Why I Love the Mountains

Just a little more about our recent camping trip as I finally got around to uploading my pictures.

Our first night camping, a heavy cloud settled in on the mountain across the meadow. Then the moon started to rise. It was really cool so I took a series of pictures.

   

1. Moon rising on meadow.



2. Almost up.



 

3. Sitting on the trees.

 

4. Into the clouds.



5. Gone.

  The next morning the clouds / fog eventually cleared and we took a road we had never travelled before. David thought it only went in a mile. But it went on and on and on. We kept climbing higher and higher. We checked the tripometer on the way out. Turned out we went in 4 miles. It seemed further to me. We saw a few big does, but this view was the best part.

Looking Northwest toward Sierreta Peak.

Looking North toward the Kern Canyon.

Close up of previous - you can see the Needles.









Deer Season and Elderberries

I haven't posted a blog in so long, I forgot my password. So here's an update on what I've been doing lately - work. No, that's not all.

It's fall so the garden is slowing down. I've planted lettuce, carrots, onions and beets. Also some cole crops and they are growing slowly but surely. My green beans are nearly done producing. I froze about 30 cups this year.

It has also been deer hunting season. You can ask my kids, but my husband has been a hunter all his life. His parents raised him with it and they still go hunting to this day. When I first met David, I would go along and we would camp out. I love camping. It's challenging and I love getting up in the mountains and enjoying nature. It was a grand adventure, especially when the kids were young and went along.

One year we took my daughter and niece who are the same age. They were in junior high and best buddies. Our oldest daughter was there with her husband and our sons. After climbing some crazy rocks and scaring us to death, the girls turned in that night to a light snowfall. Well the next morning we woke to the girls yelling, "Our tent is caving in on us and we're stuck!" It had snowed so much that their domed tent for three had collapsed in around them allowing them just enough room to huddle together. Well we were in a similar situation. My husband finally dug out and was able to clear enough snow for them to escape. Everyone was cold, but it sure was beautiful. The world had changed overnight! Everything was white. Pretty soon everyone was packing up to go home. Our son-in-law ended up using his Bronco to pull a motorhome out of the snow when they got stuck. It was fun watching the snow and mud fly! So we definitely had our share of adventures.

But after several years, I realized my husband didn't enjoy camping for camping's sake. He camped out so he could hunt. And for him, hunting was WORK!!! He enjoys it, but I sure didn't. I felt like he took all the fun out of it. So eventually I quit going. He would be gone every weekend in October and I would play. I would do things with my friends like craft shows, weaving shows, trips to the coast, etc.

Well the last few years, he took to going during the week while I was at work. So there went my free weekends. Then last year, once he was over the worst of the buck fever, I went up with him for the last weekend. He didn't hussle me out of bed at the crack of dawn. We took a leisurely drive in the morning and then played War in the afternoon. We cooked good old camp food and enjoyed talking around the campfire. We really enjoyed ourselves.

This year I went up one day and we took my inlaws. Their truck was in the shop and they were so glad to get out of the house. Then I decided to go up for the final weekend again since we had enjoyed ourselves so much last year. Only this year it was much colder and cloudy most of the time. Even so, it was still enjoyable for the most part.

So my husband goes to hunt and if he gets a deer, we have extra meat in the freezer. However, I go with a different goal in mind. I go to pick elderberries!

Elderberries - flower, unripe and ripe berries.

 I love making elderberry jelly and it's good for you. Did you know that elderberries are 80 % higher in vitamin C than grapes? I picked one large bag when my inlaws came with us and then another bag the last weekend of season.



Yarrow



I also dug up some native yarrow to plant in my "herb garden". Yarrow is a natural steptic (stops bleeding). And if you add it to your compost pile it composts faster.



Sagebrush likes the dessert
of the mountains.





Sage bundles



I was going to cut some wild sage, but it was cold and looked like rain so I didn't. I just wanted to get home to a hot shower and my own bed. Wild sage smells really good and it is a natural moth repellent. You can hang it in your closet or put it in little sachet bags in your dresser drawers.

Now I'm trying something new with the elderberries I picked. I'm making wine. I've started 2 batches. The first was a simple matter of juicing the berries, adding sugar and water with some bread yeast and putting it in a jug to ferment. I put a balloon over the opening with a pin hole in it to allow the CO2 gases to escape without letting in any wild yeast that could ruin the wine.

My second batch which is in progress is a conglomeration of recipes and instructions. I'm keeping notes so I can reproduce it if I like it.

So no matter what, I don't come home empty handed. So what do I do with my jellies and wines? Well we can't eat it all, but my family loves receiving these home made goodies and they make great Christmas gifts.

I'll add the wine recipe at a later post.







Chickens Don't Believe in a Hill of Dirt

Once upon a time - no wait, that's been done. There was an old woman who lived in a shoe. No, that's not right either.

There once was a country woman who lived in town. Not downtown, but not the country either. To her it was just town. Not a large city and not a village. Just town. This isn't where she wanted to live, but one day she had said to her husband, "We should own our own home. (They were renting in the country you see.) But we can't afford a place in the country so we should buy a house in town. After we live there for five years, we can build enough equity to sell it and buy a place in the country." It was all a lie, but the woman believed it to be true. So they bought their home in town and nearly twenty years later, they were still there.

The woman gave up on her dream to ever move back to the country and decided to have some of the country in town. Luckily they owned a large lot by modern standards and had room for things like a dove cage,

 a fish pond and a garden. Her husband was happy for her to have all these things, but the woman wanted one thing more. She wanted chickens.

Many years ago when she lived in the country,  she had chickens - lots of chickens. She had bantam breeds and laying hens and meat chickens. She would cross breed her Cochins to see if Black and White made Blue. She enjoyed the fresh eggs. She would even kill some for meat. Why did she like chickens? Who knows, maybe it was because her mother was born in a chicken coop during the depression.

Now the woman knew that her husband loved her very much and would give her anything she wanted. So she told her husband, "I want some chickens." And the husband said, "No, we live in town. You can't have chickens. They are too noisy and the rooster will crow and make the neighbors very unhappy."

The woman replied, "I don't want a rooster. I want hens to lay fresh eggs and create manure for the garden. We will never be without something to eat because we will have eggs." She explained that she only wanted three. One would be lonely. Two would keep each other company. But if one died, she would only have one. No, she wanted three.

And because her husband was a wonderful man, he said yes. So then they needed a coop. At first she was going to just put them in the garden; but as she thought about it, she knew they needed a roost at night; shelter from the heat, cold or wind; and a place to lay their eggs. Oh, they also needed water and feed. This was getting more complicated. She enlisted the help of her husband and her husband being a gracious man agreed to build a coop and fenced run. She would help him of course.

Because it was not early spring, there were no baby chicks to be bought and she would have to order some. She looked at an online free ad page and found some Sexlink pullets (young hens just starting to lay). Sexlinks are chickens that can be easily sexed as chicks because males and females have different coloring. They were $15 each, but she would not have to raise baby chicks and they would start laying right away. So she bought the hens. They were a beautiful red and white color. There was just one problem - the coop was not built yet. So she put them in the dove cage. At which time she encountered another problem - the chickens didn't stay on the ground; they flew up on the doves roosting branches and SCARED THEM ALMOST TO DEATH!

She needed a coop right away. So she and her husband thought hard about the coop and drew plans. Then they went shopping. They came home with an aluminum storage shed that measured 3feet deep, 5 feet high, and 8 feet long. They worked hard all day on that coop. Then they built a run out of EMT and enclosed it with chicken wire.

The woman and her husband were very tired, but she was very, very happy.

Now it was ready for her chickens. The chickens had a new home and all seemed right...

 

A month or two went by and the couple went on vacation. The woman's mother agreed to care for her chickens, the garden, and the cat. The two dogs could take care of themselves.

 

One day while they were on vacation, the woman received a call from her mother. Her mother was very upset. The chickens had escaped! She could only find one and she feared the others were dead. The next day she found one more in the garden, but it was badly injured.

 

The woman came home to face the fact that she only had two chickens now. See it was a good thing that she bought three. Then the day came when the dogs dug under the run fence and got another chicken. They killed it too. The woman was very upset! She wanted to kill the dogs, but she didn't.

  

Time went by and the remaining hen was lonely. Chickens are flock birds and she had no flock. A friend heard of the woman's plight and offered her a Silkie hen and her babies. Silkies are interesting chickens with their black skin and top knot of feathers so she accepted. It turned out that those babies were all grown up and two of them were roosters. They would crow in the middle of the night. Besides, they all stuck together and would not befriend the lone hen so they were not serving their purpose. They had to go. The woman advertised in the free online ads and sold all the Silkies for $30. Now she was back to one hen. She went back to the free online ads and found two pullets for sale. She could tell by the picture that they were good laying hens. They were young Rhode Island Reds. The woman named them Copper and Penny. She could tell them apart because Copper had a wide butt and was larger than Penny. Just like humans, no two chickens are exactly alike. It did not take long and all three hens were friends and all was right.



Penny left - Copper right



Several months went by and the woman received a call from her husband while she was at work. He said the dogs had caught a fighting rooster that was in the back yard. They had torn feathers out of it's back, but he didn't think it was seriously injured. She told him to put the rooster in a small cage to protect it and call his friend who raises chickens because she didn't want any roosters. A short time later, her husband called her back. Apparently the rooster had laid an egg. When the woman came home from work she saw the the chicken was not seriously injured. She was not sure where the hen came from and feared if she just set it free, it would get into another neighbor's yard with dogs and not be so lucky the next time. She decided to put the fighting hen in with her other chickens.

 

That caused a whole new ruckus. Hens don't like strangers too much and they didn't like this one at all. Also, fighting chickens are high-strung, nervous birds and they scare easily. The poor hen spent most of her time on the roost. That was until it was time for the others to roost for the night, then they would run her off. She just was not being accepted. Maybe the woman jinxed her because she just called her The Ugly Chicken since her back feathers never grew in. The woman figured they just needed time to adjust. Now the woman had four chickens.

 

Then one of them became lame. It was her very first hen. The woman named her Lacey because her feathers are red laced with white. The woman nursed her with antibiotics, B-vitamins, joint medicine and fed her scrambled eggs with egg shell mixed in. The hen got better but she still walked like a drunk sailor. She never completely recovered.

 

Now there is one thing that chickens like; it is to roam free, eating green things and hunting for bugs. But because of the dogs, the woman could only throw kitchen scraps to her hens. The woman had a nice garden and eventually it grew to be outside the bounderies. The only problem was the dogs - they loved to dig and poop in her garden. So the woman asked her husband to fence off half the back yard for her garden. This would enclose the chicken coop also. And her husband being the VERY BEST HUSBAND IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD agreed and moved the fence that very moment.

 

On a weekend shortly after that, the woman let her chickens roam free all day while she worked in the garden. Those hens were so happy! They ate some of her plants, but she had plenty to share. They scratched in the dirt and ate the bugs as they tried to scurry away. But then they discovered her fresh hills of dirt where she had planted her seeds. You see chickens don't believe in a hill of dirt. They will scratch and scratch until that hill is flat. They may even scratch until they create a hole. They also like to lie in a hole of dirt and scratch it up over their backs and into their feathers.

So the hens lost some of their freedom and are only allowed to roam when the woman can watch them. If they get too close to a new seed bed, she squirts them with a hose. And its a good thing they are locked up at night 'cause those naughty dogs still like to dig under the fence.

Chickens being chickens.





A Tail of Woe

On Saturday, September 11th I went to work early in my garden. By the moon signs it was a good day to plant above ground crops and my cabbage, broccoli, bok choy and pea seeds had come in the mail. I also ordered blood meal, bone meal and fish meal. According to Farmer John at Sustainable Seeds, these were good to amend the soil for better crops when planting cole crops (cabbage, broccoli, etc.) David help me rototiller my ground and in went the seeds. I also planted peas, but didn't add anything to the soil with them. The same with spinach, lettuce, and some flower seeds.

Rows far left are for 2 kinds of cabbage.

Spinach closest, broccoli and then bok choy.

Since David divided the yard to allow me to have a much bigger garden area, I had been working hard to clean it up. I spent 2 days in the garden from sunup to sundown, but I felt a real sense of accomplishment. Several of the seeds I had planted only the week before had sprouted and were doing well. Ah, all was right with my world.

Then on Thursday, David called me at work. He had caught both our dogs red handed. Well dirty pawed. He said he noticed the dogs were really quiet so he knew somthing was up. They're just like children. When he walked past the north side of the house, the dirt was flyin'. I guess that blood meal, bone meal and fish meal proved to much of a temptation. Ashton, our shepherd had pushed hard enough to open the gate and they were digging where I had planted my cole crops, exactly every 1 1/2 feet apart.





Needless to say, I was sick. All my hard work for nothing. And I was pretty sure I had used up all my broccoli and bok choy seed as well as my blood meal, bone meal and fish meal. I remember thinking I had just enough to go around. Well I did find more seed and I hope that some of the meals were left in the ground. So this Saturday, I was back at it again. So goes the life of a gardner.

The guilty culprits - Ashton and Pete



Garden in the Winter? Huh?

When I met my husband's Pappa, he grew two crops in his garden. Tomatoes in the summer and BIG red onions in the winter. His red onions were planted in the fall and harvested in the spring. How was this possible? Well one of the advantages of living in the southern San Joaquin Valley is having a long summer and a mild winter. While the rest of the country is putting their garden to bed and preparing for snow, we are planting a garden. Many vegetables will actually do better planted in the fall. Summer is great for tomatoes and peppers, but fall is the time to plant peas, carrots, beets, onions, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, bok choy, spinach, lettuce, radishes and the list goes on. Anything that likes cooler weather can be planted August through September for a late fall / winter harvest. To identify the best time to plant vegetables, I visited the local Agricultural Extension Office and found a planting/harvest guide. Since the soil is already warmed up, the seed tends to germinate more quickly too. Another plus is fall planted vegetables seem to avoid several insect pests.

The disadvantages of wanting to plant a fall garden? Most stores that sell seed and plants in the spring will not carry seed or plants in the fall so you will need to order seeds on line. Find a company you like and order to your hearts content. Personally I like to order from Sustainable Seed Co. They only sell seed that is reproducable and grown in the USA. You can visit them here: Sustainable Seed Co.

If you decide to try succession gardenng, you will also need to be diligent in adding compost, fertilizer and other soil amendments to your garden since all that plant life will really drain the nutrients from your dirt. But don't make the mistake of thinking that just because its cooler, you won't need to keep the weeds in check. I made that mistake one winter and grew a fine crop of chickweed and grass with only a few lettuce plants surviving.

So if you have a mild winter season where you live, join me in planting a fall/winter garden and continue enjoying fresh vegetables into the cool months. Here are pictures of my garden as of yesterday.



2 kinds of cabbage, beets, green onions,
carrots, lettuce, radishes and leeks.



Foreground planted with bok choy,
broccoli, spinach and lettuce. I will
add onions and radishes later.





 The compost bin, compost pile
and brush pile that keeps the

lizards happy.







Left over of summer garden
with bug killers/weed eaters.



Kill your grass and grow a garden!

Did you know that 30-60% of our drinkable water goes to watering our lawns? You water that lawn; adding pesticides and fertilizer at a rate 10 times as much as the amount used by industrial farms just so it can grow. Then you have to mow the grass. The average home owner’s gas-powered lawn mower produces as much pollution per hour as 11 automobiles do. At an estimated 1,300,000 gas powered mowers owned by American's that's the equivilant of 14,300,00 cars in an hour. Then there are those gas powered leaf blowers that blow dust and allergens into the air. So growing a lawn leads to water shortage, ground and air pollution.

My friend's whimsical garden.

Am I saying you should just let your lawn die and leave bare dirt? No, grow an edible landscape.You don't have to grow a traditional garden with straight rows spread 3 feet apart. The row garden was designed for machinery like a rototiller. Use your imagination. You can grow ornamentals for variety. Tuck herbs among your vegetables, they will benefit each other. And don't forget those edible flowers like nasturtiums. You get flowers you can eat that will also attract bees and other insects that are needed for pollination. Your garden could be concentric circles with a sundial at the center. You could grow pole beans up a trellis to provide shade for a bench. Plant fun things like sunflowers and pumpkins that your children can enjoy. You can start small and work your way to a larger area. Your property line is the limit.

Now that I've convinced you to kill your grass, where do you start? Well grass isn't always easy to kill. You could spray it with a systemic plant killer like Round Up. Remember, Round Up will kill everything you spray it on and will cause collateral damage to anything it drifts to on the wind. I killed several bean plants when I sprayed some crazy Johnsongrass in my garden this year. I also killed my squash one time when I watered shortly after spraying weeds with Round Up. The water carried the weed killer to the squash. So be cautious. For anyone who is concerned about Round Up as poison, well you aren't going to eat your grass, but definitely read the cautions and follow the directions. In Canada they spray Round Up on the wheat to kill it before they harvest it to make bread and all those other grain products we like to eat. Once the grass is thoroughly DEAD (don't get in a rush), then turn the soil with a shovel or rototiller. If you have large amounts of roots, use a garden rake to "clean up" the excess. Add well rotted manure and compost to improve your soil and you are ready to plant your new garden!

Honey bee after nectar.

For those of you who are organic purists, you can kill your lawn by covering it with several thicknesses of newspaper topped with at least 4-6 inches of mulch. When you're ready to plant, just poke a hole through the newspaper. This method is very labor intensive and can also be expensive if you have to purchase enough mulch to cover a large area. If you have access to plenty of mulch you're in luck. Supposedly, you can pour bleach on your grass to speed it's death, but it requires the equivilant of 1 1/2 inches of bleach. That's alot of chlorine and I'm not sure that's good for the soil either. You can use vinegar without harming the environment, but it won't work as quickly. For those of you with Bermuda grass or Johnsongrass, don't be surprised when it pokes through the mulch. The roots go deep and the joints (rhizomes) of these grasses will lie dormant for long periods of time only to sprout at the first chance at moisture and sunlight. Just keep pulling the grass or smothering it. Eventually it will die.

Young Preying Mantis

My original garden.

Christmas in September?

I received my seed order today and even though I knew what I had ordered, it was still fun to open my package.  I knew what I wanted when I place my order - onions, cabbage and broccoli. Oh, and peas to grow on the fence. Well, I couldn't decide between which cabbage so I bought 2. Hey, they had bok choy - cabbage without the head; I had to get some of those too. The onions? 1 red, 1 yellow and 1 green bunching of course. Then there are peas - flat snow peas for salads and stir fry and english peas to shell and cook. And lets not forget the broccoli. Now I just need to figure out where I'm going to plant everything since I already used up 3 of the 5 rows I had originally planned to use when I ordered the seed. I found out after I placed my order, that I still had some seed that I bought in the spring - beets, leeks, 3 kinds of radishes, carrots. These went in the first 3 rows. I also found several types of lettuce, collards and spinach seeds. All of these will grow well in the fall and through the winter in the valley.

So today I cleared about 1/3 of my original garden for space to plant. Now we'll till it up and prepare to plant this weekend. According to the Farmers' Almanac Moon Calendar, this weekend will be good for planting above ground crops. http://www.farmersalmanac.com/calendar/gardening/ I've never planted by the moon before this year. It's my latest experiment.

By the way, I ordered my seed from Sustainable Seed Co. http://www.sustainableseedco.com/. They're located in California just like me. Most seed companies are back east. I like their product because they sell seed that is self propagating. Most of the seed you buy today is hybrid which means it will not breed true to itself. The price of seed is going up just like everything else and it is so easy to save your own seed. Plus these guys give great service. I've e-mailed questions to them several times and they're always helpful and quick to respond. Check them out.

First Post

As I recall, I've been around gardening all my life. My mom planted in a community garden before they were popular. We lived at the headquarters to New Tribes Mission in Woodworth, Wisconsin and there was a big garden on a hill. Each family got to use several rows for their personal use. I don't remember much except we were closer to the bottom of the hill than the top. My mom canned our produce and we ate from that all winter long. There was no fresh produce in the winter; we ate sweet pickles and other preserved foods instead.
I remember bringing home pig manure from my boyfriends farm when I was about seventeen for the garden. Then my folks had a big garden when I was 19 where my dad tried out ideas from Mother Earth News and Organic Gardening.

When I was 21 and pregnant with my son, I would sit on the ground and pull weeds in my own first garden. When my son was two and I was a single mom I went back to college and got an Associate of Arts degree in Ornamental Horticulture. That was really just a preview of the wide world of OH and really didn't teach enough for a specific career. I've learned more about gardening from experience than books or school. Now I'm almost 52 and I've still got a lot to learn 'cause I still make lots of mistakes.

I always say I should have been a farmer's wife, but I live in town with a big back yard and a wonderful husband who pretty much lets me do what I want. When I need help with manual labor or someone to water, he's always willing.

Last year, I only grew tomatoes and peppers for salsa, relishes, etc. Year before I grew tomatoes, peppers, and beets. This year I decided to go all out and plant a wider variety. I planted carrots, green onions, squash, swiss chard, pole green beans, beets, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, lettuce, new zealand spinach, sweet corn, herbs, sunflowers (for the bees and birds), and honeydew melon. The garden expanded to a new area of the yard for the corn.

Now I remember why I only grew tomatoes and peppers. The APHIDS FROM HELL!!! Sounds like a B-rated movie. The aphids have munched on the okra, the melons, the cucumbers, the squash and even the corn. I harvested the corn, green beans, cucumbers and squash and then when the plants just couldn't take any more, I pulled them up and threw them on the compost heap. I incorporated some companion planting, but will do more next time.

For once I'm trying to get a fall/winter garden in on time. I planted leeks, carrots, green bunching onions and beets on Saturday and then I covered them with boards to keep the moisture in and the dogs out. (I have two dogs, one big and one little, who think they have to inspect my work and tromp all over it. Then they shit on it.) I was reading a newletter today about growing your own onion sets and I find out from my seed man, Farmer John of the Sustainable Seed Co., that onions need sunlight to germinate so I have to uncover the onions and leeks. Hopefully the dogs won't do too much damage tonight. On second thought, maybe I'll wait and uncover in the morning when the sun is up.