Can You Dig It?

We're getting closer and closer to realizing our vision.  A 900 square foot house sitting on a 9000 square foot lot -- you can see by our purchasing decision where our values lay. 

Anyway, the creme-de-la-creme of our little project, the capstone, as it were, will be our 500 square foot, four-to-five foot deep fish pond.  We've finally got the 500 square foot part down; the depth is another matter.  We're planning on waiting for this August to dredge the portions which are currently underwater, but this weekend we managed to reach a milestone.  We have put up a bank around all 100 linear feet of the pond's perimeter, and have established where to plant the pine trees which will form the erosion barrier.  this week, we will be planting our mosquito-repelling herbs (basil, catnip, and anise) and we will begin research in earnest for our aeration project -- a windmill, hopefully from an engineering design circa 1850 or so.

There are a lot of other goodies to show you this upcoming week, but they will have to wait.  Friends have invited us over for grilled shrimp and yummies from their winter garden.

Happy farming!

By Their Fruits Shall Ye Know Them

This whole self-sufficiency thing is a long term project.  Sometimes we are reminded of just exactly how long by the kinds of milestones we celebrate.

This week, our plum trees are in bloom, the first time in the three years since we planted them.  You can't have fruit without first having flowers, so we consider this a pretty important event.  Of course, the trees are still only about four feet tall, so any fruit we actually get this year probably won't be all that impressive -- but it's a milestone event, nevertheless.

There are other projects around Myrtle's place that are equally long-term.  We moved roughly 1,500 pounds of dirt out of the catfish pond today, and the digging is still only roughly 40% complete.  Which means we probably won't have fish in the pond until next March at the earliest; given that we started digging roughly 18 months ago, that makes this a fairly long-term event.  That first fish fry is going to be a doozy, let us tell you.

Speaking of doozies, our corn crop this Spring ought to be fairly impressive.  In addition to planting in a couple of our traditional raised beds, we have this new 'S' shaped bed which marks the spot where we are putting more olive trees next year.  Since it was available and doing nothing at the moment, we thought "Why not?" and proceeded to plant more corn here.  Among other things, it will add to the privacy between us and the rent house you can see in the background here.  Corn, wild grapes, pomegranates and morning glories (on the trellis) ought to keep our Myrtle-related activities private from the sorority girls doing all their non-Myrtle related things.  Because really, who wants to see someone doing something non-Myrtle related?

It has also come to our attention that in our discussion of Forsythia, which we have never planted before we slighted one of our favorite plants by saying we never plant ornamentals.  Irises grow practically like weeds in our yard; they spread via rhizome, and if they are growing where you don't want them, you practically have to dig up the entire yard to get rid of them.

We, of course, don't want to get rid of them.  They don't actually produce anything to eat, which is our usual standard for whether we want something growing in our yard or not, but on the other hand, they don't demand any attention, and seem to take care of themselves under all kinds of circumstances, bouncing back even after harsh winters like the one we just went through.

So, if and when you eventually visit Myrtle's place, you'll see these beautiful white flowers in the odd irregular bed around some of our shade trees.  They may not be producing yummy plums, but they make us enjoy the wait for all our fruit trees to come into production.

Hopefully, for Myrtle's next update we can show you some sprouting spring veggies!  Until then....

Happy farming!

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Hope Springs Eternal

It's the first day of Spring.  So why did the temperature fall to 38° last night?  And why, oh why, a week after we planted all our veggies, given that we had passed the average date of last frost by a full week, is it supposed to get down to 34° tonight?

We'll tell you why:  'cause that's the way the ball bounces.  Life is experienced in non-linear, fractal geometric fashion.  Things happen, then other things happen, and then something changes.  No observable cycle is any more circular than the Earth's orbit which, if we remember our 5th grade science at all, is actually elliptical, not circular.

So.  We've got plants in the ground, we're going to cover them at night, and hope for the best.

We've got other plants not yet in the ground because they weren't in stock -- most notably African Basil, which we have on order, and Goat's Rue, which should be coming any day now.

And, we have ordered an abundance of new trees from The Arbor Day Foundation, including a slew of new Loblolly Pines, White Pines, and Bald Cypresses.  The perimeter of Myrtle's place, particularly around the fish pond, needs to be more forested, and we want an abundance of pine-needles on hand to mulch the blackberries every year.

One unusual addition (unusual, at least, for us) is a Forsythia, which the Arbor Day folks threw in for free.  We don't usually go for ornamentals -- we planted some Raspberry Autumn Sage (Red Salvia, for those who may have heard it by another name), but that and our daughter's Morning Glories are the only inedible plants on the place (excepting a few of the trees, of course).

The Forsythia is an interesting case.  Free is always good, naturally, but in addition, it has this going for it:  it's a member of the Olive tree family:  As an Oleacea, it naturally comes near and dear to our hearts.  We only have four Arbequina Olives on the place, but we're hoping that now they will feel a little less lonely.

We're not yet sure what to make of the Forsythia's bright yellow flowers, but we're sure we'll adapt.

In other news, we have moved garden plots around, expanded some, contracted others, but mostly we've gone about the business of getting as much good chicken-poop compost as possible in the places it needs to go.  Two of our 6'x6' garden beds are dedicated to sweet corn, in addition to a new 4'x20' "S" shaped bed which we placed where the 2nd Olive bed is going to go next year.

Also, we replaced the chickens' plastic water feeder with a stainless steel variety.  It holds more water and, more importantly, is not a source of leached bromides.  Perhaps we are partly motivated by a sappy, syrupy-sweet fondness for our chickens, and we do not wish to poison them any more than any other member of our family.  But mostly, we just don't want getting bromides in our eggs.

For the next couple of days, keep your plants and maybe even yourselves warm, and...

Happy farming!

Never Leave 'em With a Problem, Always Leave 'em With a Solution!

We recently advised our fellow Myrtlians that plastic food containers are little more than slow poison.

Of course, some people are in no hurry, so this is not really any scarier a thought than any of the other alarming things we seem to hear on a daily basis, should we choose to log on to our favorite news blog of choice, or even (dare we dream anyone still does this?) read the newspaper.

However, we discovered in daily interaction with many of you followers of Myrtle that we needed to do a little more than raise the alarm.  We needed to be a little more proactive in providing some solutions.  To that end, may we introduce to the western world a little item that many people living in developing nations take for granted?  It's called a "tiffin" in some circles, although in Wikipedia, the best information is in an entry on "Dabbawala", the etymology of which we won't bother to describe here, although it seems pregnant with pun possibilities.

So, what exactly is this "tiffin" of which we speak?  A relatively inexpensive exemplar is in the Amazon.com link to your above left.  You can also find them at World Market.  Of course, if you live in a community of any size, there will be a half-dozen Indian food grocers or international bazaar style outdoor markets, etc. etc., from which it would be better to buy said item; still, for those of us who live in backwaters such as College Station, ordering online may be your best bet.

Why are you ordering this "thing"?  Because it's a lunchbox and because it is convenient, in addition to being non-toxic! 

In India, millions of workers all throughout the country rely on delivery persons to bring their hot fresh home-cooked meals to them in their tiffins; Myrtle Maintenance Personnel have a similar arrangement, although we must confess that we send refrigerated foods and rely on that most odious of modern conveniences, the microwave, to heat up said foods on a ceramic plate.  Still, we stay as true to the original intent of the tiffin as practical.

And best of all, you buy this item once, you never need buy it again.  It doesn't go in a landfill, it doesn't sully your system, it doesn't block iodine.  And it encourages you to eat cool foods -- when is the last time you took kebabs with spinach dal to your workplace?  Myrtle might cringe at the thought, but we are sure you could even take tandoori chicken in one if you so desired.

Happy lunchtime, and happy plastic-free farming!

Gardening at Night, and Other Absurdities

Those of you who have been paying attention may have come to the conclusion by now that we're a little odd.

No denying it.  The proprietors of Big Myrtle's Tea Shoppe and Egg Emporium do not care much about conformity; the surest way to make us yawn is to talk about a master-planned neighborhood, where every home on the platte is painted the same color, and none of the houses is allowed to have trees or shrubs at unauthorized heights.

Which may go a long way to explaining why we're posting pictures of plants obviously taken at night, when the photographic capabilities of our cheap little digital camera are dwarfed by those of your average pinhole camera made by enthusiastic 3rd graders.  See, we planted our brand-spankin'-new olive trees at night.

Why?  Because that's when we bought them, and we were so excited, we couldn't wait 12 more hours before putting them in the ground.

We had assumed we were going to have to travel over 100 miles and pay much higher prices to purchase arbequina olive trees, and we were on the verge of despair because between gutting the lighting in the house, building a new bedroom for our daughter, and putting a new roof and new laying box on/in the chicken coop, funds for major improvements were beginning to run a little slim this spring, and we thought we may have to put off the olive tree purchase until next fall at the earliest.   Then, miracle of miracles, when we stopped at Farm Patch (a local produce stand which also sells garden plants), with the express purpose of buying african basil (much nicer plant than your standard "sweet" variety), we noticed a group of olive trees bunched in the corner.

We naturally bought them all.

So, our two big projects in the garden this year were pomegranates and olives.  We have now succeeded in installing the two plants in our garden which we have been expressly discouraged about by the priggish pessimists of the Brazos Valley gardening world.  And, more to the point, we have a solid plan, we're sure it will work, and we are executing the plan precisely.

If we can't get the western side of our yard to grow into a sicilian paradise using chicken-poop compost and rancid pond water, then it can't be done.

Tomorrow, we'll put in our traditional summer veggies and some more herbs, we'll weed, and we'll mulch.  But in the meanwhile, we have olives and pomegranates growing in our yard!

Happy farming!

Pick Your Poison

We've told you before about the importance of pure water.  We even mentioned parenthetically that it is important to store your distilled water in glass containers, not plastic.

We've now gone guano-loco with the logical conclusion to this line of reasoning.  We are getting rid of plastic containers altogether.  There are a wide variety of reasons, but the most fundamental is this:  most plastics leach bromines and bromides in one form or another.  And together with fluorides, our body is so flush with these chemicals in our contemporary habitat that they have effectively blocked our iodine receptors more completely than any insidious plotter from Dr. Strangelove could have hoped.

"Now, hold on a minute!" you might be saying.  "Isn't fluoride a good thing?"  Yes.  In moderation.  Fluoridation of water has dramatically improved dental health in this country for nigh on five decades now.  It's just that, along with out-gassing and leaching from plastics, fluoride and bromine/bromides have had disastrous unintended consequences.

Hypothyroidism is the condition which first brought the importance of iodine to Myrtle's household  -- Myrtle Maintenance Personnel have been fighting this condition for over a decade now.  But this is only the tip of the iceberg; iodine deficiency has been linked to breast cancer, among other things; we would not at all be surprised to find that there are links to autism, ADHD, polycystic ovarian syndrome, and all sorts of other conditions which have been on the rise like some demented Vanity Fair review of uncomfortable conditions.

Think about it... the onset of an "obesity epidemic" has only come in the last three to four decades.  "Super-Size me" has something to do with it, of course, but what else happened in the late 70's, early 80's?  Coca-Cola switched from glass bottles to plastic, that's what.  So did all sorts of other acidic foods (Tomato ketchup, anyone?), not to mention car upholstery no longer being cloth or even leather, for the most part.  We get out-gassed to the Nth degree in our cars.

You want further circumstantial evidence?  The worst offenders for obesity are in the deep south.  Where there is no public transportation... and you have to drive a long time through the blazing hot sun every summer to get anywhere...  We would love to see an epidemiologist get a grant to thoroughly investigate this question.

But we're not holding our breath.  Or, maybe we should....

So, we're ditching plastic.  We'll keep you posted.

Happy farming!

A New Place for Myrtle to Park Her Woozle...

We're not quite ready to declare ourselves funky, but we have come quite a few steps beyond merely functional.  The latest addition is a new laying box for the girls, and in addition to giving them a fully protected eating and drinking area, it adds a good 10 square feet of laying space above and beyond what they had with their old re-designed IKEA dresser-drawers (hey, a girl's gotta rest her backside somewhere, right?), and, just as impressively, gives them fully 20 square feet more foraging space.

Plus, it's an extra windbreak in winter and an extra 20 square feet of good shade in summer. 

Of course, getting them to actually lay eggs in this new creation took a while.  You'd think architectural improvements would be enough to change even chicken temperaments to something grateful and cheery.  Sadly, no.  Quoth Myrtle:  "This is different.  Different is BAAAAAAAD!!!!"

Sigh.

Our next chicken-related improvements will be purely aesthetic.  We will be painting the exterior of the roof (top will be sun-reflective white, sides will be black, with biker-chicken related mural designed by our 11 year old daughter).

There are a lot of non-chicken related improvements going on, too.  We have embarked, for example, upon a new line of inquiry related to the reduction of our plastic usage about the place.  This is a more complicated line of inquiry, and may take some time before we can report on what success would actually look like, let alone whether or not we have accomplished it.  When we realized early this week that the bromides leached from plastic affect numerous endocrine conditions (particularly hypothyroidism), we opened a new "Myrtle File" on plastic.  A "Myrtle File" is something we have decided we're no longer going to do simply because everyone does it this way, and that's the way it's done.

It won't be easy.  We just got back from H.E.B. with as little plastic as we could manage on short notice (without having planned a non-plastic trip first), and we're stunned by how much plastic we brought into the house.  Eliminating it entirely, we have decided, will be impossible.  But as a first approximation, we believe we can reduce it by 90% over the course of the next year.  We'll keep you updated.

Meanwhile.... herbs and raspberry autumn sage going into the ground this weekend, summer veggies next weekend.

Happy farming!

A Rock and a Hard Place...

We're stuck in waiting mode.  As we've mentioned before, the end of Winter and the beginning of Spring is a difficult thing to gauge in Texas.  There are so many plants which should not go in the ground until "the danger of frost is past".  The problem, of course, is that some years, the final frost is at the end of January, and other years, it isn't until sometime in April.  Average final frost is the first week of March here in College Station, but we take that with a grain of salt.

We do have some indicators that it might be okay to plant our tomatoes and peppers this week; the Weather.com forecast for the next ten days shows us not getting below 40° anytime soon.  There is a lot to be said for this forecast's likelihood to be accurate, and it dovetails pretty nicely with the historical records around these parts -- a little chillier than usual, but not by a whole lot.

Of course, it did snow just a week or so ago, so there may be some justifiable concern that perhaps... just maybe... it is too optimistically sunshiney and warm.  Maybe?

The climate pages over at NOAA.gov tell a somewhat different story, even if not necessarily mutually exclusive.

Basically, for the next month, we will be "blue for 'Brrrr!!!'" cooler than usual.  That does not necessarily mean that we will have any freezing temperatures... but one never knows.  The latest forecast for El Niño shows that the actual ENSO (El Niño Souther Oscillation) event will be subsiding within the next 30-45 days... but that the effects of the event will linger past the actual "end" date.

So.  We are not going to plant peppers and tomatoes this weekend.  We are going to weed, turn over garden plots, and have guests over to sip wine, munch on cheese and crackers, and talk about religion and politics.  You've got to fertilize your garden at every available opportunity, you know, and nothing can do that better than heated discussion of religion and politics.

Until the weather breaks...

Happy farming!

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!