Fall Planting

We've had success in recent years planting spinach and kale and other cool tolerant plants for a fall harvest.  By success, I should clarify that to mean seedlings that survived in their struggle against the wild animals.  And by wild animals, I guess I mean stray cats.  Um, I mean stray cats that find our neighborhood to be a good place to be a stray...

Anyway...to mitigate the loss due to the "wild animals" we got a soil block and started our fall plants inside. We start our seeds inside for the spring, but this is the first time starting seedlings inside for the fall.

I like the soil block maker for several reasons, but mostly because you have to get your hands dirty.  On the more practical side, I like how we'll no longer need to find little containers to start seeds.

For our soil mix we used soil from the garden mixed with finished compost, worm castings, and vermiculite

Now we have lettuce, kale, and spinach seedlings growing inside, as well as more basil and cilantro that we'll continue to grow inside.

Or maybe we (and several of the neighbors) could just stop feeding those "wild animals."  

The Fat Cat Heir of the du Ponts

We visited Longwood Gardens for an afternoon last weekend.  We visit a few times each year and it is usually a relaxing time.  The boys love the elaborate tree houses, my wife really likes the conservatory, and I just like the vast fields of flowers and the ponds and fountains.

Longwood Gardens got its start from Pierre du Pont, who purchased the property with (probably only a part of) the fortune he amassed while leading the DuPont Company.  It's an interesting story.

Mr. du Pont had this house built, complete with an adjoining conservatory.  At the entrance to the house was a fat cat.  Most cats can really let people know that "you are only here because I let you," and Mr. du Pont's cat fit that bill.  "Annoyed" is what I think his bubble caption said.

Cats, Kids, & Kraut

Cats, Kids, and Kraut.  That's what I am thankful for today.

On Sundays I volunteer at the local animal shelter and clean the cat area.  I always like going there as I find it refreshing in a way.  Yes, the work is rather dirty, as one could imagine, but cats (and any animal in my experience) don't lie.  If a cat doesn't want to be around you, you'll have no trouble interpreting the language. And for the cats that do actively seek human interaction, it is really something to be swarmed by twenty or more cats at once.

Earlier this month, some of the other volunteers built an enclosure around the porch of the building so that the cats could enjoy some outside time.  While I was cleaning today I saw a car stop in the middle of the road while the driver stuck his head out the window to take a picture of the "cat porch."  That made me laugh.

When I returned home from the shelter, aside from eating lots of tomatoes off the vine (which I am kind of bummed about because I hoped to preserve them; but at the same time, eat up boys, and learn what good food is), my younger son found a beet that I had completely overlooked.

For lunch, I scooped out some of the sauerkraut that has been fermenting for the past two weeks.  Even more wonderful than its tangy terrificness, both my boys ate it on their own.  We have a rule in our house; you are not allowed to say that you don't care for something without trying it first.  With its pungent odor, I wasn't going to force sauerkraut on my kids, but they wouldn't be allowed to say they didn't like it either without first trying it.  To my surprise, while my eldest was thinking of the best way to try it (on his sandwich), my youngest started eating straight from the bowl.

I am ecstatic, to say the least, that my first batch of kraut turned out so good.  I only scooped out enough for the next day or so, then I'll probably scoop the rest into jars and refrigerate (or maybe I'll just let it keep fermenting until we eat it all - which probably won't take that long).      

Pictures of the Week

I had to check if he was still breathing...(he was) 

The greatest job in the world...when you're seven

Our peonies began to bloom 

The first of the mystery lilies to bloom

Solar Cats and a Few Plants

I volunteer at an animal shelter.  Each Sunday I help clean up, make sure everyone is healthy, and pay a little attention to the cats I watch.  Standing still in a room with fifty cats can be challenging (they just climb right up you), cleaning that same room with said fifty cats usually means that the room doesn't look much cleaner once finished.  Today was a nice sunny day, however, and with a south face storm door, I only had to contend with about forty-three cats throughout the cleaning routine (what a breeze).

And when I got home, two of the neighborhood cats were also charging their batteries...

My wife and boys visited one of the local farms when I was at the animal shelter.  While they were out, I transplanted the tomato plants.  The tomatoes are in a new bed on the south side of the house, so they, just like the cats, should be happy with sun all day.  When the family returned, they brought with them an assortment of colorful flowers from the farm stand.  We planted the new flowers with the nearly-done tulips and mystery lilies.    

Our Backyard Chickens

Currently, we have eight laying hens residing in our backyard: 2 Silver Laced Wyandottes, 2 Barnevelders, 1 Australorp, 1 Golden Laced Wyandotte, 1 Columbian Wyandotte, and 1 Speckled Sussex.  We started out with four chickens in 2009, and then added more in 2011.  Our eight chickens, on average, provide five eggs every day from about February to November.  They don't produce any eggs when they molt, which usually lasts about two months.

The Point 17 is located within a town, and in a neighborhood, albeit one with no Home Owner Association (YAY!), and as best we can tell, we are not in violation of any codes.  The town codes specifically refer to dogs, not chickens, as nuisance animals, but the county codes get a little more ambiguous and depend on your interpretation of “livestock.”  Fortunately, hens generally don't make a lot of noise and our neighbors have never complained (and giving them eggs every so often probably helps, too )    

Happy hens scratching & pecking in a garden bed

Although we live in town, it is not a large town, and we have had raccoons on our porch.  Luckily, the raccoons never bothered the chickens.  On a couple of occasions hawks briefly landed in our back yard, which really gets the chickens excited.  But none of our chickens have even been injured by predators.

 One of these chickens is not like the other

The hens are not too intimidated by cats.  There are a few cats that pass through live in our yard.  The hens are mindful of cats they've never encountered, but once a cat is around for a while, they don't seem to pay it much attention.  Cats will sometimes "stalk" the chickens, but I think common sense gets the best of the cat: yes, a cat could probably kill a hen, but not without a fight and serious risk of injury.

My wife and I never had any day-to-day experience with chickens, and I didn't know much about what to expect.  My wife did most of the research, selected the breeds, and does the majority of the care.  She names each chicken and views them as pets.  I don't, but I absolutely love being around the chickens.  They follow me around the yard (they probably associate me as 'that bird seed guy').  And it is almost mesmerizing to watch them constantly scratch and peck.  That's right folks, we don't have cable/satellite, but come over anyway and enjoy some prime time chicken entertainment.  My favorite episode is when there is a new cat in town.