Jeeez! It's My Birthday!

I've got a bit of catching up to do!

Seamus has been "blowing his coat" which is really just a fancy way to say hes shedding all over the place. I've picked, plucked, combed quite a collection of beautiful angora wool from him over the last week. He's still got lots left on him ready to come off. I will be working on this for another week at least.

The chickens are freaked out. Something is eating their eggs before I can get them. Which makes them lay somewhere else, which means I have to hunt them down, which means we havn't been getting eggs lately, which makes me want to get a giant trap and set it up to catch whatever is EATING MY EGGS!!

The garden is still steadily producing. I started a whole new bunch of seeds a few weeks ago and they are all starting to go in to the ground. Beans, squash, turnips, radishes, arugula, cantelope. I am also trying my hand at cilantro, parsley, hollyhocks, bee balm, and japanese maple.

Japanese maple?? Hey, these things go for big bucks!! We have a beautiful and healthy maple in the back yard that is producing seeds. I'm trying to start a few and with a little luck, in a couple of years we'll have several small trees that we can sell.

We're also potting some Sago "palm" pups. These are another popular but expensive tree. Wether it works or not, we'll see!!

I've taken some of the back yard over for more veggies. The chickens still have the majority of the room, but I'm now able to grow more of what I wanted this year. So far I've planted some herbs and beans (from last years seeds). Today I put in 2 tomato plants.

I must be one of the few people in the world who can't grow tomatoes. I try every year and every year I get a few puny little tomatoes. They taste spectacular!!! But there just aren't enough of them. Ahhh. Maybe this year will be different.

Tomorrow is my birthday!! I was able to get the day off and we are going to the farmers market in the morning and then breakfast with the in-laws. It also happens to be fathers day so we'll all be able to celebrate the day together.

More For The Garden

Ahhh what a day!! After the farmers market we went by the nursery. "Just to look" I told myself. Well I found plenty to look at and we now have several more veggies in the garden.



Today I planted eggplant, pepporcini, cantelope and basil. I also divided my aloe and replanted all the "babies" into pots. We now have 6 aloe plants. Can you guess what I'll be giving as gifts this year??



Scott has gotten excited about the prospect of growing more sago palms from the tiny ones that shoot out from the trunk of our existing palm. At the nursery we got organic "sure start" (which seems to be just a turbo charged fertilizer). I prised off a couple of the mini-sagos and Scott set about potting them. Well see how it goes.

Our Daily Bread

At last! I have successfully made BREAD!!! I have unsuccessfully made bread many many times. Ooooooooh!!! I am extremely impressed with myself.

If you have never attempted bread making before, let me tell you the first thing you need to know. CLEAR YOUR SCHEDULE. Every time I have made bread, whether the results be good or bad, it was an all day engagement.

• First you assemble and mix all the ingredients (20 min).





• After mixing the initial ingredients, you let the dough sit until it becomes "big and bubbly" (30 min)





• Then you knead in even more flour (15 min).





• Next, you put your gorgeous and slightly sticky dough into a greased bowl, cover it with a cup towel and let it "rise". This is an unexact amount of time. The dough needs to double in size. Todays dough took about (1.5 hours).





• After the dough is sufficiently......doughy, you "punch" it down and divide it into the correct number of loaves. Today, I made 3.





• Now, you place each loave into its own greased pan and allow it to rise AGAIN. (30 min).
  
  

Then, at last, the dough is ready to become bread!! Put your loaves into the oven and soon (another 30 min) you have beautiful, fresh, wholesome, delicious, preservative-free, home made bread.

Wow, imagine how much longer this would take if I had to grind my own flour.

Holy Moley!

Heat wave! California weather is so mild, all of a sudden we've got 100 degree weather.

My chickens are pissed and poor Seamus Fuzzworth is just laying around trying to stay cool. Looks like its time to shave the bunny. Hee Hee Hee. That sounds a bit dirty. I like it!

Garden Rewards

Here are some tiny strawberries. Every day, there are more ready to be picked.

I feel like I havn't planted enough. Ahhh! This weekend, I'm digging up a new patch in the front yard to put out more broccoli lettuce and cabbage. The chard is looking rough (going to seed) so I should probably sow some more seeds and replace the older plants. What is the lifespan of a chard anyway.

I need more space!! I've planted most of what I want to grow this year, but still need at least another bed to get everything I want. I am toying with the idea of doing an in ground planting. I know, what a revolutionary I am that I would consider forgoing the raised bed and plant directly in the ground!!

We're already picking snap peas, strawberries, and onions from the garden! The strawberries were planted last year and didn't do much. This year, we've already got a small bushels worth. Apparantly strawberries take a while to produce.

We bought an apple tree last weekend. Its formed to grow laterally, ( I'm pretty sure the term is espalier ) and has a couple of tiny little apples on it already. Well see if they come to anything. It's still in the pot while I decide where to plant it. I have a couple of places I think it will do well, but I'm deliberating.

The chickens are doing well. Laying has been kicked into overdrive and we are overflowing with eggs. It's the best thing to watch the chickens come running around the corner when they hear the back door open! They know I've got something good for them. Their favorites are black sunflower seeds, chard from the garden, and the girls leftover cereal! We had a scavenger problem over winter, something was getting to the eggs and eating them all up! The hens all took to laying in strange spots and it was like an easter egg hunt every day! I've finally got them laying in the coop again, but they wont go in the boxes. Instead they lay in a secluded corner full of hay and feathers. At least I know where to find them!

Seamus the bunny. Ahhh Seamus. He's a bit anti social. I can't really blame him, the girls like to dress him up in baby clothes and that cant be fun for him. His wool really is lovely, though. He's gotten a couple of haircuts now and the angora is soft, warm, and lofty. When we are home, he has full run of the backroom and has great fun in the girls doll house, where he likes to hide. I plan on listing the wool in little batches on ETSY and seeing if it will sell at all. Who knows!

My birthday is coming up and I have a new tatttoo planned. I'll see if I can rustle up a drawing of what I want and post it here. Then, after I get it I'll take pics and put them up. I'm going to try 0ut a new artist and will be meeting him on Monday to go over what I want. I know it will include yarn, needles, siscors, and maybe a pin cushion. If you search Knit Tattoos on Flickr you will see some wonderful crafty tattoos!

SPRING!!

Yeah! It is officially Spring!

There's lot of cleanup to do after a messy, rainy winter. On Sunday, I cleaned out the chicken coop and put in fresh litter. I also pruned back the (very overgrown) orange and lemon trees. This yielded quite a bit of fresh fruit that I took to work for all the girls to take home. It was gone that same day!

The fireplace is full of ash that needs to be cleaned out... I've been told not to add wood ash to my compost pile so I'm not sure what to do with it. I don't like the idea of putting it in the trash. It can wait a couple more weeks till I figure it out.

Weeds Weeds Weeds! I am determined to be organic, so spraying the weeds is out of the question. That leaves it to me and my two hands!Weeding is not hard work really, just boring!

We have aquired a male English Angora rabbit (for the wool don't you know!) He's adorable and fluffy and semi-affectionate. We call him Seamus Fuzzworth and he's a dream.

This year, I'm trying a couple of new veggies in the garden. Brussel sprouts, broccoli, Japanese cucumber, edamame (soy beans), and crook neck squash. The patty pan squash last year was delicious and I'm going to plant that again. Last years strawberries are going strong and already setting fruit so we should get lots of those this summer!!

The jam I made last summer has lasted us all winter and there's still more! This year I will make more strawberry, though. It is the girls favorite. The peach jam is the favorite of the rest of the family, hopefully, the peach tree will give as much this year as it did last year.

Egg production is picking back up. We are holding steady at 3 hens. I will be looking for either 3 more this summer, or possibly ducks. We visited Harly Farm (a goat farm in Pescadero) and they were selling duck eggs. They were gigantic and beautiful and selling for $3 EACH!!! That may be something to try! On our next visit we'll pick the duck egg rather than the fudge. Ducks and chickens apparantly get along well, but need to be provided a small pool. I understand some breeds will be happy with a childs plastic pool. How exciting!!

Catch Up

Has it been 4 months?? Let me tell you what has been going on.

For years, I have been "planning" to keep chickens. At long last, everything fell into place about 2 months ago. In my ongoing mission to buy locally, I took the girls to our local feed store. Now this feed store is about 10 minutes from my house and 2 minutes from my LYS (local yarn store). However, we had never been there. From the road, it isn't that inviting. The window display is old and dusty, giving the store an abandoned store-front look. What a suprise I found inside!

Sam's is a fully stocked, well staffed, thriving local business and I want to spit for letting myself be put off. The day we chose to go, I had already gotten the house ready for chickens! I figured if Sam's didn't have chicks, we'd drive up to HMB and pick some up there. After asking at the counter, it was confirmed that chicks were only available in the spring. Well, so much for buying local. HMB, here we come.

Time for a trip to the bathroom before our long car drive... do you have a 5 year old? Have you ever had one? If not, then you can't truyly appreciate how long their bathroom breaks are. But thank goodness for it today! While we had been in the bathroom a woman had called trying to get rid of her chickens!! What luck! What timing!! There was no more "planning". This was it!

Two months later, we have gone from 4 chickens, to 3 chickens, and now we are 6 chickens strong! We lost one of our origional chickens to Mareks disease. Mareks is extremely commen and utterly contagious among birds! It pays to buy your chickens from someone who can assure you they have been vacinatted. Our "free" chickens have turned out to cost us quite a bit in vet fees. Luckily, the chicken who died was the one that was causing us a bit of trouble. In case there is any doubt, a hen WILL begin to act like a rooster if there isn't a rooster around. And that includes crowing!

To replace our fallen soldier, we drove to Cotati (NOT local for those of you keeping track) to meet Joan The Chicken Queen. Yes, that's what she's called. Look her up on Craigs List.

Joan was no nonsense. Before I had the boxes open and turned around she had already wrangled one chicken and enlisted my oldest to grab another. So much for all my prepatory reading about picking a hen. Joan had the chickens in the box before I could say "Four-point examination". I didn't even get to check their "vents" and I was sooo looking forward to gauging the space between the pubic bones. Really, I had done my homework and was ready to put it to use. Not to worry, though. These new hens have proven to be excellent (almost daily) layers of beautiful large brown eggs. I've gotten several with double yolks. Thank you, Joan! You are a Queen!

All these new chickens mean more eggs.....and more poop. Now, instead of waking at the crack of dawn, opening the coop door, crawling back to sleep. I wake at the crack of dawn, open the coop door, pick chard and weeds from the front garden to feed/distract the hens, then go about "harvesting" poop.

A word about chicken manure. You can buy it by bagfuls at the local garden center, its supposed to work wonders on your vegetable garden. I look forward to using it as a totally natural, completely local, 100% free compost on next years garden. Chicken manure can't be put straight onto your beds though, it will "burn" the plants. So you have to let it "rot". Rotting manure is just as much fun as it sounds.

The chickens have really added a lot to our family. They are a wonderful source of entertainment and remarkably low mantinence ( I know I said crack of dawn but its really more like 6:30). The poops not that bad and think of the huge payoff! Keeping chickens is a really good first step for us to eat, live, and think locally. My children are getting hands on experience with where their food comes from and the work that it involves. I am getting the satisfaction of cooking and sharing food that I can feel 100% good about.

The next post, I'll tell you about our reclaimed front yard and the garden we have started there!