ice storm of 2008

ice every where. the wind is supposed to pick up this evening and knock out the power. we heat with wood and cook with gas. water is provided via a water tower down the road. we should be fine. i have a small 1000 watt cheap-o inverter that could power our fridge if necessary. the freezer will be fine as long as it is freezing outside and we don't open it. the inverter is a modified square wave and i'd be scared to try it out on the new computer. maybe our craptastic tv would be ok if we really got desperate.


i can't help but think of doctor zhivago when i see all this ice.


i guess north of us springfield really got hit. many places up there are already without power.


i wonder if honey bees would find this beautiful?


the ice build up on the gentle sloping calf pen loafing shed.


the cows have really been going through the hay this winter.



this is the little fence around the porch to keep the chickens out. the top rail is extra wide so tabitha can set her laundry basket on it.


this is my little princess

she says she's a mommy when she wears this hair bandanna. i installed the trim around this door yesterday. it was sorely overdue to be installed. now i just need a bit more trim wood for the bedroom door and around the ceiling. after that the wood filler and white painting can ensue. the wall base still needs to be ordered and bought.

i have put our purchases list into a spread sheet in google docs. if you have never tried google docs i recommend them. they aren't as robust as microsoft office but it is free.

we are about $2100 short of filling all of our needs with our tax return. things like a new front door and insulated front window will have to wait again. not really a big deal in the winter because extra wood heat is basically free. summer air conditioning is where the real need is. tabitha will be big and pregnant this summer and air conditioning will be important.

that rick of wood that i started on jan 25th is almost gone. the past two days have been rough--burning the stove full blast. it will be gone tomorrow. nineteen days per rick during the coldest period. also that rick was all sticks loosely stacked by the nature of their irregularity. i think i can count on a rick per month of the next winters quality of wood.

spring like day

yesterday it was like spring.


the kids played outside.


i repaired the sandbox. we filled it with new sand. digging out the old sand was the most fun for toly.


tabitha and i worked in the garden. the tomato plant graveyard needed to be cleaned up.

this is what it looked like before we started our work.



we pulled all the tomato stakes and soaker hoses. all i need to do now is move three of the bean arches to their new location. two of them will integrate into the new tomato staking system. we'll need nineteen cattle panels for our garden this year. i'll need to get ten more. tristan was a huge help in the garden yesterday. destruction being his strong suit. i am excited for this summer gardening having a big helper like he alluded of yesterday.

i also made a new compost bin. it is huge. it should hold the better part of the three full ones that i now have. i built it toward the lower part of the paddock away from the garden. i'm in the middle of transferring the partially decomposed manure to the new bin. after the transfer is complete i'll move the old bins away from the garden also. the chickens use them as stairs into the garden. i won't be tolerant on any interloping chickens after this latest excommunication measure.

i figure that i will have the better part of five yards of "black gold" compost by spring. our garden should do really well on these new nutrients. we also plan to expand our garden a bit. we need room for okra and sweet potatoes. the proposed addition will encroach into the yard toward the house. there is a very sunny area that is wasted on grass. better used to make food for the family.

i have decided on a new solar dehydrator design. it will hold a larger volume of produce. adding a PV powered fan will be easier on this model also. besides no one will expect me to be half naked during its construction. i might compromise and wear my kilt the entire time.

my biggest stumbling block is the drying trays. i want to make them have a stainless steel mesh because all other alternatives are vastly inferior. aluminum, nylon, and galvanized screen touching our food isn't right. wooden slats will be an insurmountable amount of work--although probably what we'll end up with. i wish that stainless screen was reasonably priced.

i'm off to shovel some shite.....

this is the new compost area. the long one on the right is almost full. i could overfill it with the rest of the third bin (pictured in the above panoramas) but no need. the remaining compost in the old bin is done and ready to go to the garden. there is no point in moving it away from the garden to ride out the winter. when we are ready to use the compost i'll use that bin up first, then tear it down.

my guess that we'll have five yards of compost is pretty close. the new big bin is eight by five by four feet. that is 120 cubic feet plus the other yard and a half still in the old bin (35 cubic feet). account for continued settling about 15%. we'll roughly have 135 cubic feet--5 yards of finished compost.

thanks for the support

i really appreciate everyones compassionate responses to milk and honey. our trouble is a family affair. there has been no true resolution. i have to carry on as status quo in hopes that a resolution will be revealed.

in an effort to take my mind off the fiasco at hand we went to visit the local bee keeper. his name is thomas davidson. he came recommended by the president of the national apiary society. he has 150 working hives and sells his honey all over the ozark area.

i brought the entire family to see his shop. he was very cool. the kids explored. he had a little show and tell. we talked for quite a while. he climbed his pulpit and pontificated about the perils of insecticides. he offered natural solutions to all of the problems that he experienced. it was very interesting seeing an elderly man railing about how mainstream honey production has been poisoning us. he was preaching like this before he knew that i was part of the choir.

a breath of fresh air amidst the treacle of my past few days.

i am very excited to get bees. there are many risks but integrating this into our life is a natural step. we already use a ridiculous amount of honey and plan to use much more. our hope is to use honey in all of our preserving efforts that would normally require sugar. Putting it up with Honey by Susan Geiskopf is tabitha's latest book purchase. i estimate that we will use ten to twelve gallons of honey per year. we already use about four.

the newly discovered bread recipe from an old copy of The Tassajara Bread Book takes a cup of honey for four loaves of bread. that is a twice per week task keeping this ravenous family in bread. yearly that is 6.5 gallons of honey alone.

tabitha wants to plant some concord grape vines and transplant our wild black raspberries to our northern property line. adding a soaker hose from the strawberry raised bed will provide the whole addition with water.

we need to offset one of our largest expenditures of jelly. not only is bonne maman raspberry jelly crazy expensive but it is imported from france. the carbon footprint on that single staple is huge. if we exclude that jelly, making our goal of a daily meal within 100 miles likely by default. we eat a ton of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches around here.

during summer we also plan a weekly meal of the 100 foot challenge type.

once our garden starts to come on it should be be fairly easy. the hard part will be to make the meals exciting enough to post about them.

we plan early canning of as much of our garden as possible. the new baby will arrive in late summer and putting things up for winter will slow to a snails pace.

i also plan to build a solar dehydrator that tabitha found. i hope that tabitha doesn't expect me to build it as scantily clad as the guy in the link. overlooking the racy photos, this is a great design. i'll probably add a P.V. powered fan for more air movement. the humidity in the ozarks makes it hard to dehydrate foods. this will be how i plan to store much of our summer bounty after the baby arrives.

milk and honey

contrary to popular belief--this is not the land of milk and honey. i admit that we do, in fact, have a milk cow. i also admit that i am in the process of acquiring a couple of working bee hives. will we have milk and honey? yes. this little piece of land having milk and honey doesn't make it utopia.

our elysium is only because we will it so. lately i have been feeling threatened. factors beyond my control are innocently conspiring to threaten our reality. today i am feeling responsible. through this blog i have painted a picture of MY nirvana. i have erroneously glazed over the heartache, disappointments and concessions. this life we have chosen is more difficult than anything i have ever attempted.

everyone from this area that knew we were moving here would have bet against all odds that we would have washed up and moved back to california--people remind us of this all the time. having been here for almost three years i see their perspective--i would have bet against us also. this life choice has put pressures on my relationship that bent it BEYOND the breaking point. the fact that we survived is a testament to our compassion for each other--mostly tabitha's compassion of me.

i am a man of will. i have always believed that i can do anything. this endeavor tested my metal like nothing before. if there existed a scenario where only my will was necessary to bend reality enough to accomplish this paradise i would admit this a reasonable feat. it is not.

could i have bought my way into this life? there isn't enough money to gain the respect of these locals. people here in the ozarks are hardened by generations of difficulty. new comers throwing money at their problems are seen as suckers. the only thing that they respect is people of will--a few good introductions didn't hurt. longterm happiness here requires that the community embrace you.

the troubles that threaten our reality might cause us to leave here. i have already begun exploring other options--none of them as savory as continuing our attempts here. there are so many things left to do. i haven't even finished my root cellar. i want the simple life, albeit fraught with hard work. mostly i want to be left alone.

snow-rama

The panoramas* continue




it snowed this morning!

more to come this afternoon. let the long awaited sledding ensue.

*advanced use of the above panorama. it will show up very skinny and is a link. if you click on the panorama image another larger image will appear. on most windows machines it will automatically size it to fit your open window. click on it again and it will zoom to intended size. if you then use the slider across the bottom you can move back and forth. that will give you the illusion of standing in the center of the panorama and turning left and right as you slide respectively. try it you'll feel like you are standing in our road looking at our house.

chicken coop II updated

i have dramatically changed the chicken coop. it is two feet wider 10 by 8. tabitha wanted to be able accommodate 50 chickens. she entertains the idea of selling eggs. the yellow circles are the chicken roost spacing recommended by Storey's Guide to Raising Chickens. the roosts will stair step up from the center. 12" apart stepping up 12" each time toward the edges.

per kramer's recommendation i ditched the idea of sloping nest boxes. his argument was too compelling. i plan to have the 55 gallon drums on casters so i can move them around to make my life easier. there will be 12 nest boxes total.

the chicken run is just a suggestion right now. it will be whatever i find reasonable when i build it. definitely larger than shown here.

chicken coop

since i strained something in my groin, last thursday, i have been taking things easy. i decided that i needed to design our chicken coop. our old coop is sorely undersized and was built in a day from the scrappiest scrap materials.


the new coop should house two or three times the amount of chickens. there will be eight egg collection boxes. designed based on this principal.


the coop will be eight feet by eight feet square. half will be used for roosts and the other half will be for feed storage, brooding area and egg collection from nest boxes.

the feed will be in 55 gallon drums. there will be a pass through into the roost area. we'll use this for cleaning and catching chickens. the whole thing will be on a slab sloping gently toward a clean-out door. there will be two tiers of next boxes, making eight total. roosts will be in three tiers 90º out of phase from level to level. the roosts will remove easily for cleaning and allow easy access to next boxes. there will be a large rampart door that pulls up to close--large enough for a turkey. a huge easterly facing window for lots of light in the morning. a medium sized run in case we need any nest box re-training. the run should be substantial enough so they can live there for weeks at a time if necessary.

the coop will be much further from the house--two and a half times as far.

see the old coop on the right? the new one will be half way down the hollow on a flat spot. i'll have electricity down there so venturing down there to close them up for the evening won't be too daunting.

rough and tumble

this guy really is rough and tumble


kassi is pretty rough but here she is just tumble


one of the few times he is tumble without the rough


just cute, playing some role playing game of their invention.




for my record---->
i had to refill the wood box on the front porch. it has been really cold. i also used about half of the rick of wood by the barn. the wood is comprised of smallish sticks from the branches of the large trees that i sold last spring. it burns very hot and has about cooked us out of the house on this extremely cold day.

one, two, chicken poo

this is our back porch. recently the chickens have decided that since we are the main source of food they should just wait at the door for it. herein is the problem. if you leave the house via the back door re-entry is impossible. why? chicken poo in the house sucks. if you look closely at the floor of the previous picture you might notice a greenish brown hue. chicken poo.

i decided that something must be done but i wasn't ready for a slaughter. we stopped by the semi-local home improvement store--the one that doesn't hire "those illegals." i usually prefer to support a compassionate immigration friendly store but exceeding a reasonable carbon footprint was looming.

thirty some odd dollars later we were on our way. i had remaining horse panel from a previous project. i integrated it into the design. other considerations were to make using the solar clothes drier easier and allow for a cat sanctuary.

so i built the rail and chicken barrier. then they came.

they wanted in. they were looking for chink in the armor. they really wanted in. circling like sharks. i hadn't made the gate yet. i propped my "show" saw horses at the entrance for the evening. somehow my measures only budded the curiosity. then they were in. congregating and still making little donations on the porch.


the next day i made the gate. it is a cute gate. it worked, they are successfully excommunicated from the porch. today, day three, i scrubbed the porch twice--hot soapy water then hot soapy bleach water. i usually don't like to use too much bleach but this is a case where extra was necessary.

there is a fine line in chicken behavior that we'd like to achieve. a chicken troupe that stays close enough to home as to not offend our neighbors but stays off all porches. culling this spring will include three of the roosters including the white monster. we hope to kill the wider ranging roosters leaving the two agoraphobics to keep the girls at home. we have had luck with this in the past.

i received a blog award but in respect of the striking writers and my unwillingness to cross any picket lines i'll shrink further into my bubble and just say thanks from here. thanks to my lovely wife and children, my muses. without them i would probably be sitting on some bar stool waiting for my turn at the pool table. thanks to pablo and danielle, my first two readers. they are probably the reason that this blog continued beyond a fizzling whim. mostly thanks to all of you supporters. the prayer and collective consciousness have helped us through many troubled times. isn't the blogosphere wonderful? it affords a community where never possible before.

the perfect bread

rather the quest for it.

only twice in my life have i had perfect bread. i pine for both moments.

the first time was while in paris. it happened every morning at the little cafe near the hotel. i had a thick rich creamy coffee and a baguette with fresh butter. it was heaven in a simple bread.

the next time was in berkeley. tabitha and tristan were at elephant pharmacy. i went to andronicos and grabbed a baguette because i was starving. i shared it with tabitha and we both agree it was vastly superior to anything. while in the bay area we enjoyed great bread regularly. this was truly perfect bread.

here in missouri the perfect bread can only be a distant memory. tabitha makes good bread but is handicapped. the nature of the local yeast affects the bread negatively--it is inversely true of paris and san francisco. geographically handicapped and the best we can hope for in perfectly executed bread is and 8 or 9 on the 0-10 scale.

our micro climate has one thing. it grows the most fabulous tomatoes. they are like no others. in fact the red round fruit found in most grocery stores shouldn't be able to be called tomatoes.

i think there should be a label MISSOURI TOMATOES. it's defining characteristics are grown in southern missouri. no pesticides, no gmo, no petrol based fertilizers, picked fully ripe and never refrigerated. every other type of tomato should bear the burden of listing it's negative characteristics like cigarette labels must. GMO or hot house or chilled below 50 degrees.

what is perfect in your micro climate?

farm photos

this is the wood pile that i have so far. the first 1/3 of that partial row is sassafras. it is a light wood that will burn fast. it'll be great for the early season and starting fires. it really doesn't count for much heat. i'll need to finish out that row with decent wood to have enough wood for next year. i'll probably cut a fourth row just to be sure. i'll also have to cut some for the fire ring. next year i plan to have many more cook outs. also i'd like to have the hot-tub finished. that'll take a fair share of wood too. all in all i am probably about half way done cutting wood for next year. especially since i have several trees that are shading our intended pasture.

pictured above. just beyond the barn...

...off to the left, by the pile of branches are the offending trees. the chickens working in the barn are scratching where i just move the pile of lumber to finish the top part of the barn. all progress halted this summer because two huge copperhead snakes were living under the wood pile.

this is my baby girl.

she is growing up so quickly that it makes me sad. the chicken to her left is a broiler that we didn't kill. it was too scrawny. now it weighs 30 pounds. i'll probably let it live until the spring culling.

here is the garlic up and happy so far.

here is what it looked like last month.

hermoine underfoot is decidedly cross eyed.

she is a great hunter and probably my favorite cat--ever. she follows me around like a dog--even on long walks into the woods. here she was as a kitten--eating straight from the udder squirt.


as far as toly goes--we don't know. all tests were inconclusive. we are going to wait and see for a while. thank you all for your love and support--we need it.

toly is in the hospital

he is scheduled for an upper GI and needed to be on an IV. i hope they figure out what the problem is. this whole thing has been such a fiasco.

tabitha stayed with him last night. i brought tristan and kassi home. i will milk the cow this morning and take the kids back to the hospital.

UPDATE----
toly & tabitha had a miserable night. friends & family have been a great support.

seed order 2008

bakercreek rareseeds.com

$2.50 1 - Thai Bonanza Loofa
$6.50 1 - Detroit Dark Red - 1/4 lb
$1.50 1 - Boston Pickling
$2.50 1 - Japanese Long
$1.25 1 - Genovese Basil
$1.25 1 - Dill - Bouquet
$2.00 1 - Cilantro Oaxaca
$2.50 1 - European Mesclun Salad
$6.50 1 - Vulcan Chard - 1 oz
$1.50 1 - Butternut - Waltham
$2.50 1 - Musquee de Provence

johnnyseeds

Windsor broccli $2.65
Parmex carrots $2.55
Kinko carrots $3.00
Arava melon $4.55
Tyee spinach $2.30
Cashflow zucchini $4.20

things seem a bit more expensive at johnnys. we have saved from last year for the rest of our garden needs

carrots anyone?

i must find room in the garden map for carrots, broccoli and cabbages. arragh.. i'll post an updated version later today.

danielle, we mostly eat edamame as a vegetable--a whole food in moderation. the kids love it they eat it like mad when we cook it. we get our protein elsewhere during our meals. we eat tofu occasionally from whole soaked soy beans. we believe that the protein isolates in over eaten soy products are the true problem. we love swiss chard--tristan's first food.


Jbmaine, sorry i didn't include scale in my map. the garden is 70 feet by 40 feet of plantable area. i'm going to squeeze more room from somewhere.

sugarcreekstuff & pichinde, we will probably do two separate orders of chickens, six each time. one order will be buffs and the other will be golden laced.

Kevin and Beth, yeah if you consider actually collecting the seeds the work was too much to attempt as anything except a labor of love.

--------------------documented--------------------
loaded wood box on front porch--it should last until february. one and a half cord of wood cut, split and stacked by driveway for next winter--another 3/4 cord to go.

preliminary garden map

this is a preliminary garden layout design. there are still a few issues to work out. so i'll draw this line in the sand and we can continue from here.

home grown revolution

i saw this wonderful quote:

"in our society growing food yourself has become the most radical of acts. it is truly the only effective protest, one that can--and will--overturn the corporate powers that be."

thanks phoebe for the link

thoughts of spring dance in my head

the barrage of seed catalogs have sucessfully transported me into spring. there are only a few seeds that we'll purchase this year. japanese long cucumbers, bulls blood beets, swiss chard and some yet to be revealed melon and pumpkin. more will be known when i get around to making a garden map. i'll put the new adobe illustrator™ through its paces. my experience with adobe indesign™ was painless--some of the old quark express™ quick commands even worked.


we also recieved the new McMurrary Hatchery catalog. we are contemplating our new girls. the group of suspected free-loaders will be under close scrutiny. this spring will be a large culling. chicken broth will be made and canned. we like the idea of the Light Brahmas, New Hampshire Reds and Golden Laced Wyandottes. we have a local hatchery in springfield but their quality and health of the chicks has always been questionable. McMurrary Hatchery is a bit more expensive but we feel that they are worth it.

i have tons more of work for this season, including several more trees to cut down. i should quit being so dreamy about the next season.

legacy fiasco

yesterday


today


yesterday


today


we have had this bulldozed ditch full of an old house on the edge of our property since we moved here. the junk pile was a blight that seemed to never be likely gone. i pulled a huge favor to get lance over here with his backhoe. mike set it ablaze a few hours before i got off from work. i feel bad about burning such a toxic mess. i called our neighbors yesterday and warned them of the impending plume. lance kept busy all day ripping not easily burnable stumps from the ground. he displaced some of our precious topsoil but it's a price that must be paid. we have many locust trees that sprout a crown of extreemly thorny suckers when the stump is left. they grow back extra thorny if you try to burn the stump. eradication of these is near impossible without poison or mechanically ripping them from the soil.

we found a new home for our ducks. they spend entirely too much time wasting chicken feed for my taste. i planned to kill them. my days are already too busy to fit an event like that in. catching them and hauling them off will be plenty.


here are some of our girls. i think these are the productive click.


these are the rest of them--the free loaders.


our seed gifts were a huge success. everyone loved them. there is still one to go out but we need to send something else along also hence the delay.

here is a a gratuitous shot of the kids enjoying a pomegranate.

alien abduction

toly has G.E.R.D.

we spent the day in springfield yesterday. what a fiasco. they put a endoscope up his nose and down his throat. G.E.R.D. is Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease and he'll most likely grow out of it. in the mean time we have to treat it with pricey medicine. i am glad to finally know what the deal is and hopefully he can go back to being a happy baby again. it is so hard knowing that he has had this for a while and he was unable to tell us what the trouble was.

these times are the sucky part about being a parent. i guess it can't always be sweet elysium. we got back late--past my bedtime. i am tired this morning. toly was up all night with nightmares--probably something along the lines of an alien abduction.

seed packages are all ready

whew, we finally finished all the seed packages. that was more work than i expected. we are sending 8 different tomato varieties, three flower and two varieties of bean seeds. i used adobe InDESIGN to lay out the seed cards--never used that program before. we have a photo and description for each seed. hopefully, i'll send them out tomorrow.

oops lost an address:(
yes they'll go out today

chef tristan

tristan wants to become a chef. he loves it when i have him cook. he made excellent rosemary, onion and garlic home fried potatoes for breakfast.
he loves to watch cooking shows on pbs. i wish we had the food network. we miss alton brown.

garden excitement

seed catalogs have been arriving in earnest. it is impossible to NOT start to get excited. even the burpee hybrid catalog has an allure--how did they get my name anyway? i am going to attempt a garden map again. the garlic is already in and claimed it's real estate. i haven't even disposed of the old tomato vine skeletons yet. the bean arches are still up. in general the garden is looking very shabby. i plan to do some computer work today which could include redoing the seed cards that we'll send out with our meticulously collected heirloom seeds.

i will remove the music from the bottom of this blog. we have been listening to tabithas new sufjan stevens box set or else using pandora.com--i highly recommend pandora. it is a very cool approach to music and exposes the listener to cool stuff that you'll usually like.

we are all sick with a cold again. the kids got a wooden puzzle of the U.S. for christmas. toly promptly choked on ohio too bad it's not really round on both sides. we had an immediate visit to the hospital. by the time we got there he had already gotten over the choking. we still went in because we were already traumatized and needed reassurances. they never came. the only thing that we got were these colds. each and every one of us is sick--tabitha especially so. i want a t-shirt that says "i went to the hospital and all i got was this lousy cold."

it is a cold one here today. i was going to kill ducks today but it is too inclement for the that sort of task. indoor projects should consume most of my day. maybe a few garden photos a bit later.

white rabbits, white rabbits, white rabbits

happy new year.

christmas seed packages postponed

obviously...

seed card progress screeched to a halt when our computer crashed, died and gave up the ghost. the seed cards are one of many casualties that suffer because of my lack of planning and not getting those files to a save place. i have removed the hard drive from the laptop and plan to take it to a friends to perform the necessary file recovery.

very soon the packages will go out.

my seed list includes:
danielle mc.
erin s.
christine o.
kristine a.
donna & sarah
kelly @ scf
jessica & mark
walter @ smf

if you are expecting a seed package and aren't on the above list please email me omelay (at) gmail (dot) com and ill happily include you.

on one page there are several types of tomatoes (photos and descriptions). the second page is a mix of vegetables and flowers (photos and descriptions). this should be our very own seed saver contribution. may these heirloom varieties live on.