Living Small in Austin TX

Chickens are cheaper than therapy.

How is it that I haven't posted a single photo of my beloved little backyard flock yet?  Thanks, facebook.  I knew I wanted chickens, but I had no idea how much I needed chickens.

Mornings, one of the first things I do is let them out of the coop, see to their water, and fill the feeder.  I find myself extending the time this chore takes.  I pick up toys left from the previous day's adventures, look in on the compost, or...just sit on the edge of the sandbox and be with my birds for a while.  

Everything that awaits me back inside the house slips away.  My girls cluck and scratch and investigate stray threads on the cuffs of my jeans.  They haven't a care in the world and while I'm out there, I haven't either.

 

Chickens are gateway fauna.

Once you've got the care of a flock of backyard chickens under your belt, it seems like nothing at all to take in a friend's pair of ducklings she can no longer keep.  And then one day, you open an email from someone selling Dwarf Nigerian goats and you look over at your unassuming little 45 lb. mutt and think, I could handle a couple of goats that might not even get as big as you, NoNoBadDog.

You could keep a pair of Dwarf Nigerian Goats in a standard sized urban lot, even one that's largely given over to food production. I ruminated on this (see what I did there?) awhile.  A couple of goats could share 1500 square feet with 8 chickens, 2 ducks and a few fruit trees.  Not much else would grow back there, but it could be done.

Or, if you lived next door to a small urban farm, you might one day broach the subject of a goat share with your neighbor and be pleasantly surprised when they enthusiastically welcome the proposition.  Ah, their land, half of my goats...half the cost, half the work, everybody's up to their elbows in goat milk, goat cheese, goat yogurt, and excellent source of manure for the gardens.

Still, the care of living creatures is a responsibility best not taken lightly, so the other morning we (my farming neighbor, the kids and I) drove a little ways to visit a couple of Boer goats and their owner.  I'd posted a message on a local permaculture yahoo group about my desire to keep goats in a more urban setting and asked if anyone was up for letting me visit and ask a few questions.  

Boers are a lot bigger than Nigerian Dwarves, and I have to say, walking up a hill towards these goats was a little...intimidating.  At four years old, they were still quite playful, which pretty much translates into pretending they are going to cripple you with a head butt.  Pretend is the operative word though, because these two stopped just short of actually butting you every time.  Which is not say goats aren't a full contact kind of animal.  There was much leaning in for nuzzles and scratches, but I never did get used to them rearing up on their hind legs and hurling themselves in my general direction.  

I still need to find some goats to visit in a more urban setting than Bill's 2 acre backyard - his goats are a couple of lucky fellows, getting to free-range his property and go on accompanied foraging walks in a tract of undeveloped land adjacent to his property.  Still, before he kept these Boers (primarily for companionship and to keep the vegetation under control), Bill kept a small herd of dairy goats, so had a lot to share with us about milking schedules, equipment, etc.  We're going to go back and visit when the vet comes at the end of February.  I know I'll have even more questions, and hopefully get an "in" with a ruminant vet that makes house calls, sorry, ranch visits.

Goats!  I'm so excited!

 

Repurposing some ugly stuff I found around the micro-farm.

Who thought planter boxes were a good idea in Central Texas?

A couple of these were kicking around our yard when we moved in, and I'll admit, my first thought was to...you know...stick a plant in them, but then it got to be about a zillion degrees.  You'd need to water anything in those boxes a hundred times a day and even then they'd croak.

There were also these heavy concrete bench supports hiding in the weeds behind the shed.  Hmmm, bulk trash day?

As much as I hate accumulating stuff, I can't bear to just throw it away.

So I got to deconstructing...

and reconstructing...

I actually really like how they look!  Kind of rustic and actually quite comfortable.  I dragged them to a sunny-in-the-morning spot and now have the perfect place to warm up with my coffee and plan my day.

 

Remember that duck deficiency I was rappin' about...

Okay, maybe not actually rappin' and I honestly don't expect you to remember something I wrote...shit...four months ago???

Anyway, I've been meaning to share that we got us some chickens and those leaf cutter ants?  Mmmm, mmmm, chickies love themselves some tasty little ants!  Unfortunately, there's a massive hawk who likes to look in on my wee chicks, so they don't quite have free range of the yard yet.  I think once they're grown, the hawk will start looking elsewhere for his dinner.

And as for the ducks?  They're camped out in my bathroom until they de-fuzz enough to spend nights outside.

 

 

Plant I.D?

For some reason, I got it into my head that this was some non-woody stemmed variety of hibiscus, but now I am really not so sure.

Here's another photo, that will probably be of no help whatsoever, but if it is, then help a girl out with an ID, please.  There's a rather leggy little assemblage of them behind the shed-that-will-one-day-be-a-greenhouse.  

Alrighty, I'm off to the HOPE Farmer's Market to learn how to build a solar dehydrator.  Whee!

 

 

 

Getting naked.

Not me, the trees.  To be more specific, my crepe myrtles are being denuded by an extremely diligent colony of leafcutter ants.

I didn't even know we had leafcutter ants!  I thought leafcutter ants lived in...I don't know...Borneo, or somewhere equally remote and/or exotic.

See that green trail all along the fence?  It isn't grass; it's a very long trail of partially cut leaves.  

See?

It starts at the base of the crepe myrtle on the north side of our house, runs along the length of the house, curves around the back of the house, crosses a cement walkway, crosses an expanse of grass, goes underneath the fence along the south side of the house, and stops at the street.  I'm assuming the trail originally crossed the street and the leaves have since been blown away.

The ants are fascinating to watch and their industry is staggering.  They harvest the leaves to feed to a fungus they farm down in the colony.  The fungus helps compost the leaves and provide food for the ants.  They carry the leaves an astonishing distance.  A couple of weeks ago they were working on a different crepe myrtle on the south side of the house and carrying those leaves quite a distance around the driveway, as opposed to a much more direct route across it.  I don't think it's the heat of the cement they are avoiding either, because they walk on the driveway, just all the way up to the top, cross it there, and then all the way back down!  

I'm hoping they don't completely decimate my garden and am only slightly heartened by the fact that when they were actively harvesting leaves off the other tree last week, they seemed to reach some agreed upon stopping point that left a fair amount of leaves on the tree.  

Bill Mollison, the bewhiskered grandpappy of permaculture, when describing a garden beset upon by slugs, declared there was no slug problem, but rather a duck deficiency.

So, channeling Bill, I now have to determine the deficiency and shift the balance, but soon, because before you know it will be fall and I have trees to plant!

 

 

There *really* aren't enough hours in the day.

Have I mentioned that the new house has a dedicated arts and crafts workspace?  It is truly awesome not to have to spend the precious little time I actually have to be creative setting a project up and then cleaning it all up just so we have somewhere to eat dinner.

Ahhh, project overload.  I love it.

From left to right:

The crumpled up dark fabric is a skirt my daughter is upcycling into something a little more her style.

There's a painting in the works, again courtesy of my creative girl.

A little ziplock bag of clay being revived with some water so I can "make snakes" with the boy at a moment's notice.

In the foreground, a reupholstery project which deserves its own post.

The orange knitting is going to be a pouf, very much like this one!

Some of the balls of yarn are resting on what will soon be shelf supports in the linen closet (a previous tenant removed them in an act of sheer brilliance).  I need to paint them.

The little white unit is a wall shelf with hooks I picked up at Savers, thinking it might work in one of the bathrooms, as neither has a medicine cabinet and/or enough storage space.  It will not work in either bathroom, so it will go in my daughter's room.  11 year olds are always amassing "collections" and she needs some "display space".  It's in the middle of a paint job.

Sewing machines!  Ambitiously left on the tables, as if I'm going to actually get to use them one day soon!

Right now they are apparently a place to lay un-mailed packages.

I need to do something about the doorway to the right.  It's a very big closet/pantry/laundry room that came with very ill-fitting bi-fold doors.  It needs a curtain or something.  And I need to put a little piece of wood trim or something between where the tilework ends and the wood floors begin.

Oh!  And I kept those bi-fold doors, because I think they will make an excellent set of low benches for somewhere outdoors.  Going with the re-used door theme.

It feels good to be busy, even if I don't get quite as much uninterrupted creative time as I'd like.

Adventures in Greywater! Part 1 of...a series that hopefully won't drag on for years.

Our current greywater system: a five gallon bucket and a watering can.  There's also a dishpan sporadically involved.  It's a slipshod effort, but it waters the few edibles we've got in the ground twice a day.  It's not going to make a dent once we ramp up food production out there, and if you've ever tried to carry a five gallon bucket of water, you know it sloshes all over the place unless you slow your pace to a crawl.  Even if we're just using the smaller watering can to drain the bath, it's easier to carry, but you're in and out of the house, dripping water on the floor: time consuming, not to mention work.

I want a real greywater system, pipes diverted directly out into the garden and all that, but it is proving a bit much to wrap my head around.  In theory, I'd love to spend some time figuring it out and then we'd do it ourselves.  I like design problems and the sense of accomplishment when you have created something with your own hands, but on the other hand, we're in a drought - I need to be conserving and recycling as much water as possible right now, not the months from now after I've bumbled around with library books, youtube videos, the wrong sized pipes, etc.

For now, I'm just researching and lugging buckets, but I'm feeling so impatient!

 

Got to start somewhere...

I took a bunch of "before" photos the other day.  At 107 degrees, it's really too hot to get started on the "afters".  

Actually, that didn't stop Nate from planting a few beans.  They were doing alright, until he left for a business trip the day after transplanting them into a freshly prepared bed.  By noon that first day, the leaves were all shriveled up!  Was he really going to come home to find I'd killed his happly little seedlings?

Not if I could help it.  I moved aside the mulch to feel the soil and was surprised to find it moist and relatively cool.  Clearly the sun was just too strong for these babies.

Next year, I'll know better.  Next year, I'll let something tallish and spindly grow along the outside of the fence - a nursemaid, if you will.  Amaranth?  Milo?  Maybe just some pretty flowers to attract beneficials to the garden?

This year?  Old threadbare sheet, some chicken wire and a couple of clothespins to the rescue!  It's really not pretty, but those little seedlings are H-A-P-P-Y.

Dustin' off the virtual cobwebs...and building a potting table

Blogging took a bit of a backseat to moving.  The dust still hasn't quite settled here - full boxes sit untouched, artwork stacked against walls instead of hanging on them, daily chores abandoned in favor of unpacking, moving furniture about until it feels like it's in the right place, but it is definitely starting to feel like home.

Soooo, let the DIY-themed posts commence!

Every gardener needs an outdoor work bench or potting table, but I've...sob...never actually had one.  There was this gorgeous old paneled door leaning against the shed in the garden.  Look at that patina!  It was just begging to be incorporated into our outdoor decor.

Then, when I investigated further...

Pink!  

Now I was really torn - the other side was arguably more weathered, but then again...Pink!  And I love this little spot where the door handle once was - look at the shape of it!  I'd love to get hold of some of those original plates and restore the few remaining original doors inside my house - all but three of them have been replaced.  Judging from the state of this one, I suppose they needed to be.

Here's the final product.  

Nate is experimenting with egg cartons as seedling trays - he left eggshell halves in a few of them to see if that helps make transplanting any easier.  The legs are a couple of adjustable height pine sawhorses I purchased at IKEA a couple of years ago. Underneath there is plenty of room for...uh, my gallon jar collection.  We really could stand to drink less apple juice (blame it all on summer and the boy).  I'm determined to find a way to creatively re-use those jars.  Right now, I use them to transport hibiscus mint tea to potlucks.  The twice it's rained this summer, we've put our a variety of buckets and containers and then funneled the rainwater into these closeable (mosquito proof!) jars to use in the garden.  What I really want is a glass jar and bottle cutter, so I can turn the tops into cloches and the bottoms into...terrariums?  Glass stepping stones?  DIY gifties for everyone?!?!

And now, I am off to sample some local flavor at Live Oak Barbeque!