Poseidon... and the Need for a Garden...

We have been thinking about the ocean a lot more lately than we usually do.  Mr. Myrtle Maintenance is from a small town near Corpus Christi, so he thinks about the ocean more than Mrs. Myrtle Maintenance, who is from out on the Llano Estacado (far west Texas, for the yankees among you).  However, the ocean has been impressed upon all of us lately, due to the criminal foolishness of our oil industry.

Oil doesn't really have a future; it hasn't for twenty-plus years, but our culture has become too fat and lazy to realize it.  Oil is dirty, lazy, and cheap, and those who make their money from it are equally dirty, lazy, and cheap.  We have known for a long time, at least two decades, how to garner enough solar and wind energy on a house-by-house basis to get rid of the electrical grid altogether, and we have been able to run cars on natural gas for decades; on top of that, for about five years now, we've had alternatives to internal combustion engines we could have been using already.

So why have we stuck with oil?  Because it was cheap to produce, and people could make a lot of money doing it.  But there has never, in the entire history of the industrial revolution, been a less effectively regulated industry.

And now we are paying the price for our collective laziness.

The real scope of the tragedy in the Gulf of Mexico has not even been hinted at yet in the mainstream media; talk of "dispersants" and the "evaporation" of oil has dulled our sensibilities on the nightly news, but anyone who remembers their basic physics knows that nothing simply disappears.  Where is the oil being dispersed to?  It's being dispersed to a vertical column beneath the surface of the Gulf of Mexico.  Which happens to be where a lot of fish live.  A LOT of fish.  Fish who form the basis for a whole other industry, a whole other lifestyle, a whole other economic basis for an entire region.  And it is going to, quite unlike the oil, simply disappear.  Dead zones in the ocean are not easily repaired once they appear; coral reefs, which form the basis for whole underwater ecospheres, take centuries to develop.  And in just a few short weeks, already at least a fifth of existing underwater coral in the Gulf has been contaminated.  Those are conservative estimates, and the oil is still pumping out.

Think about that.

Even if not one more drop were to enter the Gulf, 20% of it by the most conservative estimates is already likely to be dead for centuries.

There is simply no repairing that damage, and it is not likely to be limited to the Gulf, either.  This oil is going to end up washing up on the shores of Great Britain before all is said and done.  British Petroleum is quite literally coming home.

Adding to the cheerful news, we have only recently had, thanks to the invention of the "Argo float" pictured at left here, the ability to measure ocean temperatures effectively enough to tell whether the ocean is cooling, staying the same, or warming.

Surprise!  It's warming.  Which means the Earth is warming.  The oceans are far larger than land masses, and far deeper than the earth's habitable surface areas.  The heat-retaining capacity of the oceans is several orders of magnitude (10,000+ times greater) than that of either the land or the atmosphere.  And the water warms up more slowly, and cools down more slowly, than either the land or the air.  Which means if you want an accurate measure of how much heat the planet is retaining, you measure the water.  It comes as no surprise to Myrtle, who is a graduate of elementary physics studies, that in a partially closed system like Earth (far more energy is added to our global system than escapes from it), cranking up industrial production and greenhouse gasses is likely to cause an overall increase in temperatures.

Certain ostriches (well funded by the sleazebags in the oil industry) have attempted to deny that warming is occurring, but those foolish shenanigans should be well and thoroughly over now.  Denying global warming with the evidence from the oceans is tantamount to Ptolemaic astronomy in the Hubble telescope age.  It's not just stupid, it's evil.  Because we can't afford it any longer; we are already well past the time to take action.

So.  Is there any good news?  Yes, there is, though it seems faint at times.  The good news is, we can adapt.  Those who have space and can meet city ordinances, we say you should get chickens, and plant gardens.  In the short run, it may not seem like much, but in the long run, it will work wonders.  We also suggest buying an electric vehicle as soon as possible.  As soon as we are able to get off the electrical grid ourselves, we'll blog about how we've done it; if you're in that process yourselves, good for you!  Keep up the good work!  Maybe even drop Myrtle a line and tell us what we can do ourselves, or what we can do to help you.

We're all in this together, ultimately, so let's keep our chins up, and keep working the land.

Happy farming!

For the Birds... (or so they think!)

In the long, sad history of scarecrows we have known, one fact becomes very clear very quickly:  crows don't scare too easily.  And that's just your garden variety crow; by the time you move on to other rapacious species, such as thrushes, and grackles, and pigeons, oh my!  We feel certain that had Harper Lee been a corn farmer, she would have written "To Kill a Flamingo" instead of "To Kill a Mockingbird".

No, scarecrows don't work.  What does work, however, if you want to keep your avian friends from reaping what you sow, is trap crops, and around here, the best trap crop is sunflowers.  We have planted a wide variety of sunflowers this year, in the belief that at least some of these different species will surely yield big bulging disks of seeds that the birdies will flock to instead of to our precious corn crop.  And judging from the first few flowers to bloom, we've done well this season.

No sign of birds pecking the seeds out yet, but it's really just a matter of time.  And just in time, too, because the corn is ripening quickly.  This Spring's corn crop is a variety called "Kandy Korn", and we'll know it's ripe when its tassels get so long and pink it looks like Cousin It trying out for a Flock of Seagulls cover band.

We are always fascinated by the reactions we get from the neighbors when we have a large corn crop in the ground.  This is the crop people think of when they think about a vegetable garden, but it is not really all that common a non-professional crop.  Corn is a space hog, for one thing.  Also, it takes a lot of water; in a year like this one, where we are three full inches behind our average rainfall totals, that can be a critical problem.

And then there are the aforementioned birds.  What they don't eat, they knock over.  It's enough to make a backyard farmer batty.  But don't fret; just plant some flowers!

They're pretty, some are tasty, and most of all... They're for the birds!

Happy farming!

Ares and Aphrodite in the Garden

We believe fervently that the Greek gods and goddesses really need to hire some new publicists.  All their best lines have been stolen, and all their worst foibles have become all-encompassing moral warts.

It's just not fair, really, but what is an immortal Olympian supposed to do about it, put down their goblet and intervene?  Please.  That whole deus ex machina thing is so first century Levant.  It just isn't done anymore.

 For divine image reconditioning, the Gods need to look to modern metaphor merchants, like Myrtle, for instance, who has already rendered the opinion that Apollo and Dionysus symbolize the conflict between domestic and wild horticulture.   Nor are the poet and the vintner the only members of the pantheon to get Myrtle's attention.  Demeter and Persephone have each had some part of their stories told, as might be expected.  What little appreciation remains in our culture of these ancient myths is often associated with plants, farms, and gardens.  Demeter and Persephone have gotten less publicity, perhaps, than some others of their kin, but at least what publicity they have received has been mostly positive.

Not so for Ares and Aphrodite.  This pair has been relegated to the celestial tabloids for all eternity, and the rendering of their identities and stories has only gotten worse with the passing of time.

But is our modern dismissal of these archtypal figures reasonable, let alone fair?

Placed in the context of a garden, Myrtle's answer is "no", with some important caveats.

For starters, it is important to recognize that the Ares and Aphrodite we think we know are really just romanized bastardizations of themselves.  Pop psychology may be comfortable saying men are from Mars and women are from Venus, but this is puerile poppycock.  The Roman versions of these immortals are the inspirations for monster truck rallies and junior high girls dressed in practically nothing and dancing wildly to  "Brick House", respectively.  We'll leave you to be the judge of which is the more corrosive influence.

But Mars and Venus lack the moral depth of Ares and Aphrodite -- Aphrodite in particular.  There are some martial elements to gardening, particularly in the initial stages, where a wild copse is beaten into submission with plow and shears, so Ares has some place in the creation of a green, growing place, but it is Aphrodite who in particular has not received proper recognition in the agricultural arts.  Ginette Paris gives credit where it is due in her fascinating tome Pagan Meditations: The Worlds of Aphrodite, Artemis, and Hestia; indeed, she points out that there are a variety of myths about Aphrodite, who probably served the Greeks as the replacement for a series of earlier goddesses, running from Isis in Egypt through the various Ishtar cults which cropped up as far afield as the Indus river.

Paris also writes of "the interplay between fire and water, between Ares and Aphrodite."  The sexual ecstasy central to the National Enquirer version of these star-crossed lovers' tales is important in their metaphorical realm, as well, but it is not the only element, nor is it even the most important characteristic of the union of Ares and Aphrodite.

One wonders at what point in their history this union  became a chronicle of infidelity; why did some ancient poet or bard ever decide to marry off Aphrodite to Haephestus in the first place?  One suspects it is because, crippled though he is, Haephestus (Vulcan, to the Romans) has a potent maleness, a fertile virility, all his own.  But he is really just a metaphor for more of the same qualities Ares brings to the table -- he is rugged, dry summer to Ares' wet, sensual spring, when his fire melts the snows of winter, and he is overcome by passion for the dewy earth.

And both are central to the growth of life-giving vegetables.  That's right -- the gods of war and of the anvil are basically steroid-laden ploughboys.

As for Aphrodite, Demeter and Persephone have stolen all her laurels.  A sachet of lavender is an homage to sexy, slinky Aphrodite, not frumpy Demeter.

Think about this seriously, for a moment, please.  What is a flower?  It is the in-your-face sensuality of a plant that is letting its hair down and telling its neighbor, "Hey, baby, wanna buy me a drink?"  And it wouldn't smell nearly so sweet if it was imbued with the essence of "I'm really wholesome!  Don't I remind you of June Cleaver?"

No, a garden is basically one giant metaphor for sex.  There is no getting around it.  There is only proper placement of context, and appropriate balancing of one need against the other.  Venus and Mars were both too narcissistic to be anything other than lousy lovers, but if you listen to your garden closely, you can hear the ancient echoes of Ares and Aphrodite, whom we think probably had a far better thing than the modern storytellers would have you believe.

In other news, our corn is almost ready for harvest!  We'll update you soon!

Until then...

Happy farming!

Dionysus v. Apollo, redux

Any metaphor worth stretching too far is worth repeating too often.  From a chicken-brained point of view, the fundamental inadequacy of your argument should always be obfuscated by the superficiality of your affect.  To that end, we submit that our little urban homestead is increasingly a microcosm of the age-old conflict between two different paradigms -- the orderly and poetic on the one hand, represented by Apollo, and the natural and chaotic on the other, represented by Dionysus.

We, of course, are attempting to produce enough fruits and veggies to provide all our dietary needs.  Naturally, this means we have planted all sorts of "intentional" looking things, like pecan trees, pomegranate trees, olive trees, corn, squash, etc.  These plants require a lot of tender loving care; pecans are notoriously thirsty; we have heavily mulched our baby and built a clay retaining wall to assist this needy little artist in its never-ending quest to get enough water.  However, the entrance to our property is announced by a beautiful little yellow flower, sprouting from a prickly-pear which never actually needs any attention at all.  We'll be harvesting more fruit from the poet, true, but the libertine is, at present, far more aesthetically attuned.  Curiously, the cactus, lacking in artificial discipline, has a natural discipline which serves us well; we manufacture the protection for the pecan, but the cactus brings its own.

Who is the harder worker, we wonder?

Likewise, the Apollonian domesticated seedless grapes will eventually be less work for us than the wild, Dionysian mustang grapes, particularly in the matter of getting rid of the pits, but Apollo is not nearly so productive as his eastern cousin.  The fact is, this is a beautiful grape vine, and it will some day be an attractive shade provider for a bench we intend to place on one side of this arbor... but it is really nothing compared to the vast, sprawling wild grapes in our faerie ring area, and around the back porch, and along the fence between the pond and our neighbors...

At this point in the conversation, we really must mention the Greek notion of ergon; what is the proper thingness of a thing?  If that sounds like a horrible translation to you, congratulations! You're paying attention!  Meanwhile, of course, there is a reason for this apparent lack of etymological deftness -- "ergon" doesn't really translate all that well, but the idea is a fairly straightforward one:  each object in existence may best be given a particular application.  The "ergon" of a toothbrush is the collection of qualities which contribute to the use of a toothbrush in dental hygiene, for example.  the "ergon" of a knife is the sharpness which allows it to cut steak.  Or broccoli.  Different knife, of course, so slightly different ergon.  With us so far?

Good.  Because the "ergon" of a domesticated seedless grape is fundamentally different from that of a wild grape.

The wild grape is useful both as a border, and also as a wine producing crop.  It looks beautiful, but it is beautiful in a completely different way from the seedless cousin.

In short, we happen to like the balance struck in our garden at present.  We have plenty of "tame" plants, but they are almost always paired with a "wild" neighbor.  Marigolds and basil, meet catnip and anise.

Olives and pomegranates, meet black-eyed-susans.

Speaking of wildflowers....

Until next time...

Happy farming!

Singin' in the Rain

Our green, growing grove of great goodies never looks quite as nice as it does when it's wet.  And usually, it's wet for pretty much the entire month of May.  In College Station, we average about 5.5 inches of rainfall every May, and that is far and away more than we get in any other month.

Until today, however, we had gotten a total of (and I am estimating here, so forgive any rounding errors) zero inches of rain for May.  Zip.  Zilch.  Nada.

We're very, very glad to see the wet stuff falling from the skies this evening.  Very glad.

Myrtle doesn't think much of complainers, however, so we aren't complaining.  This extended dry period has provided us with plenty of opportunity to deepen the pond, and what little grass we have left in the yard hasn't needed mowing in a while, so that's a plus, too.

We're going to eliminate grass entirely this fall -- "green manure" crops will replace grass.  Red clover in the winter, white clover in the spring; we're quite hopeful that in addition to fixing nitrogen in our soil, it will be quite pretty.

Meanwhile, keep checking the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration web site for news about more wet stuff and...

Happy farming!

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having the colour of blood or fire, of the eyes, of the face, of hair or an animal's fur, having very left-wing political opinions, involving opposition or competition that is violent and without pity, something that is likely to make somebody very angry, the colour of blood or fire, red wine, a person with very left-wing political opinions, to owe money to your bank because you have spent more than you have in your account, to become very angry, Something that is , If you say that someone's face is , You describe someone's hair as

An Unbelievably Satisfying Moment

Picking the first blackberries of the year proved to be as phantasmagorically satisfying as an experience could be.

They're still just slightly red when you pick them right now; usually, folk wait until the red has turned to complete blackness (hence, "blackberry"), but we are 1) not patient enough for that, and 2) perfectly happy with that tart little bite at the front end of the berry experience.

There are few things in life as tasty as berries from your own backyard.  The fact that they also double as a thorny hedge is just a bonus.

We'll probably have several buckets of berries by the end of the week (you can see all the red ones on the vines right now, and they turn very, very quickly); we've already noticed numerous canes volunteering their way up in between the current plants, so we'll have to mark carefully when we pick the berries -- the idea is to prune this year's producing canes all the way back to the ground some time after harvest; next year's berries are on the empty canes from this year.

They are about a month away from harvest, but we are also going to get our first production quality wild grapes this year.  We probably won't get enough for wine-making, but we will almost definitely get enough to try our hands at some mustang jam, which will be quite an experience.  Hopefully, next summer, we will be producing our first batch of home vinted dark black cheese accoutrement.

Which brings us to the week's big rumination....  We want to make our own cheese.  But what do you have to have in order to make cheese?  Some form of dairy product, right?  Like, say, goat's milk?  Which would require... let us think... what is it?  Oh, yeah, a goat!

There's no telling exactly how many complications we will run into along the road to goat ownership -- a tall fence around the pond area, for one thing, not to mention getting permits and all that legal folderol -- but when the proprietors of Myrtle's place set their hearts on something related to self-sufficiency, we've come to expect that it will happen, sooner or later.

Just witness the berries!  Two years ago, we planted puny root stock, and now we are swimming in juicy, sweet, tart little berries!

An incredibly satisfying experience, indeed.  Now we just need to make some good mustang wine, bake a nice blackberry cobbler, and eat a good home-grown salad topped with home-grown feta.  If you can think of a better way for us to be spending our time, by all means let us know.

In the meantime,

Happy farming!

It's a Jungle Out There

We have in the past ruminated on wide-row planting, and the dangers of 'sub-optimization', wherein overall production is limited due to a desire to maximize the production of an individual plant.

Upon further review of our current practices, we have realized that, while it is true that in some parts of the garden we have been guilty of sub-optimization (our cucumbers, for example, are growing in solitary stands against our western fence), it is also true that in other parts of our garden, particularly the well companion-planted portions, it is quite literally a jungle out there.  We have successfully crammed as much vibrant, active growth as possible into a few square feet in some instances, like the zucchini/corn/nasturtium combination you see pictured here to the left.

The contrast between the high-density beds and the low-density beds is really pretty remarkable; we will get a higher percentage of fruit from the cucumber shown to the right here than we will from any individual zucchini or corn plant in the first picture.  This cucumber plant will, on its own merits, be a champion.

But from the bed?  There will be no contest -- we will have far higher yield from the high density bed than from the cukes.  T'ain't fair, but them's the facts.

In light of this overwhelming evidence of the superiority of the high-density bed method of gardening, we are faced with some interesting decisions this summer, most notably, how exactly do we carve up our existing space in such way as to maximize how many plants can be successfully grown in small spaces?

There are a lot of different methods people use to solve this particular conundrum, and we are currently employing one of the more popular.  We have numerous raised beds throughout the yard, each about 6 to 7 feet long/wide, and each is essentially its own independent garden.

We also have a rather serpentine bed with some additional corn and sunflowers growing on one side of the yard, where next year we will plant additional olive trees, and then we have the grape arbors and the blackberry fences, not to mention the pomegranates, plums, the pecan tree, and all the shade trees we planted earlier this spring.


But is this method really sufficient?  We don't think so.  You'll notice, with a fairly cursory glance at our garden, that there is an appalling lack of climbing legumes.  No beans.  No snap peas.  What kind of a southern garden monstrosity is this?  We are facing a decision in one of two directions:

Take out the planters and put in a series of serpentine beds in parallel running the width of the yard from the olive trees to the pond area, two or three of which would have large trellises installed in order to handle vining plants like pole beans, etc.

Or...

Take out the planters and put in a series of three large fenced in areas, each of which will essentially be a giant raised bed. 

The advantage of the first method would be ease of working the rows; you simply walk between them and weed, plant, harvest, mulch, and so on.

The advantage of the second is maximum geometric effect -- there will be more surface area on the fence line for climbing plants, and the wide-row planting method can still be used internally in each fenced-in area.  This method would also have the advantage of discouraging rabbits, although we would still have to worry about other critters who are somewhat more mobile (raccoons, possums, etc.).

As with all else, Myrtle will keep you posted on what we end up deciding to do.

Meanwhile....  spring harvest is berry, berry soon!  Those berries may look red, but don't let that fool you.  These are blackberries.  If we picked them right now, they would be very, very bitter blackberries.  We'll let them ripen to their nice dark purplish-black before we pick them, and then we will most likely use them strictly for cooking... this year.  In the future, we have designs on making wine, mead, and goodness only knows what all else.  But you can only master so many skills at a time; we at Myrtle's place have our hands full at present.

Until next time,

Happy farming!

Great Place to Pick Up Chicks

We have six chickens in the coop right now, laying anywhere from three to seven eggs a day, depending on a wide variety of factors.  Since we are a family of four, that means we have anywhere from a heap to a ton of extra eggs every day.

The solution to having too many eggs?  Get more chickens, naturally!

Seriously, there's no such thing as "too many eggs".  What we don't eat, we give away (see earlier postings for our feelings about barter versus sale of eggs) and what we don't give away, we give away.

So, really, "too many eggs" isn't going to happen.

Lonely chickens, however, might happen.  We have been astonished at how incredibly social these creatures are.  The flock currently in the coop is relatively small at six birds, but they are constantly clustered in the same four or five square feet of space -- which leaves plenty of empty space in the coop.

We therefore decided to take the plunge recently and get four more baby chicks.  Barred Rock chickens are kinda fuzzy when you first bring them home, but our new birds are a couple of weeks old now, and have sprouted recognizable feathers -- not as many as they will soon have, true, but enough for them to flap around with, and flat-foot jump from the ground to the wire on which their heat lamp is hung.  We may get some roasted baby chicken some time soon if they don't stop it.

Those of you thinking of taking the plunge and getting your own backyard birds, by all means, do so.  But just because we at Myrtle's are now kind of casual about the process, don't think it's all that easy.  We had to learn the hard way how to handle several variables.

For one thing, the "experts" all give you these incredibly complicated charts on what the temperature is supposed to be at each stage of the chicks' development.  As tricky as they make it sound, it makes one wonder how the genus gallus managed to survive in the wild, what with nobody running around with thermometers, or setting space heaters in just the right places at the right times.  Maybe... just maybe... poultry scientists have gone a little overboard.  Yes, they need to be kept warm.  How warm?  Warm enough that they look comfortable.  When should you change the temperature?  When they stop looking comfortable.  Got it?  Good!  Get some chickens!

We're going to integrate the flocks in about a month -- that will be a serious adventure.  We've done it once before, and the elder chickens did not, we must say, acquit themselves with any sort of ethical aplomb.  We had to stand out there with clubs like the Alabama National Guard to get them integrated.  It was not a pretty sight, and we expect more of the same.  But they will eventually get along; mostly, it will involve tricking them with games, like hanging cabbage heads from the ceiling of the coop.

Like people, chickens are easily distracted.

We'll keep you posted on the progress of these young'uns.  In the meantime...

Happy farming!

Gimme, Gimme, Gimme! We Want More!

We always feel a little uncomfortable when we make statements like, "Couldn't we get more out of this if we just...?"

Why should this make us uncomfortable?  Because, at its heart, every vice is really just an excess of virtue.  Even the clownish modern industrial society diet (which can no longer be claimed as exclusively "American", since McDonald's is now on every major city street corner in the world) is really just an excess of an evolutionarily sound principle:  fatty protein is harder to come by than other nutrients.  We are programmed by millions of years of hard living on the savanna to cram fatty meats down our throats as often as we can get them.  He who super-sizes most, wins.  That is, until the saber-toothed tiger catches them napping.  Oh, well.

It wasn't until modern industrial farming techniques, coupled with the massive expansion of wealth during the industrial revolution, that we as a species became capable of eating way too much of "the good stuff".  More is no longer better when it comes to meat.

However, it must be noted that "more is better" is not always a bad philosophy; like everything else, it just needs a proper context.  In the home garden, particularly the home garden which is attempting to aspire to the hopeful possibility of someday wishing to be possibly considered, if you suspend your disbelief just a little, a miniature farm, "more is better" is an apt description of the notion of yield-per-square-foot.

The leap from back porch container gardening to full-fledged farming is not so large as imagination has made it.  Indeed, just a couple of generations ago, American families were being encouraged to live as much as possible off of "Victory Gardens", which reduced the strain on the industrial complex of providing both for the needs of a domestic population and for the needs of an army in Europe and a navy in the Pacific.  Everybody grew as much as they could back then; they also had chickens, but that's a subject for another time.

Right now, we're talking about how to make the modern "Victory Garden" possible in a very limited urban space.  The answer, we are ashamed to say, escaped us until a couple of weeks ago.  Our garden this spring is planted in a traditional way in raised beds, with narrow rows which we can reach from all four sides of each bed.  Oh, it's good, in its way, but this method has a yield limit which we are not satisfied in accepting.

We have committed the classical production error:  we have maximized our individual parts.

We are getting as much yield as possible from each individual seed.  The problem is, the yield for our garden needs to be maximized, not the yield for each plant.

The solution is something called wide row gardening.  We have seen several good articles on this subject this past week, and this fall we are going to give it a go.  Basically, you plant in a "wide row"; rather than a line of plants single-file, you cluster your plants in a wide stripe rather than a line.  The plants are closer together, and as a consequence, the yield per individual plant will be lower.  However, the yield per square foot will be significantly higher.

This project will involve some considerable architectural changes to the garden; the "dead period" in College Station is July 1st-15th; we'll have to be careful with the peppers, which are the only plants which stay in the ground in the vegetable garden during that time; there will be some other interesting problems to come up as well, we are sure, but we hope to more than double our corn harvest this fall, and we may even find enough space to reinstitute melon farming this fall, too.

Next posting, we'll update you on the progress of our latest batch of baby chicks.

Until then,

Happy farming!

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!