff to eat in the garden area Jay just opened up for them. If Phyllis and Pearl wander off and she doesn't notice at first, she will squawk and fuss until Phyllis comes and finds her and leads her over to wherever they had been. It's really nice to see them become a little family.

Kefir Madness

2012-01-28T14:17:00.000-05:00

Water Kefir

Hello Everyone! Long time no blog! It's been quite a busy 9 months for me. Since my last post in April, my husband Jay was diagnosed with a massive pituitary tumor in July. This was just on the heels of his having a golf-ball sized nodule (along with the right side of his thyroid) removed in April. A short time after his brain surgery (which went well and he has been recovering from nicely) he successfully defended his PhD dissertation in October and then graduated in early December. During this time my job also got measurably busier, and I've developed a nasty bit of tendonitis in one of my thumbs, so at the end of the work day I'm not motivated to sit for more time at the computer to write. But I realized I had things knocking around in my head that I wanted to share, so here I am.

I became interested in balancing my body's digestive health a few years ago, and started drinking a dairy-based kefir. Kefir is a fermented drink that contains beneficial microorganisms and probiotics that can help keep your digestive and immune system healthy. It contains vitamins, minerals and has anti-fungal properties. Dairy-based kefirs can also be expensive, especially the goat-milk ones that Jay has to drink due to an allergy to cows milk. As a way to continue eating in a more healthy way, we wanted to reduce the amount of dairy we consumed, but I wanted to continue with the 'idea' of kefir.

I found out from my sister-in-law that you could make your own water kefir. This sounded like a great way to keep drinking kefir, reduce the dairy, and make it myself. I did some research and found a local company that sells kefir grain starter kits. Erin, from Water Kefir Grains sent me a little starter packet to get me going. Her website has more than a dozen different recipes as well as tips to keep your grains happy. I also used a resource called Love and Trash to get a basic ginger-based recipe that is a favorite. Since I started with my first batch, my sister-in-law has begun her own business based on healthy living, and also does Kefir Classes as part of her service offerings. She can be reached at My Plentiful Living I don't want to steal anyone's thunder and research that went into their kefir web pages, so my post is just going to be a little pictorial of my first batch.

Kefir Starter Kit

You start with about 1/4 to 1/2 cup of grains in a quart-sized jar. The grains come from some sort of cactus and look a bit like translucent cauliflower. Each time you grow a batch that is successful and happy, the grains multiply. Yes, this is equivalent to Amish Friendship bread starter. I've shared my grains with friends and family, and anyone else who wants any. I've also added it to my morning green smoothie and to rice dishes and treats for the chickens. To the grains, you add a solution made of about 1/2 to 1/2 cup of organic sugar of some kind to about a cup of Spring Water (NOT tap) I've used Evaporated Cane Juice, Organic Dark Brown and Sucanat. I've found the lighter the sugar, the happier my grains are. Some people's grains respond well to the higher molasses content in the dark sugar, and even add a tablespoon of molasses to their kefir, but my grains multiply like crazy with the lighter sugars. Leave about an inch to an inch and half space between the water level and the top of the jar to allow for fermentation gases to expand. Let it sit for about 18-24 hours. I find I like mine best if I stop fermentation before 24 hours. It gets too sour for my taste if I go much past 36 hours.

Fermented Grains

Strained Grains

After your time is up, strain the liquid from the grains (and you'll see you have at least 50% more than you started with). At this point you can start a new batch right away, or store the grains in a tightly-capped jar in the refrigerator. You can also freeze them indefinitely. Some people do what's called a Secondary Fermentation, where they add some sort of fruit or flavoring to the kefir and let the solution ferment for more time, infusing it. I tend to add ginger and lemon to my kefir from the start, and bottle the solution in those nifty Grolsh-style bottles for another evening, allowing more fizziness to build up, but not necessarily any more flavor. I have also added unsulphured dried apple, figs and apricots to the initial fermentation. As I said earlier, I like mine not-so-sour.

I will add a little note of caution: I can't drink this during the day. I have to drink it after dinner. When I first started making water kefir I had a small glass with my lunch. Around 2:00 every day I began to get s-l-e-e-p-y. I'm talking can't-hold-your-head-up-drooling-on-your-keyboard-sleepy. I thought it was just latent stress from Jay's surgery/recovery/medical bills catching up with me. Then one day I realized that fermentation = alcohol. I was catching a pretty healthy buzz from my 1/2 cup of water kefir. So I had to stop having it during the day. Now, my sister-in-law and her family (which includes mom, dad, an almost-five-year-old and an 18-month-old) drink it all the time, in amounts well above what I have daily. I have NO idea how any of them function like that. I joked with her that they're all self-medicating using water kefir. I think I'm just incredibly sensitive to the alcohol produced because I can get pretty buzzed off about a half-inch-worth of a really good Lemon Drop martini, too.

If anyone wants to try some grains, let me know. I've got plenty to share. Maybe you, too, will catch Kefir Madness.

Lessons from Daylilies: 1. Bloom Where You Are Planted

2011-04-29T11:00:00.000-04:00

It started innocently enough in March of 2006 when we bought 4 daylilies from BADS, the Bay Area Daylily Society at Greenfest. Shortly after that, we found that the Central Florida Hemerocallis Society was having a daylily sale at Leu Gardens in Orlando. We came home with about 40 varieties. About a month after that, we drove up to Brooksville to Johnson's Daylily and Bamboo Farm, and the owners, Jeff and Linda Johnson invited us to a picnic the next weekend. Little did we know at the time, it was the annual end-of-season picnic for BADS, and we met most of the club members and became members ourselves. Well, I did anyway. Jay mostly sat outside in the shade under the cypress trees in the daylily garden.

Jeff and "Lori Goldston"

Over the next year Jay came to a few meetings with me, and we started to become friends with a few of the members. When the club invited us to go to "Mecca," the annual pilgrimage to the East Coast of Florida where a majority of the daylily hybridizer "royalty" resides, we went along. We saw some gorgeous commercial gardens as well as beautiful private daylily home gardens. Now Jay is the President of the club and I giggle about that almost every time I think about it. We are currently gearing up for the club's 18th annual show and sale.

Watermill Gardens, 2007

We've had our ups and downs with bloom success, and have learned a lot about what daylilies like (chicken, mule and cow poop, sun and water) and don't like (tree roots). This has been our best bloom year yet. We have about 110 named varieties in our yard, and are foster-parenting about 50 plants left over from the BADS sale and show last year.

Swirling Spider

Most of our named cultivars are in 3 raised beds that Jay built, and the rest are in pots by the house. We have about 50 unnamed seedlings (affectionately called The Bastards) and two or three unidentified (lost tag) plants as well.

Two beds and a coop

Friends who dabble in hybridizing have shared their seedlings with us. It's always fun to see one of these bloom for the first time - knowing that you're seeing a flower that nobody else in the world has seen. The science behind hybridizing is really fascinating, but we haven't started trying to do it ourselves. It requires much more record-keeping than either of us has time or inclination to do. We like that it's fun and not work. I'm afraid that hybridizing would make it more of a work project.

Some of our favorites have come all the way from Merrymeetings Daylilies in New Durham, New Hampshire. They were hybridized and grown by a dear man named Les Turner, and have given us some of our most beautiful plants this year, now that they are well established and happy in our warmer climate. Here are a few of the outstanding Merrymeeting Seedlings this year. We are probably going to enter them in the show in the Seedling category.

MMS Seedling #2

We've shared many of these seedlings with neighbors, family and friends, and all of them have produced beautiful faces for people to look at in the spring mornings.

This yellow spider is so fragrant you can smell it when you are 8-10 feet away from it. It looks a lot like two other cultivars named Boney Maroney and Lemon Madeline, but is actually bigger than they are, and has more 'diamond dusting' on it. (This is daylily geek-speak for being all sparkly on the petals.)

MMS Seedling #5

Every morning, about 6:30, Jay and I head out to the garden in our "yard shoes" with our cameras in tow to see what is blooming for the first time that day and to ooh and aah about how pretty everything is. We probably have 100 pictures of the same place in our garden, but each one is slightly different depending on what has bloomed that day. Jay walks around with a bowl and picks off all the dead flowers from the day before while the chickens putter around and chat to one another. When it's time to go in, all the spent flowers go into the coop with the girls, and they munch on them for their morning snack. This is the only thing that gets me up on my own, excited about morning. The rest of the year I'm highly resistant to the concept of daybreak.

We're both so grateful for the beauty and friendship these little plants have brought to us. Some of our closest friends are 'daylily people.' The plants also teach us to be appreciative of individual beauty, and to be tough and patient. As pretty as they are, they are really resilient little guys, and will perform their little hearts out if given the chance. Next weekend is the show. It always hurts my heart a little bit to cut the flowers to take in to be 'judged.' As if one is more beautiful or more deserving than another. Mother Nature knows what she's doing, and it seems arrogant to me to put one flower up as a paragon of beauty, when, like people, each one is probably doing the very best it can do under the circumstances it's been placed in.

Garden Update

2011-04-25T16:57:00.000-04:00

Echo Canyon

Red Hot Ad

This is our favorite time of year in Florida. Spring. That all-too-brief 3-4 weeks of not-too-ungodly-hot, when we can spend time outside in the yard with the chickens and harvesting food from the hydroponic garden, and best of all, see our daylilies blooming.

We are having our most successful bloom season ever. Our club show and sale is on May 7, and we're hoping to have lots of blooms to pick from to take in for display and judging. We've already had close to half of our approximately 110 different named varieties bloom, and many of the unregistered seedlings (affectionately called The Bastards) have bloomed prettily as well.

Dark Wonder

Jay at Greenfest

Jay at Booth

The daylily season started out at the Annual University of Tampa Greenfest, where our club sold nearly all of the 450+ plants we had on hand. Jay is always a hit at the sales tables, turning on the charm to sell the bloomers off the slightly-older-than-us ladies.

Swiss Chard

The hydroponic garden has been doing really well. We do have some empty containers to fill, and the catnip is going nuclear like it always does, but we've been eating Tatsoi and Swiss Chard most days, and giving it to the chickens as well.

We've harvested two of the cutest little Yellow Pear tomatoes I've ever seen, and have been enjoying strawberries for a few months. The cucumbers decided to take off in the last week or so, and it's about time to eat the cabbages since the nasty grasshoppers have discovered them. At least the squirrels will be denied the tomato harvest this year, thanks to The Cage surrounding the area.

Phyllis, Sylvia and Pearl are doing well, and enjoying the extra outside time that the weather and Jay's surgery recovery has allowed. Their favorite thing to do is take dust baths underneath my kitchen herb garden.

Peace, Love and Yarncraft

2011-04-25T13:27:00.000-04:00

Manos Del Uruguay

I'm a Crafty Woman. Some of you might be surprised by that but it's true and official. My friend Terri invited me to join her Crafty Women group. We meet once a month and everyone brings their crafty projects - crochet, knitting, beading, etc. At my first meeting in November, Rose and Meg put a hook in one hand and some yarn in other and now I'm hooked. (get it? Crochet? HOOKED!)

I haven't really tried to tie in (get it? Yarn? TIE IN?) my newly-acquired yarn-craft obsession with my blog until the group held a yarn swap. It was a lot of fun seeing what everyone brought that they didn't want anymore, and that there was a home for everything. I was sifting through the pile looking for natural and sustainable fibers and scored HUGE with about 5 or 6 skeins of Manos Del Uruguay cotton yarn produced and dyed by hand in a fair trade non-profit collective whose mission is to bring economic and social opportunities to rural women. I have no idea what I'm going to make with it, but I love that I got it for freesies and that it's the kind of fiber I can feel good about working with. That got me thinking...what else could be 'green' about this hobby? Turns out a lot. I plan on doing a series of posts about the greener aspects of yarn craft, starting with projects to help me keep our house 'green.'

Ann's Peace Sign Dishcloth

Terri's Watering Can Dishcloth

My first crochet and knitting projects were dishcloths. I've made a dozen or more since November. Dishcloths are a great way to learn to do basic stitches, and to learn how to be consistent with tension. I like making my own, and giving them to friends. I've gotten a little obsessed with knitted pattern dishcloths, and have had a lot of fun collecting patterns that 'belong' with different friends. (so everyone act surprised if you get a dishcloth.)

Swiffer Sweater

I also made some 'Swiffer Sweaters' to use instead of the disposable cloths that go on the bottom of the Swiffer-like floor sweepers. I had bought some micro-fiber ones a few years ago, but had fun making these myself. They work well, too. I like that they are quick to make, and take very little yarn, so I can make them out of smallish bits of leftover yarn from other projects.

Bags for Rounds

Cotton Rounds

Next, I found a pattern for re-usable cotton rounds. These are like little pads that can be washed and used over and over instead of buying those flat cotton pads for removing make up and washing your face. I made some bags to put them in, and keep the clean rounds in one bag, and used ones in another. I just toss the whole bag full in the washer when I run out. I made a set for my friend Natalie, and included a soap sack as well.

Finally, I made an iPod Touch case for my friend, Jenn. I think it turned out really cute. I found a button made of reclaimed wood to hold it shut. I've got loads of ideas now about how knitting and crocheting can be part of a 'green' lifestyle. Be watching for future posts!

Cari-d Away to Callaway

2011-01-18T13:28:00.001-05:00

Every other year or so in December, we bundle ourselves up in multiple layers of our warmest woolies and drive up to Callaway Gardens in Pine Mountain, Georgia for some winter wonderland fun at their Fantasy in Lights event.

The resort starts putting up light displays throughout the park in September, and it takes until around Thanksgiving to install all 8 million lights. After sundown, you pack up into open-air Jolly Trolleys and are driven through the park to see all the displays. I won't show you any of my pictures that I take at night because they never turn out, but you can see them on Callaway's website. The two pictures above are ones I took of two of the displays the next morning on our drive.

our cottage

The resort has many options for lodging. We usually get either a cottage or a villa lock-out (when someone rents a 3 bedroom villa but only needs two of the rooms, we rent the third at a significantly reduced rate). This year our cottage overlooked part of the 10 mile bike trail.

Butterfly Conservatory

The morning following the light show, we have breakfast in either a country style restaurant or the new restaurant in their Lodge and Spa building, then we tour some of the garden sites. There is the Ladybird Johnson Wildflower trail, the location of the Southern Victory Garden and our favorite, the Butterfly Conservatory.

Inside this glassed-in structure are literally thousands of butterflies - over 2700 the day we were there, according to the Butterfly Count board. There are butterflies hatching in a display, and then once you walk into the humid tropical enclosure, you see them everywhere... flying, feeding, just hanging out. It's a magical place.

ladybugs

We walk around in this lush indoor garden, looking all around at the butterflies that are on plants, feeding on fruit, walking around on benches and windows and even landing on people. There are even hundreds of ladybugs, part of the garden's practice of using natural pest control methods instead of chemical pesticides. Ladybugs LOVE aphids, so having them hatch out colonies of the little red and black buggies help to control the aphid population on the host and feed plants for the butterflies. We do the same thing in our yard every year, too.

the hatching display

feeding tray

greens and cabbage

Next we moved on to the Victory Garden. The resort employs 6 full time gardeners on the 7.5 acre plot. They grow veggies that are used in the in-park restaurants, and they also sell the excess to park guests. Of course while we are there in the winter, all that's really growing are collards and cabbages, but my gardener's eye could fill in the blank spots that I'm sure come spring and summer are filled with all sorts of produce. The park gardens also serves as a testing ground for new varieties, and also employs natural and 'green' growing practices to treat pests and diseases, should issues like that arise.

There is an herb garden as well as a sundial garden, and some really nice shady spots that I'm sure are welcome in the warmer weather. They film some of the PBS Victory Garden tv show episodes from there. We always say that 'next year, we should come back and see the park in the spring or fall when everything is blooming' but so far we haven't. I'm sure that when the azaleas and rhododendrons are in bloom the entire mountain is swathed in rosy pink and fuschia.

Jay on the victory garden porch

This is one of our favorite places to go, and I can heartily recommend it to anyone in need of something to get them in the Christmas spirit. We've talked about spending Christmas there, treating ourselves to the spa and sipping cider by a roaring fire...Maybe next year will be the year we actually try out those bike trails and see actual wildflowers growing on the wildflower trail, and actual veggies in the veggie garden!

Long Overdue Hydroponic Garden Update

2010-12-07T13:51:00.000-05:00

I took some pictures last night, while Jay was outside covering the plants in preparation for the cold, and when I realized I hadn't posted about the garden since May, I figured I should fix that. We have been thwarted by squirrels ever since we started our garden. They ate almost every tomato we've grown (or at least taken big bites out of them) along with a whole tower full of swiss chard as it was just sprouting. We decided to fight with a steel cage match of sorts.

before

after

Before, the squirrels (and probably fruit rats, but we try not to think about that) had free access to all of our garden goodies. Now, the entire set of 10 towers has been enclosed in chicken wire, including the top. This has had a profound (and not unexpected) effect on our productivity. Duh.

Since the drastic steps, we've been able to re-grow the swiss chard, to the point where both chickens and humans can enjoy it. We also supplied two counties of family with lettuces on Thanksgiving. There have been tomato feasts, cucumber festivals (of sorts) and radishes galore. I had forgotten how much I love radishes.
I even harvested so much thyme that it took me three days with the dehydrator getting all of it preserved. That much thyme is also a little bit nauseating to smell, by the way. It ended up not even filling a quart sized mason jar. Everyone act surprised at Christmas if you get a Gift of Thyme from us :-D

I took a bit of inventory last night. We have asian eggplants for the chickens, two kinds of lettuce, two kinds of tomatoes, red beets, sweet Florida onions, two kinds of non-Plant City strawberries (this will make sense to my Florida readers), two kinds of swiss chard, snow peas, a boatload of thyme (yes, even after all that harvesting), and two kinds of basil and mint. I'm probably forgetting something that I'll remember after I hit PUBLISH. Isn't that always the way? I've gotten a chuckle or two watching The Ladies follow Jay into the cage to see if he'll give them some swiss chard, or to eat some beet greens that are hanging over the side within beak-reach.

herb tower

lots of thyme

We still have issues with squash getting powdery mildew. Squash doesn't do so well in high humidity, I guess. We have huge plants, huge leaves that bloom but don't flower... and then get mildewy. But most everything else is doing really well.

first cuke

I'm pleased with the strawberries, despite their slow start, although if they make gorgeous berries with no flavor, like the variety we planted the last two seasons, it will probably be the last time we grow them.

berry and onion tower

When the weather threatened to get close to freezing last night, we (and when I say, "we" in this case, it means the incredibly tall and handsome man I'm married to) reused some old sheets to cover the towers to keep the tomatoes from freezing, after harvesting all of them that had started to get red on them. One of the best things about growing hydroponically (aside from more yield, squirrels notwithstanding) is that we save water. Not just when we grow, but even when it gets cold. Last year the traditional strawberry farmers, for example, pumped so much water out of the aquifer in the Plant City area that it caused massive amounts of sink holes and water shortages all around the area. Hydroponic growers can do like we did, and just cover the towers, and not need to spray water as a protective coating on the berries to keep them safe. We also can turn the pumps on and off, since they're on timers, and we can make sure the unit doesn't water on days without sun. Handy, huh?

tall and handsome Jay

cold harvested 'maters and cuke

There were probably more than a dozen tomatoes in here, and one cuke.

swiss chard harvest

It took two green bags to store all this swiss chard.

Before we went to bed, we (remember what 'we means'?) put some plant lights out under them whole thing, to keep everybody warm. Between that and the red heat lamp we have in the henhouse, it looked like we had the biggest french fry lights in the world in our back yard.

good night, Garden!

good night, Chickies!

The Swag: Vacation of a Lifetime

2010-12-06T22:17:00.002-05:00

view from The Swag

This year, following the The Storytelling Festival, we treated ourselves to a few more days in the Smoky Mountains at The Swag in Waynesville, NC. We found out about The Swag from one of our all-time favorite storytellers, Donald Davis, and his wife, Merle. Over the years we've been going to the festival we'd become acquainted with Donald and Merle. At dinner the last night of the festival, they mentioned that they were going up to The Swag for the next week, where Donald would tell stories in the afternoons and evenings, and also lead hikes and walks and talk about the area in which The Swag is located. Donald is uniquely qualified for that, since his family settled the area in the late 1700s and Donald himself grew up in Waynesville. We were going to be in Waynesville for the next week, so we decided we'd see if there was going to be room at the inn, and lucky for us, there was.

'back yard' of the main building

The driveway gate is 2.5 miles from the inn, most of the way up a 5,000+ elevation mountain. You go up 1,000 feet in elevation on the driveway. The inn itself was constructed in 1971 on 200+ acres from reclaimed logs from historic buildings, the oldest structure dates back to 1795. The land was last used as a potato farm, and is bordered by the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Four of the six highest mountain ranges are visible from the property.

Jay in front of our lodge

raised beds in the garden

The Swag has won numerous awards including several from Conde Nast and others for the food (much of which is local - some of which is produced on the property's garden) as well.

The Inn has also received 2 green 'eco leafs' on I Stay Green and is a member of the Haywood County Green Business Initiative. I can honestly say we've never been to a more warm and welcoming place. The staff was around in an unobtrusive way. The chef-prepared food was amazing, with well-thought-out menus to choose from, that were very healthy and incredibly accommodating for special dietary needs. There was something for everyone, from locally made venison sausage, fresh fruits and vegetables, to artisan cheeses and fresh cookies at tea time (which sounds way more formal and fussy than it was.) Three meals, afternoon tea and pre-dinner appetizers are included each day of your stay. The most unique meal included is the lunch option on the last day. They will either pack you a backpack with lunch to take with you on a hike on the property after you check out, or they'll put it in a picnic hamper, or box it up for you to take with you if you can't stay. Not to be missed are The Swag Bars (made from copious amounts of chocolate and peanut butter.)

Donald on the Deck

Merle on the Deck

The highlight of our trip were the hikes we took with Donald and Merle. Donald took us on a hike around the property, and through part of the Smoky Mountains National Park. He told us all about the trees and plants as well as about local history including the Civilian Conservation Corps project that built the fence (still standing) that borders the Inn and the Park. We learned how to tell the difference between types of pines and firs, and hiked to an old cabin that was preserved on the grounds of the park.

cabin in the park

Merle was so sweet to walk with me at the end of the group. I was still in my ankle brace, and was very careful to watch my steps. The trail was very well maintained, and there weren't a lot of spots that were uneven, so I did really well considering the circumstances. The Swag lets you choose a walking stick of various kinds of wood that they personalize for you with your name and the year. Mine was a the most crooked dogwood one in the bunch, and Jay's is a very big, manly and heavy one made from a sassafras sapling.

Lunchtime on the hike

hikers

Our room at The Swag was bigger (and ten times nicer) than our house. It had two bathrooms, one of which had a jacuzzi tub and a steam shower (which was awesome) and a fireplace, along with the king size bed and XM radio. The lodge our room was in also had a library, common area with fireplace, sauna and basement racquetball courts.

Ridgeview Room

Malcolm Matthews, Swag Cat

Another highlight was Malcolm, the Swag Cat. He's a big gray dude that hangs out around the lodge and basks in the sunshine. He has a brush conveniently located for all the guests to accommodate his grooming needs. He also can be found on Facebook, which cracks me up.

The Swag holds several special events during the months they are open to the public, from storytellers to musicians and naturalists, these special evens make an already magical place even more special.

Our time at The Swag is going to be a memory we hold onto forever. The hospitality of Deener and Dan Matthews is unparalleled. The gorgeous mountain views and weather would be memorable under any circumstances; but to share them with Donald and Merle made this an experience even more precious. They are two of the most kind and gracious people we've ever met. We love going to the mountains, and love our time at Storytelling even more - but getting the opportunity to go to The Swag after the festival this year was the icing on the cake. I'm already setting aside a "Swag Fund" so we can save up to go back - maybe next year.

picnic area near Valley View

fall foliage

near the old park border fence

Storytelling Festival

2010-12-06T16:12:00.003-05:00

Every year in October, since 2001, Jay and I have gotten 'Cari-d Away' to Jonesborough, Tennessee for the National Storytelling Festival. If we went nowhere else all year long, we'd make sure we went to this festival. It's hard to explain sometimes why we'd willingly turn off all of our devices (okay, that's not hard to imagine) and sit in folding chairs for three solid days (and sometimes a night or two, also) and listen to stories. The 'unplugged' part of this experience makes it 'green.' But once they've done it, I think most people would agree that the physical discomforts are far made-up-for by the lift gained in the energy of this place, at this festival.

Terry Countermine

Jay with Sandy Countermine

We've been blessed with wonderful friends in town, Terry and Sandy Countermine and Jeff and Peggy Fabozzi, who have graciously opened their homes and hearts to us every year so we can enjoy the festival from a local's view (complete with REAL bathrooms during set breaks.) Trust me, after three days, even the nicest porta-potties in the world (which these actually are) get ripe. We are treated to a fantastic chili supper at Terry and Sandy's after the sing-along on Friday Night. It's always just cool enough to make chili the perfect food for kicking off the festival. Staying with Peggy and Jeff or Terry and Sandy is also really special because accommodations within the town are booked for 20+ years. No foolin'. We took this photo at the bed and breakfast on main street 9 years ago.

Peggy and Jeff playing the Comb

The town sets up HUGE revival-type tents throughout, and storytellers (and some musicians) from around the world take the stages and capture our hearts. Over the years we've been fortunate enough to also meet and befriend some of the tellers and their families. They are some of the kindest, most open-hearted people we've ever met. This year we got to hear our friend Corinne Stavish tell on stage for the first time. Corinne has been an emcee in other years, and we've always looked forward to hearing her tell. She told a fabulous story about a trip to Europe she took with her children. It was even more endearing because this year, we got to meet them, as well.

Corinne Stavis

We've met Donald Davis and his wife, Merle (think the Bono of Storytelling) and Barbara McBride Smith and her husband Dennis, Willy Claflin, Ed Stivender and my new favorite this year, Kim Weitkamp. Kim was a minister serving in a retirement home, and told really heartwarming stories about the people there, as well as a really sweet song and story about her parents' love for one another called "Penny Candy Love." She and her grown siblings realized a few years ago just what mom and dad were up to on those occasional Saturdays when their dad sent them on a very long walk into town to the candy store for a treat. We bought her CD and took her stories home with us this year, and I've started following her on Facebook. We were able to extend the good vibes this year after the festival ended when we joined Donald and Merle at The Swag (look for my post about that experience soon) the week after Storytelling.

Barbara and Dennis

We have been privileged to be invited to the Yarnspinners Party on Saturday night on festival weekend, where we've had a great time singing and watching the dancing and getting to rub elbows with the Storytelling Royalty. This year was a very mixed bag (like it is every year) but how often do you get to hear Hava Nagila played with a Banjo and a Git-fiddle? (a homemade one-man-band type device) Or the 93 year old grand dame of Storytelling, Kathryn Tucker Windham, sing "Show Me the Way to go Home" with re-arranged lyrics "Show Me the Home to go Way"?

As soon as we go to the first set on Sunday, which is the set called Sacred Telling (people tell more spiritually-but-not-necessarily-religious themed pieces) I start getting a little bit wistful because I know it'll be over soon. By the last set, I'm usually a bit weepy, especially if we hear Ed Stivender sing his "Yankee Come Home" song about the festival. Me being me, of course, I try to smart-ass my way out of the mood by changing the lyrics to "Yankee Go Home" but it never works.

And then, the sun goes down, we gather at Terry and Sandy's house again and reminisce about who are favorites were and who we can't wait to hear next year (or not...) We always leave refreshed and renewed, and in such a peaceful state of mind. The plans for next year are already forming. Someday, we hope to live in Jonesborough and be able to pay it forward and host other people as they discover this wonderful event.

Night falls on The Swapping Ground

Yes, we "Can"

2010-09-07T18:35:00.000-04:00

Summer Mix

Jay grew up canning veggies. My family never did that, so I'm just learning how. Luckily our friend Dwain, and his sister Fonda have been mentoring me, and reintroducing the art to Jay. We just got back from a canning trip to Western North Carolina at Dwain's mountain house in Clyde. We originally planned on canning bush beans in June when we were there, but the beans weren't quite ready yet. We lucked out on this trip, because we were able to find fresh local beans in addition to the tomatoes, okra, onions and corn that we had planned on canning. We also canned 5 pounds of boiled peanuts, and were a little disappointed that the peanuts we bought in Georgia came from New Mexico. So much for local!

Dwain and Jay. And Beans.

Beans

Beans going in the Canner

We started with 2 bushels of green beans, which yielded 46 quarts canned. Dwain's house is the perfect setting for this, with balconies overlooking the mountain. In order to not heat up the house, we used a propane turkey cooker on one of the balconies for the canning, and for our prep area as well. The weather was perfect - about 80 during the day and high 50s at night. His house is in the very center of this photo. We took it across the valley last time in June.

Dwain's house from across the valley

Boiled Peanuts = Crack

Next, we made boiled peanuts. They turned out fantastic. I ate an entire pint of them myself the other night when I was nursing my sprained ankle. Nothing better for a sprained ankle than a crapload of salty goodness, I always say!

Fonda with her mad tomato skills

Jay prepping Summer Mi

Finally came the tomatoes! In all, we canned 125 pounds of tomatoes in various forms: whole, juiced, and in summer mix, which has tomato chunks, sliced okra, vidalia onions and fresh shucked silver queen corn. We cold-packed the whole tomatoes and the juice, and pressure cooked the summer mix. Having many hands helped made this so much fun. I love learning from Fonda and Dwain, and spending time with Jay preparing good food for us to share. When all was said and done, we had 140 quarts of food to bring back home. We had brought up several dozen boxes of jars, and ended up having to buy more from Tractor Supply (we bought them out of wide mouths) and Ingles (a local grocery store). I also picked up two canning cookbooks, Put 'Em Up by Sherri Books Vinton, and The Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving so I can start dreaming about what we'll try next. Fonda always brings fantastic food she grows in Illinois. She made some out-of-this-world creamed corn that I'd love to try my hand at if I can make it with non-cow dairy products. I'm really grateful to Fonda and Dwain for sharing their 'tribal knowledge' and helping us nourish our bodies and our lives with yummy food goodness! I'm also grateful that my sweet husband and I have so many shared interests. It would be hard to do this without his help and ability to pick up extremely heavy canners full of mason jars and boxes full of canned produce.

We're Egg-static!

2010-09-07T13:58:00.000-04:00

Yes, we've joined the ranks of the Backyard Chicken Egg Producers. 2/3 of our hens are producing eggs! Phyllis started first, about two weeks ago, and Pearl started shortly afterward. So far Sylvia is very interested in the process, but she has not started laying yet. I'm going to get her a copy of "Are You There, God, It's Me Margaret" so she won't feel like she's all alone in the world while the rest of the girls are developing ahead of her.

This picture shows our first 7 eggs. the larger one in the lid of the container is one of the farm fresh eggs we get from Lancaster's our Produce Club Farm I'm a little bummed that our eggs aren't blue/green, because I thought that Ameracaunas always lay blue/green eggs, but a friend of mine told me that they might not lay that color right from the start, so we'll have to just wait and see.

Jay made a fabulous egg scramble for us this weekend, with mushrooms, tomatoes and fresh basil from the garden. The egg shells are really crisp and hard, and the yolks are very firm and a gorgeous golden color. They sit up really high and don't get all runny.

Chicks, Chickens and Chickpeas

2010-08-25T16:17:00.000-04:00

finished product

Chicks (like me) who try to eat healthfully and feed their chickens healthfully, can use chickpeas to do both. I eat chickpeas in a lot of ways - in salads, soups, hummus, falafel and my favorite way: roasted. The chickens really like chickpeas, too, only they take 'em straight from the can.

People who know me well know that my favorite food group is 'brown and crunchy' just like my favorite color is 'paisley.' Roasted Chickpeas area a large part of my plan to eat well and satisfy my quest for 'brown and crunchy' in a healthy way. I get an added protein boost and just love the crunch. I've had some friends ask me to post my roasted chickpea recipe, so I decided to do that today.

rinse and drain

Preheat oven to 425. I take a can or two of organic Chickpeas, rinse them and drain in a colander. I like to buy Eden brand because they don't have BCPs in their lining. Transfer to a layer of towels on a foil-lined jelly roll pan to dry. Once dry, I remove the towels and roast in the oven for about 15 minutes on the foil lined pan.

drain on towels

Take chickpeas out of the oven and dump them in a mixing bowl, and drizzle with olive oil. I add Greek Seasoning from V-Spicery, a locally owned spice shop and sea salt to taste, then return to the oven for another round of roasting, 15 minutes or so. Stir and return to oven again, another 15 minutes until they get really brown and crunchy. This part is really subjective. I like mine REALLY brown and REALLY crunchy. Some days it takes 30 minutes, some days it takes 45 minutes, depending on the humidity. Shake, stir and sample A LOT, while you are obtaining the right amount of brown-ness for you. Watch out when sampling, though. I got a really bad chick-pea-sized burn on the inside of my lower lip last time - that olive oil is HOT! Cool and store in an air-tight container.


add seasoning

bake and stir

Chicken Update: while I have your attention... the chickens have decided to go back to putting themselves to bed at night again, and have started eating again. We realized they prefer eating off a flat surface like a cement block instead of out of their feeder. We found a feeder they like better, and replaced their waterer, too. Both seem to be more accepted than the old ones. We also switched feed, and they like the new stuff (Manna Pro) better than the last kind. I thought that Sylvia was going to be giving us our first egg a couple of weekends ago, but it turned out to be a false alarm. She was walking around, bitching, two or three days in a row. I know it's really hot here, and that the heat might be causing the delay in their egg production. Here is a <30-second video of Sylvia having PMS:

Mild Chicken Worry

2010-07-22T15:11:00.000-04:00

I’ve started to get a little anxious that if our chickens crossed the road, they’d have to take the short bus to get there.

It’s been a month or so since I’ve posted anything new on the blog. Not a lot has been going on between Jay and I both taking turns being sick and it being hot as Hades outside. The girls will be 6 months old on 7/31, so we should get eggs soon after that, I hope. Jay finished off the nesting boxes for them, and I put in the wooden ‘inspiration’ eggs for them. And now we wait.

While we’re waiting, my worries grow a little each day. Why, when after 3 months of putting themselves in the hen-house at night, do Sylvia and Pearl want to camp out on the ladder outside (that’s not big enough for all of them) instead of going in their house? Phyllis is left conflicted about this, because she wants to go in the hen-house at night on her own, but doesn’t want to stay there by herself, so she does laps from the ladder to the hen-house and back again. I know they’re ‘just chickens.’ But the spot they’ve chosen to sleep on at night now is not weather-safe.

Pearl on the Ladder

There is nothing to protect them from getting drenched in our coming-down-sideways rains if I leave them out on the ladder. And I don’t want them to get sick and not know what to do with them or even know they are sick until it’s too late. Not to mention that they have to take turns actually sleeping because the ladder is wide enough for exactly 2 and one half chickens to roost. Someone has to stand up if the other two are settled in. So out we go, at dusk every night, with a container of bulgur wheat to coax them up in the hen-house. Or worse, have to relocate them and chase them around squawking and getting all overheated (them, not us.) Once we shut the door (which we didn’t used to do once they started going in there on their own a few months ago) they get all pissy and upset and fret over the door being closed. I can just picture them dragging tin cups along the wire, chanting, “Let us out, you filthy Screws!!” Prisoner: Cell Block H: The Poultry Yard. Then, to save time in the morning, we have to go back outside before we go to bed to open the door back up so they can get out on their own by themselves and not wait for one of us to get up.

Then there is the food situation. I have this 4 page list of things I got off of Backyard Chickens that people (and their poultry) deem as good and proper chicken treats. Ours won’t eat any of it. Ours like bulgur wheat and Swiss chard. They ate cucumber guts once. Never again. All these tried-and-true yummy things, including watermelon, cabbage, and darn-near anything leftover that other people’s chickens eat, ours won’t touch. If I bring them something they are not familiar with, or have decided they don’t like, they pace around it in a circle, muttering a slow suspicious, ‘buck buck buck BUUUUUUUUck’ and eye it sideways. Always slow, always 4 'bucks' with the last one drawn out and wary.

Phyllis being Suspicious

Phyllis will always come up to check it out, but if she won’t eat it, the other two won’t even try. Strawberries? Nope. Tomatoes? Nope. Even things they liked a month ago like Spanish nettle weeds and their own food they all of a sudden don’t want to eat. On top of that, they’re big girls now, so we switched them to layer feed instead of growing feed. Not so much. They don’t like that, either. If they were picky toddlers, they’d be living off chicken nuggets and fries. The irony is not lost on me. Their version of that is scratch grains and black oil sunflower seeds.

Sylvia

Next comes the heat. It’s, like I said, hotter than Hades here. And humid. They are panting most of the time. So I go off to look up what other people do on Backyard Chickens and try some of the suggestions. 1. Pan of cool water for them to step into because if their feet are cool, their whole bodies will cool off. Nope. Water pans elicit the same suspicious sideways-glancing, ‘buck buck buck BUUUUUUUck’ as undesirable food does. And apparently it's VERY SCARY to accidentally step into it while running after a bug, knocking the pan over and spraying water everywhere. Frozen plastic jugs of ice set in a big Rubbermaid bin tipped over on its side. Like a walk-in AC chamber. Nope. Spritzing them off with water. Boy howdy were they offended by that! People in dry hot climates use those mister-fan things, but in Florida that doesn’t actually cool anything off. It just makes it more humid and sticky and harder to breathe. We’re discussing finding a way to put a fan out there, that at least might get the air moving a little and cool things off. At 2:00 every afternoon I go out and unroll a roll-up shade to give them some relief from the afternoon sun and put out a few frozen water jugs over in the coolest part of the coop. I don’t know if they realize it or not that they can sit closer to them and cool off a bit, but I feel like I’m at least trying to give them some relief.

I had no idea there was this much crap to worry about with chickens. I thought they’d be little low-maintenance garbage disposals that had a happy edible by-product for us. Everyone else seems to have chickens like that. Tammy’s chickens are 2 or 3 weeks younger than ours and are already laying eggs! We’ve got eccentric high-maintenance, low-achieving short-bus chickens that seem to defy all the chicken conventional wisdom. I feel like there is something I’m missing… something that I’m not doing right, or enough of, for them to succeed. I don’t want my chickens to get an Attendance Award. I want them to Graduate with Honors! Hell, at this rate I’d settle for a happy productive C-student chickens.

Where is The Chicken Whisperer when you need him?

Eating Local, Even When You're Not

2010-06-20T16:55:00.001-04:00

Local, that is. Preserving and canning some of our local produce, as well as supporting a CSA and growing our own food also contribute to our goal to eat this way. Even the cats get to take advantage of the catnip we produce in our own back yard. Recently we canned 4 bushels of field peas, varieties like Black Eyed, Conch, Zipper Cream and Purple Hulled Crowders. We got these peas about an hour after they were harvested, and had them all canned by the end of the day. It's hard work, made much easier by using our friend's commercial pea sheller.

In the last few weeks we also traveled to Arizona, North Carolina and Georgia. We managed to eat locally everywhere we went. Not every meal, but as many as we could, when we could.

In Arizona, we went to Queen Creek Olive Mill and toured the orchard, garden and olive oil press room. They grew a lot of veggies and herbs under shade cloth, and featured locally raised produce in their cafe along with the olive oil. We had some olive oil cupcakes and gelato and brought some of their signature blend and chocolate olive oil back with us.

While in NC, we went berry picking at The Ten Acre Garden. Actually, Jay, Dwain and Fonda went berry picking. I was sick and took pictures of everyone else picking. Between us, we picked 4 quarts of raspberries and blackberries. Jay made a pie with ours, and Fonda and Dwain made freezer jam with theirs.

On this trip, Dwain also brought peaches and tomatoes from his garden in Plant City, and Fonda brought eggs, milk, pork and squash from her farm in Illinois. With all the canned goods already stored in Dwain's mountain kitchen, we were able to eat 'locally' most of the time we were there. On Wednesday mornings, there is a small Farmer's Market in Waynesville that we visited. Unfortunately, we timed it wrong and were not able to get Bush Beans. We were about a week or two too early for them to be at market. We did manage to obtain quite a few baked goods that morning. One of the best items was a Squash and Calendula Blossom yeast bread. It was light and fluffy and just slightly sweet. We spotted an English Toffee store on our way out of the Farmer's Market, so of course we had to stop there to do a quality control check on the locally-produced candy. When we got back to Dwain's house, we were able to spread fresh butter that Fonda had just made as well as the fresh jam on that fantastic squash bread.

Our favorite meal on the whole trip was at The Purple Onion in Saluda, NC. My pilates teacher told me about this little place, so we made a special trip to Saluda to check it out. I had locally caught mountain trout roasted in corn husks and served with heirloom veggie salsa. Jay had locally raised organic chicken and roasted heirloom veggies. We shared a blackberry cobbler that was out of this world. As a special treat, we also got to listen to 4 locally-grown singer-songwriters that night.

Even on the way home, when we stopped at a roadside stand for peaches, corn, tomatoes and of course, hot boiled peanuts, we partook of what the local farmers had to offer. Spending time in a place like Western NC, where the vibe is definitely more rural and committed to agriculture inspires me to continue to support local farmers, and fuels my desire to move up there and be a part of that life. I think it inspires Jay, too. He was quite taken with the tractors at the Farm Supply Store....

Sad Day in Squash Land......

2010-05-21T11:30:00.000-04:00

I hate quitting. Giving up. Surrendering. But if gardening doesn't teach you anything else, it'll teach you that sometimes the little guy wins. Little guys like Eastern Lubber Grasshoppers, Powdery Mildew and Sooty Mold. And even some sort of unidentified angular trapezoidal squash bug thing.

So it's with a heavy heart and a sad sigh that I say a fond farewell to my hydroponic squash plants. Goodbye zucchini. You gave me 4 really good squashes before you succumbed to powdery mildew. Goodbye yellow and white patty pan. You tried really hard to get going, but the fungus got to you before I could. Goodbye yellow "One Ball" squash. I was very excited about your first BIG squash, and sad to see the rest of them wither and die.

You, "Tromboncino." I will miss you most of all. You promised three feet of bright green zucchini-like goodness. You looked a bit like a marital aid. You, of all the varieties, looked like you were fighting better than the rest. I have 5 of your baby squash to try in a meal this weekend to remember you by. I thought it best to harvest what I could before we took you out of the bin.

I'm sorry we didn't realize you all were fighting for your lives before it was too late. I've learned that if we are going to plant you again, it'll be during a cooler time, and with more air flow around you. And we'll start preventative spraying with worm tea from the start, because that's more effective than trying to halt fungus and mildew once it's already in progress.

On the bright side, your free-ranging volunteer patty-pan cousin is doing really well (so far). He's HUGE, and while is has a few leaves showing powdery mildew, and we've lost a few baby squashes to sooty mold, he seems to be bravely and happily holding his own in the yard... never been watered, never been fertilized except for two applications of worm tea. He's often covered in Lubbers and something has laid eggs on his huge leaves. He might be dead by the time we get back from Arizona, but for now, he's a real trooper.

Onward. Today, the squash plants will be replaced with yard-long Chinese Red Noodle Beans and Super Sugar Snap Peas. We'll keep a close eye on the cucumbers that were in the bins next to the squash, because they can be susceptible to the same things that got the squash. We managed to get a good number of cukes last year, so maybe our luck will continue this year.

Another day, another humbling garden lesson learned.

Allow me to show you my bloomers

2010-05-13T17:20:00.001-04:00

Ahem. Now that I've got your attention... Here is what's blooming in our daylily garden today.

I'm a garden geek. People who barely know me understand that pretty quickly. What goes even deeper than my love of growing things in general is the soft spot I have for the daylily. We actually don't grow any other plants that are this ornamental and non-functional. I love that it's a different bloom every day, on a different plant every day, for several months in a row. There is nothing like going outside first thing in the morning before it's so ungodly hot and seeing who is there to meet you in the garden. Sometimes it's a double, like Affair D'Amour, or a spider like Chevron Spider.

Sometimes it's a bi-color like Athlone, or one with pinched sepals like Cameroons.

This is our best year for daylilies yet. I think the cold snap really gave them a break and let them rest up so they could put on a show for us this year. Of course it wasn't in time for THE show, but still. We get a private performance every day, and will until possibly September.

I can't take any of the credit for them being this healthy and happy. Jay does all the hard work. I am generally the one who picks them out, and sometimes I point here or there, but in the last year I've been pretty 'careless' in my placement.
When we first started, I was SOOOO detailed and persnickety about making sure I didn't have two pinks together, and that I had the big ones in the back, and the earlies mixed in with the mid- and late-seasons. As the years have worn on, I've realized that the tall ones don't necessarily bloom the same time as the shorter ones, so it doesn't matter (to me) if they're in the back or not. I'm just happy to see each of them whenever and wherever they decide to come out and play. I used to be very detailed in my tags, too. At first, I noted the variety name, the hybridizer, year of introdution, height, size, season and genetic type. The last batch we came home with got the name of the variety and hybridizer and the year of introduction. I became less obsessive about the technical details and more laid back about them and just being glad they are growing and blooming. If I ever want to dabble in hybridizing, the details will be important, but for now, knowing the name and the hybridizer is probably good enough.

We have about 100 named varieties and probably half again as many unnamed/unidentified or seedlings of unknown parentage (daylily bastards) as well. Most of them are in pots over by the chicken coop because they were in the yard near or in the same spot the coop was going to be, so we moved them into a shadier area during construction. Another raised bed has only daylilies and the occasional weed. Jay is going to build raised beds for all the potted ones so they'll get the benefits of more root room like their raised bed buddies. Once all of them have permanent homes, I'll do a good inventory and get an accurate count.

We're also fostering about 60 plants left over from our show and sale. With much luck, they'll be ready to sell at our booth at Greenfest next March. Every time I think we're out of room and can't possibly get more, we come home from Greenfest, or our annual show, with a few new petal-y friends. One I can't wait to meet is called Android Dreams, that one of my favorite people in the whole wide world hybridized. It looks like rainbow sherbet. Hand to God. It's got a scape on it now, so in the next few weeks, we'll get to see if it's as happy here as it was in Plant City. The spot where the recently-removed ficus trees is MUCH larger than I thought. I be we could fit another couple hundred daylilies in there, but nobody would ever get to see them.

Vermi-WHAT?

2010-05-07T13:58:00.001-04:00

A little over a year ago, we bought a Worm Composting Bin from Carl and Bernie Moro of Our Vital Earth. Bernie and Carl were guest speakers at one of our Daylily Club meetings. They brought their Can O' Worm systems, along with samples of their worm tea and worm castings. We were very interested in reducing our kitchen waste, and composting more effectively than with the outside compost pile (which, in our yard, really is just a salad bar for wayward possums.) Bernie and Carl told us about how they went to Australia to learn more about Vermiculture (which is the growing of worms) and Vermicomposting. The containers are made from recycled battery cases, and are ubiquitous in Australian households.

We brought our composter home and set it up. It was really easy. It came with worms and starter bedding and a DVD that I've since misplaced and had to order another one. You start with just one tray, fill it with kitchen scraps, and watch them go to town. As the months go on, you add a tray until you get all of them going. The bottom of the composter is a water reservoir, with a spigot on it. Once a week, I drain off the liquid before I feed the worms. They will eat about 6 - 7 pounds of vegetative kitchen scraps per week. I went to the thrift store and bought an old ice bucket to use as a kitchen scrap collector. There are prettier commercial counter top compost buckets, but I wanted to reuse something. I've got my eye on a nice bamboo one in the Gaiam catalog....

The worms get a load of scraps every week, and eat almost all of it. There are a few things that we've learned about what worms like and don't like. They will eat almost everything, but they don't like corn husks or avocado peels. They will glom onto the inside of an avocado shell and eat all the green stuff out, but they won't actually consume the peel. You can pick up a peel and it will be packed full of worms. They don't get to celery root , melon and squash seeds fast enough, because I've had several baby celery, melon and squash plants trying valiantly to grow in the dark of the bin. They like egg shells, but they must be crushed really fine. Tea leaves are a favorite. We go through a lot of tea in a week, and my Facebook friend Ann, who runs a tea shop, will give me her tea leaves from the store. Starbucks always has bags of coffee grounds you can get for freesies, too.

We get about 3 quarts of worm tea a week. Worm tea is really liquid body waste. Worms can't urinate, so by pouring water over them every week, the waste gets washed off their bodies and collects in the bottom level of the bin. Bernie calls it the "pool in the basement of the worm condo." The castings are the solid body waste of the worms, and they tend to leave that behind as they move around. The lowest tray has the highest concentration of compost, so that's the tray we harvest from every month. Worm castings are an excellent organic fertilizer, and the worm tea is also a good fungicide in addition to being a fertilizer. I know I can tell a huge difference in our daylilies just from using the worm castings and worm tea. They are all giving us our best season ever this year.

You don't have to use the commercial bin like we have, but it sure is easier than a homemade one. We made homemade ones at one of our daylily club meetings a few years ago, and it was much more of a hassle than this system.

I really like knowing that I'm putting less waste in the landfills, attracting fewer varmints to our yard, and using no chemicals fertilizers to leach into the water table.

Here is a link to a slide show of how I harvest the castings every month.

Daylily Silly

2010-05-05T22:06:00.001-04:00

We had our annual Bay Area Daylily Society (BADS) show and sale on May 1. We have the first show of the daylily season in the country. Some of the people in our club are very proud of that fact. Personally, I wish it was a week or two later in the month because we always get more blooms right after the show. We've entered flowers for 4 years now, and have received ribbons for something each year, usually yellow, but occasionally a blue. This year we did better, we got a purple, which is considered a "Major Award." I got the giggles over that because it reminded me of the Major Award in the movie "Christmas Story" (remember the hideous leg lamp?) Anyway, we got a Major Award for our daylily H. Pink Ambrosia. My friend Timi said that 'Nothing Is Better Than a Leg Lamp" but I'm pretty tickled anyway at our purple ribbon. I actually like the flowers that we only got Red and Yellow ribbons for better. They were H. Happy Hooligan I like that cultivar better because it is speckled and a double. Jay thinks it's ugly, though.

Sandy Soderberg won the Best Spider and Best in Show awards this year. She also won for Best Photo in the Single Flower category. Sandy continues the 'St. Pete Sweep' tradition. Maybe some day someone from the Tampa side of the bay will take home the top awards. Maybe even someone from South Tampa. Hmmm.. Now there's a thought.

As a result of my feeling really bummed out that we never have had more than 3 blooms to bring to the show, and feeling a little left out of the fun because the same people seem to win every year, I had a bright idea to also have a photo category. Like in any club or committee, he who has the idea is suddenly put in charge of it. Luckily three other very sweet club members, Kyle, Gayle and Terri were willing to co-chair that section of the show committee with me. Those of you who know me well know that I positively, absolutely hate being in charge of anything. Yuck. I'm really more of a sit-on-the-sidelines-and-provide-comic-relief kind of girl. I'm not really management material. You have to take things much more seriously than I do to be in charge of them. I'm pretty good at having-ideas part, though. I think we did really well for our first photo exhibit. There were some bumps, but it all turned out okay. We know more now, and have some good ideas to use next year if the club decides to keep the photo exhibit as part of the show. I placed second and third in the Clump and Landscape categories, respectively. Both pictures were taken at Johnson's Daylily Farm in Brooksville. Pending Jeff and Linda Johnson's permission, I'm planning on doing a whole post on their daylily and bamboo farm in the near future.

I took some Flip Video of the show, with some fairly Blair-Witch-y footage of the sale in progress, the photo exhibit, and some of the flowers. It can be seen on My You Tube Channel here.

Happiness is Hydroponics!

2010-04-27T17:08:00.000-04:00

I haven't posted about the hydroponic system in a little over a month, so I thought it was time for an update. I'll start with before (February) and after (last week) pictures.

We've been enjoying eating and sharing with friends (and dogs next door) our snow peas, beets, onions, kale, tatsoi, rape, lettuce and swiss chard. The broccoli is starting to do its thing and we have one small head of cauliflower forming. I'm actually surprised that those are doing as well as they are given the heat. The brussels sprouts aren't producing yet, although the plants are thriving, and the strawberries, while prolific, proved to be disappointing in taste. Next year, we'll double the amount of snow peas since those have been our best performers so far. The yellow ball squash, patty-pan and zucchini are all producing flowers and fruit. If I can keep the grasshoppers off of them, we should have a good harvest of all of those. I need to clear out the beet box and get the cucumber I've been nursing along in the pot I bought it in a month ago put in their place. We have plans for a bean bed and a pea bed, as well as a place for okra in mind. I'm looking forward to getting the beans in, especially, since I've got red noodle beans and dragon's tongue varieties to grow. The red noodle bean is about 20" long, and the dragon's tongue is a yellow bean with purple streaks on the pod.

The heirloom tomato "Mr Stripey" was put in before the other 5 heirloom varieties, and has had quite a head start. We've got some Florida Sweet Onions resting on the shelf under the grill so they can crisp up their skins.

It's been a learning experience, that's for sure. We keep finding things we'd like to have done differently. For example, we would like to turn the bottom bins perpendicular, and spread them out a bit more so there is more airflow, and so the snow peas don't grab hold of everything with their twisty tendrils. All in all, though, it's been a lot of fun, and has allowed us to feed ourselves, and share with friends. A good man once told me that food is love. He was right. When food is grown with love, it's even better!

Hooray for Volunteers!

2010-04-27T16:10:00.000-04:00

A few months ago, when we were starting the chicken project, we began by potting up all of our daylilies that were in the back yard, so we could keep them safe during construction. During that process we came across dozens of tiny tomato plants all mixed in with the daylilies. I confess. I know how those got there. Our kitties' daddy/granddaddy/uncle/brother was in our yard a lot, and I admit, I chucked not a few yucky tomatoes from the garden in his general direction on several dozen occasions. The result of my pitching practice was little tiny baby tomatoes. That was the first of the volunteer garden army that began to spout up this season.

Next to arrive was what we thought were just weeds growing out of our compost bin. Due to the proximity of now-deceased ficus trees and our general neglect of proper composting behaviors, the compost bin had gotten full of tree roots and had stopped being 'hot' enough to kill seeds. I realized one day that those weren't weeds. They were potatoes. And nestled down in the potatoes were very pretty little Scarlet Pentas that had been pulled up to make room for something else.

Around the same time, we noticed that our tatsoi had gone to seed in the hydroponic garden, and some seeds had fallen next to the water tank. A brand new baby tatsoi plant is now happily growing there in the ground, without any assistance from us or the water system. We haven't had much rain except for this past weekend, but it seems to be doing fine. I'm leaving it there, in case the grasshoppers find it easier pickings than the tatsoi that is growing four feet up in the tower. Maybe they'll eat that and leave my tower plants alone.

Finally came the squash. Patty pan, to be specific, now that it has made fruit and can be identified. I noticed it when it was small, 5 or 6 leaves, smack in the middle of the yard, on the edge of what we called "the Pile of Crap" that was chicken coop construction debris. I skillfully managed to keep it (the PoC) out of most pictures of all of the yard elements, but trust me, it was there in all it's tetanus-potential glory. The squash is about thigh-high now, and growing really well. I couldn't crop all the PoC elements out of the photo. I think it's really cool that these plants have just decided to make the best of their situations and bloom where they've not-been-planted. Yes, it's inconvenient to walk around that squash for now, but I'm glad it's here, and am honoring it's willingness to volunteer in our yard.

Chicklet Update

2010-04-27T14:15:00.002-04:00

We've had the chickens a little over a week now. Progress has been made on the name front for half of them. The Frizzle is now Phyllis, and the Cochin is now Babette. We're still struggling over what to name The Twins. They are all developing their own distinct habits, but really only Babette and Phyllis are showing any signs of personality and behavioral distinction. The Twins are more skittish (actually, everyone is skittish around me unless I have soybeans or bulgur wheat) Jay is a much better chicken whisperer than I am, and is more willing to chase them down and force interaction than I am. Whenever I go out there, The Twins are convinced it's bed time and troop up the ladder into the hen house. Babette comes waddling over to see if I've brought a treat, and Phyllis starts to follow The Twins up the ladder, but stops half way to see if Babette is onto something.

As far as coop improvements go, we've made some adjustments and enhancements. We noticed the girls are panting a bit (and it's only April!!!) The coop is very shady until the late afternoon, when that western sun hits it and the reflective roof isn't much help. We found an outdoor roll-up shade and attached it so I can go out in the afternoons and unroll it to give them more refuge from the sun.

I also bought a small shallow storage bin. I am deciding between making it a chicken pool or a sand box. Both water and sand have cooling properties. Jay added roosts to the hen house. They don't get used at night unless Jay picks them up (which they hate) and puts them up on them, but I see Phyllis and the Twins on them a lot during the day.

I got a new chair to sit on in there, and added a small roost across the top of a bushel basket so they could practice. Here, one of The Twins is practicing. She fell off immediately after I took the shot, but now that I have it full of paving stones, at least it doesn't topple over when they fall off. I'm hoping that, since they obviously understand the concept of roosting, they will eventually decide it's a neat way to sleep at night and we won't have to traumatize them every night by moving them up on top of their snazzy roosts in the dark. Normally they snuggle up under the roost bar - except Babette. She finds a roost in the coop to sit on and has to be moved the whole way into the house at night.

I haven't had as much time to spend with them as I had hoped, but I go out every night for a little while when it's cool and hang out in my chair with them. I really enjoy just watching them peck around and peep at each other. Sometimes when I'm at the kitchen window I look out and see them chasing each other around or just flying for no apparent reason across the coop. I see some occasional chicken chest-bumping, but nothing ever really mean going on.

The Chicklets have Landed!

2010-04-18T15:36:00.000-04:00

We brought the toddler chicks home yesterday afternoon. They seem to be adjusting well, taking to the feed immediately. We put them up in the hen house last night before we went out to the Plant City Livestock Auction (good Lord... I'll have to post about that someday). When we got back last night around 10:30, we realized that they had left the hen house and had gone back down the ladder and were huddled in the corner of the coop in the dirt. We trooped out there in the dark with a flashlight, picked them up and put them back in the hen house, where they stayed until this morning. They weren't raised in a coop with a roost, so we'll have to teach them how to use one. Things will stay cleaner when they sleep on the roost at night. Jay is building the roost, and a little door to shut them in the hen house today.

We haven't settled on names yet. I have to observe them for a while to see their personalities. The Black Cochin is the oldest, born January 3. ((A Capricorn!) She's the first one to figure things out and seems the most independent. I don't know if that's just 'her' or if it's because she's nearly a month older, or if it's because the other three were nestlings and she was from a different brood. Either way, here she is.

The other three are nestlings and were born January 31. (Aquarius!) They are all three Ameracaunas, however one of them carries the Frizzle gene, which means her feathers grow in a such a way as they appear inside out. She is very fluffy, and unfortunately her coloring makes her appear to be very dirty. She figures things out from watching the Cochin.

The other two, called "The Twins" for now, are easy to tell apart in person, and in photos as long as they are both present. I am already having a hard time telling them apart alone in photos. One of them (the dark one) is bigger and a little slower than the other. These two are pretty tight. Where one goes, the other goes. They chatter and peep to each other as they bustle along.

This morning, I was able to coax the Cochin down out of the hen house with a handful of Gamecock feed, which is a really nice blend of seeds and grains. Right now, they're busily eating the Bermuda grass that has been Jay's nemesis for years. I put in some kale from the garden, and the Cochin and the Frizzle liked it, but I couldn't get the twins to notice.

Toddler Chicks!

2010-04-15T10:11:00.000-04:00

I feel a little bit like a first-time expectant mom must feel after finding out her baby is coming early. I'm not ready! My bag isn't packed! The nursery isn't ready! We've gone back and forth a few times on getting peeps vs pullets, and ended up getting what I'm calling "toddlers." They are three months old, and have been hand reared. Because we're getting them from a backyard hobbyist instead of a hatchery, it's still possible that one or more may turn out to be male and have to go back to the people we bought them from. Hobbyists don't bother sexing chicks... they just wait a few months until they hear crowing and know, at that point, they've got a rooster on their hands. That's actually one of the reasons I went this route. I know that they will be loved and cared-for and not have to worry about finding a new home, or that they'll be used as a food source in that new home.

The black one with her tushie to the camera is a Black Cochin. She'll have fluffy feathers on her legs. The one with her beak to the camera to the left is a Frizzle Ameracauna. Her feathers grow curly. The other two at the top of the frame are also Ameracaunas, but their feathers are flat. The twins are a buff color, and the Frizzle is a blue-gray. She looks like a little old lady with a bad perm. None of them were particularly interested in having their picture taken. It was dinner time and they're really busy filling their faces.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, we still have two walls to put in the hen house so they don't fall out at night, and a roost to build. The nest boxes aren't quite ready yet, but we've got 3 or 4 months before we need those, anyway. I'm excited and nervous at the same time. I have done a lot of reading about backyard chicken ranching, but have absolutely zero practical knowledge or skills to rely on.

Re-Coop-erating!

2010-04-05T15:14:00.002-04:00

After almost a solid month of weekends where we had other obligations, we finally got to get back to working on the coop. I've been pretty anxious about getting it completed to the point that we could safely order our chicks. I wanted to get them settled as soon as possible as we have an even busier May than we did March.

A lot has been done since the last post about the coop. The trench around the bottom has been filled back in (and yes, I did fall into it one evening while I was looking at some potted daylilies.) I used some bags of pine needles we snagged from my sister-in-law's apartment back in October to put around the perimeter to keep the black dirt from getting tracked everywhere. I'm planning on planting sunflowers and edible peas or beans around the sides and front to help give the girls some shade, and to expand our food growing capacity. It'll make things pretty, too.

The hen house floor has been built and covered in linoleum, and the egg boxes and access door (for cleaning purposes) have been built.

The next steps are the roof installation, (waiting for the order to come into Home Depot) building the door, shingling the roof of the egg box, painting, and installing the latches, chains and locks. We also need to construct a brooder box for the peeps to live in once they come home, but that's a pretty quick process with a rubbermaid bin and a heat light.

You can see, I'm not the only one excited about this being completed! Once he finishes this, Jay is going to build the raised bed for the remaining 55 daylilies that have been waiting patiently for their turn to be planted in a nice new home.

Heavens to Etsy!

2010-04-02T11:44:00.000-04:00

I realized after a friend posted an article about Etsy.com on her FB page just how many times I've turned to Etsy in my pursuit of living a more eco-conscious life. Etsy is a community of hobbyists, artisans and crafts-persons who have come together to sell their items. You can find everything from Accessories to Woodworking and anything in between. Many vendors recycle and upcycle, and make the most creative things. I first became aware of Etsy when my cousin Kari started selling her jewelry on her Etsy store kari1121 Kari also sells at local craft shows, but since she can also post a link from Etsy to her Facebook page, I was able to snap up a cute pair of peace sign earrings she had on her Etsy store before they were gone. I've been hooked on Etsy ever since.

When I started looking for a green alternative to disposable panty liners I turned to Etsy again. I was really thrilled with the sense of community I got from the experience. All the women I've dealt with have been completely committed to customer service and take a lot of extra time and energy wrapping their items in pretty papers and eco-friendly packaging and are almost all open to special requests for certain fabric types (hemp vs organic cotton) or fabric patterns.

My next foray into Etsy started with a desire to use less paper towels. I'm not an extreme person by any stretch of the imagination. I think that sometimes people can go to some extremes in their quests to be green, and forget that one of the 3- R's of living an earth-friendly life is REDUCE. I know I will never eliminate paper towels from our house, but we certainly can reduce the number we use. I found a great vendor on Etsy who sells Unpaper Towels and Towel Houses They're about the size of paper towels and are beautifully finished. The Towel House sits on the counter and takes up just as much room as a paper towel dispenser takes. You stuff the towels into the house (no folding), and pull them out a slot on the bottom when you need one. They've all washed up great. I just toss them in with the load of kitchen towels I'm already doing anyway. Kai packaged them up in a nice brown kraft paper and tied them with a piece of twine, an included a personalized note as well.

Around the same time I stared eating clean, and cooking a lot more (in addition to baking all the breads we consume in our house) I realized that I was always tossing on an old t-shirt to cook in. I felt really frumpy. So I went looking for a cute apron and found them at another Etsy Store my cousin Kari recommended: Momomadeit My aprons are SOOO cute and girly. They are called Flirty Retro style and have a Donna-Reed-with-a-modern-twist vibe to them. The patterns are really pretty and the fit is great - but the best part is the absolutely flawless tailoring and finishing. You can really tell that Joan cares about what she's making. Again, they were packaged very beautifully.

While I'm baking in my apron, and wiping up messes with my unpaper towels, Jay gets the most use out of my next Etsy favorite: organic cotton crocheted dish cloths from NeedleCreations They're soft, durable and very well made.

My woven agave-fiber soap saver bag started to finally wear out a few weeks ago, so I went on Etsy to find a replacement. I found it at Orangefuzz's Etsy store There I found a hemp-fiber crocheted soap saver bag, along with a bar of handmade soap made with organic ingredients like basil, mint and lime. I like knowing when the bag starts to fall apart I can put it in the compost bin.

I know I could probably make some of these things myself. (If I had ever been patient enough to really learn to crochet or sew like my mom tried a million times to get me to learn). I just don't have the patience or spacial awareness for it. (proven by every shirt I ever sewed with the sleeves upside down and the one sock and one mitten I made and never finished the partners to) I know I could just go down the street to Target or my local health food store and buy almost everything I've purchase on Etsy and say that I've spent my money 'locally.' But by supporting Etsy, I'm also supporting a LOT of 'local' economies, a lot of moms or not-moms who have a passion, and a skill and a desire to produce goods that are worth more to me than what I could get made in China, Pakistan, El Salvador, etc... I'm not saying that the people in those other countries don't also deserve to make a living, too. But after watching The Story of Stuff I also realized what a huge price is paid by those workers who produce countless things that we just don't need. I'm also reducing consumption overall, and choosing to work with people whose values I share and whose vision I respect.

So with that, I say, "Heavens to Etsy!"

Greenfest Success!

2010-03-28T21:00:00.002-04:00

This weekend our daylily club (BADS) participated in Greenfest at the University of Tampa. It benefits friends of Historic Plant Park. A huge festival with plants of all kinds, garden art and other gardening-related stuff, Greenfest is, in my opinion, the best of all the Bay Area Gardening Festivals. The Master Gardeners are on hand to answer just about any question a gardener could have, and there are speakers of all types. The City of Tampa Wastewater Treatment plant was even handing out free bags of locally produced fertilizers. (yes, bags of people-poo) Our club gets a great location every year, under huge oak trees. It's one of two yearly events we hold to make money and educate people about our favorite flowers. Jay and I love growing daylilies because they are fuss-free and come in literally thousands of varieties. It was such a beautiful weekend (until 2 PM Sunday) that we sold out of all but 4 of our daylilies before 10 AM Saturday. We had to call members to dig plants and bring them so we'd have more to sell. Two of our members from Plant City saved the day Saturday by bringing more plants for the afternoon, and two other members dug and divided plants from Brooksville and Redington Beach Saturday night to bring this morning so we'd have enough to sell on day 2. After such a horrible winter, Tampa gardeners came out in full force to replace all the plants that didn't survive this year's crazy-cold temperatures. I hung my gorgeous daylily quilt that my mother- and father-in-law designed and made for my birthday in our booth, and it was a huge draw. A lot of people came up to the booth just to look at the quilt, giving us a chance to tell people about daylilies and sell some plants. Thank you, Arlene and Ray!

It doesn't seem that long ago that Jay and I bought 4 daylilies from the club at Greenfest. Now we're the ones working the club booth, Jay is the vice president and we grow almost 80 varieties! As a way to advertise our show and sale on May 1, I had the idea for all of the club members to save the Daylily Journals, Magazines and Catalogs that we all get during the year and put stickers with our show and sale information on them. We handed out probably a few hundred of them to people who bought plants, so I'm hoping we'll get even more visitors to our sale this year. The Tampa Rose Society is joining us at our show venue, so we should get more traffic from the 'rose people,' too. I'm glad we found one more use for all that printed material.

When I wasn't in our booth selling plants and talking to people about daylilies, I roamed around to see the other vendors. The lady we bought our worm compost system was there (I think a post about our worms is probably going to be coming soon). I spent the majority of my mad money on heirloom veggie starts and herbal teas. I got 6 heirloom tomatoes of all colors, shapes and sizes, white and yellow carrots, a 3-foot squash, a purple and a 'chocolate' sweet pepper as well as herbs to round out the last 3 sections of my square foot herb garden. One of the herbs I got was "pukeless" cat grass. Only 1 out of 4 of our cats liked it, and it is (so far) pukeless as advertised. I'm going to do a post soon about heirloom seeds, too. It's so important (to me, anyway) to preserve the rare varieties and our food heritage. After this terribly busy weekend, we're finally going to get back to building the chicken coop next weekend. We really need to get it done so we can bring order and bring home our peeps!

We're going to a field trip WHERE?

2010-03-21T11:13:00.000-04:00

Yesterday our Daylily Club visited Mother's Organics Humus Farm for our monthly meeting. Mother's Organics takes yard waste from the City of Tampa and other places and turns it into compost. The city pays Mother's to take all the yard waste from the collection sites and brings it to their facility, where they put it through a series of grinders and let it age at proper temperatures until it turns into compost. The site is set on a slight grade, and all the water runs into ponds that are used to pump water back into the facility, so they are self sufficient and don't rely on any municipal water for their operation. It was really interesting and inspiring to see a company making a living doing something that is good for the environment. They let us bring buckets so we could all take home samples of the compost for use in our gardens. Nothing like free dirt to send a bunch of middle-aged gardeners scrambling. I've put a link here to all the pictures I took. Once I have a chance to go through the video I attempted to take with my FLIP, I'll amend this post and include that if there is any footage worth sharing.

Spring is Springing!

2010-03-19T11:06:00.000-04:00

I just went out to check on things in the garden and found baby kale, tatsoi and swiss chard sprouts, lots of strawberries trying to ripen, and the first tomato bud forming on Mr. Stripey heirloom plants! The beets, cauliflower, brussels sprouts and broccoli are all coming along nicely, too. I ate a serving of raw snow peas for lunch yesterday, and today there are more waiting to be harvested. I accidentally pulled out a baby swiss chard sprout because it looked just like all the baby maple trees sprouting from the helicopters dropped in from the neighbor's tree (oops!)

Over in the square foot garden, the herbs are planted except for a few squares, and the box for the melons finally has sprouts in it. The next step for those will be to build the frame for the trellis netting. It supposedly will hold a 10 - 15 pound melon on the structure. I hope we get to put that to the test.

Visit from Bert and Ernie

2010-03-17T16:26:00.000-04:00

This has nothing whatsoever to do with gardening or eating clean... not even my cats. Well, I could push it by saying that I wouldn't have known these little guys were visiting if Daisy, our "First Responder" cat hadn't alerted me to their presence, thereby making the event quasi-blog-worthy. Yesterday aftenoon these two little raccoons waddled into the driveway from the back yard, and scrambled up the little tree next to where I park my car. They were about half the size of my cats. It's a little Camphor tree, maybe 15 feet high. They looked so little and scared. They climbed up to the very top, one stepping on the face of the other at the end of their journey, trying to get comfy and secure. It was really windy, the one on the bottom had a better perch because he was in a little V in the tree. The one on top was basically hanging on by sheer willpower. Eventually they climbed back down and waddled across the driveway, into the front yard and off into the distance. I was on the phone with work when they left, and my headset cord didn't reach long enough for me to see where they went. Poor little guys. I hope they found food and a warm place to hang out.

Hydroponic Garden 2010

2010-03-14T18:40:00.000-04:00

This is the new location and setup for the hydroponic garden. Now we have two full sets of towers, and at the end are the two tall tomato-dedicated towers. You can see the corner of the chicken coop to the right of the hydrogarden, to give you some sense of perspective and placement relative to one another. We harvested some lettuce and snow peas for dinner tonight. Yes, I did eat some of the snow peas before they made it into the house. They are so good!

Chicken Coop Construction

2010-03-14T18:31:00.001-04:00

Here is the coop so far. We ended up taking a few weekends off due to family and work commitments, but we'll get back to it soon enough. The next steps are to install the roofing panels and build the hen house area with the nesting boxes. I'm hoping that once that part is complete, we'll be able to order our chicks. We can keep the brooding box in the hen house until the chicks are old enough to be in the coop, and until we get the whole coop enclosed in hardware cloth.
We had dinner with some friends who are genuine farm-folk and they were rolling their eyes at me talking about how we are planning names for our chickens, and how we're going to keep them even beyond their egg-laying years.

Hydroponic Garden, Round 1

2010-03-11T14:34:00.000-05:00

Tammy asked me to post the link to pictures of our hydroponic system. These are from the first round, last year. This year we've more than doubled the size, and moved it to a better (we hope) location in the yard. I'll work on getting pictures of that in the next few days. We're still involved in the building of our chicken coop, that the debris pile is right next to the hydro-garden, so I'd like to get some of that cleared away before we take pictures of it. What you'll see in this link (if this whole link-thing works) will be the process of putting together the system. It really was a quick. It took about an hour or so to set the whole thing up. Longer, of course, to build the frame we used as a trellis. Jay did all of the work. Bless his big heart!

Cari and Jay's Hydroponic Garden Version 1.0

Time to bring in the Ladybug Hit Squad

2010-03-11T11:57:00.001-05:00

I went out a few evenings ago to harvest some Tatsoi greens from the hydroponic garden. They were covered in aphids. I should have known, since we had ants all over the towers, and that's not a common occurrence for us. Ants love to eat the sugary secretions the aphids leave behind, and will swarm an aphid colony and actually try to protect them. Since we try to use only organic methods in our garden, I need to order some ladybugs from http://www.gardensalive.com/ to combat the problem. Ladybugs are voracious aphid-eaters. Tammy asked me why I don't get them from the local big-box home improvement store, but the few times I've seen them there, all the ladybugs were dead in the bags. I've had great success with the ones I've gotten from Gardens Alive. Maybe since Tammy lives in California where the ladybugs are grown, they have a fighting chance to stay alive at those stores.
Another way we combat aphids is to plant 'sacrificial' plants. We find plants that the aphids like better than our crops or other ornamentals like our daylilies and hibiscus. One of those is the Guara (commonly known as "Whirling Butterfly".) We buy a few of those and plant them near the plants we want to protect. Some of the aphids, not all, will flock to the Guara, leaving the other plants alone... this gives them a chance to fight the aphids on their own. The Ladybug Hit Squad will take care of the rest.

To keep ladybugs alive over several weeks, we put them in a little screened-in wooden box, with some wood shavings and a paper towel soaked in sugar water. The picture above is the box, but in this photo, it's housing a parsley plant with a bunch of Swallowtail butterfly caterpillars on it. I don't recommend using a little kids' Critter Keeper for the ladybugs. Trust me. The ladybugs are crafty and get out through the vents on the lid. It takes quite a while to wrangle 2000 of them loose in your living room. Anyhow..... the ladybugs will glom all over the paper towel to eat the sugar water. At night, right before sundown, I take out the paper towel (and any ladybugs that happen to be eating at the time) and put the paper towel on or near the aphid infested plant. Ladybugs won't fly at night, so they'll settle in. Come morning, the paper towel will be abandoned for their favorite food: aphids. I release some every few days, and can make a pint last a month. The directions say you can put them in the refrigerator, but I can't bring myself to do that to them. I just order more if I need more.

Day One, Tammy to the Rescue

2010-03-10T16:47:00.000-05:00

Almost in tears over this whole blog thing (I don't think it's at all intuitive) Tammy saves the day by doing it for me.. making things show up where I want them, and making them fit on the page.

thank you, Tammy!