First Garden upset

Last night after going for a swim, I went to the garden for a little dirt therapy, only to find the first 'Garden Upset' of the season.  There, sitting on the side of the lower terrace that I had not planted yet, was a dog turd.  The neighbors rowdy black lab had broken through the deer fence, got trapped, and shat all over the garden.  Not only did I spend my time picking up the neighbors dog shit, I had to also patch the fence, and keep my anger down. 

I can't fault the dog for pooping, chances are it found its way into the garden and couldn't find its way out and thus, walked everywhere and pooped.  It happens. What does trouble me is two things.  This confirms that Rabbits will be able to get in under the fence and that is something I will need to take care of right away, and two, this dog has been a thorn in our side for a while. Since we moved in to the house in October, this dog has routinely escaped his house and made his way over to the trees by our bedroom.  Being the ever vigilant watch dog, he alerts us and everyone around that there is a raccoon or other animal in the area.  While normal dog behavior hardly bothers me, it frustrates me and the Dutch Boy when it is 4 am in the morning.  After several nights of this -granted at intervals over several months- Dutch Boy spoke with the owners, and that issue has not come up in a while. 

Likewise, I am not bothered that the dog comes over to visit. It seems everyone in our neighborhood has the same concept of dog ownership and freedom that I do with Rose my girl.  If Rose needs to go outside, I simply open the door and let her out, trusting her fully to come back when called, trusting that she doesn't tear up peoples lawns, and knowing that she is safe. The neighbor up the street lets their old golden retriever do this, as does the owner of black lab, albeit less so with him.  The golden and my girl are fairly care free, stick around, and do nothing but investigate and sleep in the grass. The lab, well, it is a lab, so it gets into all sorts of trouble. Again, I can't fault the dog for the garden upset, nor can I fully fault the owners, I simply need to be better and make the required changes in the garden so it doesn't happen again. At least we have spare strips of colorful kite material to tie on to the fence to make it more visible till another solution can be found.

Is it worth it?

So, the ultimate question that I have been facing is:  "Is this worth it?"  The question is multi-fold and complicated, as is the answer. The complicating factors and muddy conclusions have left me thinking about this subject for a long time.

First and foremost I must say that the number one criteria for deciding if this is worth it, is financially.  Like many others across the country my pocketbook is the one thing that seems to be perpetually hungry.  I do not spend lavishly, but I do enjoy some of the finer things in life.  Fitness is paramount to me, and the $40.00 monthly investment is an investment in years after retirement, and is thereby justifiable. Likewise, I enjoy wine and beer, but because micro brew beer is not as readily available as it was where I used to live I have given that up in trade for my $7.00 bottle of wine that last about a week and a half.

I have debt that I am trying to pay off, and a job that hardly pays enough to cover the basic expenses. But, the tradeoff is that I live in a beautiful home with a wonderful person, I have access to the land that I love, and I have the people and things in my life that bring happiness.  So, with all of that being said, I am very open to financial trade offs when it comes to deciding if this endeavor is 'worth it'.

Both Dutch Boy and I enjoy good food, but we also enjoy simple food.  Like this weekend Chef brought over some excess from a haul of mussels she harvested earlier in the day.  At the bottom of the pot I dumped in the butter, sauteed two onions, a handful of mushrooms, a cup of wine, tossed in the mussels for some steaming, and topped with fresh cut tomatoes. Served it up with slices of warmed french bread and we ate it right out of the pot.  Now one plate of this in a restuarant would cost us between 15-20 bucks. For us it cost about $4. (onions 35cents a piece roughly x2, tomatoes 50cents a pieces x2, mushrooms 50cents, mussels free, bread 1/2 a loaf $1.50, and roughly 3/4 of a cup of wine from a $7.00 bottle).

Now, like every other would be homesteader out there I have gone through the various financial calculations to see if the above incident (or others like it) would make financial sense. The standard is to take the cost of the meal ingredients/end meal costs and compare those.

*restaurant: $15-20 per person - 30-40 for one meal    Home: $4.00 per meal, with left overs 5 meals.

Then factor in time.  This is the kicker, restaurants and large scale farms are more efficient than I am, or could be, at all of the various tasks of the job. All of the perceived savings are quickly swallowed up by my labor costs if I use the standard calculation of what is an hour of my time worth.

Like many other homesteaders/self growers/gardener wannabees, we realize that this is not mathematically correct.  We are not adding work hours to the work day, or taking away hours from a work day, so making the equation to work wages is not accurate.  What else would I be doing with that time.... watching Spongebob and petting a cat? So, truthfully I am 'working' for free because I am getting enjoyment out of the act.

Additionally, I am seeing an added benefit out of this that is hard to quantify financially. Last night after finishing up with a group of girls from my team, one of my team mates handed me a bottle of freshly made Mead, and Power Puppy gave me a bag of nuts from her recent trip to Texas. So, right there I have an example of how financially this is may or may not be a wash, but the quality of life is greatly improved. How many people that are financially struggling, eat like kings and queens? Twice a week so far I have been able to make a super healthy salad for Dutch Boys pre-soccer meal with mostly garden grown ingredients.  I have added fresh herbs to a few of our meals, and the canned farmed goods from last year is still a few meals waiting patiently.

Next up: How to benefit personally and emotionally from all of this

25 May, 2013

It may not seem like much, but a lot of progress has been made on the homestead.  All of the posts are up and all of the posts are supported.  Even though I decided to press forward ahead of schedule and thereby snap the drill bit. 

Dutch Boy had been following after me and securing the braces to the posts after I drove in the braces with a mallet.  Most of them were done, but I was low on posts and braces, and after a quick trip to the beach with Dutch Boy and a subsequent trip to Ace Hardware.... I was ready to finish the rest.  Maybe a little to eager and ready. 

When pre-drilling a hole through a brace I stepped backwards to steady myself with my bad leg, and my knee crumpled.  Causing me to fall and torque the drill sideways snapping the bit in half.  OOPS! Thats what I get for being to pushy to keep moving forward. 

I had wanted to have the posts in before Super-Mom and Chef arrived, seeing as the posts are not only frustrating, but also confusing.  I had other plans at the start, but since the actual bedrock is about 4 inches below the soil in the lower portion of the garden, I couldn't sink the posts as deep.  After dig down as deep as possible, and back filling with heavy rocks and sand, the braces were still necessary.

While on the beach searching for more posts, Dutch Boy came up with the idea of a arched top over the entrance and found the perfect log.  After the ladies showed up,  he held it in place while I tied some sisal rope around the beams to secure it in place. Small Thing, Super Mom, and Chef gathered cut grass from the freshly mowed lawn, and tacked the deer fence into place.

Small Thing sat in the soil and labeled the plant markers as we spoke of irrational fears and crazy emotions.  It was warming to watch her plant the first two rows of onions and her very own pumpkin.  She may grow to love a garden, as I know I did as a kid.

Chef had brought over some lemon cucumbers, and a tomato as a donation to the garden, and we happily planted them in dedicated mounds in the middle terrace. The blueberry muffins however, ended up as a snack, thankfully free of dirt.

All that is left now is to:
*bring the industrial stapler by, properly tack up the deer fence,
*bury the bottom of the fence to rabbit proof - maybe double up? (get some hair clippings from the Power Puppy)
*add another yard of soil/compost
*plant the 'three sisters' area
*start the first batch of lettuce and salad greens
*plant the tomato/peppers 'trellis?
*plant all of the last goodies!!!
* oh.. and maybe tie some reflective tape to parts of the fence so things and people don't run into it.

YAY!!! Look at this progress, and only after a few hours here and there.  Yesterday I finished leveling the space and moving the excess mulch.  It has been a little bit backbreaking, but good nonetheless.  It feels like I have been working on it for a week, but the truth is that it has only been a few hours on the weekend, two hours earlier in the week, and an hour yesterday.  In the spirit of the homestead, I gave a few wheelbarrow loads of mulch to the neighbors in exchange for using their wheelbarrow.  It took a bit of planning, re planning, and raking to get the remaining mulch in a somewhat level spot.  I decided to terrace it a little bit (mainly because I couldn't bust the clay under the center of the mound).  So the 'lower terrace is the potato and onion field, the center terrace will be the leafy greens and num nums, and the psuedo upper terrace will be the entrance and the 'three sisters' planting.

Yesterday as I was finishing up the last bit of leveling, Super-mom and Small-Thing showed up with a truck load of dirt.  We hoisted Small-Thing up into the truck, handed her the shovel, and had her start to fill the wheelbarrow.  Load after load the lower terrace filled up, and we rushed to get the truck unloaded as the first drops of rain tried to sprinkle down on us.  It became evident as we leveled the soil that one yard was not enough, and we would definitely need more. Thankfully, Super Mom and Small Thing are willing to return in a few days with another load. 

I am really looking forward to this weekend with Super Mom, Small Thing, Chef, and maybe my own Dutch Boy finishing up the soil, posts, fences, and start the planting!  I can't wait for one of the other core members of our group, Power Puppy, to make her way back from the tornadoes of Texas to start getting her feet dirty.

ps. I promised Small Thing a pumpkin of her own (named George) if she keeps helping.

Left on the to do list for the homestead garden project:
* Add more soil
* Install Posts, and place bracing on posts (since the posts are not dug into the ground)
* Put up Deer Fencing (look into rabbit fencing along lower 2 feet)
* Figure out a gate - Maybe this should come before the fencing?
* Start planting
* Lay out sprinkler
* Mulch over starts with left over mulch
* Build and Install Trellis/cages for tomato and pepper patch.
* drink wine with friends.

Start of the Garden

So there is two parts to the garden. There is our 'kitchen garden' and then there is our 'homestead garden'. The kitchen garden is placed on one of the main decks that makes it easy for me to walk out and harvest quick things for a meal. This one I started the plantingfor a few weeks ago and had intended to only have this one garden. But that was before the tree removal talk.  4 Tomato plants, squash, cucumbers, pole beans, sugar snap peas, swiss chard, spinach, lettuce, basil, catnip, some strawberries, oregano, thyme, lemon thyme, and rosemary.  Not super prolific, but just enough to make a quick meal if need be. After the tree cutters came, we noticed they had also significantly trimmed off some limbs that had given us a little bit of privacy on this deck.  Not that we are really concerned with neighbors peeping in, it was just a little weird to get used to.  So, to make it a little better I built a small bamboo trellis to grow snap peas and some climbing cucumbers and squash on.  I am not sure if I picked the right plants as this area is what I would consider the 'shade' spot of the deck.  Due to one remaining overhanging branch, this area only receives an hour or two of direct overhead sunlight, and 4-6 hours of sunset mid to low angle sunlight.  I am really hopping it will be enough.

This garden is off and growing while I get the Homestead one established.  Today Truck-driving-super-mom is bringing over a load of soil to get the beds ready, and I am hoping that I have everything ready for her!  If not... at least there is a bottle of wine and a little bit of sunshine for our efforts!

Starting a collective

So, there were some trees removed from the property, and in their wake there is a decent size spot for a garden. This weekend we began the hard work of prepping the garden site, and while doing all of the research I can, some good news came into my life. I have wonderful friends, ones that are willing and excited to get involved. These friends are just as eager about the garden as I am, and thus have said that they will help out with some of the little bits and ends as long as they can share in the outcome. Am I ever going to say no to sharing my garden yield? HELL NO!! now take another ten pounds of zucchini. This collective arose from the first mumblings of splitting a cow between three families, and looks like it will grow into a group of friends that are beautiful and strong and I am super excited. Each one of the members of 'Our Little Homestead' has a special trait they can offer to the group. One is a vet tech and dog groomer, and has an abundance of clippings that are great for deer proofing a garden. She also has a way with animals, that will make working with 4 lambs on another friends property even more fun. A hidden talent we didn't know about her is her ability to 'pick and pull' large amounts of wool! Who knew that all you had to do was plop a full fleece in front of her and give her a glass of wine and talk about the weather. Another friend has an incredible drive, and an incredible daughter that is a good fount of energy that will be perfectly tapped by letting her loose in the garden. Did I mention that she works for a lawn care company and has a truck. Grass clippings, compost, soil... and a truck! We also have a bona-fide chef in our group that has just recently purchased a cider press. It just so happens that myself and the truck driving super mom have an abundance of apples and would love to make some cider of our own. Maybe even have super mom's husband start brewing some hard cider? Then there is me, the one who seems to take everything and do it full bore and make things bigger than they really are. I am trying to take a step back and sincerely evaluate my ability to perform to the level I want. It was while I had this deep soul searching questioning moment that I realized that the friends around me are going to make this thing work. What are we thinking about right now? I don't know. But, what I do know is that there is nothing quite as great as hanging out in the garden with my best friends, a bottle of wine, and maybe get some weeding done. Along the way I hope to also use this as a record of what is going on, and a means of kickstarting my writing again. Two of the members of the homestead encouraged me to write last year as a part of the National Novel Month, so I already know that the positive influence I need will be there. Till the next time... ta ta... I will bring photos of the garden, and a bottle of wine next time.

A new beginning

It has been apparently too long since I last wrote on here. Not that my writings were consistent enough to warrant more than a fleeting thought amongst the ether. I simply have been so scattered brain that I do not know what to do. Big changes have happened in my life. A year and a half ago I completely started over. My closest ally and husband of several years and I chose to end our marriage amicably, and I moved back to Washington State. It has been both an easy and a difficult transition. So many new things have filled the voids that were in my life, but they have also caused overflow into other realms that I previous thought were stable. For that I am not sure if I am thankful or scared. In a sense even the fear feels good and has the essence of thriving and development. Perhaps I will start over and write again. Perhaps I will finally realize my one true dream of being a published writer. Perhaps, or perhaps I will die in the anonymity that is this pathetic blogosphere.