A trip to the dump, half the truck loaded with household garbage.  The other half with stuff set aside from my 100 things challenges.  Also a couple sacks to Goodwill.  I have been working outside a little here at my house and spent an afternoon at my daughters.  She wanted help getting beds ready after the tilling was done.  One bed was so fluffly, I went barefoot.  I felt like a rebel, the top was sun warm and then wonderfully cool underneath.  What a great day!

It's Quiet . . .

. . . around here.  My son is gone for 8 days of hiking and climbing in the wilderness!  For two weeks we dried food and he pre-packaged all his dinners.  A list of food dried:

• canned beans
• hamburger
• tomate sauce and spaghetti sauce
• sweet onions
• green, yellow and red peppers
• canned pineapple for granola
• lot's of yogurt drops

He rounded out his meals with quinoa, thin spaghetti and cous cous and loves how is food tastes.  Homemade granola with fruit for snacks, instant oatmeal and chocolate.  The estimated weight of food is 10 - 12 pounds which is nothing compared to the climbing equipment, he carries about 80 pounds.  Elevation gained the first day is about 3,000 feet, Oh to young!

I took a 5 gallon bucket of finished compost (2 yr old, worm ridden, YES!) over to my daughters garden for the tomatoes.  They are looking so beautiful and a ample harvest is looking good with lot's of canned tomatoes! The rest of the garden is amazing too.  I have about 2 more bucketsof compost left to keep feeding the garden.

Tilling

Spent the afternoon and evening at my daughter's.  We tilled up a good size garden for summer planting and it was exhausting.  It was too warm to do such heavy work but it must get done.   My shoulders, back and hands ache but it feels good to be out in the soil.  We need to do another pass before taking the tiller back, then out goes the squashes, corn seed, beans!  The raised beds are waiting for warmer nights to happen (soon). The girls made mud pies in a little bucket and had a great (old-fashioned) time.  Must go get ready because after gardening, I must head to the racetrack!

Daughter's house

My son and I went to E's house to take a couch to the dump.  While they were gone, my granddaughters and I puttered around the yard with the goats, and the garden.  Such beauty surrounds us if we would stop and look around, listen and when the garden is ready taste as we work. The grass is at it's greenest, the trees are bursting into masses of blooms, birds and frogs are a concert of music.  Sharing all this and more with my grandchildren is new and exciting!   J and I put together another raised bed from scraps I found, it is a perfect size for 4 tomato plants.  A warm and pleasant day made for a lovely day to help with some chores.

"Urban Farming" ... Good Memories

My daughter and I have been talking about our "urban farm" in the middle of the city, and having a laugh because giving a title to our endeavors would never have accured to us.  When we moved into a beautiful 1906 farmhouse with a quarter acre that once owned  miles of land between a freeway and an old highway,  our excitement mounted to learn about it's past.  This was pretty easy since only one family had owned the house (grandparent then the grandson and he was 70+ years).

The house was three stories with the fireplace going up the middle with built in shelves on either side, with a plate rail going around the room, paneling below done like frames.  We painted them eggshell and put cream with little blue flour above, it looked very period.  The porch on the front was so deep (5 ft) and ran the whole front of the house with 4 river rock pillars, we spent a lot of time sitting out there on a swing.  When this house was built, it had no bathroom, no modern sink with plumbing, a wood cooking stove (because there was a metal plate in the wall for a vent into the chimney) and no inside stairs to the basement. All was added by the grandson; the bathroom was a small narrow room, the wall behind the sink was cut out to make room for the kitchen sink and stairs were cut into the floor of a walk in closet.  She was a beaut!

In the backyard was a very big shed with windows down one side.  We decided to get chickens, 7 of them.  We found some one that sold fertilized eggs so we bought equipment to hatch them and had the good luck to have every one survive.  Our daughter loved hearing the peeping and watching the hatch.  We did not think of city ordinances and our neighbors loved to watch them.  Much later we found out the the laws allowed 3 (which is more now).  We rescued the old garden with the richest, blackest  soil and dandelion roots that were huge and multiple. We ate very well from that garden all summer.  I didn't have a compost pile but practiced trench composting all winter and fed scraps to the chickens in the summer.

We did all this without the intense library one can have or the internet (it didn't exist yet),  we learned as we went along and found advice at the feedstores.  There is so much information now I might have been scared off.  Anyway that how we started.

Soil Health

I have been reading a lot about old/ancient methods of amending the soil. Two that interest me the most right now involve wood: Mycelium and Biochar. This brings in the micro-organiasm's needed to support healthy soil over the long term. I found a site that keeps it simple and to the point.
Greensparrow Gardens: Should we be adding charcoal to our soil?

Crazy weather patterns!

I looked up the weather for the June averages:

• ONE sunny day
• ONE degree below average overnight
• TWO degrees below average daytime
• precipitation - same

Now may people around here might say "typical" BUT I have lived here all my life and 2 years in a row is NOT typical.  We had drizzles to downpours (this many downpours is NOT typical).  We usually have a better ratio of sunny days to cloudy AND we don't usually have rain every day in June.  Yes, it is considers a damp month BUT NOT EVERYDAY!  The benefits are a beautiful green start to summer but grass is growing at a faster rate and it's always green this time of year anyway.  The really bad part is when you put out tomatoes, they don't like the rain.  The almost good part is the extended spring, lettuces and peas are not winding down yet.  The wierd thing is I have had to start 4 fires in the stove to ward off the damp (the house feels cold when damp).  In the 6 years living here I have NEVER had a fire in June but after 3 - 4 days of damp and rain you can feel it and the house was actually cold.

As I write; the sun is dancing across my living room, bright, soft, the leaves enhancing  it's mood.  I look west and ugh! the clouds are building and black! more rain? Oh wait 5 minutes (or an hour) there is the sun again!

Dump run again (we don't have pick up) this time household and some clean up, also a couple of sacks for the good will.