What A Busy April

It is too true.  While many people are talking about the slower pace of life during this time of quarantine, I am busier than I’ve ever been.

I stepped up my game in the garden and pushed the limits of my budget for food forest trees, shrubs, and plants.  My supply of seeds was eaten by rodents, so I needed to replenish (my own fault), and fortunately I got my seeds and plants ordered in the nick of time before things got too difficult.

One day after my seed order was filled, the company I ordered from was slammed with orders and was asking people to be patient while they tried to keep their employees safe during operations.  Another company I had an order with, stopped taking orders just days after I got my order in, so they could catch up.  I watched anxiously while their stock dwindled hoping my order would be filled (they’ve got the best yellow crookneck seeds).  And the nursery I ordered trees and bushes from were unable to fill all of my order.

Everyone was scrambling and I felt lucky to have ridden the crest of the wave.  I’ve got all my seeds, and have been planting for two months.  In fact, we started eating from the garden just a couple of days ago.

But it’s Spring and my laying flock has really stepped up production.  I’m getting between 2 and 3 dozen eggs per day.  That’s a bit of a challenge because I only have one egg customer.  Meanwhile, I’ve set up an outdoor, self service egg selling station so people can help themselves and leave their money in a coffee can bank.  But no takers.  Even with eggs so hard to find, people walk past my sign and look and then keep walking.

Fortunately for me I was able to get eggs to several family members who were missing them at the supermarket.  I unloaded 33 dozen - two weeks worth of eggs.  It’s a relief that they won’t be going to waste.  And the thing I’m finding out is that people are no longer taking things like eggs for granted anymore.

I remember a friend of mine saying that people wanted to trade eggs for massage.  As a licensed massage therapist and energy worker, she was talking about how eggs weren’t valuable enough to trade for massage, and I realized how things have changed so much in our world.  There was a time when the local midwife or herbalist or healer/doctor would take payment in food.  Food was prized and valued, because people had common knowledge about what went into the growing of food, the raising of food, the time it took and the labor involved.  Now people buy cheap food at a corporate supermarket and they are so far removed from that process that they have no real appreciation for real food.  They have no experience with what it really takes to produce food.

Anyway, my flock’s eggs were truly appreciated when they made the rounds among my family members.  My mom told me she felt rich!  And talked about all the things she would do with eggs.  Just last week she was hoarding the few eggs she had left, trying to make them last.

Another thing the layers are producing right now are chicks.  I’ve had four hens go broody this Spring.  I’m glad they are going in a cycle and not all at once.  It started with one, then a week later, another one, then a week after her, another one, and so on.  I have one mama with her chicks in the yard, and another one in her house hatching out chicks these last few days, and another one due to start hatching out in less than a week.  I’m running out of places to put everyone.  Tomorrow I will be building another brooder and putting up fencing for this next batch due.  It’s tonnes of work and while not all at once, it’s coming pretty steadily in waves.

Meanwhile I’ve been raising meat birds too.  So I was able to get my family set up with birds in their freezers for the next few weeks.  Meanwhile the next batch of chicks arrived by mail last week.  They will grow up and feed my family just when they’re needed.  It’s intense though.  The harvesting must be done daily within a two to three week period when they are at a certain age and weight.  Since it’s just me, I’ve about reached the limit of what I can provide.  I’ve committed to providing birds for four families, which includes us.  But it is worth it to me.  I’m driven to do this.  It’s the most impactful way I can connect with my family during this time of quarantine.  It makes me feel less isolated, to make sure that as long as I am producing good quality food, I can share it with them.

It’s a bit like a family cooperative.  In that they pay for the grain “their birds” eat and for the cost of each chick, and I take care of the birds, raise them, harvest them, and process them.

As for my immediate family right here, I dream of producing the majority of our food on this land.  And this time of quarantine is really putting that dream to the test.  I’m finding it difficult to get certain processed things, like flour and baking soda.  It makes me want to be more creative about how I make bread.  Without flour, I have to find new ways to make bread from materials that I can grow on my place.  Like grinding corn to make tortillas, or using potatoes, or legumes, or starchy vegetables to create a kind of bread.  Maybe not a sandwich loaf, maybe not traditional pasta, maybe not wheat cakes, but something bread like that comes from my garden.

So living in this way, fills up a lot of each day.  And meanwhile, I’m still binding books by hand for our family owned business, Pegana Press.

Grow Your Own Food - Eat Locally

My Buff Orpington layer flock (a batch of chicks I acquired in June of 2019), along with 4 Heritage Rhode Island Reds, and 3 Barred Rocks make a total of 25 laying hens.  They are watched over by 3 Buff Orpington Roosters.  This flock is about to be joined by 19 Buff Orpington pullets and 1 cockerel from the October 2019 batch of chicks.

I’m currently getting an average of 15 eggs a day.  When the pullets begin laying eggs that will  potentially double over time.

So far I only have one egg customer and am trying to use up eggs as quickly as I can.  I also give eggs away to anyone who comes to visit.  I’m hoping to get more paying customers in order to offset the cost of grain.  I see people looking at the sign as they go by, but people have gotten into the habit of buying everything in one place, in large corporate owned warehouse or grocery stores.

That’s something we need to have a conversation about.  If you’re my age, you remember that a lot of grocery stores were owned by people who lived in the community.  Remember that?  If you don’t it’s because the mom and pop stores of yesteryear are all but extinct.  That actually came about from a corporate business practice of moving into a community and underpricing products to drive smaller businesses out.  Once they have eliminated the local competition, they can now raise prices and offer products of their choice.  Not necessarily products that people in the community want or need, or are good for the community.  People get used to the “choices” that are being “offered” to them and eventually they will buy what they are “told” to buy.  That’s why we no longer have fresh local bakeries, local butcher shops, and local grocery stores in every community.  That’s why local nurseries have mostly disappeared.  Book stores...All the local businesses that used to make up “Main Street” and “Downtown” in towns and cities, are all gone.

Okay, so what?  Where am I going with this?  This is not a nostalgic stroll down memory lane for me.  There is a point to that last paragraph.  The point is, what happens when we have a pandemic (like the one we’re facing right now) that impacts the supply chain of food?  When people panic, they hoard.  They stockpile.  And that creates a problem because suddenly food becomes scarce.

So what to do now?  Plant food.  Right now.  Plant in window boxes, on balconies, on patios, in gardens and vacant lots.  Learn to forage.  Get cities and towns to plant food plants instead of ornamentals all over the place.  Trees that bear fruit.  This is really important.  When I went into town for my usual shopping trip, I wasn’t thinking about stocking up.  But I noticed the shelves were a little barer than usual.  When I started talking to someone stocking shelves at the co-op, he told me how Corona Virus was causing interruptions in the supply chain.  I hadn’t thought about it.  My response was to buy some quick growing cold weather crop seeds.  It’s still cool here, but I could get seeds started and transplant them out.  Things that grow at this time of year will be mature in 45 days.  That’s mid to late April.  I realized that there is no time to waste here.

So I want to encourage everyone who can to grow what they can.  The smaller the space, the more intensive food production you can potentially get out of it.  No space is too small.  And we can all be a bit more creative about what we think of as a garden.

Why aren’t we growing more food locally?

Spring Chick Update

On Sunday I moved 35 Cornish Cross chicks outdoors.  I had to do some repair work on their little house, because the nesting box portion of their house in falling apart.  I got the house on Amazon, one of the last purchases I ever made from them.  I had a gift card that more than half covered this house, but it’s the true definition of flimsy.  Never the less, it does the job, as long as I stay on top of repairs.  And it’s perfect for this batch while they’re still small and getting used to being outside.  They will soon outgrow it.  And as I’ve learned through experience, chickens get attached to their homes and don’t like to be moved.  But for now this will do quite nicely.

The 15 Buff Orpington chicks and 1 (smaller than the rest) Cornish X were moved into the newly vacated brooder and are happy with their new space, it being double what they were in.  The single Cornish X is starting to grow at last and getting feathers and will soon join the rest outside.  The young Buff Orpington chicks will continue in the brooder for another two to four weeks depending on how fast they grow and weather conditions.  Then they’ll go outside too, in the Birch Grove Cottage I built for the October Buff Orpington chicks, which are now 5 months old and are in the process of being integrated into the existing layer flock (Buff Orpington chicks from last June).

Everything cycles.

Oh Boy!

Look what I found in the straw this morning!  Three eggs.  One is obviously from Ruby, and the others are from two of the peeps.

I used to sort and size eggs when I worked on an organic farm in 2012, and for scale, I can say Ruby lays Large to Extra Large eggs.  These two eggs would be considered Small, which you don't see in the grocery store as a rule.  I think the smallest eggs I've seen in the store were Medium, and in the world of "super size", I'm not even sure you can still get those.

I wanted to see if these small eggs were fully formed and I was so happy to see that they were.

And they were delicious.

#FreshestEggInTheWorld

Thanks Peeps!  I appreciate that you're laying eggs for us.  :)

    

Garden Build Day!!

Hooray!  I have my garden beds.  And they're beautiful!

Three people from GRuB arrived at 10:30 am on the dot with a truck load of soil and this beautiful lumber.



Within 2 hours we had these three beds built and filled and the trellis built, too.







They also left me with these lovely plants.

They were such a pleasure to work with.  Fast and efficient and friendly.  It was a wonderful experience.


And they loved the chickens. :)


I feel good right now, but I wonder how I'll feel tomorrow after shifting that much soil.

I can't wait to see food actually growing abundantly on this land.

Later that afternoon...

I went out and walked the beds, pruning any branches away that would interfere with the trellis and putting down straw to make the paths look tidy.

It began raining in the sunshine, so I had to get a picture of that.

The air smelled amazing.  I love that smell of water in the air.

I spent a moment connecting with the spirit of the land.  It approves.

And look...Pachamama is apparently purple.

Zoë and I were sitting on the porch snuggling while we watched it rain, and I suddenly got the impulse to see the sky behind me.

Oh yeah.  Glad I checked it out.

Seems like a good sign to me.

#FeelingBlessed

The Kitchen Garden Project

First things first.  Sparky turned 16 weeks old yesterday, and today he began crowing.  And if you don't think that's just the most adorable and funny sound in the world than you just haven't heard anything like it.  Honestly, I wish I had a recording.

The human equivalent is a young boy when his voice begins to change.


Today was a catch up day with dishes and housework.  At 1:30 Esmerelda had another distance session with healer Sid Snider of Portland.  I got so involved with housework afterwards that Mike had to remind me at 4 pm that we still hadn't eaten.  I made a late lunch for him, and was going to finish vacuuming the bedroom when the belt slipped off and that put an end to that, so I gave in and realized it really was time to eat.

We were kind of sitting around chatting after lunch, when I suddenly realized I had somewhere to be in 10 minutes!!

I have been anticipating this meeting for weeks.  It was on my radar all day long.  But somehow between 2:20 and 5:20 pm it just disappeared from my awareness.  Fortunately, I made the Pre-Season Orientation meeting to participate in The Kitchen Garden Project -and I was only 10 minutes late.

What is the Kitchen Garden Project?

One day --January 31st to be exact--I was visiting my friend Sage Adderley.  She and her family had just moved into a house complete with yard, and she was excited because she had applied for a GRuB garden.  GRuB stands for Garden Raised Bounty.  As she spoke about it, I almost couldn't believe what she was telling me.  A local organization that will build you a garden --free of charge??

She urged me to apply and later that evening she even sent me a link.  I'm so grateful she did.  And I am even more grateful that at the end of a long day, I didn't put off exploring the GRuB website.

Because as it turned out, I did qualify for their KGP (Kitchen Garden Project), and the deadline to apply was January 31st.  It was already after 9 pm on a Sunday evening.  Fortunately, I was able to fill out the form electronically and emailed it off to them with an hour or so to spare.

GRuB Mission Statement

• We inspire positive personal and community change by bringing people together around food and agriculture.
• 
  
• We partner with youth and people with low-incomes to create empowering individual & community food solutions.
• 
  
• We offer tools & trainings to help build a just & sustainable food system.

When they called me less than two weeks later and gave me the news that I had qualified and been picked to receive one of their gardens, I was overcome.  I haven't felt this much anticipation and excitement since I was a kid waiting for Christmas to arrive.  My friend Sage is also receiving a garden.  After the orientation meeting tonight we ripped into our little brown paper sacks of seeds to see what was inside.  She said it first.  "It feels like Christmas!"

Tonight I learned that not only would I be getting 3 raised beds built (4' by 8'), and the soil to fill them, but all the plants as well.  They will be leaving me with seedlings to plant.  They also have other resources available and free classes.  And this project support lasts for two years.

At the end of the meeting, we went up and scheduled our garden building day.  We received A Growing Guide book, filled with info and a brown lunch bag stuffed with seed packets.

I've scheduled my KGP build for April 4.  That's the day when they will show up with a truck load of soil and volunteers will turn lumber into frames for 3 garden beds.  I have 3 spots all picked out and I can't wait.

And here is a picture of the book they put together.  56 pages to help you plan, plant, and maintain your garden, as well as other resources like scheduled workshops and where to find free seeds and other gardening support.

Click the link for more information on the Kitchen Garden Project.

And there is so much more to explore on the GRuB site.  For example The Victory Farm.  

Victory Farm is a safe, non-confrontational environment where veterans work shoulder to shoulder, immersed in the healing nature of the outdoors, agriculture and dirt work. In this environment, we find new meaning and purpose. Stories are shared, new connections are made and roots in community take shape.

There is also the GRuB School.  

For over 15 years, grub has been running agriculture-based alternative education, employment, & drop-out prevention programs that engage local teens in land & community-based projects, working to break cycles of hunger, poverty, inequality, and oppression. From 2001-2011, only 39% of youth who entered GRuB’s youth programs were on track to graduate. Today, 90% have either graduated from high school, are on-track to graduate, and/or have earned their GED and 66% have gone on to college.

GRuB is an amazing organization and I am really grateful for its presence in our community, and that I am now a part of it.

Happy Birthday to Mike

Proof that I made Mike a Birthday cake.  A Butterscotch Sundae cake from an old Betty Crocker cookbook.  It's taller than it looks.  This picture was taken before I drizzled butterscotch all over the top.  Perhaps the best frosting I've ever made.  (Maybe not...maybe it's just been so long since I've baked that it seems like the best).  But how can you go wrong with butter, powdered sugar, cocoa and cream.

Yes today was Mike's Birthday, and I went on a quest to find him a birthday present.  I went to seven places to find one book.  I could have ordered it on Amazon, but I only thought of it yesterday.  You know, I really love the ease of shopping on line, but I hate what it's done to the local economy.

While I was on my search this morning I went to Barnes & Nobel (no luck there--again, why should they stock a book that was written over a decade ago, when they can sell it on line), then I tried Walden's bookstore, only to find they were no more (I hadn't heard...) Then I tried Lassley's paper back exchange on the west side.  The sign was still up, but the building was empty with a for lease sign on the door.  

So much for the west side.

I headed down town.  No luck there either.  Not at Browser's and not at Orca books.  

Who Done It books is now only a memory.  When did it go?  Poof! Just like that.

I was beginning to regret having such a brilliant idea too late to order on line.  

I had wanted to get Mike a book that was number 6 in a series of 20 books.  We had the complete series before he decided to give that book to his dad a few years back.  Then last summer, he started reading that series again, only to find we were missing a book.  What a disappointment...and so he stopped.

I thought, "What a great gift!  By buying this one book, I'm really giving him an entire series back."  I just didn't know how hard it would be to find that one book or how hard it would be to even find a bookstore in this town.  They seem to be dwindling.

But I pressed on, and finally at the last place I had left to try, Lassley's paperback exchange in Lacey, was still in business, and there it was.  One shining copy.

Okay, not a shining copy.  It's a paperback exchange, so we're talking about books that have been read over and over.  But somehow, the quest made giving Mike that book all the sweeter, because it wasn't easy.  I wasn't sure I would find it and it seemed to make the ragged paper back more of a prize.

So I brought it home and wrapped it in a remnant piece of soft green plaid flannel fabric tied with twine (because I thought it was pretty) and handed it to him with a home made card.  Then we had coffee and laughed together while he opened his other cards and gifts from family.  And he was really excited about the book.  He started reading it later in the afternoon, and he's already a quarter the way through it...and remember it's not just one book...now it is 15 books, because he can finish the series.

Then I took him to lunch at Vic's pizza.  And when we came home, while he read his book with a cat on his lap, I made him a birthday cake.  He though he was in heaven.

I came of age in an era of materialism unprecedented in our culture.  And even though we used to make more money than we're making now, I always felt poor.  Somehow that has changed for me.

The more I step outside of what is normal and safe, the richer I feel.  Today, going on a quest for a Birthday present felt magical.  Would I find what I sought?  Would I win the day?

And Mike feels blessed because I baked.  Something I used to do often, but in these days when every moment is filled with earning a living or keeping up with household work,  baking is the last thing I have time for.  So now a cake becomes a magical and rare treat.  And that is how it should be.

What I'm really trying to say, in a long and rambling way is that all those things we once took for granted had lost their magic.  They had lost their zest.  But now  that we live a completely different lifestyle, where we work only for ourselves, we have come to appreciate the crafting of a moment into something more beautiful, and more magical.  A moment to be cherished and savored.  

Update on The Peepers

The Peepers have now become part of the flock.  The internet is a strange and wondrous source of all sorts of information, which is subject to the perception of whoever is sharing that information.  I had read that you should wait to introduce chicks into the flock until they were 16 weeks old.  My friend who runs a chicken farm disagreed.  Her opinion is --the sooner, the better.

The last two days, I had observed Ruby pecking at the chicks and apparently wanting to get back to the flock.  I could see she was torn.  She wanted to be with the others, but she wanted to take the chicks with her.  Having read "expert" advice on the internet, I was hesitant to introduce the Peepers to the flock.  But by just observing the behavior of the chickens, it felt like it was time.  So I asked my friend with the chicken farm.  She seemed to think it was long overdue.

Yesterday I put them in with the flock and cut a little exit in the fence so they could escape back into their yard if they needed to.  They were mostly just ignored, which was kind of a relief.  But they also didn't want to stay with the flock.  They wanted to be "home".  Their home.  So today, I put them in with the flock and blocked the fence.  They were distressed at first, but adapted.

Tonight when I put them all into the hen house they cried and cried.  Not the cozy peeps that I'm used to hearing at night, when they are still settling down after their busy day, but stressed out chick cries.

I went back inside my house and thought they would settle down, but when I went out 10 minutes later, I could still hear stressed chick noises coming from inside.  So I did a little energy work from just outside, and within less than a minute, I heard the little peeps trail off and it got very quiet.

I'm so ready for this to work.  I had a talk with Rocky this afternoon, and told him the Peepers were his responsibility now.  They are part of his flock and he has to keep them safe from hawks.  I told the Peepers they need to stay close to the flock and not wander aimlessly in the open.  

They had figured out their own yard, especially after several close calls with the hawks.  Their reactions were impeccable (no pun intended) on their home turf.  But watching them today made me apprehensive.  There is some open ground in that part of the yard, and they were mostly wandering around like lost children out in the open, while the full grown hens and Rocky were under cover a distance away.

Things were unsettled today, I'm sure they'll get the hang of it.  I just don't want to lose any.  I love my Peepers...no doubt about it.  But from a practical point of view, I also need all the egg layers I can get.

Mike asked me the other day, how many chickens I was planning on raising.  Here's my feeling.  I only have so much land, and it's not a lot, and I don't want to go into chicken farming.  But I want egg layers, and I want chickens working the land, which they do so brilliantly.

I started out with 4 hens in the beginning.  When my best egg layer was killed by a hawk, I was not only heart broken, but it upset everything with the remaining flock.  Ruby has been the only consistent layer since then.  I brought in Rocky to protect the flock...it was just a bonus that I got chicks out of it.

With only one hen laying eggs, I welcomed the chance to increase the flock.  And now that they're here, another one of the hens is finally laying eggs.  And I'm letting her keep them in the hopes that she'll get broody.  There are 9 eggs right now, so I'm hopeful.  And if she doesn't get broody, maybe one of the others will.  Ruby hasn't started laying eggs yet, so maybe she'll do it.  But the point is, the more chicks I have, the better my chance of getting egg layers and I'd like to have 6 productive hens.  I potentially have that right now.  But that's only if Ruby starts laying again and the other hen keeps laying, and four of the Peepers grow up to be egg layers...and only if no one else gets killed by predators.  So as I explained to Mike, if I can get another clutch of eggs hatched (the natural way--I don't do incubators), than I will be very happy.

My friend with the chicken farm was wondering when I was going to butcher the non producers.  I get the feeling she thinks that I'm being weak and maybe a bit sentimental.  But here's what motivates me, and it might not make sense to someone who doesn't work with energies like I do regularly, but I'll try to explain anyway.

In a very small flock, such as mine is, it takes very little to upset the balance.  One hen getting killed by a hawk didn't reduce my egg production by 1/4.  It impacted egg production by 75%.  My four hens were laying 2 dozen eggs a week.  Then I lost Penny, and two of the remaining hens stopped laying eggs, so now I was getting 6 eggs a week.  And let me just add, that my hens were all young and had only been laying for 3 or 4 months when this happened.  In the language of energy matrices, the matrix had been disrupted.

Add to the mix an aggressive rooster, and it has taken a year to recover from that one death in the flock.  It's literally taken that long for things to start to run smoothly again.  If I had taken out my two non producers, then the flock would take even longer to recover.  And now one of those two is actually laying eggs again - finally - and I'm not 100% certain which one is the layer.  So I guess I'm not in any hurry to start culling.

I love my flock.  Not because I think of them as pets.  I love them because they are members of my family now.  I love them because they teach me, and they give me food, or have given me food in the past, or will give me food in the future.  And in return, I give them food.  They work my land.  I give them shelter.  We are learning to communicate with each other, and that is really something.  This is who I am.  I'm not a farmer.  I love farmers, some of my friends are farmers and some of my family are but I'm not one and I'm not trying to be one.

I'm a kooky person who does a lot of different things to get by.  That's all.

Hens in the Yard

What makes me feel rich?  When I look out into my back garden and see my four hens, I feel very rich.

Even in the dead of winter, my girls never let me down.  They provide us with 3 to 4 eggs a day.  Everyday!  I feed them organic chicken feed, and kitchen scraps, but they mostly forage.  And that is another reason having hens makes me feel rich.

I look outside and see four little gardeners all working the soil and composting and generally just creating really fertile soil out of my very dry silty soil that was once, only hospitable to quackgrass.

But now I have hens.  They cleaned up a piece of ground in two days that would have taken me well over a week of painful back breaking labor.  And as far as I could tell, they applied very little effort and seemed to enjoy it immensely.

They bring an energy of industrious joy to the land.  They love being busy.  They love to see me coming.  They love to follow me around.  And in the spring, when it's time to plant, I will move them to another spot, and let them work their magic on a new piece of ground.

They are my new partners in permaculture.  And I am very grateful to them.

My flock:  Penny, Tricksy, Fanny and Ruby