Walking in a Winter Myrtleland (take two!)

Every now and then, something happens which makes College Station, Texas, a little less bland, a little less "United States of Generica".  For example, later this year, construction will begin on our very own Chuy's restaurante y cantina. 

We have friends who prefer only "local" restaurants, and Chuy's is a chain, but we fervently believe one trip to the Elvis Presley Memorial Nacho Bar, margarita in hand, will make converts of even the most fervent locavore.

Then, there are the natural events.  Like snow.  We've had measurable amounts of snow four times in the past 22 months, which for College Station, is quite an event.  "Global Weirding" is here, as avid Myrtle readers will know from previous posts.  

The fact that the very same scientists who tell us that the Earth is warming also predicted that we would have a cold, wet winter in College Station is all too easily lost for some pedestrian thinkers, but we suppose that is only understandable.  The world is a big place, and it is sometimes difficult to digest just exactly how interconnected it is, and it can also be frightening when you consider how much it is changing.  That which we always understood to be timeless and unchanging is not timeless, nor is it unchanging.

Better than getting worked up about it, though, is getting out in it and enjoying it.  Revelling in it.  Owning it. 

The slogan for everybody at Myrtle's place is "Do what you can with what you've got when you've got it."  We can't stop the Chinese from burning dirty coal, nor can we stop irresponsible drivers from purchasing gas-guzzling SUVs, nor can we convince all our fellow Texans that Adam and Eve did not ride dinosaurs to church.

But we can grow as much of our own food as possible, reduce our consumption of shared natural resources (like getting off the city's water supply, for example, or converting to solar as soon as is practicable, or etc. etc. etc.), and in general live as free from the tyranny of desire as one can imagine doing while still being a part of the greater world.

And when it snows, as it will occasionally do, especially in an El Niño year, we can get out and play in it.

Two-and-a-half weeks to planting time!  Until then,

Happy farming!

Raising the Roof at Big Myrtle's Place

"Beware of muddle."  --E.M. Forster

"Ouch!"  --The Proprietors of Big Myrtle's Place

A clear vinyl corrugate roof seemed like such a clever idea when we started.  The circling hawks would be able to see the chickens, but not get to them, the slight tint of the plastic would keep out the summer heat, but let in the wan winter sun.  English majors are so cute when they start farming.

We will say this on behalf of the plastic roof -- it stayed on through two hurricanes and three ice/snow storms.  It lasted through the longest, hottest, driest summer on record, and it almost lasted through the torrential rains of an El Niño winter.

Plus, it kept out the raccoons and other predators who inhabit our neighborhood only slightly less thickly than political yard signs seem to these days.  (One wonders, with all the "True Conservative" county constable candidates how many "Fake Conservatives" must be roaming the Brazos County courthouse, but we digress...)

We have managed, in one weekend, to swap out the plastic for the more tried-and-true heavy plywood.  And it's a good thing it only took one weekend, too, because the hawks have been circling all day today.  I think they viewed our activities as the prelude to the raptor equivalent of a blue-plate special at Luby's.

Next phase?  Painting.  We plan to go with a black, white and red motif, to show off the Barred Rockiness of the place.  Once we reach a plateau of aesthetic quirkitude, we plan to organize a Brazos Funky Chicken Tour.

Next week:  prepping the vegetable beds for Spring planting (in about two weeks!!!)

Until then,

Happy farming!

Is It Spring Yet? (Hint: NO!!!)

 Over at Mother Earth News, The Happy Homesteader ponders the inbetween time in Kansas and notes that they plant Irish Potatoes at Saint Patrick's time every year.  We have annually made a tradition of planting jalapeños on the anniversary of the Battle of the Alamo, which is invariably a week too early.  March 6th just sounds right to someone who puts up with balmy late February weather every year.

In Texas, you get bikini and speedo weather in February (never mind that you also get a lot of people who shouldn't be wearing either item).  You also get bobsledding weather in March.  So don't get fooled!

We have a long shopping list for when we do finally get to put stuff in the ground, and for lack of anything better to do, we hereby present "what we'll be putting in the ground at Myrtle's over the course of the next two months":

• Sweet Corn
• Nasturtiums
• Sunflowers
• Rosemary
• Pole Beans
• Cucumbers
• Roma Tomatoes
• Grape Tomatoes
• Jalapeños
• Serranos
• Bell Peppers
• Cantaloupe
• Catnip
• Goat's Rue
• Red Clover
• Wandering Jew
• Raspberry Autumn Sage
• Blackberries
• Loblolly Pines
• African Basil
• Aloe Vera
• Summer Squash

This is in addition to what we already have growing, of course.  We currently have Brison Blackberries, and if we can do so, we'll stick with the same variety this year.  However, we have recently had a problem with trespassers thinking they can simply hop our fence on the western side of the yard; thorn bushes are clearly the best solution.

Obviously, too, this list is in no particular order.  Some of these items can go in during the first week of March, some have to be started indoors this weekend, and some won't go in until April.  When you get to this level of ambition, you really have to do your homework, and graph things out.  Nasturtiums, for example, are a must have when you grow corn -- they are a combination deterrent for some bugs and trap crop for others.  If you don't know those terms, then I suggest gardening somewhere other than the Brazos Valley.  :)

We'll keep you posted as our pseudo-Spring turns into the real thing.  Until then...

Happy farming!

Things to Do at Myrtles While the Grass is Still Dead...

Soooo....   thumb-twiddle, thumb-twiddle.

We've planted our pomegranates (long story, we went back on our word, we know, yada-yada-yada... turns out Barack Obama actually did what few presidential candidates-turned-president do... he kept his promise and lowered our taxes.  Weird.), and it's now late February, and we aren't planting potatoes or spinach this spring, so there's not much we can plant yet.



This next weekend, we're going to re-roof the chicken coop, but for now, it's pruning time.  We'll try to be more careful than this guy, though.

Happy farming!

For the Record, It's Cold Because It's Winter...

We're not going to link any of the foolish "the world is actually cooling" stories because, well, they're foolish.  Basing your science on a wanton desire to keep burning fossil fuels like there's no tomorrow is a sure way to make sure there's no tomorrow.

To make things plain, before we express our opinion about global warming denialists, we start with the basics:

• We are not trained scientists; we are trained as literary critics.  This, however, is better training than that of most global warming denialists, who are frequently the same as evolution denialists, which is a whole other ball of uneducated wax to deal with.
• We do not have proof that man-made sources of warming are the cause of global warming.  We do, however, have evidence that warming is happening, and denying that evidence requires some serious mental contortion.
• It is snowing a lot on the eastern seaboard this winter.  That was something actually predicted by many of the same scientists who seek to educate the uneducated on global warming.

Now then, first things first.   Permafrost is disappearing.  Just ask the Inuit and they'll tell you.  Or, ask the Swedes, who are seeing it happen now.  Between declining permafrost and melting glaciers, the world's supply of "permanently" frozen water is decreasing rapidly.

There are plenty of disputes between and among statisticians about how to measure "global temperature" or even whether such a measurement, if theoretically possible, is even meaningful.  Ignore those disputes.  They are irrelevant.  The question is whether individual climates (and their associated ecospheres) are practicable in a rapidly changing global climate.  And the answer is almost invariably "no".  Permafrost is a great example, and it will have a hugely underestimated economic impact over the next couple of decades.  Just go ask a civil engineer what happens if the density of the soil you've built roads, railroads, pipelines, and buildings on top of changes by several orders of magnitude in less than a decade.  It ain't a pretty picture.

If you really want to know why, given the fact that the world is getting warmer, it's snowing on the East Coast, you ought to check with the folk who track such things.  You'll notice that the outlook for the East is cold, but the outlook for the West (including Alaska, all you permafrost fans) is warmer than usual. 

The reason?  The El Niño Southern Oscillation effect.  "Blame it on El Niño" is a convenient catch-phrase, but it isn't just a slogan.

El Niño is a change in the temperature of the water near the surface of a large part of the Pacific Ocean.  This has such a dramatic impact on our weather because the ocean has many, many thousands of times more heat-storing capacity than the environment does.  Changes in ocean temperature have a dramatic impact on winds, including "permanent" winds like the trade winds or the jet stream.  Check wikipedia if you are not familiar with these terms -- remember, we're English majors here.  But we've read the stories and evaluated the evidence -- Global Warming denialists are long on rhetoric, heavy on ad hominem argument, and short on science.

The only question, really, is how much of global climate change is man-caused, and what (if anything) can be done about it.  I'd suggest that the best place to find answers is from some of the same sources sensible enough to tell us that it's happening in the first place.

Whew!  Next post, we'll get back to your regularly scheduled farm updates.  For now, it's February, and it's cold.  We're going inside for some hot cocoa.

Happy farming!

Something Fishy Going On...

Chinese agriculture is a boring subject for most Americans.  There are good reasons for this, not the least of which is the fact that Chinese agriculture has next to no significant impact on the daily decisions we have to make as productive western citizens.

However, there are some bellweather issues which make Chinese agriculture very much worth noticing, not the least of which is its relationship with water shortages globally.  Of the most significant negative and positive trends in global environmental news, central asian glaciers are disappearing rapidly.  There are dramatic water shortages on the way for most of the world, and the food supply is going to diminish rapidly.

On the plus side?  Chinese aquaculture now outpaces poultry farming.  Why is this good news?  Because, if done right, the grand irony is that fish farming requires fewer resources than traditional animal husbandry.  This is particularly true when comparing fish to beef, but the bottom line is, you need water to plant crops, and that water is even better for crops if fish have been raised in it first.

We had put an 18 month timetable on our backyard catfish pond plans, making a Fall 2011 debut for our first batch of fingerlings.  That is now changed.  We are going to push like crazy monkeys are chasing us this summer to dredge the pond and get our first fish in by this fall.

This won't be an easy task, as we are not going to follow any of the exemplary plans we have found for this project, but instead are going to rely on the natural propensity of the heavy-clay soil on that side of the yard, and we intend to dig pretty deep, as well, as much as 8 to 10 feet.  Ideally, we'd like to hit bedrock, which in College Station is not always all that difficult, only about 12 feet deep in most of the city, but keep in mind as well that we are doing all of our digging with a hand shovel.

So, if we look grimy or gritty when you run into us out in the "real world" beyond Myrtle's little patch of heaven, you'll know why.  There's something fishy going on at Myrtle's.

Happy farming!

It's Amazing How After Years And Years...

...we eventually instinctively know just what to do!  Okay, we're still working on it, but... having transported Duck to Millican Farms, the mecca of chicken happiness, we have decided we really need to start getting more involved in Brazos Locavores, the local organization which pushes education and involvement in the locally grown foods movement.

This movement has the potential to change the most persistent and pernicious problems facing our health and welfare today; it sounds corny to make such a sweeping statement, but it is true -- low quality food transported too far and sold outside of the local economy rather than within it is sapping the lifeblood of our country.  It wasn't just the small farmer who suffered in the 1980s when the small family farm started to disappear; the local communities which used to be nourished by those farms also suffered.

So, how can eating locally help?

Taken liberally from Brazos Locavores, here is a summary: 

• Food Miles – Most food travels an average of 1500 miles from where it is grown to our plates. Want to help decrease our dependence on oil? Eat local! 
• Knowledge is Power – The current infrastructure of the food system is so vast and complicated there’s no way to know where your food originates. For example, the Summer 2008 tomato scare. How many months did it take the government to narrow down the source of those tomatoes? Too long. Want to know where your food originates? Eat local! 
• Tastes Better and It’s Better for You – Food grown on small, local farms reaches your table faster, which means it was picked at its peak (often the day you purchase it). Want high quality, nutritionally dense food that tastes great too? Eat local! 
• Better for the Environment - Small local farms generally practice crops rotation (nutritionally diverse plants occupy the same growing space in different seasons – tomatoes in summer, perhaps peas in winter)which creates a more rich, nutrient-dense soil, generally with fewer chemical pesticides and fertilizers in our soil, in our water, and in our bodies. Looking for a cleaner, healthier environment? Eat local! 
• Better for the Community – A number of research studes have shown that of every $100 spent at a locally owned business, $45 comes back into the community. That’s compared to only a $14 return when we shop at a big-box store.

For those of you in the Brazos Valley, please consider supporting the growers and organizations listed on the  Brazos Grows website.  For those outside the Brazos Valley, we urge you to look up your local Locavore organization.  And if there isn't one, start one!

Happy farming!

So the Punishment for Bad Behavior is.... Better Digs!

There is now a final chapter on The Ballad of Duck the Drake.  Turns out none of our neighbors heard her crowing, after all, but given that we don't like being woken up an hour before the alarm is set to go off, we had to dispense with her anyway.

Duck now lives in Millican with 60 or 70 other birds, though she is definitely the only Barred Rock chicken on the place, and possibly the only transgendered chicken on the place.  Only time will tell, of course.  I suppose if some poor graduate student with nothing better to do wants to make a splash with a paper on the subject, this would be an excellent opportunity to examine the whole "nature/nurture" question.  Us, we just want the eggs.  Anyway, Millican Farms is about as soft a landing place as this obnoxious creature could have hoped for.  They have, as noted, a ton of other chickens.  They also have a turkey, who survived Thanksgiving by being pathetic and cute, and who lays an egg every other day.

We are now curious what might happen if a transgendered chicken named "Duck" manages to fertilize the egg of a turkey.  Again, not curious enough to avoid scrambling the egg and serving it on a warm tortilla with lots of sausage, hash browns, and jalapeños, but it makes for an interesting hypothetical.

 For those who might want to visit this funky fowl, Millican Farms is an interesting establishment.  Brazos Locavores recently made their monthly farm visit to Millican, and it was a fairly thoroughly raved event.  This farm is actually a commercially viable version of what we are trying to do on a much smaller scale in our back yard -- replete with irrigation from a pond that collects rainwater, and in which they are considering stocking either catfish or tilapia, depending on how well it holds water during a drought.  The chickens are free-range, which we can't actually do in College Station, but then again, we now only have six birds, as opposed to seventy, so we think (all things being equal) we're doing pretty well.  But if we ever have the chance... this is the model we want to follow.

Expect Millican Farms to expand into pepper production soon, and maybe even cucumbers and canteloupe.  And if you ever visit, look for the Barred Rock in their flock.  There's only one; she probably doesn't mind, though.  In so very many ways, Duck is one of a kind...

Happy farming!

On Being A Bird-Brain... "Crazy Like Us"

Indulge us for a moment. John Stewart is perhaps the finest interviewer in the news industry today, and he isn't even in the news industry. And Ethan Watters' new book, Crazy Like Us: The Globalization of the American Psyche examines something we at Myrtle's place care very deeply about -- namely, the commercialization of science. 

We have written before about scientists behaving pseudoscientifically on issues like distilled water as a potent potable, or again, poultry experts who refuse to admit Mother Nature knows more than they do.

The problem Watters highlights goes a step further; we have a scientific community that no longer does science; instead they do marketing.  Drug companies run the health industry, and so things like Armour Thyroid, which treats hypothyroidism better than manufactured Synthroid, are put by the wayside because of "quality control issues"; what are these issues?  No one can say.  And just mention isoflavanoids, and watch the doctors scramble to defend their pharmaceutical sponsors, rather than saying, "Yes, you are right.  Drinking fresh juice squeezed from healthy plants grown in your backyard does sound healthy."

We are, in short, a messed up medical culture; so hey, why not export our neuroses the same way we exported Madonna and Michael Jackson?

Anyway, here's the interview....

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Ethan Watters
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

Go plant some herbs now, and eat right.

Happy farming!

Le Cage Au Faux... er... Fowl... um... You Get the Idea...

We have written before about Duck, our hen who thinks she is a rooster.  There is an update to her story, and it is one worthy of the Jerry Springer Show.  For those who do not wish to do deep background, a summary of her history so far:  we purchased our chickens from a local feedlot whose veracity, competence, and drive to please we have never faulted in any way.  They assured us that our chickens were all female -- an important point in College Station, Texas, where by city ordinance roosters are prohibited.

Those intrepid readers who are smelling a punchline... consider carefully.  We have had seven birds for about 2 years now.  For most of that time, we have been collecting seven eggs a day.

And... we have seen with our own eyes she who is called "Duck" getting on and getting off the laying box hay, with an egg in her bounteous wake.

She lays eggs, she's a she, right?

Wrong.

We called Animal Control this week, preemptively, because if anyone in this neighborhood is going to complain about a chicken crowing at 5:00 in the morning it's going to be us, by jimminy.  And a very helpful, if somewhat confused, officer showed up one fine afternoon to casually sex our chickens.  For those not familiar with poultry lingo, I assure you that's not something from Caligula (The Unrated Edition).  It simply means he was "checking under the hood", as it were.  In the old days, the East German Women's Swimming Team had to undergo this procedure at every Olympics.

And what did he find?  "That's weird."  Very nice beginning, with an emphasis on "weird".

"What?" we asked excitedly.

"He doesn't have spurs.  A three year old rooster ought to have spurs."

"What do you mean rooster?" quoth the royal we.  "She's a hen.  We've seen her lay."

Our good man rejoinders, "He ain't really equipped to lay eggs.  See that thing there?  That ain't a vulva."

Lots of head-scratching, and a quick Google search later, and we discover that we're not alone, not even on Blogspot.  Somewhat reminiscent of Jurassic Park, really, though I am pretty sure that the feed lot wasn't crossing Barred Rock chickens with West African amphibians.  But I could be mistaken.  College Station is getting weirder by the day, thank goodness.  Otherwise, it might not be a fit place for a transgendered chicken to get a break.

We had originally intended that any roosters in our flock would be named "Earl" in remembrance of Goodbye Earl by the Dixie Chicks, but that no longer seems appropriate.

Instead, "Duck" will become "Drake", and will go to live as a free-range hen-nee-rooster (or is that the other way around?) and be able to place whatever kind of personals ads he/she desires.
Vive la différence!

We certainly have strong political opinions which are doubly reinforced by our knowing now yet another personality in our close acquaintance which does not conform to social expectations, but, really, we do hope to avoid making cheap political points out of what has really been a helpful little feathered friend.  How many roosters have given their families a year and a half worth of daily eggs?  The least we can do is let her/him explore her new persona in anonymity.  After all, going to a new farm, there's going to be gossipy goats to put up with.  They're far worse than talk radio personalities, from all I've heard.

Happy farming!

Caution! Everything you do in this life can kill you!

We ran across this helpful article from the Centers for Disease Control explaining the dangers of gardening, and what one must do to protect oneself.  Their advice can be broken down into broad categories:

• Dress to Protect
• Put Safety First
• Watch Out for Heat-Related Illnesses
• Know Your Limits
• Enjoy the Benefits of Physical Activity

Now, we at Myrtle's are really big fans of the work the CDC does on a regular basis.  We got the entire family vaccinated against H1N1 flu as soon as was practicable, and we take all kinds of precautions against the spread of avian illnesses.  Anyone who goes in the coop has to wear shoes dedicated to that activity, for example, because avian flu spreads most easily as a passenger on an unwitting carrier.

However, we have to say, some of this advice is... well... silly.  To whit:  "If you have arthritis, use tools that are easy to grasp and that fit your ability."  Honestly, what arthritic gardener is going to go after dollar weed with a jackhammer?

We suppose this is just of a piece with a society in which there are instructions on the side of toothpick containers, but it saddens us.

On a more serious note, why did the chicken cross the road?

According to Plato, it was for the greater good.

According to Aristotle, it was in the nature of a chicken to cross a road.

According to Karl Marx, it was a historical inevitability.

According to our daughter, it was stapled to the duck.

We have a lot of indoor projects for the remainder of this month, but if anything exciting happens, we'll be sure to let you know.

Regular readers will be aware that even if nothing exciting happens, we'll probably let you know that, too.

Happy farming! 

Incrementalism in Inaction... or "Hurry up and wait!"

Our favorite scene in What About Bob? has our intrepid hero tied up with a lot of dynamite strapped to his every nether region, telling himself "Baby step: untie my knots!"  There are funnier scenes in the movie, of course, but this one is the telling scene because this is the crux of personal triumph in the face of agoraphobic onslaught.  Whether you are paranoid for reasons of pathology, or because everyone really is out to get you, the solution is the same, no matter how grave the particulars may appear:  baby step your way out.  Pick the next thing, and then do it.

We had intended to plant pomegranates this January; we order our rootstock from Womack Nursery in De Leon, Texas, when we plant from rootstock.  We have a very healthy choctaw pecan, along with all our blackberries, and our domesticated muscadine grapes which were all grown in this manner, and we could not be happier with their prices or service.

Unfortunately, life sometimes intrudes.

See, we've got this other project which is simply going to have to come first.  We've been sleeping on a mattress on the ground for as long as we can remember now, and until recently, this hasn't been a problem.  We've been patiently waiting until we have all the tools necessary to build a mammoth four-poster (of the sort which can never be moved from the house... we're talking load-bearing posts, here); we are so particular about this bed, in fact, that we simply haven't started on the project because we were waiting until we could do it perfectly.

And then came the boy...

Two forty-something parents who each have to get up in the middle of the night for a thousand little baby related errands creak and moan a lot more than two thirty-something parents did for their last child.  And the creaking and the moaning have absolutely got to stop, and the only thing we can think of which will make that happen is for them to be dragging their forty-something old bodies out of a real bed, rather than hoisting themselves up off the floor.

Bye-bye pomegranate budget, hello, bed budget.

All is not a total loss, however.  Instead of planting inexpensive root stock in January, we will plant potted pomegranates in March.  They will be more expensive, but will have the advantage of coming into fruit a year or two sooner.  Cosi, cosa, eh, paisan?

Furniture really needs to be moved up the priority chart anyway; the last time we had friends over for brunch, we had to haul our dining room table out into the garden.  It was pleasant, but it was more work than brunch ought to recquire.

But, one thing at a time.  Later this year, when we put a table out here, there will be olives in the background.  The corn will be high in the foreground.  And the grape arbor (just out of sight to the right of this scene) will be in full flourish.  It's a whole lot easier to give Myrtle and the girls all the table scraps they desire if the table is closer to the coop.  I'm thinking a simple peasant table would do; it's the cloth and the flower vase that really makes this look all french provincial; we don't need expensive anything, really, except for tools.  Gotta have those.

Happy farming!

Whither the White Witch? (or... "Will Winter Never End?")

We are big fans of following the NOAA.gov climate outlook charts.  Recently, there was a lot of to-do over Al Gore's status during the very cold arctic snap we just had.  The problem, of course, is that the very folk who say we are warming overall also predicted we would be colder than usual in many parts of the country this winter.  And a great deal of the country will be warmer than usual.

Just for what it's worth.  Of course, we'll have a wetter-than-usual spring this year, thanks to El Niño, so when final frost finally comes around, we'll be busier than sugar ants in a Peeps factory.

Meanwhile, even though we are going to be in the 70s next week (brr... chilly!), it is still technically winter.  So, what's a gardener-slash-farmer-wannabe to do?

Well, the pond is full, so digging will have to wait.  And we have to collect more lumber in order to build another olive-tree planter.  When it's a little drier outside, we'll be able to rake some more leaves, so we can add compost to the chicken coop.

Other farmer-wannabes can compost in other ways, like trenching, for example.  That is actually a fairly cool method, and it somewhat resembles what we do with our garden plots.  We put the compost from the chicken coop in each plot, of course, but then we cover that with raw leaves and let it cook for a while.  Trenching is similar in that you dig a trench for your compost material, and then, after turning it in for a while, you simply plant directly into the compost.  Hey, if weeds love the stuff, surely veggies would love it, too, right?

We also have to tend to those hardy perennials, like the oregano here, which poke their proud little heads up out of the mulch in the herb garden.  But honestly, the whole reason we put in plants like this (apart from our love of pasta and pizza) is that they don't require much work.  We put them in, we mulch them, we occasionally water them in the middle of the blistering hot Texas summer, and then we leave them be.

Technically, we do occasionally sit and watch them grow, which I guess you could call an activity, of sorts.  It goes better with a glass of wine.  Or, depending on the time of day, a cup of coffee.  But it's not much of a scheduled activity, nor is it a long-term project sort of thing to do.

What's left to do in the winter, then?  Invite friends over for brunch.  We'll do that some.  Plant trees from rootstock.  We intend to do that, too.  We'll also, on those rainy days we are going to have a bunch of, twiddle our thumbs some.

To paraphrase Henry David Thoreau, "Time is but the stream, we go a'fishin' in."

Happy farming!

Some of What's on Tap...

Planning sessions are a great thing.  You sit down, you think, you scribble, scrawl, sketch, doodle, daydream, refill your tea, and sit down and start all over again.  And without planning sessions, dreams never seem to take shape -- they just sort of congeal, rather than becoming concrete realities.

About 15 years ago, our family started having business meetings that were along the lines of, "Supposing we decide tomorrow that life is actually worth living, what do we want to do with our time?"

That's pretty much the only way we can explain how we went from deconstructing the poetry of John Milton, and explaining solipsism vis-a-vis the lack of paperclips in Sartor Resartus by Thomas Carlyle to "Honey, could you go hose down the chickens?  They look a little peaked this afternoon..."

Planning sessions.  You write down all your desires, and then ask what you have to do to make them a reality.  And if your desires are small enough, and earthy enough, you end up microfarming.

So.... what have our recent planning sessions yeilded?

• We want to harvest our own honey.  Which means we will need to build a backyard hive and then capture a swarm.  Why do we want to do something so crazy?  Because local honey is a cure for allergies, and because we want to make wine from wild grapes, which are probably not sweet enough on their own, but we don't want to add refined or processed sugar.  That's why.
• We also want to build our own windmill for aerating the pond.  This one will be a little trickier, since most information on the web is about things like "Windmills for the Tribulation" and not about something really useful.  If Jesus actually comes back and thinks about microfarms at all, we are relatively sure it won't be with an eye towards praising the paranoid.    We could be mistaken.  
• We also have plans for planting more perennials in the herb garden; hopefully some with some color.  And monkey grass in the shaded parts of the front yard.
• And, we are going to build some lawn furniture.  We've reached the stage now where we are not going to buy finished manufactured goods for the house if we can at all help it -- we'll buy tools, but not much else.

We'll keep you updated, naturally, on how all these plans are going; in particular, we choose to brag beforehand because once we tell the world what we are going to do, we'd better do it.  Myrtle would never let us live it down otherwise.

Happy farming!

Putting One's Money Where One's Mouth Is....

The Stearns family can be counted as among the very first friends of Myrtle, and they are among our favorite people.  In fact, Hugh and Linda will get custody of our kids if we are struck by a falling meteor while out tending the chickens.  The chickens, alas, are not mentioned in our will, so there's no telling who would get custody of them.  We suspect it would be the neighborhood hawks.  As to what makes them "friends of Myrtle", though, the record is clear:  when we announced to the world that we were not only going to get backyard chickens, we in fact had backyard chickens, the Stearns clan did not have that glazed "I'm talking to a crazy person look" on their faces that practically everyone else had.

To make their affinity even stronger, they went and got chickens themselves.  Bravo!  A bizarre variance hearing later, and their coop is in the one legal spot in their yard -- very much more exposed to the public than their neighbors would have preferred, but that's a long story, and we'll let them share it someday, if they are so inclined.  We hope we helped them feel empowered to get birds in the backyard themselves.

Anyway, the ultimate point of this story is, Myrtle is jealous.  The Stearns' coop is so very much better than ours, in several points: 

First, the laying boxes are in an interior shed; the feeding/scratching area outside the interior coop meets city code, but it's not where the birds actually lay nor where they sleep.  Our coop, in contrast, is essentially one room -- a 12 foot tall, 10 foot by 10 foot room, true, but it's not like they have an interior area to which they may escape.

That has been particularly relevant the last couple of nights, when the temperatures have dropped down below 20 degrees fahrenheit.  We've had to wrap ridiculous blankets clipped to the sides of Myrtle's coop with clothespins, piled up with scrap lumber to hold them in place during the wind, and then we've strung a couple of space heaters inside to (hopefully) keep the girls at least above freezing.

Hugh and Linda, by contrast, simply hung a heat lamp in the coop, and they're golden.

The second, and no less significant, difference is that the Stearns' coop is just so much better looking.  We have weathered posts covered by chicken wire, with a clear polyurethane roof, which (due to weather) we have covered with a canvas tarp.  They, by contrast, have a bright green wooden building with a nice red door, and a white frame with chicken wire surrounding the chicken yard.

Clearly, this situation cannot be allowed to stand.  Renovations on Myrtle's coop will begin this spring.

Meanwhile, setting aside our petty jealousies for a moment, we would like to pay homage to this family.  They put their money where their mouths are.  Of course, building the coop was a little easier for them than it would be for others, as they own Stearns Design Build, the premier environmentally conscious construction / renovation / consulting firm in Bryan - College Station.  Even with that being said, however, they put more work into their backyard garden than anybody else we know, and that is saying something, because in our journey to eventual sustainability, we have met some incredible gardeners.

Austin has the Funky Chicken Coop Tour, and we salute them for it.  We would also like to do them one better, linking not just the funkiness of ones' chicken coop (the Stearns' coop has a dragon head as an emblem... which is pretty darned funky, if you ask us), but also by pointing to the holistic character of chickens in context of the backyard as a food production headquarters.

We have posted before about the importance of compost.  Hugh and Linda were on the compost bandwagon before they got chickens.  And their garden is monumentally, megalithically majestic in many, many ways.  Their blackberry cobbler causes excess drooling from three counties away.  Their eggplants could hatch purple chickens.  They grow enough peppers and tomatoes to produce sauces for pastas, chips, and roasts of every description and international variety.  And they grow mint like it's a weed.

At a party this weekend, we were each of us discussing as a family the benefits of backyard birding to a non-chicken-raising family, and we almost simultaneously imparted that, yes, we raise them for the eggs, but it's mostly for the compost.

And that's when it occurred to us:  don't just say it, do it.  Someone else gets it.  May many more join the bandwagon.  Just... wear your old jeans.  There's lots of garden dirt on here...

Happy farming!

Nature Abhors a Garden

Very seldom do we encounter an author who challenges us as much as Thoreau.  You'll note that Myrtle can be reached at a yahoo account named "walden_ponderer", and there is a reason:  in the history of American philosophical inquiry, Thoreau (and to a lesser degree Emerson) is unique in his ability to tie transcendental experience to the experience of being human in nature.

The 20th century Unitarian writers Charles Hartshorne and James Luther Adams did a pretty good job of linking being individual humans to the greater question of being part of the collective unit known as a species, and they extended Reinhold Niebhur's vision of what it means to be "saved" in ways that we at Myrtle's truly appreciate.

But nobody since Thoreau has really taken on the question of how we relate to the plants, animals, and inanimate objects around us, and what are the moral implications of our mere being, until now.  Michael Pollan, in Second Nature: A Gardener's Education writes in gripping detail about the impact of his education as an amateur gardener on his moral standing, and he does so in ways that we would have expected from a westerner, not from an effete eastern urbanite.  New England bullheadedness had been dead, we thought, since the end of the Civil War, at least.

We were wrong.  In particular, the argument between Pollan and Thoreau about whether one has the right to firebomb a woodchuck who is impinging on one's bean crop explains all that is wrong with contemporary religious liberal thought:  namely, the misplaced distrust of one's own power, and one's own place in the world.

Much like the gopher from Caddyshack, all of "Nature" (which really doesn't deserve to be represented as its own entity) stands in opposition to all efforts at self-organizing behavior on the part of cultural development (e.g., memetic reproduction). 

So what does that mean in plain English?  Whenever human beings attempt to do ANYTHING, there are natural forces at work which will tend to the obstruction of those goals.  The value of the goals is inherently independent of the nature of the obstruction.  Or to be even plainer, if you dig up and put borders around a garden plot, there will be weeds in it.  The decision about whether or not to pull up the weeds is NOT, as Emerson and Thoreau would have it, essentially a moral one.  The moral decision was whether to dig the plot in the first place.  Once that was decided, the conflict with weeds was inevitable.  Pulling them is natural and ethical; not pulling them is suicidal, at least as far as the behavior of planting gardens is concerned.

Emerson famously wrote that the difference between weeds and other plants was a defect of human understanding.  He also famously gave his best sermon as a Unitarian preacher at a Harvard comencement; it effectively served as his two-weeks notice, because he quickly gave up preaching.  Brilliant, brilliant man.  Raised a lot of good questions.

But would he help you haul compost?  That is a more open question.

Thoreau asked questions which still need answers.  And he gave some good advice, mixed in with all the wishy-washy nonsense.  But at the end of the day, the conversation is still open.

Anybody want to pick up a shovel and start philosophizing?

Happy farming!

Humble Beginnings Aren't Just for Suckers

A few years ago (three, to be precise), we looked at this piece of property you see pictured here, and we thought to ourselves, "This is it!"

If Google Earth were your only guide, you'd never know there was anything to this runty little rent house to write home about.

But it's not a runty little rent house anymore.  In fact, it was the cheapest house to be found in the only neighborhood in College Station where we could feel even partly at home.  College Hills actually looks a lot like the Shoal Creek neighborhood in Austin, for those who need a reference point.  And the nature trail running behind the elementary school a couple of blocks away from our house completes the illusion that we are in a peaceful, pastoral setting, rather than also being just a few blocks away from that dreaded little farming school with which we associate this city.

Sooo.... what made us think, English Literature students that we were, that we had what it would take to make a one-bedroom, one-bathroom house sitting on a half-acre of weed-and-bramble-infested land even remotely like the country escape we always talked about retiring to, a place like that our grandparents owned?

Simple, really.  We'd done it before.  When we first got married, we went through what we lovingly refer to as "marriage boot camp".  We worked in downtown Austin, but we lived in Blanco, a lovely little hill country town about 50 minutes away... or make that an hour and a half, given Austin traffic.

We commuted about 2 1/2 hours every day... to and from this 398 square foot cottege, sitting on an acre of land.  And we gardened there.  Our landlord was a pleasant fellow who brought us trailerloads of goat manure.  Our little dog Sallie loved running down to the Blanco river, just a block away.  And we worked ourselves to the bone.

When we moved, we realized just how empty the whole renting experience had been, and we vowed that the next time we worked that hard, it would be on our own property, and that it would be something truly remarkable.

Two kids and a lifetime of bizarre experiences later, here we are at Big Myrtle's Tea Shoppe and Egg Emporium.  The start of a new year is a great time to reflect on all that we have done, and all that there is yet to accomplish.

For all that we have, we are grateful.

Happy farming!

Death Sentence for an Innocent Plant

Growing up in South Texas, we had a poinsettia in our backyard.  In fact, it was a major part of our backyard, being as tall as the house. 

You can't do that just anywhere... they are very weather-sensitive entities, poinsettias.  One good freeze can kill them... like it did in 1985 in our backyard in Kingsville, Texas.  Ice storm like we'd never seen before.

So, anyway, friend-of-Myrtle Kate-So-Great recently gave us a poinsettia, and, having a history of growing them in the garden, we planted it in the herb garden, throwing some color in amongst the rosemary and lavender.  "Hey, we've already gotten as cold as we're going to get this year.  No sweat."

Wrong! Snow on Thursday!  Texas will be playing in the National Championship, the paint on the floor in the new bedroom will be dry, and our newly planted poinsettia will be sweating it out under a pile of leaves and a blanket.

Will it live?  We'll just have to wait and see....  We've got to go add a couple of layers of mulch to everything, so, be seeing you.

Happy farming!

Putting Descartes Before DeHorse

Only at Myrtle's place would a picture of a garden plot with nothing in it be considered newsworthy.  But, you're at Myrtle's, so we'll just have to explain why we took this beautiful picture of.... dirt.  See, this isn't just any old dirt.  This is compost, directly from Myrtle and the girls' coop. 

We have written before about the deep bedding method and how compost from said method is the biggest advantage of backyard chicken raising.  Well, here is one of our ten veggie plots, all full of leaves, which is now a New Year's tradition here at ye auld Tea Shoppe and Egg Emporium.  You heard us, you are looking at leaves.  You just thought you were looking at dirt.  About once every 3-4 months, we dig out the coop to a depth of about 2 feet, fill the garden plots, and then backfill the coop with fresh leaves.

We've gardened with other kinds of natural fertilizers before, but to be honest, we're not impressed.  Sure, equine or bovine sources of manure are every bit as nitrogen rich as poultry droppings... but ewwwww!!!  Besides, when has a horse ever assisted a farmer by casually, and on a daily basis, turning its droppings into the rest of the compost material?

We cannot emphasize enough that this is the number one benefit of backyard chicken raising.  Sure, the girls are fun to watch, and yes, the eggs are delicious, but at the end of the day, we are able to harvest more corn, tomatoes, peppers, squash, etc., per square inch in our garden because we have -- for free -- better compost than anybody else in town.

And you really ought to see the festivities when we first put the fresh leaves in the coop.  It's gotten to be such an event for the girls that they start going nuts the minute they see us get out the rakes and the wheelbarrow.  And anytime one of them finds a grub or a worm, there is a mandatory victory lap which is utterly priceless.  At some point, we're going to have to film it.  That, and showing what it looks like when one of the girls licks out the inside of a peanut butter jar.  But we digress....

Happy farming!

Dionysus vs. Apollo in the Urban Homestead

Right before imbibing champagne to toast the coming of a new year seems like a good time to reflect on the various veins of viticulture (to be vetted?) for the home garden, particularly for the home garden which includes grapes...

And when you think of wine, surely you think of  "the wine dude," as Nico di Angelo would call him
(see:  The Titan's Curse (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Book 3) ).

However, as with most things in life, there is a balance to be struck.

And the balancing act is ancient enough to be thought of as a choice between Dionysus and Apollo.

Dionysus was always thought of in ancient Greece as "The Easterner".  Sure, he was Greek and all, but he was "foreign" Greek, not "one of us".  Not being Greek ourselves, we're not sure we can say "one of us" in that way, but you know what we mean.

Dionysus represented wildness, sensuality, abandon, and drunken stupor.  "The Wine Dude", indeed.

Apollo, however, was also (if we are to be frank) a drunkard.  It's just that the contrast was so stark -- Apollonian wine consumption was poetic, not frenetic.  The sensuality, nay, sexuality, of Apollo was a controlled sort of abandon.  With Dionysus, hey, it's not a good time unless it gives you a hangover.  And that's not just about the wine, either.

What does this have to do with gardening?

A lot, as it turns out.  This is because gardens are really a microcosm of everything else that goes on in one's life.  Your garden is an extension of yourself, and as such, it represents your values and your ethos.  A "wildscape" is obviously Dionysian.  It's also ugly as all get-out, and irritates your neighbors, and is associated with bugs and diseases "daecent people" never need to get shots for.  Ahem.

On the other hand, constrained garden plots with perfect geometric shapes, and perfectly coordinated colors and textures are the equivalent of courting one's fair beloved with a checklist in one hand and a stopwatch in the other.

So... what would balance be?  Iconic stadium rockers Rush sang about it on their album Hemispheres; "Heart and mind together".

In the garden, particularly respecting viticulture in the state of Texas, that would require the orderly planting of wild Mustang grapes.  If you go with any of the established varieties of  "wine" grape, you have given in to convention, and are not really striving for balance.  Instead, you are striving for social status, because let's face it, the difference between a $10 bottle of wine and a $50 bottle of wine is too subtle for you to really taste anyway, unless you are some kind of savant.

And that's what we've done (planted mustangs, not become savants...).  We've got them trellised on the back porch (a nod to Apollo), growing wild on the fence between us and the rent house to our West (a nod to Dionysus), and we are attempting to grow them under the shade trees on a new fence between the front yard and the fish pond (a balance between the two).

Of course, we also plan on irritating not just the classical scholars who will read this analysis and think "What do these semi-literate barbarians think they are doing to my beloved Greek mythology?!?", but also the viticulturalists, who cringe at scuppernong wine, let alone something as primitive as mustang grape wine.  And to make matters worse, we intend (yes, we're planning this!) to mix in heavy doses of other fruits, including (but not limited to) plums, blackberries, strawberries, melons, and even pomegranates.

We might as well be brewing up a batch of Dionysus' favorite 21st century swill, MD 20/20.

Or maybe not.  Mad Dog is not the preferred beverage of Jane Austen fans, after all.

Happy New Year!

And happy farming!