tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-54918341480282727452024-03-21T08:00:18.385-05:00Backyard Nest EggGardening as an Investment in Food SecurityWisconsin Garden Chickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05330981282174625145noreply@blogger.comBlogger54125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5491834148028272745.post-25085431466906473462010-06-10T07:13:00.010-05:002010-06-10T07:39:04.460-05:00Chicken Dreaming<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6MYG7-iCPPZcgL3raay-UHNQOGljCaG7alB0H1yHs8FJDLc_tFklyy9SkzAVe-OpUsfk76N09aafg-bHWgN2DJnOKF3INqQHBhyphenhyphen36bjcVPbR52uZazJebNdYwSdrMmIgOA1emwi6aBYQo/s1600/amelia-free-5-25-10.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5481118110117263026" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6MYG7-iCPPZcgL3raay-UHNQOGljCaG7alB0H1yHs8FJDLc_tFklyy9SkzAVe-OpUsfk76N09aafg-bHWgN2DJnOKF3INqQHBhyphenhyphen36bjcVPbR52uZazJebNdYwSdrMmIgOA1emwi6aBYQo/s400/amelia-free-5-25-10.JPG" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;">I dreamed about the chickens last night. In the fragment I remembered as I awoke, I was holding them in my arms, feeling their soft silky feathers against my skin – just briefly. Then they fluttered away and through a pop door that led somewhere I couldn’t see. (It wasn’t the pop door to their coop.) And they were gone.<br /><br />I sold the remaining two chickens shortly after Batgirl died. We got an offer on our house from the very first guy who toured it at our very first (and only) open house. So I knew I had to find new homes for the chickens. (We’ll be staying at an apartment while we plan and build our next home.) For some reason, it seemed easier to do after Batgirl died. Kind of like ripping the rest of the band-aid off quickly.<br /><br />Their departure has left a hole in my life. I had them for just a year plus a few weeks, but they managed to thoroughly integrate themselves into my daily routine. First thing in the morning, I’d look out my bedroom window while I was pulling on my jeans to see what they were up to. Then I’d bring them their morning greens and fresh water. </span></div><div></div><div></div><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"><br />Now there are no little chickens to greet me enthusiastically in the morning. Nothing to see when I look out the window, except a big wound in the garden where their coop (now sold) once stood. No real motivation for digging the big dandelions that emerged after all the rain last week out of the lawn – because there is nobody to get excited about them and gobble them down voraciously. When I step out the back door to snip a few herbs for cooking, no little birdies start squawking and banging their beaks on the wire of their cage, hoping to be let out. No eggs to collect and marvel over. “How many today?” we’d ask each other. We had five dozen in the fridge when they went away.<br /><br />I miss them, but I hope they’re enjoying a better life – meaning more space – in their new home. At least that’s what the guy who bought them promised.<br /><br />The photo above is a good representation of what I imagined having chickens would be like. They’d be an attractive garden feature, wandering through the yard, their gorgeous feathers contrasting beautifully with the foliage and flowers of the garden. They’d not only produce eggs for us to eat and manure for the garden, they’d be living “lawn ornaments”.<br /><br />Of course, the reality is that they would tear up the garden in a heartbeat if I let them run free. They’d eat what I didn’t want them to eat, dig huge holes all over the place, and drop their uncomposted manure everywhere.<br /><br />I took that photo of Amelia a few days after Batgirl died. I was tending the remaining chickens, but distracted by thoughts of Batgirl. In my absentmindedness, I failed to close the door to the pen all the way when I came in, and Amelia quickly ran out. It took me more than an hour to catch her, but truthfully, I wasn’t trying very hard that whole time. I was observing her and snapping a few photos. My fantasy had been that, shortly before we moved out of this house, I would fling open the door to their pen and let them all run free in the garden for a day.<br /><br />Long-time readers of this blog will recall that </span><a href="http://backyardnestegg.blogspot.com/2009/08/home-on-unfree-range.html"><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000099;">I have struggled with the problem of having to keep the chickens penned and wanting to give them the space</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:130%;color:#000000;"> and freedom all living creatures seek. Our goal at our new place is to have enough land to give them just that; to allocate a large area for them to run outside, chase bugs, dig worms, eat what foliage they desire, and generally live the good chicken life.<br /><br />So while I miss my chickens, I try to imagine them enjoying a life in the country, and look forward to giving our next chickens the same benefits after we move. It’s hard, however, not just to give up the chickens, but to leave the garden. I thought it would take much longer to sell the house, that I’d have one last summer to enjoy what’s shaping up to be our best garden yet.<br /><br /></div></span></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhStdIi_GSSS5XRIiqVS1qZW2lh_Whe7IozFjn8nfcVcDU1rsXY2DSzl9fV3ouLv4sWCetR7Q5O5zM3G2Ci139rqwtzZ5DdzhunlJUWdYoNcigJQe404USTu4GR8TqvB6AsMBjCtPBS8SMT/s1600/Strawberry+Harvest+6-4-10.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5481119395537663954" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhStdIi_GSSS5XRIiqVS1qZW2lh_Whe7IozFjn8nfcVcDU1rsXY2DSzl9fV3ouLv4sWCetR7Q5O5zM3G2Ci139rqwtzZ5DdzhunlJUWdYoNcigJQe404USTu4GR8TqvB6AsMBjCtPBS8SMT/s400/Strawberry+Harvest+6-4-10.JPG" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;">Already we have harvested pounds and pounds of strawberries. They’re larger than the ones I grew a couple of years ago in the planter boxes and much juicier and more flavorful than the ones you buy in the grocery store. So far, I have canned seven jars of jam, 4 jars of strawberry syrup, and Rick has frozen two quarts of whole berries. Plus we have eaten many and given some away. Last evening he came in with that half peck box overflowing with yet more strawberries – and they’re still coming! All from an $8 package of strawberry roots I bought last spring.<br /><br />The sweet potatoes I over-wintered survived and transplanted well, the potatoes are going gang-busters, and the tomatoes I started from seed in the house are my biggest and strongest seedlings yet. But I have to look to the future – to having more space for both chickens and garden, as well as a more energy-efficient home.<br /><br />My last post for this blog will be up early next week. In it, I’ll detail the reasons why I feel it so important for all of us to get going on growing more of our own food. I’m taking my time with it because I want to provide plenty of links to other articles. I’ve been steeped in this stuff for six years, but some of the issues may be new to some people. So I want them to be able to read more about it if they’re interested. Look for the post on Monday or Tuesday.</span>Wisconsin Garden Chickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05330981282174625145noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5491834148028272745.post-46267440558484292282010-05-24T14:02:00.004-05:002010-05-24T14:41:37.281-05:00Farewell, Batgirl!<div align="center"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvPbMYvKLMPxMMJWer5Cmqw_kq9LEtwuhKETjosaKvvos75x3nMe44UjbX0VEm_WNfxzdnWwDu4wkGfP9MqKchjgoDV8HFo50WjDdqdT8XNv6dpjaZlFo-OmWAgQErmKzjD91R4jdf3ebW/s1600/BatgirlOnFlowerpot.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5474922839987224370" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 300px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvPbMYvKLMPxMMJWer5Cmqw_kq9LEtwuhKETjosaKvvos75x3nMe44UjbX0VEm_WNfxzdnWwDu4wkGfP9MqKchjgoDV8HFo50WjDdqdT8XNv6dpjaZlFo-OmWAgQErmKzjD91R4jdf3ebW/s400/BatgirlOnFlowerpot.JPG" border="0" /></a> <em><span style="font-family:Arial;">Batgirl - around 3 weeks old</span></em></div><em><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span></em><div align="center"><br /></div><div align="center"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2-S9k39qvdZ4cu3QUdwChp1OFNtbKUziA9UCsWSYxDQDnXZcs8bnzG0exVriaJkMFtC-xuaKOtsa-GNNmF8lSKIVSBDGb2U7yDP6gXBJddxFDTv49jyZaV2ye6facS3wganaozzbKToKQ/s1600/ChixInCoop.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5474922243899760562" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2-S9k39qvdZ4cu3QUdwChp1OFNtbKUziA9UCsWSYxDQDnXZcs8bnzG0exVriaJkMFtC-xuaKOtsa-GNNmF8lSKIVSBDGb2U7yDP6gXBJddxFDTv49jyZaV2ye6facS3wganaozzbKToKQ/s400/ChixInCoop.JPG" border="0" /></a> <em><span style="font-family:arial;">Batgirl (Barred Rock in background) last summer</span></em><br /><br /><br /><div align="left"><span style="font-family:arial;"><span style="color:#000000;"><span style="font-size:130%;">My very favorite chicken died yesterday. I was stunned; am still stunned. She showed no signs of ill health and was frisky that morning. When I went out to give them their morning greens and fresh water, she pecked at my jeans like she often does so I would pick her up. She only tolerates a few seconds of petting; then she wants to be free. But she seems to want just that little bit of attention.<br /><br />When I went out in the afternoon, she was lying on her side in the pen, beak tucked into her breast. The other two were hanging out in the side pen, as far away from the corpse as they could get. I couldn’t even go into the pen. I ran back to the house calling for Rick. He checked her and confirmed what I knew; she was definitely dead; stiff as a board. My neighbor who grew up on a farm suggested it was the sudden heat that did her in. After a spell of cooler-than-usual spring weather, it suddenly got hot, with a high of 88 frickin’ degrees yesterday.<br /><br />I guess I didn’t think carefully enough about how to protect them in these conditions. There are trees on either side of their pen, so they get lots of shade and had plenty of water. But apparently that wasn’t enough. Today I’ve been supplying the remaining two with ice-filled plastic containers they can cool off next to, ice in their waterer, and tomatoes and cucumber. Hopefully, all of that will keep them reasonably cool and hydrated.<br /><br />Batgirl was the first chicken to ever touch my heart; heck, the first animal to do so. At 52 years old, I never had any pet or livestock before these chickens. How do they cluck their way into your heart? I don’t know; she just did.<br /><br />Things I loved about Batgirl (in no particular order):<br /><br />• I loved how she always tried to escape and be free. She’s a major reason I want to move somewhere with more land. I want to give my chickens lots more space to roam and play. Batgirl was our best escape artist – sneaking under netting, flying over it, nimbly flitting past me when I opened the door to their tractor or pen. I silently cheered her every time she made it through.<br /><br />• I loved how when she escaped by flying over the temporary netting I’d put up in the yard, she’d come over to where I was working in the garden and stay next to me, scratching in the soil alongside me.<br /><br />• I loved how she was always the bravest and first to try anything new. Like when she was just a couple weeks old and we put a low roost in the brooder. She investigated the new item immediately, hopped up on it, and tried to walk along it like a balance beam. She looked like a little toddler, unsteady on her feet and was adorable when she fell off.<br /><br />Or when we started taking the 5 week old chicks outside. We’d put a smaller box with chicken wire over the top and a drop down door cut into it inside their brooder and try to get them to walk in. Then we’d close the door and carry them outside in the box. While the others resisted walking into that box, she’d brazenly march right in. Of course, she crapped immediately and panicked when we shut the door, but once we got her outside, she had a great time.<br /><br />• I loved her independence. Although she didn’t stray too far from the group, she liked to keep a little distance between herself and the other hens. She was happy off doing something else by herself.<br /><br />• I loved how she would pout when something didn’t go her way. She’d turn her back on you and take a few hops in the opposite direction. Sometimes she’d even turn back, look at you again, and take a couple more hops. Just to make sure you got the message. She stayed mad at Rick for about a week in winter when, against her will, he put bag balm on her comb to prevent frostbite. She really hated that indignity.<br /><br />• Her latest funny thing: whenever I’d transfer them from pen to tractor, she wouldn’t go. The other two would run obediently from one place to the next, but she’d just stand there, looking at me and making some kind of mewling sound. It’s hard to describe – it wasn’t the clucking sound they make when they’re contentedly digging. But there she’d wait, at the door of the pen, for me to pick her up, pet her once or twice, which was all she could take, and then put her in the tractor. Why she had to have me physically move her, I do not know. I guess she just wanted a little attention.<br /><br />Unlike the other hens, she really seemed like she wanted to interact somehow, if just for a few moments. The first time she pecked at my clothes, I freaked out for a second. Then I realized she wasn’t being aggressive, and maybe just wanted attention. In winter, when I’d give them their greens in the morning, she’d peck at my coat pocket, wanting me to bring out the little bag of cracked corn she knew I’d have. Unlike the others, she loved that corn more than greens (and they all love their greens). Other times, she’d just peck at my jeans a couple of times. When I’d turn to her, she seemed to look right at me, like she wanted to communicate.<br /><br />Probably I’m imagining it, or reading too much into her little chicken behaviors. But I feel that somewhere in there a little spark connected her little chicken soul to mine. Farewell, little Batgirl. I miss you so much.</span> </span></span></div></div>Wisconsin Garden Chickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05330981282174625145noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5491834148028272745.post-57166412348162666592010-05-21T06:40:00.008-05:002010-05-21T09:34:26.108-05:00Catching Up<span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;">We’ve been so busy preparing the house to go on the market that I’ve neglected this blog. I really miss it, too. I enjoy writing it, but also think I need it for my mental health! I even sleep better when I’m writing regularly. But we’re done with the hard labor, having our first open house on Sunday, and I’ve got a backlog of ideas for posts. The first is a quick “catching up” entry.<br /><br /><strong>Happy Hatch Day!</strong><br />I meant to do a special post for the chickens’ first hatch day, and somehow let it slip by! I got them as day-old chicks on May 12th last year, so as far as I can tell, they were hatched on May 11th. What an interesting year it’s been. I’ve gone from being someone who never had or wanted any pet or livestock, who was a bigger “chicken” even than the chickens, easily spooked by their sudden movements and fearful of picking them up, to someone entirely comfortable handling them and fairly knowledgeable about their care.<br /><br />I planned to experiment with putting up videos using one of them as baby chicks and one I just took the other day. However, I can’t find the baby chicks video. Now that I think about it, I’m pretty sure I deleted it one day out of embarrassment. I was talking away to the little chicks on it. Now I’ve really gone over to the other side and don’t care what people think about me talking to the chickens.<br /><br />So here is a still photo of the baby chicks, followed by a video taken a few days ago of the girls all grown up. (The photo was taken when we still had the ten chicks. When they were two weeks old, I gave six away because we’re only allowed to have four in the city.)</span><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"><br /><br /><br /></span><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiA7FwgE8iFokg3paz_JQ0PiL9-817goAmj90zos-w8x04q4VHucQaRzs8Gmdowm7Zptj5sbTyQo7QvZ7rM_ZVcwajk8WiCWnIsL9wI9yp3HFdv2PgM3fN8T-vq7TLeOYR4JfCK-6DJqKUZ/s1600/Chicks2+5-13-09.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5473688100780825794" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 341px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiA7FwgE8iFokg3paz_JQ0PiL9-817goAmj90zos-w8x04q4VHucQaRzs8Gmdowm7Zptj5sbTyQo7QvZ7rM_ZVcwajk8WiCWnIsL9wI9yp3HFdv2PgM3fN8T-vq7TLeOYR4JfCK-6DJqKUZ/s400/Chicks2+5-13-09.JPG" border="0" /></a> <p align="center"><em>[Okay, I've tried loading this video for two hours and it never finished. I'll try making the file smaller and attempt another upload later.]</em><br /><span style="font-size:+0;"></span><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"></span><span style="font-size:+0;"></span><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"></span><br /><strong>Current state of the Garden</strong> </span><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfq3Ii2Czq4Nr7v6QuHoP-OZpOlRSOr5vyDQY5PiYWM0B6oPkffQ66Yquu4WL-4QFJnwPkW9skIu4CxNTL7aYcTUf9rr_lKZp5VpUWpqB0iu661vA0E3q6Ti0kB8ixKTXUd_FSi9qxLOox/s1600/cherries.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5473689006858296818" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfq3Ii2Czq4Nr7v6QuHoP-OZpOlRSOr5vyDQY5PiYWM0B6oPkffQ66Yquu4WL-4QFJnwPkW9skIu4CxNTL7aYcTUf9rr_lKZp5VpUWpqB0iu661vA0E3q6Ti0kB8ixKTXUd_FSi9qxLOox/s400/cherries.JPG" border="0" /></a><br /><br /></p><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;">Look at these cherries – aren’t they gorgeous!!! I’m lucky they’re still so beautifully healthy. According to the books, I should have sprayed by now. But my preferred fruit tree pest control product, Surround (kaolin clay) isn’t locally available. I called everywhere I could think of and most didn’t even know what it is. One sales person, assuming I didn’t understand what I was asking for, patiently explained that they didn’t carry it because customers didn’t like the look of it! Isn’t that the American way – style over substance? It’s true that covering your lovely trees with a fine mist of white clay is less visually appealing than glossy green leaves, but hey, I’d rather do that than eat chemical pesticides.<br /><br />The only way to get it is to order it online, and it’s clay – it’s heavy - the shipping costs almost as much as the product. The smallest quantity I could get was 25 pounds, which will last years and years with just a small number of trees. But I took a deep gulp and finally ordered some because before we move, I really, REALLY want to taste at least a few cherries off those trees we have worked so hard to nurture. We should probably go all out and have some champagne with those cherries – they’re going to be the most expensive ones we’ve ever eaten!<br /><br />The strawberry plants are loaded with fruit, as are the blueberries, and the raspberries are covered with flower buds. Tonight I’m planting out my tomatoes, sweet potatoes, peppers, cilantro, parsley, basil, and eggplant. I’ll put up some photos afterwards.<br /><br /><strong>The “It’s for Everyone” Argument and Social Control</strong><br />The other night I was flipping channels before going to sleep and found the 1975 film <em>One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest</em> playing on TCM. Of course, I had to stay up late and watch it all the way through. It’s an amazing film. On one level, it’s about institutional control over individuals and crushing the human spirit. Jack Nicholson’s character, Randle McMurphy, opts for a mental institution to get himself out of a hard labor prison sentence. But he finds himself in a new kind of prison.<br /><br />Anyway, the incident relevant to this post occurs when rebel McMurphy politely asks during group therapy session whether the work schedule might be changed to allow the men to watch a World Series game. Nurse Ratched explains in her calm, controlled, and steely manner, that a lot of thought is put into the schedule, that changing it may be upsetting to some patients. The schedule, like the constant anesthetizing music, she says, is <em>for all the men</em> on the ward. But she offers a vote on the matter, confident that the men are too cowed by her to side with McMurphy.<br /><br />The vote fails, but on a subsequent day, Cheswick, who voted with McMurphy, asks for another vote. Irritated, Ratched reminds Cheswick that they had a vote. Cheswick presses the issue, pointing out that there is another game on today. Ratched allows the vote; this time all the men vote with a jubilant McMurphy.<br /><br />Ratched looks around the group at calmly before telling McMurphy, “I see only 9 votes. There are 18 men on this ward.” The other nine she refers to are too out of it to even participate in the group therapy sessions or understand that a vote is taking place. They orbit around the dayroom, lost in their own worlds. McMurphy later complains to the doctors that Nurse Ratched “likes a rigged game.”<br /><br />I woke up the next morning thinking about how the argument that the schedule could not be changed because it was for everyone was like the argument that we can not have a community garden in the park because the park is for everyone. It’s an argument that seems, on the surface, like ethically based opposition to changes in the system. <em>We</em> are looking out for everyone. <em>You</em> are asking for changes that will only benefit you. <em>Don’t you see how unreasonable and selfish that is?</em> Democratic rituals and phrases are used to uphold the system and enforce control. You are the crazy one, if you don’t see and appreciate the fairness and rationality of the system. I’m still thinking through the full implications of the analogy.</span>Wisconsin Garden Chickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05330981282174625145noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5491834148028272745.post-79858925078490569782010-05-06T07:37:00.005-05:002010-05-06T08:02:26.448-05:00It Takes a Community<span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;">Yesterday I wrote my report on the neighborhood garden survey. I’d been putting it off – I’m not sure why. Maybe because it represents closure for me. Once I had it finished, it was like a great weight had been lifted – and not just because I had one more task off my desk. It’s the weight that is lifted when you make a big decision and are ready to move forward.<br /><br />For us, that decision is to sell our house and move someplace where we can have a little more land. In some ways it was a difficult decision, especially now that we are finally going to enjoy the fruits of some of our labors. The first cherries are forming on our trees, the blueberry shrubs are covered with blossoms, and our best strawberry crop yet is coming along beautifully.<br /><br />I never wanted to live out in the country, and wrote a post about that last summer. (You can read it <a href="http://backyardnestegg.blogspot.com/2009/08/green-acres-not-place-for-me.html">here</a>.) I like living in the city and hoped to emulate the <a href="http://urbanhomestead.org/">Dervaes family </a>by packing as much edible landscaping into a city lot as possible. When the opportunity arose last winter for an “urban orchard” in our neighborhood, I was thrilled! Here was yet another way to stay in the city, and expand the land available for food crops. Plus, I’d get to meet more of my neighbors.<br /><br />I’m a believer in the value of community – of looking out for one another, working together, and helping each other in times of need. That was the kind of neighborhood where I grew up, back in Illinois in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The fathers in our neighborhood were skilled blue collar workers. When someone wanted to pour a driveway, the masons among them would lead a group to accomplish the work. When toilets or other plumbing malfunctioned, they’d call on the neighbor behind us, who earned his living at that trade. When anyone had electrical problems, they’d call on my dad, a proud member of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW).<br /><br />In this way, these blue collar families could afford to keep a wife out of the labor force and maintain attractive homes. It was a multi-ethnic neighborhood, but with a common religion, as most were practicing Catholics. When First Communion or confirmation rites occurred, there were usually a number of children going through the ritual. Mothers in the neighborhood would plan communal celebrations which I mainly remember because of the terrific ethnic food – pasta dishes from the Italian families, next to strudles from German-descended families. It was hard for a kid to get away with anything in that neighborhood. The watchful eyes of many mothers were upon us, and quickly reported our doings!<br /><br />In 1976, I married a man from a low-income family. (We just celebrated our 34th anniversary!) He joined the Air Force and there we experienced another kind of supportive community. It was the norm in those days, at least among the enlisted, to look out for one another. If somebody’s husband (most of the service members were male) was TDY (temporary duty at another base), neighbors and co-workers would check in on her, to make sure she got help if she needed it. Since we usually lived far from our extended families, when holidays rolled around, especially when we were stationed overseas, we typically planned communal celebrations. Everyone asked around and made sure that single guys had somewhere to go for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners.<br /><br />You didn’t have to know people for a long time to benefit from this mutual aid. Since we were a transient community, we’d reach out to one another almost as soon as we met. Rick could strike up a conversation with someone while he was on line to in-process at a new base, and get us invited to a BBQ that week-end. The common bond was military service.<br /><br />We didn’t go to college until later in life – that’s how we came to be living in this neighborhood of white collar professionals. The neighbors we’ve met seem to be nice people, but are not very involved with one another. They will help if they see a need, like the time I got stuck in snow at the bottom of my driveway, and one of my neighbors helped dig me out. But mostly we don’t interact much – maybe because we don’t need each other as much as did the blue collar workers in the neighborhood where I grew up?<br /><br />Sociologists have observed that working class people and those from racial-ethnic minority groups build and maintain networks of economic interdependence among neighbors and extended family and that these are essential for their survival and quality of life. Men trading skilled work in the neighborhood where I grew up are a perfect example of that. When one neighbor does electrical work gratis on another neighbor’s house, knowing that he can later call upon that individual to provide free service when he wants to pour a driveway, those neighbors develop a relationship. They need and depend upon one another, and therefore work to build a relationship, in ways that neighbors who are white collar professionals do not. </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;">If say, a judge from our current neighborhood needs electrical work done, he will engage a licensed electrician and pay him for the work. Their relationship ends there. Middle and upper middle class professionals do, of course, develop interdependent social networks, but these are usually focused primarily on their colleagues, rather than their neighbors.<br /><br />The point I am trying to make in this rambling essay is that I’ve come to believe that you can’t establish a community garden without a community – meaning something more than a group of neighbors, unless a majority of that group of neighbors values a garden. Then community may grow through work on the garden. Many people in relatively affluent neighborhoods appear to have trouble seeing the value of an edible garden. After all, they can just buy whatever it is they need, just as the hypothetical judge in the example above can pay an electrician. He doesn’t need to have a relationship with one and perform a service in return.<br /><br />If people don’t see the need for a garden, they will oppose change and cling to the status quo. Even reason will not work, as with the woman who opposed an orchard on the (quite valid) grounds that she didn’t want chemical pesticides in the neighborhood, yet clung to that argument and opposition despite assurances from me and others that we shared her concern and planned to use organic pest management.<br /><br />If I ever doubted my decision to give up on a community garden and move to a place where we could have a little more land of our own and grow a bigger garden, it was dispelled a few days ago when a heated dispute arose over a proposed prairie garden. A resident of our neighborhood stopped by a few weeks ago to drop off his survey. He suggested on his survey and in person establishing a small prairie garden on the green space of one of our cul-de-sacs. Currently, neighbors are using it as a dumping ground for branches and other garden waste. He offered to lead a project to plant a few coneflowers, rudbeckia, a third crabapple tree to join the two already there, and possibly dedicating the garden to a former resident, now deceased.<br /><br />I thought it a lovely idea and encouraged the few who responded to the survey indicating they wanted a garden to join this neighbor. I offered to help, too, thinking that even if we didn’t get a community garden or orchard, this small project might be a good start. Interestingly, the woman opposed to the orchard also suggested a similar garden on this green space back in the winter. She is one of his neighbors and plans to help him with the project.<br /><br />If you think such a garden would be uncontroversial, you’d be wrong. Despite the project leader’s polite tone and effort to hear everyone’s concerns, loud opposition has emerged. “STOP!” one woman emailed. “I have a three year old. I am completely opposed to a prairie garden.” She didn’t elaborate on what she saw as the hazards of a few prairie flowers for a pre-schooler.<br /><br />Another, hiding behind the “I’m just concerned about the children” mantra, angrily wrote:</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"><br /><br /><br /></span><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"></span><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"><blockquote><p>It is an inane idea to take away a common play area for the kids. I for one will not be chasing kids out of the nice plantings nor will I help maintain the area once the glow wears off.</p><p>Since the area in question is essentially a part of my view every time I gaze out a window, I would prefer to<br />see children playing in the area as opposed to seeing an often barren and browning ornamental "prairie style" garden.<br /><br />Instead of plantings, maybe the folks interested in improving the appearance of the area who have extra time on their hands would consider weeding and cutting the grass which would improve the appearance of the area while maintaining the circle as a common area for the small children in the neighborhood.</span></p></blockquote><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;">Bear in mind, there are two parks in this neighborhood, and the suggested plantings will not take up all the space on the circle. And, there are other circles with plantings in the city – it’s nothing new.<br /></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;">He also argued that the garden would be a safety hazard, because children could emerge “undetected from plantings” and get hit by a car. Understand that this neighborhood is so quiet, I feel completely safe riding my bike around it without a helmet. And how small would a child have to be to be hidden by a coneflower? A child that small should have adult supervision – which would prevent them being run over by a car. </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;"><br /><span style="color:#000000;">This person is so vociferous and angry that volunteers are dropping out of the project, saying they no longer want to be involved. If people can get that worked up about a few native plants, I can only imagine what opposition I would face if I pressed on with the community garden idea. And if others will not stand with you, but drop out of projects because of a few angry people, it’s just not worth it. I feel badly for the guy who wanted to establish this garden, but have to admit enjoying a bit of <em>schadenfreude</em> at the anti-orchard lady’s expense. Maybe she will learn something when her own garden project is opposed by people who cannot be reasoned with even when their concerns are addressed. </span><br /><br /><span style="color:#000000;">I hope this post doesn’t sound bitter; I’m not really feeling that way. I was sad and disappointed for a few days, before we made our final decision. But now I’m looking forward to more land, more chickens - honeybees! Room to plant more than one pumpkin and more than one watermelon. It will be an exciting new beginning. </span></span>Wisconsin Garden Chickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05330981282174625145noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5491834148028272745.post-10777795840151023812010-04-30T05:37:00.008-05:002010-04-30T05:59:10.406-05:00Chicken Pickin's<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiq2dFCn3s6bHlu5K2JTz_qd_vRYnzGmzPE3yCKio2LhGK8rpAaDJej_5SsEkKXN5cz-0HJl2V3DTug7iT_bxsezBCJSuwHov78N-6IZ9tKHvpLJNfGUK8yCSkHp-FWdSqBkmRsftyJJzUH/s1600/Amelia+and+suet+cage.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5465878275825477490" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiq2dFCn3s6bHlu5K2JTz_qd_vRYnzGmzPE3yCKio2LhGK8rpAaDJej_5SsEkKXN5cz-0HJl2V3DTug7iT_bxsezBCJSuwHov78N-6IZ9tKHvpLJNfGUK8yCSkHp-FWdSqBkmRsftyJJzUH/s400/Amelia+and+suet+cage.JPG" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;">Is there a way to <em><strong><span style="color:#336666;">minimize purchased inputs</span></strong></em> when it comes to your chickens? Obviously, a backyard is too small to grow grains for their feed. Eventually, I want to learn how to grind and mix my own feed. Many people recommend that. For now, however, I buy them a high quality organic layer feed.<br /><br />Traditionally, people have supplemented their chickens’ diets with kitchen scraps and leftovers from human dinners, using the chickens, in the words of our extension agent, as “garbage disposals.” I haven’t done much of that, for several reasons. First, I doubt whether, left to their own devices, chickens would make a fire and cook up some grub. It seems to me that it is more natural for them to eat raw food.<br /><br />Secondly, much of what humans (American humans, anyway) eat these days is not healthy for humans, let alone chickens. We try to eat healthfully most of the time, but we enjoy things like chocolate cake now and then (more often when I was younger and could more easily keep the weight off!) I wouldn’t dream of giving chickens chocolate cake. They’d have to fight me for it, like anyone else, and although at 4’9” tall I’m smaller than most grown people, I’m bigger than a chicken!<br /><br />Seriously, the white flour and sugar are empty calories, let alone the hazards of the giving chocolate to animals. If you think I’m crazy to even mention chocolate, you should check out the Backyard Chickens message board sometime. I once saw a post asking whether it was okay to give chickens chocolate. Some of the moderators eventually put together a list of safe “chicken treats” in response to all the questions they were getting.<br /><br />I’m not trying to put down posters on that site. Some terrific people post over there and I don’t know how I would have made it through my first year of chicken keeping without them. Everyone is extraordinarily helpful. </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;">It is also the largest site devoted to backyard flocks that I know of, and so is a great place to get a sense of what’s going in with the trend. The problem I see is that many people want to treat chickens as pets rather than livestock. Even when you start out, as I did, with the intention of treating them as livestock, if you have just a small number of birds, you find yourself naming them and getting attached to them whether you want to or not.<br /><br />One problem with treating them as pets is the desire to give them “treats.” People want to give their beloved pets foods they (the humans) enjoy. The result is a lot of fat family dogs and cats. Even foods like pasta, unless it is whole grain, can contribute to obesity (as with humans) because it is mostly empty carbohydrates. Our extension agent says many of the chickens kept in backyards are obese and that obesity causes many of the reproductive disorders you see in chickens, such as double-yolked eggs, internal laying, and prolapses.<br /><br />What I’ve tried to do is observe my chickens and let them educate me about their diet. They have tiny brains, but they are programmed with specific information related to their survival as a species.<br /><br />What I’ve learned from my chickens is this:<br /><br /><strong>* They do not particularly care for cooked food, even on a cold winter morning.</strong> I’ve read and heard from many sources that cooked grains are good for warming up chickens in winter. Mine had no interest in the oatmeal I lovingly prepared for them. I offered it a couple of times, thinking maybe it was just unfamiliar to them. The only time they went for it was when I put diced apple in it. Then they just picked out the apple! I tried making a porridge of their layer mash and hot water, but they didn’t go for that, either.<br /><br />Unlike many other chickens I’ve read about, mine do not care for pasta. I even offered them the good stuff, whole grain pasta. They nibbled a bit, turned up their beaks, and walked away. The only cooked food I ever got them to eat was popcorn. But they only like it occasionally.<br /><br /><strong>* They are omnivores; consequently, they usually don’t want the same treats over and over.</strong> I knew, intellectually, that they are omnivores, but it didn’t really sink in until I tried giving them something they seemed to like more than once. They went crazy for popcorn the first time I gave it to them, so I made it again the next day. They just looked at me, as if to say, “Popcorn, AGAIN? With no movie? What else have you got?”<br /><br />Similarly, when they were molting in winter, I read that you should give them a little extra protein. Some people give them dog or cat food, but I questioned the quality of that. Then I read about a woman who gave her chickens deer liver when they were molting. Since liver is a high quality protein, and I happened to some pastured turkey livers in the freezer, I offered them liver. They went crazy for it. The next day I brought out more, and they were, “meh.”<br /><br /><strong>* The “never fail” treats they will always go for, no matter how many days in a row or times per day you offer them are greens, bugs, worms, and grubs.</strong> Big surprise, huh? These are the foods closest to what their ancestors, Asian jungle fowl, ate in the wild. The great thing is, you can give your chickens their favorite (and most healthful) treats and minimize purchased inputs at the same time! One of their favorite treats is dandelions, which are extraordinarily nutritious (for people and chickens!).<br /><br />Whenever Batgirl, one of our Barred Rocks, gets away from me, she makes a bee line for the raspberry and strawberry patch. So now I give them leaves from raspberry shoots coming up where I don’t want them, as well as leaves from extra strawberry runners. I’ve also given them extra parsley from the herb bed, volunteer squash shoots coming up in the compost, pea vines after I harvest the peas, and carrot tops. They also love the leaves, flowers, and seeds of sunflowers – the only crop I plant specifically for them.<br /><br />Last summer when I was moving their tractor to a new spot on the lawn, I happened to pass over an ant hill and they went crazy. So I just left the tractor there, and they had a blast cleaning out the ant hill. The next day I set them over another ant hill and fairly quickly had my yard cleaned of ants.<br /><br />One of the hard realities I’ve learned about backyard chickens is that you can’t really let them run free – unless you don’t have a garden. Some people fence off their gardens and give their chickens free run of the rest of the yard. But that only works if your garden is limited to one spot in your yard. From my reading, I thought I’d be able to let them run around and take care of any bug problems in my yard. I especially hoped they’d be a big help with the Japanese beetles. In practice, we’ve had pick the beetles off our roses and cherry trees and serve them up to the chickens, who will greedily devour them.<br /><br />The reason is that chickens will eat many kinds of greens (even the ones you don’t want them to eat) and will dig huge holes in the garden where you don’t want them. For example, a neighbor who lives a few blocks away from me let her chickens run free, for just an hour or so every evening, in her back yard and they quickly decimated all her hostas. </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;">They’ll work their way through your vegetable garden, too. For instance, they’re smart enough to avoid eating tomato leaves, which are harmful to them, but they love tomatoes – and especially enjoy taking a few pecks from each tempting fruit you have hanging on your vines.<br /><br />Chickens are champion diggers. Apparently convinced they’re going to find <em>something</em> good <em>somewhere</em> in there, they relentlessly dig without rest. One of my neighbors who has no experience of chickens, watched ours in disbelief one afternoon. “<em>What</em> are they looking for?” he asked. “They just won’t stop!” </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;">It’s useful when you want to turn the soil in spring, so I put up temporary netting wherever I want them to dig and let them have at it. Yesterday, when I went to return them to their pen, I noticed that Amelia was outside the temporary netting. She had dug her way free and was busily digging a deep hole under a nearby shrub.<br /><br />So, the point is that there are plenty of things you can feed your chickens, or allow them access to, that will keep them happy and healthy and will help to minimize your purchased inputs. I’m convinced that a major reason my chickens are so healthy without antibiotics or vitamin supplements, and survived the winter so well, is that I feed them greens twice a day. Greens are nutritional powerhouses – for chickens and people. I’m trying to get more into my diet.<br /><br />Unfortunately, since they’re backyard chickens, I usually have to serve the greens up to the chickens, rather than let them forage for them on their own. I hang them in suet cages, in part, to keep them busy for awhile pulling them out. Watching them time their movements so they can deftly grasp a green sticking out of a swinging suet cage, I began to think giving them their greens this way, rather than just throwing them on the ground, might also help to keep their reflexes sharp. They don’t get many opportunities to use their quick reflexes since they’re penned up most of the time. </span>Wisconsin Garden Chickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05330981282174625145noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5491834148028272745.post-69252004669705901422010-04-23T17:08:00.018-05:002010-04-23T18:01:01.894-05:00Social Class & Community Gardens<span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;">I’ve been trying to get my head around why someone would actively oppose a community garden. I can understand apathy and indifference towards a community garden. Over the past several generations, Americans have become so far removed from their food sources that many can not recognize a common vegetable plant in a garden, let alone know how to grow one. Some vegetables, even after they have matured on a plant, are unrecognizable to some people. I know I’m not the only one who’s had to identify produce in a grocery store so a young checker unfamiliar with the item could ring up the sale.<br /><br />It’s amazing when you think about it. The most basic skill any living creature teaches its young is how to provide food for itself. That a majority of Americans don’t know how to do that, and further, believe that food production is something that should be out-of-sight and away from where most of us live is . . . I don’t even know how to finish the sentence. It’s just breath-taking when you think about it; I mean, REALLY think about it. From an evolutionary standpoint, it’s suicidal.<br /><br />It’s also elitist. The gap between rich and poor has been growing since the Reagan administration, and the current economy and job market is dismal, so it’s hard for most of us to see ourselves as “wealthy.” Compared to the truly wealthy in this country, most of us are rapidly falling below middle class. But compared to much of the rest of the world, we are wealthy. Historically, it was only the upper classes who could remove themselves from the most fundamental activity of all living creatures - food production. In much of the world today, as was true of our great-grandparents in this country, people who can’t produce at least some of their food themselves will go hungry.<br /><br />So I do understand apathy and indifference towards community gardens. Food production is an activity many contemporary Americans have had no experience of and no need to learn. But active opposition to <em>others</em> planting a garden in their neighborhood is something I’m still thinking through. It appears to me that opposition is rooted in class bias. I’m also guessing that those who oppose community gardens in their neighborhoods do not recognize their own elitism and would be deeply offended by the accusation.<br /><br />Consider some of the objections to community gardens.<br /><br /><strong>1) We don’t want pesticides in our neighborhood.</strong> When the urban orchard opportunity emerged last December, and I recruited volunteers to qualify our neighborhood for the grant, I received a few emails opposing the idea. (Interestingly, those opposed did not contact me directly. They lodged their concerns with others, who then passed them along to me.) One individual adamantly opposed a public orchard in the neighborhood, in part, because she did not want more “noxious” pesticides in the neighborhood and believed that fruit production could not be done without spraying. Chemical pesticides were also a </span><a href="http://sycamorehillscommunitygarden.blogspot.com/2009/09/emails-about-park-location.html"><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000099;">concern when a few residents in the Sycamore Hills neighborhood</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"> in Columbus, Ohio attempted to organize a community garden.<br /><br />My first reaction to my neighbor’s objection was: fair enough. I emailed her to explain (as the Sycamore Hills community garden organizer did with her neighbors) that our group agreed with her stance on chemical pesticides and planned to use organic methods of pest control. When I later conducted a survey of our neighborhood, the same neighbor reiterated her objection about pesticides and continued:<br /><br /><blockquote><span style="font-size:100%;color:#006600;">[An orchard is] labor intense <em>(sic)</em> requiring pruning and spraying . . . And for how many years can we sustain a volunteer crew? Without them we’ll be dealing with decaying fruit and bees (which we don’t want to eliminate). Fortunately for us, we have two farmers’ markets within walking distance where we can buy and enjoy a great variety of local fruits and even nuts.</span style="font-size:100%;color:#006600;"></blockquote><br />Let’s unpack the layers of meaning in this remarkable statement. First of all, she either isn’t listening or doesn’t believe that fruits and vegetables can be produced organically. She also doubts (perhaps not unreasonably) that volunteer interest in growing our own food can be maintained. More importantly, the statement implies that the messiness, labor, and hazards of food production should occur <em>elsewhere</em>, with others undertaking the manual labor and </span><a href="http://www.fwjustice.org/Health&Safety/Pesticides.htm"><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000099;">health risks of pesticide exposure</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"><span style="color:#000099;">.<br /></span><br /><strong>2) Vegetable gardens detract from the beauty of the landscape, especially during unproductive seasons.<br /></strong>One (of the very few) respondents to our survey objected to a community garden, in part, because “vegetable and flower gardens on a <em>large scale</em> (emphasis in original) can be attractive for the few months they are in production but are a visual blight the remainder of the year.” </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;">In Atlanta, U.S. Congressman David Scott and more than a dozen of his neighbors blocked a proposed community garden at Inman Park – across the street from Scott’s mansion - </span><a href="http://blogs.creativeloafing.com/freshloaf/2010/02/25/democratic-congressman-wins-victory-%E2%80%94-against-inman-park/"><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000099;">because it would spoil their view</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;">. </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;">During a </span><a href="http://maplewood.patch.com/articles/tc-decision-on-community-garden-causes-outburst"><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000099;">heated town meeting in Maplewood, New Jersey</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;">, one opponent of a proposed community garden in Orchard Park expressed a related sentiment when he commented that “it was his understanding community gardens were used to improve abandoned properties or deteriorated areas—which is not the case with Orchard Park.” </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"><br />Here we have another version of the idea that food production is an ugly business, best done out-of-sight of the non-laboring classes. However, if the gardens are located in poor neighborhoods afflicted with urban blight, then those hideous fruits and vegetables can be an improvement.<br /><br />One wonders what some of these objectors want to look at in the parks – just lawn and trees? Shrubs? My own neighbor (cited above) didn’t even want flowers because they are a “visual blight” when they aren’t blooming!<br /><br />It’s worth recalling here that lawns originated in Europe as a symbol of social class. They indicated that their owners were so wealthy, they could afford to keep great swaths of land out of food production and pay people to maintain the closely cropped turf (since mechanized mowing machines had yet to be invented.)<br /><br /><strong>3) The land in this public space should be for everyone, not just the few growing gardens.</strong> As </span><a href="http://backyardnestegg.blogspot.com/2010/04/no-community-for-this-garden.html"><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000099;">I wrote in an earlier post</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;">, this was the argument our neighborhood association board used a couple of years ago to block the city from moving an existing community garden to a new location in our neighborhood. In January, when the president of the neighborhood association got wind of a meeting I was organizing to start a community garden or public orchard, he reiterated that argument. Although he repeatedly claimed that he was “not against” community gardens, he stated that “the whole park should be used by all neighbors and not just a select few.” Maplewood, New Jersey opponents of a community garden in Orchard Park </span><a href="http://maplewood.patch.com/articles/tc-decision-on-community-garden-causes-outburst"><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000099;">voiced similar objections</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;">:</span> <span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"><blockquote><p><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="color:#006600;"><span style="font-family:arial;">"It's not fair for a small number of </span><span style="font-family:arial;">people to determine the use of the space," said St. Lawrence Avenue resident Maura Sackett.</span><br /></span></span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /><span style="font-size:100%;color:#006600;">"My kids play there on a daily basis," said Chris Coreschi of Headley Place, as he noted that the raised beds would remove open space.</span></span><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"><span style="font-size:180%;"><span style="color:#006600;"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span><br /></span></span></p></blockquote></span><br />As I argued in my earlier post, this objection is illogical. There are plenty of facilities at parks that not everyone uses – like the softball pitch that only softball teams use or the playground that only children use. A community garden need not be any different. The only way this objection makes any sense is if one assumes that the garden will commandeer the entire park, rather than be allotted a portion of the space, as with a softball pitch or tennis court. So why make such a statement? Perhaps because asserting the right of the whole community to the use of public space has the <em>ring</em> of egalitarianism? </span><p></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;">Even when the proposed garden will not be located in a park, residents have been known to vociferously object. In </span><a href="http://www.ctpost.com/opinion/article/Home-grown-opposition-to-community-gardens-grows-402458.php"><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000099;">Shelton, Connecticut, organizers attempted to locate a community garden</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"> on a former farm, “bought by the city for $2 million in 2002 with the idea that the public would have access to the open space.” Angry residents insisted that a garden would increase vehicle trips by 500-600 per week on their quiet cul-de-sac. In fact, similarly situated gardens in Connecticut do not create that level of traffic and the planned garden would have provided parking on the farm rather than the cul-de-sac. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;">Residents would not be mollified, however. They </span><a href="http://valley.newhavenindependent.org/index.php/archives/entry/shelton_community_gardens_debated/"><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000099;">put up posters, signed petitions, and packed the Board of Alders meeting</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"> to make their objections known. Interestingly, their concerns included vandalism and “security at the gardens.” </span><a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/28263162/Flyer-for-Neighborhood"><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000099;">A flyer circulated</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"> prior to the meeting called upon residents to “stop the madness” and “be there to defend your home.” This sounds to me like fear of outsiders, perhaps even fear that low-income people, interested in growing some food, might set foot in the neighborhood. (</span><a href="http://valley.newhavenindependent.org/index.php/archives/entry/two_sites_proposed_for_shelton_community_gardens/"><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000099;">As of April 19th, opponents of the garden had successfully stalled the project</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;"></span>, <span style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:130%;">as the garden committee still awaited a decision from the mayor.)</span><br /></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;">There are legitimate concerns about community gardens in neighborhoods, including, but not limited to, pesticides, traffic, and how the site will be run to ensure that negligent gardeners don’t allow it to become an eyesore. It should also be expected, given the woeful ignorance of many contemporary Americans about food production that some residents will not understand some aspects of gardening; for instance, that properly managed compost does not smell or create unwanted pests. But when honest attempts to address these concerns are met with obstinance, irrational assertions, and cries to “defend your home,” it’s clear that something else is going on. As far as I can tell, it’s a social class issue.<br /><br />What do you think? Do you have any community garden organizing experiences to share?</span></p>Wisconsin Garden Chickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05330981282174625145noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5491834148028272745.post-11437097668144553952010-04-21T08:40:00.008-05:002010-04-21T17:35:08.080-05:00Blueberry Blossoms<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgO8cPWs2XAkWwRAtii9arwzw48nvq9r264iezzAPp9u205AWej85wyc8vUO2W9hQHmzcHHe8qtJMgYRLG4JM1Bb7BnZEV4Mz55Nnm16Ff2sP-cVz_zoPgRL7ElkmHmCT37tVTrumEX018Y/s1600/Blueberry+blossoms.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5462585410965029586" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgO8cPWs2XAkWwRAtii9arwzw48nvq9r264iezzAPp9u205AWej85wyc8vUO2W9hQHmzcHHe8qtJMgYRLG4JM1Bb7BnZEV4Mz55Nnm16Ff2sP-cVz_zoPgRL7ElkmHmCT37tVTrumEX018Y/s400/Blueberry+blossoms.JPG" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"><em>Edited to add: I can't believe I forgot to mention coffee grounds! They're a great source of nitrogen AND they help acidify the soil - so a perfect soil amendment for blueberries. I only learned this late last summer, so just recently started using coffee grounds. If you don't drink coffee yourself, you can usually get free used coffee grounds from places like Starbucks. They give them away for compost. Another way to minimize your purchased inputs.</em></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;">Aren’t these gorgeous? I am <em>soooo </em>looking forward to harvesting our first crop of blueberries this year. We planted two Dwarf Northblue (one pictured above) and one Northland (a “half-high” cultivar developed from a cross between a high bush and low bush blueberry) in the spring of 2008. The Northblue was developed at the University of Minnesota and the Northland at the University of Michigan, so they are hardy enough to withstand our Wisconsin winters. (You need two cultivars for good pollination.)<br /><br />According to the labels that came with the shrubs, the Northland will grow to be about 3-4 feet tall and, when mature, will produce about 20 pounds of medium to small fruit. The two Northblue are smaller; when mature, they’ll be about 20-30 inches tall and produce 3-7 pounds of large berries.<br /><br />Gardening authorities advise removing the flowers from the shrubs the first two years to promote foliar and root development. I found this very difficult the first year. The tiny shrubs developed beautifully and produced blossoms almost immediately – as you can see in the photo below. I felt like I was practically desecrating the plant – and more importantly, depriving myself of some tasty fruit! The promise in the literature that removing blossoms in the early years will produce better harvests in later years was only thing motivating me to comply with the rule.<br /><br /><br /></span><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEii9doMYhE89MAsC0M8cl47Hg8XsZPbAAm75a2P5vh3uFygCN2KOSwjh6dI46V5YsdUXUdM0rMZP6-ytlaXeP9PvC-Rg_Db5_PyPXPYa8W6Qwq9T99aWQgLxdFdcb-0lVfta6LXbI5yI_7L/s1600/Blueberry+Flowers2+5-25-08.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5462586005694021714" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEii9doMYhE89MAsC0M8cl47Hg8XsZPbAAm75a2P5vh3uFygCN2KOSwjh6dI46V5YsdUXUdM0rMZP6-ytlaXeP9PvC-Rg_Db5_PyPXPYa8W6Qwq9T99aWQgLxdFdcb-0lVfta6LXbI5yI_7L/s320/Blueberry+Flowers2+5-25-08.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />It was a lot easier to pull off the blossoms last year because I could see that something was not quite right with the shrubs and I wanted them healthy before they went into fruit production. The leaves were paler than they should be and growth appeared to be slower than normal. I had a soil test done, expecting to find that the pH was too high. That was true – although it was close. But I was surprised to learn that the soil was very low in nitrogen.<br /><br />Rick built beautiful two-tiered raised beds for our shrubs because blueberries need acidic soil (pH 4-5.5) and the soil here is very alkaline. With raised beds I thought I could better control the soil pH. (<span style="color:#000099;">R</span></span><a href="http://www.agriculture.purdue.edu/AgAnswers/story.asp?storyID=2685"><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000099;">esearch at Ohio State University found</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"> that blueberry yields in raised beds were comparable to those planted in flat soil.) Following recommendations in a </span><a href="http://www.ipm.iastate.edu/ipm/hortnews/1996/3-22-1996/blue.html"><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000099;">University of Iowa publication</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;">, I included a lot of peat in the soil mix. I later learned that peat has little to no nutrient value. So although I nearly achieved proper pH, the poor things were starved of nitrogen!<br /><br />I amended with compost and chicken manure. I also switched to using pine needles to acidify the soil. In addition to the peat, I had added soil sulfur, but the yellow flakes never seemed to dissolve. Even when I had watered well, or we had a heavy rain, I’d find undissolved flakes in the soil. Someone recommended pine needles to me and I liked that idea. These are abundant around here, so I can <strong><em><span style="color:#006600;">minimize purchased inputs</span></em></strong> by using what’s available for free. </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"><br />(Interestingly, Ruth Stout claimed (in her <em>No-Work Garden Book</em> (1971)) that once she built up her soil with organic matter, like hay, she found she didn’t need to pay attention to soil pH. Following Stout, my goal now is to prioritize soil building over pH – although I will continue to use pine needles.)<br /><br />As with other perennial food crops, berry bushes are great for a <strong><em><span style="color:#006600;">Backyard Nest Egg</span></em></strong>. Once they’re established, you can harvest fruit for many years. They’re extraordinarily nutritious, with the </span><a href="http://www.womenfitness.net/blueberries.htm"><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000099;">highest antioxidant capacity of all fresh fruit</span></a><span style="color:#000000;"><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;">. Blueberries are one of the foods recommended to retard aging, preserve vision, and protect against heart disease. I just like to eat them – in muffins, pancakes, or most often, in yogurt. When we lived in Washington state many years ago, some friends showed us where to pick berries for free. We ate them fresh, baked them in pies, made jam, and froze many to last throughout the winter.<br /><br />Last year I must have missed a few blossoms, because I found a couple of berries on one shrub that summer. They were delicious. If this year’s crop is just as good, we are in for a treat!</span> </span>Wisconsin Garden Chickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05330981282174625145noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5491834148028272745.post-48572013851919009882010-04-20T10:44:00.006-05:002010-04-23T17:25:02.709-05:00No Community for This Garden<span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"><em>[Note: My laptop, recently on life support, has now expired - may she RIP. :( I have managed to get regular access to another laptop while I wait to get a new one, so WILL be posting more frequently.]</em></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;">Over the last few years, dozens of articles have appeared in the media describing the development of community gardening projects across the country. But not every neighborhood welcomes a community garden. Google “opposition community garden” and you’ll find plenty of stories about resistance to community gardens in different areas across the country.<br /><br />So, why do community gardens emerge and blossom in some neighborhoods and not others? Is it possible for community gardens to be established through the efforts of just a few dedicated volunteers, or is wider community support required to get the project going? </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;">These are questions I’ve been asking myself a lot lately. Back in January, </span><a href="http://backyardnestegg.blogspot.com/2010/01/planting-to-grow-community.html"><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000099;">I wrote about an opportunity</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"> neighborhoods in our city were offered by the </span><a href="http://www.ftpf.org/"><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000099;">Fruit Tree Planting Foundation</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"> to establish urban orchards. I posted an email to our neighborhood list (which includes only about a third of households in the neighborhood) and was thrilled to get a group of 20+ volunteers willing to be trained to care for the trees and help maintain them, if our neighborhood was selected for the grant.<br /><br />Ultimately, we did not get selected; neighborhoods with established garden projects were given preference. At the time, I thought that was a little unfair. How could new garden projects get started if preference is given to those with established projects?<br /><br />Now I’m beginning to think that was a wise choice on the part of those determining which neighborhoods would be selected to apply for the grant. The interest I thought we had for an urban orchard quickly waned. After my initial disappointment that we were not selected to apply for the Fruit Tree Planting Foundation grant, I decided to use the list of volunteers I’d collected to pursue other grants, either for an urban orchard or community garden. </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;">I emailed the group and set up a meeting, but attendance was low. Of those who initially expressed enthusiasm for an urban orchard, only four in addition to Rick and me showed up. Nobody else emailed (even after follow-up reminder emails from me) to say they wanted to be involved, but just couldn’t make that date and time. So I could only conclude that very few were interested.<br /><br />Our tiny group of six decided to do a survey. The survey had two purposes: </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"><br />1) to reach out to the two-thirds of the neighborhood not on the email list and perhaps enlarge the group of those interested in a garden project; and,</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"><br />2) to fulfill a requirement for a local new garden grant.<br /><br />The response rate to the survey was anemic – around 3% of households. (For comparison, among social researchers, a 33% response rate is considered “good” for a snail mail survey.) Responses were low even among the original group who volunteered for the urban orchard opportunity. Only about a quarter of that group responded to the survey.<br /><br />So what’s going on with our neighborhood? I think it’s no accident that Detroit has a thriving community garden network while our (upper?) middle class neighborhood of university professors, lawyers, judges and other professionals is largely disinterested. People in areas hard hit by the economic downturn (impending collapse, some would say) have had to struggle to meet basic needs; i.e., food, shelter, and clothing – and in the process, learn about the importance of food security. Whereas many people in our affluent neighborhood do not seem to understand the value of growing your own food in your own neighborhood, when you can, as one person told me, "just go to the Farmer’s market or grocery store and buy it."<br /><br />To be fair, one woman in our neighborhood is getting a children’s garden started at an elementary school. Unbeknownst to each other, she was trying to get a children’s garden going at the same time that I was pursuing the urban orchard. They are slated to break ground for the children’s garden this month.<br /><br />The children’s garden has the advantage of having the land problem solved: they can plant it on school grounds. Whereas the location of an urban orchard or community garden will likely be contentious. The neighborhood association Board of Directors successfully resisted a past effort by the city to move a community garden to one of the two parks in our neighborhood. The Board argued that the park should be for all the residents of the neighborhood, and not just the few who would be gardening there.<br /><br />When the Board was notified by a well-meaning neighbor that I was holding a meeting to discuss a potential urban orchard or community garden, the president fired off an email to me reiterating their opposition to use of a park for that purpose. I’d always thought their reasoning was ludicrous on its face: There are plenty of facilities at parks that not everyone uses – like the softball pitch that only softball teams use or the playground that only children use.<br /><br />Besides, some people enjoy a garden even if they are not working in it themselves. Several elderly neighbors who responded to the survey indicated they would like to see a garden project in the neighborhood, but noted they would be unable to participate due to age or disability.<br /><br />Moreover, the argument that a community garden should not be in a park because the park is for everyone, not just the few who garden, sounds like the kind of thing people say when they want to cover less worthy motives with something that sounds a little more high-minded.<br /><br />The woman who initiated the children’s garden project advocated for it using educational research on children and learning. So far as I know, she has not encountered any opposition. I’m guessing that’s probably because it’s hard to oppose something that’s “for the children,” that has a foundation in research on education, that utilizes land nobody else is using, and that involves only people who live in the neighborhood.<br /><br />It may be that I took the wrong approach to advocate an orchard or community garden. Not wanting to scare off my neighbors with talk of “peak oil,” the problems with industrial farming, climate change, predicted food security concerns, and the like, I instead wrote about my experience of a mini neighborhood orchard back in New Mexico.<br /><br />I began my article for the quarterly neighborhood newsletter by describing the pecan trees that were planted in our New Mexico neighborhood as part of a Depression-era jobs creation program. I related how much our neighborhood enjoyed those pecans and that I had the opportunity to meet the guy who had been paid thirty-odd cents per tree to plant them.<br /><br />Then I went on to talk about the <em>Fruit Tree Planting Foundation</em>, how we were not selected for the grant, and noted that those selected already had established gardens and organizations to run them. My (not so subtle?) goals were to describe the non-controversial benefits of producing food in the neighborhood and to suggest that we were missing out on opportunities enjoyed by other neighborhoods who had already gotten started on their gardens. I urged everyone to make their “voice heard” by responding to the survey.<br /><br />I was disheartened by the anemic response – but not too surprised. I’ll write in more detail about the survey results in my next post, but just leave you with this question. Of 998 households, only 32 (counting our own) responded. Two were opposed to any garden project, two opposed an orchard, and several preferred ornamental gardens like prairie gardens or rainwater gardens. Just 12 indicated they would be willing to help with an effort to get a garden project started. I had hoped to get a core group of at least twice that number. Given that 25 volunteers to help with an urban orchard quickly dwindled to six, (two of whom are Rick and me), my feeling is that 12 may be too few.<br /><br />Or maybe I’m just lazy. I take that back. I don’t mind doing a lot of heavy lifting, as I already have done to solicit volunteers for the first grant opportunity for trees, research other grant opportunities, write the newsletter article and survey, recruit volunteers to hand deliver a quarter of the surveys (as our Board president funded postage only to those households who had paid their association dues) and now analyzing the survey results and writing a report.<br /><br />But I can’t do everything, and feel I need a truly dedicated core group to work with to make it happen - especially as I have reason to believe there is more opposition than the survey indicates. What do you think? Anybody out there have experience with establishing a community garden in a relatively affluent neighborhood?</span>Wisconsin Garden Chickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05330981282174625145noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5491834148028272745.post-89606708576594012002010-04-14T20:36:00.009-05:002010-04-14T20:55:36.464-05:00Cherry Blossoms!<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDCb_KdB4jbDME3ZBIVIJ1ylfF24wGPzGx0m7bOw3GE5ymlFh9KywAaQm8ms25Szq5lnj4Ou4Q6Y9GccnIoYiOQv5wMutnbIEY7MrnPNOYRVqeaCxBnLwy2YBPWfEjTeK6omylVybJhbWQ/s1600/cherry+blossoms.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5460172626891021106" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDCb_KdB4jbDME3ZBIVIJ1ylfF24wGPzGx0m7bOw3GE5ymlFh9KywAaQm8ms25Szq5lnj4Ou4Q6Y9GccnIoYiOQv5wMutnbIEY7MrnPNOYRVqeaCxBnLwy2YBPWfEjTeK6omylVybJhbWQ/s400/cherry+blossoms.JPG" border="0" /></a><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;"><span style="color:#000000;"><em>(Quick note: My laptop, which has been on life support, is quickly fading away. :( I'm writing this from someone else's laptop - hopefully, I'll get regular access until I replace my own - and so will be posting more frequently.)</em></span></span></div><br /><div><em><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:130%;"></span></em></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;"><span style="color:#000000;">Both our cherry trees are sporting beautiful blossoms on multiple branches - dare I hope for cherries this year? We planted dwarf Bing and Black Tartarian trees in the spring of 2007. Generally, cherries take 3-5 years to come into production, a bit less for dwarf trees. When I saw a few blossoms last spring, I got all excited, but only a handful appeared on one branch and I never saw any fruit.<br /><br />Still, it was a hopeful sign. We took a chance planting sweet cherries. Door County, Wisconsin is famous for their tart cherries. However, here in Madison, we’re on the border between climate zones for sweet cherries and University extension publications generally advise against planting them.<br /><br />But I love sweet cherries and didn’t want to plant fruit I’d have to add sugar to in order to eat them. (I’ve since learned that if you dry tart cherries, they’re sweet because the sugar is concentrated.) </span></span></div><div></div><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;"><span style="color:#000000;"></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;"><span style="color:#000000;"><br />Cherries are rich sources of antioxidants, helpful in preventing cancer and slowing the aging process. Cherries, and cherry juice, in particular, are an old-time folk remedy for gout and arthritis. My mother says my grandfather swore by cherry juice for his gout. I have an arthritic hip and can vouch for the effectiveness of cherry juice in reducing inflammation – and therefore pain. Medical science supports the claim of anti-inflammatory effects of cherries.</span> </span><a href="http://jn.nutrition.org/cgi/reprint/136/4/981"><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;">A study published in the <em>Journal of Nutrition</em> in</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;"> <span style="color:#000000;">2006 reported that consumption of Bing cherries lowered markers of inflammation in otherwise healthy men and women.<br /><br />Those trees have been a lot of work. I’ve noted before that I never even heard of Japanese beetles until I moved to Wisconsin. Then I unwittingly set about planting just about everything they love to devour – roses, cherry trees (which are in the same botanical family as roses), raspberries. (Come to think of it, there aren’t too many plants those voracious beetles won’t devour.)<br /><br />Japanese beetle season generally begins the first week in July. It’s been a battle every summer to protect those trees without chemical pesticides. The first year, we tried spraying them with Neem oil; however, the beetles all but laughed in our faces. Next, I sewed together large swaths of cheap, fine mesh netting (found in the bridal section of fabric stores) and we draped those over the trees. This worked okay, when the trees were small, although the wind tends to shift the netting, sometimes bending the branches, so we have to reposition.<br /><br />As the trees got larger, this solution became unworkable. One year we tried stapling sheets of floating row cover together and draping this over the trees. Our neighbor thought it was cool-looking, especially at night, when a light breeze moved the draped trees giving the appearance of two large ghosts swaying. </span></span></div><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;"><span style="color:#000000;"></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;"><span style="color:#000000;">I awoke one night, during a thunderstorm, looked out and saw the trees bent nearly double from the weight of the water on the row cover. Frantic, I shook Rick to wake him. “The cherry trees are about to snap in half!” I wailed. We ran outside in the pouring raining to remove the cover. Amazingly enough, they survived and eventually straightened up again.<br /><br />Last year they were too big for any physical barrier. We just had to do the tedious work of picking the bugs off by hand. We fed them to the chickens who went crazy for them.<br /><br />This year I plan on trying kaolin clay. I read about using this product for protecting the fruit long ago, but stupidly never considered using it to protect the leaves until someone recommended it to me last winter. With any luck, I’ll be protecting our first crop of cherries as well!</span></span></div>Wisconsin Garden Chickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05330981282174625145noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5491834148028272745.post-50059998965098090372010-04-03T07:22:00.025-05:002010-04-03T09:18:27.429-05:00Spring has Sprung!<span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;">My computer's been down; luckily, I have my own personal, live-in IT guy - with benefits! It was a HUGE job to get it sorted out - Thanks, Rick!</span><br /><br /><div><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:130%;"><span style="color:#000000;">Meanwhile, life goes on! Here's a little photo essay of some of the season's earliest growth in my garden. The first is (look closely!) lettuce coming up.</span> </span></div><div></div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhQhqTXEEIixhpN_Zj5Lop_Ueq-PwENRWOZp-ZyKGzEeTeoV9eU7HxKtG8T2QIhUGnbkDhuDUYxTbUg2P8yndvmDXmkTCNCVJ2iAhGjd0oRBphI8v5pz-TQz_wSbgR23vfMrDhBvCeY4eM/s1600/lettuce.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5455887210129015650" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 415px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 264px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhQhqTXEEIixhpN_Zj5Lop_Ueq-PwENRWOZp-ZyKGzEeTeoV9eU7HxKtG8T2QIhUGnbkDhuDUYxTbUg2P8yndvmDXmkTCNCVJ2iAhGjd0oRBphI8v5pz-TQz_wSbgR23vfMrDhBvCeY4eM/s320/lettuce.JPG" border="0" /></a><br /></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:130%;"><span style="color:#000000;"></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:130%;"><span style="color:#000000;"></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:130%;"><span style="color:#000000;"></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:130%;"><span style="color:#000000;"></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:130%;"><span style="color:#000000;"></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:130%;"><span style="color:#000000;"></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:130%;"><span style="color:#000000;"></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:130%;"><span style="color:#000000;"></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:130%;"><span style="color:#000000;"></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:130%;"><span style="color:#000000;"></span></span></div><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:130%;"></span><div><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;">I planted pots of Bronze Arrow and Emerald Oak, as well as some baby leaf spinach and left the pots outside. I knew they would take longer to germinate there than inside under lights, but transplanting is always tricky and it's a pain in the ass to "harden off" plants.</span><br /><br /></div><div><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:130%;"></span></div><div></div><div><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;">Basically, this means dragging them in and out for a week or two, gradually leaving them outside for longer periods of time, so they can adjust to outdoor temperatures, light, and wind. I'm trying to avoid all that and minimize my use of grow lights by planting everything I can outside. I'd love to have a little greenhouse, and not use fossil fuels to start any seeds, but that's down the road a bit.</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;">Besides conserving space under the lights, I'm also trying to conserve precious garden space by growing these in pots. Plus, I'm trying to get around the usual problem of having too much lettuce all at once in early summer, and then having it bolt as soon as the weather really warms. I'm thinking I'll plant a few at a time, move the pots to cooler spots when the weather warms, and hopefully, space my harvest out over a longer period of time.</span></div><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgY0NTzQF40eaLHReG-Z71wNWRLs7wOj6IOCkf0MdTmBgxlv63uxxzEp2ilgHQQsJeVIgmNgrriUkbjP3ks1edSUH10hqF8PLIVJxwjl4AdiWrabEvYf4YKtszDr2NDUiymvSahqVcg_jR/s1600/garlic.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5455908149350990898" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 387px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 214px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgY0NTzQF40eaLHReG-Z71wNWRLs7wOj6IOCkf0MdTmBgxlv63uxxzEp2ilgHQQsJeVIgmNgrriUkbjP3ks1edSUH10hqF8PLIVJxwjl4AdiWrabEvYf4YKtszDr2NDUiymvSahqVcg_jR/s320/garlic.JPG" border="0" /></a><br /><p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:130%;"></span></p><br /><p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:130%;"></span></p><p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:130%;"></span></p><p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:130%;"></span></p><p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:130%;"></span></p><p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:130%;"></span></p><p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:130%;">Here you can see garlic coming up in the long containers, and maybe if you squint, see the spinach coming up in the clay pot.</span></p><div><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;">I'm <strong><em>very </em></strong>pleased with the garlic. I planted it in the fall, when I planted garlic in other places in the garden - among the roses, in the herb garden, and a few in places I now can't remember!</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;">Anyway, <strong><em>after </em></strong>I planted it, I checked "the bible;" i.e. McGee & <em>Stuckey's The Bountiful Container </em>and learned that garlic is one of the few crops they recommend against planting in containers. Oh, well. </span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;">I left them in the garage over the winter, stumbled across the pots a few weeks ago, and was pleased to see them sprouting! I think I will carefully transplant them soon, into the ground. Or maybe just one container, and leave the other - see how it works out.</span><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDU7k3J14hhfN2KRSQigdBqn31EKfn1yQbdsWp0ak15Z-ip-EwlgeBCJUk6YXc3_G6Y5g35sPFCSZ2juGFjsqp6YP0IUUZB8WlZhUH8MJ52RB2ZSSu2mkQHKTXb4-RppfEUtWEohkYNnF6/s1600/herbs.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5455892713868143554" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 417px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 226px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDU7k3J14hhfN2KRSQigdBqn31EKfn1yQbdsWp0ak15Z-ip-EwlgeBCJUk6YXc3_G6Y5g35sPFCSZ2juGFjsqp6YP0IUUZB8WlZhUH8MJ52RB2ZSSu2mkQHKTXb4-RppfEUtWEohkYNnF6/s320/herbs.JPG" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;">Here is the current state of my herb bed. I should have taken a "before" photo; before I let the chickens dig here, and then pruned things back. You can see a heavily pruned clump of sage in the back, between the tree and the window.</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;">To the right and forward of the sage, you can see chives coming up. To the left of the chives is a clump of oregano, with clumps of thyme in the left foreground. The right foreground has two seemingly bare patches that actually have mint and the only clump of parsley I left from last year coming up. </span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:130%;">Parsley, as I'm sure you know, is a biennial. That means it will come up again this year, but quickly go to seed. I started new seedlings indoors, but left one of last year's so it can seed the garden for next year. Hopefully, that will be one less set of seedlings I'll have to start indoors next year.</span><br /></span><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5455896061879753426" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 427px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 296px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEic6WzedafUspBnEleyDeoi51jISu8ZZFqM0TFnmKHrsJqE4OU8ORxW3ETXq4Bz2aNWzOHHjET4eJ8T8xZ_Yq-NjMXmE6JiDs5vG3SEsLMIfw03iKUWCQaTFnXwRCwL02qlLLAaBqSyOv4B/s320/curcubits.JPG" border="0" /></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;">Here's something fun - "volunteers"! I like this name for seedlings that you haven't planted, at least not this season, that sprout in unexpected places. These seedlings look like curcubits of some sort, but what I do not know. I don't remember ever planting cucumbers in one of these planter boxes, but it's entirely possible that compost I dumped in there had cucumber seeds in it.</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;">The more I think about it, though, the more I think it's spaghetti squash. The reason is that, during winter, I gave one to the chickens. The hay you see on top is from the chicken pen. I wanted to keep them active in winter, as our extension agent advised, so put a flake of hay in there. </span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;">Normally, I wouldn't do this, because the hay, like their droppings, is high in nitrogen. The goal with a chicken pen is to keep the carbon (wood chips, e.g.) to nitrogen ratio high. If you have too much nitrogen, you end up with a very nasty smelling pen.</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;">In the fall, they had a blast in the yard scratching apart flakes of hay. But in winter they just stood on it. I finally realized it was keeping them up off the cold frozen ground. So I gave them more, thinking I'd take it out as soon as the weather warmed - and before I ended up with a nasty mess on my hands. </span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:130%;">A couple of weeks ago, I raked up the hay (which by now they had scratched apart), together with their droppings and other matter, put some of it in these planter boxes, and covered the planter boxes with plastic, thinking to speed the composting process. Yesterday, I took the plastic off, and voila! Curcubits.</span> </span></div><div><span style="color:#000000;"><br /></div></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB1ia5h0aLJmHTi7IKM5RkPX19nPJYCFjvbnqWXjPZwnzSQTW02G4MrEZb_4vEHMUxV1BG2GVMJUr8Aj5dRZRnPpkS12cgGkm1nBeRbw3uvEya8CrPLS7qm-oLBc3R9auGTuthyphenhyphenaBCIG52/s1600/blueberries+%26+potatoes.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5455903820994664738" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 367px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 273px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB1ia5h0aLJmHTi7IKM5RkPX19nPJYCFjvbnqWXjPZwnzSQTW02G4MrEZb_4vEHMUxV1BG2GVMJUr8Aj5dRZRnPpkS12cgGkm1nBeRbw3uvEya8CrPLS7qm-oLBc3R9auGTuthyphenhyphenaBCIG52/s320/blueberries+%26+potatoes.JPG" border="0" /></a><br /><p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:130%;">The potatoes (that I wrote about <a href="http://backyardnestegg.blogspot.com/2010/03/potatoes-and-eggs.html">here</a>) sucessfully transplanted out. You can see one of our two potato towers in the background of this photo. In the foreground are three raised beds with dwarf blueberries.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:130%;">What else? The raspberries are starting to leaf out. Indoors, I have Juliet, Amish Paste, and Brandywine tomato seedlings just sprouted under lights, as well as parsley, cilantro, basil, and eggplant. The bell peppers are just starting to lift their heads, and I'm still waiting on the poblanos and jalapenos. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:130%;">What about <strong><em>you</em></strong>? What's sprouting in your neck of the woods?</span></p>Wisconsin Garden Chickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05330981282174625145noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5491834148028272745.post-83139845154449860562010-03-29T07:41:00.003-05:002010-03-29T07:48:17.317-05:00Reflecting and Redirecting<span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;">I started this blog in July of 2009 as a way to write about my experiences of, and ideas about, a <strong><em><span style="color:#006600;">Backyard Nest Egg</span></em></strong> – an investment in food security. The idea gradually came to me, after a difficult period of my life. I had lost my second grant-funded job in three years, health problems that had been festering for awhile demanded my attention, and the stock market crashed, with many people losing a chunk of their retirement savings - some up to 40% of their 401Ks. It seemed to me then, and still does now, that investing in one’s own food security is one of the best nest eggs one can establish.<br /><br />After all, I reasoned, what are our most basic needs to sustain life? We need food, shelter (a low-cost, low energy-consumption home is my next project – one that is in the beginning stages at this point), and clothing. Inspired by gardeners like Ruth Stout, who devised labor-saving strategies for producing, well into her eighties, all the vegetables she, her husband, and her sister required, I began thinking about how I could provide for Rick and myself. Three general principles emerged from my thinking and work: <strong><em><span style="color:#006600;">minimizing purchased</span></em></strong> <strong><em><span style="color:#006600;">inputs</span></em></strong>, <strong><em><span style="color:#006600;">labor-saving</span></em></strong>, and <strong><em><span style="color:#006600;">sure bets</span></em></strong>.<br /><br /><strong><em><span style="color:#006600;">Minimizing purchased inputs</span></em></strong> means to me finding ways to produce food each year without buying tons of seeds, plants, fertilizer, and other garden amendments. Anybody who has done any gardening learns very quickly how fast these things can add up. When gardening is just a hobby, you don’t mind too much. But when the goal is to actually provide food for your family in hard times or during retirement, spending more on your garden than you would spend just buying food at the grocery store makes no sense.<br /><br />Seed-saving, taking cuttings, rejuvenating a strawberry bed by training new runners and removing “mother” plants each year as I described in </span><a href="http://backyardnestegg.blogspot.com/2010/03/strawberries-and-raspberries.html"><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000099;">Wednesday’s post</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;">, making your own compost, keeping chickens or some other small livestock, like rabbits, for fertilizer, planting perennial food crops like walking onions, asparagus, fruit trees and berry bushes are all ways to minimize your purchased inputs so that you can truly realize a return on your investment in food security.<br /><br /><strong><em><span style="color:#006600;">Labor-saving</span></em></strong>, obviously, means finding ways to make the work easier. Initially, I was thinking about my health issues and inspired by Ruth Stout’s ideas for a “no-work” garden. I realized that serious gardening to put food on the table was possible even with physical limitations imposed by disability or advancing years. My goal was to investigate and write about gardening practices that enable gardening throughout one’s life. When I read Masanobu Fukuoka’s <em>One Straw Revolution</em>, my notion of labor-saving expanded from simple work reduction to encompass the need for free time in order to become a full human being. (Read more on Stout and Fukuoka’s ideas about “no-work” and “do-nothing” gardening and farming in </span><a href="http://backyardnestegg.blogspot.com/2009/11/nothing-new-under-sun.html"><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000099;">this post</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;">.)<br /><br />Labor-saving strategies I’ve written about include no-till strategies of Ruth Stout, allowing your chickens to turn your soil a la </span><a href="http://www.gardengirltv.com/"><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000099;">Garden Girl</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;">, sheet composting or latter day “lasagna” gardening (Patricia Lanza), returning organic matter to fields to compost there (Fukuoka) and the benefits of </span><a href="http://backyardnestegg.blogspot.com/2009/07/few-things-ive-learned-about-compost.html"><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000099;">compost tumblers</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;">.<br /><br />Finally, <strong><em><span style="color:#006600;">sure bets</span></em></strong> refers to the principle of diversity – planting a variety of crops and using multiple strategies to ensure that you are able to harvest something even in a bad year. For example, last summer I planted Juliets, Amish Paste, and German Queen tomatoes. </span><a href="http://backyardnestegg.blogspot.com/2009/08/in-praise-of-juliet.html"><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000099;">I harvested many Juliets</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;">, which are elongated cherry-type tomatoes that ripen early. However, we had a cool summer and “late blight” hit just as my beautiful Amish Paste and German Queen tomatoes were starting to ripen. Had I planted only the paste and slicing tomatoes, I’d have harvested virtually no tomatoes at all. As it happens, Juliets work well in salsas and we enjoyed many batches of that from our garden before the late blight.<br /><br />How did we do that in a cool summer? Don’t chilies require warm weather? As I </span><a href="http://backyardnestegg.blogspot.com/2009/07/hot-picks-in-cool-summer.html"><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000099;">described here</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;">, we grew the chilies in clay pots, rather than in the ground, and were harvesting fruit right through the fall.<br /><br />I plan to continue writing about these three elements of a <strong><em><span style="color:#006600;">Backyard Nest Egg</span></em></strong>, and my experiences of gardening and keeping chickens, but the focus of this blog will expand to reflect my evolving sense that the right and responsibility of individuals to produce their own food needs to be articulated and even defended.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;">All social movements eventually experience push back of some kind, or counter-movements. The return to producing at least some of our food for ourselves will be no different. It’s a loose movement, certainly, composed of many people with many different motivations. </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;">Some gardeners and chicken-keepers want to eat food that they know has been produced healthfully, others are concerned about our economic predicament and want a back-up food source, still others simply want to be more self-sufficient. For many, it’s a combination of these reasons. Nevertheless, I see it as a movement, not a “fad,” and as growing in size and strength.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;">The opposition is, at this point, is not organized or strong. However, the signs of opposition are everywhere, from people in middle class neighborhoods who resist community gardens and public orchards, to animal rights groups lobbying city officials to disallow chicken-keeping, to University extension agents concerned about the “threat” backyard chickens pose to industry. These are the issues I will be writing about, in addition to the usual chicken and garden topics, in the coming months.</span>Wisconsin Garden Chickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05330981282174625145noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5491834148028272745.post-19726564975202779792010-03-24T12:54:00.019-05:002010-03-24T13:41:26.756-05:00Strawberries and Raspberries<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZjg7KygpCYaNmrKi8aSTkccRbTHwUbEYE3IGjUn1xTQf3Og214qMLZmPa-xp1dvgrdNXyLN098hzWiq3D9aw6mTgNz183NFzzfYJFQqBUcWhLySkIq80AFNDKRVa3POsrLtD42bDbcHjK/s1600/strawberries+%26+raspberies2.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5452260764201511570" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZjg7KygpCYaNmrKi8aSTkccRbTHwUbEYE3IGjUn1xTQf3Og214qMLZmPa-xp1dvgrdNXyLN098hzWiq3D9aw6mTgNz183NFzzfYJFQqBUcWhLySkIq80AFNDKRVa3POsrLtD42bDbcHjK/s400/strawberries+%26+raspberies2.JPG" border="0" /></a><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;">It’s hard to say what I most look forward to in spring – opening the windows, at last, and filling the house with sweet fresh air, riding my bicycle <em>outside</em>, rather than on a trainer in front of the television, seeing the snow recede and the lawn green up, seemingly overnight. But I think number one on the list has to be checking the garden to find all the green shoots emerging from last year’s dead foliage.<br /><br />So far, I’ve found sedum, Shasta daisies (VERY satisfying, because I planted them from seed last year), coreopsis, liatris, lupines, yarrow, sage and a few others I can’t remember just now. The hostas haven’t come back yet, nor the butterfly weed I planted from seed, and the roses and hydrangeas have yet to show signs of life. But it’s still early.<br /><br />And the strawberries look fantastic! I pulled the hay aside about a week ago. I’m fairly new to growing strawberries, but the books say you’re supposed to remove their winter mulch early. This will be my first year with (I hope!) a significant crop, and I’m soooo looking forward to it, my mouth waters every time I think about it!<br /><br />I first tried strawberries in 2008. So many books and articles describe strawberries as a great container plant, I thought I’d grow them in a strawberry pot I’d had for years and in a large planter box Rick built for me. I learned the hard way that the books and articles LIE! Anyone who has any experience growing strawberries knows they constantly send out runners and spread like weeds. They quickly outgrew their containers even though I was out there practically every day, cutting off new runners. They produced lots of beautiful foliage, but just a few small berries.<br /></span></div><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1hkXsRt7BUSKWMG5svB-mUaHrj7-2XvZDf1D_jCHZhFCO8ZN0bY-fPcI2m4JCF63W1cEJtDwUx5WhCBOWSh6NIh-a8T7uDSC5sXl85MmeMZfJz6wLZqIu0n50PsifpVIkCnzBIFXjvZKi/s1600/Strawberries-May_2008+003.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5452261468803077938" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 306px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 221px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1hkXsRt7BUSKWMG5svB-mUaHrj7-2XvZDf1D_jCHZhFCO8ZN0bY-fPcI2m4JCF63W1cEJtDwUx5WhCBOWSh6NIh-a8T7uDSC5sXl85MmeMZfJz6wLZqIu0n50PsifpVIkCnzBIFXjvZKi/s320/Strawberries-May_2008+003.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"><br /><br /><div><br /></div><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVxRusuPghX9fRQsP_BfMGu9iPeTixJSf_CCIJpgMfuu-K5BnJl6lBEnSuHjtC4rKSnS5dCqAh2-AD67K9fMIr6Bh0i_kobz-LBnP9Zuy-4MKGdqD5O1Xg8bsBJAh7QAJ5uiJmQk-iu_Vp/s1600/StrawberryPot2+6-12-08.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5452262232910346082" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 302px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 218px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVxRusuPghX9fRQsP_BfMGu9iPeTixJSf_CCIJpgMfuu-K5BnJl6lBEnSuHjtC4rKSnS5dCqAh2-AD67K9fMIr6Bh0i_kobz-LBnP9Zuy-4MKGdqD5O1Xg8bsBJAh7QAJ5uiJmQk-iu_Vp/s320/StrawberryPot2+6-12-08.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:130%;"></span><div></div><br /><br />Part of the problem was the cultivar. The garden center was out of my top choice, Honeoye, so I bought Ogallala, just because I used to live in Nebraska and liked the name! Unlike Honeoyes, Ogallalas are everbearing, which means instead of one main crop in spring (usually June), you get a small crop in spring, and another crop later in the summer. </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;">Which means the few my plants were producing were spread out over the season, making the tiny crop seem even smaller. Plus, the Ogallala produces a “medium to small” berry, even in optimal conditions, so it’s no wonder I got such small berries out of a container.<br /><br />The next year I decided to get the cultivar I wanted, plant them in the ground, and follow the method of my new guru, Ruth Stout, for rejuvenating the patch. The books will tell you to buy new plants every few years, but Stout was a thrifty woman, and buying new doesn’t fit in with my notion of <em><strong><span style="color:#006600;">minimizing purchased inputs</span></strong></em> for your <strong><em><span style="color:#006600;">B</span><span style="color:#006600;">ackyard Nest Egg</span></em></strong>. Since her garden was wonderfully successful, and she prided herself on ignoring what she called the “authorities,” I’ll do the same. Here is her method in her words:<br /></span><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"></span><blockquote><br /><p><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:100%;color:#006600;">I planted three rows of berries, the rows about 8 inches apart. . . I let the first plant in each row make only one runner, straight down the row, and let the other plants in each row make two runners, one up, one down, the row. When I was finished I had three rows of plants, the rows 8 inches apart, the plants in<br />each row 1 foot apart. But it looks like and is, actually, one row. . .<br /><br />A year from the following spring, after I had picked the first crop, I pulled up the first plant in each of the three rows, left plants number two and three, pulled up four, left five and six, and so on. In other words, I got rid of the mother plants and left the runners they had made. Then during that summer, the plants I kept were allowed to make just enough runners to replace the ones I had pulled up. Year after year, the older plants are removed, the newer ones are left, and that isn’t much of a job. You have a permanent bed of strawberries and will never have to transplant again unless of course you want<br />to try a new variety . . . </span><br /></p><p><span style="font-size:100%;color:#006600;"><span style="font-family:arial;">in August when, I’ve been told, the plants make their buds for next year, I treat them to a little cotton-seed meal for nitrogen<br />(<em>Ruth Stout's No Work Garden Book, </em>1971, pp127-8).</span></p></blockquote></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;">I tried doing the same, but it came out a little messy. Still, it was at least controlled growth. I let one stolon grow on each side of each plant, staked it where I wanted it with a hairpin, and cut any other runners off. After I get my berries this year, I’ll try removing the “mothers” and let last year’s runners set some new plants in their place for next year.<br /><br />I also have high hopes for a good raspberry crop this year. I planted them in 2008. They were just twigs and looked like this:<br /><br /><br /></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUW3IgMOXAXfckbGphiLEWhcn-l9pbjdzUA_lYyc7fWZfmqkJUPTllzQdqIcniM2PsVLV59by3h1scjWdjsje_Q5zC7yUdBfJ_0MLz-Fnvfs0jBpaVSBVis31H8Fqp2RvV1u-g6uDDQG0T/s1600/Raspberries+5-15-08.jpg"><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5452264396616081986" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUW3IgMOXAXfckbGphiLEWhcn-l9pbjdzUA_lYyc7fWZfmqkJUPTllzQdqIcniM2PsVLV59by3h1scjWdjsje_Q5zC7yUdBfJ_0MLz-Fnvfs0jBpaVSBVis31H8Fqp2RvV1u-g6uDDQG0T/s400/Raspberries+5-15-08.jpg" border="0" /></span></a><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;"><br /><br />Raspberries have one of two fruiting habits: summer bearing and fall bearing. The summer bearing actually bear in late spring or early summer, and on canes that grew the prior summer. The fall bearing cultivars produce fruit late in the season, mid-August to mid-September, on the current season’s canes. (For this reason, they’re not a good choice for northern climates because our growing season is so short.)<br /><br />I chose summer bearing over fall bearing partly because of our short growing season, but also because I wanted the fruit to set before Japanese beetle season starts, usually in early July. Several of our neighbors had raspberry patches that were decimated by Japanese beetles, so I wanted to avoid that. The plan was to cover them with fine netting (which interferes with pollination) once Japanese beetle season starts.<br /><br />This worked beautifully last year. We had a small crop of berries, which was to be expected the first year, but the plants were fully protected and grew lush foliage and many new canes. (I can’t believe I didn’t take a photo last year – they looked fantastic! But I can’t seem to find one just now.)<br /><br />But here’s where I made a mistake. There are two prunings that need to be done: one in the summer of the canes that grew the prior year, after they fruit this year, and one in late winter to remove the top ¼ of canes that will fruit this year. Some sources claim you can do the first pruning either in summer after fruiting, or wait until spring and do both prunings at once. (In fairness, most sources advise doing two prunings.) Lazy me decided to wait until spring and do both at once.<br /><br />Here’s the problem: Now I can’t tell which are the canes that bore fruit last year and which are the canes that will bear this year! It was easy to tell them apart last summer, because the canes that had just fruited were woody, and the canes that will fruit this year were green. Of course, by now, both types of canes are woody! Lesson learned: Prune the old canes after they fruit; don’t wait until the next spring! It’s not that much work.<br /><br />Since my master gardener’s manual says canes should be thinned to 4-6 canes per running foot of row, and canes in my patch are still almost that thin, I opted to leave the old canes in this year and just prune about a quarter off the tops of all the canes. If the canes that produced fruit last year don’t leaf out, I’ll remove them then.</span>Wisconsin Garden Chickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05330981282174625145noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5491834148028272745.post-23364724263851245002010-03-17T04:54:00.005-05:002010-03-17T05:12:10.820-05:00Spring Chickens<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkhEowz6BpNYLs8r13iC8sa9job4xsYTS5DZ4X2ANBuMsUxwMR3xIQADjpuuwc8Oe1gOTTkweqaRWyrr5Ho6pqzeOQJHS6jkkLChJG6UoJdrgRXgcZww9RYDE1lqGwTn7kvY7PjOWyKohW/s1600-h/CloseUp+Raised+Bed.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5449539512579471026" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkhEowz6BpNYLs8r13iC8sa9job4xsYTS5DZ4X2ANBuMsUxwMR3xIQADjpuuwc8Oe1gOTTkweqaRWyrr5Ho6pqzeOQJHS6jkkLChJG6UoJdrgRXgcZww9RYDE1lqGwTn7kvY7PjOWyKohW/s320/CloseUp+Raised+Bed.JPG" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7bvtVTqnxN3q4J-RqXvf2w6er6wZuxT6QKql7vhW9yC1tZzX9PyFmaVZwK-P5EOS-u5bMKZI0VhBDa1NHEB_LUnNk1Z1Ye2XfE1LZhRl_CuXFBOrhhRCRILRqcO-hVkqPQTYhzVcT4r0b/s1600-h/Raised+Bed.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5449539311342091874" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7bvtVTqnxN3q4J-RqXvf2w6er6wZuxT6QKql7vhW9yC1tZzX9PyFmaVZwK-P5EOS-u5bMKZI0VhBDa1NHEB_LUnNk1Z1Ye2XfE1LZhRl_CuXFBOrhhRCRILRqcO-hVkqPQTYhzVcT4r0b/s320/Raised+Bed.JPG" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;">The snow has finally receded here on the frozen tundra of Wisconsin. (Southern Wisconsin, that is. I imagine they still have plenty of snow up north.) It’s amazing how fast big piles of snow can shrink once the weather warms.<br /><br />So I put the girls to work turning the soil and fertilizing my raised beds. (I got the idea to make their tractor the same size as the raised beds for this purpose from <a href="http://www.gardengirltv.com/"><span style="color:#000099;">Garden Girl</span></a>.) They energetically dug deep into the soil, clucking contentedly the whole time. I always get a kick out of watching them. It’s like they’re thinking, “I’m SURE there’s something good to eat in here, somewhere. I just have to keep digging, and do it fast, before those other broads beat me to it!”<br /><br />It’s such a relief to quit worrying about them out in the cold – and great satisfaction to see how well they came through the winter. Aren’t they gorgeous? I know, it’s hard to tell from the pictures above. But they wouldn’t hold still for a photo. Trust me when I say their coats are glossy, their combs have changed from pink with whitish dry patches back to bright red, and they have no sign of frostbite! </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;">Many people told me they would get frostbitten and lose part of their combs, but not to worry! It won’t hurt them; you just won’t be able to show them. I never even thought of showing them – nor thought a little frostbite was acceptable. We worked hard to prevent that, although luck probably played a part. </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;">Following the advice of our poultry extension specialist, we tried to ensure the coop stayed well-ventilated. The reason is that they are more susceptible to frostbite in cold humid air than in cold dry air. He recommended leaving the pop door open in winter for this reason. We could only bring ourselves to leave it half open at most. On very cold nights, we left it open only an inch or two. On a few extremely cold nights, we closed it completely.<br /><br />I think we got away with it partly because I removed their droppings (collected in a tray under their perch) every morning. Droppings are a big source of humidity in the coop. We also put bag balm on their combs on the coldest nights – when they let us! </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;">Sometimes Batgirl really fought this, and even held a grudge against Rick for about a week after he caught her and applied it. Since she had the smallest comb, and we didn’t want to upset her too much, we let it go when she resisted. Her comb is beautiful now, and even has grown enough that it’s hard to tell her apart from the other Barred Rock.<br /><br />Although we didn’t heat the coop, Rick did put two 2+ gallon plastic gas cans (which had never held gas) filled with very hot water in the coop at night. This raised the temperature inside the tiny coop 10-15 degrees!<br /><br />I also believe that giving them greens all winter helped keep them healthy. I have no extension research or other “authoritative” source for that. It just seems to make sense. I’ve never given them vitamins, but greens are loaded with nutrients – and their favorite treat. In summer, we let them out of their pen daily to eat greens, and threw dandelions, sunflower leaves, and any other greens we had on hand into their pen. </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"><br />During the winter, we ended up buying most of their greens. Recently, I’ve been giving them turnip greens I’m getting for 81 cents a pound. But next winter, I’ll make more of an effort to grow greens, so I don’t have to buy them.<br /><br />Now that they’re laying again, I make sure they get greens twice a day again, instead of once as in winter. After the snow melted, we found lots of green parsley in the herb bed. Since it looks good enough to eat, I've been giving it to the chickens, so I don't have to buy all their greens.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;">I’ve often wondered whether, if people fed their chickens plenty of greens, they would even need oyster shell for calcium. They’re programmed biologically to eat what they need, and it’s greens they go crazy for. I do put out oyster shell, too, but I can’t tell how much of it they’re eating. It seems like most of it gets spilled onto the floor of their pen.<br /><br />Certainly, their eggs have very strong shells. After slowing production in December, they took January and February off. At the beginning of March, they started laying again, one by one. We’re now getting about 3 eggs per day from the three of them! I’d read that eggs are larger after their first molt, and that has turned out to be true. I’d say their eggs are now about the size of a grocery store “large” egg.</span>Wisconsin Garden Chickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05330981282174625145noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5491834148028272745.post-81897888421563123612010-03-04T08:25:00.009-06:002010-03-04T09:15:51.242-06:00Potatoes and Eggs<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTpPiVePVCY2O2pGUJ3ZHw-R2PpLTdBaPUU8wDz9tgfKzmOpvU-wBQKQbXXX7D19t_994BvQLsiijWD3Xh45b3J2sGffrCZI_kWYFBV0jpUN5uDt4SSlJPQNY7ADwt3_f3adNUrhZwGxaI/s1600-h/potato+cuttings+3-4-10.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5444785129235837682" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 225px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTpPiVePVCY2O2pGUJ3ZHw-R2PpLTdBaPUU8wDz9tgfKzmOpvU-wBQKQbXXX7D19t_994BvQLsiijWD3Xh45b3J2sGffrCZI_kWYFBV0jpUN5uDt4SSlJPQNY7ADwt3_f3adNUrhZwGxaI/s400/potato+cuttings+3-4-10.JPG" border="0" /></a><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;">As usual, I got ahead of myself. These are Red Norland and German Butterball potato starts, but technically, they should not be set out for another month or so. In fact, the <a href="http://backyardnestegg.blogspot.com/2009/11/nothing-new-under-sun.html"><span style="color:#000099;">“lasagna beds”</span></a> I prepared for them last fall are still covered in snow! <a href="http://www.ozaukeemastergardeners.org/JournalVegetablespdf/Potato.PDF"><span style="color:#000099;">According to the master gardener literature,</span></a> early season varieties should be planted when the soil can be worked, usually around late April in Wisconsin.<br /><br />The good news is that, beginning tomorrow, we will have highs of 40F or higher for at least a week. All the snow should melt. After that, I’ll cover the future potato beds with plastic for a week or two to help warm them up. Then maybe I’ll be able to plant the potatoes early, under plastic, in a sort of mini-hoop house.<br /><br />What happened was that all the potatoes I saved from last year’s crop to use as seed potatoes long ago sprouted. They all had vines several feet long! I was afraid that if I waited much longer, the plant material would become unusable. <em><span style="color:#009900;">Minimizing purchased inputs</span></em> is crucial to my notion of a <strong><em><span style="color:#009900;">Backyard Nest Egg</span></em></strong>, so it was important to me to be able to propagate potatoes from last year’s crop.<br /><br />Most sources advise propagating potatoes from seed potatoes, or by cutting up larger potatoes into pieces, leaving an eye in each piece. But I have also read that producers of seed potatoes grow them from vine cuttings, rather than from other potatoes. In fact, I read somewhere that if you grow potatoes only from seed potatoes saved from the prior year’s crop, after a few generations, the potatoes become “gnarly” and quality declines.<br /><br />So it occurred to me to try rooting sections of vine as well as the potato. First, I cut off the ends of the vines and planted those in soil. Next, I cut middle sections of the vines – these have cuts at two ends. I stuck these in water to root. Lastly, I planted each potato with part of its vine. </span></div><div></div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"><div><br />All these pieces of plant material have rooted and leafed out! I’m very pleased, because I ended up with more plants than I would have if I’d just had little seed potatoes to plant. (I have another shelf of seedlings above those in the photo.) It remains to be seen whether these methods of propagation will produce nice potatoes, but I don’t have any reason to believe they won’t. Luckily, potatoes are notoriously easy to grow. </div><div></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:130%;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:130%;"><br />*****************<br /></span></div><div></div><div><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:130%;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;">In other news, the chickens started laying again! We got our first egg of the season last Sunday. Clearly, they're not all laying yet, because we are only getting one egg per day from the three of them. I'm fairly certain that Tracy (the Rhode Island Red) is not one of them, although in the past, she has been one of our best layers. But she is still recovering from her molt. </span></div><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"><br />Of the Barred Rocks, Amelia's comb is the reddest and most recovered from winter. Then, their combs were pinkish and waxy looking, with white patches. Now they are starting to look more like they did when they started laying last year. </span></div><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"><br />And Batgirl's comb appears to be growing! Is that possible? We always called her the "tomboy" of the chickens. She has the smallest comb and was the last to start laying. She's more of a loner, too. She doesn't stray far from the group, but usually she is apart from the other hens. She's always been the most adventurous of the group as well.</span></div><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"><br />When she did finally start laying, she was careless with her eggs. The others were very good about going to the nest box to leave their little gems. But she'd occasionally drop an egg on the floor of the coop or pen. One day, she did it while I was out there. I had just stepped out of the pen for a few minutes. When I turned back, there was an egg and two chickens had already pecked it open.</span></div><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"><br />Having read about the difficulty of getting chickens to stop eating their own eggs once they start, I knew I had to take action immediately. "No! No! No!" I cried. I scooped up the egg with some shavings from the pen, carried it to the compost bin behind the coop, and dumped it in.</span></div><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"><br />Then it was Batgirl's turn to get upset. Frantically, she ran up and down the side of the pen squawking loudly, presumably because her egg had been snatched. I went back into the pen and offered her treats - greens, the cracked corn she loves more than any of the others. But there was no distracting her or calming her down. She carried on and refused to eat for at least as long as I was out there doing chores. I don't know when she finally finished her mourning and got back to the usual chicken business of scratching and eating.</span></div><div><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:130%;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:130%;"><br />I decided it was a good development, though. She never again laid an egg outside the nestbox. Batgirl has grown up, I thought!</span></div>Wisconsin Garden Chickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05330981282174625145noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5491834148028272745.post-51417316876735053782010-02-24T12:45:00.005-06:002010-02-24T13:01:27.969-06:00Mid-Winter Blues<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibXC-py_R47BSoGIHT9b5dAHDmUn-T3AqL70bfaoMSaup8mF1dWnX1zet_AUBZ9QItTUygTCq-qOwK4spx13eDucZ9oqLgYpueAitMZMybBa6OBJp4CCDxGPrF-bRx0cUIMPQGFjrAEDEk/s1600-h/Chickens+2-24-10.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5441883794227921410" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibXC-py_R47BSoGIHT9b5dAHDmUn-T3AqL70bfaoMSaup8mF1dWnX1zet_AUBZ9QItTUygTCq-qOwK4spx13eDucZ9oqLgYpueAitMZMybBa6OBJp4CCDxGPrF-bRx0cUIMPQGFjrAEDEk/s400/Chickens+2-24-10.JPG" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;">It’s hard to write a blog post about gardening in winter, and not just because there are fewer gardening chores to write about. It’s depressing, for me, anyway, to look out the window and see a foot or more of snow on the ground. It snowed last night, yesterday, and the day before, just an inch or so here and there, but enough to remind me that the annual nightmare we call winter is not going away yet.<br /><br />Even the chickies seem to have the mid-winter blues. They run to the door of their pen eagerly when I open it, then stand in the doorway staring at the snow. Eventually, they walk away, beaks down, back into their little pen, defeated by yet another dreary day with a yard full of snow upon which they refuse to walk.<br /><br />I returned mid-February from a trip to southern California to soak up some sunshine and visit relatives. I thought a mid-winter trip would provide a break and make the winter seem shorter. When I get back, I thought, it will be time to start seedlings under grow lights and in a few weeks, the snow cover will have melted. </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;">With fantasies like these, you’d never know I spent much of my life in the Midwest. I grew up in Kansas and Illinois. I left when I was 18, but returned to the Midwest in my mid-thirties, living in Nebraska until about 6 years ago when I moved to Wisconsin. So I do have some inkling of what a Midwestern winter entails. Yet every year I delude myself into thinking “it’s nearly over” long before it is.<br /><br />Wisconsin is by far the coldest part of the Midwest that I’ve lived in. There are many things I love about Wisconsin, the lush forests, the abundant lakes (when I moved here, one proud Wisconsin resident informed me that, although Minnesota bills itself as the “land of 10,000 lakes," Wisconsin actually has <strong><em>more</em></strong>), the plentiful wildlife – but winter is not one of them.<br /><br />After experiencing my first winter here, I so dreaded the next one that the following autumn, I had low-level anxiety attacks as winter drew near. Over the years, I’ve become less anxious at the onset of winter, but I haven’t learned to like it. I wish I could. Some people here love winter sports – like cross-country skiing or ice fishing. My sister Donna and her friend Trish love to go on the night-time candle-lit hikes along snowy trails offered by some state parks.<br /><br />If, like me, you love the outdoors, but don’t enjoy winter sports, the season drags on because you just spend it waiting for the weather to improve! And if one of your favorite outdoor activities is gardening, you’re really in for a long wait – followed by a frenzy of activity to get everything going to make the most of a short season.<br /><br />Ironically, the wait was made more trying by the trip to California. It was hard not to be envious of the bountiful winter gardens, with gorgeous large heads of cauliflower and broccoli, peas trained up fences, and luxuriant lettuces. I failed completely to contain my jealousy at the sight of citrus trees loaded with fruit, what are to Midwesterners “exotic” trees like avocado growing in people’s back yards, and huge rosemary shrubs (my very favorite herb – which can’t survive the harsh Wisconsin winters.)<br /><br />The good news (and there is a cheerful spot in this otherwise gloomy post!) is that the weather is subtly changing. The biting cold is past and the air is sweet, with the barest whiff of spring. I hear many more birds than I did a month ago. And I can start my spring gardening soon!<br /><br />Mid-March is when I start tomato, eggplant, chili, and bell pepper seedlings under lights. I’ll start some lettuce and spinach, too, but they’ll get planted out earlier than the warm weather loving <em>solanaceae</em> family of plants. I plan on pruning my fruit trees and raspberries next month as well. </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;">In April I’ll plant potatoes, peas, and carrots directly in the garden and start squashes and melons indoors, as well as herbs like parsley and cilantro. Like the chickens, I can’t wait to start scratching in the soil!</span>Wisconsin Garden Chickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05330981282174625145noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5491834148028272745.post-73269527618570431782010-02-16T20:08:00.009-06:002010-02-17T08:55:57.281-06:00Review of Home to Roost: Chasing Chickens through the Ages<span style="color:#000000;"><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;"><em>Home to Roost</em> is Bob Sheasley’s meditation on his research about chickens and their relationship with humans through the ages. The book is a fascinating and seemingly comprehensive examination of cultural beliefs about chickens and historical practices. For example, did you know that:</span><br /></span><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;"><br /><span style="color:#000000;"><strong>* Chickens were originally domesticated for cock-fighting.</strong> Cockfighting was especially popular among the aristocracy in Europe, but also in the U.S. Henry VIII, George Washington and Ben Franklin were enthusiasts.<br /><br /><strong>* Many cultures used chickens for divination.</strong> In Cambodia and Thailand, shamans broke open the eggs to study patterns and colors while the ancient Greeks and Romans read chicken entrails. The Etruscans employed a less violent method, using chickens almost as living Ouija boards. According to Sheasley: </span></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:130%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;"><strong>A temple priest would scribe a circle on the ground, make the letters of the alphabet around it, and place a kernel of corn on each letter. Inside the circle, he would position a sacred chicken. “Who will be the next emperor?” the priest would ask, or some such urgent question. As the chicken, wise and hungry, began eating, the priest paid rapt attention. And a remarkable thing happened: The chicken produced a sequence of letters, which the spellbound Etruscans found profound” (p45).</strong> </span></blockquote><span style="font-size:130%;">(I’m planning to try this game in the summer!)<br /><br /><strong>* The Egyptians were mass producing eggs in 3000 BC!</strong> According to the Greeks, the Egyptians “built incubators of clay bricks that could brood up to ten thousand chicks” (p73).</span></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;">Sheasley also examines contemporary issues and research, discussing problems with commercial chicken and egg production, the value of labels such as “cage-free” and “free range,” and reports studies finding, for example, that chickens put on weight faster if exposed to classical music.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;">I was particularly interested in the section on chicken mating practices. Sheasley reports that there is remarkable amount of research devoted to this. Apparently, hens are more discerning than they might appear. Researchers found, for example, that they can differentiate between roosters' calls that they’ve found food, and learn to ignore the liars. About 40% of the time, according to an Australian researcher, roosters’ calls are false.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;">Sheasley notes that researchers found that hens “wanted an honest rooster,” but more than that, wanted a brave one. Besides learning which calls for food are true, hens learn which alarm calls are reliable. Such calls were found to be the “strongest predictor of rooster success in mating” (p136).</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;">Canadian researchers also studied whether hens preferred rougher broiler roosters or gentler roosters of layer breeds. They found that while different hens preferred different roosters, as they matured they generally preferred gentler roosters.<br /><br />Frighteningly, broilers, bred to put on weight quickly and grow abnormally large breasts, and then genetically engineered in an effort to strengthen their hearts to better withstand this aberrant growth pattern, were found to be the most violent in their treatment of hens. They are excessively rough when mating, and some even attack and kill hens.<br /><br />Sheasley weaves all this chicken lore with his experience of chicken-keeping in rural Pennsylvania. Written in a rambling style, reminiscent of a stroll down a country lane on a warm afternoon, and including imaginary conversations with Ulisse Aldrovandi, a 16th-century Italian scholar and naturalist, Sheasley’s treatise is a enjoyable read for anyone interested in history, culture, and chickens.</span>Wisconsin Garden Chickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05330981282174625145noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5491834148028272745.post-69768194296838563012010-01-22T13:09:00.010-06:002010-01-22T13:26:27.580-06:00Why My Next Chickens Will Be Named Dino and T.Rex<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgltAw4efzskQi_JjjXpPV9xx-Fh_OrAOhja7_pVq-molPPEeah_PlUsiNTKX2Jc9tsdpaiohcHKMyCe06JbVF3oham_WfsKTzrJr5t0nrLUlErpg1jbprcx2l9l-W1jKfK4a59ezoSpD6i/s1600-h/6970chickenosaurus-banner.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5429647375121829042" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 145px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgltAw4efzskQi_JjjXpPV9xx-Fh_OrAOhja7_pVq-molPPEeah_PlUsiNTKX2Jc9tsdpaiohcHKMyCe06JbVF3oham_WfsKTzrJr5t0nrLUlErpg1jbprcx2l9l-W1jKfK4a59ezoSpD6i/s400/6970chickenosaurus-banner.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><p align="center"></p><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;">Yes, I am already thinking “next chickens.” I had planned to wait another year before getting new baby chicks. It was so much work to raise chicks last spring, I thought I’d give myself a year off.<br /><br />But, by then the hens I already have will be two years old – and well into their third year before the new pullets start laying. The older ones will have slowed their laying, and you never know whether something will happen to one or more of them. When you have just a few birds, the loss of even one amounts to a significant percentage of your flock. Plus, I’m an “experienced” poultry woman now! Ha! It shouldn’t be as stressful as last spring.<br /><br />It’s easy to get restless in winter, looking through seed catalogs, getting tempted by the variety of vegetables and fruits on offer, and now I have chickens, to check out the hatchery catalogs. Those </span><a href="http://www.cacklehatchery.com/prock.html"><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000099;">Partridge Rocks</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"> sure are beautiful! They would provide some variety yet are still in the same family (Plymouth Rock) as our Barred Rocks, so I’m hoping they’ll get along. But maybe that’s a pipe dream. Maybe to a chicken, a Partridge Rock is just as different from a Barred Rock as is a Rhode Island Red.<br /><br />On the other hand, maybe with their molt finished, they will hold wings and sing “Kumbaya.” I suspected they were starting a molt when I saw a few feathers last week, but it didn’t seem possible in the middle of winter. Now it’s clear they are molting. Batgirl has lost the most feathers; she is nearly bald on the back of her neck. I did a search at </span><a href="http://www.backyardchickens.com/"><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000099;">Backyard Chickens</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"> (what would I do without them??) and found others who had chickens molting in January, even in really cold places like Michigan, Minnesota, and Canada. It seems like a really stupid time to lose your winter coat, but who I am to second guess Mother Nature?<br /><br />Many sources I’ve read say that chickens have hormonal fluctuations and are cranky during a molt. Maybe that’s why our previously well-behaved chickens are squabbling. I also read that I should give them more protein, to help with growing the new feathers. Some people give them cat or dog food, or feed with a higher percentage of protein. I’m suspicious about the quality of cat and dog food. Then I read of someone who gave their chickens deer and elk liver during a molt. She said it was safe because the livers had been in her freezer for two weeks - long enough to kill any parasites or bugs.<br /><br />I had turkey livers in the freezer, so we thawed them and I gave them some this morning. They loved it! They abandoned their greens – their usual favorite treat – ignored me, and totally occupied themselves with devouring the liver. Usually, even after racing for their greens, they abandon that snack temporarily when they realize I’m leaving. They peck at my coat pocket until I bring out a little bag of cracked corn – their other morning treat in winter. Today their attitude was, Who needs corn when we’ve got fresh meat?<br /><br />But back to naming my “next chickens.” As I’m sure you know, many scientists believe that birds evolved from dinosaurs, based primarily on similarities in bone architecture and respiratory systems. Recently, researchers got their hands on some collagen protein from a 68 million year old T.<em>rex</em> and used a mass spectrometer to sequence the protein. </span><a href="http://www.scientificblogging.com/news/did_dinosaurs_become_chickens"><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000099;">They found that</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"> the ancient T.<em>rex</em> proteins “appear to most closely match amino acid sequences found in collagen of present day chickens.”<br /><br />Now some researchers have got it into their heads to manipulate chicken DNA during embryo development and presumably hatch a “dinosaur,” or something with dinosaur characteristics. Hans Larsson, the Canada Research Chair in Macro Evolution at Montreal's McGill University, <a href="http://www.physorg.com/news170426405.html"><span style="color:#000099;">says the goal would be to prove</span> </a>that birds are direct descendants of dinosaurs. I’m glad somebody’s on the case, because it’s been keeping me up nights! Apparently a practical man, Larsson went on to say that he has no immediate plans to hatch live prehistoric animals, in part because a dinosaur hatchery “is too large an enterprise.”<br /><br />Larsson is a colleague of paleontologist Jack Horner, Montana State University. Horner is one of the scientists who worked on the protein sequencing and was also a consultant for the “Jurassic Park” movies. </span><a href="http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126972.100"><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000099;">Horner has said that his dream</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"> is “to walk on stage on The Oprah Winfrey Show with chickenosaurus following him on a leash.” Like Larsson, Horner says this project has the high-minded mission of illustrating evolution. Why do I feel that it’s more like boys playing with really big toys?<br /><br />I think Horner should start with baby steps. I’d like to see him get a leash on Batgirl, let alone walk on stage at Oprah with her following him. Batgirl doesn’t <em>follow</em> anybody. Better yet, let him try this stunt with a rooster. Then he can move on to bigger game, like the chickenosaurus.</span>Wisconsin Garden Chickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05330981282174625145noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5491834148028272745.post-38153474256870838402010-01-19T14:09:00.009-06:002010-02-16T20:29:32.379-06:00Review of Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer<span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;">I just finished reading </span><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Farm-City-Education-Urban-Farmer/dp/1594202214"><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000099;">Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer by Novella Carpenter</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;">. In fact, I finished it in under 24 hours; I could not put it down. She’s a kindred spirit in many ways. I’m disappointed that I missed a chance to meet her. She was in Madison in October for the book fest. But, as often happens with interesting people who come to town, I wasn’t paying attention and read that she’d been here after the fact. </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"><br />In the book, Carpenter describes building her urban farm in an economically depressed neighborhood in Oakland, California. She grew up in rural Idaho and Washington state, the daughter of two 1970s “back-to-the-land” hippies. There she learned to love raising her own food and to aspire to a degree of self-sufficiency. However, she also learned that she did not like the isolation of rural life; that she preferred the culture and energy of a city. With her mini-farm in Oakland, she attempts to have the best of both worlds.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"><br />While Carpenter is straightforward in stating her preference for city life, her social nature and love of people emerges organically in the telling of her tale. Her genuine fondness for her homeless neighbor Bobby, who lives in an abandoned car, her patience with children who stop by to see her animals, and her generosity with the fruits of her labor are evident on every page.<br /><br />Carpenter begins by clearing a vacant lot next door to her apartment and building raised beds for vegetables. Eventually, she adds fruit trees, raspberries, and strawberries. An experienced bee-keeper, she sets up her hive and orders baby chickens, ducks and turkeys.<br /><br />Many community gardens in inner cities start much as Carpenter started hers, by planting, with or without permission, on vacant lots or other disused land. Nobody seems to mind; in fact, these gardens are welcome improvements in decaying urban environments. Residents appreciate having access to fresh veggies – expensive for low income households, and often not available at any price, as supermarket chains seldom locate stores in these neighborhoods.<br /><br />In contrast, I’m learning, much to my dismay, that it’s fairly typical for middle-class professional people to look askance at community gardens, or even vociferously resist the creation of one, in their neighborhoods. So her opportunity to just start planting, to be a guerrilla gardener of sorts, is very appealing. I don’t romanticize her situation, however. There is violence and danger where she lives – though she seems to negotiate these situations and relationships successfully.<br /><br />Eventually, Carpenter’s love of pork, and especially cured meats, leads her to decide to raise a couple of pigs. At one point, a neighbor with limited English approaches her, child in hand, to complain about the stench from her pigs. The smell nearly made his daughter vomit, he says. Carpenter writes that she apologized profusely, and that she felt like a “complete ass.” She asks, “Who would want me for a neighbor?” </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"><br />Really, Novella? I thought. It took this complaint to finally wake you up? The choking odor of fish guts you scavenged from a dumpster to feed those champion poop producers didn’t tip you off earlier?<br /><br />I certainly wouldn’t want to be her neighbor if she were raising pigs – but I’d surely want to live within biking distance, to work with her in her garden and talk with her about this business of growing to sustain life.<br /><br />In most ways, she appears to be a generous and tolerant neighbor. Conscious that the land on which she grows is not hers, that none of us really “own” the land, and that we all need to eat, she allows people to pick vegetables and fruits from her garden. She restricts foragers only with signs indicating when certain items will be ripe and admonishing them to leave some produce for others. Similarly, she shares meat from the animals she raises with her neighbors.<br /><br />It appears that the Universe does reward those who give freely. In a turn of events that would require suspension of disbelief in a film or novel, Carpenter happens to meet a classically trained <em>salumi</em> artisan after rummaging in the dumpster behind his upscale restaurant in Berkeley to find yet more food for her pigs. He agrees to teach her the art of <em>salumi</em>, to make prosciutto, salami, and pancetta from her pigs - and they become friends.<br /><br />I see Carpenter’s experience as the inner city, moderate-to-low-income answer to Barbara Kingsolver’s journey told in her book <em>Animal, Vegetable, Miracle</em>. Both women put a great deal of labor and thought into their gardens and animal husbandry as they strive towards their goals of a sustainable, healthful connection to their food. However, Carpenter farms a vacant lot in an inner city that belongs to someone else. Kingsolver moves to a farm her husband already owned when she met him. At one point, she describes harvesting cherries from an existing orchard on the property. Both women are serious foodies. Where Kingsolver attends </span><a href="http://www.cheesemaking.com/"><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000099;">Rikki Carroll’s cheese workshop</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"> (today these workshops range from $150-$350), Carpenter apprentices to a <em>salumi</em> artisan after scrounging in his dumpster, in exchange for a leg of one of her pigs which will be transformed into prosciutto. </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"><br />I love and highly recommend both books. But I think Carpenter’s experience describes what will be possible for more of us than does Kingsolver’s. More of us will become downwardly mobile, due to fundamental changes in our energy situation and economy. More of us live in cities, and will continue to do so, than in rural areas. Certainly Carpenter’s project is more relevant to me. Although I don’t live in an economically depressed neighborhood, I also seek to combine the social life of a city with a degree of self-sufficiency. I’ve written my critique of lone homesteading </span><a href="http://backyardnestegg.blogspot.com/2009/08/green-acres-not-place-for-me.html"><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#333399;">here</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;">. At this point, I believe my biggest challenge will be convincing middle class people of the value of urban agriculture, that we need community gardens and public orchards here, too. Maybe that will be my book to write.</span>Wisconsin Garden Chickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05330981282174625145noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5491834148028272745.post-12201154145651104292010-01-15T13:01:00.003-06:002010-01-15T13:10:50.131-06:00Odds & Ends<span style="font-family:arial;color:#000000;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><strong>We won! We won!</strong><br />Well, okay, we got one of six honorable mentions in the most recent </span></span><a href="http://www.backyardchickens.com/"><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000099;">Backyard Chickens</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"> coop contest. But we were pretty excited about it. Rick deserves all the credit; he worked really hard on building our coop and altering it as unanticipated design problems emerged. You can see our entry </span><a href="http://www.backyardchickens.com/web/viewblog.php?id=37983"><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000099;">here</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;">. Check out all the winners </span><a href="http://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=3454067#p3454067"><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000099;">here</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;">. There were many great ideas and interesting coops. It’s a terrific resource for anyone thinking about building a coop.<br /><br /><strong>Eggs-tra! Egg-stra!</strong><br />Ever since the chickens started laying – and even before - people have been asking me for eggs and volunteering to pay for them. It seems that everyone is looking for better quality food produced in healthier conditions. I’ve given some away, but resisted selling them.<br /><br />I finally realized that I was reluctant to sell them because even though I’m sure these people would be willing to pay premium prices, I’m not sure the best price I could get would really reflect the labor involved in producing the eggs. If I count only organic feed and bedding, I could break even at the Whole Foods organic eggs price – when the hens are laying every day. They’ve really slowed down since it got very cold and the days grew short.<br /><br />But if you factor in all the work and money invested up until the point where they start laying – the researching, the purchase of tractor and coop materials, building said tractor and coop, caring for the chicks, cleaning pasty butts, taking them outside and back in when they are babies, getting up in winter to fill hot water bottles, cleaning poop, mucking out bedding – it goes on and on – we’re operating at a loss. The only justifications for the expense are the degree of self-sufficiency we enjoy from producing our own, that these eggs are fresher than supermarket eggs, and, I suspect, more nutritious than commercially produced organic eggs, and that the hens also produce manure (and plenty of it!) for the garden.<br /><br />So I decided I would only barter the eggs, perhaps in exchange for some home-grown organically produced vegetables that I wasn’t growing myself; or, for some fish! Our friends John and Barb, lifelong Wisconsin residents actually love ice fishing. Last year John gave us a beautiful bass that was the most delicious fish I’d had in years. I don’t know whether it was the freshness that made it taste so good, but it was succulent and almost sweet.<br /><br />You’ll never catch me out on the frozen tundra, drilling a hole through ice, setting up tip-ups, and shivering while I wait for the fish to take the bait. I’ve cleaned fish before, when I was a girl (interestingly enough, when Dad took us on vacation to Wisconsin), but that’s another activity I’d like to avoid. So trading eggs for fish is a no-brainer. John just gave us our first bass of the season. I’m looking forward to beer-battered fish and chips for dinner tomorrow.<br /><br /><strong>Mean Girls</strong><br />After Little Jerry left, we had a period of détente, when the girls appeared to stop fighting. We put bag balm on their combs to help heal their scrapes, treat the dry white patches from the winter cold, and prevent frostbite. Almost as soon as their combs were beautifully red and restored to nearly perfect, the pecking started up once again.<br /><br />I was afraid of this; afraid that once we got rid of Little Jerry, someone else would assume the bully role. Astonishingly enough, that individual turned out to be Amelia, who I once described as our sweetest chicken. We’ve caught her picking on Tracy, the lone remaining Rhode Island Red, more than once, chasing her off treats or away from anywhere Amelia thinks is her domain. This morning was the first time I saw the tell-tale scrapes on Tracy’s comb. Judging by Amelia’s comb, Tracy gave as good as she got.<br /><br />Still, Tracy has for days wandered around looking downtrodden. It makes me sad. Tracy has always been a good chicken; perhaps not the friendliest, but the first and best layer, eager to eat her greens, (Batgirl prefers cracked corn – not the best diet) and very healthy.<br /><br />What is it with these chickens? They’ve got plenty of room; why can’t they just get along? It seems like the trouble starts between hens of different breeds. Little Jerry always left Tracy alone and went after Amelia and Batgirl, the Barred Rocks. Now Amelia is going after the remaining Red. We had already decided that we’d never mix breeds again, at least not in tiny backyard setting. But what if I get rid of Tracy, and Amelia starts in on Batgirl? </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;">How do these chickens know which is their own kind, anyway? They don’t have any mirrors in there. Do they look down at themselves to figure who is Star-belly Sneetch and who is not? (Old Dr. Suess reference, for those too young to remember. I don’t know whether kids read Dr. Suess anymore.)<br /><br />The funny thing is, when I told Rick his fave was bullying, he immediately started making excuses for her. Maybe she needed something to do; more greens or corn, he said. “I gave them greens yesterday morning (and the afternoon prior), and the seed ball yesterday afternoon,” I reminded him. “I always put the greens in two suet cages, even if I can’t fill them, just to separate the chickens,” I went on. “I gave them greens this a.m. and am planning to pop them some popcorn today.” </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"><br />How much more do I have to do to entertain these silly birds? We all have cabin fever in winter. I guess my next step is getting them a treat from the pet store this week-end. I’ve read online of people buying crickets at the pet store for their chickens to chase after and eat. This week-end it will be warm enough (with a high of almost 40F!) that the crickets won’t die right away. Or I might stop by a bait shop and get some worms. Maybe if they’re pecking at some other beast they’ll leave their roomies alone.</span>Wisconsin Garden Chickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05330981282174625145noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5491834148028272745.post-32599510264696949802010-01-04T16:19:00.003-06:002010-01-04T16:39:41.682-06:00Planting to Grow A Community<span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;">Happy New Year!</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:130%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;">I can’t believe it’s been more than two weeks since I wrote a post. I had one planned for just before Christmas; I even had a title: <em>Christmas Trees</em>. I wouldn’t be referring to pine or fir trees trimmed with ornaments and lights, but to a gift of fruit trees I fully expected to receive. Just goes to show, you should never count your trees before they sprout. Or something like that.<br /><br />Here’s what happened. A couple of weeks before Christmas, I heard via a master gardener’s listserv that the </span><a href="http://www.ftpf.org/"><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000099;">Fruit Tree Planting Foundation</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"> had invited grant applications from Madison for trees to be planted in community gardens, parks, and other public spaces. Interested parties from around the city were asked to attend a meeting organized by the newly formed </span><a href="http://www.madisonfruitsandnuts.org/"><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000099;">Madison Fruits and Nuts</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"> (MFN) to determine which neighborhood locations would be selected to apply for the grant. Major requirements included access to water and a committed group of volunteers willing to be trained to, and undertake care of, the trees.<br /><br />I sent out an email to the neighborhood listserv and was thrilled to get 25 enthusiastic volunteers. I encouraged everyone to attend the meeting to select neighborhoods. It was a frigid night, postponed to that date because of a huge snowstorm the previous week. Only one other couple besides Rick and me showed up to represent our neighborhood. Still, I was sure we had a good chance. I was so excited about the prospect of an urban orchard just blocks from my house, and getting to know more of my neighbors, I was already planning my blog post to brag about it.<br /><br />The sad ending to this tale is obvious: We were not selected by MFN to apply for the grant. Stunned to receive this lump of coal just days before Christmas, I emailed to ask what were the criteria for selection? I noticed that most of the selectees already had established community gardens. A representative from MFN confirmed my suspicion, pointing out that MFN expected that established community gardens have the best potential of both approval by the city's Parks Division and fulfilling the Fruit Tree Planting Foundation grant requirements.<br /><br />I shouldn’t have been surprised. I was dimly aware that there were community gardens around the city, and I’ve even been to the largest, </span><a href="http://www.troygardens.org/"><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000099;">Community GroundWorks at Troy Gardens</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;">. I originally went to check out their chicken coop. The man we bought coop plans from, Dennis Harrison-Noonan, also designed and built <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/_kristy_/sets/72157606305802276/"><span style="color:#000099;">the coop at Troy gardens</span> </a>as a project with his son’s boy scout troop. </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;color:#000000;">Many, if not most, of the people attending the MFN meeting were members of formal organizations that ran existing community gardens. A very loosely knit group of people, formed about five minutes ago, many of whom did not even know each other personally yet, would have to be seen as a weaker candidate for a grant.<br /><br />I felt defeated - for about a day or so. Then I decided to try organizing a community garden in our neighborhood. Why not expand the notion of a <em>Backyard Nest Egg</em> to include community garden plots, urban orchards in parks, and so on? The largest park in our neighborhood is practically in my back yard – just a block away. Even before the fruit tree opportunity, I often walked through the park, marveling at all the land, and imagining what it might be like to have it planted with gardens.<br /><br />It’s a huge undertaking. I’ve never organized anything like this before. I’m not at all sure that the people who were willing to be trained to care for a few fruit trees will also commit to what may amount to a long-term effort to get a community garden going. It will involve finding a suitable site, getting approval from the Parks department or schools, if school grounds are selected, seeking funding, and learning how organize and manage the project. </span></span><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;color:#000000;"></span></span><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;color:#000000;">There are multiple stakeholders to contend with. For example, there are two major events that take place annually in the largest park in our neighborhood. If we had a community garden, would these events have to find a new site? I am aware of at least one prominent person in the neighborhood who objected in the past to community gardens in parks because “the parks are for everyone” and “just your group will be gardening.”<br /><br />He may have a point. On the other hand, wouldn’t a community garden benefit the whole neighborhood in many ways? It could serve as an educational opportunity for children, contribute to food security in the neighborhood, and give us a better chance at the next grant opportunity for trees. Working together to establish and maintain such gardens may also strengthen the sense of community in the neighborhood – a benefit our park board president recognized at the MFN meeting. I hope we can make it happen.</span><br /><br /></span>Wisconsin Garden Chickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05330981282174625145noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5491834148028272745.post-21172805887515183172009-12-17T10:16:00.009-06:002009-12-20T18:29:30.109-06:00Five Reasons to Never EVER Give Your Chicken to a Shelter for Adoption<span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;">As I wrote in my previous post, a coalition of the following animal shelters and sanctuaries has issued a </span><a href="http://www.farmsanctuary.org/mediacenter/2009/pr_backyard_chicken.html"><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000099;">press release</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"> and </span><a href="http://www.farmsanctuary.org/pdf/Collective%20Position%20Statement%20on%20Backyard%20Poultry.pdf"><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000099;">position paper</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"> advising municipalities to disallow chicken-keeping: </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"><br />Animal Place</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;">Chicken Run Rescue</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;">Eastern Shore Sanctuary and Education Center</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;">Farm Sanctuary </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;">Sunny Skies Bird and Animal Sanctuary</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;">United Poultry Concerns</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"><br />They cite a host of reasons, most of which I address </span><a href="http://backyardnestegg.blogspot.com/2009/12/whos-chicken-lover.html"><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000099;">here</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;">. They also urge people who want chickens to adopt a chicken they have rescued, rather than buying one from a hatchery.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"><br />There is no doubt that any creature given to these organizations will be well cared for, and that their members are deeply committed to the humane treatment of animals. These organizations have also performed a useful service in raising awareness of cruelty in industrial poultry operations, and in rescuing chickens injured and maimed at these sites. Nevertheless, I still urge my fellow chicken enthusiasts to never, EVER give a chicken they cannot care for to these organizations for adoption. Here are five reasons why:<br /><br /><strong>1. Those who want to adopt your chicken from the shelter will likely be required to surrender a degree of their privacy.<br /></strong></span><a href="http://www.farmsanctuary.org/rescue/adoption/application.html"><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000099;">Farm Sanctuary’s adoption application</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"> form asks for your birth date, the number of children you have, their ages, your marital status, and your employer. What bearing any of this information has on one’s suitability for keeping a chicken is hard to imagine. The application also asks you to check whether sanctuary adoption officers may visit your home. Similarly, </span><a href="http://www.brittonclouse.com/chickenrunrescue/Terms_of_adoption.htm"><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000099;">Chicken Run Rescue’s terms for adoption</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"> require would-be chicken-adopters to allow their staff to “examine or make inquiries at any time.” That means you agree to allow them to come in at will to check up on your poultry management and ensure it meets their standards.<br /><br /><strong>2. Would-be chicken adopters may be denied if they are not vegans or vegetarians.</strong><br />Farm Sanctuary’s adoption application asks you to check whether you are vegan or vegetarian, and if neither, to explain why. They also require you to be a member of the Farm Animal Adoption Network (FAAN). </span><a href="http://www.farmsanctuary.org/rescue/adoption/faqs.html"><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000099;">Membership requirements for FAAN</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"> include “a vegetarian lifestyle.” </span><a href="http://www.brittonclouse.com/chickenrunrescue/AdoptionForm.php"><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000099;">Chicken Run Rescue’s adoption</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"> form asks whether you raise animals for slaughter. Note they do not say simply that you may not slaughter the chicken you are adopting. They ask about raising animals for meat generally.<br /><br /><strong>3. Potential adopters will never truly own a chicken they obtain from these organizations.<br /></strong></span><a href="http://www.brittonclouse.com/chickenrunrescue/Terms_of_adoption.htm"><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000099;">Chicken Run Rescue requires</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"> that you agree not to show the chicken, breed it, sell its eggs, or give it to anyone else. If you can no longer keep the chicken, you are required to give it back to them. Further, if they determine during one of their “inquiries” that the “health and well-being [of the chicken] is being jeopardized the bird will be returned to Chicken Run Rescue immediately.”<br /><br /><strong>4. Low-income persons who wish to adopt a chicken will likely be denied.<br /></strong>Several of the adoption application questions suggest an expensive standard of care that would exclude many low-income persons. For example, Chicken Run Rescue asks whether there is a heat source in the building where the chicken will be housed and whether the temperature of the building can be maintained at 32F or higher. Farm Sanctuary asks outright what your income range is and whether you can afford veterinary care for the bird.<br /><br />The heat requirement is not only expensive; it is likely unnecessary and may even be harmful to the chicken. There is some debate among authorities on chicken husbandry about whether chicken coops should be heated at all, except on the very coldest days in northernmost areas. An early 20th century book, </span><a href="http://www.nortoncreekpress.com/fresh_air_poultry_houses.html"><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000099;">Open Air Poultry Houses</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;">, which advises keeping chickens in open front coops, even in places like Canada, is now coming back into vogue. One long-time chicken keeper here in Madison advised me against ever heating a coop; she never does, and her chickens are healthy. Some of the older breeds, such as Barred Plymouth Rocks and Rhode Island Reds were developed in New England in the mid-19th century. I doubt anyone was heating their coops in those days.<br /><br />The problem is that chickens are more susceptible to frostbite and disease at higher temperatures when air in the coop is humid than at lower temperatures when the air is dry. (Warm air holds more moisture.) All authorities agree that proper ventilation in winter is vital to move humid air (chickens emit a lot of water vapor through breathing and pooping) and thus keep chickens healthy. After seeing our set-up, our poultry extension specialist advised me to leave the pop door open during winter, despite the fact that we have ventilation holes in the roof of the roost box.<br /><br />I can only imagine what it would cost us to keep the coop heated to 32F or higher with the pop door open on days when highs are in the single digits. It’s a waste of energy when it’s not required for the health of the chickens, and during the day, they won’t go in there anyway, except to lay an egg. They prefer to be out in their pen. Further, safely heating a coop to Chicken Run Rescue’s standard would require proper wiring – not simply running an extension cord - another expense that could exclude low-income would-be chicken adopters.<br /><br />The bias against low-income people is particularly egregious to me. The focus of this blog is “gardening as an investment in food security.” Chickens are an integral part of my garden, providing a protein source, free organic fertilizer, and natural help with pest control. Excluding people who most need to invest in their own food security from having chickens simply because they cannot afford to meet standards that are unnecessary is unconscionable.<br /><br />Chickens are relatively inexpensive to raise; poor people around the world do it. Chicken rations can be supplemented with kitchen vegetable scraps and discarded produce from grocery stores that is in good condition. If allowed into pasture or yards, chickens can forage for some of their own food. In fact, they prefer it. Coops can also be built rather inexpensively (though maybe not to the standard of some rescue groups). We spent several hundred dollars on ours, but I’m more impressed with people who report they used scrap wood or repurposed an old shed and ended up spending only forty bucks or so.<br /><br /><strong>5. Finally, you should never, EVER give your chicken to one of these shelters because they will use it as a reason to pressure municipalities to restrict, or refuse to allow, chicken-keeping.</strong><br />In their <a href="http://www.farmsanctuary.org/mediacenter/2009/pr_backyard_chicken.html"><span style="color:#000099;">press release</span></a>, this coalition of shelters and sanctuaries “urge[s] municipalities throughout the U.S. not to allow backyard flocks and exhort[s] those that are already zoned for this practice to establish and enforce strict regulations for the care of these birds,” and claims that since keeping chickens has become popular, they have been “inundated with calls to take in chickens.” In their <a href="http://www.farmsanctuary.org/pdf/Collective%20Position%20Statement%20on%20Backyard%20Poultry.pdf"><span style="color:#000099;">position paper</span></a>, they raise the issue of the expense of “an extra burden, like enforcing chicken licensing laws and related complaints” for municipal shelters.<br /><br />Every time you give a chicken to one of these agencies, you add to the numbers they will use when urging city officials not to change ordinances to allow chickens, thus making it harder for your fellow chicken aficionados to have chickens, and harder for yourself, should your circumstances change and you are again able to keep chickens.<br /><br />So, what should you do if you have or find a chicken that you cannot care for? One option should be to give or sell it to someone. I’m lucky here in Madison, because although I live in a city, we are surrounded by farmland and rural communities. Many people from these areas come into Madison to work, and are happy to take a chicken off my hands – they have the space to do it.<br /><br />I’ve had good luck finding such people on Craigslist. I gave six nearly three-week old chicks to one guy (they are sold in lots of five, and I was only allowed to keep four), and recently sold Little Jerry to another. When I gave away the chicks, the question crossed my mind: How do I know they’re going to a good home? Then I remembered that no one questioned my credentials when I showed up at Farm and Fleet to buy my very first baby chicks. I should extend someone else the same courtesy, unless they give me a reason not to. </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;">As it happened, the guy turned out to be practically a “chicken whisperer.” He knelt down and gently stroked the head and neck of one of the chicks with one finger, and she never moved! It was like she was hypnotized. There are many good people who will care well for a chicken; many more than are bad, I believe.<br /><br />Roosters present a more difficult problem, as I wrote in my previous post. They’re harder to give away because many cities will not allow them, and outside cities, healthy flocks require fewer roosters than hens. It may be that your beautiful bird will have to be sacrificed to feed someone less fortunate than yourself. For a rooster that has had a good life, it is not a bad way to go.</span>Wisconsin Garden Chickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05330981282174625145noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5491834148028272745.post-53149155014442739812009-12-14T14:02:00.018-06:002009-12-14T19:59:12.462-06:00Who's A Chicken Lover?<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgX6ZUsmqjKzsUBy2TE_fDZN5Bb14q3eQMvtb1GLTUk4WDG9WN6JA4p__-KmJFR4PUyrSx0UyvQ-NquMu4n7JrUD5dB7lkipC0QvjSUCjvb583ov8C_tpC9qA_y73HN6yRFZG7L73fgUs7N/s1600-h/LIttle+Jerry.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5415185212919123170" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgX6ZUsmqjKzsUBy2TE_fDZN5Bb14q3eQMvtb1GLTUk4WDG9WN6JA4p__-KmJFR4PUyrSx0UyvQ-NquMu4n7JrUD5dB7lkipC0QvjSUCjvb583ov8C_tpC9qA_y73HN6yRFZG7L73fgUs7N/s400/LIttle+Jerry.JPG" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"> That’s a photo of Little Jerry taken yesterday. She will be leaving us sometime today. Her comb-picking of the other hens has gotten completely out-of-hand. It appears to happen when they go up to their perch at night. We never see this going on during the day (unless, like the bratty kid you grew up with, she waits until the grown-ups aren’t looking to start trouble.)<br /><br />Certainly the only place we have seen any blood – and that was just a few drops – is on their droppings tray under their perch. The blood isn’t in their droppings, so I know it’s not disease of some kind. Then yesterday morning there was blood on the back wall of the coop, near the perch.<br /><br />I’ve been dithering for awhile over what to do about Little Jerry, ever since we caught her acting aggressively towards the other hens. Yesterday, after seeing the blood on the back wall, Rick said to me quietly, “She has to go.” It was his way of saying, “The time for dithering is over.”<br /><br />I decided to try to sell her, and if I couldn’t do that quickly I’d turn her over to our friend who’s experienced in processing meat to dispatch her to freezer camp. I found a buyer with 60 acres outside Madison. He asked whether Little Jerry was mean. I told him what I’ve written above about the comb-picking, but assured him that she’d never feather-picked. Except for the comb scrapes, our hens look perfect.<br /><br />The buyer was honest with me, as well. “If she behaves,” he told me, “she’ll have a good life here.” But if she starts trouble, he warned, she would become dinner. I accepted those terms.<br /><br />It never occurred to me to drop her off at a shelter, or even that animal shelters would accept chickens. I’d always understood that if a chicken needed to be culled from our tiny flock that she would have to be slaughtered – efficiently and with as little pain as possible - or given or sold to someone else.<br /><br />Some shelters claim that the trend in chicken-keeping has resulted in an upsurge in chickens dropped off at their organizations; chickens whose owners can no longer care for them or roosters that they are not allowed to keep in the city.<br /><br />So a <a href="http://www.farmsanctuary.org/pdf/Collective%20Position%20Statement%20on%20Backyard%20Poultry.pdf">coalition of groups is now advocating banning chicken keeping</a> in backyards citing humane, health, and other reasons. This is what happens when you hand responsibility for some aspect of your life to others; they feel empowered to tell you what to do; to regulate and control the activity in question. Before I go on to respond to this coalition’s objections to chicken-keeping and critique their agenda, <strong>I want to beg my fellow chicken enthusiasts to take responsibility for your chickens. Do not hand your responsibility for your chickens over to agencies that will use it as an excuse to advocate bans on backyard poultry keeping.<br /></strong><br />I understand how tempting it is to avoid making the hard decisions, to want to hand over your problem chicken or rooster to an agency that you believe will treat your chicken kindly and not kill it. I’ve waffled myself for weeks trying to figure out what to do about Little Jerry. But we have to be grown up enough to understand and accept that sometimes the humane thing to do is to cull a chicken, that nature requires far fewer roosters than hens, and that if you lack to the skills to do the job you should learn how (my eventual goal) or turn the job over to someone who does and compensate them accordingly. And if you can’t eat your own chicken, give it to someone who can. There are a lot of hungry and out-of-work people in this country. Healthy meat should not go to waste.<br /><br />Would it be better to keep Little Jerry and allow her to continue to torment the other birds? Or to give her another chance at a good life in the country? She’s actually not that aggressive. I think if she’s in a place where she has more space, she won’t be a problem. She’s a good layer and very healthy, so I didn’t want to rush her demise. And if she’s still a problem, then she will make a healthy meal for someone. She was raised on organic feed and lots of greens and bugs. She’s had a good life here with us.<br /><br />That said, let’s take a look at the assertions and agenda of the coalition, which appears to lack a name, but includes these organizations:</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"><br />Animal Place<br />Chicken Run Rescue<br />Eastern Shore Sanctuary and Education Center<br />Farm Sanctuary </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;">Sunny Skies Bird and Animal Sanctuary<br />United Poultry Concerns<br /><br />Specifically, their assertions are these:<br /><br /><strong>*Many backyard chicken enthusiasts don’t know about the conditions in hatcheries and what happens to the unwanted male chicks.</strong></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"><br /><em><a href="http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6036#more">Unbeknownst to many well-meaning hobbyists</a>, the massive hatcheries from which most chicks are purchased by individuals or feed stores are notorious for animal mistreatment . . . Hens are in much higher demand than roosters; therefore, most males [sic] chicks are killed onsite at these hatcheries as soon as they are sexed, adding up to millions of birds every year that are killed shortly after they hatch.</em><br /><br />In fact, many of us do know of the conditions in both hatcheries and large confinement operations for layers and meat birds. That is a major reason many of us want to keep our own birds; to treat them humanely, to allow them to scratch, run around outside, eat bugs, and to produce for ourselves eggs from hens that have been raised healthfully and treated decently throughout their lives.<br /><br />My preference would be to buy from local breeders, and I will when I’m able to do so. Around here, chickens from local breeders are limited in supply, but I fully expect that as the return to chicken keeping grows, there will be more opportunities to buy locally from good breeders.<br /><br />The issue of what to do with the male chicks is a problem. Municipalities that allow chickens generally ban roosters. Even if we could keep roosters, the fact is that too many roosters in a flock creates problems; the hens suffer from too many attempts to mate with them and the roosters fight amongst themselves. Why does nature produce more roosters than are needed, and how does nature cull the excess males? I’m not an animal specialist, but I suspect that in the wild, the numbers of roosters are reduced through fighting over the hens.<br /><br />Traditional farms generally kept a few roosters, but raised the rest of the male chicks just to maturity; then slaughtered them for meat. Giving them a good life before processing them for meat is to me preferable to dumping male chicks into a grinder at the hatchery. However, whether in the wild, on traditional farms, or in hatcheries, most males will die at earlier ages than females.<br /><br /><strong>*Shipping day old chicks is cruel.</strong><br /><a href="http://www.farmsanctuary.org/pdf/Collective%20Position%20Statement%20on%20Backyard%20Poultry.pdf"><em>Day-old chicks are shipped to buyers through the mail, deprived of food and water and exposed to extremes in temperature for up to 72 hours.</em><br /></a><br />Here is another reason it is preferable to obtain chicks from local breeders. This isn’t always possible, with large operations dominating the markets. It should be noted however, that before hatching, chicks absorb the yolk in their egg, allowing them to go the first three days of life without food or water. It’s a survival trait – useful in the wild where the mother hen might not be able to feed all of her chicks right away.<br /><br />I doubt they’re exposed to extremes of temperature, else they’d die en route and the hatcheries would lose business. Generally, they’re packed to ensure sufficient heat and with detailed instructions for care of the chicks on arrival.<br /><br /><strong>*Chickens attract mice and rats.<br /></strong><em><a href="http://www.farmsanctuary.org/pdf/Collective%20Position%20Statement%20on%20Backyard%20Poultry.pdf">Even the cleanest coop is attractive to rats and mice who enjoy the free bedding (straw and shavings) and food.</a></em><br /><em><br /></em>This is one of the many statements that indicate the idealistic perspective of this coalition. Chickens would be thrilled to find a mouse in their pen or coop. Chickens eat mice, as well as frogs, small snakes, worms, grubs, and bugs. They are omnivores, as we are. I get the distinct impression that at least some members of these groups imagine chickens to be sweet little birds that daintily peck at corn. They’d probably faint dead away if they observed a chicken beating a mouse or frog against a rock before tearing it apart with its beak.<br /><br />Or maybe they’d try to retrain the chicken, and teach it to be a vegetarian. <em>Eastern Shore Sanctuary & Education Center</em> claims to have “developed an innovative and effective method to deprogram fighting cocks so that they can live normal lives.” </span><br /><a href="http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6036#comments_top"><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000099;">One poster over at the Oil Drum</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"> wondered what this deprogramming involved, and reported (tongue in cheek):</span><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"><br /><br /><em>I looked it up:</em><br /><em><br />Here at Eastern Sanctuaries, we have proudly innovated the "Un-cocked and Loaded" program, a 12-step practice of Reparative Therapy for Fighting Cocks. A traumatized cock is first plied with "Monster Mash," an avian intoxicant formulated only from the finest non-GMO Indian corns. Then the cock is cooped up with a flock of youthful, organically-raised laying hens that gently croon "Give Peace a Chance" in his ear.<br />A picture of the treatment is given at </em></span><br /><a href="http://a1.vox.com/6a00c225287c8b8e1d00d09e6cd431be2b-500pi"><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"><em><span style="color:#000099;">source.</span> </em></span></a><br /><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqdpyt2AqXqkSXCEijToRcZuk491Gcrd8gCG38VDcHh2FC9GfgGA0bVP3cVSUFngl6ymvXeFTad7KyWDlQ94LWdOMEyzw7gwZzWiEY7lHdBcuerynEEUCy5Q46Mgphhlpbtxu3CXIRxGnH/s1600-h/6a00c225287c8b8e1d00d09e6cd431be2b-500pi%5B1%5D.gif"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5415188220619213522" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 278px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 196px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqdpyt2AqXqkSXCEijToRcZuk491Gcrd8gCG38VDcHh2FC9GfgGA0bVP3cVSUFngl6ymvXeFTad7KyWDlQ94LWdOMEyzw7gwZzWiEY7lHdBcuerynEEUCy5Q46Mgphhlpbtxu3CXIRxGnH/s400/6a00c225287c8b8e1d00d09e6cd431be2b-500pi%5B1%5D.gif" border="0" /></a> <span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"><br />It’s true that rats are attracted to chicken feed. Of course, rats are attracted by many things. If I left my garbage can outside with the lid off, I’d attract rats. The advice generally is to store chicken feed in galvanized steel containers. That’s easy enough.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"><br />This coalition focuses much of its statement and position on the practices of large scale commercial operations, <a href="http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6036#more">but “urg[es] municipalities throughout the U.S. not to allow backyard flocks </a>and exhort[s] those that are already zoned for this practice to establish and enforce strict regulations for the care of these birds.” It defies logic to go after small holders if your major concerns are with the practices of large producers. If backyard chickens are prohibited, the only source of eggs and chicken meat will be the industrial producers. It’s for this reason that some people believe this coalition is a front for large scale producers who want to drive small scale producers out of business.<br /><br />I don’t believe that to be the case with this particular activist movement. Clearly, this is more about the idealization of animals and nature, and among some members, a desire to deter meat-eating. They seem to believe that no animal should ever be killed. (<a href="http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6036#more"><em>Sunnyskies Bird and Animal Sanctuary</em> even rescues mice!</a>) They urge would-be chicken owners to “adopt” chickens rather than buy them from hatcheries, to contact sanctuaries to obtain birds, and they emphasize that roosters especially are in need of homes. They refer to us as "hobbyists" and note that chickens can be "wonderful companions."<br /><br />This perspective sees chickens as pets rather than livestock. We do grow fond of our chickens, and many backyard enthusiasts keep one or two spent hens, beloved chickens who are allowed to live out the rest of their (non-productive) lives. But most of us keep chickens primarily to provide healthy eggs, produced by hens that are treated decently. We seek a degree of self-sufficiency and we want some control over how our food is produced. Urging municipalities to ban backyard chickens forces us to remain dependent on large commercial producers and thus supports their odious practices.<br /><br /></span>Wisconsin Garden Chickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05330981282174625145noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5491834148028272745.post-83290166945977213232009-12-09T21:29:00.018-06:002009-12-10T15:00:23.167-06:00Snowbound Chickens<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgicdj3-IWIXNX6q_-HFuOseP3C8LjEmXh19NZQVIDIibxqH7so9YOGMzIlY2kXfP2aXrbujsOgxEGGeMc7DOFgmOOKjiesO9lc-lIaVsk_y6rpObmyi-QV2b7tjKAExvkxcv9xy9ATyFAW/s1600-h/Coop+in+Snow.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5413445106587396194" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgicdj3-IWIXNX6q_-HFuOseP3C8LjEmXh19NZQVIDIibxqH7so9YOGMzIlY2kXfP2aXrbujsOgxEGGeMc7DOFgmOOKjiesO9lc-lIaVsk_y6rpObmyi-QV2b7tjKAExvkxcv9xy9ATyFAW/s400/Coop+in+Snow.JPG" border="0" /></a> <span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;"><br /><span style="color:#000000;">Last night we got over a foot of snow. Rick had to dig out a path to the coop. </span><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOZ2gx_IzUZruaHPJa-cl-V2XToZMYn6XQLWtRdXt4u_gta7mInDoczkrrLb_hK3M1-MFfpA0uXA4bGJbCsgtA-XYH8FaQwNHxS1rC8LBAEyTWAySJRgmPQteAqbSidSfE5sOZLiSaQjud/s1600-h/Rick+Digging+Out.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5413446035621065522" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOZ2gx_IzUZruaHPJa-cl-V2XToZMYn6XQLWtRdXt4u_gta7mInDoczkrrLb_hK3M1-MFfpA0uXA4bGJbCsgtA-XYH8FaQwNHxS1rC8LBAEyTWAySJRgmPQteAqbSidSfE5sOZLiSaQjud/s320/Rick+Digging+Out.JPG" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6aRvyo5MpQnIHNZgMZieOzb4trk7LzHJxr5Lj1gZ5vFWL2dzQXwhsM7l0yfm_ucNSEuiofzJI4WiNQlR-OgKhUTsXQ_tLEzACMHflM_Akd6GvPS119MYnyKHX6L54MXbwfjdauQxLv6AQ/s1600-h/Rick+Digging+Out.JPG"></a><br /><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;"></span></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6aRvyo5MpQnIHNZgMZieOzb4trk7LzHJxr5Lj1gZ5vFWL2dzQXwhsM7l0yfm_ucNSEuiofzJI4WiNQlR-OgKhUTsXQ_tLEzACMHflM_Akd6GvPS119MYnyKHX6L54MXbwfjdauQxLv6AQ/s1600-h/Rick+Digging+Out.JPG"></a><br /><br /><br /><div></div><div><span style="color:#000000;"></span></div><div><span style="color:#000000;"></span></div><div><span style="color:#000000;"></span></div><div><span style="color:#000000;"></span></div><div><span style="color:#000000;"></span></div><div><span style="color:#000000;"></span></div><div><span style="color:#000000;"></span></div><div><span style="color:#000000;"></span></div><div><span style="color:#000000;"></span></div><div><span style="color:#000000;"><br /><br /><br />We brushed the snow off the roof of the coop and the plastic over the side pen. When I opened the door, they were still in their coop. Usually, they’re out at the crack of dawn. Two of the girls poked their beaks out of the pop door. Once I started talking to them, they all ventured out.<br /></div></span><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBLCBFqI2M86wIZBFa5L1-qNUq99GFZdcBB_QTiAJgTxwd5cknaKf0lfSZywlB0KVKgv-7Cc04Wzk8x1kaad-Lc48plNLIwaQhKxbIe1lX10jr0QLZeusK8icTrF3_Dxpa2MFESIWm00z9/s1600-h/Snug+in+Pen.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5413446707574202386" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBLCBFqI2M86wIZBFa5L1-qNUq99GFZdcBB_QTiAJgTxwd5cknaKf0lfSZywlB0KVKgv-7Cc04Wzk8x1kaad-Lc48plNLIwaQhKxbIe1lX10jr0QLZeusK8icTrF3_Dxpa2MFESIWm00z9/s400/Snug+in+Pen.JPG" border="0" /></a><br /><div><div><span style="color:#000000;">They haven’t known what to make of the snow. The day I wrote the post about the first snow of the winter, very little fell that morning, and it melted soon after. Late that afternoon, I let the hens out in their tractor. I’d been trying to make sure they got out as much as possible before the snow trapped them in their pen for the winter.<br /><br />So I parked their tractor near the laundry room window and went in to fold clothes. I finished that job and puttered around, before glancing out the window and seeing heavy snow falling. I ran outside to find the girls huddled together whimpering. Just a few minutes earlier they’d been energetically digging in the ground. When I started pushing the tractor toward their pen, they at first refused to move, unwilling to walk on the snow. I finally had to nudge their fuzzy butts along and they quickly scampered into their pen when I opened the tractor door.<br /><br />On the other hand, they do love to eat snow. Whenever I walk into their pen with snow on my boots, they eagerly peck it off. But today was the first day they actually had some snow in their pen. Previously, the plastic over the wire fencing on two sides kept the snow out. Last night, swirling wind blew snow into the back of their pen. So they were a bit wary when they came out of their coop in the morning.<br /><br />The great thing about them disliking the snow is that I no longer have to struggle to get into the pen when I open the door. Usually, they go crazy when they hear us at the door, and start bawking loudly and banging their beaks on the wire fencing. When I try to open the door to go in, they’re trying to slip out. Today the wind blew the door wide open when I was trying to bring in the waterer and nobody made a move. I guess they’re not so dumb after all!<br /><br />My big worry is keeping them warm enough tonight. The low is going to be 1F. Right now, at 9:21 p.m., the temp outside is 13F, but it’s 28F in their coop. (We have a remote sensor thermometer – one of the few gadgets I thought we really needed.) Only their body heat and two 2+ gallon plastic gas cans (which never held gas) filled with hot water are keeping the coop this warm. I got that idea from a poster at Backyard Chickens (BYC), who also has a tiny flock and coop about the size of ours. She only used one can, but she closes her pop door all the way, and I try to leave some ventilation. Truthfully, I'm just anxious about them.<br /><br />Posters at BYC who live in Alaska and Canada claim chickens are more hardy than we think, and that heavy breeds especially, can withstand temps down 0F without harm, if properly housed. That’s what I’m clinging to tonight. I hope our little gals do alright. </span></div><div><span style="color:#000000;"></span></div><span style="color:#000000;"><div><br />Oh, and if you’re wondering, Little Jerry still lives. As it happens, we were in a car accident last Saturday (nobody hurt, but the car is still out-of-commission), so thankfully, the decision about whether to take her to see our friend about freezer camp was made for me!</div><div></div><div></div><br /><div><strong>Update: </strong>This morning at 5, it was -1F outside, and 9.7F in the coop. So, a good 10 degree difference. We removed the water bottles (that we placed in the coop at 8 last night) and refilled them with hot water...</div><div></div><div></div><br /><div><strong>Update II: </strong>At 1pm it was 6F outside; 18F in their coop. Where do you suppose those little chickies were hanging out??? Certainly not in what Rick calls their "luxury penthouse apartment"! I guess those folks from Alaska and Canada on Backyard Chickens were right!</span></span></div></div></div>Wisconsin Garden Chickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05330981282174625145noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5491834148028272745.post-19637090834026189882009-12-03T14:14:00.002-06:002009-12-03T14:18:36.409-06:00Dead Chicken Walking<span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;">Yesterday was the first day I thought to myself: Is it really worth it to have chickens?<br /><br />I’ve surprised myself with how well I adapted to caring for them, cleaning up after them, and generally tackling the work associated with keeping them. But yesterday I really felt weary. I noticed again little black marks on the combs of the Barred Rocks, indicating that somebody, probably Little Jerry again, one of the Rhode Island Reds, was pecking their combs. </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;">We first realized Little Jerry was bullying the BRs when we noticed that the BRs were not going after the greens we put in the suet cage like the reds were. The BRs would content themselves with the other daily treat, the chicken scratch we scattered.<br /><br />So we observed for awhile, and saw the BRs occasionally head for the suet cage only to get chased off by Little Jerry. (Interestingly, LJ never bothered Tracy, the other RIR. Maybe she is some kind of racist chicken.) She must have done it many times before, because sometimes she’d barely make a move in their direction, and they backed off. Sometimes Little Jerry would even chase them off the chicken scratch, although she herself didn’t want it. After she chased them away, she’d go back to eating the greens.<br /><br />The BRs have come to be our favorites. They are friendlier and have a sweeter disposition than the Reds. So far as I know, they have never pecked anybody. The combs of the RIRs have never had a mark. Amelia got the worst of Little Jerry’s pecking. Her comb had large black spots at one point, and whenever I’d come into the pen, she’d follow me almost whining. When I learned about the pecking problem, I thought: She’s trying to tell on Little Jerry!<br /><br />Anyway, Amelia is Rick’s favorite, so Little Jerry definitely picked on the wrong bird. He was so angry when he saw Little Jerry go after Amelia, he picked up LJ, put her in the coop, and shut the door without thinking. She squawked loudly (as she always does, she’s the loudest of our hens and can be really annoying.) Rick left her in “time out” for a few minutes; then let her out. She behaved for a bit; then went after Amelia again. He again put her in time out. I thought this strategy was inspired, so we stayed with them for awhile, attempting a bit of behavioralist training. Rick ended up putting LJ in timeout several times more that evening.<br /><br />The next morning, I spent some time with the birds doing the same training. I also bought another suet cage, realizing that one wasn’t enough for four large hens. And, I started giving them greens twice daily, thinking sufficient rations would also cut down on the pecking problem.<br /><br />It seemed to help for awhile, so Little Jerry got a stay of execution. Rick has always said he had no problem sending a chicken to “freezer camp” as they say on </span><a href="http://www.backyardchickens.com/"><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000099;">Backyard Chickens</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;">, if she caused too much trouble. I was told by an older friend of mine, who has a cattle farm now, but grew up raising chickens, that at 6 ½ months, LJ wasn’t too old yet for roasting. (I have yet to find clear information on appropriate ages for harvesting meat birds of different breeds. I do know I’d be reluctant to eat a stewer. I happened to get one from a local farmer once, and it was stanky! I boiled her and boiled her, but she didn’t get any more appetizing and I even threw out the broth, it smelled so bad.)<br /><br />I also consider myself lucky that the trouble-maker turned out to be Little Jerry, named by our 14-year-old grandson after Kramer’s rooster in the old Seinfeld sitcom. Since Nathan’s quite a bit older than our other two grandchildren, and has about zero interest in the chickens, I don’t think it will bother him if she is, ah, removed. (Note to self: NEVER let the grandkids name chickens again!)<br /><br />But, as I say, things seemed to settle down and Amelia’s comb mostly healed. Then yesterday I went into the pen and saw small black marks on BOTH Amelia’s and Batgirl’s combs. Now LJ was messing with my girl! I adore Batgirl’s independence (I’ll write more about her in a few days) and secretly admire her every time she escapes. She’s now up to six successful jailbreaks, and I’m at the point where, when I see her get away again, I smile and think to myself: Way to go, Batgirl!<br /><br />She’s at the point where she doesn’t even try too hard to evade capture. I guess it’s something of a game with us now. She knows she’s a far more proficient player, so she gives me a handicap. Or, maybe she just likes a little attention from me. Once, when I had them out in the yard in 4 ½ foot high temporary netting, Batgirl flew over it, but stayed right next to me while I gardened, scratching around in the earth nearby.<br /><br />Back to Little Jerry. I’ve turned the problem over and over in my mind, trying to decide what best to do. My biggest concern is winter, when they will be stuck in their pen for weeks at a time. I don’t want to worry about pecking problems on top of worrying about winter care for them. That’s stressful enough on its own. I keep saying, I can’t wait until I’m through the first year with them, when I have gone through all the seasons and stages of growth. The learning curve has been huge, and lately I feel tired.<br /><br />I also think about how we don’t really need four chickens for just the two of us. I only kept four in case one of the little chicks died. Still, as angry as I get with Little Jerry, it’s hard to go through with it. I ask myself whether I’m being overprotective of the other hens, whether LJ is just being a chicken, whether once she is removed, somebody else will take over the bully role. But somehow, I don’t think so.<br /><br />We have a friend who’s experienced, and has agreed to do the deed. We have never done it and wouldn’t be skilled enough to quickly dispatch her. I just have to make a decision!<br /><br />This morning, as I was writing this, I thought, if I could just have some sign! I noticed it was time to go out and give them their morning greens and scratch and looked out the window. A light snow was falling, the first of the season, and I thought, <em>this is it</em>. Little Jerry has really only lasted this long because we have had unseasonably warm weather. Usually, by this time we have plenty of snow on the ground. So up to now, we’ve been able to continue regularly letting them out of their pen, which keeps them busy and Little Jerry occupied with something other than tormenting the Barred Rocks.<br /><br />So, I guess the decision has been made. Hasn’t it? I’m pretty sure.<br /><br />Now you know what Rick goes through!</span>Wisconsin Garden Chickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05330981282174625145noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5491834148028272745.post-43177572443118765992009-11-29T14:17:00.014-06:002009-11-29T20:37:54.302-06:00Late Fall Musings<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWhNRv7GTDxD6oomVdKlttK64ukLxqGYeSVsb8HhyNu-lAU9kIvEjvmhH08gDHTBDHS5MOb7Wp0ZtAj-ylTgncqyJmbV24Y04otJMfx3Tre-mhOwDQJ30m1FDW16ZiNNyjV2xZQAUFameO/s1600/ChickensOutside.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5409622675428230210" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWhNRv7GTDxD6oomVdKlttK64ukLxqGYeSVsb8HhyNu-lAU9kIvEjvmhH08gDHTBDHS5MOb7Wp0ZtAj-ylTgncqyJmbV24Y04otJMfx3Tre-mhOwDQJ30m1FDW16ZiNNyjV2xZQAUFameO/s400/ChickensOutside.JPG" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;">Rick once asked me, “What will you write about in winter?” It’s true, posting has been light this past month, but not because I had no gardening activities. In fact, I just finished all my planned outdoor work yesterday. The weather has been unseasonably warm here, with frequent highs in the 50sF (our normal highs this time of year are twenty degrees lower). A couple of week-ends ago, it was so warm we worked outside in tee shirts!<br /><br />It’s a good thing, too, because some of my projects took way longer than I thought they would - especially that 6th raised bed. It’s in a great location with lots of sunshine next to the lower deck. But I had to remove some shrubs and what felt like a ton of gravel before I could start assembling my compost pile or “<a href="http://ourgardengang.tripod.com/lasagna_gardening.htm"><span style="color:#000099;">lasagna garden</span></a>.” </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;">The prior owners must have had some kind of gravel fetish. It appears that, when in doubt about how to solve a landscaping issue, they’d throw down a pile of gravel. All the shrubs they planted around the deck were mulched with the stuff. Patricia Lanza says not to worry about removing rocks when building <a href="http://ourgardengang.tripod.com/lasagna_gardening.htm">lasagna beds</a>, but I think a load of gravel requires removal.<br /><br />It’s never a matter of just scooping up surface gravel, either. There is gravel embedded in the soil several inches deep. When Rick built our first raised beds on the other side of the deck, we ended up sifting shovelful after shovelful of soil through a piece of hardware cloth to get rid of the stuff. I did the same with this new bed, but luckily over a smaller area. About half the new bed extends into lawn, so there it was just a matter of laying wet newspaper over turf before building my compost pile. We re-purposed the gravel to make a path in front of the chicken coop.<br /><br />Next, I got carried away in the front yard marking out the area where I will transfer my herb garden in spring. It’s about 11'x19' - so lots of room for herbs and adding flowers to make an attractive garden feature in the front yard. But try collecting and hauling enough materials for a “lasagna” bed in a space that large! The layers ended up being a lot thinner than the beds I built in the back, but hey, it’s a start. Beats renting a tiller and going to all of that work any day.<br /><br />I just had to smile cheerfully at all the people walking by on the sidewalk, rubber necking as I laid out my layers of wet newspaper, bedding from the chicken pen, chopped discarded produce from the grocer, and shredded leaves and hay, clearly wondering whether I had gone “mental” to use a word one of my neighbors applied to me last week. It was raining that day and I had the hose on filling a waterer for the chickens. He couldn’t see the waterer clearly over the fence and called out, “It’s raining!” “Yeah?” I replied. “So what are you watering?” he asked. I explained, and he responded, “Oh, okay. I thought you’d gone mental or something.” Ah, neighbors.<br /><br />There are advantages, I’ve found, to being thought “mental.” While I was building the lasagna bed on the front lawn, one couple walking their dog past our house yanked on his leash when he tried to pee on a few flowers I have growing under a birch tree. “C’mon, Jackson,” the man said, protectively hustling his dog away from our property, as if the crazy might somehow rub off or infect his pet. </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;">Numerous dog-owners walk their pets along our block daily, letting their dogs urinate and defecate on all our front lawns. They’re usually pretty good about picking up the droppings, but there are so many of them it becomes tedious. So if it motivates some of them keep their dogs out of the crazy chicken lady’s yard, I’ll gladly wear the “mental” label.<br /><br />Which brings me to another topic I’ve been thinking about lately. Can one take <strong><em><span style="color:#006600;">minimizing purchased inputs</span></em></strong> too far? Because I think I’m on some kind of slippery slope here. It started innocently enough. I got chickens, in part, to have a source of fertilizer for the garden. So far so good. Then I began looking around for free sources of greens for the birds. They do get out in their tractor or plastic netting daily, but only for an hour or two. Dandelions are </span><a href="http://www.leaflady.org/health_benefits_of_dandelions.htm"><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000099;">nutrition powerhouses</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"> – for people and for chickens – and are plentiful around here. The </span><a href="http://www.leaflady.org/"><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000099;">Leaf Lady</span></a><span style="color:#000000;"><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;"> reports that:</span></span> <span style="color:#000000;"><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;"><br /><br /></span></span><span style="color:#000000;"><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;"><blockquote><span style="font-size:100%;">According to the USDA Bulletin #8, "Composition of Foods" (Haytowitz and Matthews 1984), dandelions rank in the top 4 green vegetables in overall nutritional value. Minnich, in "Gardening for Better Nutrition" ranks them, out of all vegetables, including grains, seeds and greens, as tied for 9th best. According to these data, dandelions are nature's richest green vegetable source of beta-carotene, from which Vitamin A is created, and the third richest source of Vitamin A of all foods, after cod-liver oil and beef liver! They also are particularly rich in fiber, potassium, iron, calcium, magnesium, phosphorus and<br />the B vitamins, thiamine and riboflavin, and are a good source of protein.</span></blockquote><br />So after I picked our yard and bordering areas clean of dandelions, I started looking around for new sources. We have two parks in our neighborhood, the largest one just down the block from our house. I started digging dandelions in those locations, usually wearing my shabby gardening jacket, and tossing them into an old plastic grocery bag. It occurred to me that I might look like a hobo or bag lady, especially in this neighborhood of university professors, lawyers, judges and other professionals. I could holler defensively at passers-by and gawkers, “I have a PhD!” But who cares, really.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.michaelpollan.com/omnivore.php"><span style="color:#000099;">Michael Pollan</span></a>, describing how he learned to forage for mushrooms, writes about how eventually one develops an eye for them. It’s the same with dandelions. I’ve become practiced at spotting them hiding under fallen leaves or tall grass. One day I was walking home from the park lost in thought, swinging my bag of dandelions, when I spotted a lush patch of the greens in my peripheral vision. I bent down to dig, then suddenly stopped myself when I realized where I was, and that the homeowner might not appreciate vagrants digging in his yard, however much he preferred a “weed” free lawn.<br /><br />After I decided to build compost piles, or “lasagna” beds where I intended to plant new beds the next spring, I needed to find a free source of “greens” to combine with the “browns” I had in abundance – wood shavings from the chicken pen, twigs, and shredded fallen leaves. (We don't generate enough scraps in our kitchen to build these beds.) So I called the produce department of the supermarket where I normally shop and asked whether I might have some of the produce they were discarding.</span><br /></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;">I found that they do routinely give away “compost” and that on certain days they had regular customers. But they would save me some on the remaining days if I called that morning. The first day I brought home two large bags of garbage we were astonished at the quality of the discarded produce: Bunches of asparagus, with only one or two spears rotting, lettuce with brown edges on just a few outer leaves, a bell pepper apparently intact. Dumpster divers are right! I thought. (You see what I mean about a slippery slope?)<br /><br />Last year I stumbled on this whole sub-culture of dumpster diving (I've led kind of a sheltered life), with websites, norms of behavior, etiquette – such as don’t leave a mess because the owners will eventually lock their dumpsters, and if you find something good you don’t want or need, leave it near the top for the next person. They claim that loads of edible food is discarded in this country every day. I’m a sociologist at heart (and by training), so I was fascinated. </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;">Not fascinated enough to actually dumpster dive, mind you. (Remember, I’m also fastidious and had to gulp a few times before eating the first eggs our chickens produced.) So if you’re wondering, we didn’t eat anything from those bags. I did save some of the best greens for the chickens, and tossed them some perfectly good fresh corn on the cob which they had a great time pecking clean.<br /></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;">But back to whether there’s anything to post on a gardening blog in winter. The answer is YES. I’m still growing some things indoors. For example, I have two-year-old pea seeds and plan to order fresh for the spring. But I’m using up the old ones sprouting pea shoots for the chickens in a sunny window in the basement. I’m also keeping an eye on my sweet potato vines, from which I’ll cut slips for spring planting. We’re going to build two of <a href="http://www.geopathfinder.com/9473.html"><span style="color:#000099;">Larisa Walk’s solar food dryers</span></a> – one for us, and one as a volunteer project for the University of Wisconsin West Madison Agricultural Research station. We’re also going to build cold frames, using old windows given to us by a neighbor.<br /><br />I also think the winter is a good time for reflection and philosophizing about gardening. I’m working on a post in response to a talk Michael Pollan gave here in Madison a couple of months ago, as well as posts on genetically modified (GM) seed and pesticides. And of course, I’ll be worrying about my chickens and trying to get them safely through their first winter in our care. So, posting will pick up and continue. Thanks for stopping by.<br /><br /><br /></span><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"></span>Wisconsin Garden Chickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05330981282174625145noreply@blogger.com0