September 21, 2018 Wormfest at Creekside Farm

Never let it be said that our chickens are poorly fed.
Today I tilled two new gardens and the hens had a worm feast.

We have happy, fat, hens.

Normally we give them what everyone else gives their chickens: Layena Pellets from Purina. The pellets have a higher than average percentage of calcium and are not medicated, so the eggs are good and the shells are hard. But they can go through about fifty pounds of the stuff in a week, so we augment the pellets with copious amounts of whole grains we got from a client who had about 3200 pounds of defunct survival food stored in his attic. Mostly wheat (3 varieties),  but there are oats, barley, and corn too. We mix one scoop of grain into their pellets. But they eat quite well here besides.

The vegetables from MacGreggor's Garden, that don't come up to snuff aesthetically, go into the chicken run for nearly instant disposal. If  tomato has a defect, and plenty of them do, then the chickens get a feast. About every three day or so I put five pounds of tomatoes out but they also get beans that grow too large, monster cucumbers, failed melons, and the kitchen scraps from cooking. 

Needles to say, they a free roaming, so there aren't very many bugs on the ground. They chase around all day, browsing bugs and seeds from all around the Farm. Nearly omnivorous, I even seen them eating a dove that didn't pay attention and they occasionally find a vole, or a mole, poking his head up  and chase each other around trying to steal it away for themselves. 

Many of the more mature hens have taken to following me
around whenever I am on the tractor.
They seem to know that I bring good things to the surface.

As Fall comes in and Winter approaches, our chickens are going in very healthy, fat, and happy.

September 17, 2018 Homegrown Harvest Part 2

The nightshade family of plants includes tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, and (surprisingly) Potatoes. We put in five varieties of Tomato, four of peppers, tomatillos and ground cherries, as well as the root crops written up previously.

• The tomatoes did well, and are still doing well. We had a hard time controlling the heat in the greenhouse, but eventually got some 50% shade cloth to cover it so things started growing and producing. The plants in the greenhouse produced very well, and still are, but next year we'll plant them quite a bit differently. Tomato cages made us prune them too much, keeping the yields artificially low. The flavors of the four different varieties came through very well. The few we planted outside did very little production, they seem to like it hot. We feed the dumpy ones to the chickens, keeping only the perfect fruit for ourselves. We would have sold them, but we didn't open the fruit stand this year, so most of the good stuff was given to people as gifts. Ann just loves being able to go pick a fresh tomato from the plant and prepare it immediately.
• We put tomatillos and peppers between the tomatoes and so these got over-crowded. The tomatillos never did anything worthy of eating, but instead gave us marble sized fruit. It had a good flavor, but wasn't a real tomatillo. The Ground Cherries (something like a tomatillo) were also disappointing. We'll try again next year. 
• Our peppers did well outside of the greenhouse, they are coming in this month and we have a ton of them. The greenhouse peppers did some, but were probably too hot and so did not meet our expectations. We also put in "cool" jalapenos which have no heat to them, but haven't found a use for these yet. Ann makes wonderful chili rellenos of the Poblano peppers, superior salsa from the jalapenos. The cool jalapenos are for experimenting.

We grew a lot more than I'll speak of here in this post. Strawberries did well, if only for propagating new plants for next year's success. We'll move them in the Winter to another temporary, but much better, home. But we hope to get them into a vertical garden next year at some point.

The Marijuana crop is as simple as falling from a log, if you get the right seeds. We got the right seeds and so Pot is always a good, easy, crop to grow. We'll harvest it in late October on the eve of the first large rain event and give most of it away to friends and family because these plants put out.

But there were other crops worthy of talking about too:

• Cucumbers produced only enough to eat ourselves or serve to the chickens when they inevitably grew larger than they should have. We did two varieties, a pickler, and a slicer. We will put them in heavier once we open the produce stand.
• The cantaloupe melons did nothing and probably needed better sun. 
• We did eat some nice Sugar Baby watermelons and so will put them in heavy next year. 
• We also did quite well with pumpkins too (even though we don't want to do these as a cash crop). We have Jack-o-lanterns galore.
• Pole peas did enough to tell me how many to put in next year, and how to do it. Peas are not a favorite crop and take a lot of work to prepare, but they will work in the produce stand, if only for show.
• Bush beans produced very well too. These will be given a larger grow next year. I found that sorting them into visually  similar classes made preparation better. The big ones would be for canning, but I doubt we'll can them. The slender ones are spectacular for poaching and quick frying them in bacon fat afterwards. Yummy.

All in all the garden experiment gave me local clues as to how to proceed, and reading gave me ideas for improving the crop next year. I can't wait, so we're working on finding a winter crop to put it and planning the gardens for next year while waiting on paperwork to build our farm house.

September 2, 2018 Homegrown Root Harvest

We started collecting the harvest of root vegetables this past week. Truth be told, we had more ambition than results.

Our onion crop went in late. Purple, white, and yellow onions went in in mostly unprepared soil, fifty at a time. So it was these first planted onions we took. In the end we got a one year's supply of all three, in various sizes, mostly perfect for a small household. We'll use most of the smaller onions for seed next spring. I replanted a bed of onions for winter harvest, but the results will be experimental.  Hiede Hay (Ann) made some wonderful Pico de gallo with our Jalapeno peppers, SanMaranzano tomatoes, and the white onions. Absolutely wonderful on chips or in eggs. The purple onions were lightly spicy on hamburgers a few night's back too.

We got our potatoes in late too and only took about 120 pounds out of the ground as the result. I tried planting them in raised rows, which was an unnecessary step and probably reduced our yields. But there is enough for eating all through them winter and spring, leaving enough seed to increase the planting next Spring. We had three varieties in the ground this year and it seems a good mix.

• Going into the year we were thinking that our favorite potato was going to be the German Butterball. Light yellow flesh (not as yellow as a Yukon Gold, but similar) with a semi-russeted skin that brings some earthiness into the flavor. We tried it in the garden at the old house last year and found it made a great baker or fry. We had a hard time finding seed potatoes this year but got enough to propagate seed for next year's planting, and eat about three gallons this winter.
• The break-out new favorite turned out to be the Kennebec. Super thin-skinned and nearly white flesh. This one makes a masher with flavor that holds up very well against gravy. It does very well in stew, if cooked separately and added at the end. The starch probably breaks down too easily for longer cooking, but the Kennebec  had a great "high end" restaurant appearance and flavor. We got about five gallons for eating and a whole lot of seeds this year. Yummy!
• Once our long time favorite, we also put in the Red Pontiac (now replaced by the more potatoes a-la-mode (above)). We will use the mostly for boiling and cooking with meat,s since it holds up well when being a bit over-cooked. The flavor is not as strong as with the other varieties we tried, but the Pontiac does very well in stew and is extra creamy if served on the side with fish or fowl and is also very nice to look at. We got five gallons from our planting this year and will have plenty of seeds for next year's crop.

None of the radishes or carrots we planted never did much, but we'll have to solve this riddle next year. We did get about three "French Breakfast" Radishes this year (out of two hundred attempts). They had a nice light flavor and tubular appearance which makes it worth pursuing next year. The carrot thing was just disappointing. We'll get them next year.

We'll eat very well this winter and be ready for a proper planting schedule next year.

August 28, 2018 Random Thoughts: Permitted Uses

Dealing with Washington County is a process of confusion, delay, and confounding of plans. The employees at the County are always cheerful, always helpful, but at the same time they are slaves to the process and can't do very much for you. They answer specific questions specifically, but general questions are impossible for them to handle. I have been trying to get some sort of traction on the building permits thing, but the whole process is Byzantine, to say the least.

To build a house is simple. To get permission to build a house is not. The cost of permit applications is relatively low, but the number of permits is relatively high. Electrical, Plumbing, Septic, and building permits are all required. Land use actions, site evaluations, and the people required to provide data used for these decisions are expensive, time consuming, and hard to find.

I have had one County person out to authorize the repair of my septic system. He was very helpful, but the resulting letter needed for me to get a repair permit is weeks in coming, so the septic system permit awaits a letter.

I have a temporary electrical service permit which allows electricity to our tiny home cabin. I never got a permit for the cabin since I think of it as a type of RV and I figured I'd be building once I got the money to do so. Since the County probably won't agree with my living in the house this will eventually give us trouble. The eventual nature of the trouble means that beginning to build, sooner rather than later, might keep our plans in place. But this doesn't seem to be happening so our plans might be rendered moot by the law.

The hang up is in getting surveys and plans, as well as in getting through the County process.

We are allowed to build a house, this is certain; but when we will be allowed is not certain at all, at this point in time. The process is something akin to the bank loan process where it seems that need  complicates things. In a bank loan: the requirement is that you really don't need the money. In a legal house building process: the requirement seems to be that you already have a legal house. Right now I have an illegal house, so the project may have an expiration date which is fast approaching.

Today I looked at rental housing in the area, just in case I have to close up our tiny home until we can build a house to live in. We might be able to buy a legally built trailer to live in while we build, but the County isn't saying anything at this point so all is uncertain.

Yet more delay and expense on the road to building the plan we all agree ought to be built.

August 26, 2018 The Aftermath

Yesterday was far too busy to take pictures, way too busy to write anything down.

The Summer Supper Party was a complete success, with a few provisions. These come first:
I am sorry that I didn't have time to invite all of those people that I would have invited, had there been time. A few special people, family and friends, didn't get their invitation because there wasn't enough time to go out and deliver them in person. My own Mother wanted to come, but there wasn't any way to do it. I am deeply sorry that these important people didn't get to be here. They missed out on a good thing and I owe them one (at least one). But the good thing is the thing, so here is the story.

To begin:
We spent weeks planning this. Weeks were spent building the place to have it. Weeks of hard work went into preparing the place and the plan. . . And, yesterday, it all came together in a spectacular way.

We woke up early to begin cooking all of the food we had spent the previous three days collecting. The amount of food was something of a surprise to us and cooking for this many people in our tiny home kitchen was a challenge all on its own. The number of people we would have to feed was something of a mystery until the Friday, when the RSVPs finally began to roll in.

On Tuesday the number of people committed to coming was twelve. This would have been a disappointing number, but we would have taken it and moved on. . . By Thursday the number had hit a very respectable twenty-six committed to attend. . .  We expected about twenty percent more would simply show up un-announced, and that would have been something near forty (so I went out to rent tables and chairs on Friday). . . On Friday the number of people committed to come to our first Summer Supper had grown a bit. In the end we had over fifty people. We had enough chairs, tables, and space for all of them. But they were coming to be fed, so this was a big thing.

Ann and I spent the entire day cooking, chopping, and otherwise preparing for fifty people. Our plan was to err on the side of generosity, but not knowing exactly how to feed such a large group was a constant worry.

The menu was to serve a Comprise salad, with tomatoes, basil, spinach,olive oil and feta cheese; backed up by shrimp and Chicken skewers, with bread; a dessert of strawberry shortcake, blackberry cobble, and apple crisp; backed up by lemonade, iced tea, beer, and pop. Enough food to feed an army is was what we built on our six foot tiny home counter. How to move the food around took a long time to figure out. And in the end we over-served everyone we could.

I built a greenhouse frame and covered it with shade cloth.
Then lit it with 1100 twinkle lights.
The sun never came, but a light rain did.
No-one were hurt by it.

Guest began arriving at two P.M. instead of the appointed hour (at four). This was a good thing since I needed help finishing the preparations in the outdoor serving area I had built for the occasion. They helped me secure the table cloths and bring things out from the house. The bulk of the crowd came around four o'clock and simply greeting them all, while trying to have conversations with those recently arrived, was a challenge. Before five everyone had come and we began the final push to bringing out the food. Since the drinks were all in place before the people started coming, the crowd milled around while waiting for dinner to show up. Needless to say, Ann and I were quite busy showing people around and trying to keep people from becoming bored. Supper began at around  five thirty. Ann enlisted some help to bring it all out, while I began finishing our pre-cooked meat skewers on a charcoal grill.

By the time I finished cooking, most everyone had eaten their fill. (In fact: Ann and I didn't eat much at all because there wasn't time, and the food had mostly run out. We ate egg salad sandwiches around nine and never got a spoonful of the desserts.)

People began abandoning the party as a gentle rain started at six-thirty. A few had left prior to this, owing to family obligations and the like, but by seven-thirty almost everyone had left. We sat around talking with a few guests until nine o'clock. For us this was a complete success. Again with a few provisions.

• One of our desserts had taken a tumble as Ann went to check on it. The Blackberry Cobbler spilled over the front of the oven and this will have to be taken apart to get the thing clean.
• We bought entirely too much beer. This will have to be used up prior to the New Year.
• We will have to find some way to get rid of the extra food.
• And there is the problem of cleaning up, though this isn't the biggest problem since the place isn't that messed up.

In the end we are very happy about the whole thing and plan on doing it again next year. For the people who came we are very grateful. To the people we missed we are very sorry. For the people who brought gifts we are thankful. For the time we spent in doing this we are glad.

And very glad to be done with the whole thing.

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Someone took a few pictures: