Halloween, End of October

The experimental Winter Garden is in. All covered up. I have 60' of Fava Beans planted, with staggered harvest dates. I know, not so much for the Overgardener, but I'm fairly indifferent to Fava Beans. I have 30 Broccoli plants going...how they will overwinter I have no idea, although they are under row covers. This is experimental. I planted eight types of garlic, only 120' there. Some onions...in both gardens. Cabbage, winter lettuce, carrots, chard and corn salad round out the winter greens menu. Now I have nothing to do during November except garden clean up, and occassional watering. December will bring a new experiment...a surprise.

Ta Da!

The roof is on! Now we can run around in the rain and celebrate!

Confidentially, we already had what might be the biggest rain storm of the season. Without a roof. This house was a swamp. The walls (luckily concrete) steamed every time the sun hit them. We wouldn't have had this issue if the block had gone up as easily as we were promised. Our labor costs and time for the walls were 3 times our estimate.

So, the final vote on AAC, Aerated Autoclaved Concrete is in....thumbs down. It's been more time (extra month) and about $20K extra over stick built. The support was non-existent. We will not build with this product again. We would not recommend this product, Hebel Block, to be used in California.The entire experience was a horror show (suitable for All Hallow's Eve) the guys would rather have done without. None of them wants to touch this product again. Nyet. Never.

Okay, It's Not Pretty

This is the view from the back of the house...which was, if you've read earlier posts, intended originally to be my husband's garage...his "shop". Above, you see his "parts truck". Notice that it is up on blocks. I don't see this truck moving anywhere in the future, do you? This might always aggravate me. Unless...Luckily for us all, I'm a visionary. I envision this truck as my new "duck coop". I imagine the little quackers will be very happy in there. As far as I know, DH Matt has no plans for the upholstery. Just as well, don't you think?

Frantic Work

So, work has been frantic. The work on the house has been frantic. And, the garden work has been...frantically busy (really, one can't be frantic in a garden). This four-season gardening is new to me. And, it's a lot of work. The few Winter crops I have chosen to grow are all experimental. I have, under row covers, corn salad ( winter-hardy type of lettuce), turnips, chard, bok choy, cabbage, and broccoli. I have starts of peas (again, experimental) , some of which I'll plant in the garden under row covers and some of which I'll grow in the greenhouse.

Speaking of the greenhouse, it didn't fare too well in our first storm of the season...which was a whopper of a gale, often gusting to 60MPH. The toll: three broken windows and a blown off roof panel. So my greenhouse is not workable this Winter, as DH Matt is still working on the house build and has no time for the greenhouse.

I've been planting garlic and onions...lots of both. Today I hauled hay bales in my Subaru (not sometime I'd recommend unless you're fond of spitting out straw) to the garden and mulched. Hours of mulching later, I had my potatoes and fava beans nicely nested into straw, as well as the garlic covered to eight inches. I also laid sections of newspaper over the paths and mulched them with straw. Anything to avoid hours of spring weeding.

My experiment with "root cellar" storage of turnips, rutabega, and daikon radish has left something to be desired. Perhaps...yes, a root cellar. Lacking one, I put my bushel baskets in the garage.
Our Northern California winters are different from the East Coast where I grew up. There, at the end of September it is decidely cold. Pumpkin harvests are accompanied by warm cider, a definite neccessity. Here, although it will during the winter snow quite a bit and get down to 17 degrees above zero, it does this ever so gradually. We have many 75 degree weather days even at this time of year. My root vegetables are becoming soft, and sprouting more greenery. As far as they are concerned it is spring, time to take off and go to seed. (sigh)

Take Your Banker to Lunch Day

This is a friendly reminder that tomorrow, October 13, is Take Your Banker to Lunch Day. As you may recall, this is a gentle transition for the Bankers as they ease into the post-Columbus Day long holiday while nursing a hangover. It is , discreetly, the anniversary of another hangover, the takeover of bankrupt Lehman Brothers by Nomura Holdings, Inc. A foretelling of the future, perhaps, as power and money transition from West to East. And for you, it is your chance to put a personal face on the public whom they lunch off of every other day.

Please bear with me as I cover some of the finer points of Bank Lunch etiquette. It goes without saying that you have booked the most expensive and exclusive restaurant in town for this lunch. Plan to pay for this with the new savings your neo frugal lifestyle has engendered. You know, of course, that your bankster, ah, Banker, will order the most expensive food and wine on the menu...perhaps you weren't aware that the finer pontificates of Banker etiquette would have you cutting their meat and spoon feeding it to them.

Croon soothing noises, avoiding sudden movements as Bankers are very skittish and prone to cut and run. Some table hopping on their part is expected; they may very well be lunching with three parties at once. This is well within the boundaries of their normal behavior, and nothing to be excited about. When you leave the waitperson a tip, it's important to tip 20% as the Banker will scoop up 4% for themselves. This is personal habit, as they are so used to receiving Federal (ah, yours, originally) Money at 0% interest and then loaning it back to the Feds at 4% interest. Those jokers, aren't they cute?

Above all, please don't take a page from Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) , as he asked Richard Fuld: "Your company is now bankrupt, our economy is in crisis, but you get to keep $480 million (£276 million). I have a very basic question for you, is this fair?" Your Banker will be completely bewildered by this question. Fair is so relative.

Final Harvest

Time for the final harvest of tomatoes and potatoes. Time for the final harvest of squash. Time for the final harvest of naive investors.

My potatoes are a bit small, but since the rains and frost are coming this week I'll harvest them anyway. It's the third crop this summer, so it's no big deal. I'm planning to grow some tubs of potatoes in the greenhouse this winter also. I still have a lot of green tomatoes, but as they'll split in the rain they have to come out and be stored. Hopefully they'll mature. I'm not harvesting the investors, simply observing that procedure. Pity they're mostly so young. Hopefully this will be a maturing experience. They really should learn to read a price/earnings ratio.

I went wild over the potato selection at Peaceful Valley Farm Supply; ah, the Over-Gardener strikes again. I'm still trying out potato varieties and growing seasons for this new climate and altitude. I have a new greenhouse and I'm not afraid to use it. I purchased 10 varieties of potato. Ahem, yes, overkill, I agree. I get carried away with enthusiasm. Much like those naive investors. At least I'm aware that the winter climate is not conducive to growth without some protection. Those investors really might want to use a thermometer and check the numbers.

One crop that we are letting mature, which we think will do well over the winter, is a modest amount of gold mining stock we still hold. In fact, we think that the worse the winter is the better it will perform. Gold mining stock is a funny thing; people think of it as a "safe" storage of money, when it really isn't. Think of it as a business which prospects for gold, digs it a lot, then sells off its' assets. The gold is only held for a very brief period of time, all else is potential and speculation. Most of the time you'd be better off speculating on which potatoes will grow well in your climate. The thing about the mining stock is that when the weather is very, very bad the stock can take off in a very steep ascent. I think that we're in for a rough winter.

Time For a Rant

Excuse me, rant ahead; proceed at your own discretion. Awfully wicked non-PC comments, gross links.

Our local paper- no great shakes, it is published six days a week but it doesn't even carry AP news because of the cost- ran a story recently on the swine flu shots available. The story ran something like, "Oh, I'm so Scared of the flu, gather the women and children and run for the hills, Oh Goody, the Government is here to save us, that swine flu shot is Dandy."

Okay so far (yawn) typical local story without much thought or insight.The part that made me see red?

"We know it's safe" (referring to the vaccination), said by Health and Human Resources Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.

Oh please, no vaccine is "safe". Is this safety factor the reason why Baxter Labs, maker of this vaccine, asked for and received complete waiver of liability? This statement is going to come back and haunt Ms. Sebelius. Her next public quote on this topic will be something like, "Of course, 'safety' is a relative term". Our proud government said something similar in a 1970's Sixty Minutes interview after Guillam-Barr syndrome appeared in some flu shot recipients. Words are cheap. Spread some around. Um, Kathleen, my garden could sure use a load of horse manure.

I have actually thought about writing an Opinion column in that same paper, listing some of the atrocious "adjuvants" in the vaccine such as formaldeyde, thimerosol, and a squalene level which is a million times higher than the same squalene adjuvant which has damaged, maimed, and killed 160,000 veterans of the Gulf War. Yes, the latest research has unearthed some interesting news and government admissions ("Rats! Caught!") about Gulf War Syndrome...don't believe the Wikipedia entry, please do your own search at these links if you need some evidence. The form of the vaccine which does not contain adjuvants, the aerosol mist, contains live flu virus. In my opinion, never a good thing.

So, I had thought about writing that column. I decided not to. Every nation which has introduced swine flu vaccines has had a 38% refusal rate (except China; refusal of government programs there qualifies a person for organ donation). That part of the population is wary, or does the research, easily available on the Internet, about health concerns around this flu. The fact is, this flu so far has been far less of a killer than the regular flu. The people with good instincts and/or intelligence are self-selecting against this vaccine. I like that, actually.

You see, I'm a gardener. Every planting must be thinned so that the strongest survive. Infected and non-producing plants are yanked out matter-of-factly. I select the best seeds to reproduce and do not replant the weak and prone to disease. Call me wicked, I don't mind, but if the careless and fearful people are self-selecting themselves to be culled, that is a choice made of their own free will.
Now if I can only convince my garden to self-select....Kathleen, over here for more of that horse manure.

Waterfowl Instead of Chickens

If you've read earlier posts you know that I have long lusted after the ownership of chickens, both for eggs and for their nitrogen-rich manure. I was torn between choosing Buff Orpingtons or Silver-laced Wyandotte, both good foraging breeds which can withstand a colder climate.

We have some issues with raising chickens in our forest, besides the obvious predator problems. The most serious issue is that our soil does not have earthworms and it would not be a good idea to introduce them into our woodlands, as they would destroy the duff which shelters new tree seedlings. Chickens need a high protein diet if they are laying eggs. As a permaculture site, we do not want to be purchasing chicken food at the feed store. The entire concept is that we feed them from the land and their manure goes back into the soil to make a full circle. As I have counted the calories and dietary requirements for laying chickens, the equation falls short unless we raise earthworms or black soldier flies for them to eat. Growth and production of both worms and flies slows dramatically in the winter, just when we would most need them for our chickens.

The solution came as we were examining chicken structure plans. Our chickens would require an insulated, possibly heated hen house. Heating the hen house on an off-grid site was simply a no-go situation. But geese prefer an uninsulated shelter. They are entirely vegetarian, and depending upon the breed (Chinese) they can lay more eggs than most chicken varieties. The Chinese Goose is also known as a "weeder" goose, because they will happily eat young weeds out of the garden and leave more mature vegetable plants alone. Just don't let them in with the lettuce or peas. The Chinese Goose is also a great watchdog...no intruder or predator will escape their notice or loud comments.

We're planning on ordering six Chinese geese from Metzer Farms for egg production, as well as two mating pairs of Pilgrim Geese (shown above, top). Pilgrim Geese are mild mannered and quiet, not so much egg birds as meat birds. DH Matt and I are uncertain if we'll be able to kill a goose (or be able to eat it afterwards) but we want to try two temperments of geese to see if we prefer one over the other. Chinese Geese can be more tempermental and excitable. We're also going to try ten Golden 300, a duck breed which has been developed at Metzer for maximum egg laying capacity.

Ducks and geese can share the same shelter. Ducks need a little bit of insect protein, but I'm confident that they can forage and find this on their own during the summer. In the winter I'll sprout yellow peas for them, yellow peas because they are higher in lysine than green peas.. Ducks, and especially geese, are far healthier than chickens. Waterfowl don't have the respiratory illnesses common to chickens or require antibiotics for treatment. Duck and goose eggs keep far better than chicken eggs, up to seven days without refrigeration. They have less of a sulphur odor. These geese and ducks are bred to be primarily land birds, and require only a kiddie swimming pool and sprinkler to keep them happy in the summer.

Racing the Winter Storms

Here we have our house-in-progress. You will notice that we are in October and the second story is not yet completed . No second story = no roof.
This is a less than happy situation.

DH Matt and his crew have been out here working away six days a week. The core issue is that, despite all of our years of careful research, we had been unaware that our AAC building blocks were sized for a metric system. No where in the literature did it mention that these are actually Mexican made Hebel block. The sales reps told us that the plant was in Mexico, sure. They omitted to mention metric sizing, during the many, many conversations we had with them. Add to that California seismic requirements for rebar spacing (IN FEET AND INCHES) and we have a recipe for near disaster. Our walls have cost three times as much in labor as we had budgeted. Every piece of block needs to be altered in some way. This is not the easy Tinker-Toy project we had envisioned, planned for, and budgeted for.We had hoped for a paid-for house, but with this setback we will be $30K in debt at the end of the project.

I'm simply grateful that we are building a small house. This problem would be exponentially larger with more square feet involved. The good news is that, despite appearances, the walls will be complete this next week and roof trusses will go in. The roofing, simple galvanized steel (barn vernacular design) will go in the week after, hopefully winning the race against the start of our rainy season by a good week. For those of you unfamiliar with California's Mediterranean climate; we have approximately five months of absolutely dry weather in the summer time. A rain is so unlikely that it makes the front page of the newspaper and goes into the historical record. And then, the rains come. And come...in dryer southern regions rainfall might be only thirteen inches. Here in the mountains we have more than one hundred inches of rain each winter.

Because of the California budget crisis we had layoffs at the City Hall, especially in the building department. So, the plan check department was understaffed and we received our building permit much later in the dry season than was normal. Of course, we all know that there is no "normal" any longer, we are living in unusual times. The unusual has become the norm, if we can wrap our heads around that.

We're not certain that we would ever build with this block again. We might chose to, after experiencing a winter with these well insulated walls. We do notice, though, that the documentation for this block is woefully inadequate. Considering the amount of this block that the manufacturer's and reps sell for commercial and residential building in Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico there is no excuse for the lack of a building manual. It's laziness and lack of attention. Which always builds up in a building boom...there's no reason and no time to provide documentation when the product is flying out the door. I hope that now that they have to actually work at sales that the AAC business will remedy the situation with a good manual and better documentation.

Busy Harvest Time

This is one day's harvest from the garden. My nights are full of processing this produce...canning, dehydrating, freezing, or serving it up for dinner. Above, we have purple tomatillos, three baskets of tomatoes and a basket of peppers. What is not shown in this picture is the five bushels of onions that I have recently harvested. This sounds like the basis for...organic salsa!

Mt tomatoes are low-seed paste tomatoes, mostly Amish Paste. For convenience I simply chop them roughly into quarters and put them into my ancient food processor. I process the peppers, onions, and tomatillos the same way, then I cook the whole slurry down fro two days on low heat until it becomes a thick sauce. I pressure can this, and summer is preserved for a cold winter's day.