Getting into full Spring Swing

Well, Tanglewood is aflutter with spring activities here in Michigan (though I hear we may get another bit of snow next week – at least it’ll kill the first mosquito swarms!)

In addition to our foster bottle lamb, new gardens and deck/planters, and looming bareroot orders and sheep fencing, we’ve just added six fluffy little peepers to our farm.

Say “Hi” to our new khaki Campbell ducklings!

It’s been a few years since we’ve had ducklings. I forgot they start off so small! Since we lost almost our entire flock of ducks to accidental-neighborial-poisoning last year and the only female left was kind of… neurologically strange afterwards, we decided to bring in some new genetics by ordering our ducklings from the local feed mill.

Of course after they arrived the first order of business was to snuggle them all, one-by-one.
(pictured: my main squeeze feat. duckling)

We decided to stick to khaki Campbells because they’re leaner and more upright than a lot of farm-ducks, so they produce finer meat, lighter-textured eggs and they’re better at mosquito and fly control because they’re more mobile than the more horizontally built farm ducks. My experience with Campbells has been great, though they do seem to be a bit more aggressive than other duck breeds. They’re easy to herd and they’re intelligent; they can even fly considerable distances, which means they are better at evading predators. Someone mentioned to me recently that they thought Campbells were produced by crossing back to wild mallards, rather than domestic mallards, and that might be why they are slightly smaller and more efficient than a lot of other modern farm duck breeds.

We are considering adding a couple of buff ducks, or maybe a Cayuga at some point, but who could resist these little peepers?

Are you adding to your “flock” this spring?

April planner, annual repost!

Our wonderful Jen at Unearthing This Life has been posting these great month-by-month planners for a few years. Just because she’s not writing here anymore doesn’t mean we stop the reposts!

I’ve been pretty productive this April– completely reconfigured the usage of my house to reflect the new reality of being in it alone. Lots of painting, moving and patching. The garden’s been a bit neglected through all this, but I’m hoping to get back on track. You can follow my garden progress at MyFolia.com/gardeners/Xan.

Here’s Jen’s April planner:

Gardening:

• Tilling garden beds where necessary to work in compost and get rid of weed seedlings
• Edging beds or digging the last of the new beds
• Add supports to garden beds for plants like tomatoes, peas, gourds, roses, peonies, and beans.
• Sowing outdoor hardy annuals
• Sow last of the peas, potatoes, and onions. Continue starting beets, lettuces, cabbages, radishes, and carrots.
• Planting rooted raspberry canes and strawberries
• Hardening off and planting of vegetable seedlings
• Plant any remaining saplings and transplants
• Rake around fruit trees to help with invasive bugs and/or treat for them. Use treatments only after flowers are gone.
• Questions about what to plant when? Go to Mother Earth News!

Outdoor house and yard Chores:

• Clean up fallen branches and sticks, nuts, and leaves.
• Hang bird/butterfly/bat-houses. If you’re not a beekeeper consider hanging a mason bee box. Set up bird baths and drinking holes for beneficial critters like bees.
• Tidy up gutters and look for winter damage.
• Bring out water hoses and setting up water barrels.
• Repair screens check caulking/insulation around windows and repair if necessary.
• MORELS!

Animals:

• Purchase/raise chicks
• Consider any expansions and rotations for this seasons’ critters.
• Repair fencing.
• Add supers to beehives. Check brood.

Indoors:

• Wash windows and curtains.
• Organize and collect glass canning jars.
• Clean out freezers and storage for this year’s crops.
• Plan simple, yet filling meals for lots of energy.

What will you be working on this month?

Sunday photos: Last Year’s Harvest

As we get ready for the new growing season, it’s fun to look back at what you grew last year!

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Probably my (Alexandra) last year in my big garden has me thinking about what I’ll want to grow that I really use. Tomatoes, of course, but what about carrots (cheap to buy) and tomatillos (also have way more than I need).

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I (Chiot’s Run) was just thinking about this yesterday as well, looking through my old photos of delicious vegetables, dreaming of the wonderful bounty my larger gardens will produce this year. Here were some of my favorites from last year:

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I (Sincerely, Emily) loved all the peppers that came from last years garden, but there was one particular vegetable that  I was the most thrilled about growing last year. The allusive zucchini (courgette.) For several years I had tried and tried, and struggled and struggled to grow zucchini. Last year was a HUGE success.

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What did you grow last year?

Photos full of memories (2)

With my outdoor and active life still “on hold” I am finding all sorts of different things to do. The other day I was paging through some photo albums and found some older photos in them that were fun to see.

I grew up with cats and so did my dad. One of the photos I found was of my dad in one of his cars. What I didn’t notice until later was there is a cat in the car with him. I believe the photo is from the 50′s, the car is much older than that, but I have no idea what kind of car it is or the year.

This photo is one of my all-time favorites. I was almost 5 years old in the photo.

I’m having fun looking through the old photos. I’m also glad that I can take a digital photo of them to share with family and preserve them for generations to come.

You can see a few other old photos that I posted back in November here.

Are you preserving some of your old photos? How are you doing it?

Sincerely, Emily

Benches: Garden, plant, potting

Yesterday I posted about some free wood scraps (cut offs) that I got from a neighbor. Today I wanted to show you the benches that I made using similar scraps of wood.

I originally saw this bench design at my next door neighbors. He is the woodworker that I have posted about before (over at Sincerely, Emily) who makes wooden toys and the bus. He is very handy, and builds a lot of other things that they need or want around the house/property like a tall, large tripod to hang large wind chimes in or trellis for any vines. He also built a pergola off their screen porch and aviaries for their doves and another one for a parrot. Small scale or large scale, he has his hands in it and he has always had a pile of scrap wood to use along the way.

What is so great about these benches is that you can make them any height and any length. You just build them to fit the space you need to fill or the area you want to use them.

Not only can you make them to fit your space, but the scarp wood you use for the horizontal pieces on top can be mixed and matched. They can be 2×2′s, 2×4′s, 2×6′s, etc. I am definitely not picky and do not need them all to be the same. I love using the 4×4′s for the legs. They make the bench very sturdy and will take the weight of a lot of plants or a person if you are making it to sit on. The smaller tables my step-dad made for the laundry basket near the clothesline and the compost tumbler where made using 2x’6′s for the legs. Those tables do not need to support a lot of weight, so it was good to use the lumber scraps we had and save the 4×4′s for the plant benches.

I put a piece of concrete under each leg (look at first photo) to keep it off the ground and away from moisture so the leg won’t start to rot. Our ground has not been moist or wet very often over the past few years here in South Texas, but if I can help the legs of my benches last just s little longer, I will.

The pile of scrap wood I hauled home in November still sits and waits for me. I had planned to get a few benches made this winter, but that is one of those things “on hold”  until I get better and can do my own things again. (JD is you happen to be reading this, feel free to use that beautiful scrap lumber and build me a couple of benches!)

I have talked about how strange things get me excited, like free horse manure and free mulch. Well, you can add scarp wood (or cut offs) to that list.

What kind of neat free stuff have you picked up along the way?

Sincerely, Emily

Hometown

I grew up in suburban Philadelphia, back when suburbs were leafy and dense, with public transportation connecting them to downtown.

But my hometown is Urbana, Illinois, where I went to high school and college.

You can’t imagine two places more different. My Brooklyn-bred parents never acclimated and my mother eventually homed back on the city and moved to Chicago. My father is still there, but it’s never felt like a natural fit to me, despite the fact that he passes for a native, corn-fed wife and all. The landscape is flat. There are no rocks. Public transportation hits the edge of town, if you’re lucky, and turns back around like there’s a force field preventing you leaving.

Eventually, of course, most everyone leaves. The diaspora from my high school graduating class stretches from Chicago to Texas to Manhattan to California to Tasmania. I left with a man, homing in on Chicago, his hometown. And now, I suppose, more than 30 years later, I’m a Chicagoan.

Growing up in a college town comes with a strange dissonance, because millions of people your age also “gorw up” there, so that having conversations with people about your hometown often ends with “oh yeah, I lived there. That’s where I went to school.” They think they know Urbana, but they don’t remember when there was a movie theater in downtown Urbana, assuming they can even find downtown Urbana. They don’t remember when the Courier Cafe was actually a newspaper office, complete with printing presses, which was my secret source of giant endrolls of newsprint. I used to bring it to the art department when everyone else was buying it at the art supply store. Because I was from Urbana and knew where to go. Even those of us who stayed home to go to college think of ourselves as “town” not “gown”.

As has happened with high school classes across America, mine reconnected several years ago via Facebook. So many years after graduation, you find that the petty issues of high school are gone. The cheerleader and the freak are friends. The freak discovers that the cheerleader was probably a cheerleader because she’s so damn friendly and nice, and the cheerleader discovers the freak was a freak because she’s so quirky and creative. And everyone discovers this bond that is the hometown. “I know what you know” is a powerful glue.

I homed in on home this week, because the man that I left here with, 30+ years ago, left our home today.  I couldn’t bear to be there to watch him strip away half my life so that he could start a new one. And as I drove down I57, through the cornfields, past the familiar towns, and turned onto Lincoln Avenue I realized that you carry your hometown with you, and no one can take that away.

There really is no place like home.

Sunday Photos: Close ups

Sometimes when you crop a photo for a close up, wonderful things can happen.

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I (Sincerely, Emily) love the world of digital photography, and I love being able to crop photos to come in close to really be able to show what I want or crop out things I won’t want to be part of the photo. Sometimes when I crop a photo neat things pop out and the detail is amazing.

This is a super close up of a piece of quiche.

I love the pattern on the dried outer shell of the loofah’s that a grew a few years ago. I am so glad I took some photos of them before I peeled them all.

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I’m (Alexandra) not crazy about fairy gardens, but I have to say, I love getting my eyes down at seedling level and pretend I’m in a tiny forest.

Do you enjoy the detail in close-up photos?