Uggghhh... My back!

Another weekend of packing and lugging things around in the books. I'm ready to move already... even if it IS just to a crappy little apartment. Hmmm.... wait a minute, that crappy little apartment has a hot tub... thinking this may not be so bad after all.

I managed to get my "Lifetime" plastic shed taken apart (Linked but not affiliated at all. They are just a local company that manufactures good products and hires good local people!) and stowed ready to bring to a generous friends house that will be willing to store it for me until we have a new home. It was actually surprisingly easy. With the help of a few teenage boys that happen to owe me free labor thanks to a life's worth of free food and lodging, I lifted the roof off in one piece and was able to tear the rest down by myself... even with wind!After moving things around and packing all morning and afternoon, I was able to head over to a friends parents house to take some cuttings of some 50+ year old grape vine stock before they started budding for the spring. Right now, at least in my neck of the woods is the perfect time to do this.
These vines were grown for 30 some odd years in the nearby town on a Church owned farm. When that farm was being taken down some 25 years ago, the members of the church were offered the opportunity to take the vines if they wanted to. My friends parents did, and they have been doing well in their backyard ever since. My buddy made a point of making sure I knew these vines did so well because they had once been "Gods vines". Either way, I ate a bunch of the green seedless table grapes this fall, and canned cases of qt's of juice from them and they certainly taste phenomenal! We're hoping that where ever we end up in this move that we'll have space to set up a true vineyard. We've wanted one forever. These cuttings will go a long way to helping with that. I'll cover the cutting and planting of these dormant buds for you in a future post, but it's not really a hard thing.

Speaking of future homesteads.... Tomorrow is D-Day for us on a property that we're REALLY interested in. By D-Day I mean, of course, Decision Day. We have placed an offer on a home and Tomorrow we will know what they think of our offer. Wish us well!

Best to you all, and may I say... I'm really glad to be back... I missed ya!
P~

Moving day...

Monday became Moving day for our little ladies.
After planning to move them originally on Saturday, two days from now, and then learning that it is scheduled to rain, we bumped up the move. No better time than the present. I figured that since most of the girls had recently molted and had a flush of new feathers, I figured that this would be a good time to clip the wings on then, since they may be loosely penned and allowed more room to free range at their new home. So out they came, clipped and ready to go and were loaded into a metal pen that I keep around for "things like this", and then we had to drag out the chicken tractor and load it into the new owners truck. I got a bit lucky here because, while I had not measured it previously, the coop was 48 inches wide and coincidentally my gate opening was... 48 inches wide! phew... it fit. Only after taking the wheels off, but it fit none the less.The drive wasn't far, but it was pretty slow. didn't want to have any problems after all.
So, now our girls are at their new home. I haven't heard of any problems, so I'm guessing that things are going alright. I'll probably check in on them this weekend... wouldn't want to just hve them think I didn't care after all.
I was glad to see the new families little kids come running out excited as could be to get to see the "Chickens chickens!!!" I hope they enjoy them as much as we have.
Maybe later this year they'll come home to a new farm?
Till next time!
P~

Going to be a hard Season

I was packing today and had a thought... It's going to be a hard season for me this year. I won't have a home, and that means no garden. No garden means no fresh veggies everyday. But even more so, no chance to work in the garden.

I Guess this will be the year to really get to know our local farmers markets and maybe vounteer a few more "hands on" hours at the Extension Service huh?
Got to find the silver lining... that's what it's all about!
Namaste.
P~

As we've been going through our own process of making sure that we can move forward with our home sale, we've been slowly coming to the realization that this is really happening... we are moving.

It's a little hard on one hand, I mean we've really grown as a family and as individuals in this home, but in other ways we've grown beyond it. I know now that I don't have to have the "farm of my dreams" to be happy. I know what is possible on a small acreage. We've learned that a "perfect" looking neighborhood often means you have neighbors that are too concerned with their own definition of what "perfect" means. Unfortunately, one families definition of that may not be the same as anothers.

Well, we've completed our home inspection and our appraisal, both of which seem to have gone well and brought up no real issues, so it seems as though in just a few short weeks we are to be transient for the first time in 13 years. We're looking into apartments and storage options, locations and new homes, so many things to do to get ready. But it's not just us, there are other lives impacted by this move...

Yep... the chickens. Not a lot of apartments that take chickens (More like none!) so we need to find them a home. Oh sure, I could put them in the freezer and enjoy them this spring, but it seems like such a waste for a flock of mature, well producing layer hens to just jump to that conclusion. Well, with the help of Facebook and with the help of some great Friends, we've found a new home for the ladies! Yay!!

A family that we met while doing some volunteer work for our Master Gardener program last year and have been able to keep in touch with online saw our call for a new home and have been looking to dip their toes in the the hen keeping business so this is a match made in hennery heaven!

"So, yeah, I guess you could say things are getting pretty serious..." We're packing, we're looking and we're making plans for our charges. Here we go, let's do this!
P~

Catalyst

When I wrote my last post, to be quite honest, I was pretty down. It really just put a damper on everything I felt we were trying to do. Obviously I won't let anyone stop me from having a perfectly legal garden, and I had already worked to change the laws so that I could keep my chickens so they're not going anywhere. The thing is that our garden wasn't only so we could produce food for ourselves. We love the feeling we get when we're able to give a lot of it away. We try to make multiple donations to a local women's shelter and of course ”produce bomb” the neighbors (those we can stand). But it was more than that. I felt like I was trying to point out during conversations with people, and during the beginning gardening classes that I teach, that this is possible... Our society can begin to take back at least some part of our food security and we can do it in our own backyards. I guess I was just disheartened that what I was trying so hard to do not only fell on many deaf ears, it was actually seen in a negative way? I, whether I was well meaning or not, was considered that ”trashy” neighbor that no one wants to live by. My wife and I have talked a long time about leaving the area we currently live in and trying to find some place perhaps more “tuned in” to the same things as we are. Our kids go to school a few towns over and that's the area we've thought of going to. We just never really had the catalyst to get us moving on it. It's finally come...

Now before I start getting the emails saying that I should not back down to my stupid ass neighbors, let me reiterate... we've been thinking about moving for some time. To be honest, even after the whole stink with the sign in the yard, we were still not ready to take action; we’ve never been reactionary in any of our life altering decisions. In late November though, I was told that the contact I am currently working under looked like it will not be getting renewed. There was no problems with the work, and still plenty to do in fact, it's just one of those “we need to cut back somewhere” kind of deals. So there it was... the catalyst to get us going on a long deliberated decision. Our house was put on the Market on the first of February, it was time to move on.

I began to write this post a little over a week ago. I’ve been incredibly busy with kids school projects, work, showing our home and looking at what is available on the market so it’s taken me some time to complete it. We’ve had a wonderful reception to our home on the market with an average of one showing every three days. In fact, at the time I am completing this post, I can say that we’ve received a lot of news... Last week, I found out for sure that I’ve received a brief reprieve from the unemployment scare in that my contract has been renewed for one more year. In addition, just 24 hours after that, we received an offer on our home and have accepted it. Our home is currently under contract. It took exactly every day of February, from the 1st to the 29th, but we look to have sold it in one month exactly! Just a few more hurdles like inspections and appraisals to get over and it’s a done deal. Time to find a new “farm”. For some reason, I was telling A~ from the start that I just believed that it would all happen at one time, back to back, and it did. The power of positive thinking and belief cannot be underestimated!

In talking about what we wanted going forward, we’ve decided, for a number of reasons, that we are going to downsize. Not necessarily joining the “small house” masses quite yet, but still we are looking for a smaller home. One with space enough, but perhaps not empty space to fill. If there is one thing that we have found to be true in the last six years or so that we have been slowing becoming more in tune with our lifestyle it is that the value in where we live lies most in the people we share the space with and less with the space itself. We hope to relocate ourselves to a place where we may have a little more acceptance of our “Homescale Farming” ways, and maybe even a little more space to conduct it in. More than anything though, we want to be closer to our kids school and we want to reduce our debt as a hedge against future employment scares. Here’s to hoping. We’ve seen a number of good homes, and may know more soon. Either way, we both look forward to a new adventure.

If you’ve been a guest here for some time you know that of late I’ve been a bit out of the picture. I got to a point that I felt like I just wasn’t adding anything to the discussion and didn’t really know what to share that wasn’t just a rehash of things I’d written before. I look forward to the process of building a new homescale farm as a chance to get back into the swing of things, learn more and try some new techniques. A chance to breath a little new life into our garden and to learn new lessons along the way. If you’re new here, well, welcome and stay tuned. I’ve been planning some big changes for some time and just never managed to get around to them; I think this may just be my own catalyst.

Namaste, and thank you for hanging in there.

P~

Small minds just don't get it...

I refused to believe that I lived in that sort of neighborhood. That's really what it was... I just plain refused to believe it. All the signs were there - every home was, more or less, a copy of the one on either side of it. With their concrete curbing painting toothpaste like lines around very generic landscaping, a couple of decorative rocks on the grade up to the doorstep and the obligatory flowering pear trees in the mow strip. Lawns of the best turf grass that modern agricultural science can buy paint green in between the neat lines of the sidewalk, the white (don't go crazy with any of those WILD colors like beige...) vinyl fences and the obligatory side yard concrete garden for planting unused "must-haves" such as RV's and four wheelers. And yet I somehow still didn't believe that this was the type of neighborhood that could house people that would plain out just despise us for not fitting into their mould. Well, I was wrong.

Yesterday afternoon we found a neat and tidy little note left taped to our next-door neighbors bedroom window facing our house especially for us to read.
It probably should have made our mouths drop open, but it didn't. Not because we understood their position by any means, more to the fact that it didn't surprise us that these people would do something so frickin chicken shit as leave a sign up rather than to come over and talk with us.

Now, first things first, I don't necessarily mind the term hillbilly because, with a wife from the hills of West (by God) Virginia I have come to know many hillbillies rather intimately and they are among the finest people I've had the pleasure of knowing. My dear wife however does point out that she prefers the term Appalachian American particularly when Hillbilly is being used in the pejorative.

The light to which our neighbor refers is really a non-issue as well, let me explain. We have a back door to our garage that is far from any room of our house that an intruder or burglar could easily use to get access to the rest of our home. After having our car broken into right in our driveway, we made sure to have a light on above our back door as well. It's a safety issue that we are not willing to stop. We've explained to our neighbors that we are sorry, but we're not willing to risk having a secluded entry to our house unlit through the night.

The greater part of this was referencing our "white trash yard". Despite desires to expand our little "homescale farm" into our front yard we have opted to play along. By that I mean that we have maintained the "little boxes made of ticky tacky" appearance for the most part in our front yard as well.

So I could only assume it is to our backyard that they were referring. That and/or our side yard garden where we grow different crops from one year to the next. I was right.

My wife went over to talk with Neighbor "A" about this sign and was told that they just can't stand having to look at our yard. My wife was curious as to why of course and that's when we got the picture loud and clear: because we are different. Of course they didn't come out and say it in as many words, but it was damn near from what I understand. They were simply incredulous that would have the gall to grow corn in our front side yard
I really like it there honestly... and this is the worst it looked all year. We had been gone for a week and then I had surgery and was forbidden from working in the garden for another week and a half so there were some weeds, but really it is well kept up, it's just the fact that we grow food. Can you even believe that? They literally said, "Why can't you just be like everybody else? You shouldn't have moved to this neighborhood if you wanted to live this way!" By "this way" I take them to mean keeping chickens and raising 800+ pounds of food from my gardens. To them it makes me and my family white trash to use our private property to grow and support ourselves with organic fresh foods from a backyard garden. If that's the case I can live with it.

The disappointing part really, is not so much that these people don't like us, they're arrogant asses, I don't really care. What surprises and disappoints me is that apparently they've been going around and commiserating with a number of our other neighbors and it's almost unanimous that we are trashing up their neighborhood with our gardens and our crazy out of the box thinking!! I just refused to believe the stories about neighborhoods that were so close minded that a person was ridiculed for taking care of his family or daring to rely more on their own efforts.

So far the list of complaints as we understand them are our corn, our sunflowers (yes, they can't stand seeing the sunflowers in our yard and hate that they attract bees - isn't that kind of the point??), our gardens and our clothes line. All of which besides the corn are behind a 6 foot solid fence?!

It sucks to be surrounded by people that just don't get what we're all about, but then again they've never tried to get to know us either. It won't deter us though, we'll still keep on with our way of living and probably even expand it.
Say? How do you think they're going to feel about the two beehives we're planning on adding next year??

Take care all, keep growing your own and marching to your own beat!
P~

Imprelis lawn herbicide WARNING

Hi all,
Sorry I've been so "off the grid" as of late. I've been working hard both in the garden and out of it. I received a Warning Notification today from my friends at Mother Earth news and wanted to make sure to pass it on as soon as possible.
Following is an excerpt from the letter that I received from them:

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We at Mother Earth News want to let you and A Posse Ad Esse readers know about yet another dangerous discovery for gardens and lawns: Imprelis herbicide in treated grass clippings. This new herbicide from DuPont is designed for use on cool-season grass, but its effects have been seen in the garden and on trees throughout the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic states. (We hope it doesn’t make its way out to Utah, but just in case…)

Here’s what we know:
• DuPont warns that grass clippings from lawns treated with Imprelis should not be used for mulch or composting.
• Conifer trees near lawns treated with Imprelis, especially Norway spruce and white pines, have shown signs of damage after Imprelis was used. Signs include brown and curled growth.
• Damage has been reported in Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Iowa, Kansas, Indiana, Nebraska, Wisconsin and Delaware.
• Applicators are supposed to inform residents and property owners of the dangers this herbicide poses and warn them not to use clippings for mulch or compost.
• DuPont recently sent a letter asking applicators to spray well away from the root zone of trees and shrubs and to make sure no drift or runoff could impact those ornamentals.

If you suspect that your trees or garden plants have damage from Imprelis, please get them tested through your local Extension service. They may also have tips to minimize damage.

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I hope none of you have had any problems with this product... I suspect many of you are organic or at least are proactive in knowing what you are putting on your lawns. Either way, it's good to get the information out there.

Thanks for stopping by... Stay tuned early next month for some new NEWS and a fun new project I have to share with you.

Till then. Happy Gardening!!
P~