A year in review...

I certainly didn't blog as much as I would have liked in 2011 (and to be honest, there's still time!), but it was a good year.

In case you hadn't heard, Texas is a smidgen dry.

Dry, and hot.  We had something like 75 days over 100 degrees. 

Now, it normally gets hot in Texas during the summer, but when the large high pressure system moved into Texas and refused to budge, we were stuck with agonizingly long, sunny, hot days with no cool spells to help.  So we waited for rain, and waited, and then turned on the sprinklers for a little bit, and then waited...

And nothing ever came.

But, all was not lost.  The potatoes grew very well.  So well, in fact, that we're looking at selling 2012's bounty at a Farmer's Market, to make a few extra dollars.  The peppers grew pretty well, and the onions did well.  Everything else kind of died off.* While there is not much hope for 2012 as far as reversing this drought, I will plant again and hopefully God will bless us with some much needed rain.  The rain barrels are full :-)

*The tomatoes I grew died off miserably in the heat, and to my surprise, came back to life in September!  We didn't get a lot, but it was neat to see.

One of the major problems with 2011 was "what do we do with all this food!?"  The answer is to preserve it for later, but we did very little preserving.  That should change next year.

So, that's about it for 2011.  I'm sure I'll post a few more times before the end of the year, because 2012 is nearly upon us and I have a lot of work to do.

There was one other little crop that did pretty well in 2011.  It should be "ripe" in a couple weeks or so, and should weigh about 7-8 lbs., and be over 20" long.  :-)

Hoss Wheel Hoe

I want one of these so bad.

Transition

 

The lack of money = the lack of opportunity

It's a sad realization, but it is what it is.  It seems that in every aspect of life, you can have A, or you can have B, but you can never have both A & B.  As I continue to look for land (or land with a house) I'm finding that I just have too many criteria.  Call me a dreamer, but maybe one of these days it will magically fall into my hands.  If not, well, I'll have to compromise somehow.

The three major criteria I have are that: 1) I still need to work at my regular job, which means I need to be able to drive a reasonable distance to work.  2) I would like at least 5 acres (preferably 10), so that I may raise at least 1-2 small cows, along with sheep, chickens, turkey, and whatever else.  3) I need the land to be cheap enough that, when I add on the price of building a house, I'm paying about the same as what I'm paying now.

Obviously the last one is the one that jumps out to most people...many claim it to be impossible (maybe it is), but hear me out; Right now, I'm paying an annual property tax of nearly $4,000.  There is a good chance I would not be paying that much out "in the country," and so when you divide, say, $1500/12 months, that knocks $125 off your payments.

Then, you look at the price of water, electricity, and trash, and you're down even more - perhaps $200 a month (in the summer at least).  With wood heat, preferably free from my woodlot :-)  you've knocked even more money off per month.  So what I am getting at is that, yes, living in the country is cheaper per month, but buying all that land to being with is a very high expense. 

So, getting land.  I could compromise on one of the other two, such as less acreage, or moving father away.  Less acreage is exactly how I got into this predicament to begin with, so I doubt I'll go that route.  Moving farther away has already been ruled out from my dear wife, who doesn't like driving that far to begin with.  So, time to either start saving money, or find a good deal on land / house building price.

Recently I found 4.3 acres in Venus, Texas, which was exactly in the area I wanted, and was very cheap.  It also wasn't that far of a drive.  .  I could have pulled the trigger, but I didn't, because it would have meant compromising on land size, and the land was north-sloping.  It was really hard not to buy that land, but, I'm glad I at least stuck to my "goals."  I let out a big sigh, but I'm not sure if it was relief or regret.  Dang that land was cheap.

Until another day...
Stephen

Pretty awesome little story

http://thecontraryfarmer.wordpress.com/2008/09/02/the-man-who-created-paradise-by-gene-logsdon/

Gene Logsdon is awesome.  It's long, but a great read.

Corn & Furrows

I bought "Delectable" hybrid corn, and when I planted about 50 seeds in 3 rows, I was expecting nice results.  I got nothing (okay, I got 1).  What a letdown! 

Now, I'd like to say this is some type of experiment I had come up with, but what it actually was, was just bad gardening.  I am learning gardening, for the most part, from books and the internet.  So when I heard to plant X" apart in rows spaced Y" apart, I did just that.  I planted something like this:

Now, 3 weeks later with 1 single seeds sprout, I dug it all up and re-planted, but this time, I planted at the bottom of the "trenches" I had dug - so,like this:

Now, obviously my rows were nowhere near that high, but I had to use those exaggerated pictures to show you what I meant.  I have found that the bottom picture (planting in the furrows) worked better.  It seemed to retain water better, and did so without flooding the roots, because eventually the rows flattened out, and water didn't set on the bed.

Anyway, maybe that info can help anyone else.  Perhaps the seeds being raised up on the row-tops, they just needed a lot more precipitation than what they were getting (which should have been plenty, but whatever). 

The first garden-grown strawberry

That.
Was.
Sublime.

:(

I want to post.  Boy, do I want to post.  I just can't.

"Here bring your wounded hearts, here tell your anguish; Earth has no sorry that Heaven cannot heal."

So long, pullets

The last of the illegal chickens are leaving today.  It'll be sad to see them go, but it was fun to raise these little ladies from a day old.  I can't believe when we got them, they were the size of a tennis ball.  Here's a few pics before they leave.

(The chickens secret pen which hides them pretty dang well)

Bye ladies!

Egad! Giant Potatoes!

I don't know why, but these potatoes are growing to be monsters!  Now, it could be that my first year growing them, last year, were just small.  But I think these are just huge.  One of them, for example, is over 2 feet tall, though I have "dirted" it twice, to keep the potatoes growing under the ground.

Here are how the potatoes are looking.

Here are the big ones.

Also in my pictures, you're able to see the garden hose irrigation lines I set up.  Here are a few more pics, where you can see the total layout, and the fittings I used.  Like I posted earlier - pretty simplistic.

The past 2 weeks, I've spent many hours in the garden.  It's so relaxing to be out there, walking barefoot through the soil, picking weeds, the breeze keeping me cool even with the temps in the high-80s.  It's one of the few things that is real work, but puts my mind at ease.  I think the Vitamin D I'm picking up is also having quite the effect on  my mentality - it sure is better than sitting in a flourescent-lit office.

Well that just about wraps up all for today.  I'll have more later!

Borrowed from The Deliberate Agrarian

I, in no way, want to take credit for this - I'll make that clear right off the bat.  I just found this so enlightening and wanted to share with my readers as well.  Herrick Kimball puts out a wonderful blog every month, and this was just a small portion of it.

Find his blog here.

Here is (a part of) what he wrote:

"Every so often I feel the need to reiterate and expound upon the differences between Christian agrarianism, which I espouse, and the industrial order, which I oppose. This is one of those times...

I see industrialism as a usurper, taking, reshaping and reordering all aspects of life as God designed it. The antithesis between God’s order and the industrial order is enormous.

Where God designed simplicity, the industrial order imposes complication. Where God established the beauty of diversity, the industrial order demands uniformity. Where God, for his own sovereign purposes, established inequity, the industrial order declares that there must be equality. Where God mandates decentralization, the industrial order mandates centralization. Where God has declared that man must work and live by the sweat of his brow, the industrial order endeavors to remove this requirement. Where God has said to look to Him as the source and provider of all good things, the industrial order supposes that it will supply all good things, and that all people must be dependent on the industrial providers. Where God thinks and acts multigenerationally, the industrial mindset cares little about the generations to come. Where God says for mankind to trust in Him, the industrial order says to trust in it. Where God has designed sustainability and economy within his creation, the industrial order disrupts, destroys, poisons and wastes creation. Where God created and defined what a family is and how it should function, to best serve Him, the industrial order has redefined and reordered the family, to best serve the industrial interests. Where God declares that a full and rich life does not consist in the accumulation of things and riches, the industrial order loudly declares just the opposite. And, finally, where God has declared what is good and evil and has decreed that there will be consequences for sin, industrialism neither recognizes sin nor believes it has any responsibilities under God."

Ugh, stupid blogger!!!

I try to write often, but I've found recently that the "post at a scheduled" time button doesn't even work.  I have several posts now that I thought were posting, but are still in my drafts.  So dumb.

I'll spread them out over a few days.  No idea why that feature stopped working...it was awesome :-\

Drip system installed!

I'll be sure to get pictures later.  Like most things, I did this in the dark, haha.

So, you can order 250 feet of soaker hose online, but you're going pay a hefty price for it (unless you get the cheap brand that fails after one year...no thanks).  I have debated over what to do with watering, and I've thought of drip systems, sprinklers, soaker hoses, and just watering with a garden hose.  Here's the pros/cons of each:

Drip System
Pros: Long, slow, continuous amount of water provided to plants.  Can be placed right at root level.  Saves money since no water is wasted.
Cons: Expensive to set up, lots of fittings

Sprinklers
Pros: Lots of water provided very inexpensively (since sprinklers are installed in my yard already). 
Cons: Very wasteful of water, due to evaporation and/or wind.  Water is provided from overhead, and must have time to soak through mulch into ground.

Soaker Hoses
Pros:  Water applied at the roots.  Long slow continuous amount of water provided to plants. Cheaper than drip system.
Cons: Some water is wasted, since hoses need to run between rows/plants that is just watering the ground.  Slightly expensive.  Requires lots of fittings.

Garden Hose:
Pros:  Lots of water, versatile to move around.  Very cheap.
Cons: Wasteful due to evaporation/wind.  Annoying to drag a hose to each plant, and very time consuming.

So, what do you do?  Clearly the drip system and soaker hose are the best approaches for the benefit of the plant, but are expensive.  Well, luckily I am an engineer and can never settle for doing things the simple way.  I built my own.

Home Depot was having a great sale on garden hoses, so I bought 300 feet (wow!) of garden hose, for $40.  I created a unit of measurement, which I called a "link," that is a 15-foot strand of garden hose.  Thus, from 300 feet, I have 20 links.  Perfect, since I needed 17 links for the garden.

I also ordered (from Amazon) some 5/8" tees and elbow fittings for these hoses.  I could have done without the elbows, but oh well.  They were a couple bucks. 

Now with my links all cut, and hoses laid out, the fun began.  I tediously walked along and drilled a very tiny hole every foot (or 6", or 10" - whatever the spacing of the plants was).  As of right now, I'm about 3/4 done.  My back said "I'm through!" so that was it for last night.  Then came the test. I plugged a cork in the end of each hose, and turned on the spigot.  It took a little bit to get the pressure up to par, but it finally did, and then I turned it down a bit.  I let it run for 30 minutes, under the mulch, at root level.  Perfect.

In the end, I guess I could add up all of my expenses and it probably would be a little more expensive than the soaker hose plan, but it was a "custom" install, so I'm happy with it.  And it's still a lot cheaper than those expensive drip-irrigation systems.

I'm pleased :-)

Now I have to ask, what will I do when I have a garden that is an acre or so, one day!?  Yikes!

Some questions & tips

Feel free to answer any of these questions, if you know the answer.  I have a feeling on what to do, for some of them, but who knows - I've definitely been wrong before!

1)  It would be nice if everything sprouted on the same day, grew & bloomed at the same rate, and was ready to harvest on the same day.  Unfortunately that is not the case, at all.  I have some potato plants that are barely peeking through the mulch (~0.5") and some which are over 6" tall and HUGE.  According to my Gardening Guide (the best vegetable book ever written for Texans), I need to "dirt" the plants once they reach 5-6", with 3-4" of dirt thrown on the base of the plant.  Like I said above, though, I may have one plant at 6" tall next to a tiny sprout.  I've just started dirting the ones that are growing strong, and go back later over the ones which are lagging behind.  It will be interesting, because there's only so much dirt to be thrown on top, lol.

2) The question that I seem to never get a straight answer on: If I'm planting in a ridge-and-furrow style, which I am for cucumbers, corn, beans, strawberries, and potatoes, where would you put the soaker-hose for watering?  I've heard to lay it in the furrow, because it encourages the roots to grow down, and become stronger.  I've questioned these people, as to how the seedling would get water to sprout, and how the roots would reach down (about 4-6") to even reach the water?  I never can get a straight answer.

3) Here's a tip - potatoes can be grown in rows 2 feet apart, but that is probably about the limit if you plan on dirting the plants. 

4) Hey, let's throw a random one in here...does anyone know how to keep chicken from drying out when cooking stir-fry, or in a crock-pot? 

5) Though I don't have any pictures yet, I'll be sure to get some.  I'm using 4 (or 6 if I can find another) T-posts and some binding wire, to make a growing trellis for my beans.  Simply put a post at each end of the row (and more in-between if you have very long rows), and tie the binding wire between them.  Add a turnbuckle on one end if the wires start to sag...I don't really know if the binding wire will sag or not, but I imagine (like most things) it will a little.  That will just have to be a trial & error deal.

Other than that, the garden is growing VERY well so far!  Almost all the beans sprouted yesterday, the potatoes are still huge, and the strawberries are taking off.  The peppers have been planted, with some more to plant later.  Corn still hasn't sprouted, but it's been so dry, I don't really expect them to until the middle of this week.

Thanks for stopping by.

What's been planted

Corn was planted on Saturday.  I planted three 15-foot rows, and I'll do three more rows in a couple weeks.  I planted several varieties of cucumbers (bush and trellising), hoping to have better luck than last year.  I also planted my beans & southern peas last Thursday.  The garden is just waiting to explode with green!

The potatoes are doing pretty well - odd though.  Some are HUGE and some are very tiny.  They'll come up, eventually.  Patience is a heck of a virtue when gardening.  So is weeding, lol.

The strawberries are doing well, also, but I was hoping they'd be a little further along than they are.  Part of that is likely due to lack of rain.  It hasn't rained here in over a month and a half.  I'm hoping to pick up some soaker hose on Friday, and rig up a watering system.

Last Saturday I was at Home Depot, strolling through the pepper/tomato plants, and I got to thinking "isn't it too early to plant?"  After looking at the weather, I now realize that we had a very early last-freeze-date this year, which is great.  Hopefully that doesn't mean we're going to smash heat records this summer, though.

As I mentioned in my previous post, things have been a blur of insanity lately.  I wish I could get back to reading some books, that I've started and haven't finished.  Seems like every time I get going, something comes up at work, or home, or elsewhere.  :-\

Either way, I'm glad to be able to have the time I do to spend in the garden.  So peaceful and eases a lot of stress.

Clearly a conspiracy

It's funny how when I claim I will post more, I post less.  I think the government is behind it...lol.

So, why the long absence?  A variety of reasons, but most notably, the hospital.  I've been at the hospital for about a week straight, because my sister had severe abdominal pain.  I won't go into all the details, but let's just say that there are some EXTREMELY incompetent people working here in town, and at the third hospital, they ended up removing a cyst the size of a baseball, and her appendix.

So honestly, the garden hasn't been at the top of my list, in the season which it should be.  Luckily I was able to take a few "sanity" days off from work and get it back on track.  The potatoes were plated, as well as strawberries, and now the beans & peas have been planted.  I slightly altered the layout when I figured I could add another row by merely knocking 6" off the pepper row-spacing.  Big deal - the minute crowdedness that will come about shouldn't matter in the grand scheme of things.

The blackberry plants are flowering well, and the onions at the north side of the garden are growing strong.  The south side doesn't get as much sun (yet) so they're not fully-growing.  So far, 27 out of ~80 potatoes have bloomed, and that's likely due to the other half being the Yukon Gold (or was it Red?) that bloom later.  The carrots have finally begun to sprout, but are still very very tiny.

It is a very warm Spring here, so far, so I'll probably plant the corn early next week, followed by Tomatoes and Peppers.  I am beginning to think our last freeze already occured (pretty early).

So, back to work.  Thanks for checking in!

Marching into the garden

If you've read this far, I appreciate you not leaving after that terrible pun of a title.

So, I ended up going to Ace Hardware and renting a front tine (urgh, the rear tine was still broken so they are selling it) tiller.  I brought it home, cleverly unloaded it by myself with a big board, and then started tilling away.  What a great tiller!  Very simple, no crazy knobs, buttons, etc.  And it made quick work of the garden.  I finished tilling all of the garden in less than an hour, so that was nice, because I only had to pay $8 :-)

Here's how the garden stands now.  I'll try to get pics of the actual garden tomorrow when it's light out again.  Needless to say, it's finally coming along.

(Click on the image to enlarge)

Well that is all for now, because I'm running late for church.  Thanks for stopping by.

And to end February

February went out with a bang today, ending our weeks of 60s/70s temperature by getting down to 34 last night.  One last horrah.  Thank you February :-)

I have been reading through an incredibly detailed, incredibly useful link on Poultry.  There is a lot more info than just poultry, but I'm not ready for that stage.  Here's the link, start reading!

http://www.themodernhomestead.us/article/Poultry.html

I got in all my seeds over the weekend.  All I lack now is the strawberry plants (set to come in & be planted this week), and I'll be all set.  Also, 2 of the pullets will be going to live on a farm - literally, not metaphorically - today, and another 2 will be going to live with Tara at another time shortly. 

The last thing for the week, probably, will be the renting of a rear-tine tiller from Ace Hardware.  My front-tine tiller broke again, and I'm just tired of dealing with it.  You can't beat $8 to rent a $400 tiller!

See you in March!

Random Thoughts

I've now completed day 3 of the P90X workout video series.  WOW.  It is brutal, but I feel amazing already.  And sore, very very sore.

I got my bloodwork results in today; all looks good!  That's great to hear...now to eat healthier than I have been.

Another windstorm hit us today, but we lost no fence posts.  Thank goodness...

The house next door to us sold.  Maybe they'll be the bees knees and won't care if we have chickens?  Heh...

That's really all for now...not too much happening.  We did get a nice soaking of rain, so the potatoes have a nice kick-start to their growth.  Can't wait till next week - the entire garden is getting tilled, and the Strawberries will be planted.

Have a great weekend everyone.

Exercise

I had a doctor's appointment last Friday.  It was the first appointment I think I've ever had where nothing was really wrong - I just went for a general checkup.  That's not to say I'm not at the doctor often - if you know me, you know that I have many, many, injuries every year, and I practically have my own room at the local doctor's office and Emergency Room.

But this time, it was a little different.  I turned 25 the other day, and decided that I would rather know now if I need to change something in my lifestyle, rather than finding out 5 years from now, sitting in a hospital bed.  I'm not stupid; I know I don't eat the healthiest, so I figure my cholesterol is probably a little too high.  Luckily my blood pressure is perfect, I'm not overweight, and I try to be very active.  The thing that made me consider doing this was when some VERY bad storms hit while I was hunting one day.  The lightning was frequent and getting closer.  I decided sitting in a metal deer stand was probably not in my best interest, and took off running with my gear pack (it probably weighed about 20 pounds).  The distance from the stand to the truck was a tad over 1,000 feet, or about 1/5th of a mile.  I had to stop and rest on the way back to the truck - in doing so I was literally ashamed (not to mention scared out of my flipping mind from the lightning which had just hit 15 feet away from me).  It was such a helpless feeling...I was so fearful for my life in this crazy storm, but I had absolutely no energy, no drive, to push and keep running.

I brought this up to my doctor.  Sadly, I have been plagued by incredibly painful arches over the last year.  He suggested trying one more thing, then going to orthotics;  regardless, running a few miles like I used to is now out of the question.  I'll need to work out inside the house, but I am not the kind of person who enjoys getting on a treadmill for an hour and mindlessly walking 5 miles.  No thanks.  But there is one thing I am now intrigued by - perhaps you've heard of it.  It's called P90X, and from what I hear, it is a brutal kick in the groin.  It's going to really suck the first 2 weeks or so, that is guaranteed, but after that I'm hoping it will help my energy level rise, as well as help me to be more active.  I often think back to that day in November and feel how helpless I was, and I never want to feel that again.  There's a lot of things we as humans have no control over, but I feel I should at least be able to run for my life.

I'll admit, this is a weird post.  But you get what you pay for :-D

Peaceful

When doing the nighttime chores (locking the chickens in, refilling feed & water, etc), I have found that, while it takes a few extra minutes, it's such a peaceful feeling to do the chores in the dark.

After a while, my eyes adjust to the starlight and moonlight, and the calmness sets in.  All the animals have just about gone to sleep for the night, and the crickets play a song as the moon casts shadows in the dark.

Goodnight everyone.

Planting Dates

As I was working all day in the garden yesterday, when I planted onions and carrots, I remembered that I had not posted the planting dates.

I like to plant onions, carrots, and lettuce earlier than this (February 19th), but oh well, that's just the way it goes.
Potatoes I like to plant between the Full Moon in February and President's Day.  This year, that date range is the 18th - 22nd.

Strawberries will be planted March 1-8.
Corn, Beans, and Cucumbers will be planted sometime between March 20 and May 1.  According to my 2010 gardening journal, I planted these on April 4th.  It just sort of depends on the weather at the time.
Shortly after the Corn, Beans and Cucs, the Tomatoes will be planted between March 25th and April 15th.
Next, the Peppers will be planted sometime in the month of April, followed by the Southern Peas being planted between April 1 and May 20th.
Cantaleoupe, a big letdown from last year, will be planted sometime between April 5th and May 1st.
I don't have a schedule made up for the Fall planting dates, but I plan on getting one together soon.  There are many vegetables that grow much better in the fall, here in Texas, thanks to the incredibly hot summer ending.

Some other gardening notes:

On the lasagna method, which I spoke about a couple posts ago, I have run across one negative...well maybe.  Most tillers (at least the one I use, for sure) cannot till through all the hay, so you'll have to rake the hay out of the way, till, then rake it back on top.  It kind of stinks, because I wanted to till the hay into the ground.  But I guess having a thick layer of hay mulch will be pretty awesome.

Completely unintentionally, I "planted" a cover crop over a portion of my garden last fall.  What actually happened was, I put down wheat straw, and the wheat seeds germinated, then grew :-)  So after it started to grow, I thought "why not, cover crops are good."  Well now that it's time to till it all in, I sorta wish I had a horse and plow, because this stuff is FIRMLY rooted into the ground.  That's the point of wheat as a cover crop, but probably is not realistic for such a small scale garden.  It took a long time to get it uprooted, and that was only about 20 square feet of wheat grass.  Notice this clump of wheat grass - the root structure is incredibly thick and intertwined, and (you'll just have to trust me on this) is very hard to separate.

Planting Onion plants

I thought I'd write up a little how-to on how I planted the onion plants I bought ($0.89/60, not bad!).

First, I tilled the few square feet where the onions were to be planted.  I flattened the ground so digging furrows would be easier.  I then used my hoe, or my hands, to dig a furrow.

I took a handful of onion plants and started setting them in the furrow about 4-6" apart.

I then simply pushed the soil back onto the onions, which are now at about 1-2" deep in the furrow.  I then compacted the ground around the stalks, to provide good root-to-soil contact.  I did not do that last year, and I believe that with this tip, I should have a better production rate.

 Well, that about sums up everything from this weekend.  What a beautiful weekend it was, and it was great to soak up the sun outside.  I can't wait to see what this year's garden holds in store!

Thankfulness

I wrote out a long post about how difficult things have been lately, with such an incredibly large amount of work at my job.  But then, I deleted it all.

I'm so extremely thankful for the opportunity to even have a job, much less make a great salary and so much more.  Complaining just seems so wrong when there are millions of Americans without a job, a home, or money.  So help me out - let's all be grateful for what God has blessed us with, even if at times it can be extremely stressful.

Shh!

"We're not supposed to be here!"

Tilling around chickens

Due to all the mayhem lately, very little has been done in the garden.  The lasagna method of soil preparation seems to have REALLY worked well.  However, for those interested in trying it, I do have a few suggestions.

• Horse manure is great - there are far less weed seeds than cow manure.  The areas with cow manure have considerably more weeds than the areas covered with horse manure.
• The manure that you choose, try to find it "fresh."  The manure I used had been composting for a couple of years.  Although it is a great soil additive, it didn't really heat up, which is part of what you're aiming for.  
• The hay on top - use the best you can find.  Usually it will be called "Coastal Bermuda."  Buy a lot in the summer before the prices go up and quantities diminish near Halloween.
• Be sure to spray it down with water if you haven't gotten precipitation for a while.
• Use thick cardboard if you live in a very wet area.  If you live in a dry area, use thinner cardboard.  The wet soil will decompose the cardboard faster, so obviously the wetter places can get away with thicker stuff.

Now that it is nearly Spring, it's time to rototill all of this back into the ground.  Problem is, there are chickens in the garden.  They're not terribly easy to move, either.  So I'll just have to rototill around them (I'm sure they'll love that).  Actually I will probably lock them inside their coop so they aren't frightened.  With the lasagna method, I shouldn't have to till too deep - probably just around 6-8".  I had put around 6" of horse manure on the soil, then covered it with hay.  It has now settled down to about 3" high, so that will give me a good combination of original soil and manure.

Obviously the most critical areas of the garden are the areas where things need to be planted immediately.  Unfortunately, that's a TON of area.  The entire potato area needs to be tilled by next Tuesday (2/22/11) and the Strawberries will be planted two weeks after that.  The peppers, corn, and tomatoes have a while, so they aren't of immediate concern, but I think it would probably be in the best interest to go ahead and till them since I'm out there.  Since I planted the onions last night, I will have to be very careful tilling around those as well.  

Well, on to the hard work!  

And now, for a recap.

(Note that I wrote this post a couple weeks ago, so when I say "it is" it should be "it was" etc.)

Since Blogger was causing me so many problems, and it now appears to be working, I thought I'd give a recap of all the things I wanted to post!

Yes!  We now have chicks! We went out to Terrell (about 30-45 min. east of Dallas) and picked up 4 six-week-old pullets, and 2 two-day-old Silver Laced Wyandottes.  The chicks are currently living in a small brooder, and will "graduate" up to the bigger brooder in a couple weeks.  The bigger brooder is being used (although a tad cramped) by the pullets, because....

IT'S FREAKING COLD!  The temps in North Texas dropped...like a brick of lead in the ocean.  I'd say the average temperature for the last day or so, and for the next couple, has been in the mid-teens.  At night it's getting down to around 13* F, with a wind chill far into the negatives.  The entire Metroplex is covered in a thick layer of ice (locally about 1" - 1.5" thick).  There have been rolling blackouts, frozen pipes, and wrecks galore.  Animals are living in the house, and going outside requires 10 minutes of preparation.  The dogs are afraid to pee out of fear!  Not only did all that hit, but, a portion of the fence fell in the storm (that makes 10 posts snapped and 15 fallen panels since moving in).  Because of that, we couldn't house the chickens outside.  They are illegal chickens, and if the neighbors behind us saw them, we'd for sure get written up and they would be removed.  It sucks, I know.  But those are the crappy rules.

And yet, I had jury duty.  Not city, but county, which meant 9 hours of sitting and waiting in downtown Ft. Worth (only to be told I was dismissed, yahoo!).  This just happened to coincide with Superbowl XLV being held RIGHT down the street, and mass chaos ensued all week.  Remember the ice from above?  I'm sure you heard about how big of a disaster the Superbowl was thanks to it.  

So eventually I am working from home, during the "Snowpocalpyse."  Going well until...bam! hit by a ton of bricks, aka the flu.  I've never had the flu, and wow - the flu had my number.  That number was 102, as in degrees Fahrenheit, for three days.  Needless to say, nothing got done around the house.  When we were finally able to drag ourselves to the kitchen, we found that the pipes had frozen (see Snowpocalypse, above).  "Life is so cruel," we thought....

But now, life is back to normal (*is life ever really normal around here?).  The pipes are unfrozen, there are illegal chickens eating bugs in the back yard, there are 2 chickens sitting on our dining room table, I no longer have the full-blown flu, and best of all, the dogs are no longer fearful of frozen pee.

Life is great around here.

Potatoes!

My most favorite thing to grow, potatoes, will be bought today.  To me, it's the "kicking-off" of the gardening year! 


More to come later.  Obviously there has been a big lacking in the posts lately (even after I promised to post more).  Well there's...adequate...reasoning.  But more on that later.

Blogger

I am having a TON of problems with this website (hence the absence of posting for the last week).  Nothing is posting when I tell it to post, and half the time the website isn't accessible.  Argh!

Anyone else experiencing things like that?

Defining Liberty - A Short Essay

Warming: This article may be hazardous to your health and readers are encouraged to not participate in such a dangerous reading activity ;-)

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I see a lot of regulations these days, and my mind constantly retreats to a specific dream I once had.  The dream was of a man and his wife, living in the foothills of a discrete mountain.  He and his family had lived here for years, decades even, after his ancestors arrived in the push across this great country.  He and his wife were happy people; they lived in a cottage they built themselves, heated their house through the cold winters with wood they cut and split, and ate the food they grew and killed on their property.  It is obvious that this was merely a dream, because these people paid no property taxes!  Their lives were a constant - never bothering anyone and never bothered.  They just...were.


In today's world, however, this sort of ideology would never last.  You see, one has to question, when skimming the news headlines for all of 15 minutes, how we as humans made it to the year 2011 without the invention of such institutions as the post-1920s American Government, the Food & Drug Administration (FDA), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and similar agencies.  Surely life before these came about, life was filled with terrible, disease-ridden people who lived only until they drank some raw milk, or perhaps burned an outdoor fire without a permit.  Afterwards, they were sure to fall over dead.  

Give me a break! People have lived for thousands upon thousands of years without these invasive agencies and will continue to once these agencies are gone.  I don't deny that the agencies were formed in good reason, but the monster they have morphed into is an all-consuming, all-regulating giant.


Recently I began thinking, "what is true liberty?"  Liberty is defined as: freedom from arbitrary or despotic government or control.  I much prefer an alternate definition, though: freedom from control, interference,obligation, restriction, hampering conditions, etc.; power or right of doing, thinking, speaking, etc., according to choice.

When we think back to the American pioneers and frontiersmen, we think of men, women, and children who lived nearly as if they were the only ones on the Earth.  I'm sure they had interaction with others, occasionally, but for the most part they lived alone, working to provide a better means for themselves.  They used America's natural resources to provide sustenance and life - and they did so without applying for permits, taking OSHA approved safety courses on how to operate their tools/machinery, and they did so completely free of being told how to do it.  Why is this so important to me, and others like me?  Because at that point in time, and only a few years beyond it, did Americans exhibit pure liberty.  I believe that if we, as Americans, want to regain control of one of our founding virtues, then we need to return to an Agrarian type of life.  The caveat to this is that it would undoubtedly require work.  Work is seen by the lazy as unnecessary - something that can be done by others.  And because this laziness infiltrates just about every nook and cranny of America (more specifically the cities), America has very few options to correct it.  I would like to venture out more into that topic, but I am limiting this essay to, mostly, defining liberty.  I have a strong feeling that America will either be forced to enter an agrarian lifestyle, out of an incredible economic depression, or that America will become a country no longer based on independence and liberty, but rather on a Socialist/Communistic style of economy & government.  I am not intending to make some sort of political statement; I just feel that in order to satisfy the overwhelming (and growing) lazy portion of the population, things will change.

Liberty was once at the core of the American soul.  It was something that was respected and loved, but most of all, Americans were liberty.  When the country at risk of being run over by tyrants, it was the liberty that kept them going, kept them fighting.  Liberty was not granted to them by an agency.  It wasn't something one could apply for and exercise at another's discretion.  Liberty was, simply because interference was not.

The Most IMPORTANT Video(s) You'll Ever See

That's the title of a video series I saw recently.  Dr. Albert A. Bartlett is the professor pictured in the videos, and he is giving a lesson on population growth (among other details).  Dr. Bartlett has made 2 notable quotes regarding sustainability.

"The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function."

"Can you think of any problem in any area of human endeavor on any scale, from microscopic to global, whose long-term solution is in any demonstrable way aided, assisted, or advanced by further increases in population, locally, nationally, or globally?"

reference

I urge, no, implore you to watch these, as the subject of the video series has such an incredible effect on our future.

I was going to divide this 8-part series into 2 posts, one posted today and another posted tomorrow, but it's segmented kind of strangely, so I will post all 8 (which totals about an hour).  I would recommend though, watching it over a couple days if you don't have a lot of time (like me).

 

 

 

 

An incredible passage

From the current book I'm reading, The Great Frontier, by Walter Prescott Webb.

When these first men, many of them smarting under the man-made restraints of economics and religion, came to America they indeed and in truth entered a new world.  It is with difficulty that I find language to express its newness to the children of civilization.  In driving across the vast expanses of America I have often tried to visualize it as it was in this beginning, not the beginning of America, but the beginning of the European's experience with it.  Even at the distance of four hundred years, more or less, I find myself caught up with the combined emotions of wonder, amazement, and awe.  Here were new forests, new soil, and new streams; here was new silence and immensity, too silent and extensive to be broken by a single individual or by any number then available.  How small man feels in such presence.  But with this consciousness of insignificance goes that of elation which comes why man feels himself blended with nature where his vision is unobstructed and his acts unimpeded by other men.  What men had done to him all his life now fell away in a single instant: nowhere was there policeman, priest, or overlord to push him around.  All the barricades that men had placed around him came down, and he stepped forth freer of man than he or any of his fellows had been for a very long time.  Then and there he took a long step toward democracy, not political democracy but psychological, social, and economic liberty without which political democracy cannot long endure.  Though the European walls had fallen away, new ones rose around him, for he stood in the presence of a new master.  That master was nature, the forests and plains, the streams and deserts, the wind and the weather.  It is doubtful if man should be asked to change from one master to another with such contrasting temperaments.  Civilization shouts, gives orders, writes rules, puts man in institutions, and intimidates him with a thousand irritating directives.  In return it offers him protection, soul salvation, and a living if he can find it.  Nature looks down on him and broods in silence.  It never shouts, writes rules or builds prisons, and it makes no suggestion about destiny or the future.  Its noises of running streams and wind in the trees are its own, not directed at but soothing to him because he heard them before he heard the noises of civilization.  Nature makes no promises, writes no insurance, and cares not for the soul.  It is passive, receiving whatever is given to it, never striking back for vengeance or justice.  Thus frontier man became the only active agent on the scene, and his acts were unrestrained by other men.  In Europe, the theme of life was man against man, man against civilization; but on the frontier the theme was man against nature.  

 

Tranquility

Some days, it's good to mix it up.

Like when you decide, "you know, I think I'll dress very nice today" rather than tennis shoes and old jeans.




...



Then unexpectedly, government auditors show up at work to meet with you, and...look at that! You look like you knew the whole time. ;-)



by the way, great news!  I got my computer working again, finally!  So expect to see quite a few more posts now.

2011 Garden Layout

The garden layout is finally done!  As I've said before in past posts, I'm extremely (read overly) analytical about this stuff, and this is probably completely unnecessary, but hey - it gives me something to do in the months when there is no gardening to tend to.

You can find the 2011 garden layout link at the top of my blog, or by following this link.

You'll notice, there's quite a substantial size difference between 2010's gardens (a total of ~98 sq. ft.) and 2011's gardens (a total of 872 sq. ft.)!

12 days late but who cares?

I am not one to make New Year's resolutions.  I don't make them because I disagree with the whole premise of "I want to change something about myself, so I'll use New Year's as a starting point."  My personal opinion is, if someone was really motivated to change something, they would do so any time of the year.  But off my soapbox...it just so happens I have started really diving into some books/articles lately, and they are changing my long-standing opinion on many things.  So having ranted above about not making resolutions, I change my approach and say that I am changing some things (but I promise, it's only because it happened to coincide with the beginning of the new year!).

I was reading an incredible article about the failure incredible short-comings of our public school systems (link here) and though the article is deserving of its own post, I did take one thing in particular from it that made me think.  John Gatto writes:


One afternoon when I was seven I complained to him of boredom, and he batted me hard on the head. He told me that I was never to use that term in his presence again, that if I was bored it was my fault and no one else's. The obligation to amuse and instruct myself was entirely my own, and people who didn't know that were childish people, to be avoided if possible.

I cannot tell you how many times a day I will think or say "I'm bored."  It has to be dozens of times, and Gatto's grandfather makes a great point - the only one who can affect it (most of the time) is me.

Another thing I'm planning on venturing into is risk. In many aspects of my life, I'm a very safe, life-in-a-bubble, kind of guy.  I want to venture out and do things, but don't due to the risk involved.  But forget that! Time to make things happen, time to see just what can be accomplished when I take a leap.  After studying my ancestry for the past few weeks, I'm simply amazed at the incredible risk these pioneers took.  Leaving family, likely never to see again, and moving to the middle of a hostile environment, solely so that they could be independent & free - not like what we think of today (our rights per the Constitution) but actually free.  It sort of reminds me of the "if a tree falls in the woods..." question; if a pioneer lived somewhere, and he/she had no knowledge of governing entity, and vice versa, isn't that true freedom!? 

Now it sounds like I'm campaigning for no government - I'm not.  I'm just pointing out how risky our ancestors lives were, and how they knew a life that we will likely never see, and it excites me to find out a little more about it.  After all, the name of this blog is Chance the Rapids!  A metaphor for taking risks and living life to the fullest! :-)

I guess I'll finish the post for today with one last resolution.  Thanks to all my blog followers (hopefully I'll have more in 2011!), and my last resolution will be to actually be somewhat-consistent in my blog posts.  But, know that in down times, I'm going to have to blog about some random crap to fill the void!

Have a wonderful 2011, everyone.

Quiet on the homefront

The snow came trickling down on Sunday...first a flake here and there, then, what felt like a blizzard.  Although we were projected to get several inches, my area did not receive more than a dusting.  Some areas, about 40 miles away, did get 3-4 inches, and lots of kids were making snowmen yesterday :-).

Because of the inconsistently cold weather, I haven't done a whole lot outside; though, there's not a lot to do anyways.  Everything has turned that light brown color that winter brings, and though I love winter, I sure do hate that color.  After numerous revisions to the garden layout, I think I've finally picked all the locations & seed varieties I want to order (I'm not liking the price, though, heh).  I'll have to upload a diagram in a couple days.  I should be able to take advantage of our short cold-half of Spring, when the greens are growing, by removing them and planting Cantaloupe.  They wouldn't live into May anyways.

I also checked out the Farmer's Almanac for 2011, and saw the same prediction as 2010's summer - "Sweltering hot and very wet."  I don't know...last year was hot, but not sweltering.  And while it was rainy, it was only for about 3 weeks, followed by months of drought.  Oh well, at least it predicted a low number of tornadoes.

Well that is all for now.  Stay warm by the fire!

What I'm reading...

This book is deep!  I'm loving it so far.  It's the first book in a while that has really challenged me - somewhat complex in it's points and reasoning, but overall very good.  I'll have a full review later down the road when I finish it.