Lee finally got his tractor up and going. It was having some issues and the grass was getting out of hand. So much out of hand that my sissy town dog Edgar didn’t want to go to the bathroom because he hates getting his legs wet. I wanted to do cartwheels when I heard the lovely sound of the tractor starting and of Lee driving around mowing. I don’t like getting my legs wet every night either.

I did some mowing in the garden. The chicken’s grass was getting out of hand too. They won’t eat the long tall stuff because it is too tough for them. They like that tender new growth. Since the chickens were in danger of becoming lost in certain areas of their pen I thought it pertinent to mow for them. That and we moved the portable fencing and they are completely shut off from the vegetable garden area now instead of partially. They weren’t happy, but then they forgot about it.

My potatoes are up. I am feeling very happy about that. The varmit in the garden has been too obsessed over my garlic so I don’t think that it has tried eating my spuds yet. This may be a happy delusion on my part. But I prefer to keep it that way. Any more garden destruction out there and Lee may feel the need to stock up on ammo, guns, night vision goggles, and camo apparel.

We went to our annual Lane County Master Gardener fund raiser sale and got plants. We got lots and lots of plants. Basically I need to get a wagon or convince a bunch of people that don’t like plants to come along with me and be my plant holders. I have about half of the stuff I bought already planted. Among all my plant loot, I got some more blueberry bushes and a fruit tree for my Mom. You can’t beat the five dollar price tag on any of those.

Late this evening I went out to put the hens to bed. As I got close to the hen house I saw one of the Rhode Island Reds laying in front of the doorway. I thought to myself, “that’s odd, why is she dust bathing in front of the door?” I had just been out with the chickens collecting eggs and making some garlic water for them about a half an hour before. As I got closer I knew something wasn’t right. I threw my handful of corn into the coop for the other hens and then bent down to touch her. I rolled her over to see if she was just sleeping. She wasn’t. It was the strangest thing as she looked peaceful and just as fine as could be. There were no marks on her or anything. I guess she must of just had a freak accident or something. So our 11 hens is now down to 10.

So, Lee was out in the garden last week with the hens and one of the girls laid a really big splat in front of him instead of the nice tight chicken poop like you prefer to see. Obviously we’ve put it off too long–we really needed to do something about the loose poop problem they have developed.

In the August/September 2009 issue of my Backyard Poultry magazine there was a letter written in response to an article on Fall Season Herbal Wormer & Alternative. The guy who wrote the letter said he hadn’t used a commercial wormer in 25 years and his birds always pass health checks from vets when he ships them out of state. Okay, I think, so I will try this and see if we can clear up these runny poops from our hens.

His directions were take five or six cloves of garlic and blend them with some water so you have a puree. Then put that mixture into 3 or 4 gallons of the chicken water. Take away all of their other water sources and leave it with the chickens for a 24 hour period. Or leave it with the chickens for 2 or 3 days of you suspect a health problem. He does this process once a week or every other week.

I tried it. Want to see the results? Come on you know you do!

Since we seemed to have a problem we left the garlic water out for 3 days. I haven’t seen any squishy, splatty, runny poop since we tried this. I am feeling really happy with the results so far and plan on starting a regimen of putting out garlic water for them every couple of weeks.

In other chicken news, we have 2 Bob’s here that are looking really scruffy. Like we need to have chicken dinner scruffy. I can’t figure out a reason why so I am hoping that they are trying to molt. They just keep looking worse and worse. They will be a year old by the end of this month. Other than looking rough they seem to be okay. I still can’t find any mites on them.

And the last news I have on the chicken front is we have started to track how much food they are eating in a given time. It took our 11 hens 18 days to go through a 50 LB bag of food. We don’t know how much they eat when closed up, but our chicken book says they should eat about one third pound (per bird) a day. So that means that we saved about 24% on our feed cost by letting them free range.

Lee is about ready to have a nervous breakdown due to the weather impeding his gardening progress. If only you could hear the grumbles emanating from him. I keep telling him to chill out because vegetable gardening is part skill and part luck. The weather is really not cooperating over here as it will be sunny, then hail, then sunny again, and then pour down rain like it’s gonna float us away. Each day that goes by Lee seems to get more morose. I think it’s the sound of all the potatoes mocking him from the other room since they haven’t been planted yet.

Anyways, on Saturday he got one bed almost done before the sky opened up and tried to drown us. Monday saw us out in the garden after he got off work, trying to plant some of those mocking potatoes. It was still just a tad too wet, but Lee needed to do something to keep his garden sanity.

We planted some of those second year French Fingerlings that my mom gave me. Unfortunately I didn’t get back to the store in time, so I can’t compare new potato seed to older potato seed to see how much loss you will get from viruses in the plants. So I guess I will have to plant them again next year and make sure I get my new seed on time. We planted 30 feet of potatoes and we still have a bunch that still need planted. Maybe one day if it drys out.

So, Lee finally got some of those taunting potatoes planted but now he has something else threatening his fragile hold on his garden sanity. He’s trying to do something about it, but no luck so far. We have some pocket gophers in the garden. While moles can uproot plants with their digging, pocket gophers will simply eat them. He has a trap set in one of their holes at the moment.

To make matters worse, this pocket gopher has it’s absolutely ENORMOUS hole right under my beautiful garlic stand. If that stupid gopher harms my garlic I am going to roast it for dinner.

We are slowly getting ready for some more fencing projects. This new fence line will run from the corner of the garden to the chicken pen. It will be around 200 feet. Unfortunately, there was a huge pile of limbs that we had saved for firewood which was right in the pathway of where the new fence will go. (There are other obstacles that need to be resolved, so don’t expect the fence to go up tomorrow.) Lee decided to attack the limbs with a bow saw and in just a few hours he had cleaned up the whole mess.

It actually added up to more wood then what I thought it would–almost half a cord. When we finish super insulating the house as we plan, then I foresee the possibility of keeping warm on just a little bit of gathered wood like this.

I really am glad to get rid of that eye sore of a mess. This is our new view where the pile of limbs were. Okay so it’s not super grand yet as we still have a TV out there from the previous tenants. Most the the previous tenant’s stuff is gone, but not all of it yet.

Oh well, I can live with one rotting TV for a little while longer. It sure beats what it used to look like when we bought the place.

Oh yes, I have to add another picture too. It makes me feel better about how far we have come since buying this place. You can see why one little TV is no big thing after all the work we’ve gone through cleaning up.

After we had finished cleaning up our limb mess, Lee started sweeping debris off his tractor and found a vine growing up it. I didn’t realize these vines were growing yet. Lee’s tractor has been parked since he finished moving the chicken coop into the garden about a month ago.

This vine is about five feet tall and very determined that it wanted the tractor as a trellis.

I have no idea what type of plant this wild vining species is. When I saw it growing last spring I didn’t pull it up as it reminded me of a squash plant and I wanted to see if it would grow any sort of fruit. Now granted, when I showed it to my mom her advice was just to pull it up. It never did anything last year, so this year I will just pull them up. That is unless someone tells me otherwise about what an amazing plant this is.

The first of the bleeding hearts are up finally. Now, didn’t I tell you they were the matronly color of purple and not the pretty two-tone ones you can buy in the store? Oh well, I still have a special spot in my heart for them.

Finally, on a wonderful, amazing, spectacular note, Jack, our little one eyed throw-a-way cat is becoming a mouser. We keep finding dead bodies at our back door. We love our little black Jack cat. I hug her all the time much to her dismay. (She secretly loves it!)

It must have stopped raining enough here in Oregon to send all the flowers into spring fever. Okay not really, but according to beekeepers at February’s Lane County Beekeepers Association meeting they all seemed to think spring was hitting really early here.

Our Camellia bush is very much in bloom. Its not as pretty as the Camellia bush we gave to our neighbors down the street. That one was in front of the house and needed to go. It didn’t die in the summer transplant and is also blooming for them.

We have lots of violets coming up. This first one was given to me by my Aunt last summer. I then tried my best to kill it by leaving it on the porch for three months without water. Well, it survived my best attempts. I’m also assuming it is a violet because unfortunately I already forgot what she told me it was. I will have to ask her the next time she is out and then write it down. I have a VERY bad memory.

I am also assuming that these are violets. Why, I don’t know. Some are purple, some white, and some yellow. Maybe I shouldn’t be saying this as I will be shortly proved wrong. These ones grow wild all over our property.

The Dandelions have been out for a while. Lee wants to eat some of their leaves in salad but we haven’t yet. It has something to do with not being sure where the dogs have peed last.

The Magnolia tree is not going to bloom as splendidly as it did last year. Lots of it’s flower buds came out and then we had a cold snap come through with freezing nights. Many of the buds have brown centers now. I was disappointed as I was looking forward to another amazing bouquet of white. Ah, well, such is life.

The Flowering Quince is out in bloom. Ours is a rather sprangly plant that is in the middle of a Lilac bush. Not much to speak of really, but it is pretty.

The wild Bleeding Hearts are coming up in full force. They haven’t bloomed yet but I love seeing them come up. They remind me of my childhood. They grow wild up at my parents house still. These will not be the fancy Bleeding Hearts that you can buy in the store that are two colors. These will be a matronly color of purple when they bloom.

Oh dear, here is another bush that I was told the name of and already forgot. I am going to ask one of my neighbors again and then write it down. Several of my neighbors have this exact bush in their yards. This one is a less then stunning example as it has a huge blackberry bramble growing through it along with lots of dead looking branches. I am going to whack on it some and see if it helps it’s general appearance. If not it’s no huge loss as I don’t really like where it is located. If I can manage to make it come out in it’s full glory next year then it can stay. Maybe…

There was a break in the weather this week so I thought I should go out and make myself useful. I attacked a small section of Flesh Shredder brambles (I borrowed the name from Bent and Rusty because I liked it so much). As I daintily picked my way through the vicious out for blood brambles, I came upon something which was not very much of a surprise. I found two more balls. Seriously, I think this was a home for orphan balls at one time. I know we are way over the 100 ball mark. Maybe instead of a how many toys does a kid need post I should have had a how many balls does a kid need?

Anyways, I still have lots more to do. Don’t you just want to dive into this prickly mess for me?

Research suggests that 94% of New Year’s Resolutions are broken by March 1st^*. With that out of the way, we’ve decided it’s now safe to admit we have goals for the year. The 2010 goals page is available in the right hand menu. Yes, we copied the concept from other blogs. No, we don’t really expect to accomplish everything listed there, but it gives us something to work toward.

*In other news, apparently 80% of people can pull statistics out of thin air.

We are fortunate that nearby Eugene has three home shows each year. The spring show focuses on gardens, the fall show on homes, and the winter show on green living. This past weekend we visited the winter Good Earth show, attended one of their free seminars, and browsed the vendors. I thought it might be interesting to report on some of the highlights for us.

• Passivhaus Seminar – Peter Reppe, a local Passivhaus certified engineer gave a presentation on the goals and basic technology behind Passivhaus. I was interested in this seminar for two reasons. I wanted to see if the free classes were going to be really commercially oriented (this one was not), and I was curious what was going on with Passivhaus in Oregon. In short, Passivhaus is a German standard for building extremely air-tight energy efficient homes. There are perhaps 15,000 such homes in Germany, and only 1 in Oregon. Our own plans for a superinsulated remodel are partly based on Passivhaus. Robin was reassured to see that there are other crazy people working on this sort of thing, and I got a chance to talk with the presenter after the seminar about his own remodel. He pointed me toward WUFI, which is a free program for modeling the moisture performance of a wall system. I’m running it right now on our wall design.
• Lane County Beekeepers Association — The LCBA had a booth at the show and we stopped in to talk about pollination. Robin and I are convinced that some of our garden productivity problems last year were due to poor pollination, so we wanted to see if there was an “easy” solution without diving head first into honey production. The short answer is no. If we just wanted fruit tree pollination (Cherry trees for example), then mason bees are a great low-maintenance solution. However, their life cycle wraps up in June. For a vegetable garden, you need honey bees. The person we talked to raised wild swarms of honey bees and believed in minimal intervention. This seems to indicate that the local association supports a variety of opinions — if we are going to raise bees, I don’t want to be dousing them in medications. Robin and I have put the next LCBA meeting on our calendar. I’m usually a “I’ll read the book” sort of guy, but why not learn from people who are already successful beekeepers in our climate?
• Columbia Gorge Winery — Who passes up free wine samples? We bought a bottle of wine from this small batch winery which makes organically processed sulfite-free wine. Sulfites are a relatively new addition to wine making used to kill the yeast and stabilize the product, but with questionable health effects. Columbia Gorge isn’t unique in their sulfite-free production, but it was nice to be able to ask them some questions. Here’s one I’ve wondered a long time: can you make sulfite-free sweet wine? Answer: No. To stop fermentation when there are still residual sugars in the wine requires using sulfites to kill the yeast.
• Oakshire Brewing — Beer samples? Is this a great home show or what? Oakshire is the small local brewery responsible for my current favorite beer: Overcast Espresso Stout. It’s made with organic espresso, if you’re wondering about the “green” connection. Oakshire will be at the upcoming KLCC Brew Fest (an NPR charity event), and will be one of 11 local breweries creating their own collaboration rendition of a Belgian Style Cascadian Dark Rye Ale. I’m still not sure what that will taste like, but living in the northwest is great!
• Rags to Rugs & Stuff — This small booth caught our attention. An older couple from Lincoln City, Oregon make wool rugs woven out of the scrap end cuttings from Pendleton blankets. The rugs are heavy, well made, and very reasonably priced for solid wool fiber. Robin wanted to buy one on the spot, but couldn’t select a color. When we get a room sufficiently complete, we’ll definitely be tracking down one of these rugs.

A little over a week ago I mentioned that the ground was disgorging trash again. Since today was pretty nice, I went around with my bucket and picked up trash until my back got tired. There are a few things that I always seem to find when I do this. So, I thought it would be funny to dissect for you the set of items I always seem to pick up.

When we bought our place we had piles of trash to contend with. While almost all of that is gone we are still finding lots of small things that work their way up to the surface. Eeks, I am making myself shudder just looking at that picture. I forget sometimes how much trash we have hauled off this place.

Here is a shot of the bucket with everything that I picked up today. I took most everything out of it for the pictures. Yes, you read that right. I picked it up, and then put it back on the ground. (Then picked it up again.)

It is a given that I will find a handful of match box cars. I found 4 1/2 this time. I will find at least one kind of ball (if not more, remember the ball grave yard?). This time it was a tennis ball. Along with that I will find random sorts of small happy meal toys, Disney toys, and other miscellaneous ones. There is always a funny/odd sort of find that I will pick up. One of todays was a pocket knife.

There will also be a pile of roofing pieces in my trash bucket. These seem to be scattered all around as I will find them back in the chicken pen, by the house, and around the shack.

Probably the bulk of what I pick up will be pieces of candy wrappers, shreds of rotting plastic tarps (that were used in covering the previous tenant’s stuff), broken hard shards of plastic, and various other plastic things. In the left of the picture you will see some Lego’s. We find those scattered everywhere. Another odd find for the day was a syringe. That is in the upper right of the picture.

Finally, there will be a few random metal objects. Not too much on that front, as most if it seems to be plastic bits. So there you go! You have now seen into the bucket of trash. Give it a couple of months and I will have new things that will have been uncovered. Then a trash treasure hunt will commence again.