Living Small in Austin TX

Murderer!

I have 12 yards of mulch to distribute about the place, so naturally, I'm drawn to the glow of my computer.

I killed so many ants yesterday.  Remember this post where I waxed rhapsodic about the leafcutter ants - oh, they're so fascinating, I could watch them for hours, blah, blah, blah...?  Yeah, well, fuck that noise.

This is my healthy pomegranate tree:

This is my other pomegranate tree, the one that is getting eaten to bits by leafcutter ants:

In anticipation of my mulch delivery, I was weeding around the fruit trees and suddenly noticed a trillion little leaf snippets strewn about.  I am not so content to just observe their ant-like behavior when it's my fruit trees they are going after!  Whassamatter, ants?  You no like crepe myrtles no more?!?!?  I stamped on a couple of hundred (neighbors think I'm cray-cray!) and boiled a kettle of water.  Lots of ants are dead now.  My tree remains un-molested this morning, but they are regrouping.  I know they are.  I will be ready with lots and lots and lots of boiling water.  I will tire you out, ants.  I will force you to relocate.

I will make this scientific observation though.  This pomegranate tree was not looking so great, even before the ants.  Like lions, predators in the garden go after the weak.  I need to baby this tree.

Speaking of babying plants, work on my greenhouse is momentarily stalled (again), so I've been moving flats of seedlings about my bedroom all day, chasing the sun.  

I suspect someone who does not like brussel sprouts that much has been saying mean words to the babies, because it's the only row where only one cell has seedlings.  

 

Black gold!

Look at this!!!  I think I'm as proud of it as I've ever been...of anything!

We've finally lived somewhere long enough to have seen a compost pile through to its mature stage. Here's our current set-up.  

The black bins are both currently accepting greens and browns.  The buckets belong to the Compost Coalition.  They really deserve their own post.  Basically, I can exchange buckets with local businesses willing to set aside coffee grounds and/or kitchen scraps.  Right now I pick up a five gallon bucket coffee grounds from the little grocery down the street from my daughter's school once a week, but once in a while someone can't get to their pick up and the call goes out over facebook.  So, last week, my black bin received a big infusion - 5 buckets of "future soil" all at once!  The hardware cloth corral in the middle is our maturing pile.  There's enough room to the side of it to turn the pile weekly to speed up the process.  

I never used to turn my pile.  First of all, I've never had a pile really get big enough to outgrow its container, so I'd be trying to churn it all around with a shovel at the most awkward angle.  I'm not a large person, and my arms are embarrassingly floppy little noodles, so I'd sort of half-heartedly move things around a bit and then give up.  After all, it's going to compost eventually, isn't it?

At Master Gardener training this spring, I was inspired to really get serious about our composting operation.  It helped that I was running out of room in both black bins.  I learned an awesome little trick to make turning the compost a little easier.  Really, a more apt description might be flipping the compost.

Here's a close-up of the corral for my maturing compost:

So once my black bin is all filled up, I move everything into this and then, once every week to ten days, I just unlatch the closure, pick up the whole cylinder and move it over a couple of feet.  Then I (or, who am I kidding, it's usually "not-noodle-armed" Nate) shovel the pile back into the corral in it's new position.  It gets the pile nice and hot and speeds the process up immensely.

So this week my goal was to get my potatoes planted, and I was all set to run down to the nursery to pick up some of their compost, when it occured to me that I might actually have enough ready.  

There's still some chunkier stuff, but I sifted that out and had a couple barrows full for my potato bed!  I'll admit, I was one part thrilled at all that lovely crumbly good smelling soil, and the little thrifty part of me was all, "Hell yeah, no trip to the nursery!"but there was another part of me muttering, "Awww, no trip to the nursery?"

Soil!  My sieve is just the old screen door from the little chicken coop I dissassembled last year.  I could definitely use a bigger one, but this was already made and just hanging around.  Use what you have! It's a good mantra to have at the ready!

Bricks and chicken tricks...

This pile of bricks sat in my side yard for longer than I care to admit.

Remember some drunkard drove into our porch earlier this year?  This is what remains of our original brick porch columns, dumped by my contractor because I couldn't bear the thought of just chucking them into a landfill.  At first I thought I'd use them to edge my vegetable beds and I spent many a sweaty hour, digging a little trench in which to pile them up and then hauling the bricks, fitting them in just so...only to have the hose knock chunks of brick into the path every time I watered, and the kids to trip over them...it didn't work.  I think I then moved at least a couple of barrowfuls of them to edge some other path, before deciding it didn't please me aesthetically.

If I was going to re-use these bricks, I was going to have to find a more discreet location.  Maybe in the foundation of a cob bench or wall?  

Before such a project materialised I came home one afternoon to find both ducks and a couple of hens had escaped to the farm next door!  Chickens, like most birds, enjoy a good dust bath, and they spend a great deal of their time scratching and pecking for grubs and insects.  As a result, there were areas along the fence line where they'd inadvertantly dug under it. After retrieving them (and really, why do geese get all the credit? - a duck chase is just as fruitless), I rolled a few logs and some other cut brush along the bottom of the fence.  It worked in a pinch, but I could use those logs in a couple of hugelkultur beds.  What I needed was...a pile of bricks.  

I created a little rubble bed along the fenceline and was feeling quite pleased with myself.  As I dug into the main brickpile, I unearthed all manner of critters - lizards, crickets, snails, spiders, blind snakes, and various other insects scurried out of my way.  Hey, do you know what chickens just looooove?  Lizards, crickets, snails, spiders...

Pile of rubble = chicken buffet.

I never said it was pretty, but does something this multi-functional need to be?   

Chicken Coop 2.0

See the ugly shed to the right of the coop in the photo just above this one?  It's going to be our chicken coop/green house, but it needs a lot of work. 

Not only is it ugly, but whatever the exterior is sheathed in, it's crumbling.  And a big tree fell on the back side of the roof and sort of busted the rafters.  And there's a big pile of crap inside.  Some of it will get reused in the coop/greenhouse, and some will get donated to Habitat Restore, and there are piles and piles of metal I'm going to recycle or sell (hey, there's a bunch of copper in there!).

First things first, we stripped off the exterior.  At which point I noticed some significant termite damage along the sill plate (that's the beam along the bottom of the framing that rests on the concrete foundation).  I looked up directions on replacing this and it involved the rental of jacks and more arms than we have between us and would undoubtedly take the better part of a weekend, so I called my awesome contractor, Steve, and uh..he sent over one man and no jacks and was finished in about an hour and twenty minutes.

Look!  That's the farm, right there behind our back fence!  And yet we are 2 miles east of the capitol building and downtown Austin.  Love it;)

Here are the "bones" of the coop.  We framed out a space to hold a sturdy floor, up high to get good airflow in the summer and to allow for storage space underneath.  The little shelf is for the nesting boxes to rest on.  Everything is at a nice height, ergonomcially speaking, for gathering eggs and cleaning out the coop floor.  I can roll a wheelbarrow right up to the bottom hatch and rake all the used bedding into it.  Less mess!  More time for play!

Speaking of nesting boxes, remember how dirty the other ones got?  I looked into getting old fashioned metal ones and they were not cheap!  Or available locally.  So I decided to get some 5 gallon buckets and cut the bottoms off them.  When they dirty, I can just host them down!  Cutting the bottoms off with a hacksaw was easier said than done.  I looked sort of tough though...

There's a hardware cloth covered top, that I suppose we could use for light storage - haybales and such...but mostly, I just want it to be well ventilated and not have to worry about making the entire shed predator proof, because that's probably impossible, especially given the greenhouse component.  This little "box" will be completely enclosed in hardware cloth and those possums would have to be ninjas to get into my chickens at night!

I'm reusing the roosting bars from the old coop and secured them to the shelf under the nesting boxes with those little brackets you use to hold plumbing?  I don't know what they're called.  This size you actually get in the electrical department at the hardware store.

This a better photo...sort of...

There will be three nesting boxes total, which should be plenty for 8 chickens, and I'll be back with another post soon detailing the finished coop!


 

 

Burclover and my "un"compost pile

Burclover.  Does it have any redeeming qualities?  My chickens won't eat it.

I know what I don't like about burclover.  You ever step on one of the burs?  It stays stuck in you and if you try to pull it out, it pulls your skin up into a little baby mountain.  You have to just wince and keep pulling until it finally wrenches free.  It goes right through bike tires...I had to replace the inner tube on my jogging stroller twice last summer, and I hardly ever use the darn thing!

Have I mentioned my little boy doesn't like to wear shoes?

I have spent most of the spring planting season on gardening infrastructure as opposed to actually gardening (I know, I know...) and so the burclover sort of ate our vegetable garden.  I noticed the other day that I was almost out of salads and the thought of actually having to buy lettuce at the grocery store, or even the farmer's market pains me. Time to clear things out in the hopes that I'll have something other than chard and carrots to harvest.

So, aside from scattering about a zillion little burs all over the darn place, thus ensuring I have an even more abundant bounty of burclover next year, what did I notice?  The burclover kept the ground underneath moist and soft - huzzah for living muclches!  There wasn't really anything else growing under it - let's go weed suppression! Big, stubborn, deep roots - aerating the soil!  Lots of critters - spideys, snails, grubs, caterpillars, ladybugs, ants...I know some of them eat my food, and some of them sting the heck out of me (why, ants??!?! why?!?!) but it's always a good thing when the microherd is movin' and groovin'.

That's my "un"compost pile to the left.  It's just a cylinder of wire fencing.  I put yard waste in there that I don't want mixed in with my compost - bermuda grass, weeds that have gone to seed, the big spiky "leaves" of the palm out front - anything that would overwhelm the compost bin, or deposit unwanted seeds.  There's all the burclover I pulled sitting on top.  I'm not sure what else to do with that stuff.  It will break down eventually.  I never seem to run out of room in the "un"compost pile, so something's happening down below;)

Here's what the interwebz had to say about burclover, or Black Medic...it fixes nitrogen in the soil, prevents erosion, builds quality soil, and mines minerals from the subsoil.  A significant percentage of the seeds are "hard seeds" meaning they can take 2 or more years to germinate.

I think I like burclover.  I think I like the name Black Medic even more.  A lot of what I found online related to the lengths people will go to eradicate it from their lawns.  One woman actually suggested using a shop vac to suck up the seeds to prevent them spreading in the yard!  And of course the usual suspects suggested broadleaf herbicides.  Crazytown and Twitsville.

I'm not going to let it take quite so many liberties with the vegetable garden in the future (famous last words) but a shop vac??  I'm going to let it be.  Suggest the boy wear shoes.  Stop taking shortcuts across the grass with my jogging stroller - maybe if I actually jogged with it, there'd be no need for shortcuts.

Combat Peak Soil with weeds!!!

 

I need a new fence...

A few weeks ago, a drunk driver hit my neighbor's car, plowed through our fence, clipped a pecan tree in our front yard, and landed on our front porch.  Thankfully, the porch is concrete, and a brick column (apparently not load bearing) took the brunt of the impact.

The chain link fence was a little warped, but I just grabbed a couple of t-posts from the backyard and got the fence back up so it was functional, if not pretty (oh, look, it's like a theme...)  Our insurance company sent someone over to move all the bricks out of the way so we could open the front door - yeah, don't get all excited and ask me who they are...I just got the bill from the company they contracted that little polite action out to.

I finally received my check from them today, and have been thinking about how to go about repairs.  We had been planning on eventually replacing the chain link fence with something that afforded us more privacy, so may just go ahead and get that started.  I was never all that fond of the brickwork out front anyway, so we will likely replace it with wooden beams instead.  I'm thinking rough hewn cedar posts would be gorgeous, and easy to source locally.

As for the fence, I want something a little creative.  I'm hoping to alternate sections of wood fence with hog fencing so I have a built in trellis for climbing vegetables.  I also really want to be able to use reclaimed wood...but my google fu's been so off lately.  I can't seem to find anything!  I'm worried my vision is going to be prohibitively expensive, not to mention difficult for my contractor to implement.  

What I really want is rough boards like this:

I'd like to use them horizontally, with slightly bigger gaps in between.  The fence in the photo is down at the Natural Gardener, possibly the best garden shop ever, and my go to shop for seeds, plants, tools, expert advice and a bit of good natured flirting with the staff - I think it's written into the employee handbook or something - I wonder how many other customers go for the ego boost alone?  

I suppose I could just call them and ask about the fence.  Or I could just stop in at any one of the numerous lumberyards in my neighborhood with the photo - there are two on my street alone.  Let's hear it for light industrial zoning!  They are small shops, with pretty creative fences themselves...

A few months into this, and I totally get why most working farms are not pretty.  Okay, I should clarify.  I think most farms are gorgeous, soul restorative places, but inevitably there are piles of broken down machinery, plastic feed buckets splattered with mud or pigshit or, most likely, both, and ramshackle outbuildings - and I'm not talking about picturesque weathered barns, but dubious looking repurposed "manufactured homes" with an old tarp thrown over the rusted out metal siding.  Functional?  yes.  Pretty?  No.

To the left here?  This sort of thing is not pretty.  And I have a lot of this sort of thing going on.  

On the other hand, form is certainly following function here, and that's something I can get behind.  This is the "gate" to our chicken run.  it gets moved around a lot, to allow them to forage on fresh wild greens and then allow grazed areas to recover.  What's not beautiful about happy chickens?  And not needing to weed?  And not throwing this old bungee cord into the landfill because there's a second life waiting for it here on the micro farm?

With time, I think my little backyard farm will be both functional and beautiful, but for now...mostly it's about quick fixes, like yesterday afternoon when I took advantage of a break in the rain to go out and check on my dear little hens, only to find the covered run of their coop completely flooded.  They couldn't get to their feed without standing in a deep puddle of cold, dirty water...so I shoveled in a makeshift island of mulch for them to stand on, dragged over a panel of the moldy and rapidly crumbling wood panelling I've been stripping off the back shed to create more of a shelter...not pretty at all, but the chickens sure appreciated it.

 

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.