People Should Be Better Than Chickens

One of these men does not look like the others.  He doesn't talk like the others, he doesn't dress like the others, he did not grow up going to the same schools, he did not go to the same churches, his life was not modeled on 'Leave it to Beaver', nor did he ever get described as "the All-American Boy".

The other two did.  They were golden children, as far as you can be in this country.  The fella in the middle there was high up in Republican Party politics in Washington State in the early 70's, before he ran into a little trouble with the law.  You might want to read about his story some time in Ann Rule's gripping The Stranger Beside Me.  Fascinating reading.

Recently, the State of Arizona enacted legislation which gives the police broad powers to stop people suspected of being illegal aliens.  The problem, of course, is that the Governor of Arizona refused point blank to answer the question "What does an illegal alien look like?"

Why would she refuse to answer that question?  Because she doesn't want to admit the obvious:  an illegal alien looks hispanic.  Oh, sure, there are illegal immigrants from Russia, Serbia, Germany, Canada, Botswana, Yemen, and probably even a few countries the proprietors of Myrtle's place have never even heard of.  But everyone in this country with a pulse knows who you're talking about when you say "illegal aliens".  You're talking about immigrants who come into this country over the Mexican border without following statutory methods.

So what's the big brouhaha about?

Proponents of harsh tactics claim illegal immigrants do all sorts of nasty things -- commit a lot of crime, sign up for welfare, drive down property values, etc. etc. etc.

Problem is, they can't prove a single one of those claims.  The act of coming into this country, true, breaks one of our laws.  For the most part, though, those laws need breaking.  If you've never seen the poverty in the colonias in the border states, you're missing something; however, even the colonias are preferable to starvation in the slums of central Mexico.  We know several illegals personally, and every last one of them is supporting their families, often heroically, against pretty long odds.  They are having to break the law to do so, which is a shame, but it is hardly unethical.  Under similar circumstances, we would do exactly the same thing.

No, the problem is not law-breaking; it's not taxation (illegals pay taxes, including social security taxes, that they will never recoup).  The problem is the amygdala - the reptilian portion of the human brain.

Some people are afraid of change.  The very word change sends them into paroxysms.  And the changing socio-cultural dynamic of this country is frightening the willies out of them.  The problem is, they have not reconciled themselves to the notion that in a melting pot, the stew tends to get a little darker.

Myrtle can relate.

Why?  Because chickens are racists.  Mix a bunch of breeds of chickens together, you'll find Barred Rocks preferring Barred Rocks, Bantams hanging with Bantams, and Jersey Giants acting like they own the joint.  They live in the amygdala because their brains don't have a huge frontal cortex like those of homo sapiens.  Trouble is, when people act out of fear, they abandon the frontal cortex, and flee to the amygdala, and start ranting about "them Mexicans are taking our jobs".  Right.  How many Arizonans for this law really want to pick vegetables, or tile roofs, or wash dishes for a living?  Hint:  none.

Myrtle may have our affections, but we are of the opinion that people should be better than chickens.  So long as somebody is willing to pick up a shovel, or a hammer, or an apron -- we say let 'em.  This American experience is only truly American so long as it's a party with an open invitation.  Cesar Chavez knew that; we are only sorry that even as an explanatory idiom, we sullied his memory by associating him with Timothy McVeigh and Ted Bundy.  But it needs saying:  nice guys don't always look like Wally and The Beav; sometimes they look "different".  And you shouldn't always trust Wally and The Beav -- they might be hiding something.

Happy farming!

Spring Training is Officially Over

This evening, we are in the middle of a "storm".  Which is to say, there are sufficient drops of moisture falling from the sky to slightly dampen our garden.

We think of little teaser rains like this as rites of passage:  we'll be hitting 90° in the next week or so, which most of the country thinks of as summer weather.  Before actual summer, with weeks on end of 100°+ temperatures, Mother Nature likes to give us a mild little April shower to make us think we live somewhere inhabitable.

We are not fooled.  The easy days of delightful Spring weather are over.  Soon, the pond will be dry enough to dredge, and we will be calculating just exactly how long the vegetables can go between waterings with the hose.  We'd like to forgo the hose altogether, of course, because tap water has chlorine and fluorine and bromides galore in it, but we have not yet sufficiently collected rainwater enough to exclusively water with it.  Maybe by this fall... if we get a tropical storm or hurricane in July or August.  Thanks to ENSO neutral or even La Niña conditions coming soon to a Pacific Ocean near you, we're not likely to get any tropical moisture this summer.

No, for the next four to five months, the only truly happy plants on the place will be our cacti.  They aren't really a major crop for us, but no Texas garden would truly be complete without nopalitos.  That is particularly true when looking forward to a long, hot, dry spell.

We don't want you to get the wrong impression, however.  We have plenty of plants about the place which are doing quite nicely, thank you.  The corn is getting taller by the day, and there are blooms on our zucchini and cucumbers.  We are about 3-4 weeks away from blackberry harvest, and our tomatoes and peppers are thriving.  We aren't complaining about the impending drought months; we are merely chronicling.

In fact, as difficult as the summer months are going to be, they are vitally important to the kinds of production we intend to create around here.  Sure, the veggies (like our zucchini here) will have to be harvested long before the truly awful weather starts, but there are other things besides harvesting going on in the blistering days which begin around the middle of June and last until well into September.

Peppers, for example, have a very difficult time surviving the heat, but if and when they do, the torturous treatment causes them to produce truly remarkable fruit.  Not only are jalapeños grown under harsh conditions hotter than normal, they are also tastier.  You haven't had great salsa unless you have had salsa made with home grown peppers with that extra piquancy which only comes from near-dehydration.

Our grapes, too, must undergo harsh conditions.  We are not master vintners by any stretch of the imagination, but we do pay attention as much as possible.    If you want intense flavors, you have to have concentrated growing conditions.  We'll see just how well we balance those conditions as we gain more experience.

We suspect the same will prove true for our blackberry crops, as well.  The berries themselves are harvested in late May/early June, but we then have that blast-furnace summer to deal with, when the vines on which the following year's berries will grow are doing their thing.  They have to be kept hydrated enough to continue to thrive, and to grow strong enough not only to last through next winter, but also to produce another copious quantity of berries for next year.

And how sweet will those berries be?  It depends on a lot of factors, not the least of which is how hot the previous summer was.  As with everything else we are doing, it is a catch-22.  It'd be easier on us if we knew that the water we used were all from the pond, but... that's a project for a later date.

Maybe we can water everything with sweat this summer?  It's something to think about....

Happy farming!

The Eve of the EV Evolution

We want a farm truck.  We have wanted a farm truck since even before we wanted a farm.  Why?  We don't know, probably because we're Texans.  Texans drive trucks.  It's part of our identities.  Trucks replaced horses, and since it's generally frowned upon to tie up a horse outside one's workplace, we've allowed parking lots to grow up where pastures are supposed to be, and since we're driving everywhere, cars have gradually creeped in to replace trucks, and now some of us, yes, even some Texans, are left wanting trucks.

It's sad, really.

So, wanting a truck, how did we end up with "not a truck" parked in our driveway?

Fuel economy.

The best in class pickup trucks currently struggle to get right at 20 or so miles per gallon.  And at 20 mpg, the lifelong costs of a $20,000 vehicle are just too high.  We can't justify it.  We ended up buying a 2006 Toyota Yaris a few years ago instead.  It gets 30 mpg city, 39 mpg highway.  It cost us $14,000 but over the course of the life of the vehicle we are ending up saving between $50,000 and $75,000 when compared to the most efficient truck we could have purchased.  That is a considerable amount of money when spread out over the 10-15 year life of a vehicle.

  Phoenix Motorcars, enter stage left!  A few years ago, a California start-up engineered a great new vehicle, an all-electric SUT (Sport Utillity Truck) capable of highway speeds and with an extender pack for its battery, it is capable of a range of roughly 200 miles.  It has a 1,000 pound cargo capacity, which makes it perfect for the small urban microfarm.

Only two problems, really:  1) The distribution plan Phoenix Motorcars put together involved first selling their innovation as a fleet vehicle (the idea being to put thousands and thousands of these things into service for city and county governments eager to comply with CA's strict emission standards).  This meant we would be waiting a while before it was on sale to the general public.  And 2) They went bankrupt a little over a year ago.  They are evidently out of bankruptcy -- it's not even mentioned on their web site -- but on the other hand, they haven't been making a lot of announcements about impending public sales, either, so it's impossible to know when they will be back in the game.

Still, if they ever do roll into general production... their SUT lists at something like $45,000 which, with a $7500 credit from the U.S. government, makes it fully cost effective, particularly since electricity is orders of magnitude cheaper than petroleum.  Also factor in the smaller number of moving parts; over the life of the vehicle, you would be saving massive amounts of money. 

What about longer trips, you ask?  Surely Myrtle Maintenance Personnel travel on occasion?

Here's the beauty thing:  the whole country is about to go electric.  The EV Project is a federal grant to set up charging stations all around the country.   It will take some time... but not nearly as much as Exxon-Mobil or other such dinosaurs would have you believe.  The oil companies keep going on about a 2050 date for peak-oil, without realizing that we're not 40 years away from having to switch... we are three years away from making the switch!

The first commercially viable electric offering is actually coming out later this year.  By December of 2010, the Nissan Leaf will be hitting the streets of the good ol' U.S. of A., and things will never be the same again. 

There are plenty of other offerings coming soon, too.  Ford recently announced that they will be electrifying their Transit Connect urban delivery van; BMW is putting an all-electric model into the Chinese market in the next couple of years; Tata Motors from India will be electrifying their Nano when they release it in Europe, and that will most likely translate to the Americas when they finally enter this market.  And then there are the all-electric companies, most notably Tesla, whose Roadster is overpriced at $100k plus, but whose Model S is more modest (~$50,000, minus incentives) and which seats a family of 7 comfortably.

Still, only Phoenix has a truck in their marketing literature.  Sigh.  We may end up having to get one of those electric Transit Connect delivery vans.  Giddyup.

Happy farming!

Down on the Farm

Incarcerating a criminal for a year costs more than sending a student to college.  Anyone who has actually sent a student to college for a year, you can take a second to breathe before continuing to read.  Myrtle will wait for you, she's got nothing better to do at the moment.

Prison, make no mistake, is expensive.  The following is not, per se, an endorsement of a movie, since the movie in question is not particularly family friendly, but it is provoking.  Perhaps even provoking of thought, if you care to think about such things (or, can get past the Barry White stuff...)



Basically, only the 'Law and Order' conservatives of the world think we ought to continue with this bizarre system.  And if you find yourself of that ilk, let Myrtle dissuade you.

There has never, in the 7,500 recorded historical years in which government has been tracked, been a public policy decision based on fear which has not turned out to be a losing proposition.  Fear is, let us be blunt, stupid.  Fear for one person is useful; picture a bipedal mammal of small strength, dexterity and minimal speed on the veldt, being chased by a saber-toothed cat; fear gives such a creature heightened awareness, which may be the difference between life and death.  But fear for two or more persons, in a deliberative capacity?

It leads such persons to make major mistakes, which compound the original problem.

Incarcerating non-violent drug offenders, for example, is done because our more conservative citizens are afraid of those whose moral development requires a little additional attention.  However, the fearful turning-away from the real problem -- people who have not a single hope that following the rules will result in anything positive -- turns out hardened, violent, antisocial personalities beyond the hope of repair.

No, prison, for the most part, is a waste of taxpayers money.  It postpones the life of crime for the incarcerated, but it doesn't end it.  It exacerbates it.

So, should we just, as Mr. Lypshytsky suggests, simply let them keep our car stereos?

No, that wouldn't work, either.

But there is an idiomatic expression about prison, which Myrtle believes we would do well to remember:  "Down on the farm" might be a cliche'd expression of remembrance of yesteryear's chain-gangs, but the chain-gang mentality ain't all bad.  We have a serious problem in this country -- most of our food is contaminated, overpriced, and grown far too far from its final destinations.

Why don't we turn our prison population loose on a series of microfarms?  Halfway houses for those who need to learn skills, need to be productive, and need to have better nutrition and personal habits?  A series of 5 acre plots all across the country responsible for producing 10 tons of produce per year for local grocers, in addition to providing their own sustenance.  Apart from the initial outlay for land, and the investment in training for guards/mentors, it would pay for itself in less than a decade, without even accounting for the decrease in recidivism which would surely follow.

Myrtle's just sayin'.  If y'all want to continue subsidizing a system which has devolved into nothing better than a training ground for tomorrow's violent felons, you are more than welcome.  Myrtle thinks that's a losing proposition, but hey, she's just an incarcerated chicken.  What would she know?

Happy farming!

Bees are like Rock Stars

Okay, so Sue Foley is a blues legend, not really a "rock star".  But we love her, so we're planting her in the middle of this musing on our backyard bees:

We currently have a wild hive about 15 feet high in one of our massive oaks on the east side of the house.  Our real question is how to get from the wild hive to the box hive.  Honey we can't get to, to honey we can.

That's next Spring's project, but we can't help but think about it.... a lot.... every time we work in the yard.  Our bees love our yard, and we intend to keep it that way.  There are more, and more fragrant, blooms here than they probably know what to do with.

What kind of honey will we get, we wonder, with blackberries, and clover, and plums, and dandelions, and corn, and basil, and rosemary, and autumn sage, and.... the list goes on and on.  Hopefully, so will the subtle flavors in the honey.

When we get to that point, however, we will have to handle our little moneymakers with care.  They really are like rock stars, you see.  Listen to these words of wisdom about beekeeping, handed down through generations:

Don't bother them until midday
Require cool white smoke to relax
Don't stand in their sun
Handle bees gently
Don't make them watch you work; use sleight of hand
When you're done, put it back exactly the way they like it
Don't breathe on them, but do tell them not to freak out

 We suppose you could add, be very careful when renting them a room in your posh hotel, but that one probably goes without saying, right?

Anyway, we're also working on a butterfly garden, but that just doesn't have the same excitement factor to it.  Butterflies are equally picky, but they don't make honey, and they just don't seem quite so urban-farmish.

Those are our ponderings for the weekend; we'll get back to work soon.  More mulching to do, and such, you know.

Happy farming!

Once More, From The Top...

Those of you who have been reading Myrtle's doings for long enough may be wondering whether we ever intended to compensate our flock for the loss of Duck the Drake due to the onset of obnoxious rooster behavior.

The answer, until this week, was going to be a resounding 'No!' but we thought better of it.  Since our family is mourning a loss, we thought it might be a good time to make a new beginning in other ways.

So, we've got some new chicks.  They are, naturally, Barred Rock chicks, though at this age, they look an awful lot like three or four other breeds; they're a little older than the last batch we got from the same supplier -- they were already feeding and drinking when we got them, so we didn't have to do the weird routine of forcing their little beaks into the proper dishes.  They are in every other respect as dependent as can be, however.

We're keeping them in a box in the bathroom at present; we have to keep the heater on in there, and we're keeping a lamp on them.  We'll move them to a bigger cage (a converted compost bin, if truth be told) in a week or so, and then, when they are mature enough, we'll make a cage-within-the-coop to acclimate the bigger birds to the smaller, and vice-versa.

We have other new beginnings going on, too.  Our wild grapes (of both the Mustang and the Muscadine variety) are fruiting this season, and between that happy news and the cornucopia of blackberry blooms on the vines this Spring, it looks like we're going to be more than ready to start on the more pleasurable part of our self-sufficiency program, the making of jams, jellies, and wine.

In addition to these utilitarian motives, of course, is the fact that grape vines are exceedingly attractive.  Our borders are soon to be demarcated by lush green vines bearing beautiful bluish-black fruit, and judging by the quantity and the nature of the clusters seen here, they will be bearing quite a lot of it.  This is one plan which is turning out to be far more successful than we ever dreamed it would be.

To top it all off, of course, the vegetables are coming up quite nicely.  We've thinned out our corn, the zucchini is ridiculously happy, as are our four varieties of tomatoes, five varieties of peppers, three varieties of basil, our cucumbers, etc. etc. etc.

We only regret that Papa Dave won't be around at harvest time to enjoy it.  However, we do intend to have quite a party when the corn comes in, so all Friends of Myrtle, be on notice.  Keep a date open some time in late May, early June.  We'll expect you to come hungry!

Happy farming!

Trout Fishing in the Great Beyond

David Oliver McGee (1931-2010) was our father, for a little while.  He lived an interesting life, full of vexations, small triumphs, and major malfunctions.  All in all, he would rather have been fishing on some small stream somewhere, preferably in the mountains of Virginia.

We did not actually meet him until adulthood, due to his having divorced our mother while we were still very, very young.  And the fact that he even lived that long is, frankly, astonishing.  He was diagnosed in the 1960's as "paranoid schizophrenic", which was the psychiatric equivalent at the time of, "Dang, we don't get it.  This dude sure is messed up, though."   We strongly suspect that he was actually suffering from an acute combination of thyroid malfunction, malnutrition as a child, environmental toxicity sensitivity, and being an introverted and sensitive man in a world dominated by patriarchal (even Roman) militant sensibilities.

Our current little nuclear family owes its fatherhood dynamic to literature and PBS children's television programming, because David Oliver McGee was, sadly, not present; and even if he had been present, he may not have been the best role model.

He was, however, an outstanding grandparent.  After having met him 14 years ago, he was all attentiveness and adoration.  He was proudest, we think, of being able to regale his fellow residents of the retirement community where he lived his final years with stories of his granddaughter's unflappable opposition to conformity and authority.  He never met the grandson who bears his middle name, but we're pretty sure he would have loved taking him fishing some day.

In fact, our little excavation project (the pond, pictured to the left here), was in some measure an homage to David, with a nod to Hollis Jack Mints, who deserves his own post some day.  Granddaddy Mints had catfish in his pond, which is what we are also going to be growing, but Papa Dave (though he enjoyed catfishing) would have preferred trout.  We have no doubt he would have loved hanging out by our backyard pond, though, helping his grandson with a cane fishing pole pull in a big fat yellow cat.

It was not meant to be, though.  Papa Dave died this week.  We had been making arrangements to move him from San Angelo, Texas, to a nursing home facility here in College Station where we believed the nutritionist and the physical therapist were competent and could have gotten him up and fishing again.  A lifetime of hard living was just too much, though.  A man who survived homelessness in the cold northeast, and the rigors of oil field work in the hot Texas sun, could not survive the depression of burying his wife of the last 8 years this past December.  So it is with most elderly men -- they rarely survive their wives by even one calendar year.

Papa Dave may have had the last laugh on the demons of despair, though.  Our friend Rosie, who is also worthy of her own post, though as varied as her life and interests are, we don't know what we would say, brought us dinner last night, after she heard the news.

She's never met David, did not know anything about him. 

But she brought us a beautiful dish of trout and polenta.

Happy fishing!

Mulch Ado About Nothing

Even our "afterthought" plantings (like the wild grapes you see here to the right) are starting to bud now, because the growing season has begun in earnest.

As a consequence, we are faced with a number of interesting decisions.  None of these decisions are difficult, nor even difficult to predict, once you've gotten used to the Myrtle frame of mind, but they are informative.

For example, all these plants need to be mulched, right?  I mean, that's what every single gardening authority will tell you.  They will then go on at great length about the wide variety of available mulches, and what the pros and cons of each might be, vis-a-vis the soil alkalinity or acidity (which you've been instructed to carefully get measured by the county extension agent, in association with Texas A&M University, of course!), and the mix of other elements (notably zinc, that's always a big one they talk about). 

And, of course, there's also the question of cost, and environmental sensibility.  There are rubber mulches, after all, to go with the traditional cedar chips, and bark mulch, and cypress mulch, and peat moss, and on, and on, and on.

So, what do Myrtle Maintenance Personnel do?

Oh, come on, you didn't seriously think we'd spend money on mulch, did you?  And artificial mulch?  Why not just grow wax vegetables?

No, we use what we have on hand, just like we do with everything else.  Fortunately, we recently moved our wood pile from the back yard (next to where the pond project is currently underway) to the front yard (as part of a screen in front of where the bee hives are going to go next year).  At the bottom of the wood pile?  Lots and lots of bark, rotten wood, leaves, and other yucky gunk that will work nicely as a mulch around our brand new trees and vines.

We suppose in the interest of being faithful chroniclers, we should enumerate our new plants as of the last week.  We'll list the veggies and fruits next week, but here's what we planted over the weekend:

• 2 Forsythia
• 2 Pink Azalea
• 4 Loblolly Pine
• 5 White Pine
• 2 Lodgepole Pine
• 1 Red Maple

So, why did we not choose a more traditional mulch for these plants?  Apart from the cost savings (which is considerable), there are a few key reasons:

1. Natural mulch is essentially a new layer of "compost-in-place".  As the mulch rots, it nourishes the protected plant.
2. Limiting weeds is, at Myrtle's, only partially desirable.  We obviously do not want weeds to take over completely, but neither do we want them completely eradicated.  We could do a whole series of posts on the health benefits to chickens of eating those plants which other gardeners poison in their race to conformity.
3. Mulch naturally erodes; a readily available replacement-in-place is to be preferred to a mulch which can only be replaced by another special trip to the garden center.
4. Recreating the natural cycle is to be preferred whenever possible.  Think about the biodiversity of the rainforest, as an example, and then think about where the nourishment for all of that comes from; it is almost entirely a closed system.  Very little rainforest nutrient comes from external sources.

We'll show you how well the garden is doing sometime soon... as soon as we know ourselves how well it is doing!

Happy farming!

New Growth

"With Zeus's help, the mother retrieved her daughter; but Persephone had already eaten a pomegranate seed, food of the dead, at Hades' insistence, which meant she must come back to him.  In the end, a sort of truce was arranged.  Persephone could return to her sorrowing mother but must spend a third of each year with her dark Lord.  Thus, by the four-month death each year of the goddess of springtime in her descent to the underworld, did winter enter the world.  And when she returns from the dark realms, she always strikes earthly beings with awe and smells somewhat of the grave."

We spent the day before Easter attending the funeral of our 101 year old grandmother.  She was a devout Southern Baptist, so naturally the eulogy was full of references to resurrection and rebirth in Jesus Christ.  She was also many other things, which did not get mentioned in the service, but so it is with a human life -- we are at one and the same time far more complicated, and yet far more reducibly simple, than any of us would care to admit.

Grandmother loved to bake pies -- that is a simple fact.  Is it significant alongside her testament of faith?  We don't know.  We do know her garden was beautiful, and her pies were delicious; everything made with love has a tendency to be made a little better than anything not created in such fashion.

There are other, older myths besides that of the Resurrection which it would behoove us to recall.  Our civilization has gotten so disconnected from the ground we walk on that we no longer think about the meaning of "returning to the dust".  Indeed, the proprietors of Myrtle's often joke about being "buried in the yard" because we never want to move again, but that is really only half a joke.  All living things have risen from the rotting shell of all dead things.  Any good botanist will tell you that you should include lots of "organic matter" in your compost.  What does that mean, really?  We have explained before that the best compost comes from rotting leaves "cooked" in the coop.

Basically, everything that lived nourishes everything that lives, and everything that lives will die, and someday nourish everything that is going to live.  We are all not so much standing on the shoulders of giants as we are climbing the pile of corpses -- we can either allow ourselves to become maudlin and disturbed by that imagery, or we can honor those who have come before us by continuing to nourish the cycle of life.

Today, we are planting new trees, and painting the chicken coop.  And as we dig in the earth, we will revel in how it smells slightly of the grave, knowing that it is because of this that we shall soon have a fruitful harvest.

Happy farming!