Monday, August 14, 2017

New food from old food

With 6 bodies in our household, we go through a lot of food. Being vegan and eating healthy organic foods, we go through a lot of vegetables, because most of what we eat is made from scratch.

Which means we have a lot of food scraps.

So we have a few ways of disposing of those foods scraps without throwing them into the landfill.

We have a compost tumbler, 3 chooks, 2 goats and a worm bin. The animals help process the food scraps more quickly by converting it to poop which then gets composted. But the bulk of our food scraps go to the worm bin.

There, we have all sorts of critters coming to feast...  worms, bugs, raccoons, black soldier fly larva. It's probably the most practical and efficient food scrap processor we have.

So this spring, we used some of the compost from this worm bin on our garden at Soulstice homestead. There must have been a few seeds included in that compost, as things soon began to pop up all over.

Currently there's mostly squash of one kind of another. We picked pumpkins and turks turban last week...





Hostas made an appearance in the early part of summer. The worm bin is covered in cucumber plant, though not producing an abundant amount of cukes. 

Here and there we've seen tomato plants in unexpected places. I can imagine what will appear over the years as we use more and more heirloom seeds! 



Sunday, July 23, 2017

Fails... dead and threatened trees

Back in May,  we planted 2 almonds, 2 pecans, 2 cherries, a walnut and 2 chestnuts on contour below the greywater swale so the trees roots should (in theory) get plenty of nutritious water soaking in from the swale and to slow down the wind that will eventually blow across what we plan to be part of our garden.

Update 7/20/17
So far, the following trees have not survived...
the 2 pecans,
the 1 English walnut,
1 aronia
2 hazelnuts

Since we ordered them from Burgess Seed Company, we can get them replaced for free if they don't live. Not sure whether they just never grew or whether they just died because they weren't good for the place we planted them. Sometimes they just don't survive shipping, which could be why Burgess replaces them for free - just guessing though. There didn't seem to be anything eating them, nor did we see any fungus growing on them --- just a pair of ticks perched on top of one of them waiting for someone to happen by so they can hitch a ride. So Burgess will send us new trees and we'll try them again. Next time we'll try covering them loosely in screens to protect them from any possible insects, at least in this sapling phase, and deter other critters from wanting to nip off their buds.



 Looking around at some of the older trees we'd planted last fall, we noticed our pear tree had been chewed at the base all the way around it, which killed it. A tree dying this way is known as 'girdling'. The phloem cells lie in the inner bark and that's what moves food up and down the tree from leaves to roots. Chewing that part way around won't necessarily kill a tree, because dome of the nutrients still get through where it's not gnawed away. But if you cut that all the way around, then the tree has no way of transferring food throughout its system and it dies.

I also noticed some gnaw-marks on the bases of some other trees, including one of our new saplings. They hadn't been girdled, and were still showing green leaves. But any more gnawing could kill them. So to deter critters from chewing on them any further, we wrapped the bases of those trees in the plastic from the topsoil bags we used in the water line garden, tying them on loosely with some old baling twine I'd salvaged from our friend's hay bales. We'll see if that does the job. 

Japanese Beetles (JBs) seem to love our cherry trees, because the leaves at the top are all eaten up and you can see them hovering around them. We tried spraying them with a solution of herbs that Andrea concocted, but it didn't seen to deter them. They seem to be focused mainly on the top of the tree - but not so much below the top of the goldenrods nearby. That leads me to believe that they're floating in on the wind and not yet coming up out of the ground there.... not that they won't lay eggs there and form grubs next year. We plan to leave the goldenrods that grow up against the tree because they draw the aphids away from it, (in permaculture circles, they call that a sacrificial plant) and it appears they block the flight of the JBs - cuz those guys just seem to sort of hover along wind currents til they bang into something then start eating. They don't appear to be super smart. The goldenrod keeps the wind currents up and over most of the tree, so that's as far as the JBs will go.

We could put nets around the tree to block the beetles from landing there, but then we would also block the pollinators, so I think the next step will be to lure some predatory birds in with birdhouses, birdbaths and bird feeders. 

According to hunker.com ... 
"Starlings, though often considered "pests" at bird feeders, are inveterate beetle-killers, eating both the grubs and the adult Japanese beetle with gusto. Grackles, crows, meadowlarks and blackbirds eat only grubs, while robins, catbirds and cardinals occasionally eat grubs and enjoy adult beetles. Bobwhites, eastern kingbirds, sparrows, blue jays and woodpeckers also might eat beetles. Some vineyards have claimed to have luck using purple martin nests. You can help the birds along by turning the soil in autumn to expose the larva."
According to nestwatch.org catbirds nest anywhere from 3-10ft above the ground in cup shaped nests.
I know we have catbirds on the land because I hear them a lot back in the trees at the bottom of what will be the terrace garden. I'm wondering... if we got a little nest started for them, maybe by twisting a few twigs together into a basket shape, or for that matter, just sticking an small basket into the cherry tree, maybe it'll draw the catbirds up the hill from the woods and into the tree?

Cardinals have similarly shaped nests anywhere from 1-15ft off the ground. I've seen them in the same area as the catbirds. Mostly what we have up on top the hill where the cherry is right now are robins and sparrows.

Though the robins enjoy eating them as larva and as adults, they're mainly ground-feeders, and probably aren't even looking for food on top our cherry tree - which is about 7 ft high now. But the fact that there are no JBs eating the lower leaves could be due to the robins already eating up the grubs that could be under it. So they may already have a niche and aren't looking for a new one.

Starlings live in cavities, like dryer vents. So I think tying something similar onto the fence near the cherry tree could lure a family of beetle-eating starlings into the area too. Maybe a plastic gallon water jug tilted on its side, or come drain tile tied to the fence will lure them in.

There are swallows in the area, as in any area that has barns. I think maybe if I nailed some boards to form an overhang on the tops of the fence near the cherry and nail some chickenwire into cup shapes and add a little clay mud and straw that might bring in some swallows to the immediate area. Andrea wants to build a free-standing swallows' nesting structure.

We've talked about putting up a bat house, too. We have one that Andrea found online. But there is a specific way bat houses need to be set up in relation to sun and environment - explained in detail on batmanagement.com. That seems to be a good option, since we have a creek and woods nearby, and the cherry is on a south-facing hill in a clearing where there's more than 8 hours of sunlight.

One other solution, the smallest solution, might be one of the best. We noticed earlier this year these preying mantis pods all over the place, and, though they're a bit tiny right now, they'll grow. So maybe we can transport a few from the area to the Cherry Tree and put them to work.

Watch for updates and we'll see what happens when we try to lure in some tenants.

Update 8/5/2017

Got our replacement trees super fast from
Burgess. Planted them today. Protecting them from harm with drain tiles and wrapping the trunk in plastic (using the bags the topsoil and manure came in). Shouldn't see gnaw marks on these babies.








Sunday, July 2, 2017

Bros - Not Bros : an Example of Observation

You ever see this one floating around your social media?
I love this! --- But think about this.

You got your nice little permaculturized cob home, growing all these pretty pollinator-attractor flowers all over your door and porch, then all of a sudden you've got Bro's swarming all around your leisure area and your guests are freaking out and your kids are screaming and accidentally getting stung because they stepped on a Bro - then suddenly, Bros can kinda become Not Bros - at least to some folks.

So one day I'm laying in the sun (like I was able to do before I inherited grandbabies full time) and I happened to notice this big scary bumblebee-looking thing hovering around me. I'm a little nervous, wondering if he's thinking about me not being a Bro and maybe he's thinking of coming down and stinging me. So though I appear to be relaxing in the sun, I kinda have one eye open - wondering what he's gonna do.

Suddenly I see another big flying insect wander into the area and BAM - off goes this bumblebee-lookin' guy chasing him off - then he snapped right back into hovering in his earlier position like one of those sci-fi drones. This bee did this the whole time I'm lying there - zipping after every flying insect that came around and chasing them off. They do this all day long.

A few years later I notice another one of these guys on my girl's back deck doing the same thing - and crawling in and out of a hole in a piece of wood, making buzzy noises inside the hole. Turns out to be some sort of carpenter bee.
By Daniel Schwen - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, 
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5550855
Apparently there are a huge variety of kinds of carpenter bees, so I'm not sure which kind, and it doesn't really matter. They work for free and they keep me from having to worry about how I'm going to keep the Not Bros at bay. I've had some bad experiences with yellow jackets in the past - not looking to cross their paths again.

So now we're thinking we should hang a hunk of wood with holes drilled into them so these guys can move in and help patrol the area for all the Not Bros - keeping them away from the kids - and me.


Saturday, May 13, 2017

Saved a Baby Chook yesterday



When I first got this baby chicken she was covered in chicken poop, shivering and barely breathing. I cleaned off the poop with warm water in the bathroom sink, wrapped her in a dry washcloth and tucked her into my Tshirt while I cooked dinner. I tried feeding her water drops off my finger, then later with an eyedropper.



After a while, she started making faint peeping sounds every once in a while. They became more frequent as she wiggled around in my shirt. When her feet started to scratch at my skin I pulled her out and fed her more water. She soon started peeping a lot more.

Cai got a small tote and watched her as I got food and water and cut a piece of chickenwire to cover the tote. Soon she was peeping so loud and frequently that I really felt she needed to go back with momma chook and her big sister. Amazing what a little body heat can do.


Update 7/3/2017






Update June 2020
Still here - and pretty big!


Tuesday, April 18, 2017

Google Earth as a Permaculture Tool

 
Yeah I've written one blog post about it already, but by far the most useful tool I've found so far in planning our homestead is Google Earth, and it warrants deeper investigation.

Using its elevation tool   on the bottom right hand side of the screen...


 ...we were able to plot the contour of the property and lay out possible swales and greywater systems with ease. Plotting the pin location using GPS (more later) allowed us to get a pretty good idea where the property lines lie. By downloading the image and moving it into an image editor we could start drawing in where the best possible locations would be for gardens, houses and critter pens.

To make things even more clear, we drew everything on different layers, so we could turn off the imported map layer, save all the drawings as a PNG file with a transparent background, like this...



.... then upload it right into Google Earth as an overlay right back into the original place. So now everything we plotted is in 3D.

Here's the result:


If you click here you can download the full size version to see the details.

The circles we created with the various numbers on them helped us to measure out areas for better accuracy while we were drawing them in the image editor, though once everything was uploaded to Google Earth we could double check it using Google Earth's measurement tool.

Seeing it all in 3D.....





....lets us get a clearer idea of solar angles, waterflow, and where to plot rooms so they don't interfere with the sun. We can plot where the sun rises and sets at different times of the year, and estimate how the prevailing winds will hit the hillside to best plot wind turbine and pollinator attractor locations.

But mostly, this comes in handy for calculating and plotting swales and water distribution along the property for optimal use. Combined with carrying a GPS while walking around the property and observing things first hand, we could get a little more accurate. By standing next to various landmarks and plotting the coordinates (like property pins) you can find them again on Google Earth and fine tune your locations on the drawings. My GPS app in my phone happened to show the locations in the decimal format, but by using a conversion tool from the FCC I was able to convert them back to minutes and seconds so I could find them on Google Earth by hovering my cursor til I hit the right spot and watching the coordinates bar on the bottom right. 

Google Earth also allows me to write notes in the "properties" box when I plot something directly onto the map (using the 'polygon' or 'line' tools), so when I hover over an element, I can get a text popup that describes, maybe, what I'd like to do with that particular area. I can even add photos if I like.


This can come in really handy if you're working from your PC and want to collaborate with someone else. One more feature about Google Earth is that you can export your saved places as KMZ files, send them to collaborators, and they can open it and see the whole map from their own PC.

Don't underestimate the power of Google Earth in planning your homestead. It can save you a lot of time and work.

Sunday, April 16, 2017

2016 Summary

Life has a way of slowing down your plans. We never really got around to building, but put in more trees and plants and made some more observations.

Last May we had planned the layout and were ready to hire a local excavator to dig a 4ft deep, 72'x36' area out for the first 2 rooms of the house. We set up a time frame to dig and asked the local excavation expert to let us know ahead of time when he was available so we could be there.  He called and said he'd be ready to do the dig tomorrow, and since we live over an hour from the land, we told him we couldn't drop everything on that short notice, so we'd let him know when things slowed down.

Well, we got swamped with work and grandbabies, eventually I sent him an email asking when he could dig, and asked him to give us a few days notice so we could get sitters. He never returned our email, so we thought we'd wait for the heat to let up and try again when things cooled down and our workload decreased.

September rolled around, and we had taken the grandbabies to the Mother Earth News Fair in Seven Springs Pa. We took the kids to Uncle Mud's booth to play around and learn about cob building. We ended up spending most of our time there because his classes were so informative. Specifically, there was a workshop on using pallets stuffed with mud-dipped straw as walls. Initially we'd intended to do tires, then thought earthbags and strawbales, but now this idea really was appealing.

This is the first and only place I'd ever heard of
 this technique. Essentially, you create a bucket of thin clay 'slip', the consistency of maybe a smoothie, grab a handful of straw, swish the straw around in the clay smoothie then stuff it inside the slats of the pallet. As you fill up the pallet with straw, you use pieces of broken pallet to close off the open parts of the bottom of the pallet to keep in the straw. Let that dry and you have a hundred-pound panel that will make a nice, sturdy, insulated wall and a base on which to apply cob and plaster. Stand them on end on top each other, preferably on a couple of earthbags stuffed with gravel to keep moisture away, bolt them to a post and cover with cob and plaster.

I spoke with Uncle Mud for a bit about what we were planning to build, and his first recommendation was to start small. Good advice. We were beginning to wonder if we would be able to get this thing built living an hour away and Andrea starting a new, full time job in Columbus, and me home with the 14 y/o in K12 online school. Starting out really small had a lot more appeal and is a lot more do-able in the few months' of summer vacation time frame we'll have to work in this spring. So we went back to the drawing board.

The plan now is to make something just big enough for us to 'camp out' in next winter and start some seeds the next spring. Sometimes delay is a good thing.