Overview of Garden Progress – Spring/Summer 2012

OK, I have not posted since March. I must be busy. or lazy. Or both. I will try to get up to date with a couple of photo essays of the time in between my March postings and now. This first one is of the melting snow and the garden, from above. Next time I’ll post a photo essay of some more specific happenings and progress in the garden/food forest. Enjoy.

April 9 – the garden is covered with snow!

April 13 – still under snow!

April 18 – Melting…

April 27 – Melted!

May 24 – Finally greening up.

July 13 – not the same view, but getting almost Jungle-like

Minimalist living – tiny houses, owning 15 things – how low can you go?

I read grist.org almost daily, where normal article topics run the gamut from local food and climate change to green building and sustainable urbanism. There is a facination in this community (my online community) for tiny houses and people who own less than 15 items. I am cautiously inspired by both of these thing. They are, arguably, valid proxies for living lightly, sustainably, and more carbon-neutral. Certainly they present a happy fantasy of a life less like mine – house cluttered, dirty, overwhelming! I’ve often wanted to throw 15 things in a backpack and leave it all behind. I feel perfectly comfortable living, short term at least, in 10×10 cabins, even sharing with other people. So these things do inspire me, and some of it is good – I have paired down my moderately useful, mostly sentimental stuff a bit.

A tiny house (shipping container!) in Alakanuk

But, perhaps just defensively, I can see problems too, some of which I’ve brought up before. If you don’t own tools or have a place to store tools (doesn’t have to be heated – and a lot of tiny house owners seem to have even larger out buildings!), you might have a hard time keeping your necessary infrastructure up and running so that you maximize its useful life and don’t have to chuck it for new. If I had lots of money I could ditch the sewing kit and take all my clothing repairs to the corner alterations shop, but a quick and easy, almost costless patch job would end up costing over $10. I could take my bike in for all repairs, tune-ups and adjustments. I could hire repair people for anything that goes wrong with my building or stuff. And if I did make lots of money that might not be so bad – rent everything possible instead of owning (perhaps even my space), hiring professionals to do all repairs so that they have the tools, not me. That is actually a much more efficient allocation of resources, than everyone having their own. But my bike has the pesky habit of breaking at 10pm when I have to get to a friends house, it seems crazy to call a repair person to replace a single screw in a hinge, I’m not made of money, and I enjoy doing things myself. Another good option is having a tool library or rental pool or some such, and that is the joy of intentional communities and groups where you can live in close proximity to the tools you need to borrow and have 24/7 access. Like in college, where I had the key to the bike shop and could go in at 2am to tune up my bike, as could anyone else on campus checked out on it. A lot of people who don’t own much seem to be in situations, like school or traveling the world, where there is this infrastructure to support not having to own everything you use.

As far as tiny houses, in my climate it is a little silly. For thermal efficiency, which is very important in this cold climate, it makes sense to share walls. Indigenous people tended to build houses, that while small, were built big enough to house several nuclear families. I’m all for small personal floor spaces, but shared common areas and multiple units within one shell seems a given to me here. Again, I see a need for enough space, perhaps unheated, for tools (shared at least) and some ‘junk’. If I didn’t have a scrap dimensional lumber pile (say, due to lack of storage room I just burned it all or gave it away), I would have had to find or buy new to build my chicken coop – more resources needed in the way of wood and transport fuel to get it to me.

And just because you live in less than 300 sf or own only 5 things at a time doesn’t mean that you don’t jet all over the world or drive a gas-guzzler, though I’m sure generally a full set of sustainable behaviors would go together (and I’m certainly not perfect on any of these things). But I’m considering a better measure of sustainability in living than how much floor space you have or how much you own – amount of money you live on. Again it is not perfect, somethings in our world are artificially cheap (fossil fuels), some worse options are cheaper than better options (fast food burger vs. organic, grass-fed beef burger), but a lot of these distinctions break down if you follow through to even better choices – biking everywhere is cheaper than driving, cooking whole vegetarian foods at home is cheaper than eating fast food. I’m currently doing online research on this – it goes back to the roots of minimalism – the simple living movement of a couple of decades ago (Your Money or Your Life and all). I’ll let you know what I find out!

Meanwhile, we finally hit breakup last week and the temperatures are over freezing during the day (40′s F the last couple of days!) and the huge piles of ice and snow are slowly but surely shrinking! No bare ground, but some bare streets and sidewalks.

Attempts at winter sustainability/sanity

This winter is hard, man! I mean, like really hard. It was below 0 F all January. It’s snowed early and often – we’re edging on toward a record snowy winter. I feel like I’ve turned into a bear. Having a child broke my illusion that I was a mellow, happy go lucky person, but this winter seems to have intensified my moody, loner crotchetiness. I’m turning into a bitter old man, despite being female and not even 40. OK, there’ve been plenty of good days too, and sun and exercise and winter beauty and feasting get me through. Here’s a rundown at my (fairly typical) attempts to live lightly in the dark times:

Transport: I still don’t own a car. My son is now catching a car pool ride to school in the morning. I bike or walk to work. I bike to pick my son up at school on my days to do that, and then we take the bus home together, except the time I forgot my wallet (see above sketch). When I’m with James we drive most places, except nearby restaurants…that’s generally only on the weekends. Luckily even then we don’t get out much. But if I did get out to the mountains/woods more I might have a slightly better attitude… I’ve flown once since last May, to Fort Yukon to teach energy efficiency. I’ll be heading to a green building conference in Portland this May as well, and back out to the villages to teach this month. So more flying than I feel comfortable with.

Food: I didn’t freeze many greens last summer, so I’ve been buying a bit more non-local veg than normal, but still mostly subsisting on local root veg. My frozen backyard fruit gave out a couple of months ago, so buying lots of shipped in fruit. Still plenty of local meat in the fridge, especially salmon. My dad does a lot of cooking for us, and I’ve fallen on the ease of store bought bread to make a quick meal (pbj, etc), so convenience dictates what I eat a lot. Most mornings my son and I start the day with eggs from our chickens though, and that I feel really good about. My meat freezer is in the back shed to save energy for freezing, but that may be hard on the workings of it – we’ll see. I haven’t unplugged my fridge this year like last winter, but this year I have an energy star fridge, so not so much incentive.

Heat: Still finding some air leaks to seal, like one around the porch attachment that lets cold air in to freeze a heat pipe when it is really cold. Once I seal that, I won’t have to keep it above 65F inside when it is below 0 outside. I’m fine tuning my setback temps on the thermostat to save big at night and when we are out of the house, while still feeling cozy when home. Someday I’ll get a wood stove installed! And solar thermal, and…

Soon enough spring will catch up with us, even here in the icy north, and I can worry about summer efficiency – which mostly involves the food garden and maybe some community outreach/advocacy!

Cold climate egg production!

One of these days I’m going to write about my building/energy efficiency and community building projects again, but for now it is eggs that are exciting me. I arrived back from an overnight trip to Ft Yukon (where there is some interest in chicken raising due to the high cost of AC store eggs) to find 5 blue-green eggs in the nest!! So it seems at least 3 of the girls are laying. And here is breakfast this morning:

The lighter yolk, bigger egg is a local egg but not from my hens. My hen egg is the one with the bright orange, firm yolk! Delish! Shells are strong as well, and the chickens seem healthy.

So, as I commented on in the last post, my local, energy efficient coop management seems to be working: a 40 watt equivalent 8 watt led bulb on a timer to give 14 hours of supplemented light, in an insulated but unheated coop. Alaskan grown grain (oats, barley, and or wheat) available from an automatic feeder in the coop. Unfrozen water supplied once a day. Scraps are brought with the water including crushed egg shells, table scraps including greens frozen for them in the fall, and salmon scraps (guts, backbones, skin, heads, roe, etc – about a pint to a quart a week). All for 5 hens and 4 ducks.

Little blue frozen egg!!

One of my hens laid a little blue-green egg in the nest box this morning! It was 10 F in the coop, so it froze before I got to it, but I’ll cook it today. I don’t heat my insulated coop, and the little door to their yard is always open unless it is double digits below zero F.

So cold doesn’t seem to be a deterrent to laying! Neither does my tough-love, low energy treatment: to have as sustainable an operation as possible I only feed local grain (wheat, barley and/or oats – always available) and bring them salmon and table scraps and warm water once a day. We’ll see if that egg tastes fishy since most of their protein and calcium comes from salmon!

The key is light. I got them as new hatched chicks June 15, so they are about 31 weeks old. A couple of weeks ago I installed a compact fluorescent bulb on a timer in the coop and have generally been giving them an additional hour of light a day until today. Today they will have artificial light from 4:30am to 9:30am (dawn) then from 4:30pm (dusk) to 6:30pm – 14 hours as my sources tell me they need. Yesterday they only had 13.5 hours, so that was enough for one girl! I will slowly adjust the hours to start later so the eggs don’t have so much time to freeze.

It certainly seems like a miracle that they are starting to lay! Here is the flock:
The black Easter-egger type (blue/green egg layers):

One of the three grey Easter-eggers:

Probably the lone brown egg layer – the barred rock mutt:

And, of course, the duck family:

3pm update: another little blue egg in the nest – this one not cracked from freezing!! And I ate the first egg and it was delish – no fishy at all!

A permaculture garden in Alaska – most of the year

Murder most fowl

Over two weeks ago now I perpetrated a premeditated offing. The crime scene still shows some blood spatter if you dig around in the snow. I’d spent about 6 months intending to take out my victim, researching killing and disemboweling methods. Even when I grew somewhat attached to my intended target, I counseled myself to remain distant…biding my time.

And then that fateful Tuesday earlier this month. He started making too much noise. It was time to act before the neighbors grew suspicious. I set out my knives and went to work as normal, knowing my victim awaited his fate locked in the shed.

Ok, enough Dexter creepiness…Featherfoot the rooster crowed one morning as I brought the chickens and ducks water, and sealed his fate for the day. I got home from work, set my canning pot on the stove to heat water for plucking, loaded my favorite ‘how to butcher a chicken the simple way’ website and went out to the coop. Featherfoot was gentle to the end, almost no protest as I picked him up, held and petted and cooed to him, hung him up by his feet over a bucket outside, and slit his throat with a sharp fillet knife.

Then he struggled, with what seemed to be minutes of post-mortem wing flapping that caused him to fall from his rope where I held him over the bucket, double checking the mortal severity of my slice, until he quieted.

A bit breathless from this, I then methodically dipped and plucked him and the three young chickens that the dog had offed and left one summer day. Fresh from the freezer, these tender young chickens’ skins pulled off as I worked to pluck and I let that be.

The website butchering instructions were flawless, and all went well, even with my modification of saving the tail (which I love), by cutting under it instead of over. For the young chickens, since they hadn’t been gutted before freezing, I cut off frozen necks, legs, wings and breasts, chucking the rest in the compost for food safety.

He went straight in the oven for that night’s dinner. I followed the high-roast recipe on the butchering site, but in hindsight I should have cooked him slower or frozen him first to tenderize the meat. He was very tasty, but a bit tough and stringy the first night, much more tender in soup the next day.

I’m not sure I fully feel him as gone, and I’m sure the butchering was easier since my contact with the chickens is fairly limited in the winter ( the cold keeps us all inside more). I know it will be sad to not see him out being so wonderfully roosterish with his girls in the spring. But I am very proud that I seem to be cut out for this practical farmer lifestyle. The not-unpleasant but not-appetizing sweet smell of the guts was the only slightly distasteful thing (other than meting out death) of the whole process for me. The liver was amazingly tasty though. I remarked that I would raise meat birds just for the amazing taste of their fresh livers! (yumm…with fava beans would be good!)

Rest in peace, wonderful Featherfoot…if I can say that to someone I killed and ate.

This is where we weren’t going to go!

This is Featherfoot.

If you remember, we got straight run (unsexed) chicks in June. We knew the boys were going in the pot, so we didn’t name any of then. At one point a dog got 4 of them. We consoled ourselves that those were probably all roosters (pretty sure that at least 2 were). The 3 bodies we found are still frozen in the fridge awaiting cooking. We successfully avoided attachment – except to Featherfoot.

He was a cute little runty fuzzy black chick – the only one with feathers on his feet. Since he became an early favorite, we reminded ourselves frequently that he was probably a boy. Not because he seemed to be, but as emotional protection. We would slip and call him Featherfoot, and then remind ourselves not to. We were very relieved when he showed back up after the dog rampage. He definitely started to get a bigger comb and wattle then the rest, but his body still looked very hen-like and we sorta hoped against hope that he was just a big combed breed of hen.

No such luck. There is no crowing yet, but it is painfully obvious that we have 5 hens and one rooster. He is shiny black with some iridescent green and has recently developed some pretty cream colored hackle and saddle feathers. His tail is getting long. He is beloved by his hens and quite the gentleman. He is also the tamest and the easiest to hold. It seems so right to see him out with the girls.

But this is the city. I have half a mind to get him de-crowed, and I’m not too concerned with the cruelty of that (I think he’d rather strut amongst his girls, indulging in his roosterly duties quietly than simmer with the dumplings) but even if anyone in town does that it is a risky, presumably expensive procedure that may not make him quiet enough to pass city standards. So he’s probably dinner. But it does seem a shame. It seems the flock should have a rooster, and he seems like such a good man to have around. It’d be neat to hatch out chicks someday too. Sigh.

In other chicken news, the winter coop is almost ready for them (I know I said that last time, but now really!). Just need to gate the outside run, finish the automatic chicken feeder, and seal the floor with polyurethane – they should be in by Friday. Probably going to acquire some Muscovy ducks by then too…at least the drakes will be no problem, noise wise!

Apples and potatoes

We got a light frost in the grass the night before last, then last night it was enough to kill the squash leaves, but not the tomato that was up higher off the ground. Today we bought about 25 pounds of apples from a local orchard. The orchard has outdoor and greenhouse varieties, all non-pesticided. We got drop apples at $2/lb for applesauce, typically tart outdoor varieties for pie, and a variety of the best apples I have ever eaten from the greenhouse ($3/lb) for fresh eating (pictures of some below – honeycrisp, ambrosia, and gold sentinel are amazing!)

Then we all harvested potatoes from my 18 sqft bed. I started these with badly sprouting holdouts from my winter eating stock. There were red and yellow and blue (I think some Yukon gold, German butterball, red fingerling, and others). We’ve actually been digging and eating potatoes from the bed for over a month. Probably easily 20lbs worth already. I weighed them today and we got another 40lbs even! That’s a very decent yield.

In other news, James put the window in my chicken coop to be, and the chickens are doing well. My dad and I completed the stucco on the foundation insulation foam. That’s about it – gotta go make applesauce before bed!

Autumnal abundance and dearth

The leaves are beginning to yellow a bit, and last week the blueberries from out Rabbit Lakes/Peak 2 way were almost over ripe.

This is a time of plenty and of lack. We are losing warmth, but the garden, despite another year of sporadic attention, is full of turnips and potatoes and some other less abundant delicacies (gooseberries and fava beans and pears and such)… And chickens and bees. My new part time job leaves me more time and more relaxation, even in the face of much less money. But enough to live simply. I’d much rather have the time and need to make a mashed turnip and greens casserole from the garden than have to go out to eat because it is late and I’m too exhausted to cook. This all local salmon, new potatoes and peas (thanks dad!), and broccoli dish was even better than going out anyway!

Unfortunately, I feel I could use even more time. Some plumbing things popped up last month and I had water dripping from my ceiling twice – both times it turned out to be minor (tightening the sink faucet and the shower drain in unit 1), but a bit of time. Also the unit 4 dishwasher pump went out, so I’ve ordered a decent energy star dishwasher from Sears. Could have gotten a used dishwasher from the Restore for much less than the $517, but I’m hoping the less than 3 gallons of water per load will pay off. Currently my yearly water bills are more than gas or electric bills! Not to mention the gas for heating the water.
And the to-do list goes on: put the T1-11 siding up around the south entry, finish off some other exterior siding bits, build the winter chicken coop, harvest honey, harvest veggies and put the yard to sleep, finish tiling the bathroom, paint and trim the living room, a million more projects for energy efficiency and needed upgrades. Basic housecleaning. The usual! I know partly I need to relax and know that things will get done, and no one but the annuals are dying, but it would be nice to get to a point of more conclusive rest. Which is how we northern folk get to actually looking forward to winter every year, despite the brief, fervid summer!