Pallet Nocturnalis + Sunny Garden Hen

by Neil:
Dragged 4 jumbo 12 foot long pallets from the steel working place down the block. Took one apart each night after work this week. I got about 6 good long 4x4's and 13 good 2x6's. One of the rejected 4x4's was oddly light and the other had a long resinous split. It still gets dark so early here this time of year that this job required a headlamp. This is a quixotic activity that is as much about destroying as it is creating. So now I have enough wood to build the frame for the "deck" portion of the greenhouse - And most of the 2x4 and 2x6 slats that will be the flooring. Got some "Oops" paint from Home Despot to prime them and begin the waterproofing process. It is also damp here in the winter - so water based paint dries real slow. I still don't know how i am gong to fasten the corner posts (uprights) but ....The wood sits painted battleship grey on the sunken patio. See you next week for an exciting episode hopefully having something to do with "brackets".

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by Naomi:
Neil breaking a pallet apart each night, in heavy rain with winds gusting to 30+ mph, deeply inspiring. He is on a mission. So glad the weather is still and dry today and for maybe a week ahead.

The garden has been on it's own the last month, but today it was in the 40's, sunny and calling for love. Some plants that should have been brought in or covered, passed on and there was a lot of cutting back to do. The catmint has formed this beautiful open swirl of this past year's growth to reveal the new growth in the center. The leeks are alive, the fava beans are almost all dead, some rogue survivors, a good reminder to keep planting diverse cover crops. I pruned the grapes and the arctic kiwis, I had been patiently waiting for the new year... All 6 worm bins are still thriving! Need to design one larger bin that we can efficiently harvest from. Thinking about consolidating all of them and the regular compost and the decomposing food-in-waiting 5-gallon buckets to the north side of the house, to make a service corridor.. I dream of this and have designed a little tiny home for us with this in mind. Aggressively trying to truly manage all of the food waste of six of us who mainly cook and eat at home in this rental duplex, I have a ways to go and am experimenting. It is a challenge. I dream of also composting for our neighbors when I figure it out.

We have started actively mapping out vacant lots and I've been drawing up a 375 - 500sq' footprint design, two-story/units, with as much garden space possible, based on a standard 5,000sq' lot. The hens, their run with a rain garden along its perimeter between sidewalk, the greenhouse, hoop house, workshop, planting shed, worm and hot compost, bike shed, annual beds, perennial fruits, nuts, herbs, veggies, flowers. My work may vary over time, but we really want to put down roots and more than any other goal, I want to craft our urban homestead. A double lot and our food potential would be incredible, but to afford that, we'd need to go further out. We're weighing proximity to neat community and downtown/center of work potential. More on that soon!

As for the ladies, they like the mild weather and got lots of chopped greens. All eggs stopped on Thanksgiving, which was exactly when Mayhem or DIO started in 2007. Everybody molted through the holidays and they are all fully feathered again, combs and waddles still a bit pale. Today was DIO's third egg back (she molted first, alone, gotta be her). Lima had gone into an odd partial molt last February, risen to top bird, dedicatedly tried to lay good eggs and finally this fall went through a true molt and her golden feathers are gorgeous. We're so happy she is healthy. Yay! I hit their dust bath area with rake hoe to loosen it up, they love that.

Our garden areas are really squirrely in terms of quality spots for food. We will sow a lot of flowers again and we're trying to figure out what areas we'll fit our veggies in. Also thinking about what other perennial fruits we could try to fit in, prioritize investing in. Drooling over the FEDCO seed catalogue. Neil made me two cool aqua indoor transplant shelving units for the south window for late winter/early spring.

I'm taking sections of the Master Gardener course this winter, to go along with the Organic Gardening Certification program I took this fall. The first section is this Thursday on Entomology and held less than 2.5 miles away. Woo hooo!!! Oh and I was interviewed for In Good Tilth magazine on soil amendments and already have a few issues in envelopes to mail to a few of you who I think will get a kick out of it... On Thursday I was interviewed by an AP writer on Portland chicken-keeping. I was nervous at first, but once I start talking about chickens and urban gardening and farming.. it is hard to stop..... eeps! I will let you know if an article comes out.


Much love,
Naomi and Neil