Marginalia, Trivialities & Suchlike
Strange to think that a few days ago I got sunburned working on Ft. Bountiful, because yesterday and today it was borderline frigid
That said, today we did a final till on half of the garden, and planted half of that. So as of today we have sown rows of: mangel (beets), red beets, diakon, collards, lettuce, and kale. Coming soon: corn and other stuff Zeyda tells me to plant.
So now we wait and watch.
Fort Bountiful is now completely enclosed—eight feet of deer discouraging fence, mounted to 4×4 posts sunk 2+ feet in the earth.
Tomorrow we will till the soil. Zeyda gave it a preliminary plowing with the tractor-mounted tiller, and tomorrow we’ll give it a more precise tilling with the walk behind, then planting begins later this week.
The Fort looks good, but it may have strained relations between the generations. The fact is, Zeyda and I are long accustomed to working alone and doing things our own way, and this has been a sudden crash of grumpy, opinionated old men. We’ll recover of course, but it’s an interesting circumstance to note.
It’s been really windy for the past couple of days, so windy that the hens didn’t even lay a single egg today. They truly do not like windy days. Little do they know that a new, (presumably eager) generation is closing in on them. I can’t recall if I mentioned this previously, but at the outset of this coronavirus panic, Safti and Zeyda decided that now would be the time to get back into the chicken business, so while others were out buying toilet tissue and beans (that they don’t know how to cook), they bought twenty chicks, which will soon take residence on this side of county road 35. As an aside, we heard a story on the radio this morning that chick breeders were sold out of product owing to the concordance of Easter and the coronavirus panic. I foresee an surge in feral chickens in the near future.
We sunk the last four poles for the frame of Ft. Bountiful this morning before the rain set in. Well, not totally before the rain set in, but close enough. It remains now to hang the livestock panels and cut a gate into the perimeter somewhere. As I look at the skeleton this evening, it occurs to me that we will probably need to add some structure between the poles, but we’ll burn that bridge when we come to it, I reckon.
In other pandemic news, I was finally able to order some bread flour, and even a thermometer. I’m embarrassed that we didn’t have a thermometer already, but I guess that crises provide clarity for where we’ve been slacking. We’re having trouble keeping beer in stock (I suspect Puck has been pilfering after we’ve gone to bed), and I am somewhat wary of eating raw fresh vegetables, so it would seem we’ve eaten our last greens salad for a while. Farewell, arugula!
While we were taking a break from our labors yesterday, and drinking a lovely cup of Tanzanian coffee, Zeyda wondered aloud how much—or little—Tanzanian (or any other) coffee might be enroute to these United States. I roast my own coffee, so I have some degree of insulation from the swings in the commodity market, but then I wondered how long any supply interruptions might last. Long story short: whereas I normally order 15 pounds of green coffee every couple of months, I now have 40 pounds of beans headed my way. If the virus takes us, at least we won’t be drinking shitty coffee when it happens.
I managed to get a curbside pickup appointment from Kroger (five days from now, but whatever), so if you’d like me to grab something for you, lemme know.
We’ve established the two long sides of Ft. Bountiful, and tilled the ground in between, leaving the two short ends to enclose. Opinions were shared on how exactly to accomplish this. Turns out there are two high opinionated, used-to-working-alone men working on this project. Some sample exchanges: “Well, if you know the answer you’re looking for, why are you asking me?” “It’s a compromise.” “Well, no wonder I didn’t recognize it.”
Kidding aside, it’s going well. Yesterday, all the holes went to the water table, and inherent clingly clay on the diggers. Today, we encountered a layer of sandstone, but that was far more workable.
The forecast calls for rain tomorrow, so that will probably put the brakes on construction, but seeds are started, the ground is warming, and no one has stroked out yet.
Biggest coronavirus debate: will I make a grocery run tomorrow? Stay tuned. And wash your hands.
Back in the Time of Plenty, we often joked about building a family compound centered on the property Dr. Evil’s parents own in southeast Ohio. Mostly, it was a comical reaction to public idiots such as antivaxers, III percenters, and Tea Partiers. Then came Trump.
But the line was not quite that straight. Dr. Evil’s folks—whom I suppose I’ll have to name, now that they are characters in this play—so we’ll call them what their grandkids call them: Safti and Zeyda—were among the back-to-the-landers who descended upon West Virginia in the late 60’s to early 70’s, hoping to . . . . well, if you want to know about that, just ask, and I’ll be happy to send lots of links to scholarly articles. Point being, West Virginia (and lots of other rural areas) became a refuge for many hoping to escape the pressures and ideologies of the Vietnam War era.
Safti and Zeyda landed in southeast Ohio when Safti accepted a position with a local university, and they built a house on a few acres in a sparsely populated county. They later added more acreage, and built a new house more suitable for their age. This was when Dr. Evil and I took over the small farm (the “tall house,” as opposed to the “flat house” in local parlance). Does two houses a compound make? Well, we have neither ramparts nor palisades surrounding us, and a county road bisects the property, so probably not technically.
The coronavirus has prompted a surge in survival instincts, however. We’re not hoarding toilet paper or anything (although we do have a whole case of brown bread, but that’s another story), but what we have done is start building what I’m calling Fort Bountiful. Zeyda has been a gardener for decades, and when we moved to this house, we took over his garden (the “hoop garden” because it was basically a quonset hut made of arcing livestock panels.
But we found that setup unworkable and gave it up after two seasons. We also planted an open garden, but it was decimated by hooved rats, aka: white tail deer.
Enter: Fort Bountiful. It will be a protected garden measuring about 50 feet by 32 feet, with tall posts all around, upon which will hang 8 1/2 feet of livestock panels. Seeds are on order and construction began yesterday.
I’ll keep you posted. Get it? Posted.
There are some exciting new developments coming to the farm. Growth! Expansion! Many other synonyms!
Stay tuned!
I did my Friday shop on Thursday this week, knowing I would not be able to purchase pastries for Saturday morning, so why not shift it up a day?
Notes: No fresh baked goods, but lots of fresh boxed stuff, What’s the diff?
Butcher counter closed, but fresh meat in the coolers. What’s the diff?
Dried bean section scoured. Like all those non-spice using so and so’s know how to fix beans.
Oatmeal section ravaged. As if you Cheerio-eating dunderheads appreciate steel cut oatmeal.
They weren’t even bothering to unpack the toilet paper, just dropping the boxes adjacent to the TP section, then counting on the Morlocks to take it from there.
I thought about buying some popcorn, but apparently, everyone else thought of that too. Once back home, I checked Amazon for availability of Orville Redenbacher’s, and they did have it in stock . . . for $11.44, up from $4.37 a month ago. I look forward to Bezos injecting some of his Covid riches back into society.
Interesting times indeed.
I’ve freed the first starling from a downspout, the hens have resumed laying, the peepers are loud at night, the horses are leaning over the field fences for that sweet, green grass on the lawn side. Yes, readers, spring is here. We actually didn’t have much of a winter here; most of our snow and the coldest days occurred in November rather than January and February. I will take full credit for the mild winter, as I believe the mild temperatures are attributable to the fact that I laid in a good supply of firewood at the end of November. It did get cold enough to make me look like an ass to the horses when their trough froze over because I couldn’t find the heater. I pulled it last spring and put it . . . you guessed it . . . in a very safe place. I’m sure I’ll come across it in July or so.
Spring won’t really have arrived until the sparrows begin invading our chimney and getting trapped in the woodstove. Nothing like waking up to the sounds of “thrash, thrash, flutter, thump,” I’ll tell you what. Fortunately, Dr. Evil and I have perfected the choreography of Freeing the Sparrows: cat goes in a closed room, I open windows and doors downstairs, Dr. Evil does the same upstairs, then stand to the side of the stove and open the door. Oh, how the hijinx do ensue.
This year the starlings have given us a new treat: getting caught in the attic space. They have been flocking to (heh, get it? flocking?) a vent on the tall side of the house, directly over the outside stairs to the basement, which renders it effectively—hmm, lemme do some calculations . . . two thousand feet off the ground—such that even if I had a ladder that would reach such great heights, there’s no way I would climb that sumbitch. Lately, I’ve seen some fiberglass insulation strewn across the side yard, which is weird, because our house has either rigid foam or cellulose insulation. Puzzling, until I receive this series of text messages from Dr. Evil:
All that insulation? They weren’t nesting in the vent, they were plucking insulation from the vent pipe, and I guess they plucked a little too much and ::thud:: one fell through the hole and got stuck in the attic space. Bats in the belfry got nuthin on starling in the attic. We need to learn a new choreography for this event, because it wasn’t nearly as smooth. Or, I guess I could put some mesh on the vent opening, but where’s the fun in that?
One last bird story before I post this avian anthology. You may recall that we lost hens to skunks and a raccoon last year. In a stunning display of revenge, he remaining two got all kindsa medieval on a mouse that dared enter their run. I was checking on them the other morning and saw a small gray bit amongst the ground litter, and sure enough, my girls did a tap dance all over intruding Jerry. I thought about putting his head on a tiny pike as a warning to others but opted not to.
That’s it for now.
I guess all those kooky preppers might have had a point after all, huh? Here at the farm, we’re somewhat prepared to hunker down, with our weak point being beer. I’ve tried to talk Dr. Evil into purchasing a couple kegs, but she’s not buying it.
Seriously, we keep a reasonable amount of dried goods on hand, and a fairly chaotic mix of frozen proteins and various canned goods, but it’s mostly aimed at having fixins for chili on a random Thursday, not strategic planning. (Requisite Fritos are another matter.)
Today (Thursday), our governor announced that K-12 schools would be closed for three weeks, and that public gatherings of over 100 people would be unlawful. Friday is my usual shopping day, so I’ll be interested to see how the shelves look tomorrow.
Tell me, friends, what would you put in your cart tomorrow?