Reality Check

Here's Natasha surveying The Back Forty (Feet), sitting near the 360 degree swivel table Steve made to put the solar oven on...

Some things have not gone well on our little homestead recently. First, all of our poor bees died over the winter. We don't know if it was because they had mites, or if there wasn't enough sun behind that bee enclosure, or because there weren't enough consecutive warm days this winter for them to get outside to eliminate, or because the hive got too moist inside. Most likely, it was a combination of all of these things. It's not CCD, that's for sure. Lots of people here lost their bees over the hard winter, including our next door neighbor. And it wasn't that they didn't have enough honey. We had not touched their honey, as they wouldn't have had enough if we did. Now we have about a dozen huge jars of it; Steve spent a very sticky Monday in late March with a rented extractor, and then probably another four hours scraping off and cleaning the foundation sheets, (where they build up the comb for their brood), for the new bees, who are doing well. The new spot for the hive is sunnier, behind a beautiful woven willow gate and chicken wire fence that Steve made to keep the cats from getting too close. The willow branches are from our small willow tree that was so heavily damaged by the December blizzard that it had to be taken down; it had to go anyway, so we could put something that will fruit in, but we were still sad to lose it.










Then we discovered that the peach tree has curly blight. Its first year of blossoming, and so beautiful, but it's not well. The treatment, apparently, is to remove lots of blossoms (more than one would usually) so it doesn't use up all its energy fruiting, make sure to give it seaweed extract as fertilizer and water it if there isn't much rain, then treat it organically with copper next spring.

The back yard, frankly, is a mess---on any trip across the yard, you stumble on clods of bare dirt, scraps of wood, fabric, or metal lying about, or holes that the chickens have scratched up for dust-bathing, or half-rotted sheets of cardboard lain down to help curb the invasive ornamentals. It's easy to catch an ankle in a twist of baling twine or a length of cut raspberry cane or multiflora rose that hasn't yet made it to the compost or stick pile yet. I want it to all look nice and tidy, but am realizing that it's hard to do that and still take care of the earth properly. Practicing permaculture is a SLOW process, so we have to wait and make mistakes.

At least the chickens are all happy and healthy, and the bush cherry is blooming beautifully and looks good. We should have cherries this year. I forgot to get a photo of it, as it's in the front, unlike most of our projects. Steve innoculated more shiitake mushroom logs yesterday. The first set, which might not fruit again, were innoculated in the spring of 2007, and we never got around to posting to show how it was done. He bought spores through the mail, and then drilled holes in oak logs that he got from a big old oak that came down on our friend Glenn's land. (Oak is best because the shiitakes prefer it and it holds its bark longer, so it stays moist longer.) The spores get pushed into the holes with the innoculator tool, and then he seals the hole with melted paraffin. Turns out you can use beeswax, too, and we have lots of that, so he'll use it next time. You'll notice he set up shop in the shade; that's so the open holes don't dry out too much while he's working.

Pollinator's Eye View of Our Back Forty (Feet)

Before it gets too cold and snowy for photos of the lush green garden to start feeling like a distant memory, here's a bird's or pollinator's eye view of our backyard, aka the Back Forty Feet, a photo taken in late July, in full summer bloom. You'll see the chicken tractor over on the left, along with a wheelbarrow full of various invasive plants. Our year-old peach tree (which has doubled in size and produced only teensy little inedible fruits this year but should bear good fruit next year) is blocking the view of the chicken coop, which was in a good "summer" location at that point---not in too much sun and so as to catch the breeze. Keeping chickens cool is important. It now has wheels and can be moved more easily around the yard. Mulch under the peach tree is hay from the chicken coop.

There aren't as many flowers in our yard as we'd like, but there just isn't that much sun; we hope to add more eventually, though. There are stands of day lilies that threaten to take over, underneath the clothesline, mostly; Steve's cousin Matt worked very hard to dig alot of them out this summer. Here you can see Joe Pye weed in flower towering over the red raspberry bushes, just to the left of the chicken coop; the black and purple raspberries are to its right, and also over by the fence on the left side of the yard, just west of the fern garden. Back in the far corner on the left is the compost heap, with the shiitake mushroom logs nearby. (This winter, we'll try to devote a whole posting to the great 2007 innoculation of the mushroom logs.) Wild grape and a trumpet vine cover the back fence; domestic grape vines have been planted on the fence near the clothes line, but won't be producing for a while yet. You can also see lots of wild grape vines twining around the phone line that comes from the house (bottom right corner), but the oyster mushroom logs next to the garage (bottom left corner) are out of sight. The invasive wild rose bush at the far end of the clothesline posts will be replaced next year with a native rosebush that doesn't spread wildly and has good quality rosehips that are a good source of Vitamin C. We made a nice rosehip syrup a few years ago, and it was delicious. Somewhere back by the chicken coop and over by the oyster mushroom logs are two hazelnuts, just leafy twigs right now, but within a year or two, they should be producing well. Steve keeps a little herb garden in the area by the back steps, which you can't see (bottom left corner). We wondered for quite a while what all the vines covering the silver maple snag were, and finally identified them: While there is the lovely red and green Virginia Creeper, there's also (ack!) poison nightshade and some other pretty but invasive vine in our bioregion, so we've been removing those. Tricky without pulling other things out... On the bottom right border along the fence there is a forsythia bush, also solomon's seal, bloodroot, may apples, wild ginger (which we have yet to try), bluebells, jack in the pulpit, and at the foot of the snag are crocus and trilliums.

And what's in the garden, which is the whole bottom right quarter of the photo? Zucchini, sweet potatoes, squash, Swiss chard, broccoli, and probably some other things. Our other gardens plot is a community plot a couple of blocks away, and that's where Steve grows potatoes, tomatoes, peas, sweet corn, peppers, onions, and other veggies. The garden deserves its own post...in the winter, when we've got more time...

In the other (far right) corner of the yard is the honeybee hive, our newest addition! When our friend Eric, who knows about these things, moved away at the end of June, he sold us one of his honeybee hives, and our neighbors have one of the others, just on the other side of the fence. Steve built this little fenced-in corner to protect curious felines, and the screened portion is so the bees' flightpath isn't blocked by the fence. They've made honey, but there's only enough for them for now; we hope that we can safely share some of it next year. From Eric, we've learned that honey bees aren't as important as pollinators as native bees, like mason and leafcutter bees. These wild bees help increase crop yields. If you look very carefully, you'll see just to the right of the silver maple snag, high up on the fencepost, a wooden block that is nearly hidden in the leaves. This is one of our two homes for leafcutter bees in our backyard. For more information about how you can help native bee populations and become active in pollinator conservation, go to The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation's webpage on pollinator conservation:
http://www.xerces.org/pollinator-conservation/
Yes, I am lame and lazy for not making this a link, but you can also click on the post title to go directly to that page.

A busy summer

It's been too long since I've posted anything, but then, that's the irony of it...once the weather warms up, it's more of a challenge to find the time to spend on the "living in tune with the seasons" blog because the outside is singing so many songs that we need to join in on! Sometimes easier said than done, for sure. Right now, I'm feeling sort of grumpy because the solar oven (a birthday present for Steve's last birthday) is taking so long to cook my pizza. Next time, I'll try to remember to set it up sooner, so the oven has more time to heat up. This is my first solo solar oven experience, and I'm still getting the hang of it. (I've only had to call Steve once, and only knocked the whole thing over once!) It's actually pretty easy once you accept that it's going to take a little longer, and you need to work with the sun and the clouds. And it's good for making candles as well as cooking! These pictures were taken back in May; Steve's melting down candle remnants(which we get off the curb, mostly, or cheap from yard sales), using a baking powder can as a mold (and an old pot for the melting of the candles). I love that creamy vanilla color. We solar-baked chocolate chip cookies for my stepfather Andy's visit in June.


He came and visited us on Father's Day, which was great, as he has his own kids and grandkids back in Omaha, so we felt very honored. He rode here for 8 hours on his motorcycle in 90 degree heat, and he will be 86 in November!


We've had an extraordinarily cool and dry summer (I'm wearing socks and jeans and it's July 31st??), but have gotten some monstrously big shiitakes, anyway:


Even Natasha was SHOCKED!! (Sergei, uncharacteristically, had nothing to say.)


And the chicken girls (l to r, Sara, June and Rose) were more than a little intrigued. (They love shiitakes.)



I have been doing alot of yoga (keeps me happy and healthy) and drove a tractor for the first time when we visited Steve's family down in Illinois for the annual birthday May/June birthday celebrations...
















...and Steve started working on the roof again this month. The cupola is not only beautiful, but contains a whole-house fan, which is the next best thing to air conditioning.



This photo is actually from last fall. The cupola is finished now, and The Roofing Crew is focusing on the north side of the roof. (We're getting lots of help from lots of friends.) This will be the hard side, with two chimneys and two skylights, as well as various solar implements (like a hot water heater), but we think the whole thing will be finished before the weather turns cold.

In late June, we took some time off to camp out for a night and see a great evening production of Shakespeare's "Winter's Tale" at American Players Theatre (an outdoor theatre) with friends Joyce, Joan and Ellen, and hung out at an art fair after stuffing our faces at The General Store in Spring Green. No photos from breakfast, sorry, but here we all are on the front porch of TGS:


As fans of Claire's fabulous blog, "Here's What You're Missing" will know, we had a few of Steve's old workmates from North Farm Co-op (a natural foods distributor that went belly up in the early 21st century) for a potluck reunion. The challenge was to bring a dish made from food from North Farm, though lo these many years. We still had some NF dried seaweed, so Steve made a pasta salad with roasted red peppers, and the centerpiece on the table was a heart-shaped bottle of bath oil I got at the NF outlet store. Here, Gary, Alan and Mike try to remember just exactly how many pallets of outdated soy smoothies the employees were allowed to take home every night...


And now for a completely gratuitious food photo! It's a stir fry that we made this spring, with mung bean sprouts, carrots from last year's garden, whole grain rice noodles, but I can't recall now any of the other things that were in it...