Farm updates

Lost two more chickens, marek's or coccydiosis. Interesting that it was the pretty birds that died and the older breeds, the leghorns and the rhode island reds, that survived. Lost a Gold Laced Wyandotte and two Blue Andalusians.

Planted Buckwheat on about 4000 sf outside of the protected area. I had limed it already.

I limed and added some peat moss, not much, to the 2000 or so sf in the protected area. Today I planted spinach, mustard, collards and swiss chard in that area.

We got the okay for the road permit, so I'm going ahead with installing temporary electric service. I'll be trenching, hopefully, tomorrow.

Farm Update April 13, 2015

Bought an old Howard Rotavator tiller. Having the driveline fitted. Will till soon.

Picked up three Broad Breasted turkeys for Thanksgiving.

Transplanted a few black locusts.

Farm updates

bought an old Howard Rotavator tiller for the Kubota, $425; fixed the driveline for it, $112; new starter for tractor, $330; purchased five foot harrow and 3-point implement piece, $150; Old useable trailer, $295.

Yeesh, it adds up, even when you're buying old, used stuff. $1,312 total.

Tilled the large area inside the fencing, added lime and peat moss, tilled it again. Going to harrow it but the hydraulic system is making noise. I'm hoping I can simply add fluid and keep working. A new pump for the old Kubota will probably be $400. Still, that's a lot cheaper than a new tractor.

Lost a chicken today. Not sure why. It was just keeled over dead when I got to the farm. All other chickens seem healthy. No poisonous snakes up here, so I have no idea why it died.

Farm updates

Wester Tent Caterpillars

Today we found these voracious beasts, above, on one of our Satsuma Plum trees. They're Western Tent Caterpillars. They will eat every leaf on a tree, every tree. They especially love Choke Berry. I'll have to find their natural predator and plant some habitat for the good guys.

Megan, Kahena, Henry and I were busy planting hops rhizomes (for glorious beer). Hopefully, in a few months we'll have some Chinook, Willamette, Tettnang, Centennial and Nugget nuggets to make glorious beer (which is glorious).

We intend to build trellises for the vines so they create a natural pergola to dine under--while drinking glorious beer, of course.

Juana's Orange Amaranth. It's a grain
plant and good fodder for animals.

I also transplanted about 50 Juana's Orange Amaranth from the hoop house to the farm. I didn't have water for the sprouts as I was relying on the predictions of Weather Underground that we'd have rain tonight. But by the time I'd dug the trenches, filled with dirt, and lovingly placed each sprout, the weather predictions had changed to clear skies and, ominously, 'may freeze'. 

Water helps plants survive freezes so I bucketed some from a full swale and, well, we'll see who is alive tomorrow.

The boss and her crew

Speaking of untimely demises.., the big gal in the photo above is a Bourbon Red turkey we got about three weeks ago. She (or he, I'm not good at sexing) is the only survivor of a cadre of four. I was warned that turkeys are extra hard to start so I kept the first batch warm, really warm, too warm, apparently. It is enough to say that there are going to be three more little creature souls waiting for me, along with a host of ants and bugs, to explain myself on the other side of the great divide.

Royal Palm turkeys

Here are a couple of the replacements. They're Royal Palms. Some of the problems with heirloom turkeys (heirloom pretty much means not big breasted, not modern industrial breeds) are that they're a lot smaller, take longer to mature and they can fly. But the advantages are that they're smarter, hardier, and some, like Royal Palms and Bourbon Reds, are great foragers.

These turkeys will all be housed under netting, so flying won't be a problem. And they're going on bug patrol so they'll earn their keep.

A mature Royal Palm Tom

The surprise was when we put the new chicks in with the older Bourbon Red and she immediately took to protecting them. I was expecting to have to concoct another enclosure to keep them separated until they were old enough to defend themselves, but I got lucky. I think the Bourbon Red was really lonely.

Heirloom Hulless Oats

A couple of weeks ago I planted some hulless oats from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds. I can't figure out how to rotate the image. Aargh. But the oats have already sprouted. There weren't many in the pack, frankly, but that's what you get when you go boutique heirloom. I'm hoping I can save seed this year, maybe next, and start to build up a stock for the Zombie Apocalypse. 

I'm trying hulless oats because they are supposedly easier to process and are also high in protein, thus covering two necessities: enabling laziness and providing veggie protein.

Lazy Composting

Gardening should neither be difficult nor expensive. If it is then you're doing it wrong (or maybe it's too big).

However, there are lots of companies and websites that will try to convince you that you need stuff that will make gardening both expensive and difficult.

For instance, the big plastic barrel supposedly for composting pictured below.

This thing is useless. It's actually standing where you should be composting, directly into the soil below it. If I had bought one of these I suspect that it would be sitting, unused and decaying, taking up valuable real estate.

For awhile, before I moved to really lazy composting, I did the routine where you have to turn the pile and monitor your compost, add this or that, move this or that. Yeesh--what a waste of time.

I suspect many people have stopped composting simply because the 'experts' have chimed in on how difficult and important it is. Meh. Don't listen.

Here's how we do it:

Just bury your organic material directly in the ground. The worms will eat everything. Your soil will become rich and awesome over the course of a few years.

The hardest part of my composting style is the very first time you do it because it will require digging two holes, one to put the compost from your kitchen into today and the other to put tomorrow's compost into tomorrow. Each time you compost after that you use the dirt from the hole you're digging for the next day to cover the compost you're currently burying.

Dig the holes in succession, in a line, in your garden and over time you will directly compost your entire garden. I have dug holes where I previously composted only months earlier and found nothing but the usual suspects, egg shells (no I don't grind them or do anything to them but bury them), onions and rinds. A year later even all of these are completely gone.

For years I have composted everything organic, and i mean everything--paper napkins, meat, onions, citrus rinds--directly into the garden. I have nothing to show for it but lots of worm poop. And, you know, we love worm poop.

As far as varmints digging up your compost. I use an electric fence and it is one of the best investments in technology I've ever made. But a dog would work, too, as long as you can keep it from the garden.

There is no debate, vaccinate

I'll discuss pretty much anything, with some measure of decorum, with anybody.

Abortion? Let's talk. 

Nuclear Energy? There are reasonable arguments on both sides.

Vaccines? This is where my blood boils. I flip my lid. Here's a response I wrote to someone who wanted to have a 'reasonable' discussion with me on the issue:

"You're a perpetrator who should be prosecuted for endangering the lives of the most vulnerable children in our society."

Dear Sir,

Thanks for admitting you're a freerider, more than willing to 'reevaluate' if things get worse. I suspect every anti-vaxxer will 'reevaluate' once diseases might infect their own lives.

Thanks for the discussion. I'm sure your arguments mean a lot to parents of children with cancer who cannot get their vulnerable children vaccinated.

I have zero desire to get along with you or any of your type. What I want is for you to take up your most basic social responsibility, to have the most rudimentary courtesy, it takes to have your children vaccinated.

Barring that, I'd like you to keep your children out of public. And, if you leave the country, then you should stay out of the country.

But, 'yah freedom to vector vanquished diseases back into the society you're taking advantage of (until maybe it threatens your kids)' right?

Every time my children get their shots I remind myself how lucky I am that I'll never have to watch one of them suffer some deadly disease. But it also really pisses me off that I live with a group of people so rude that they're willing to let other people keep the defenses up while they lolly-gag around in illogical, self-serving narcissism.

No, we can't have a reasonable discussion--it would be akin to having a discussion with a climate change denier where all of the facts, all of the history, every available observation, 99.99 percent of the science, and every statistic is on my side and yet I have to pretend like you have a real argument to make.

Nah, dude. You want to see nature in action? How about not vaccinating your kids and then taking 'em on a tour of the Central African Republic or India. We'd see how you felt about vaccines real quick, I suspect.

Got smallpox? Nope. Why? worldwide effort to vaccinate.

Still got polio? Yep. Why? A bunch of morons got scared of vaccines literally months before polio was wiped off the face of the earth. Thank ignorance, self-righteousness and unreasonable fear for vaccines.

Measles is one of the leading causes of death among young children even though a safe and cost-effective vaccine is available. Why? Because of people like you. Nope, I'm not your buddy.

You're a perpetrator who should be prosecuted for endangering the lives of the most vulnerable children in our society. No, we can't have a reasonable discussion and I refuse to even pretend that you have valid points for fear of falsely giving them any legitimacy.

Take this from a kale eating, no-chemical-gardening, vegetarian: Go back to nature, dude, nature will eat you alive.

Green fencing

The image below of a portion of our farm, from google maps, shows fencing helps regenerate soil fertility.

The three light colored spots directly to the left and
below the hexagon are fruit trees, and two brown spots
near the lower right edge of the photo are Japanese Maples.

In the photo the small hexagon in the upper left corner, 750 square feet in area, is markedly greener than the rest of the field. It was fenced off. The rest of the acreage is open to any critter. This photo was taken in the late, dry, summer of 2014.

We watered the trees, but we also watered trees in other areas that do not show similar increases in greenness. It appears that the fencing ended grazing pressure from rabbits, turkey, and deer. The longer grass, bushes and trees shade the soil, keeping it cooler and more moist, setting up a soil creation feedback system--more protection more green, more green more protection, etc...

We have since added considerably to this fenced area, now up to over 10,000 sf. This photo makes me want to fence my entire five acres.