Monthly Archives: March 2012

The Duck Boathouse

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Mallards in the pond

Our large pond has been attracting  many waterbirds.  We’ve seen mallards, widgeon, shovelers, snowy egrets, greater egrets, green heron, great blue heron, plus fishers such as phoebes and a kingfisher.   In fact one mallard couple has become brave enough to waddle near when I feed the chickens.  I throw a little scratch out, and the ducks snack on that along with the grasses.  The male, who my daughter dubbed John Drake after the Secret Agent Man series main character, stands nearby and scolds me for not  throwing out scratch on demand.

Since the garden plants are within their first year they haven’t grown in.  I thought how great it would be to continue providing habitat  by having a duck nesting box.  I began to search online but the ones I saw were incredibly expensive for what amounts to just a box. You could place them on shore, but they would be within reach of predators.  Or you could connect them to a pole sunk into the pond.

The front, with aquatic iris in front of the entrance.

I broached Jacob with the subject and he was enthused, so he built one entirely out of scrap materials.  I had a length of 4-inch PVC pipe with caps on the ends, which had come with the house. He used this as plastic pontoons for support.   He tied on the side of a crib, built a little house out of a lightweight wooden crate  I’d brought home that day which had transported potted plants, and dug up some of the plants already in the ponds to use as camouflage.  The plants will live with their roots  trailing  in and helping clean the water.  What came of all these recycled materials is just the cutest duck boathouse nesting box ever, I’m sure.  I haven’t seen the female mallard for a few days, so she may be sitting on a nest elsewhere.  I hope that a duck does enjoy the house, and if not, it is very fun to look at and is helping clean the water as it floats.  What fun!

The back and sides, which will be hidden by plants as they grow.

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How Desserts Lose Calories: My Theory

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After years of careful scientific research,  I have discovered that food can lose its caloric content under certain conditions.  I’m not talking about after you eat half of it, either.  This thesis, which I firmly hold to be true, gives a little break to all of us who gain weight if we even see a drawing of a donut.  Here it is:

High calorie foods, such as cakes, cookies, ice cream, pastries, pies… you get the picture… lose caloric content when:

They are dropped on the floor.

When they are stale.

When they are given to you by someone who doesn’t want them.

When left over.

When eaten from the container.

When slightly burnt.

When overcooked (different from being burnt).

When eaten reluctantly (food guests force on you and you have to eat some to be polite).

When someone who is a bad or indifferent cook makes them.

After the cat has sniffed them.

When reduced to crumbs in a pocket/purse/backpack.

When eaten other than in their native environment (i.e., ice cream on a cold day, pie in the garden, batter-dipped cheesecake-onna-stick at the fair.  No, wait, that is its natural environment!).

When eaten onna-stick, unless they are supposed to be onna-stick, such as ice cream bars.

When eaten with an unusual complimentary food (donuts and Corona) (something about food combining, like making a whole protein).

When taken medicinally.

When washed down with a diet drink.

When eaten en masse at one sitting (like the heavenly cranberry biscotti my wonderful neighbor makes every Christmas.  They are MINE.)

When eaten with a plain green salad (they cancel each other out). (If you add sprouts to the salad, you can have seconds on the cake.)

When eaten instead of a regular meal.

Of course, this theory doesn’t work if you plan to do any of the aforementioned.  You can’t drop a cookie deliberately and then eat it (ten second rule or no) and expect calories to break off and go skidding around the floor.  This works only when you forget to set the oven timer and the brownies come out dry, but you eat them anyway.  Or if you are laying kitchen tile and someone brings donuts and someone else brings a six-pack.  So what it comes to is this: there is a reward for clumsiness and forgetfulness.  We should embrace and reward our faults.  With sugar.

I hope this theory aids you in your diet.  If you have any corroborating evidence of your own, please comment.  Someday I’ll write a paper on my findings and send it to medical journals.  Won’t they be surprised!

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Finishing Flagstone

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The task this morning: move and place flagstone and dirt.

Today I finished cleaning up the disaster that I made when I dug out my upper pond (see Reponding).   There have been piles of dirt, stacks of flagstones and rocks, and mess everywhere for two months too many.  The reponding project is still not a complete success as the decomposed granite mixed with clay soil allows seepage in the pond.  I have to keep filling it up, but at least it is with well water, and eventually I believe it will seal.

My faithful hound growing bored waiting for me past the heirloom daffodils.

I didn’t want or need the same flagstone surround that I previously had holding down and covering the pond liner.  I wanted a more natural look, but yet I had all this flagstone!  So I completed the walkway around the pond, adding some overhanging flagstone under which the Pacific Chorus frogs may hide. One jumped out indignantly when I moved a rock.  I did a little planting, and Jacob began to plant aquatic plants now that the season is beginning and transplants are possible.  I found that the pond was full of mosquito larvae, and much to my surprise and joy, tadpoles!  More mosquito fish were added.  They are now lolling around groaning and holding their fishy stomachs with all the larvae they have (and still have to) eat.

Moist soil and a tangle of flowers and weeds... magical.

I made flagstone stairs through the overgrown embankment, for access to the bird feeders.  The grass, borage, daffodils, weeds and wildflowers are so dense in there that as I was kneeling in the moist dark soil I felt as if I were in a Beatrix Potter book, or some other English garden story.  It was magical and redolent of springtime.

A pathway up through an English children's story.

When I finally placed or stored all the flagstone, I had great piles of dirt to contend with.  Some I carried in buckets over to the side yard where I’d placed some flagstones. That got old pretty fast.  I only carried them full twice, then only filled them 3/4 full for the rest of the trips.  My arms are a little longer now. I really didn’t want to haul wagonfulls of dirt down to the lower property again, so I stood and thought about what I could do.  Then I spotted leftover scalloped edging bricks and decided to use them  and the soil to make another garden bed.  Why not?  I can always take it out. It sure beat hauling all that dirt out of there this afternoon!

Have extra dirt and edgers? Make a new bed!

Finally I was able to plant some herbs and flowers I’d purchased for this area.  Violas and violets, two of my favorites!  I’ll plant seeds another day. I’m hoping all this newly moved dirt won’t wash into the pond when we have our predicted heavy rain this weekend.  Maybe I’ll cover the new beds, just in case.

Violets and violas... big favs.

I watered everything in, which caused mud to scum up the newly swept flagstones (grrr!), filled the bird feeders (it is Project Feederwatch count days Thurs. and Fri.), and closed the gate on this project (for now!).  Once again, I shall have no trouble getting to sleep, but probably some trouble getting up in the morning!

A touch of flagstone and rock; plants will fill in.

 

Finished!

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Questionable Carpentry

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A carpenter's nightmare.

I’ve said it many times: I can’t build.  I envision what I want.  I go about the deed full of instructions and positive energy.  Somehow during the attempt I go haywire and what I create isn’t what I’d wanted.  I am the Cakewrecks of building.  Does that stop me?  Noooo!  Always optimistic, and without a handy carpenter, I seek to build.  This time it was a couple of trellises for the two passionvines which had taken over each other, a fence, a pathway, a dead tree, a live tree and a walkway.

The vine mess.

I didn’t want to cut the plants back.  They were fruiting and the small one was flowering.  So I spent hours untangling vines.  I finally sorted out the small one.  Then I began to be creative.  I had all this old bamboo that I had cut from plants at my mother’s house years ago, and it really wanted me to use it.  So I wired it together over the fence, going for a creative look that turned out looking more as if a couple had slipped, but no matter!  Then I got the idea to put some wire along the fence, behind the vines, so they would have something on which to grasp.  That took some interesting maneuvers as the wire curled and clung, as did the vines.

Up, I say, UP!

The small passionvine I tied onto the wire and flipped over the bamboo, without doing much damage to the plant, and felt pretty happy about the result.

The little vine looking much happier.

Then I looked at the huge, vigorous passionvine which was eating the world, and decided it would be good to make it grow over some trellises that spanned the pathway, and use old wire and wood  for the project.  (You should be squirming uneasily in your seats about now).

Untangling a broken dead tree from the vines.

Now here again, I KNOW what I wanted.  I saw it in my mind’s eye.  I can do that with cooking, just envision a dish or a taste and I can recreate it.  Probably because I can use measuring cups and spoons like a pro.

A crysalis of a Gulf Fritillary butterfly, which lays eggs on passionflowers.

Using a measuring tape is another story.  It always lies to  me.  Oh, and I try not to cut wood, because I screw it up so easily.  Anyway, I found wood that was pretty equal, nailed on a crosspiece, made a ‘T’ with scraps for the bottom, and found some unrusted wire that would do well.

Strategically placing ladder to hold up post.

To make a long story short, leaving out the wrestling with wire, using my head to hold pieces in place, hammering yet more reinforcements onto the bottoms to keep the whole thing from pulling itself down, I managed to get them up and the vines over the top.  They aren’t bad looking from a distance.  Just don’t get too close.  And in the big windstorm that is due Friday, don’t even come onto my block!  Who knows where these things will land!

The trellis looks deceptively good... from a distance.

Oh, and then glowing with the success and ease of that project (just short term memory loss), I wanted to make a wire walk-through squash thingy.  I bought the heavy gauge fencing wire, t-stakes, and measured and remeasured.  All looked okay, although the stakes looked a little short (perhaps I should have bought the six-foot rather than four-foot?) until I began playing with the wire.

Dealing with reused wire... trying to get the bends out.

As much as I dislike working with wire, I certainly end up tangling with it a lot.  I had a 50-foot roll that I wanted to cut in half, so I layed it out on the ground, walking on it to keep it from viciously curling and scraping my back or imprisoning me.  I  wired one side onto the t-stakes,  and then thought they weren’t high enough and found… what else?  Old bamboo!  On they went to hold the wire. Then I did the opposite side.  And at this point the realization that I’d been trying to fight came to me.  It did so as the wire, instead of reaching into a graceful dome, sagged so much in the middle that the structure now spelled out a capital letter M.  I had bought the wrong gauge wire.  It was too floppy to ever make a nice dome.

The Vine Alley.

So I did what I usually do when faced with the product of my ineptitude. I took a walk and did something else for awhile.  I do this often.  Coming back to the M, I thought of making two very slender passageways, but that wouldn’t work.  I considered tearing it all down, but I was pretty tired by then and I hadn’t screwed up the placement of the stakes, after all.  So I decided to make two parallel vine walls, like a viney alley.  No wonderful squash hanging down from overhead, but I’ll get over it.  I planted four kinds of viney veggies, and am now getting my mind convinced that walls are what I really wanted anyway.  Otherwise, between the viney alley and the wobbly passionvine trellises, this won’t be so much a garden as an amusement park! I also have another overgrown passionvine that needs to grow over a trellis, in a very visable area of the garden.   Anyone know a courageous  local carpenter?

Sigh. It would have been lovely with a domed top!

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Catching My First Bee Swarm

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Today was warm but very windy, and I was stealing some time to work on trellises I’m building for the passionflower vines (another story for another time, and definitely for the humor section).   The area I was working in was close to my house.  Inside an enclosure for my trashcans there stands a stack of nine extra bee supers (or boxes).  Last year a swarm  moved in and I’ve let them stay since they were so happy (and had so much room!). I have a hive and two empty Top Bar hives down in my specially planted Bee Garden; why should a swarm go there when it can be near trashcans? So today I’m out there trying to unroll a roll of cattle wire without losing a finger, and I hear a loud buzzing.  I looked up to see bees  flying in ever widening circles around the trashcan enclosure.  Normally they are in and out in a straight line (a honey flow) when gathering pollen.  I wondered if they were being attacked or bothered by something because in my mind it is still early in the year.  Then I remembered it is March already!  The hive was swarming.

Can you see the swarm? Right in the middle.

Just before a new queen hatches, the old queen takes a group of bees (depending upon the size of the hive, it could be 20,000 bees) to go find a new home.  First they exit the hive and find a place to rest and reconnoiter.  This is when people see them hanging from trees, underhangs, trashcans, whatever.  Scouts are sent out to find a good place to stay.  Sometimes they will stay where they are, even if it isn’t a good idea, such as the underside of a palm frond which a swarm built comb on for a short time some years ago in my yard.  This swarm mercifully gathered in a guaje tree just opposite the enclosure.

There they are.

I let the wire go and realized how unprepared I was.  I hadn’t completely finished preparing the bars for the top bar hives (so much to do!).  My daughter and I have kept a hive for years. I really wanted that swarm, and although I’ve read about it and watched YouTube videos about it, just haven’t captured a wild swarm myself. I decided to try and get them.

First, I ran inside and rewatched a YouTube vlog on capturing a swarm, just to refresh my memory and boost my confidence.  Then I ran down to the bee garden and prepared a top bar hive.  I moved it to a better location, poured oil in the cups it sits in to keep out ants, and then finished preparing the bars.  I’d serendipitously purchased craft sticks just yesterday ( a special stop at JoAnns), and I rubbed old wax into the grooves to make the craft sticks stick.  Top bar hives have no foundation like Langstroth hives.  The bees are encouraged to build their own comb, using the bit of craft stick hanging down from the bars as a guide.  This is a healthier way to for bees to live when captured.  Then I dropped a few drops of lemongrass oil into the hive; bees really like it and are attracted to it.  I also smeared a little organic honey inside for some instant food.  This sounds so smoothly done, but actually there were a dozen trips between the bee garden at the bottom of the property, the house, the shed and the swarm, all done in a crazed, frantic and nervous sort of way.  A mad woman.  Again I’m grateful for good neighbors.

Top bar hive, with craft sticks waxed onto the underside of a bar.

I suited up in full bee gear.  Many people catch swarms without protective gear, or with just a veil.  When bees swarm they are the least likely to attack because they aren’t defending a hive.  They are clustering around their queen, not wanting to be separated from her.  However, since I now swell up dramatically when stung, I decided to take no chances.

Hi.

Fortunately the bees weren’t high up.  I dragged out a stepladder and found a smallish cardboard box.

Fortunately within easy reach of a stepladder.

Standing on the ladder and shoving the box under the swarm, I shook the branch, knocking the bees into the box.  When I thought I had most of them, I carried the box, full of crawling bees, down to the hive.  I wish I could have taken a photo, but with the thousands of bees in the box I didn’t want to go get the camera and fumble with it with my gloves; I didn’t want to hurt any of the girls and they needed to be relocated before they took flight.  I shook the box into the open top of the hive, and then put the top bar lid on.  There were still bees back on the tree.  I didn’t see the queen, and I really needed to make sure I got her.  I shook in the rest of the bees and then carried them back down to the bee garden.

I shook the cardboard box of bees onto the ramp.

I didn’t want to open the hive again, so I propped a board up to the entrance holes, then shook the box of bees out onto the ramp.  Bees will climb, and climb they did.  I used a bee brush to carefully collect bees that had clung to the outsides of the hive, and dumped them on the ramp, too.  There was quite a traffic jam for awhile.

Traffic jam of bees climbing up the ramp into the opening.

Eventually all the bees were in.  I removed the ramp and cleaned up… not a sting.  Actually, once I first climbed the stepladder I felt and heard the lack of anger in the swarm.  They weren’t making a high-pitched angry buzzing noise.  Tradition has it that you should talk to your bees; make sure to tell them about any change in the household.  So I talked to them as I transported them down to what would hopefully be their new home.  Just before dark I rapped once on the side of the hive and all 10- or 20-thousand of them hummed at me.  If I got the queen and they are happy, then they will stay.  Otherwise they’ll swarm again.  No bees were harmed, and the few left up by the tree wondering where the old queen went were close enough to the old hive to go back, and make their allegiance to the new queen.

Almost all in.

The girls are spraying pheromones to mark their location.

I came inside feeling good about gently relocating them, and had some dark chocolate to settle my nerves! Then I went on to wrangle with the wire and the trellises, which was far more trouble than moving a swarm of bees.

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Soil: Weeding by Sheet Mulching

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Sow thistle

For this next part of how to build soil by weeding, I’ll discuss one of the easiest and laziest ways.  If you want nothing to grow in an area, and don’t care about how it looks or length of time, then sheet mulching may be for you.  I’ve used cardboard and newspapers around my vegetable beds with great success.  To fully knock out tough weeds such as Bermuda grass, you should put down a good inch of newspaper or cardboard (or a combination).  If you are using newspaper, leave the sections intact or else the wind will blow it everywhere, or cover it with a piece of cardboard.  Water it in and let it rot.

If you have old plywood lying around, drag it over to your weed patch and pop it on top.  Walk over it all you want, just watch out for old nails.

Sheet mulching with plywood... at work!

Another method is to water your weeds, then cover them with thick black plastic held down with rocks.  On hot days the weeds will cook under the plastic.  I’ve used this before successfully, but now I would only use it if I had the plastic already.  I’m trying hard to not contribute to the creation of more plastic.

The area after the plywood was removed.

Then there is sheet mulching where you actually build your soil over the top of weeds.  The new catch-phrase for this is lasagna gardening.  Start with a layer of corrugated cardboard or three layers of newspapers (or a combination!) right on top of your weeds and where you want to plant (this isn’t for clearing pathways). Water this in really well.  Then gather together compost items such as coffee grounds, weeds (without seeds), grass clippings, shredded paper, seaweed or algae… whatever you can compost.  Sort your compost into browns and greens.  Browns are mostly dead stuff such as leaves, shredded paper, pine needles and dried plant clippings.  Greens are fresh things like dinner scraps, green cut grass… anything with some life still left in it.  Manure is perfect for your ‘greens’ pile.  Chasing down landscapers as they rake leaves and bag up grass from their lawnmowers is a good way to collect ingredients.  Now start layering.  The best ratio would be two parts brown to one part green, but don’t stress over it.  The green stuff will heat up and cook the browns.  Depending on how much stuff you can layer, your bed should be about two feet high, and however long that you want it.  Water it regularly.  Within weeks your lasagna will have sunk down into fantastic garden soil.  If you want to plant right away, then add several inches of compost to the top.  Otherwise, let it sit a season and you’ll be able to plant right into it.  The newspaper or cardboard at the bottom will help suppress weeds and keep it moist.  Remember that the deeper your loam, the more rainwater it will hold and the less you’ll need to water.

What all of these methods of weeding does, is to decompose the weeds right where they are.  The minerals that they hold in their leaves are distributed into the soil, and as their roots decompose they leave tunnels for worms and other soil creatures to move around in.  You are keeping the soil moist and dark, which are wonderful conditions for our soil friends to flourish.  I’ve left plywood down on pathways during the entire growing season, and when lifting a piece have discovered treasures such as newts and salamanders underneath, that I wouldn’t have seen otherwis.  They are great bug eaters for the garden.  Sheet mulch also can harbor slugs and ants, but they are easily dealt with, especially if you have chickens!

Sheet mulching is very easy, it combats even tough weeds, it builds soil, and it repurposes things you might normally put into the trash.  So save all those boxes from Christmas, the contents of your paper shredder, what newspapers you didn’t use to light the fireplace, your garden waste, your kitchen waste, and whatever your neighbors want to get rid of (tell them you’re making lasagna with it!) and begin layering.  You are helping your garden, helping your soil creatures, building loam, opening underground stores of minerals for usage by plants, making your fruit and vegetables rich with nutrition, lightening your impact on the dump, creating a beautiful garden, and all without backbreaking work and certainly no chemicals!  Just say, “NO!” to Monsanto!

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