Escaping Suburbia

We’ve got some grody little mushrooms growing out of one of our straw bales. The straw is for winter mulching in the yard.

It’s been slightly less than forever since I did an update on the yard and house. We’re starting to think about how to prepare for winter, and seeing what we can get out of the garden for fall and winter. We also need to make sure the chicken coop is well-insulated, and we’ve already gotten a remote-controlled lamp set up so that we can let them have light a little longer in the evenings and first thing in the morning.

The chickens will be 29 weeks old tomorrow. We discovered that they purr when they are content. It’s adorable!

We’ve finally managed to fence in a good-sized portion of the yard so that they can run around free & they won’t damage the garden. They may be locally famous, soon, too, as we were recently interviewed for a story about people who are doing a bit more than vegetable gardening — such as keeping chickens for eggs, or raising bees or their own livestock. I can’t wait to read it! Look for it in the Home & Garden section of the DH or GT… oh, who am I kidding, I’m sure I’ll link to it. Please keep your fingers crossed for me that I don’t come across sounding like a complete blathering idiot. No more than usual, I mean.

The gang currently provides us with 4 to 5 eggs a day. We’ve given several dozen away and I’m always on the lookout for good recipes to use ‘em up. This weekend I made a 10-grain bread from a Bob’s Red Mill mix (yummy, but no eggs needed),  so tonight I think I’ll make mayonnaise and have sandwiches for lunch the rest of the week!

Inventory! We’ve been getting fruit trees from the clearance section over at Garland Nursery. If you don’t mind waiting a season or two to start seeing yield, this is a great way to get young trees for a good price. We go for the dwarf varieties so that we can fit more into the yard, and the yields will probably be more than enough for the two of us. We’ve got 1 peach, 1 fig, 2 pears, 2 cherry, and 2 apple.

The strawberry plants are putting out an insane amount of runners. We’re thinking we’re going to have to move everything out of that area and let them take over the whole patch. We’re getting a few concord grapes from our vines — these must be the few that were able to hang on after the rooster decimated them the day he got loose. Er. The day I forgot to secure the door to the run, so he got loose. Whoops.

We also didn’t get any blueberries this year — partly because of the chickens and partly, they just didn’t do too well. Don’t know if it was location or some other cause, but I think we have five or six blueberry bushes now, so we’ll see what happens next year.

Dennis has removed a huge row of box hedges along the street-side of the yard and we’re going to fill that space in with lavender plants.  We’ll probably be putting up some kind of fencing — just for looks.

We’ve planted pole beans and pumpkins, the broccoli is making a second showing (and now that we’re keeping the chickens out of there, we might actually get to eat some…), and I think there is still some corn growing. Next summer we’re going to be more methodical about the corn & I need to make sure we’re growing an open-pollinated heirloom variety. I think we are now, but I’ve forgotten what kinds of seeds we bought.

The tomato plants, a gift from my friend Erica, are going like gangbusters. Dennis made a sauce with stuff from the garden (tomatoes, onion, garlic & some herbs) which cooked for two days in the crockpot and drove me crazy from how good it smelled. I also dried some tomatoes that I got from a co-worker (pictured). Nom! Quite tasty. We picked two more batches yesterday and I think I’ll make some salsa. I hate handling tomatoes, though, blech.

And, finally, it’s hazelnut harvesting time. I gathered a big basketful yesterday and there are still more out there.

Well, that’s it for now. That’s sort of a lot to have going on out there, isn’t it? And I didn’t even mention the weeds.

We have had such a wonderful weekend here… two full days of sunshine. On Saturday we made up a pen out of four posts and some burlap & bird netting and we let the chickens into the yard for the first time. They loved it, and it made me really look forward to when we can move them out into the coop.

I don’t know why Flickr’s having some trouble with uploaded photos right now and cutting off the bottoms on a few of them, but I don’t have time to investigate. I’ll try to fix them later. All of these can be clicked to see larger versions at Flickr. Check out that middle shot… they’re establishing pecking order all right.

Our magnolia tree is covered in blooms and just between yesterday and today, they’ve opened up even more. Here’s a shot from yesterday:

And, today I started on a project I’ve been wanting to do for a while — painting the chairs on the front porch. This blue is just going to make the porch so bright and inviting.

Ummm, please ignore the fact that I need very badly to sweep! The porch will need a fresh paint job this year, too. Actually, the whole house will… and that is not a project I look forward to.

daffodil from the yard

Took this shot yesterday evening — have I mentioned how much I love daylight savings? These beauties are out by our mailbox and between the light at that time of day and the color of these flowers, they look kind of unreal. We also have yellow daffodils, both small and large. I don’t know what types they are.

Mr. Wolf and I did a quick inventory while we carpooled to work this morning. Here’s what we have planted so far:

• 3 blueberry bushes (plan to get at least 3 more)
• 1 peach tree
• 2 cherry trees
• 1 fig tree
• several strawberry plants
• 3 grapevines (table grapes)

Additionally, I have garlic and onions waiting to be planted. In the front bed, we have rosemary, thyme and sage… I hope they survived the frost. Haven’t checked. I’m sure the rosemary did, but I wonder about the others. Oh, and we of course have the hazelnut trees which, well, we’ll try again. Dratted birds. We also have the ever prevalent blackberry bushes that just grow and grow and grow. And groooowwwww.

Today, with any luck, we’ll pick up the chickens. Last week, the farm store had sold out by the time we got over there after work!

For the rest of the garden this summer, I think we’re going to go for some pole beans, tomatoes (urg), a few kinds of hot peppers, lettuce and… hm… can’t think of what else yet. Oh! Carrots! Lurve carrots.

Now, it’s 28 degrees outside, so someone please send me some slightly warmer temps, kthx.

I raked the driveway today. Not sure if the maple tree is ours or the neighbors, but we got a fair share of the fallen leaves & are going to use them as mulch in the garden.

Behold, our first hazelnut harvest:

Hard-won spoils from our battle with the blue jays and at least one squirrel. There’s one jay that likes to fly overhead as we leave for work and point and laugh.

“That jay is mocking us. It knows we’re leaving for the day!”

Yeah, well, I just roasted my first batch of hazelnuts, so… suck it, birdie!

Of course, like most things involving me, food, an oven, and a hot pan, I’m not sure how these actually turned out. They smell divine, but they seem soft and oh my stars will you look at this! Oh, ho ho ho, I am SO making THAT someday soon.

Where was I? Oh yes, what I did wrong… probably did not roast them long enough or let them steam in the towel long enough. Next batch, I’ll try to fix that.