Free Range Ain't Free

I have been experimenting with free ranging my poultry.  My imagination ran wild with the notion of a symbiosis, birds picking gently through vegetable beds and removing unwanted insects.  These chickens and ducks are supposed to relish slugs, snails and insects, right?!  I started this garden because I wanted to feed my family!  So far all I have succeeded with is feeding my birds!

First was the ducks... They gobbled up all my greens and seedlings before they even had a chance.

Then I tested out a couple chickens... They didn't eat the seedlings but they did scratch up the dirt, disrupting any chance the seedlings had at life and ate the seeds that had not yet sprouted.

Lastly, the turkeys and our pekin duck.  For weeks it seemed like this was ideal!  Our Royal Palm hen even made a little nest in one of my beds (she's laying like an egg a day!) without disturbing the squash or sapling growing there.  But alas, this last Friday I came out to see all three of them climbing my herb spiral and nibbling my herbs down to the nubs.  Bahhh!  Up to this point the herbs seemed like the only greens I could successfully grow.  That didn't last.

I am going to try one more time to re-fence the garden area and encourage the turkeys to hang on the lawn with the rabbit tractor. I don't feel like I have many other options because the turkeys are too big for the chicken run and the ducks are not fond of strange birds.  Its too early to butcher these suckers so they better start behaving!

Vege-troubles

I feel like I haven't written very much about gardening and that is for good reason.  I seem to have some pest issues (althought some of my pests are domestic).  I have yet to catch any wild pests but I know they are there.  My attempts at growing cold weather veggies was laughable.  I started some broccoli and cabbage inside and then when I moved them outside they were stripped down to bare stalks.  My garlic has even been picked through and I have perhaps a quarter of what I started with. I should be harvesting radish and lettuce now!  Instead I am mourning over beds of whimpy, perforated leafy bits.

I seem to be having better luck with my warm season veggies.  I put out tomatoes en mass and have only suffered a few casualties but that was due to the weather.  Corn is coming up (now that there aren't chickens pecking it up), beans, squash, cukes, melons and quinoa.  I had been religiously keeping track of what I planted where until my notes seemed worthless because I had to replant beds so frequently.  Now I have a new resolution.  If it grows, it grows.  If it grows well then I will hopefully be able to save seeds from it for next year. 

Discouraged by annuals I went and boosted my spirits with some perennials.  More currant, elderberry and (new) some goji berry shrubs. 

Baa Baa Baad Goat

We have been working on leash training our goats by taking them for walks to the park.  Some days they do well, some days we have to practically drag them the entire way.  It helps when Adam takes the girls and walks ahead so the kids have something to follow.  Carmen is growing a lot she is a bundle of spindly legged energy.  People who see us walking down the street are often intrigued and ask to pet the goats.  We oblige, but warn that Carmen is sassy.  She invariably lunges at the poor people and jumps up, prodding them with her stiff hooves.  Rico just sidles up, fat and agreeable.

Adam and I recently replaced the dog crate with a more permanent housing structure, a three sided lean-to made from pallets.  I thought that four feet would be high enough to deter the goats from climbing up on top.  But that Carmen, she is incorrigible! For the summer we are leaving it as is but when fall comes around Adam is going to insulate at least two of the sides. I haven't put in a permanent feeder yet but we are getting close to weaning them.

Rico and Carmen, little miss sassy pants

New Home!

They only have approximately an week separating them age-wise and yet their sizes are still very different.  I thought that Rico, being a male, would have had a growth spurt and caught up to Carmen in height.  It hasn't happened yet but maybe that is the effect of castration at such a young age.  This slow growth is making me curious about the lineage of my goats.  Rico very much looks the part of a Boer goat but I expected him to be putting on weight more quickly if that were the case.  Maybe he will escape the butcher block and I will sell him as a pet... We will see how much weight he puts on by September.

I am constantly perusing Craigslist to see if there is a deal on goats that I just can't pass up.  At this point I am leaning towards purchasing a doe and buck, so I can get Carmen serviced without taking a blood sample and going through all that business.  In theory it makes sense, if I can get a decent deal, that I would get a two goats from the same place. Keep the buck around long enough to impregnate Carmen and then send the new buck and Rico to the butcher together.  Logistically we will see what works out.  I just hope that September won't be too late in the season to find some decent goats.

In other news, Lavender is doing well. She is hopping differently, keeping her tummy aloft as she gingerly moves around her cage.  I have been trying to leave her alone for the most part, ever since Adam reached in and she snapped at him.  It could be that I am imagining it, but she seems to be enjoying herself, like this is what she was supposed to do in life.

Candace is sitting on a nest full of eggs! Last time I counted there were twelve, it could be there are more now!  I am excited for ducklings! I don't want to get too excited though, the Muscovy duck incubation period is 35 days, gasp! That is a long freaking time!  I can't tell but I think Lucy started laying too.  Both are looking ragged from breeding.  The feathers on their backs are grimy and shredded.  Ducks really get the short end of the stick with mating.  At least I don't have a water feature for Ken to drown them in as he does his stuff. It's bad enough that he is twice their size.

I have been incubating quail eggs too and the first set should hatch tomorrow... If they are going to hatch... ever.  I am not holding my breath.  The second set looked more promising when I candled them.  I might have to break down and buy an actual egg incubator.

I pickled seven quail eggs today.  I wasn't satisfied with any of the pickle mix recipes that I found or did not find.  So I kinda winged it.  I took apple cider vinegar and added sugar, salt, coriander, cloves, and ground red pepper. I microwaved it all in the mason jar and stirred, microwaved one more time just to be sure I got it hot enough and of course that was the time that I didn't watch it and it boiled over.  Then I added the hard boiled and shelled eggs to the hot mess and screwed the lid down tight.  I put the jar in the fridge and when I checked it a couple hours later the lid had sealed.  I am debating how long to wait before I try a pickled egg.  I hope to forget that they exist and surprise myself with them in a month or so.

Nothing helps me forget current projects like take my goats for a walk.  It is possible that walking the goats would be enjoyable if I did not bring my children along.  Not that my girls aren't adorable and lovely, because they are!  It's just their legs.  They have these little short legs and it takes them FOREVER to walk anywhere.  Unless, of course, you carry them.  But maintaining hold on two goat leashes and carrying one of two toddlers is a precarious endeavor.  Not that I haven't managed this task, I would not say I succeeded at it, but I have managed it out of necessity.  It requires a lot of guiding goats with your feet (to the untrained eye it might look like kicking), skillfully leveraging children onto hips and muttering frustrations always helps class up the operation.  I have tried to delegate and carry Aida while giving a tether to Mildred.  Most of the time Millie just drops the leash the moment the goat pulls against her.  The last time however, I was coaching her to hold on to it, hold on tight!  And a second later the leash was gone and she was picking herself up off the pavement in a deluge of tears.  Awwww, poor Millie.

Multiplying like Rabbits

At the beginning of April we had two American rabbits, Lavender and Jefferson.  Now we have five total.  I wanted at least a trio, two does and one buck, but when I went to pick up our second doe I couldn't help myself.  I found a breeder in Sun Valley that had 6 week old Californian/New Zealand crosses for sale, $15.  She made me a deal and for $25 I brought two does home.  Adam helped me name them Grace and Stevie.

Grace has slightly darker coloring compared with her sister

Stevie is a little more docile, the sisters currently enjoy sharing a cage

About a week later a woman on Craigslist was looking to unload a Californian buck because of a messy divorce. I thought it might be nice to have a back up stud.  Via text she told me he was five months old.  I was surprised to find him a little small for my taste but rationalized that perhaps he was not free fed, and the constraints of his cage could affect his growth.  His current digs are a big change of pace from the indoor cage equipped with a litter box that he had before.  Now he is sharing the rabbit tractor with Jefferson.  I named the newbie buck Harvey. He has beautiful markings and is gentle when handled.  He has a couple months before his stud services will be needed, hopefully he can pack on some pounds by then.

The size difference is particularly noticeable in this picture of the bucks side by side,  keep in mind Jefferson is a month younger than Harvey

Yesterday we bred Lavender and Jefferson for the first time.  I was apprehensive.  Maybe Jefferson wouldn't know what to do, maybe he would be territorial and attack her... I need not have worried.  As soon as she entered the cage and he got one sniff of her, Jefferson was all about business.  It took a couple mounts, Lavender was playing hard to get.  Finally he succeeded, though he did bite her once to achieve compliance for the final act. I was happy that things had gone so well and then immediately distraught when Lavender did not respond to Jefferson's post-coital kisses. He was hopping around snuffling her face, very sweet.  But Lavender was just lying there eyes closed, breathing alarmingly slow.  Rabbits are known to break their backs easily, maybe Jefferson's loving had been too rough! I yelled for Adam.  I lifted the tractor lid and he whisked her back to her cage. She was lethargic in her cage.  We just left her alone.  Maybe she was just processing her deflowering, physically and emotionally.  An hour later  I checked on her and she was hopping around same as always, whew! Tomorrow we are going to let Jefferson have another go just to confirm the breeding. In about a month we should have a nesting box full of fuzz balls!

Wall 'o Water Hick Hack

I have been attending Grow Your Own, Nevada! which is a gardening class put on by the local cooperative extension.  A couple weeks ago the lecture was on growing tomatoes.  The Wall o' Water was a key tool the presenter suggested using.  Quick intro to Wall o' Water, it is a circular cone made out of plastic that has cylindrical pockets that you fill with water and then the water acts as a barrier and season extender for cold sensitive plants.
 


 I wasn't ready to transplant my tomato starts yet but I had received my Burgess Seed Co. purchases and included in that was my hardy kiwi.  I was worried about the kiwi because its young leaves are cold sensitive regardless of its name.  I dragged my family out to a local nursery but, alas, they were sold out of these precious Wall o' Waters.  This gave me an idea, why spend money when I can make my own?  I had seen several of my mom friends post of Facebook about the DIY Backyard Waterbed (http://www.playathomemomllc.com/2012/02/giant-outdoor-waterbed/) and this inspired me.  I used the sturdy red plastic bags that Burgess sent my plants in, parchment paper and my iron to whip up a couple.

Not as pretty but getting the job done!

My Happy Hardy Kiwi Female Snuggled In

The plastic was not as sturdy as a legit Wall o' Water so I added some structure by placing cut up milk cartons inside.

My neighbor called me over to offer me some used bird cages.  We went into his backyard to grab them and he showed me their modest garden beds.  Their nursery started tomato plants were already two feet tall, sturdy and showing signs that flowers would be setting in a few days.  I was discouraged, thinking about the tomatoes that I had started from seed two months ago that just now were putting out true leaves.

Cardoon, Tomato, Cantaloupe, Eggplant, Okra and Peppers

Tomatoes, Eggplant, Cuke and herbs and onion (that aren't really thriving)

Tomato Starts

If his tomatoes discouraged me his radish and cabbage utterly debased my inner gardener.  They were perhaps a week from harvest.  My attempts at cool weather crops had so far been largely a failure.  Ants and sparrows were stealing my seeds and decimating my seedlings.  *Sigh*  I was also challenged by this revelation of neighborly success.  I immediately wanted to move some tomatoes outside, who cares if they are tiny?  If they grow outside they are still growing.  I had used all the red plastic making the two barriers for the kiwi.  I googled diy Wall o' Water and someone had said they used packing ballast. So I gave it a shot.  I took some milk jugs wrapped them in ballast, duct taped it together then transplanted some seedlings, set the jug/ballasts atop and snipped some holes in the top of the ballast pockets.  I filled the pockets with water using a funnel and water can. I moved a total of four starts out side, three Plantano and one Purple Cherokee.

These are the most flimsy. I have to top them up almost every day.  I am using them as modified cloches, putting the jug caps on overnight.  The tomatoes seem happy so far.

The weather has been phenomenal lately and I have been tempted enough to start planting.  The experts at my gardening class said that between May 15th and June 1st is the optimal time to plant warm weather crops like corn, melons and beans.  I just can't wait anymore.  The 12th of April I did a test planting of summer squash, cucumbers and watermelon.

Summer Squash

Charleston Grey Watermelon

Seeing these seeds take off has given me courage to go hole hog planting warm weather crops. From May 1st-3rd I planted beans, corn, cantaloupe, summer squash, winter squash, cucumbers.  I also planted more peas, beets and greens. 

I planted this entire bed with vining crops, I am hopeful that this will be a blanket of intertwining squash and melons

Here is a natural trellis (apple branch) that I stuck in the ground for my peas

My next garden challenge is to create row covers to protect my crops from these bothersome sparrows.  If His eyes is on the Sparrow and I know He watches me.  Then God is watching be get pretty pissed. I have been all over town looking for Remay (light weight fabric that can be used as a floating row cover), another tool talked of often at Grow Your Own, Nevada! Yet every nursery or garden center I go to has no idea what it is.  Perhaps I have had bad luck and the employees I talk to are dolts that are uneducated about their field.  Or perhaps remay is like a unicorn and the more I hunt for it the more rare it is, I just need to stop looking and it will appear one night in a meadow, lit up by the moon is a silvery glow... Probably not.  Next stop thrift store to get some gauzy used curtains.

Musky Ducks

Candace (my oldest Muscovy duck) laid her first egg, hurrah! That was on the 23rd.  I took the first three eggs and to eat and see if they were fertile.  They weren't. Then she took a break.  The she laid two more eggs. These were fertile. She took another break.  I noticed she was looking panicky and trying more vigorously to escape their pen.  I thought that perhaps she wanted to find a nest that was more secluded. I let the ducks start free ranging again.  She laid an egg behind the compost pile a few days ago and apparently abandoned it.  After two day of her not laying, I moved the egg to one of the nesting boxes in their pen.  Two days passed and nothing.  I am still letting them free range, my hope is that Candace has found a nest so sneaky that I haven't found it.  I kind of doubt it, our yard is pretty small and I know it like the back of my hand. I can still hope.

Two of my Muscovy ducks, Ken (left) and Candace (right). Candace is giving me some attitude.

Kahh-tuuuur-neeeks!

I started getting fed up with my quail.  They were getting pretty loud with their obnoxious "Kahh-tuuuur-neeeks!" One of the Texas A & Ms was startling all the time and flying up into the ceiling of the cage, effectively scalping the feathers from his head.  Just looking at him was stressing me out.  So one day I took a trip onto BYC and found a step-by-step tutorial on butchering quail.  It helped that the user employed the help of a six year old to model each step.  If some first grader can do it so can I!  I was a little challenged emotionally because I had raised them up from eggs and they are so small, they fit in one had, how could I kill something so dainty? 

The first one to go was the scalped A & M, but he did not make it easy for me.  I went to grab him out of the cage and he flew out.  So then I spent fifteen minutes chasing him around in the yard.  I finally pinned him under a stray rain gutter that I had lying around.  By that time I was SO ready to chop his head off.  Aida was taking a nap but Millie was awake and as I held the panicked bird over a 5 gallon bucket she wandered out to me.  I told her what I was doing and then grabbed a pair of hand pruners and clipped the quail's neck.  She surprised me with her casual attitude.  "You killed the quail," she said and went to play on the swings.  Huh, I guess she is getting used to this whole urban farming thing. 

Plucking a quail is so easy!  It's almost enjoyable!  No scalding required; some people just clip off the wings and skin the bird, but I left the skin on.  Even though I was totally inexperienced I was completely done cleaning the carcass in about five minutes.  Time for number two.  I grabbed one of the Jumbo Browns and vented it, just to see.  You can injure a bird improperly venting to determine sex, so until now I had been too timid, but in a few minutes this bird was dead meat anyway so perfect timing.  The second butchering was uneventful, took a little longer to pluck because of the brown feathers.  I went to grab the last A & M, flipped it over to vent and was surprised to see a much different picture than I had seen with the previous bird.  The cloaca was large and swollen... Hmmm... I guess I should leave these two alone. 

The two survivors

A week later I was rewarded with my first quail egg. Yay!  I had it over easy.  The second week of laying I started collecting eggs for an incubation experiment.

Beautiful slightly green with brown speckles

My experiment: To use my yogurt incubator to hatch quail eggs, I will be doing sets of 4 eggs, with a maximum of 16 eggs.  In about 17 days we will see if I get any babies.  I am doing to the staggered sets because 1) I am not completely certain of the fertility of these eggs, 2) I am super impatient 3) eggs can only sit around for ~1 week before being set.

Here is my incubator next to my beside so I remember to turn the eggs frequently.

Excited for more babies but I am not holding my breath.  I will report on the results either positive or negative.  I will warn you, if you believe in premonitions, I had a dream about exploding eggs.

The Side Garden, Part 2

So my guess-timation of the space was a little off.  I had guessed that the space was 14' x 25' but it actually is 12' x 21', I give myself points for being pretty close for just eyeballing it but in a cozy space like this two feet is a lot to over-estimate.  With the new correct dimensions I moved features around just a bit.  Instead of the cinderblock 3-D garden being backed up to the dog run I moved it against the neighbor's fence.  I was debating whether to do a garden bed for my nightshade veggies at all.  But then Craigslist Angel Dominic gave us eight railroad ties and I just had to put them to use somehow.

Over the weekend Adam built the fence which in total cost us ~$100 in supplies from The Home Depot ( three 4x4s, twenty-six cedar pickets, four 2x4s, and two bags of quick set concrete).  I whitewashed the street side of the fence a day later.

Here are some pics of the side garden in process.  When Adam's parents came to visit last month we started to rip up the turf so these pictures are a little rough, just warning you.  

 The finished product

Before I painted the fence I played a little tetris with the cinderblocks and although I reserve judgment on how "pinterest worthy" my work is I am confident when the cinder-garden is filled with strawberries, creeping rose, "walk on me" thyme and kiwi vines.  I am pretty happy with the results so far and since this garden feature cost me zero dollars I think that its totally worth it.

 

Now that the new fence was up we could take down the old chain link fence and put in the dog run.   The old fence was no trouble.  The dog run was a little tricky.  We have never assembled anything using chain link let alone a craigslist special dog run sans instructions. The seller did tell me that it was a FenceMaster.  I had thought no problem I could just look up the directions online but Google failed me.  Still there were plenty of pictures and my common sense which served us well.  It turned out that I had purchased two 10'x10' dog runs.  We pieced together a dog run roughly 7'x20'.  We were short on rail end clamps but it was no problem to go to Tholl fencing and get some.  I carpeted the run with wood chips which we currently have an excess of, piling a heap on the south side since goats are known for playing king of the hill. 

Once the dog run was up and skinned with chain link we constructed a little planter with four railroad ties, three to form a tall back (and hopefully a sufficient barrier between the eventual goats and our veggies) and one for the lip on the front.  The remaining railroad ties we used to build two more garden beds one, you may have noticed, in front of the freshly white-washed fence and the other under our window in the backyard.

We aren't completely finished with the side garden, there are still trees and plants that have yet been shipped let alone planted and I need to furnish the goat pen with some sort of shelter, water trough and keyhole manger, hmm there's time for that later.  The posts from the previous chainlink fence remain in place, Adam may need to utilize a hacksaw to remove those, at least the middle one.  I am still working on laying flagstones (re-purposed from the front yard) but I did manage to fill the long bed with soil and plant some Wando peas.  They are said to be ready to harvest in 70 days, just in time to give us some green and fix some nitrogen before I rip them out to make room for okra, eggplant, and peppers.

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.