The Side Garden, Part 1

When we first moved into our house the previous owner had a cute little strawberry patch in the side garden.  The house was framed with peonies and a forsythia bush.  It was adorable and picturesque and by the time we moved in, the lawn and garden had not been weeded or watered in a month, and that month happened to be July, the second hottest month of the year.  We tried to save the strawberries but instead we murdered them slowly over a year by viciously weeding and leaving them stripped, naked and bare all winter.  *sigh* Oh, well.  No time for regrets let's push onward.

I decided to put the Fig, Kiwis and Paw Paws in the side garden (and if there is room okra, eggplant and peppers), on the East side of the house.  It is one of the only places in our yard with a reasonable windbreak.  Recently we acquired a chain link dog run, with hopes that we will house dairy goats in the near future.  That will also go on the East side as well.  To increase the temperature I plan on utilizing a lot of rock and cement in shaping the beds and to hopefully add a little humidity I want to have some kind of water feature, like a bird bath or twenty.  Adam and I recently acquired a generous stack of cinder blocks via Craigslist Angel, Sherrie which led me to investigate how I could incorporate them.  During my research I found this really cool cinder block wall garden:




I think it would be crazy, wicked and it would kind of act as a rock garden too, plus it would provide gardening space while helping to make things feel "cozy" instead of "cramped".

The space designated for the side garden is approximately 14' x 25' (by approximate I mean I just thought about it for a minute and said "yeah, that sounds right") and I want to dedicate half of that space for the dog run.  So the actual garden would be 7' x 25' which is not a lot of room to work with but what some may see as a disadvantage I see as a bonus.  The less space there is the more bio-intensive the garden will be and therefore the better the microclimate.  At least that is where my logic has taken me. 

Previously the fence all around our yard was waist-height chain link.  Our neighbor to the East has a six foot tall white wood fence and we plan on matching what she has when we move the fence line.  Changing the fencing material should add an additional windbreak, provide more privacy and give some shade to the Paw Paws.  Paw Paws are understory trees and grow best in partial shade their first few years.  So right now I am planning of putting them right up against the fence.  The following is a sketch that I just whipped up. 

 

Right now it is tabula rasa, just flat dirt and old sod with some peonies and crocus popping up along the side of the house.  First thing that needs to happen is that we need to put this dog run together and see how much space it will take, then build a new fence, then take down the old fence.  I already started to dismantle the old fence but luckily I thought about it for half a second before I tore it all the way down.  Hmm, I thought, I have toddlers and ducks that like to free range...if this fence isn't here then they won't be here either.

So that is on my personal honey-do list for this weekend. 

All God's Creatures

So much to keep up with, our mini-farm is really coming along and this week we had a SUPER exciting new addition.  American rabbits!

Jennifurr the blue steel doe

Jefferson the white buck

Our beautiful little Americans are just that little. They were born on January 14th and weaned this past week.  I wanted to get them as young as possible so that I could become comfortable handling them before they reached full weight (a whopping ten pounds).  They won't be ready to breed until May at the earliest and until then we will be working on acclimating them and taming them down.  We are planning for a trio but wanted a little diversity so in a month *fingers crossed* we will be going over to Flying Fossil Farm to check out a litter of brand new Champagne D'argents. 

Rosey, Melanie and Betsy our amazing Ameraucana layers

Ken, Candace and Lucy our Muscovies (in the terrible early morning light)

And just because I was out there with a camera I took a couple shot of our other backyard companions.














In other animal news our quail are officially a week old and beginning to feather out.  All four seem strong and are growing fast.  Soon I will have to move them to a larger brooder!

And a larger brooder will soon be an unequivocal necessity. While scoping out quail online I perused many a hatchery, searching for one that did not require the minimum purchase of 50 quail.  I did not have luck with that but I did fall prey to Cackle Hatchery "Cackle Hatchery Surprise".  For $60.95 you get whatever they send you. But... they guarantee a sweet deal.  How could I resist? Only after submitting my order did I have the sense to consult Backyard Chickens (the best farming forum IN THE WORLD).  There was a "Cackle Hatchery Surprise" thread with over 80 pages and I read all of them.  Most people reported 40-42 birds, with a varying assortment mostly, of course of chickens, but with a few geese, ducks, turkeys and guinea fowl thrown in.  One person reported 82 birds were delivered. To my dismay, people said that they requested specifics in the comment section of their order form and most people said that it was honored.  One woman got seven turkeys!  I requested the shipping date of March 31st because according to the hatchery's calendar ducks, geese and turkeys are all available in March and according to my Google search a Thanksgiving turkey needs six or seven months to fatten up.  Part of me hopes that I am that lucky that I get a pair of geese and five turkeys and a dozen ducks and the rest a happy handful of meat chickens, layers and cute bantams.  But the sane part of me yells WHERE ARE YOU GOING TO PUT THEM?!  Luckily I did just buy a dog run (in hopes that we will get a duo of mini Manchas in the future), I guess its time we set that sucker up! 

Eclectic Gardening

I know what I said, I was done! I had moved on from my seed purchasing phase and moved into my land prep phase. Well, at this exact moment that is true but three weeks ago I had a moment of weakness. My order of seeds from Territorial Seed Co. arrived and a day later I received a Burgess Seed catalogue.  Those seed companies sure know how to time things.

Hello, my name is Katherine and I am a shopaholic.  I cannot pick up a seed catalogue without poring over the pages and coveting anything green and grow-able in Zone 7.

As you may guess after that confession I made another purchase from Burgess.  I needed to get seed potatoes.  When we were living in our Stead apartment we grew potatoes in a terracotta pot on our porch and were rewarded with Lilliputian results. At the time I had not purchased "seed potatoes" I just used some that had started to sprout in our cupboard.  This time I wanted to do it right.  So under the guise of making a wise purchase, I mean, we did NEED potatoes. I took the opportunity to add a couple other things to my cart.  If I'm already paying shipping might as well make the most of it...right? RIGHT!

Enter my mini orchard.  In addition to the Fruit Cocktail tree (super cool, they graft two kinds of peach, a plum, a nectarine and an apricot onto one tree), and 5-in-1 Pear that I had ordered and planted in November, I was now in anticipation of an Hardy Almond, a pair of Kiwi vines, Sugar Sweet Cherry (a self-pollinating variety of Nanking), and two Paw Paw trees.  Say, what's a paw paw?  That is exactly what I was thinking but when I heard that it was also called a Sweet Custard Apple I had to satisfy my curiosity.  True, its also called a Poor Man's Banana in some places but that's hardly as delicious sounding.  Add in my pre-order on that Negronne Fig and my excitement level is bordering on unhealthy.  Now all I have to do is pray that each lives through its first 3-5 years and I will be up to my eyeballs in exotic, eccentric, delectable fruit!

This seems like a good time to fill you in on my fruit list.

 

Cantaloupe
	Hearts of Gold
	Minnesota Midget
Grape
	Canadice
	Niagara
Raspberry
	Canby
Trees
	Almond
	Apple
	Cherry
	Fig
	Fruit Cocktail
	Paw Paw
	Pear
Vines
	Kiwi
	Vine Peach

Not that I am not "real" with you all, all of the time.  But I just need to take a time-out and "get real".  My fucking stupid laptop did it to me again, again!  I had a sweet ass paragraph all typed out and I was just going back an re-reading it for continuity's sake and then somehow my stupid, fucking, remedial, ar-tarded laptop hi-lighted and deleted the whole thing.  WHAT THE FUCK LAPTOP! But this stupid, asinine piece of equipment cannot silence me! Nay! I say! Nay! WHAT IS DEAD CAN NEVER DIE! WINTER IS COMING! A PETERSON ALWAYS PAYS THEIR DEBTS! (Adam and I just watched the third season of Game of Thrones in like two days, too much?)

To continue, if my laptop permits, I was saying that I had kickass plans for a fruit collection that would make Adam and Eve's mouths water.  But then something happened that tempered my excitement.  I went to a work bee with my Perma buddies (shout out to Northern Nevada Permaculture!) and mentioned my grand plans.  I knew that a fig tree was risky, time consuming and potentially a waste but as I said before I am a romantic.  My buddies, who have been facing the subtleties of Reno's intermountain desert climate for most of their lives, informed me that while cold was a problem it wasn't the only one.  Fruits like Fig, Paw Paw and Kiwi can live in the cold but they don't do great in excessive wind, drought, or aridity.  Hmm, my neighborhood sometimes feels that a wind tunnel, and I wasn't planning on buying a dehydrator because it gets so hot and so dry here.  I think this is a bad sign.  I knew it would not be easy, so even though this news deflated me (only a little bit) it also encouraged me and gave me insight on where to place my new plants and how to prepare the area.  My ingenuity and inherent, innovative genius will surprise you when this exciting subplot is continued in the upcoming chapter "The Side Garden".  Don't touch that dial.

A Watched Egg Will Not Hatch

My husband's parents were in town for the week and I was taking full advantage.  Shanna was inside looking after the girls and I had Adam and his dad, Greg, out side working on the side garden.  Things were going good except for a shortage of shovels when I went inside for a potty break and decided to check up on the incubator.  Greg and Shanna were staying in the spare bedroom, in which the incubator was currently housed, and they had left the door ajar.  The first thing I noticed was our cat Ivan, crouching in front of the incubator, doing the universal cat about to pounce shoulder dance.  I shooed him away and peeked inside.  I heard the uncoordinated tumbling of the freshly hatched chick before I saw it, then there it was peeping out from beneath one of the coffee filters that was serving as a nest.  Still plastered with egg juices, it looked so tiny and the way that it moved, first lunging forward and then looking up so high that it inevitably lost its balance and tumbled over backwards, SO ADORABLE! I was hooked!

WHAT GREAT NEWS! I had to share it.  I told Shanna on my way out the door and then yelled to Adam to drop his shovel and leaped into his arms.  "WE HAVE A QUAIL!" I shouted and laughed and (to be honest) cackled in ecstasy.

Everyone came inside and took a look then they went back to work. Then I studied the other eggs and saw movement in one.  The rest of the day I could not focus.  I started water boiling for the girls' mac'n'cheese and then laid on the floor to watch the little egg shake and quiver.  I remembered the water boiling and completed the mac'n'cheese.  Then I laid and watched the egg for probably, no egg-xaggeration, an hour.  I was riveted but also anxious, how long was this supposed to take?  Adam had left for the gym and returned while I was on Egg Watch 2014.  He reminded me that we had our anniversary dinner in an hour, so I should get ready soon-ish.  I put in a solid 30 minutes more and then got ready in record time and side note: I looked damn good.

We went to Rapscallions, a local seafood joint, kind of upper crust but still casual.  It is really close to our house and one of Adam's friends works in the kitchen.  Dinner was wonderful.  But even my macadamia crusted swordfish over sticky coconut rice wasn't enough to distract me from the excitement at home.  After some delicious baklava we swung by RedBox and headed home.  From the car I went straight to the incubator and looked in to see the previously active egg lying there immobile.  I moved the incubator into our room so the cheeping would not disturb the folks.  And compassion got the best of me, I grabbed some tweezers and pulled the cap off the egg.  The chick had successfully pipped a clean cap but for some reason had not been able to shake the egg.  After a few seconds of watching the chick struggle unsuccessfully against the egg I broke down further and massaged its little shoulders till its head, quickly followed by its body, emerged.  That chick was pathetic.  It flopped listlessly around.  Oh, its a goner for sure I thought.

I joined Adam in the living room and we watched "Don Jon".  I love Joseph Gordon-Levitt.  And this movie blew me away.  On the way to bed I checked on the incubator, the cheeping had intensified.  The pleasant sight of a third Texas A&M greeted me.  The first chick was nearly dry and who had learned the most motor skills was trampling the other two.  I named the chick I released Dottie because of a large brown dot on its head.  Dottie was still alive flopping to and fro but its poor little abdomen was a dark shad of purple as was its crown.  Bruising from its attempt to hatch.  We went to bed and I slept fitfully, the cheep-peeping of the chicks making it nearly impossible to doze off. 

Around 2 am I got up and looked in to see two brown chicks had hatched.  I grabbed the A&Ms and transferred them to the brooder in our bathroom.  Now the brown chicks could tumbled unmolested by their senior hatch-mates.

In the morning I was disappointed that no other eggs had opened.  I transferred the Jumbo Browns to the brooder and once again studied the eggs.  I swore two of them were moving, not a lot, but they were totally moving.  I kept hope for the next day, and the next, I read over and over again message board conversations about quail and how some people didn't have chicks hatch till day 21.  The incubation period is 15-21 days but the majority hatch on day 17 like mine. The chicks in the brooder seemed to be doing well, they had all learned to master their bodies and were running all over the place, even Dottie.  I had been warned not to give them too much water because they might drown. So I gave them a soaked corn-oats-&-barley mix in addition to the gamebird crumble.  Early Wednesday morning Adam woke me to tell me Dottie had died.  I went into the bathroom and saw the little prone body set on top of the brooder.  Sigh, Dottie fail the first test of life and in the end it was the only test that mattered.

The rest of the week followed unremarkably, the egg that I swore had moved was now quiet.  Still I waited till this morning to perform any "egg-topsies".  I cracked a few open to be met with splatters of white and yolk and then I opened the mover.  A partially formed baby plopped out.  That was it.  I couldn't do anymore.  I took the eggs out the the duck pen and dumped them on the ground and gave them a few stomps to ensure all shells were broken. The ducks made short work of them.

To cheer myself up a bit I went and watched the chicks in the brooder for a while, the cute blonde A&Ms chasing the brown zebra-striped Pharaohs around the warming rock I had placed in the center.  Were they each worth $7.50?

Yeah, totally.

Will You Light My Candle?

With a lot of restraint I waited until my eggs had been incubating for five days before I candled them.  Candling for those of you that don't know is taking the eggs to a dark room and shining a small, powerful flashlight through the shell toward your eye so you can visualize growth inside the egg.  I am amazed at how nature manages to take a delicious little quail egg that could be served over some tobiko at any sushi place and change it into a baby bird in only 17 days.  Super incredible.  My eggs however, may not be super incredible, and sadly they are past the delicious yellowy-center stage too.  The thing about quail eggs is that most of them have speckly, dark shells making candling pretty difficult.  Add to that my inept eye and I didn't get much out of the candling except a fearful foreboding that my hatch rate is going to be like 3%.

I love being home with my girls, I DO, but on bad days like my quail candling they can't offer much succor.  All day I was monologueing about my waste of money in purchasing the eggs only to kill them with my lack of expertise. Questions plagued me like should I just purchase another batch and start them right now so I don't lose two weeks? or what if some do hatch and then I kill them in their first week outside the egg? or what if I do order more and then all 32 of my previous batch DO hatch?  I was driving myself bonkers!

My three year old tries to offer comfort by allowing me to read Disney Princess Adventure stories, repeatedly, and then cuddle while watching Tinkerbell movies.  I try different tactics.  Millie is engrossed in Tinkerbell as she chases thistles and flutters about Pixie Hollow with her fairy friends and I escape into my planting calendar.  I bring out the old college-rule notebook, that I filched from Adam's college leftovers, and sketch garden beds and plot out seed placement.  Somehow thinking about planting vegetables distracts me from the potential quail massacre in our guest room. 

When I complete my growing calendar a new worry begins to fester. Will there be enough variety in our forecasted diet?  How many beans can you eat before a) you get sick of them?  Or b) become too flatulent to reside indoors? 

Adam comes home and brings in the mail and a Johnny's Selected Seeds catalogue.  It's as if God is saying, "Go ahead, just get a few more things." And I imagine he is winking in that fatherly, knowing way.  I go online right after dinner and binge on seed descriptions, asking Adam what he thinks about this and then that.  This lasts about ten minutes before I get frustrated with his lack of enthusiasm for fun and different foods.  Why have boring red tomatoes when you could have orange, yellow or purple?!  "Because," he explains "tomatoes are supposed to be red." And then my great thinker goes back to watching Super Troopers.  I order a handful of vegetable packets, but not from Johnny's.  I think they are a little overpriced (probably deservedly) but since I haven't planted anything yet I can afford to be cheap.  I found the seeds I wanted from Territorial Seed Co. and gave in to my romantic notions of exotic fruit and buy a Negronne fig too.

I will take this opportunity to interrupt my clear insanity and provide a table with our proposed crops for the coming growing season:

 

Asparagus
	Mary Washington
Beans
	Blue Lake
	Gold Rush
	Kentucky Wonder
	Top Crop
	Romano Pole
Beets
	Chiogga
	Gold Rush
Broccoli
	Marathon
Cabbage
	Quick Start
Cardoon
	Cynara
Carrot
	Napoli
Chard
	Northern Lights
Corn
	Earlivee
	Painted Mountain
Cucumber
	Carolina
	Wisconsin
Eggplant
	Millionaire
Garlic
	Whole Food
Jerusalem Artichoke
	Stampede
Lettuce
	Gourmet Blend
	Greed Bib
	Green Bowl
	Italian Blend
	Romaine
Okra
	Star of David
Onion
	Guardsman Bunching
	Walla Walla Sweet
Parsnip
	Javelin
Pea
	Wando
Pepper
	Ancho magnifico
	Hot Mix
	Sweet Bell
	Surprise
Potato
	Burbank Russet
	Norland Red
Radish
	Early ScarletGlobe
Spinach
	Donkey Savoyed
Squash (Summer)
	EnterpriseStraightneck
	Tri-Color
Squash (Winter)
	Bon Bon Buttercup
	Gold Nugget
Tomato
	Early Cherry
	Heirloom Mix
	Surprise
	Trip-L

I have separate lists for Fruits and Herbs & Flowers. But even when I look at them all together I feel underwhelmed.  Am I missing something?  Will this be enough?  Will it be more than I can handle? Will these flourish?

I have officially cut myself off though, no more, no sir. This is it my complete list.
My...
Complete...
List...

Why won't these quail just fucking hatch already and give me something live to brood over instead of trying to satisfy my nesting instinct by organizing my seed packets (alphabetically) and re-organizing them (by planting dates, that makes more sense).  Ugh!  Ten days left!

An Optimist Does Not Give Up When Faced With His/Her Own Shortcomings

So, perhaps it was a little too optimistic for me to be able to catalog all of the progress we made on our kitchen renovation, considering it pretty much concluded with the birth of our second daughter.  But, hey, I tried! Now there is no time like the present.  I am not going to catch you up without too much exhaustive detail but I will give you the highlights.

I did a brief stint working with my husband, Adam, at a local research facility.  I made it about 10 months before I got canned for "recurring behavioral issues".  I know that I am not everybody's cup of tea and this most recent experience just proved that over and over again.

In early October I was released and a certain degree of relief came over me.  I was free to stay at home with my girls and be...  Awww! Wait. Be what?  Huh?  Yeah, when I was growing up the only thing I really wanted to be was a great mom.  Now I am a mom and I don't really know what to do with myself.  I didn't realize it a first when I started moving in the direction of urban farmer but slowly it became more and more clear.

The first thing I did after getting fired was go to a poultry show and buy a small flock of Muscovy ducks.  I ended up with three ducks and five drakes, lucky me.  A few weeks before I had purchased a Costco chicken coop.  I got to work, my daughters in tow, and put the coop together.  Then I brought the box that the duck rancher had dug out of the feed store to pack the flock in.  It was roughly 1'x1'x4' and as I carried it from the car all the ducks scooted to one side and I lost balance and the box went crashing to the ground. Whoops! A bumpier ride than anticipated but the ducks seemed like they were alright with the exception of some ruffled feathers. Mildred and Aida were enthralled.  Aida loved (loves) climbing in the small run attached to the coop and chasing poultry around.  It became evident very soon that there was a rivalry between the two older lady ducks.  Sophie (named by Mildred) hid in the coop all day and then when it got to be night and all the the other ducks wanted in she would have to vacate and wait for dark to fall before Candace (who I named, because I think Candace is a bitchy name) would let poor Sophie back in without pecking her to pieces. 

Aida and Millie helping construct the new coop

Muscovies!

Now to add a run/yard

Adam and I discussed gardening quite a bit around that time, conversations driven mostly by the giant pile of composted horse manure that sat in our driveway (provided free of charge, complete with delivery by Craigslist Angel Chuck).  So one fall weekend while the weather was rather nice we demolished the shed that took up the majority of the barren dirt plot that forty years ago had been known as a garden.  My husband, who has a checkered history when it comes to constructing things (like play kitchens) is a demolition monster.  Yeah, my stud made short work of that shed.  He was even gentle enough that there were metal panels we could salvage.

Our First Garden Beds

Using the salvaged iron siding from the shed that stood here before

A week or so later I went to a rabbit butchering tutorial at a local hobby farm and learned A LOT! Like rabbits are incredibly easy to skin and gut (and when you are at someone else's house and they do all the prep and the clean up it cuts butchering time in half). While at Flying Fossil Farm, as Jessi and Danny like to be called, I was introduced to the local permaculture meetup group.  All sorts of doors were opening for me.

A week or so after that I saw, as I was obsessively surfing Craigslist, that a local egg farm was piecing out their chickens because they were going out of business.  Once again I packed up the girls and headed into the great unknown of rural Reno.  The former owners of Reno Egg, were super nice and even did the chicken wrangling for me.  I came away with three Ameraucana ladies, Betsy (white), Rosie (red-brown) and Melanie (black).  I had re-used the duckbox for transport and this time I made sure I had a firm grip on either end of the box before hefting it to the coop.  I tried housing Sophie with the chickens, while letting the rest of the ducks free range... no dice. Sophie seize the opportunity to be top duck (as it were) and pecked those poor girls raw.  Coming from a chicken farm the girls didn't have feathers on their rumps to begin with and after a day with Sophie they each had bled a bit.  What can I say? I tried! So Sophie was exiled from the coop and then ultimately shunned by her flock.  Sigh... The animal kingdom.

I started reading up on urban farming and sustainable agriculture and ecologically conscience living.  I read Farm City by Novella Carpenter and The Quarter Acre Farm by Spring Warren, I tried reading My Empire of Dirt by Manny Howard but could not get into it, boy was long winded.   I also perused a slew of gardening books, all courtesy of Reno Downtown Library.  Every Tuesday I take my girls to story time there and gather an armful of books.  I rarely read them cover to cover but I find helpful tidbits in most.  The first day I decided to "expand my mind" I found that what I really needed was to increase my arm strength because carrying a sixteen-month-old and herding a two year old was near impossible with my arms wrapped around twelve hefty garden tomes.  Luckily one of the librarians took pity on me at check out and gave we a promotional tote. A tote for my tomes, it made things easier but, dude, knowledge is heavy! no matter how you lug it around.

Novella Carpenter had an epiphany of sorts about urban farming and through her self-expression I was freed.  Instead of combing Zillow every other day looking for a homestead that was close enough to town to be convenient I was free to homestead what I already had!  It was like underneath my conscious being I always wanted this.  When we were house hunting I was firmly opposed to HOAs, I didn't want some nosy neighbor telling me what I could and could not do with my yard.  I wanted my chickens! And I didn't want to have to be in the country to have 'em! But now I was having to reel in my enthusiasm for urban homsteading and reason with myself that although a mini dairy goat would be AWESOME, we just didn't have space for it... yet. In time all things but first things first.

It became very evident that we needed more garden space.  I had used some the metal panels leftover from the shed tear down and made some raised beds but we needed to up the ante.  I mulled and pondered our options.  I wasn't ready to commit to tearing out the entire front yard but I was thinking that we could bring in the back yard a bit.  While I thought this to myself and made mental sketches I also tried to intuit Adam's reaction to this new scheme.  We are constantly getting in tiffs because I want to do some project (and of course I want his help) and he is less than enthused.  WHY CAN'T YOU JUST GET BEHIND ME ON THIS!  I frequently shouted and in my mind I was shouting it again so you can imagine my surprise when Adam suggested that we bring the back yard in a bit by adding more raised beds. What?! Yeah, I love this guy.

Back to Craigslist I searched for pavers, thinking we could build the beds with those.  I lucked out and got a good deal on left over pavers from two different people, both times strapping my girls into their carseats and heading out to load up our Honda Pilot with concrete bricks in a rainbow of dusty rose, gray and tan.  Once home though it seemed obvious that the pavers I had acquired would look best in the form of a path.  I got to work and laid out a path around where I visualized the beds would be.  Then Adam sacrificed another weekend to me and cut out raised beds using the plywood that had previously made up the floor of the long gone shed.  At long last the horse shit had a home and our driveway was emptied.

Ah, beautiful pavers

Raised beds and a new location for the chicken coop

Itching to fill our plots with something I bought a Farmer's Almanac and was enticed by ads for Burgess Seed Co.  I gorged on sense of purpose and bought a slew of seed packets and spent tens of dollars.  They promised to deliver live plants in time for fall planting, if not they would hold the order till spring.  Fair enough I thought.  Days stretched from late October to early November and I accepted that I would have to wait till spring.  Then one night, there came a knock on our door and all of my Burgess packages had arrived.  So November 19th I planted three Canby Raspberry canes, a 5-1 Pear tree, a cocktail tree, two kinds of grape stalks, and a twenty Mary Washington asparagus crowns.

That lasted me for a time, snow came. Christmas. New Year's. And then as is the wont of our fickle Northern Nevada microclimate we got some unseasonally warm weather.  Enter Steve, a Craigslist Angel with a dump truck full of clean fill dirt.  The local permaculture group had recently introduced me to the concept of hugelkultur and I was very, VERY eager to give it a go.  Another person was giving away rocks (small boulders it turns out). Yet another Craigslist Angel delivered a truckload of branches.  Perfection!  Adam had just made short work of chopping up a dead cherry tree from our backyard.  There was cellulose a plenty and some dirt to cover it, along with some dead leaves that we never bothered raking up in the fall. The last couple weeks I have been stacking the wood in long strips along the garden beds in our front yard and slowly mounding dirt on top of it.  I enlisted Adam's help for the bed separating our driveway from the driveway of our neighbors Gene and Emmy.  We had just piled on the last wheel barrow and collapsed into a leisurely viewing of Black Snake Moan when it started to snow again.
                          

                                     
               



My most recent adventure is quail, I don't even know how the idea originated but I decided quail would be a welcome addition to our backyard flock and next thing I knew I had two dozen hatching eggs on their way to me via the USPS.  Turning to my best friend Craig to list some of his friends that could loan me an incubator for a month or so I was turned onto the local 4-H chapter that graciously loaned me the equipment. No questions asked. And... no instructions given.  So my eggs arrived and I thought I had figured out the incubator situation but after checking several times that first day to find it scorching and then languishing at room temperature.  I have to pray that my baby quail didn't sacrifice their embryonic lives to my learning curve. February 17th or 18th my babies should be here.  In a few days I may try to candle a few just to get a picture but my inexperience coupled with the dark shells doesn't give me much hope for reassurance through that process.  I plan to keep all the eggs in the incubator for 22 days (incubation period is 17) and I hope that all the people who said infertile eggs will explode after a while meant like a month by "a while". 

I admit I am eons away from declaring myself an urban farmer by vocation but I can aspire to it and it feels incredibly, amazingly, wonderfully, euphoric to be working toward a goal.  Especially one of those goals that really is all about the journey.  If life is a road I am tired of hitchhiking and waiting for rides.  Look on y'all, I am striking out and I don't care if my feet get sore, or I wear holes through my shoes, here I am and here I go and here I enjoy the going.