It’s Lammas, traditionally a time to celebrate the first harvests of the year, and despite the seemingly endless coldwetwinterspring weather, we’re actually starting to have something to harvest. Bees are enjoying the onions that have been allowed to go to flower: I wonder what the honey will taste like? It’s a great year for some things, like our tart state plant, the Oregon Grape: It’s not actually in the grape family, but it makes a really delicious dry fruit wine. Some year soon, we’re going to have to do a huge field of black oil sunflowers, which are a staple item for our goats and chickens. This is a volunteer, and a spectacular example; I lost count at 27 flowers on this one 6′ tall plant: Most of the remaining garlic and onions were pulled this morning and now hang from the rafters in the living room: I am not recommending this as an air freshener. Especially on a hot day when the windows are closed to hold in the cool nighttime air. Tomato plants are finally setting fruit, and are overflowing the former garlic and onion beds: We planted about 7 different varieties of tomato this year, purchased as small starts from Boondockers Farm, a great place for heirloom seeds and starts near Eugene. Boondockers have been working with several obscure (to me, at least) tomatoes, fusing their goals of preserving heirloom DNA and finding varieties that thrive in our particular climate. Evan, who owns the farm with his partner Rachel, was kind enough to spend an inordinate amount of time educating someone (me) who was only buying one tray of discounted starts. Several of the ones I chose from their almost overwhelming selection are of Eastern European origin, with names like De Barrao Black Ukrainian, Kosovo, and Malakhitovaya Shkatulka. The ones with less exotic names sound no less enticing – Chocolate Cherry, Black Zebra, Chocolate Stripes. I carefully placed little tags next to each start so I could assess the varieties for future planting, but now there are a few mystery plants…the sometimes frustratingly persistent ink of a Sharpie marker has no UV resistance whatsoever =\ I also don’t know what variety of tomato these are; they popped up voluntarily in a compost bin: The first round of potatoes is in, and the yield is not overwhelming but better than my previous efforts. I did not know this before, but “potatoes,” like most of our roots and tubers, are things we plant and care for in order to keep the tunneling moles well nourished. Kidding, but not entirely; I’ll explain in the next post.

We got snow!

The critters all had their own ways of dealing with it:

Some found spots of sunshine…

Some hid in the trees…

Some went exploring…

…and some wondered what the heck this cold white stuff was!

(Click images to see larger) Can you find the goat in this one? Here she is: These are not goats: Lulu and Zoe: Nikabrik:

Tobacco isn’t easy. The seeds are minuscule and take a long time to germinate. The seedlings are fragile, and grow fairly slowly for the first few months. Properly preparing the tobacco after harvest is an art, and requires an area that has the perfect temperature and humidity naturally or is climate controlled. In 2007, I impulse-bought a packet of Sherazi tobacco seeds, and this hardy Turkish variety survived my bumbling first year of outdoor gardening, growing to five feet tall. Inexpert curing left this already very strong variety almost unbearably harsh, and the part that turned out best was only smokeable mixed in with some American Spirit. Most of it ended up getting mold on it as I shuffled it in and out of the house in the late fall, when the outside humidity is about a zillion percent and the inside humidity, thanks to the wood stove, is pretty much a negative number. (more…)

Sigh. Apparently our girl was experiencing false labor for the past approximately 36 hours. She was still having mild contractions when we checked on her during the night, but by this morning they were no more. And even more surprising – her ligaments are back. Those ligaments near her tail end are the biggest predictors of impending kidding – they go soft to let her bones separate enough for birth. Yesterday we couldn’t feel them – except for a couple of times when I almost thought I could, but then they would disappear again – today they are soft, but they are clearly there. She is up and alert and enjoying the mid-70s and sunshine on pasture with the other goats. Her actual “due date” is this Friday, so we’ll be keeping a close eye on her over the next few days, waiting for the real thing.

Here I am with Drama Queen…that’s Koko’s ear and nose behind Drama’s head, and Aberdeen behind me. It might sound silly to someone who always got eggs from a supermarket, or who always had chickens, but today we ate “homegrown” (home laid?) eggs for the first time, and it was a thrill. It’s amazing that these pigeon-sized bantam hens lay such big eggs. The shells were very firm and thick, so they cracked neatly with no shrapnel. Yolks were the deep orange, high-domed ones we’ve gotten used to from real free-range eggs, and unsurprisingly the omelet was delicious.

What passes for Winter here is losing its hard edge now, and I’m starting to spend time in the garden again…here’s a rather disjointed post about some of the current projects: This is going to be a raised bed with straw-bale borders. The inside is filled with old goat bedding and other compostables. Soon I’ll remove the tarp, letting water in to start the composting process. The plan is to put a layer of soil and finished compost on the top and plant into that, hoping that the warmth of the compost action beneath it will help get early plantings off to a good start. Yesterday, our neighbor and I planted a hundred baby fir trees along the property’s roadsides, to eventually decrease traffic noise and provide privacy. They come in a bag about three feet long: I expected the trees in there to be tiny, but they were mostly about two feet long, and very healthy looking.
This kale is actually the remains of last year’s that got harvested, then eaten down to stubs by goats, then transplanted into the cold frame, where it’s thriving. Turnips are starting to sprout in the cold frame as well. It’s not the ‘right’ time of year to plant them, but with the mild climate here it seems worth trying. This garlic we planted a few months ago is looking well: …as is this garlic, which we planted about a year ago. It died down pretty young and I never dug it up, but it’s returned as a volunteer. (since everything is so green out here, I removed color from everything but the garlic plant to make it visible) Pregnant goats! Here’s a 55-gallon steel drum (used once, to transport maple syrup) set into the ground to serve as a root cellar. We haven’t experimented with putting food in it yet, but the thermometer I have in there seems to stay in the 40s no matter what’s going on outside.

Well, we weren’t expecting this so soon, but our dear little Molly left us a gift this morning! Here it is next to a “regular” egg, so you can see the size difference – the bantam egg is the smaller one on the left.