Plans for Next Year: Chickens, Bees, Frogs

Next year I want would like:

  1. a second colony, in a homemade top bar hive.
  2. chickens, 3 of them.
  3. the beginning of a dwarf fruit tree orchard.
  4. a guild around the cherry tree.
  5. an earth oven in a straw bale shelter, a strawbale low wall with welcoming arch up front, and  some strawbale benches, shelters and altars all over the property.
  6. a small pond system that takes rain water runoff and – if we can swing it – some gray water, with frogs and other wildlife.
  7. a front garden for Bees and People. I will want to host a lot of events – community gardening, lectures, skillshares, poetry reading (and writing), concerts – in that front garden!
  8. a pottery wheel.

Is that a lot to ask? And is that a silly question to ask because I ask it of myself?

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Oh,  but life is good.

When told that a friend had gone into the hospital to give birth, Amie asked: “And was it a baby?”

And this is DH’s desk:

Summer Hoop House to Winter Hoop House

We finally have a winter hoop house. We moved the thing from its summer to its winter position yesterday and today. It took us, 2 adults and 1 5-year-old, 6 hours, and about 2 hours of that was spent on making new parts. Not bad. Those end walls weigh a TON! Our trusty Radio Flyer helped.

One half in old position, other half in new

End walls and frame in place

Amie loves to be useful. Here she is hammering in the rebars

Ribs over the rebars

Tough to get the plastic taut, but done. (Trusty Radio Flyer in foreground.)

I also got to put the old summer beds (the four beds to the right in front in the picture) under straw. A new friend came and delivered four bales yesterday, right on time.  I’m rather jealous of her pickup truck. We got to have tea and dinner and chat about herbal medicine, gardening and ducks. She also got to play a prolonged game of “pretend” with Amie.

A Five-Year-Old’s Physics, Biology, Meteorology, Etc.

Amie drew her family for school

(DH, Mama, Amie)

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A: Water isn’t heavy. It’s just air that’s blue and wet.

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I found her hiding behind a tiny notebook.  I asked her if hiding her face makes her entirely invisible. Incredibly, she did seem to believe this. Then she thought about it for a second and grinned at the silliness of it.

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A: I’m going to marry Ben.

M: Oh? Why?

A: Because he’s the only boy I like. I know other boys but they’re icky. So I have no choice. But, Mama, can a girl and a girl get married?

M: Yes, they can. (Gives an example)

A: But. Look. Here is me. And here is E (her best friend, a girl). If E and I get together and comfort each other, then there will be four children, two from her and two from me. And then they will make even more babies and our house will break and we’ll need to build a new house and, ugh, it’s too much!

It took me a moment to realize how she came to this. First, I guess that’s what happens when your kid watches only Life of Mammals and other nature shows. She also knows that only women can have babies, so two women in a household will make twice as many babies. Simple math. But “comforting”? I have no idea where she gets that one.

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We are reading a book together – she is loving Frannie K. Stein: she reads a page, I read a page, etc.  I asked what some of the words mean and she had no clue! DH has also observed this, that she is content not to ask what something means, and we’re confused because she seems to understand the stories pretty well. Of course this is how babies and toddlers learn: they don’t actively ask about details but get their meaning from contexts and let the details get filled in by experience.  But now she is five. It had never occurred to us that we would have to give her the tools and the motivation to make the transition into a more active role of questioning and searching. Parenthood is fascinating!

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Amie was yelling at the trees to stop it!

I asked her what the trees were doing that they should stop.

A: They’re blowing away my leaf pile.

Me: You think the trees make the wind?

A: Yes.

Me: But how?

A: By waving about and making the air move, of course!

Daily Bread No. 13 and Hot Box Update

I joined the a team of parent and teacher volunteers who are working to make the school system in our town greener. We’re working on getting the recycling going. Especially lunch time is a problem, a big black hole that apparently eats only trash.

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I’m still baking, only not as much – a bread every three days. Though in this picture it looks like it was forged in the fires of Mount Doom, Bread No.13 turned out very nicely, with the perfect moisture and crumb.

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The rains let up and I got the chance to plant the hot box, in 54 F weather! I hadn’t until now because the temperature o the soil registered 82F until a week ago. What a long  burn that was! Now it’s at 73F, perfect. In went a Winter Lettuce Mix and some Rainbow Chard. Let’s see how they do. I need to locate the sensor that attaches via a cable to my digital  thermometer. This cable is just long enough to reach from the hot box to the bathroom window.

HUMONGOUS Pumpkin Haul

Today we came home from Amie’s cello lesson to this:

We could not believe the size of that giant pumpkin! There were also bags of more pumpkins, goopy pumpkin guts, and a couple of gourds. The latter I would have to cut up somehow,  they’re so hard, or maybe I’ll try drying them for bird houses.

The haul filled up the wheelbarrow and much of the compost bin. Once I get the shredder going I’ll fill up the gaps in the bin with shredded leaves.

The neighbors are really into the orphan punkins this year. Maybe I could get a more elaborate system set up, a large three bin system down the hill, near the mailbox, where they could drop off vegetable kitchen scraps? A neighborhood composting facility… And once we get chickens,  we would doubly appreciate the scraps. Mm…

I’m going to ask my tree removal neighbor for all his wood chips from now on to do this in the  veg garden. I could easily fill up those garden paths with wood chips and leaves. These paths erode so badly, especially the ones that run in the direction of the (slight) slope. It would also keep the weeds down, and be a haven for the worms. A permaculture function stack!

What a day today was. 65 F and sunny. The bees took the opportunity to take some cleansing flights and dump out some more dead bees, and we got to go outside too, to rake leaves, and leaves, and leaves, and play…

Dandelion Tincture – Part 2

Today I pressed the dandelion (Taraxacum officinale) tincture that I started on 14 October (roots and leaves). It has been sitting in my herbal medicine closet (dark, cool and accessible) for over three weeks (14 days is the minimum). I shook it twice daily. It has become a saying in our household: “Mama’s shaking her tincture!”

This was the first time I pressed a tincture and good practice. I now have an idea of how much comes out of a quart jar (15 1 ounce bottles) and I know I need to get hold of a high glass pitcher with a good spout – one that won’t have the sieve sit in the liquid and won’t spill the tincture all over during pouring. I didn’t have muslin for sieving, but the cotton handkerchief did the job quite well.

The tincture is a murky, swamp-green-light-brown. There’s a lot of residue in it, which stresses the need to shake that tincture each time you use it. It has a particular sweet smell underneath the whiff of alcohol (80 proof), a smell mostly in the tip of the nose (how’s that for observation!). It tastes only a tiny bit bitter, but mostly that sweet smell translates to the tongue. It actually doesn’t taste that bad – not like lobelia tincture, for instance, thank goodness.

The following is what I’ve gleaned from several herbalist sources:

Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale)

Cold, bitter and sweet.  Affects the liver, bladder, stomach, spleen, and skin. As a bitter, both leaves and roots stimulate appetite and digestion. They are diuretic, so they are used to treat urinary tract problems, and unlike other diuretics, replenish potassium. Dandelion stimulates bile production (in the gall bladder), so it fights gall stones  as well as the liver’s lipid (fat) metabolism, fighting jaundice and cirrhosis. The choline in the roots stimulate the mucous membranes of the large intestine to a mild laxative effect. Roots are also good against rheumatism and arthritis. As a blood-purifier and blood vessel cleanser and strengthener, it is good for eczema. It is rich in calcium (especially the root) and will recalcify bones. Externally it can be used to treat fungal and yeast infections. When applied to warts, the latex (the bitter “milk”) will – they say – cure them.

{DISCLAIMER} This information is intended for educational purposes only and has  not been evaluated by the FDA. It is not intended to prevent, diagnose, treat, or cure any disease.

And after that disclaimer I must add that it feels good – empowering – to make my own remedies, in my kitchen, from the dandelions I grew and harvested. Still, hopefully I won’t get so many and so much of the above ailments so as to need all 15 ounces of tincture!

Amie’s Latest Drawings

Amie’s drawings are always changing – see the Drawing As It Develops series to follow her drawings from the beginning. She is nowadays mostly interested in human figures, especially herself, and is experimenting with movement and joints, etc. And there is also always text, in invented spelling.

Amie picking up a leaf.This is a month or so old. She was getting her head around spaces, and wanted to represent them here by lines. The next drawings are more recent and she seems to have the hang of spacing now.

This one she drew in her cello book. She said it is for when she is grown up. Then we can look in this book and remember her. I said her own kid, when he or she starts cello, will see this drawing too. She thought hard about that. She is always saying “When I have a baby…”

This is a letter she typed for DH, with a drawing. Then I was very sad because I didn’t get a letter, so she added a message for me to it. She had just discovered the question mark. It reads: “satra (dad’s name) I know you love me and I love yu too do you like my drawings? Mama do you love me? Do you like my drawings? You and Baba to share”.

These are her bird dolls – the one’s you squeeze and they sing their song. The birds don’t have feet because the dolls don’t have them. This was when she had just been introduced to initials. I love that invented spelling!

Peas Anyway, and Daily Bread No.12, Rain Barrels, Pumpkins

The Fall peas never had a chance to blossom – my fault, I planted them too late. But during a garden tour a friend pointed out I could still eat the shoots. Lovely just like that and in soup and salad.

Also baked Daily Bread No.12. It sang when I took it out of the oven.

And all the rain barrels are stored away now. Emptying them is challenge, since I don’t want all that water puddling around and eroding away the soil and stones the barrels are standing on. The solution is a short hose, of course, but I made the mistake of storing that on the hose reel underneath the 50 foot one… A loose gutter was the solution.

Lastly there are the pumpkin orphans still coming in daily. I’m not even cutting them up anymore, most are well on their way to collapse.