Salvaging A Sad Day on the Homestead May 18, 2013

Going into this weekend, I knew I did not have a clear plan for how the days would unfold.  There were lots of options on the table…the book club potluck at the park at 4pm today and/or the Wild Foods class in Asheville on Sunday.  I was up in the air on both of those as I knew I have a bunch of stuff around here that needs my attention, but who wants to miss out on such good times, right?!  Hitting the Madison County Farmer’s and Artisan’s Market and my Weight Watchers meeting today were the only givens.  So, even though I like to have a clearer understanding of what my weekend agenda will include, I fell asleep last night confident that things would just fall into place on their own.

Boy did they.

I woke up late, still sore from overdoing chores the previous day.  The day was grey and pouring rain.  Obviously I was not going to be able to continue staining the deck and picnic table so fine, I would just switch gears and plan on focusing on various overdue housekeeping tasks once I got home from errands.  I was good with that.  That was a good, productive way to spend a rainy day, right?

Then while I was on my way home I got horrible text from hubby telling me the quail were gone.  Apparently something came and removed all the big heavy rocks away from the edges of the coop and then dug under the hardware cloth to get at the last 5 of our (well-loved) quail.  Nothing remained except their otherwise intact coop and some scattered eggs shells. This unexpected tragedy set the very depressive tone around here today with everyone sort of moping around sadly.  The husband who took care of the quail day to day was especially hard hit and I was left feeling like a failure (as usual) because I did not protect them better or something.  I often feel this way when things go wrong….like it’s my fault…like I coulda/shoulda/woulda done something better if I had not been so distracted by all the other things life includes…

Needless to say, I was in no mood to head out to a fun book club or class and instead knew it would be best to just stay home and handle the undone stuff around here in attempt to make myself feel more on top of things.

I have managed to clear away a lot of clutter that was building up, do up the dishes and pots, tend to the cats and chickens, handle the recycling and trash, and get on top of the laundry (despite having no dryer on a rainy day).  Now that I feel more on top of things in the house, I plan to finish up a crochet gift I am working on and then start the next book I plan to read, Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv.

Funny how life has a way of determining how you spend your time whether or not you’ve made other plans.

My other family members have finally started to emerge into the freshly cleaned common areas and there is now talk of going to see the new Star Trek movie in 3-D tonight.  After a day full or reality, I could so go for some sci-fi.

May 1, 2013

I’ve been so busy.  Lots of people like being busy and arrange their lives in such a way that they are always busily and happily buzzing back and forth between commitments.  I am not one of those people.  Whenever my life gets too busy, or “big” as I’ve been known to describe it, I start to fail.  I start to feel overwhelemed and stressed and then my performance with it all suffers.  Perhaps there is a way for me to work on this so that I can be both busy and still highly functional, but until I figure out how (and if) I can make that happen, I feel it is best to just recognize when I start to feel this way and then make immediate efforts to scale back on commitments.

Luckily for me, some of my recent commitments are past me and a couple others are soon to be as well, so I can see relief on the horizon.  In fact today, I experienced some in the form of a midday nap.  Of course I could have and probably should have been doing any number of other things, but I was near meltdown mode and knew it was best to just power down for a bit and recharge…wow, what’s with those electronic metaphors there?!….hmmm

Anywho… my nap helped calm and rejuvenate me and so did re-watching the lovely little Back to Eden Film.  If you have not yet seen it, I HIGHLY recommend you set aside the time to as soon as possible, especially if you like to garden and grow your own food.  It is just under 2 hours long of pure inspiration!  I think you’ll find it time well spent.  You may want to have a notebook handy to make notes on ideas and concepts you don’t want to forget.  Honestly, though, the beauty of this film is that all the information shared is so logical and practical, you may not even need a notebook as most if not all of it will just soak into your noggin.

Being reminded as I was about this film today was perfect timing in that this week is my LAST chance at getting cold weather crops in the ground with any hope of seeing them fruit before the heat comes and causes them all to wilt or go to seed.  I dig gardening (pun intended), but I have just been so plumb exhausted as of late, I’ve been worried about how I was going to muster the energy to prepare and plant all 8 (4×8′) raised beds in time.  I must admit, I’ve been a bit intimidated about the idea of managing the largest vegetable and herb gardens I’ve ever had, not to mention a small fruit orchard in need of much TLC….oh, and exactly how do you mow lawn on a slope?! …but I digress.

I recently took “before” pictures of all my yard/garden projects.  I think my camera batteries must have died before I was able to get any really good shots of the raised beds because this is the only one I could find.

Elephant and regular garlic.

The bibb lettuce growing forward in the shot started to go to seed and then got eaten by my chickens who mercilessly broke into this bed.  No real harm done as you see they did not touch the garlic, which is what I would have cried to lose.  The garlic is doing nicely with no attention from me since fall.  The garlic takes up only 1/4 of 1 garden bed.  All other beds are empty.  Well, that’s not entirely true as we noticed some asparagus popping up in one of the other beds so I’m pretty sure we’ve got some asparagus root bundles down deep in that one.

The good, no, great news is that there is really nothing else on my schedule for tomorrow so I will be able to dedicate lots of time in the garden.  Unless it’s a torrential downpour, I plan to be out there rain or shine putting to bed some cold weather crop veg starts I got at Reems Creek Nursery (my new favorite nursery).  If I have an abundance of time and energy and favorable weather, I’ll also plan to direct sow some other veg seeds as well.

One small stumbling block… I don’t yet have a garden plan illustrating what goes where, but I intend to whip one out bright and early tomorrow over some tea.

I have mulch! March 14, 2013

Look at what I managed to find up in my new neck of the woods!

Perhaps this is the most boring looking photo you’ve ever seen posted on a blog but it is beautiful to me!  You see, back in SWFL I literally covered my property in mulch!  Mulch was my key to building wonderful, living soil overtop of the dead, sandy stuff most folks call soil in SWFL.  Down there, the local tree service companies will deliver whole truck loads of mulch to you for FREE because it saves them having to pay to offload it somewhere.  It’s a win-win.  I’ve heard people warn against what all might be in the free mulch (weed seeds, pests, long straggly pieces of wood, possible chemical residues from whatever was used on those plants whilst growing, etc.) but as I saw it, I NEEDED mulch and free is FREE, right?!  So I was willing to take the possible bad with all the obvious good.  Know what?  I never regretted taking advantage of that resource.  In fact, I can’t help but sing it’s praises!  It’s worth mentioning that I felt way better about mulching with recycled tree “waste” especially since  lots of it was chipped up invasive species such as Brazilian pepper and melaleuca.  That seemed to be a whole lot more sustainable than buying plastic bags full of (artificially dyed red) Cypress mulch, made from a native tree species, threatened enough by over-development and lack of habitat.

If you do not currently use mulch on your property, and want to know why I am so ga-ga over it, you may want to spend a little time reading up on the benefits of mulch.  In a nutshell, I was sold on mulching all my plants after seeing the huge difference it made when I spread a 4″ deep layer around the drip zone of a pathetic kapok tree I was trying to save.  This poor tree, a native of rainforests, was so  stressed from lack of water year after year prior to my buying the property it was on, that it had gone dormant and was deep in survival mode.  I mulched it right before rainy season and its spiny grey trunk very quickly swelled, tripled in size and turned green by the end of that season!  That fall was the first time it ever produced it’s huge purple blooms!

Now that daffodils are popping up all over around here, it is clear that springtime is right around the corner!  This property came with 8 raised vegetable beds, a huge herb garden, a number of flower beds and a smattering of various fruit trees, bushes and vines, all of which desperately need to be weeded, pruned and mulched if they are expected to produce well.  Since the soil here is largely clay and does not drain well or provide enough loam and fertility on its own, I was worried about where I would get all the mulch I needed to surround the plants and trees, cover the beds and start building the soil.

I had heard from Madison County Extension office that the local electric company, French Broad, offers free mulch behind its facility in Marshall, but you have to haul it yourself and I do not have a truck or trailer to haul anything.  I wondered if there were tree services that would offer free mulch and deliver it, too.

As luck would have it, I was driving down the street in wonderfully weird Weaverville (just south of home) and what do I see in front of me but a big ol’ tree service truck full of mulch!  I called the number on the side of the truck and asked the fellow who answered if they ever offered free mulch.  He said YES!  I asked if they could deliver it.  He said YES!  Since they are based out of Asheville and would need to cover some ground to get to me to dump the load, he did ask for $25 delivery fee to cover gas which I felt was well worth it!  Not even an hour later, the driver braved my gravel driveway, mucky with rain and set on a grade with his big ol’ truck, turned around at the top like a boss and dumped all that wonderful mulch right where I asked!

I was so happy, I wanted to hug him, but I refrained on the account of not wanting to dissuade him from coming back in the future to deliver me more loads!  He said he’d keep my number for when they are in the area again and I told him I’d keep his in case I found myself ready for more before I heard from them again.

I’m just pleased as punch that I not only have a bunch of mulch to work with already, but that I also have a new contact for future deliveries as well!  Here’s to the start of a hopefully long and happy relationship with Herron’s Tree Service!

 

Tilling the soil and other benefits January 11, 2012

Lu and his girls are happy to help till my garden soil.

It has been my experience that contrary to what lots of people think, chickens are great for gardens.  They really are.  Sure, chickens are opportunists and given the chance they will happily devour your seedlings, greens and pretty much anything juicy and red (berries,ripe tomatoes, etc.).  and if you wanna see a feeding frenzy, break out some grapes!  …So, I am not suggesting you allow them unsupervised access to your edible beds (hence the bird netting you can see in the photo), but I do think it is important to give credit where credit is due.  There are lots of reasons to keep backyard chickens. Let me tell you about a few of my favorites when it comes to my garden.

Most folks know that chicken manure is great as organic, all-natural fertilizer.  Just be sure to study up on how to properly compost and cure the manure before application so as to not burn your plants or lose valuable nutrients as gases.  A handy thing to realize is that you can compost their manure with their bedding at the same time!  So just scoop the coop and use it all as compost!

In this pic you can see my Rhode Island Red (RIR) rooster, Lu, and his hens happily pecking and scratching away at the soil in one of my raised beds.  In doing so, they skillfully and quickly rid the soil of pests, weeds and weed seeds.  If you click on the pic for a larger view, you will notice they are in there with a few heirloom tomato plants which they don’t bother at all.  See, chickens tend to taste everything but will not continue to eat things that taste bad to them.  Since tomatoes are in the nightshade family, every part of their leaves and stems are poisonous to chickens and humans alike.  What’s really cool, is that typical tomato-eating insects like the hornworm are absolutely scrumptious to the chickens so if any of those suckers show up let’s just say the gals fight over them.  The chickens have keen eyesight and will spot even the tiniest of insect eggs and with the most exact precision they can peck it off a leaf without any damage to the leaf!  So you can consider them organic pest control!  And of course scratching the soil to get at the yummy buried bugs also helps to aerate the soil which will increase oxygen to the roots and loosens the soil to allow the plant to thrive.

I feel so strongly in the basic and sustainability benefits of keeping backyard chickens (even in suburban or urban environments), I jumped on board the local initiative to get the local ordinances changed.  When the spearhead of the movement needed to pass the torch for personal reasons, I guess I was her main active supporter and so she asked me to take up the gauntlet.  This is one reason I have not blogged more regularly this past year.  I have just been too busy!  It’s kind of ironic really, because my city actually allows me to keep chickens since they are for educational purposes (we homeschool and my boys are doing a 4H chicken project).  Other parts of Lee County will not allow it at all on residential lots!  So, you may say this is not really even my battle, but I guess whole-heartedly believing in the benefits of backyard chickens is what keeps me going.  If you want to learn more about my efforts, please visit the website LeeChickens or our Backyard Chickens of Lee County Facebook page.  (A special thank you goes out to my very capable web designer/manager who shall remain nameless (but is nonetheless appreciated) who keeps all the technical BYC stuff in order.)

Oh, and I have not forgotten that I promised that my next post would be AFTER pics of my backyard.  Today was sort of gloomy and would not have made the best pics, so just trust I will post them sometime soon!

A New Update for a New Year January 5, 2012

I must apologize for disappearing into cyberspace and not posting to my blog as of late.  I could list all manner of excuses, some perfectly legitimate, but instead I will just let you know that I plan on continuing with this blog because I really do like the idea of chronicling my efforts at backyard sustainability here for anyone interested to follow.  I see it as a great self-reflection tool, too, because while there are times we feel like we are not moving forward with our dreams, the truth is we may yet still be, just at small, incremental and almost imperceptible rates and it is therefore good to look back at snapshots of our projects along the way.

I thought it would be fun to show some pics that Brent just discovered on an old camera card.  It’s a blast from my past of our backyard when we first moved in in 1999.  Alot has changed and as you see pics of my place now I think the differences will be just as obvious to you as they are to me.

Here is good shot of the back (north side) of the house in 1999.  As you can see, there was nothing butt-up against the house but sod.  Two of the three plants that can be seen are ones I planted before I learned about natives or edibles.  One is aloe and the other looks to be Dieffenbachia.  The latter is long gone but the former remains in several clumps found all over my front and back yards!  The third viney looking one that is leftmost is a pathos that the previous owner accidentally planted in the yard near the back door by leaving a potted plant to overgrow its container and spread through the back lawn.  We are still fighting that invasive vine to this day!  It’s a great houseplant, clearing the air of toxins inside a home.  It just does not belong spreading wild and out-competing native species.  In the distance you can see the trunk of a mature  slash pine in the adjacent lot, which was later brutally removed by accident when there was a misunderstanding about which lot was getting developed.  I was sad to see that tree go but at least it gave me a volunteer sapling in my yard before it was taken down.

Our big backyard 1999

This photo was taken looking straight back into the yard from the back doors, which were sliding glass doors off the dining room that opened onto the lawn directly.  You can clearly see our only existing neighbor’s house at the time.  Logan is searching for Easter eggs by the mahogany sapling we planted.  Autumn and Logan each got a mahogany sapling from the city as a reward for picking up trash in our neighborhood.  That was our first foray into planting natives.  Unfortunately, this sapling snapped off at the trunk during Hurricane Charley a few years later and was never able to recover.

NW corner of our big backyard 1999

This next photo shows the NW corner of our backyard at the time.  One of the biggest reasons we liked this property was because the house sat as far forward on the lot as allowable leaving a huge back yard.  The backyard was already fenced, too, which was a big plus.  Beyond the fence you can see a huge clump of invasive Brazilian pepper surrounding a native slash pine.  The pepper has been cut back and cleared many times but I am sad to say, all these years later it still remains.   The big bush in our yard was a philodendron which we removed when I started getting into planting natives.  At first I was under the impression that because it was not a native species I needed to remove it.  In this case, although philodendron are not native, they are not considered invasive so as it turns out I could have left it in as it is okay to have non-invasive exotics in your yard.  The kids would go underneath it and use it as a “clubhouse” but removing it made way for some slash pines of our own which I think is a good trade off.  Funny story… it took us forever to get that thing out of the ground but we did not have nearly as hard a time getting it out as we would have had it not been partially root bound by a pot that it had been planted in!  It was as if someone just took a potted philodendron, pot and all and stuck it in the ground!  Silly people…

NE corner of our big backyard 1999

This last photo shows the NE corner of our big backyard in 1999.  Present in the photo is the home of our only existing neighbor at the time.  The palms outside the fence are theirs and the small clump of bananas inside the fence was the only plant on that side of our yard.  That clump slowly grew up over the years and even produced a few times.  The fruit was the freshest, best-tasting banana I’ve ever had (I wish I knew the exact variety).  I am sad to say that my chickens apparently felt the same way about the whole plant and slowly ate away at the clump last year until the last leafless trunk fell over on itself and then they ate that too!  Lesson learned, chickens LOVE banana plants!

Spoiler alert: my next blog entry will compare some recently taken photos of the same angles of my backyard!  It is my hopes that records like this will prove to me that I am making progress towards my dreams and goals, even if just a little at a time!

Sunshine causes a ruckus August 3, 2011

Sunshine seen brooding over a few marked eggs.

Sunshine and her peep

Some of you already know this, but my buff cochin bantam hen had gone broody a few weeks ago.  Well, it must have been a good 3 weeks (21 days) ago now because when Brent went to put up the chickens last night and collect eggs, he heard a distinct peeping!  First we found Sunshine tucked in the far right back corner of the  coop where she was determinedly nestled down in the fine nest she had made for herself.  Upon further investigation, we found one little darling peep bouncing around her mama! What a good mama she seems to be, too!  She is still diligently sitting on two more eggs so we will wait a couple more days to see if anyone else emerges!

Pipsqueak (silver Sebright hen) is in the foreground, Zooxanthellae (brown leghorn hen) in the background

Actually, I think it was our other bantam silver Sebright hen, Pipsqueak, who originally carved out that corner for a nest and tried to sit broody over some eggs.  Brent kept fetching them from her every day and so she eventually gave up.  When Sunshine next went broody, Brent took pity on her and let her keep three of her own eggs as an experiment to see what would happen.  I mean, of course it seems obvious what would happen but it is really seems like such a miraculous thing to just sort of happen on its own without us big important (meddling) humans helping things along!

The popularity of this nest for laying makes it difficult for us to determine whose eggs she is sitting on because many of our chickens like to come along and shove Sunshine out of the way to lay their own eggs each day.  Because of their size and color, we know for sure they are either hers or our other bantam cochin, Cinnamon’s.  Each day we would collect all the other eggs and leave only the three cochin eggs that were marked.  This made it easy not confuse the newly laid cochin eggs with the ones she had already begun incubating.

We were not sure whether to leave her and her peep in the coop among the other hens overnight or not because we were afraid they may injury or kill the new little one.  We figured we had three options.  1. We could leave them put and hope for the best.  Since chickens are well known for pecking order disputes in which the weakest get creamed, the risks of this choice are obvious.  2.  We could remove Sunshine, the peep, the nest and the rest of the eggs and put them in the large dog kennel set up to be a coop of their own.  The problems with this choice were, where to put the kennel and how hard would it be to reintegrate Sunshine and her peeps with the rest of the flock in a couple weeks?  3. Finally, we could try to fashion a coop within the main coop so that they could have protection but still be in close proximity to the rest of the flock to ease estrangement issues.  We were losing light and the mosquitoes were biting so we settled on option 1.  Afterall, after dark our chickens seem to do little more than sleep anyways so we figured they would be safe until morning …and they were!

The girls gather to complain.

An irritated Eyebrows

This morning we left the other hens out to free-range as per usual and we let Sunshine stay on her nest with her new peep beside her.  This worked out fine until we let the roosters out.  Seems they have gotten in the habit of paying Sunshine repeated visits as she is helpless to fight them off in her current state.  We managed to chase all but one of them off.  Mr. Frizzle,  one of our white silkie roos seems to have taken it upon himself to hang around and keep Sunshine company.  Perhaps he’s the dad?

The next problem arose when it was time for the hens to lay for the day.   Those that usually like to share Sunshine’s nest were persistent at doing so again today.  We did not want them back there in case they would accidentally or purposely hurt the peep.

The make-shift partition.

Brent had to erect a make-shift chicken wire fence to portion off the back end of the coop to try to provide the new little family with some privacy.  Eyebrows, our Ameraucana was not at all pleased and tried repeatedly to force her way past the fencing in order to make it to her usual nesting spot.  You’ll notice in the picture that we set her up with her own feed and water station.  We were poorly prepared for this hatch and therefore did not have any chick starter mash on hand.  Egg layer is only good for laying birds so we mashed up some game bird feed (high protein) and filled the feeder with that.  Brent was lucky enough to observe Sunshine showing her peep how to use the feeders!  She seemed to catch on pretty quickly, too!  The nice thing about this set-up is that it allows Sunshine and the peep to be exposed to the rest of the flock day and night in a way that everyone can become accustomed to the sight and sound of the new addition so that when Sunshine is ready to venture out to free-range with her clutch, there will be less likelihood of integration issues.

Seeing as I live in a suburban setting and already have my hands (and coop) full of 9 assorted hens and 5 assorted roosters, some people have asked why on the good green Earth would we even entertain the idea of raising up more peeps?!  I guess it really comes down to sustainability again.  Chickens don’t lay eggs forever.  In fact, the best laying years for chickens occur until they are about 3 depending on breed and after that their egg production begins to drop off noticeably.  So if you want to guarantee a constant supply of eggs, you have to plan to replace your flock every couple few years.  And of course in order to replace your flock you can either buy peeps from suppliers or you can let your chickens raise their own.  This time around we did not need to raise up more to replace our current flock yet but we wanted to experiment to see just how easy it would be.  As you can see, there are some logistics to be worked out, but otherwise the process seems to largely take care of itself!

I am no quitter July 24, 2011

I may be a lot of things (and right now my husband and kids think what I am is unreasonable), but what I am sure of is I am no quitter.

There's a hole in our top board, Dear Liza, Dear Liza

Here are the ruined contents of our brood box.

We went into the beehive today because we noticed a few days ago something was really amiss.  During the last week of pouring rain, a flow of honey, water and dead bees was seen puddling from the inside and covering the bees’ front porch.  Upon closer inspection, we noticed a huge hole in the wooden top of the box.  Rain must have been pouring in all those days, flooding out the bees.  We also saw tons of small hive beetle larvae and even a few wax moth larvae.  We could not find a queen or any brood at all.  For anyone who keeps bees, you’ll know things are sounding really bleak right about now.  In fact, Brent and the kids think its best if we just give up on this hive, clean it all out and let the rest of the bees die off.  Afterall, we can always start up again whenever we are ready to in the future, right?

Here you can see the ruined brood comb and some of the small hive beetle larvae.

The emptied but still sopping wet hive body.

Well, I was watching the bees closely while we were out there taking everything apart and assessing the extensive damage.  I noticed that although this was like a hopeless bee Armageddon, the bees just didn’t quit.  Of course, it’s their biological imperative to keep going.  I saw foragers flying back to the destroyed nest with baskets full of pollen and bellies full of nectar.  I saw cleaning bees fanning their wings to try to dry out the sopping wet hive parts.  I saw undertaker bees carrying off the remains of far too many comrades.  I felt like I was one of them doing my part to rescue the hive. I must share a similar imperative…

I knew the remaining bees, who were far fewer in number were going to need to scale back in order to make housekeeping and guard duties easier on them.  There was no way they were going to be able to manage a full 10-frame hive body, let alone additional honey supers.  First I cleared out all the damaged hive parts, fed the beetles and larvae to my hens, and set the soaked wooden parts in the sun to dry.  Then I salvaged 3 frames of uncontaminated honey from one super and set those up in a dry super along with 7 other frames that were dry and free of pests and offered various amount of old comb that they could re-purpose to rebuild as brood comb.  I set this super up on a clean/dry bottom board and topped it with a clean, dry lid.  Next, I ran in the house and placed an overnight order for a new queen bee.  I reviewed my basic beekeeping books and discovered that based on the averages of their life cycle, and how long they have likely been without a queen and new brood, the colony would likely fail anyway, even with a new queen.  Without new brood to emerge there will be no one to replace the elderly bees as they die off, so there will be no one to attend the new queen when she arrives and no one left to defend or tend the hive.  It was obvious I needed some capped brood to give to them.

A super sized Krakatoa (no pun intended).

Meet the survivors. You've got to admire thier tenacity.

Time to call in the cavalry.  I contacted a fellow-beekeeper friend who referred me to another fellow-beekeeper friend of hers who graciously offered me 2-3 frames of capped brood to insert into my nuc!  These reinforcements along with the queen who is on her way may help to reestablish our hive!  Thank goodness for good people and local fellow beekeepers who are there to help.

So here’s my plan:  I will go over to her farm tomorrow at noon to get the brood frames inserted in to my 5-frame nuc.  I will then bring the nuc home and open it in it’s new location.  I’ll spritz the nuc and nuc frames and any bees on them with a simple syrup to mask the scent differences and I’ll do the same to the frames and bees in the super and then I’ll set them up together so that our bees get used to the new frames of brood and will be apt to tend to them as needed after that.  I expect the queen to arrive Tuesday morning and I’ll be ready to insert her into the hive immediately.  By Friday, I’ll open up the hive again to verify that the queen has been released and to see if she’s managed to lay any new eggs.  If all goes well, and the nuc thrives, I will look to move them back into a 10-frame hive body at that time.  Wish us luck!

Addendum: No sooner did we put the new hive back together, it started pouring rain again.  I am happy to know we did what we could to provide them with a dry, safe haven if nothing else.

Highlights from house hunting June 13, 2011

Autumn in High Springs

As much as we like the home we’ve created for ourselves here in SW FL, we are highly considering a move to a place that can better accommodate our love of animals.  We are trying to find the right balance between something with high speed internet and something zoned Ag.  Finding the right property is harder than you think!  North central Florida has our attention right now as both hubby and I attended UF in Gainesville and we like the progressive edge to the culture there.  We might even find ourselves in the midst of a whole population of tree-hugging, nature lovers just like us!  Gosh, what would that be like? …:daydreams:…

We’ve spent a serious amount of time looking , and so far we have not found that one place where everything just falls in place.  It’s daunting at times, but we will keep looking.  The special place for us has got to be out there, right?!

 

Here are some highlights from one of the last house-hunting trips we took:

One day, we'll live out in the country...

...in a home with a picket fence...

...a swing in a breezy spot...

and a front porch with rockers where we can sip fresh lemonade...

...and enjoy the view.

...

We'll have the best neighbors...

...

...

We'll be able to grow all of our favorite things...

...

...and keep all our favorite animals...

...and still be close enough to walk or bike to town...

...where we can visit friends...

...who'll keep us company while we grab a treat.

A new home for our quail! June 3, 2011

Last month a generous friend of ours took pity on us for losing a few of our newly purchased  quail peeps.  Apparently the feed store we got them at had a bad shipment that ended up with many casualties.  We lost a handful of bantam peeps as well as some quail.  Our friend had just had major success rearing a big batch of quail eggs in her home incubator and offered us 30 quail if we wanted them!  IF we wanted them?!  HA!  Of course we wanted them!

We brought them home in the cardboard box she delivered them to us in.  They were overcrowded and messy.  We knew we had to find a better home and fast so we set up the large dog kennel for them that we had previously used as a brooder bin for our chicken peeps back in December 2010.  I thought we had taken a pic of this stage, but apparently not because there is none to be found.  It soon became obvious that they are crazy, messy eaters who often dump their water bowl and poop alot!  Living in the kennel long-term, running around in their own mess was not going to work.

We thought we could toss them in chicken run 1.0 and then just enclose one end of it for them to take shelter in at night, but I found out from my research they unlike chickens, they will not put themselves to bed at night in a coop and in fact, don’t use nesting boxes or roosts at all!  They prefer the cover of plants and although they do have some flight ability, they can not sustain flight and are instead considered ground birds.

Here are some pics Griff took from inside the run.  You can see the quail happily enjoying the dirt and grass and sunshine.  I swear that if you click to enlarge the pics, you can see some smiling!

Although the quail enjoyed running free in this structure all day, we could not leave them in it overnight as it has no bottom and predators could easily dig under to get at them under cover of dark.  We thought about screening off the bottom for them, but that would interfere with their ability to scratch and dirt bathe.

We took to setting them free in the run each day and scooping them up each night to replace them in the kennel which stayed on the screened in lanai.  This gave us the perfect chance to clean out the smelly kennel each day.  It’s not hard work but does create a daily amount of waste that we add to our compost pile.  These guys are so messy, you are going to want to change the bedding regularly and not just let them reuse it day to day.

The problem with this schedule is that we needed a person small enough to climb into the quail run but mature enough to capture them without hurting them.  Let me tell you, these little buggers are fast and accomplished escape artists!  Handing them off to the person waiting outside the run to put them back in the kennel was no easy effort!  Since he is zipper-thin, Logan/13 was able to help with this job a a few times, but most times it has fallen to Griffin/9 to have to do.  We promised him it would be temporary and set out to make plans for another option.

Since we are planning to sell our house and move soon, we did not want to invest the time and effort in building another wooden/screened coop/run right away.  Afterall, hubby has alot of other things to finish up around here and we already have 3 chicken structures in the backyard that we need to ditch before we start showing the house! I did check online for used or prebuilt, portable quail or chicken coop/runs but had no luck.

In the meantime, I was making plans to bring our bantam golden sebright rooster, Burnt Toast, home from his sabbatical at our friend’s farm in Brooksville where he has spent the last couple months, so I was also browsing around online to find a large bird cage I could put him in at night so that he would not wake the neighbors each morning with his high-pitched crowing (which is what earned him the sabbatical in the first place).  I found a gal local to me who had a nice deal on a large bird cage in nice condition so I grabbed it up and when I saw how easy it was to clean the tray at the bottom, I thought it might be good to try it for use with the quail community!

Here they are in their new digs!  The large cage detaches from its rolling stand and has 2 large doors on the front of the cage that lock shut.  There are 2 smaller doors on the sides of the cage at the top.  There is a removable tray at the bottom that will be easy to line and clean.  The wire bottom is also removable for ease of cleaning.  We added a hanging plant, a perch and some boxes to hide in.  Of course this new set-up does not address their need to scratch and dust bathe, but we do plan to add some other plants on the bottom level to address that need.  They get much more light and fresh air with this arrangement so we figure it is good enough at least for the short term!  They are using the extra vertical space as flight space to spread their wings.  Once we are in our new house, another version of quail habitat might develop but this is home sweet home for quail right now!

And look!  They must be happy because we get one of these every day now!

Re-inspired by Swiss Chard May 20, 2011

Miss me?  I haven’t posted lately for various reasons. First, I ran in to some typical obstacles of getting online and having time to write…some hectic holidays, visit by out-of-state family, an ill child and an unexpected road trip among other things.  But by far, the biggest reason I haven’t posted is that I sort of lost my groove, my motivation.  I began to doubt my ability to pull off this personal sustainability stuff.  I began to question, “What good am I really doing?  Could I, in fact, just be making things difficult for myself and my family?”  I began to get tripped up in what-if thinking, “What if I am not the right kind of person to be successful at this?  What if really, truly living in a personally sustainable way is not actually possible nowadays?”  When friends asked about the reason for the break in my blog posts I would just tell them that I would eventually post again, hopefully soon, just as soon as I felt re-inspired.

A small, gentle wave of inspiration set in this evening as I went out back to have a bit of “chicken time” before nightfall.  Chicken time is the time I spend out communing with my flock who’ve been out free-ranging all day and are now beginning to congregate around the coop, looking for a tasty hand-out before retiring for the evening.  As Brent sat distributing handfuls of scratch (cracked corn or “chicken candy”), I decided to water my various container gardens.  I moved from one pot to the next and finally ended up back at the raised bed that took a beating after the last storm.  The heavy rains knocked 8 mangoes off the tree and pummeled the plants in the garden to a small degree, but the bulk of the damage to the plants occurred because the bird netting came loose in the wind and at least one chicken found its way into everything!  Let me tell you, I am learning, all it takes is one hungry chicken in a 4×4 raised bed for about an hour to destroy most everything in there.  Fortunately for me, hubby noticed the damage and loose netting quickly enough to salvage most of what is out there.  Not checking the security of the bird netting after this last storm cost me 2 red cabbage, 2 romaine, 2 broccoli and various other leaves.  Lesson learned.

Well, when I went back to water the raised bed tonight I was greeted by some lovely things…all 4 marigolds in bright orange and yellow bloom, watermelon vine sprawling in every direction including up the fencing, okra pods forming on both plants, the last of my romaine and a wonderful assortment of large, fresh Swiss chard leaves!  You know what?  Seeing all this, I could begin to feel my spirit lift and I could feel that slow spread of inspiration hit me and gradually build back again.  If my lovely pretties out there did not give in to the force of the last storm, the pressure of the summer heat and sun or the uninvited chicken guest, then why should I give in to the things that try my resolve?  I watered and weeded and tended that bed with all the love I could fit into the last 15 minutes of sunlight.  I now feel a new hope for my efforts.  If all I accomplish is this much, I am happy.  Even just this much is a wonderful success!  At dinner tonight I will be thankful for the fresh romaine leaves on our burgers, the delicious and nutrient-rich side-dish of sauteed Swiss Chard and the chance to have been reminded of how “good” and worthwhile it all is by my garden itself!