Greetings fellow carbon units!

I thought I would give you a quick update on my dwarf fruit trees.  If you will recall, I planted a peach tree, an apple tree and a plum tree last fall.  I also had a couple of fig trees, but in order to not keep you in suspense, I can tell you right now that they did not make it through the winter.  I'm going to try again with them at a later time.

Getting back to the three fruit trees.  Well... I ended up buying another apple tree, peach tree, apricot tree and a nectarine tree.  That's a lot of trees to cram into one tiny backyard, but I managed.  Besides, they're dwarf and won't get too big, as long as I keep them under control.

As for varieties - well, the peaches are Intrepid and Elberta.  I grew up in Tucson and have fond memories of picking Elberta peaches in the hot sun and biting into them, right there in the orchard. The sweet sticky peach juice usually ended up all over my face and shirt, but man was it worth it.

Intrepid  Peach

The apples are a Honey crisp spin off and an Cox;s Orange Pippin.  The Cox's Orange is an old variety and it is the only one that isn't a dwarf, but I haz plans for that one.  I intend on trellising it against the fence, but we'll see how that goes.  It is supposed to be a good all purpose apple and one that is used in a lot of the hybrid crosses we have today.  It is also supposed to be a good cider apple, and I lurve me some cider, I will tell you.

I don't remember what the apricot, the plum or the nectarine varieties are, but I'm looking forward to them fruiting in the next few years.  Apricot jam, might just be my favorite.

Apricot Tree

At any rate, they all made it through the winter with flying colors and are growing with astounding amounts of vigor.  I will do some summer pruning at the end of next month just so they don't get too big or leggy.  My goal is to have nice sturdy trees that can withstand a fruit load easily.

Now the next garden addition is pretty sweet and I've been enjoying the heck out of them.  Meet Susan Beak Eggthany and Mo Clucker.  Suzie is the dark red one and Mo, is the one with the whiter feathers around her neck.  They are about 10 months old and have been popping out an egg a day each since mid-January.

They're quiet, well behaved, love eating bugs and they eat the heck out of the dandelions!  Also, Mo has a serious thing for strawberries, so I'm always shooing her out of the strawberry bed. She was too fast for me here and played keep away with Suzie while gobbling up her ill gotten gains.

Chickens are a natural for any garden - free manure and it's supposed to be the best manure ever once you let it compost some.  Plus, can I tell you?  They have huge personalities!  Who knew?

They come running when I shake their treat bag and always follow me around checking out what I am doing and making sure I do it correctly.  They make this funny sorta soft clucky noise when they see me and I have just been having the best time.

Here, I was trying to get a picture of an intriguing weed.  Ran right over to investigate right as I was taking the picture.

The very best part is the fresh eggs.  You seriously have never baked something before if you have not used a fresh, laid 15 minutes ago egg.  Fluffy, light as air baked goods.  Did you know that most of the eggs you buy in the grocery store are about 3-6 months old when you buy them?  There really is no comparison at all.

Now, I am sure someone is going to ask, but the answer is "no."  You do NOT need a rooster in order to get eggs.  You need a rooster if you want fertilized eggs.   Just as a human woman produces an egg every month regardless of whether a man is present or not, so do hens.

I really think that if more people knew how fun and easy chickens are, more people would have them.

Okay, well, that's about it.  Until next time, please remember, Be Kind To Each Other.

With Silver Bells and Cockle Shells...

Hello gentle readers,

Know what is gross?  Potato bug larvae.  So very, very gross.  They are slimy and squishy too.  Which is good, because it makes picking them off of potato plants and disposing of them easier.  But... shudder.  blech.

If you have been reading my blog - first off, that makes you ultra cool - but secondly, you may recall that last year, I started building permaculture beds and taking steps to create a little "food forest" in my urban backyard.

I started by creating some sheet mulched beds with lots of good stuff.  So far, the results are pretty good.  My strawberries have been pumping out 2 to 3 berries every day.  Certainly, not enough to make jam, but they are tasty.  This is their first spring in the ground, so I imagine they are still getting established and hopefully, I will get a decent crop next year.

(Aren't my nails FABulous??  They're my new favorite obsession, Jamberry nail wraps.  These are Mermaid Tails mixed up with some regular old nail polish on the rest of my fingers.)

Secondly, the apple tree... I'm so happy with it this year.  It still needs a ton of pruning and shaping, but so far, there is no sign of scab on the leaves or the apples.  I also thinned the apples I can reach and maybe it is my imagination, but the remaining ones look so much bigger already!

This is my little salad garden.  Things that are doing well:  lettuce (two varieties) and the carrots look promising.  Also, I planted some dragon tongue beans along the back.  'cause... dragon's tongue... coolest name ever.  They're doing pretty well.

Things that aren't:  The collards are doing well but I'm sharing my harvest with cabbage moths; same with the cabbage; the kale; and the brussels sprouts.  I probably should have used row covers.  Next time.

Along the side of the house, in the driveway, I started a container garden and almost everything is looking really great although I have nary a bloom on a tomato plant yet.  I planted:  potatoes; sweet potatoes; tomatoes; peppers; squash; cucumbers; watermelon; and winter squash.  Most of them are in these new-fangled plant pouches which are supposed to be way better for the plants and prevent root bound problems.  So far I like them, but I am concerned they are not quite large enough for the potatoes.

Speaking of potatoes, I may have gone a bit overboard when I ordered the seed potatoes last year.  I have 17 pots of potatoes.  Apparently, I forgot I didn't live on a farm.

Alright you guys, that's about it for today.  Next time, I will show you how the dwarf fruit trees are doing, plus a little introduction to my new weed and bug control system.

Until then... remember -  Be kind to each other.

The Return

Greetings Gentle Readers,

I know it has been a while since I posted and... well, life.  Some of it is good and some of it is not.  You know that saying, "Time flies when you're having fun?"  Well, time also flies when you have tragedy.  You see, this year started out just like every other year in my life - with a lovely New Year's Day full of home cooked food (slow roasted pork shoulder, kale, home made bread, etc.) and progressed swimmingly towards my sister's birthday on the 8th of January.

Early on the morning of the 13th, we got a call that my mother had been rushed to the hospital in respiratory distress.  My mom's house is four hours away and before any of us could rush to be there, she was gone.  Just like that.  No warning, no chance to say goodbye or tell her how much we loved her.  Nothing but disbelief, shock and crushing sadness.  It will be five months on June 13th and I still have moments when I just can't believe she is gone.  It is as if a portion of my brain just doesn't want to cling to the reality of a world without her in it.

It is a strange thing, losing a parent.  We all know it is coming - it is the natural order of things.  Old people die.  We all know that, just as we know that one day we will be old and then we will die.  When both parents are gone we become unmoored, in a sense.  Suddenly, the only person that remembers our childhood is us.  Our parents take the memories of our first steps, our first words, and our first day of school with them when they go and we truly cease to be the child, literally and figuratively.  It is a strange feeling to be cut adrift in the vast sea of humanity without the parental shelter awaiting our return.  We are thrust into the role of reigning adult and are now the repository for the family history and lore.  

When my dad was sick with Alzheimer's, it was tough on all of us, losing him a little bit by bit and even sadder, he lost himself bit by bit.  In June 2013, as he neared the end of his life, we all gathered around him and after I kissed him on his forehead, I whispered to him, "It's okay, you can let go... we'll all be fine."  It was true too.  As much as we all loved him, watching him lose the essence of himself was, I thought worse than losing him all at once.  Alzheimer's is a horrible disease, robbing its victims of their families, their memories and finally, their dignity, so there was a sense of gratitude that he was no longer suffering.

In my mother's case though, there was no long goodbye.  She was there one day and gone the next.  No mental preparation, no sense of relief that she was released from suffering - just shock, pain and sadness.  

It's a human thing to play the "what if" game and especially when we have a sudden loss like this.  "What if she had listened to me and gone to the doctor the last time I talked to her?"  "What if I could have spoken with the ER doctor and said, Yes, please resuscitate her?"  But the biggest thing is always, "What if we knew that the last time we talked with ..... (fill in the blank), was the last time we were going to talk with them?"  What would we say?  What would we want them to know?  What was left unsaid?

For me, this at least carries no guilt.  I told her I loved her.  Every time.  Because I did.  She's gone now and carries a piece of my heart with her, but at least wherever she goes in her travels now, she knows that and that is the most important thing - to know we love and are loved.  

We will be taking her ashes back home in September.  Back to El Paso, where she came into being 84 years ago upon this earthly plane, to rest beside my dad, underneath the rocky shadows of the Franklin Mountains and the vast, impossibly blue sky of her desert home.

I'll be back tomorrow with a garden up date.  In the meantime, hug your parents, if you can.

Until then, gentle readers, Be Kind to each other.