Dirt Nasty

I am falling in love again and my mistress is soil. When we moved in during the cold days of December, I remember being chiefly focused on staying warm. Felling old trees, splitting the resulting stumps and chunks, stacking the wood to season and waiting for the chimney sweep seemed like the most important things in the world. Fortunately, we had the chance to save all the precious wood chips that resulted from one of April's old school buddies taking down 5 oak and pine trees. It was unceremoniously dumped into a pile next to the chicken coop that lay covered in snow for most of the last 2 months. Now as the spring sun has thawed both the earth and my body back into life and activity, I have become obsessed with creating the most massive and fertile pile of compost in Caldwell County. Since we moved in, we have diverted nearly everything that passes through the kitchen not consumed by us or the boys into a compost bin. I have consolidated all the piles of raked and blown leaves into a massive pile of mulch right by the woodchip pile and supplemented with all the straw and manure I cleaned out of the barn. Today, I tested our soil using a little $3 kit we found at the Tractor Supply. It was the kind of fun reminiscent of middle school science lab collecting the dirt and mixing it with 5 parts water then pouring the resulting muck into test tubes before adding the magic powder that would tell us our pH and NPK levels. Everything came out pretty good, except for the nitrogen levels which are either non-existent or proof that I really should leave anything science related to April. I will bring in the tubes and ask the county agricultural agent, Seth Nagy, tomorrow when I begin my Master Gardener class. I am really excited, feeling like April must have when she got into Stanford. I found out about the class from April's brother's girlfriend, Carolyn, but when I handed in my application; I was told that the class was full and I was 4th on the waitlist. I knew I could really use some education on things like pruning, soil, insects, pesticides, fruit trees and plant diseases but I resigned myself to internet research and whatever I could find in the library of survival books I have amassed waiting for Armageddon to kick off. Anyways, I was in the midst of spraying our fruit orchards with dormant tree oil when I got an unexpected phone call from the county ag agent. A bunch of grannies had decided they would rather keep knitting or playing bingo, so I had vaulted from wait list wannabe to future MASTER GARDENER! With a chesire cat grin, I went back to winding the 3 separate hoses I had merged together into a 300ft mega-hose through the maze of trees in the orchard spraying the oil which is supposed to kill the "bad" insects seeking to prey on my tasty peaches & cherries (but in an organic, friendly way.) Honestly though, sometimes I get in kind of a funk trying to figure out what to do with the freedom of my days, almost longing for the time when someone was telling me what to do and why I was doing it wrong. Today over a lunch of chicken burger quesadillas; I was getting some ideas on a gardening forum when I found a dude named Tim from Illinois who is taking the art of compost to a level I can only aspire to. His writing is powerful and rings with the honesty of hard won experience, sort of like Hemingway if he only wrote about dirt...he also takes insane pictures of his compost piles which are probably larger than the city block we lived on in San Francisco. I highly recommend you check out any of his manifestos archived here:
Forerunner's Compost and threads
After I finished reading & eating, I was reinvigorated and charged back outside with my pitchfork flipping the compost pile like a man possesed. Turning in all the kitchen waste I had stored up and topping it off with a wee bit of urine to achieve just the right nitrogen/carbon balance. It's not gross, it's earthy...and I love it.

the coop

We finished the chicken coop today thanks to my wife the architect's keen eye for level and ability to revise blueprints in her imagination. It was the first thing either of us had ever built on our own or together (besides our love...as April would be quick to remind me) and our sense of satisfaction was far greater than the door's ability to close without a little encouragement. We made a brave attempt to build it out of all the scrap wood we had salvaged from around our place but after we ran out of screws and I bent our best hammer trying to pull old nails...we ended up making the dreaded trip to Lowe's. The coop stubbornly refused our attempts to complete it in one day and we knew Sunday would mean a day of work more so than a day of rest. We studied Matthew today for our Sunday Bible breakfast and I ate 500 calories of pure lard (according to my wife) including Carolina Pride sausage, over-easy eggs, potatoes, cheese and tortillas but the parables fed my soul a far more delicious meal. By the time I had digested both the words of Jesus and the meal, it was nearly noon and I wasn't sure the coop would submit to our efforts this day. But by 5:00 we had it pretty much done, we decided to test the structural strength by seeing if it could hold our two dog wrecking crew...

Our Piggle

where are these "chicks" you keep talking about?

chicks will be housed in this 169 gallon trough for the first month

here is the future coop and the sheriff around these parts

st. francis

St. Francis of Assisi was hoeing his garden when someone asked what he would do if he were suddenly to learn that he would die before sunset that very day. "I would finish hoeing my garden," he replied.

fresh eyes

We had April's Uncle Ron & Aunt Christine over to see our place tonight. I needed some advice on the construction of the raised beds and how best to get rid of the Bermuda grass currently growing where they will sit. Today was spent waiting for the snow to melt down enough to get back to work, by noon I was back in business. The future chicken coop was cleaned and cleared out, nails were pulled, measurements taken and plans laid to turn some old kitchen cabinets into roosts I can pull eggs out of without going into the coop and disturbing my girls. Clyde was acting the fool so he was left in the garage as Otto and I made a trip to the dump and enjoyed a Bojangles spicy chicken sandwich. When my O.G.S.D(original German shepherd dog) and I got back home, we all got back to hoeing and pulling up Bermuda grass. By the late afternoon I had two 8x8 foot patches cleared and turned over, so we are about a third of the way done before I can lay the railroad ties down into two 24'x8' beds. Tilling by hand is not a lot of fun, I am sore in muscles I was not aware I had before today. Once I saw the late afternoon sun dipping low in the sky, I figured I would clear the fallen tree branches and leaves off the driveway before April got home. While she might not be able to see the freshly turned earth when she got home at night, I was pretty sure she would appreciate a driveway free of wooden obstacles. I used the Troybuilt gas blower her folks gave me as a Christmas present. It felt pretty damn manly with the roar and vibration of the 2 stroke engine and the heady aroma of gas fumes. Clyde stayed a safe distance back while I blew the detritus aside but Otto was unfazed by the noise machine and stayed right by my heel. Team Jacob wound our way down the 1/3 mile of steep & windy pavement, gravel and dirt that connects us to our only road off the mountain. When we finished, I saw I had missed a call from Uncle Ron and rung him back to see what was up. He said he and Christine were getting a bite somewhere in our vicinity and wanted to stop by and check out the homestead. I was instantly pleased with my decision to clear the driveway; as that would prove to all that I had not sat on my duff all day. April got home just before they pulled up the drive and we stashed the filthy dogs in our bathroom so the stench of mud and dank fur would not detract from the grand tour of our casa. Somewhere along the tour, in between showing off our beehive factory, raised beds, the chick hatchery taking shape in the garage, fruit orchards and the mini vegetables sprouting in the basement I realized we had been pretty busy. Industrious even. I guess I was a bit snowblind yesterday, failing to see the progress we are making because nothing was finished. It will take some getting used to, having so many projects happening in various states of completion; but sometimes it really helps to look at your life through fresh eyes.

outside vs. inside

starting over

Before we moved out here to NC, I spent a lot of time daydreaming about my new life as a farmer. I read books and magazines and imagined the new improved, rugged Jon in overalls pitchforking straw into the compost pile and leading a herd of happy goats from pasture to pasture. While I may still enjoy these activities sometime in the future, I admit I was woefully unprepared for the worst winter in 30 years up here in the mountains. Some weeks start start off with weak sunshine poking through the clouds and the mercury at a tropical 40 degrees. I don my green Carhartt jacket and manage to be somewhat productive for 10 hours on Monday. Pruning back the fruit trees from 5 years of neglect, cleaning out the barn and coop stalls, gathering old, dead wood into a future bonfire and fallen leaves into big heaps of future compost. Then Tuesday morning comes with an ominous gray sky the color of a donkey's belly, meaning SNOW...again. I do what I can to tear up some stubborn grassy soil with the hand tiller where the raised beds will be until it starts falling in chunks and I decide to make a run to Lowe's or the grocery store before the roads get ice slick and my California winter driving skills confine me to our house on the ridge. Once I return home, I make a PBJ and pour some Bright'n'Early orange drink and check out internet gardening forums to see whether it is possible to build the raised beds right over the grass or whether I need to dig it all up with a shovel. I may make a detour over to Godlike Productions where the latest debate over unemployment extensions is raging. Those still employed tell those without jobs to get off their lazy asses and go work at the local Taco Bell or Wendy's; the unemployed respond that they have applied there but salespeople and engineers with college degrees are not in high demand as taco assemblers right now and BTW just wait until THEY lose their jobs. I break out Storey's Guide to Raising Chickens and review the chapters on housing and how to care for the chicks that will be arriving in a few weeks, I add brooder lights to the list of things I need to get my hands on before they get here. Otto and Clyde lay napping on the rug at my feet making noxious smells from the leftover nachos I let them finish off against my better judgement. Hours pass and I feel like I should do some laundry and dishes before April gets home, I load the washer and then descend into the basement to check on the seedlings under the fluorescent grow lights. A few spritzes from the mister and a few snips with the scissors to thin out the slow growers allowing the healthiest sprouts more room to build up their roots. I steal a glance out the basement windows as the snow continues to fall building into a thin white blanket over the earth. Earth I was supposed to loosen and hoe into the beginning of raised beds today, the railroad ties lay covered by a powder dusted tarp that means yet another project will have to wait. Wait until I can get back out under the Carolina blue sky and know the happy satisfaction of a hard day's labor. I realize the biggest difference in this new life is being on God's time instead of an Outlook calendar. No complaints though, I finally have time to put some of these feelings down to words while I wait for my wife to come home & expect the promise of a sunny, productive tomorrow.

seedlings in the basement

been stewing inside with cabin fever during this long cold winter so we're getting the jump on springtime by starting our heirloom tomatoes, bell peppers, jalapenos, serranos, anaheims & poblanos in the basement. It took longer than expected to see them sprout but after a week and a half nearly everything was busting out of the soil and reaching towards the grow light. Next round is herbs, broccoli, eggplant and more spicy peppers. They will be moving to plastic cups in a few weeks and then gradually exposed to some sun and weather before we transplant them to our raised beds in late April.

If you want to try a little indoor gardening while this winter drags on, these instructions got me started:
http://www.floridata.com/tracks/peppergallery/start_pepper_plants.cfm

winter sunrise