What IS this?

Anyone know what this is? It was growing out of (or on top of) the end of a pine branch...

Mayapples

I have to confess – I didn’t know what a mayapple was until a few days ago. I had been walking around the property and noticed that I had them – in abundance – and just thought they were cool. I even noticed that some of them were flowering (no mean feat as the flower is under the umbrella of the leaves), and filed them away in the back of my head under the “ask the neighbor what they are the next time you see her but who am I kidding you’ll forget to anyway” category.

And then when my mom came out and we were walking around, she exclaimed “We have Mayapples!!” with a healthy dose of enthusiasm, and she proceeded to show me what they were.

Of course my first reaction to her telling me about them was simply “are the edible?” She thought she remembered eating them as a child, but couldn’t remember, and me being me, I looked them up on the interwebs on my phone on the way back.

Every plant and animal falls into one of two categories (with a few sentimental exceptions): edible, and therefore useful, and non-edible, and therefore pretty much meaningless to me unless they aid in the flourishing of an edible variety of something, items. I like it when things fall into the former category. I’m also trying to grow only edible items – down to the flowers I’m growing. The exceptions in my garden currently are the lilac and the wildflowers. And the wildflowers I really planted to hold the topsoil down (since I raked up the 50 years worth of composting leaves off the top to use in my garden) and to help keep the (as of yet un-acquired) bees around. So I guess they do fall in the useful category. Yay!

Mayapples are, in a word, edible sometimes. More specifically, the plant is toxic at all times, and the fruit is only edible when ripe. Otherwise it’s classified as ‘toxic’, but really just seems to be quite an effective purgative. And is still used medicinally as such (also there’s cancer fighting properties, evidently, that is being researched). It’s also called “American Mandrake” and had I know that I probably would never have asked if it was edible.

But. There is quite a tradition of Mayapple jelly and whatnot in this country, so come late summer/early fall when they (in theory – we shall see) ripen here I will embark upon a mayapple jelly adventure. Thankfully this is an easy fruit to tell if it’s ripe (like most are actually, if you pay attention to them!), and so not particularly worried.

I had begun to get slightly sad as I don’t know anyone out here who’s really into foraging (new generation) or still knows the flora and fauna well enough to forage (older generation), and the east coast plants (and trees…) are a mystery to me mostly. There are a few things I know and recognize – wild strawberries, dandelions (of which I really don’t have any) and the like. So very excited to have learned this one! 

Mayapple leaves are the big umbrella looking ones, the little jaggedy edged ones are wild grapevines.

Doesn't it just look like an apple blossom? The plants with only leaf do not flower.

Peepy Easter

I like to bake cakes. I needed an excuse to bake one. Easter was that excuse. This cake was awesome.

It is so damn hard to find real peeps these days.

The color was actually hot pink due to the addition of frozen raspberry and a box of jello mix (shhh!). This photo is lit by the fridge. And taken with my phone. Deal. Oh. And the peeps look particularly disheveled as we left them out over night and they got a wee bit melty....

Garden Visitor

After checking in on my “Bed #6” (I come up with THE most inventive names, don’t you think?!) the other day, I had to move aside the greenery to get the deer netting back into place. (Honestly I’m so happy to have something thriving at this point – even if I didn’t plant it – that I can’t bring myself to cut it*). And noticed we had a little toad visitor! The glorified puddle (my father calls it the “small pond”. Dude. It’s a really big puddle) is about 20 feet on the other side of this garden bed – I hope he made it home!

So unassuming...

I *almost* didn't see him there!

Our Nearest Neighbor

Thursday before last  I hastily tidied up around the outside of the camper, knowing that I’d be gone for 3 days and when I came back, my mother would be with me. In doing so, I took some camping chairs that we had out around the fire pit, folded them up, and propped them up at the front of the camper (where the propane tanks go on an Airstream).

That following Monday (possibly Sunday? Oh goodness the days in the sun are making them all blend together!), my mother and I were standing around by there planning and whatnot, when she thought she saw something brown flit by. I swore I could hear some sort of high pitched cheeping, so I tentatively looked over by the chair. I didn’t see anything, but I saw some twigs and when I looked closer, something brown, flying, and not exactly happy went whooshing by my face. Peering in we saw a perfect nest and 5 white rust-mottled eggs in it.

Our sweet (noisy) Carolina Wren has been back since, and we watched her this morning flitting around eating worms, giving us the inquisitive eye, and hopping back into her nest. Hopefully she’ll stay long enough for her chicks to hatch and my driving the mower right by her nest several times an afternoon won’t piss her off too much!

Unassuming stack of camping chairs...

They're reeeeeally tucked way down in there.

 *Update - despite Zora sticking her nose in the nest almost hourly, the wren is still in residence. Although I do believe she has taken to yelling at us from a nearby branch. No babies yet, although they have a 10-14 day incubation period (according to Wikipedia) and so they should be due any day now...

My Mom is Here!!

Which means that we are getting oh so very many things done. I, in usual me fashion, have tackled 4 or 5 projects that I wouldn’t get done otherwise simultaneously and so haven’t finished one yet. Or at least not enough to report on. So. LOTS going on, but not much to show for it (yet).

But some of the stuff we’ve been up to has had to do with the changing of the seasons - the dogwoods were just peaking when my mother got here Saturday night, and so we went around both future house sites and marked them off so they don’t get chainsawed. You’d think that the distinctive shape of the tree would give it away when it’s NOT in bloom, but our poor property has been neglected for 50 years (at least!) and the trees are waaay too close together. And they’ve turned…leggy. I have dogwoods that are a good 20 or 30 ft tall, and only about 4” in diameter, with no branches until the very top. And while they always have an upturned shape, so do all my other similar looking hardwoods. It WAS a nice excuse to walk around the property and check in on things – and talk about what we’re going to do (MUST DO for this year: clear an access path for the pond).

We also walked back to the camper along the edge of the lake – they’re doing work on the dam and have lowered the water level a fair amount, so there’s actually a beach to walk on. You’re not really allowed to (as it belongs to the city and the lake is a reservoir with no direct access from any of the lakefront properties and no swimming…), but we did anyway. We have water oaks and a weird azalea and may apples galore – very cool. I realized that the few times I visited this property as a child it was so overgrown we never got in past the gate, and I don’t remember ever walking around on it. When we came out to assess whether or not I would move here, it was in February and this is the first time I’ve been out on the lake in spring!

And I put away the grow lights today, and reclaimed the picnic table the seedlings were started on for under the awning of the camper. So now I can sit outside and stare at the trees while I type away on my laptop instead of the inside walls of crowded Melvin. Meanwhile my mother is attacking the blueberries and getting all the dead undergrowth out from under our (leggy) blueberry patch that my great-grandfather started. Very exciting! 

Doesn't it just LOOK like the weather's warming up?

Doesn't it, though?

And....spring!

 

Playing Chicken

It is not a secret that I am antsy to get chickens out here. Why? Because in an attempt to grow/produce mostly my own food, chickens are a no-brainer (ha!). Eggs, meat, pest control, compost production, (veggie) scrap disposal, you get the idea.

Many people like to raise chickens as pets... I find them to be not exactly my definition of loveable in that sense, and have no problem whatsoever harvesting them for meat. And I think that this is absolutely healthy. There are too many people too disconnected from their food - I feel better if I know where my food came from, and a pampered chicken is a tasty chicken. IMHO. And as much as that will piss some people off...

Unfortunately I have to postpone my poultry acquisition until next year.

This does give me a lot of time to ponder the various aspects of this adventure - what kinds of chickens I want and I what I want out of them. Other than meat and eggs, I want a breeding flock so I'm not buying a shipment of chicks every year (don't get me started on why. I will go on and on. Although feel free to email me if you really want to know my thoughts on the subject. I will have a coop and an enclosed pen - large enough for them to roam and forage and sun bathe and dust bathe and those fun sorts of chicken activities, but enclosed as my dog loves to chase chickens and it will take a while to break her of this habit. Also I am not sure exactly what sort of predators I have roaming around and the thought of losing a whole flock due to avoidable ignorance is a very sad one to me.

So far I am contemplating the Plymouth Rock or the Dominique and the Ameraucana.  Let's face it, the blue and green eggs that Ameraucanas lay are cool. And Ameraucanas keep up better egg production numbers after the age of 2 than many other breeds. I like the idea of the Dominique better than the Plymouth Rock as it's a heritage breed and it's still making a comeback in terms of numbers, but the Plymouth Rock is such an American classic. Rocks keep their production up throughout the winter, but Dominiques make better mothers... Hmm. Quite a welcome conundrum!

Cool Happenings in SF

I sometimes hear about things that make me miss the Bay Area oodles. Oodles and Oodles to be exact. The last place I lived in San Francisco was 18th and Fulton - meaning I could walk to various attractions in Golden Gate Park. And the Conservatory of Flowers was one of my favorites. Their main exhibit is awesome, and they pften do fun special exhibits. This one looks like the funnest. There are herbs and herbal wonders, and then there are these bad boys. Seriously cool. I wish I could get back to go!

Explosion

Spring is exploding. Literally. It's everywhere. The fantastical North Carolina week long spring before the oppressive humidity and heat sets in is here! Yay!

Back to the garden staring out into the void - the guard dog. Or facing off with Miss Lilac. I'm not sure...

Dogwood on the way into the garden

Deer skull with antlers attached

View from the damn/pond to the lake. Love the dogwood tucked down in there.

Dogwoods everywhere!

Blueberries that haven/t been pruned in 40 or so years... this stand is about 8 ft tall.

Weird Food

I came across this post* today, and was reminded of weird food I used to eat in boarding school in Japan.

Now I have to interject - before I really get started even - to say that there's weird food and then there's weird food. I am not talking about food that is innately weird to you but wouldn't be to a Japanese person (Tamago Gohan, for example. Yum. One of my all time favorite breakfasts and yet another reason why I want chickens!). I am talking about bona fide weird-ass foods. Got it? Good.

Our boarding school had a strict 3 meal a day sit down thing going on - and the dreaded stint of kitchen duty always seemed to come around waay more often than necessary. However. On Sundays lunch was not a sit down affair, but a show up for roll call and take it away bread lunch.

OK. Another goddamn interjection. Bread, or "pan" (I always thought it was derived from french, but Wikipedia disagrees with me) in Japanese, encompasses all things bread in Japan. From sliced bread (that's about 1 inch thick and resembles what we make Texas Toast out of here) to savory breads stuffed with curries and stews, sweet breads stuffed with sweet bean paste, pastry cream or chocolate - steamed breads, fried breads, baked breads.... suffice it to say there are a lot. Basically think of a food, slap the suffix '-pan' on the end, and some bakery somewhere in Japan is selling it.

So. For this relaxed Sunday lunch we usually got a sweet bread and a savory bread. On really lax days for the savory option they gave us a slice of bread (aforementioned monster minimally 1-inch thick white bread that's perfectly *perfectly* square...) and a little plastic container of sweet peanut butter spread crap. Blech. Thankfully the cafeteria was decked out with 4 toaster ovens (about 250 girls lived in my dorm...), and a few of my friends and I improvised. We came up with the Best. Thing. Ever. (or at least the best thing since sliced bread. ha!)

First you take a slice of monster white bread. Then, being very careful not to smoosh the fluffy that is the actual white part of the bread, you squirt on a healthy dose of Japanese Mayo. Only Kewpie brand will do, really. Yes. They sell it here in the US. (and check out the history of the company - they've been making it since 1925!) Worth every penny. Admire the fantastical star tip they inexplicably put on the squeeze bottle of mayo and the pretty designs it has created, and then using the side of the plastic knife that came with your individually packaged slice of monster bread, spread. Gingerly people! Do NOT ruin the integrity of the floofy.

OK. That done, mix up a package of Natto (I like Okame brand the best. This can also be found in Japanese and Asian markets here in the US. Be sure to use all of the included sauce and Chinese mustard. What? You don't like Natto?!?! We can not be friends. What's NOT to like in a small styrofoam box of fermented soy beans that smells like a cross between foot and foot fungus?!). Spread Natto on top of Mayo. Need I remind you to mind the integrity of the softness? No? Good.

Next. Put a fair amount of shredded (crappy) dry mozzarella (as processed as possible to get that authentic high-school-my-arteries-are-made-of-steel-devil-may-care-or-not-attitude feel) over the whole thing. I'm not sure why we always had crappy shredded cheese, but we did. This tasty concoction was thought up using stuff we always had on hand, so we must have.

Transfer the whole thing to the toaster. This process will definitely include a minor panic attack induced by the weight of the toppings making the middle of the bread sag and looking like the whole thing will fall, but you must push through. Toast on the rack (not the tray. Unless you like soggy bottoms) until the top is brown and bubbly.

Attempt to eat said creation, burn the shit out of the roof of your mouth, swear profusely, and continue eating. Seriously. It's the Best. Thing. Ever. (And I haven't thought about it in years!)

UPDATE: not 5 minutes after I originally posted this, I got 2 emails slamming me for not posting a picture. Please forgive me (sarcastic tone). I just can't recreate it authentically in a timely manner. You're just going to have use your fantastic(ally unused) imagination on this one. Snarky? Not me. No. Never!


*and I can't wait to try frying my grilled cheese in mayo. Both grilled cheese and mayonnaise are sacred items in my house, so it only seems natural that the two should be married, IMHO.

A Word About Me. And Water Heaters

A thought struck me the other day.  When I first moved into my beloved cabin in Point Arena eight years ago (EIGHT!), my water heater also had issues*. At first it seemed to work OK, but after a while it became apparent that it didn’t work right. After a little longer while I realized that if I hit the reset button approximately 2 to 3 hours before I wanted to shower I could bathe and do the dishes on the one tank. Really this just meant that I could take long luxurious showers because both my roommate and I hated doing dishes. After a while we got a new water heater and life kind of made me forget about the whole thing.

And here I am in a new abode, and I am having water heater issues. For a while it worked fine (or seemed to), but now it seems that it has been leaking this whole time and I have to go light it more often than not before I can shower or do dishes. I am interested to see who this will end. And what my life will have to throw at me to get me to forget it!

All naked an unassuming. The water heater, that is.

 *my former landlady was and is wonderful. She was just out of reach for a while after I first moved in, and it didn’t get fixed for a while because of that.

Oh Melvin!

Evidently restoring vintage airstream (1940’s and 1950’s) is a rising trend. One website likened it to people restoring old 60’s and 70’s mustangs in their garages. There are a slew of companies out there that carry authentic airstream parts, furnaces, upholstery, whathaveyou. And people who are into restoring them (not unlike those that restore old cars) are seemingly obsessed with it and very much into restoring their campers back to their former glory down to the tiniest of details.

That’s just fantastic. If they want to do that, go for it. What I want to know is what about those of us that seem to be renovating their camper out of necessity? My poor Melvin has gone a long time without a major overhaul (ok the furnace is blown out so the previous owner put in a propane heater, and some of the wiring has been redone. That’s about it, though). And like any abode he needs one.

As you know, I’ve spliced the electrical cable that supplies me with power so it works again. The manfriend has replaced the kitchen faucet that finally gave out. I’ve replaced a few bulbs and whatnot here and there.

And then there’s the water heater and the general bathroom floor issues.

And also as you know, my battle with the water heater has been an ongoing one. The manfriend has tweaked it, I have replaced the pressure relief valve, and the seal around the hatch thingy has been replaced (the wind kept whipping through and blowing out the pilot light).

I got home this past Monday to a good 2 inches of water on the floor in the bathroom. Like any good blogger, I promptly went outside to call my mom in a fit instead of taking any pictures. I went with my levelheaded manfriend’s advice (thankfully someone has a level head more often than not. I used to, but I don’t know what happened...) and drilled holes in the floor to let it drain out. The good news is the metal plates under the bathroom of the camper (the whole thing is literally a sealed pod, remember) are rusted out at the seams and the water could actually drain out onto the ground. Oh yeah. Melvin’s had some leaking issues for a while it seems.

So I got the carpet pulled up, the holes drilled, and the water drained out. But the thing is the damn thing wouldn’t get dry. And I couldn’t find where exactly the leak was. All the water lines converge behind and to the right of the toilet – right above the water heater. So I took out the toilet. The toilet was sinking into the rotted floor wood on one side anyway, causing it to leak, and would have needed to come out anyway. The majority of the water seemed to be pooling up around the water heater – which is uphill (the bathroom sags, you see…) from the toilet and therefore kind of weird – and as I can’t find a working shutoff to the heater I came to the conclusion that I would have to turn off the water. Again.

I am hoping against hope that it’s just a connection to or from the heater that the seal busted on and not something internal necessitating a replacement of the whole thing. The floor in the bathroom already needs to be replaced – I literally hadn’t fallen through the floor as the toilet was resting on the holding tank where the wood had rotted away – and I don’t really relish the idea of having to shell out more cash for a heater. On the other hand, since I am evidently incapable of getting a job here, I will most likely be living in Melvin longer than anyone thought and I personally like having running water. And on days that I feel particularly bratty, hot running water.

So fingers crossed, people. The manfriend is coming out at some point this weekend to suss it out. And hopefully get at least my cold water running again.

And all of this just in time for my mom coming back!! She will be here for a few weeks to help out and will be arriving on April 16^th. Woot! I hope that she will get to experience Melvin with running water – she never has!

Yeah. Hence the removal.

Ack!

What did I say about planning? And being ‘finished’? Oh. Yeah. You never are.

My farm journal (or so I optimistically call it) – is excruciatingly organized. I have a section of bed plans, a section that lists the number of each type of plant I plan on planting, a calendar with when each plant should be planted (which I am trying SO HARD to follow at least the weekly stuff) and a page per plant for plant info, and notes. And I do take notes. When I planted it, when it germinated, when I transplanted it, random info, etc…). I was feeling like it was extreme overkill, and then I realized today while rifling through it that in reorganizing the beds, at some point (and I cut them with scissors and taped them back together 3 or 4 times) one of them got lost and a whole bunch of stuff got missed and is not in the final* bed plans. I had kind of thought this to be the case, but since the actual sizes of each bed has also changed several times it was hard to say without me sitting and counting the squares. OK. Which if I was actually going to be organized to the point of overkill I probably should have done.

But now I am happy to have noticed before I got my water system figured out. The beds won’t be as well laid out as they should be, but thankfully since I live in the south, if the pole beans (they got left out!! Ack!!) are on the south side of the beets and shade them it’s actually not the worst thing in world. Some do it on purpose to keep them from getting overheated anyway.

And it means I get to spend a lazy cool morning shuffling paper and dreaming and scheming instead of digging holes. Yay!

*I must stop using this word

Dragging things behind the mower on my slapped together sled inspired by the manfriend and made by me. Total cost: $0

Somehow these will be incorporated into the water system. Because I really wanted to drag something else.

Please meet: Banango Bateson!

This is a tree*:

Shhhhh.... he's sleeping....

A newly planted dormant pawpaw tree to be exact. I'm planting the pawpaw for a variety of reasons: it's shade for the future chickens, it's indigenous, it's easy to maintain (assuming he survives the transplant process), it's a tasty fruit...

And the paw paw goes by many names - and I thought Banango was the funniest. And goes well with Bateson. Let's all make him feel welcome, shall we?

*click to enlarge image

Finished (ish)

All netted and ready to go. Waiting...

OK. So you might never actually be finished when it comes to gardens, farms, food... But you kind of have to draw the line somewhere, right?

This has been such a massive undertaking that I have been forced to be way more organized than I would be otherwise, and more organized than I might ever be again. But no matter.

Being organized is more multi-faceted than one would think, and I have actually spent countless hours arranging, re-arranging and re-re-arranging stuff. And I'm just talking about the stuff that I'm planting. I'm NOT including everything else I've got going on (like trying to find a job, keep Melvin happy, keep Zora happy, etc). And when you think of being organized this is probably what comes to your mind first and foremost. Planning on things that are going to happen in the future. Fair enough.

But what is proving to be tough for me (and I partly blame this on the crazy weather we're having this spring), is sticking to said plan. And yes - having a fluid plan you can adjust and tweak as you go is important. And possibly one of the reasons why I will have whatever modicum of success I end up having. But sticking to the general overall plan takes patience. And patience, after years of general planning and months of intense planning, is not my strong suit.

But. I spent hours sorting out what to plant where and when, and by golly I'm gonna stick to my now many times revised plan. Which really just means that I am itching to get the warm weather crops in the ground, and am forcing myself to wait until after the frost free date. On days when it's in the 80's it is SO hard. But then on those nights that it drops back down into the 20's after said warm spell, I'm glad I waited.

So now I'm done. Done with the organizing and planning (well - except for a water system, but thankfully that is a team effort with the man. Nudge nudge wink wink, manfriend.), and now I just have to wait. 10. More. Days.

Future home of the Stoneyhaw tomatoes

Zora still doesn't exactly approve of the new mower. Could be because chasing her with it is my new fun game....

Week 2

I've been taking weekly pictures of every bed and every major thing that I've planted outside, and will continue to do so. And I'd like to post some of those pictures now and again so that you can track the progress of the stuff I'm growing (read: haven't killed). Not much has changed since last week, but here's a few:

Miss Lilac

Celeriac. It's there. I promise. It's just really mad at me for starting it indoors.

Machines are dangerous things

I probably shouldn't tell you this, but I bought a mower. (And thanks again to my good friends for the final push that made that possible) And I am dangerous with it, apparently. I didn't hurt anyone or anything other than my knee (which a week later is still an angry greenish-blackish thing) and the tailgate of the manfriend's truck (which is in very bad shape indeed), but I am evidently a very blond force to be reckoned with at times.

Please do always check to make sure you're not in gear before releasing the clutch/brake when facing downhill and directly at said manfriend's truck. Or anyone's truck for that matter.

Isn't it pretty?

Zora doesn't think so.

Flowers

Daffodils

I am planting flowers. Yes. Flowers. Planting them. Expending precious time, energy, and resources on the advancement of pretty things in my surroundings. Some of which serve no immediate discernable purpose.

I have already embarked upon this flower planting nonsense, actually. Last fall in a fit of “oh my god I am exhausted and tired and wtf am I doing here?!” I planted some daffodil and crocus bulbs. Knowing that if they came up (they have), and I never did more than that, then at least the whole Stoneyhaw venture wouldn’t be a TOTAL bust since I got SOMETHING to grow. My godmother also sent down some irises and daylilies she thinned so I’m actually well on my way.

I am not even going to ask why the crocuses sprouted and bloomed after the daffodils. I don’t even want to know.

There are many reasons to plant flowers. Some of them are medicinal. The Calendula, for example. Some are edible. The nasturtiums, poppies (seeds), sunflowers (again, seeds), daylilies. Some have a good or bad relationship with bugs and birds – I’ve got bee balm and honeysuckle (which actually grows wild, is taking over, and I am trying desperately to harm the livelihood of. But I’m about to accept defeat in that arena, so it goes on the list) and whatnot for the bees and hummies, marigolds and the like to repel beetles and the like (also edible). Some are herbs. The lavender and chamomile (also medicinal).

Some are purely aesthetic. While veggies are beautiful in their own right, if I’m going to work my ass off, I want something pretty to look at while I do it (and potentially talk to/curse at. I never said I was sane). Come on. You think Dahlias are awfully pretty, too. You know you do.

But mostly there are nostalgic reasons. Both the marigolds and the lilacs (I hope I hope! I can keep the lilacs alive here….) have super crazy childhood memories for me. And this time of my earlier childhood in Connecticut (notice I’m not succumbing to Japanese nostalgia and planting morning glories. They took over in my mom’s yard in Vancouver, and parts of the woods in Point Arena without an invitation. They are rude, and impossible to wrangle. They got knocked off of this year’s list…). And the fact that lilacs, Japanese Irises (of which I have some in pots that I dug up out of my yard and drove out here with), and Dahlias are my favorite flowers.

When we lived in Connecticut, we lived in this crazy big Victorian (or so it seemed to me) at the end of campus (a prep school campus). The first floor was the infirmary and the bookstore, but we went through it everyday to go in and out. And right along the front of the house were these giant lilac bushes (I was a small child. They could have been teensy. They seemed huge). And a few times (but one sticks out in my memory particularly well as I do believe the maintenance guys mowed over them later), my mother and I planted marigolds along the sidewalk in front of those lilacs. There were actually lilacs all over the campus – some white ones as well as the standard purple – and lilacs were so involved in the school’s persona that even the stories about the ghost that lived in one of the dorms involved lilacs. But for me they remind me of growing up wild in a pack of unruly teacher’s kids that had free run of the entire campus and whose only rule was that we had to be in by dark (or call. Seriously). Of growing up in a secure bubble where I knew many of the students by name, all of the teachers by name, and could tell you which dog belonged to which teacher and how many puppies it had by ours. And of growing up in a giant playground that had a grove of lilacs that made the best – the best! – playhouses.

So even though they are a great pest repellent in general, I am planting my beloved lilacs and several kinds of marigolds because of my mom. My mom who has sweat, toiled, cried in frustration and in joy on this property, and who, except for a slight miscommunication, would have been out here mucking about in the dirt (although definitely not with Melvin, my awesome Airstream) years ago. And who will be here again soon, if only briefly. Even though I think marigolds smell like pee.

Crocus

 

Rain

This winter is going to end. That sounds crazy, but seriously. It’s going to end. Did the past several days of warm weather hovering in the 70’s and 80’s turn me on to this fact? No. The fact that it just started raining did. Raining and thundering and lightening and wind rustling, and all sorts of fun, definitively summeresque things.

Growing up in Japan, the weather was exciting. And excitingly predictable. My parents used to joke with new post-docs and whatnot coming in from overseas to Japan for the first time about it. You’re not supposed to wear short sleeves until May 1^st, for example. And there are times in April when it can only be described as hot. Yet the weather is polite and punctual, not unlike the Japanese themselves, and waits until it is socially acceptable to wear short sleeves to really kick your ass with the stifling, muggy, oppressive heat. Plums bloomed in March. Cherries in April. Apples in May. And then there was typhoon season. Which started precisely on September 1^st (or whenever it is supposed to start. Honestly I can’t remember…)

Typhoon season came at the end(ish) of summer. Summer had a tendency to go back into high gear not so long after typhoon season ended just to make sure your ass was kicked before winter set in, and you froze your butt off in your un-insulated prefab house…. Typhoon season came with lots of preparation and reminiscing of past big storms. But for us, typhoon season was fun.

When we first moved to Japan we lived in a new planned community right across the street from what was a vacant lot that was large by any standards, especially Japanese ones. This vacant lot (and indeed out whole neighborhood) had been carved out of a mountain top and meticulously leveled, and had great reinforced concrete drainage pipes and whatnot built into it. This lot would later (after we moved a few blocks away) turn into a new elementary school (that my sister went to), but for the first few years it was a blissful playground for us. I would ‘practice’ my volleyball serves against the concrete wall reinforcement at the end of it, and after the typhoon had passed we would slide down the drainage pipe on our butts in the gushing water coming down out o the field well after the actual rain had stopped.

And while Japanese weather is predictable (sure – to the extent that weather can be predictable, but still), the weather her in my new home state has been anything but. Record lows this winter, a very strange March (so far)… snow, rain, random heat….

10 minutes later the sky opened up.

But what is really getting me started upon this little jaunt down memory lane is the smell. That “it’s been super hot all day and now the temperature and the pressure and the sky has dropped and is about to unload copious amounts of water on you while you’re still trying to run for cover and/or bring in the laundry” smell. A smell that can only be brought to you by drastic temperature changes. Like when a summer sky gets clouded over and your sunburn is all of a sudden making you cold instead of warm. You don’t get this kind of exciting weather in coastal California. Yes you get windstorm and rain storms and whatnot – but nothing as quick and dramatic and “catch you with your pants down” as this kind of weather.

And to be honest – I missed this weather. It’s amazing how you can forget. And it’s amazing what makes you remember. Through a seemingly random chain of events I ended up spending my formative years in Japan, and then again it was completely random that I ended up in coastal California for almost 8 years, and then it was by total chance that I ended up in North Carolina (OK – this one is actually the least random if you know me and my family history). But I wasn’t expecting to be so reminded of – and homesick for – my childhood by moving to North Carolina. And sometimes – like this afternoon – it knocks my socks off.

Humble Beginnings

Everyone has to start somewhere. This is my somewhere, I suppose.

I realize that I have been absent from the blogging realm of things – I have been busy. I have been busy mucking about in the dirt. Or gardening, if you prefer. Mostly fending off ticks, but that’s a whole other story.

I finally got all 7 (holy crap! 7!) beds built, and have managed to get 4 of them filled with dirt/compost/leaves I managed to scratch up off the ground. Of the remaining 3 beds, only one really needs to be done immediately, and so I’ll get to it tomorrow, and the other two as soon as I can. But I had these little seedlings in the shed waiting with bated breath to get out of the shed and into the ground, already. We’re only a few weeks behind on a few things, after all.

I’m kind of doing the whole square foot planting thing, for the highest yield I can for the limited amount of space that I’ve built. Thank you, I’m aware I live on 40 acres. I’m also aware of how difficult it is to clear enough space to plant things, never mind the additional space you need to clear just to get light in. So. Yes. Shooting for high yield in a small space.

I laid string out and stapled it to the walls of the beds in a grid of one square foot squares. I seriously thought about winging it, but I’ve got so much stuff to keep track of at this point I feel like I need the visuals just to keep everything straight.

Grid laid, there are two more things that need to happen before things go in the ground: water and deer protection.

I hate deer. Hate is a strong word, and I mean it to the full extent of all the weight behind it when thinking about deer. In California, I once rolled in to one to get my parking space in front of my own house when honking and yelling didn’t work. I also had to smack one with a broom to get it out of my outdoor shower so I could bathe once. My feelings towards deer as a species haven’t changed even if my state of residence and the variety of deer has. So deer netting it is.

Most people I know that garden with raised beds use hoops of PVC covered in netting. I didn’t like this for two reasons. (And no, one of them isn’t that PVC is evil). First off, I’d have to buy several lengths of PVC. I am still unemployed and running on an extremely tight budget. And I have been clearing (and clearing and clearing….) trees of all sizes, and while I have been burning up all the brush and branches, I keep all the trunks. Which means I have a bunch of poles.

The other reason why I didn’t want to go the hoop/netting route is access. Deer netting is a pain in the butt to wrastle, and I have yet to see a good solution to the accessibility issue when the bed is actually antlered-rat proof. Inspired by my former landlady (a great friend and a great artist), I remembered that she simply went around the perimeter of her garden and kept the last side open, with an extra pole attached to it. To open the side you simply move aside the last pole and to close it you just hook it around the first one. I expanded on this by sinking a short length of wide PVC where the last pole hooks around so it has something to drop into.  

I had initially wanted to put the poles on the outside, but I failed to find metal strapping that would hold them in place (both aluminum cans and aluminum flashing don't work. In case you were wondering…).  I hadn’t wanted to put them in the beds as they would eat up seriously valuable real estate in the one square foot they’d be invading. But since I pretty much found myself in a position where it was that or nothing at all I just plopped the smallest ones I could find in each corner, screwed them in with leftover deck screws, and moved on. Stapled deer netting to said corner poles, the extra fifth pole (for access), et voila! Deer proof (I hope!) beds.

I was hell-bent on getting SOMETHING in the ground, so I ignored the lack of a water system issue and moved on to transplanting my peas and carrots (two varieties of each, and none of which I wanted to start inside as they should have been planted outside a few weeks ago, but whatareyougonnado?) and planting two kinds of beets. I have another two varieties started inside. I like beets.

And now, Stoneyhaw (website coming soon!) has the first garden on it in a very long time. Unsure as to how long, exactly, but I’d like to think that it’s the first real garden since my great-grandfather’s. And that makes me feel all warm and fuzzy. Even if I can’t find the asparagus that he planted that has become something of an urban legend at this point. 

Map of the garden. No joke. This is my key to all things Stoneyhaw.

The original bed plans were all nice and organized and laid out and everything....and then I changed the bed size. And so I cut and taped them back together. Then I changed some of the plants....rearranging again.

New bed plans that are SURE to be temporary as well... *sigh* But it's ok, because these are on binder paper. And so they can go in my farm journal/binder. See? A good thing.....

Itching to get out of the shed where they should NEVER have been, and to the great outdoors!

Stringing out the grids.

Corner poles set in and anchored. You can see the PVC in the corner for pole #5 to hook in to.

Deer netting affixed to pesky multi-sized yet free so yay! poles.

Humble beginnings. More to come.