Cucumber Crisis

April 30, 2008 - So this is definitely what you hope NOT to see when you get home from work after neglecting your beloved plants for 9 hours. Hmmm. And what exactly happened to make these poor little guys droop in misery? Don't ask me. This is where the lack of experience and knowledge becomes tricky. These are some of my cucumber plants, although these are only the ones that I haven't gotten around to transplanting yet, the ones in bigger pots are looking just fine, as are all the rest of the plants. So what happened? I'm assuming they got cold? It's been pretty cold the past few days and we put them outside today anyway for the sun, but why these guys were too chilly while everybody else looks happy is beyond me. I spoke with my dear green thumbed friend last night and she offered up tons of growing tips and secrets. I was embarassed to tell her that only half of what she was saying was making it through my brain at this point and that at this stage of the game, I am mostly just putting a bunch of different seeds in some dirt and crossing my fingers. Yes, I've done a lot of research and am trying to learn as I go but with everything we have going at once right now, I'm going with the old 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' philosophy, and I'm only researching when things go wrong. Surely I will get better at this as the seasons go on.

On a brighter note, I did more transplanting yesterday and as you can see, the rest of my plants are doing quite well. They have now taken over the dining room, which my mother has graciously given up to our cause. Yesterday morning I made my little list of of what else I need to plant, both inside and outside. I definitely need more basil plants if I'm going to make all the pesto I want, but mostly I need to get things going outside. I found yesterday that my beets have finally come up and the radishes will hopefully be ready to eat in just a few more weeks. (I never really liked radishes, but they are apparently the fastest growing veggie, so I decided that I must learn to love them.) Last night and tonight there have been frost warnings, so we've been covering up the lettuces, radishes, broccolis, and beets just in case. And the heat lamp is back for the baby chicks to keep them cozy on these chilly nights. Speaking of the chicks!

Just as I posted the last blog, Joe was graduating the quickly growing chicks from their Sky Box and here is their new home - fancy, huh? Joe has a real knack for making things out of nothing. Here he basically just extended the old day time box and this is now where they stay full time.

The laying hens are doing well also. I got a voicemail from a very excited Joe yesterday saying "You have to look in the fridge when you get home - I just collected the biggest egg I've ever seen - I'm not sure how that chicken is still walking!" Sure enough, the egg was HUGE. Joe ate it for breakfast this morning and it turned out it was twins! Double yolk that is. Yummmm.

So, what else. No more news on the new house yet - Joe was there and apparently ripped out the bathroom on Monday, but I was at work so I missed out on the fun and the photo opportunity. Tuesdays are always full as it is my day with my neice Natalie -

Too cute for words, right? She was part of the inspiration for the move back east by the way. My sister was pregnant (and my sister-in-law had just had a baby on this coast as well) and I just couldn't imagine not watching them grow up. So yeah, Natalie and I are buds. It's great.

Today and tomorrow are my other work days (away from the house) and Joe is working on another job too, so hopefully by Friday we'll be able to resume the demolition project. And i have GOT to get crackin on my house plans - time is flying by! Tomorrow is May!

The Sky Box

April 27, 2008 - This morning began like every other morning - with letting the chicks out of the Sky Box, their night time home. The idea behind this contraption is that keeping them up in the air will better protect them from any predators. We don't have too many things to worry about here in the town of Red Hook, but once the chickens are moved to their new home, we may have some new issues, so we're just sort of playing with some ideas.


This is them inside the box, ready to be let free for the day!













Joe's pretty much in charge of the chickens, so each morning he gets up early and lowers them down into their daytime home. Here's a few pics demonstrating the process (including the occasional escape!)





































And then of course, it's time for a little worm hunting - for Joe, that is.
Then it's about time for me to go running around the yard to see how much everything has grown since the night before - this is the arugala and some mixed greens:










Next, check on the tomato, cukes, zuccini, and basil plants, which spend the night inside. Once the day gets warm enough, these all get carted out for some sunshine.

We spent the day doing errands and spending time with Joe's mom, as it was her last day in town. In the afternoon, I transplanted a bunch of the tomatoes, cucumbers, zuccini, and basil plants into larger pots so they have more room to grow. They start to take up a bit more room in the hallway as their pots get bigger - thinking it's time for a plant sale?

That's about it for today, but the whole process will start over tomorrow - only everything will be just a little bit bigger. Can't wait!

Backyard Farming

April 26, 2008 -

So today was spent back on the home front at my mom's, where we still have a lot to keep an eye on despite our new project up the road. We had to be around for a yard sale we were having in order to get rid of some of our extra stuff. But since there's no news on the house project, I thought I'd take the opportunity to update everyone on what we were working on all winter. These pics were taken a few weeks ago, and I'll post new ones soon so you can see how much everything has grown.

This is one of our several cold frames that Joe built. He used old windows, which worked perfectly and we packed mulch around the outside of them to keep them better insulated. One thing I did learn from this experience is that a little paint scraping before use never hurts, if you don't want old paint all over the place. But with these contraptions we were able to keep plants outside during the day in february and overnight in mid-late march.

These were the first plants we started - tomato, eggplant, and pepper plants! Everyone who has seen them has said "yeah, I tried that a few times and just realized that they never are as nice as the ones I can just pick up at the store in May." Yeah. We started out having sort of the same experience. These guys started out strong and then just stopped growing. But I realized that our big mistake is that since the cold frame was keeping temps above freezing, we were leaving these plants outside really early, just to save ourselves the work of bringing them in and out. But it was just plain not warm enough, so they stopped growing. They are starting to look a little bit better now that it's warmer and we're bringing them in more. But our second batch has done MUCH better.

These are my beautiful broccoli plants! You know, there's really nothing more exciting than putting a bunch of seeds in some dirt and then waiting to see them push their little heads out. These were especially fun to watch come up and they continue to grow quite well with very little effort on my part. They went in the ground just yesterday, but pictures of that will come soon.

Now these little girls are Joe's babies. Seriously. We bought 12 of them around March 25th, and this is them at about 2 weeks. They are growing unbelievably fast - we had them outside full time way ahead of schedule, scratching around, eating bugs and greens. They're very sweet and every night Joe puts them up in a special box hanging in a tree to keep them away from any predators. It will be months before they give us any eggs, but for now they are our pets and we love them.

And then these are the big mamas. I came home one night from work and these ladies were clucking around the backyard. We have four of them and always get 3 or 4 eggs a day. Joe built them a very fancy chicken coup which we drag around the yard so that their 'fertilizer' gets spread around the yard and they have new greens and bugs to eat all the time, although now they mostly just run free around the yard during the day (there was a run-in with the dog yesterday that could have ended very very badly, but didn't).

And then here's us working in our garden. As you can see, we love it. It's been a crazy adventure so far and we are making lots of mistakes, but we're doing it together and we're learning tons and couldn't be happier to be here in NY digging in the dirt.

Demolotion Day 1

April 25, 2008

We spent our first day at the new property today, taking it all in and getting a closer look at what exactly we're dealing with. The existing house has to go. But we don't want to just bulldoze it, because there's surely plenty of usable materials in there. So we decided to start by taking down a few things in order to get to the core of the building and see what's up. A few 'before' pics:

the front door

and the back door - yes that's a 5 foot drop out the back door

but in case you were worried, there is a cautionary sign inside for the unsuspecting guest:

the lovely kitchen

living room?

cozy bedroom

and finally - the bathroom

So, as you can see, tearing this baby down is going to be FUN. And my supportive husband, who knows how desperately determined I am to not only participate in the process, but totally kick butt at it, bought me some presents for today's occasion: tool belt, hammer, and wrecking bar. And we both got down to business.

For our first day, we took down one wall separating the living room and bedroom, keeping all the wood for some other building project (chicken coops perhaps?). I got to get in some target practise by hammering nails OUT of the wood, before anyone trusts me to hammer them IN. And then we ripped out all the crappy flooring, burned some useless wood, and cleaned up the front yard a bit so that the 5 foot hole in front of house wouldn't be quite so much of a death trap to innocent passersby. All in all - it was a very satisfying first day and we can't wait to get back over there.

Home Owners!

April 24, 2008 -

We officially own our own house! After 5 months of resting, reading, and searching, Joe and I have purchased our first home. Three beautiful wooded acres with a stream rushing through the back and a small house on a private road in Gallatin, NY is now all ours. When we first saw it a little over a month ago, we laughed and went on our way - it doesn't make a great first impression, which is probably why it was the cheapest listing around and on the market for over a year. But then somehow we ended up back there and had a whole new experience, realizing that this place had to be ours. Only a few minutes from my sister's house and just 10 minutes from the town of Red Hook where I grew up; in the country but yet so close to town; utilities set up, but not much of a house so that we could build what we want; and a damn good price. On that second visit it was just all to clear and the closing was this afternoon.

This blog is meant to chronicle the building of our life together. I suppose I should have started it 7 months ago when we got married, but it seemed like there's wasn't much going on. Of course in retrospect I realize that we actually had TOO much going on - we got married, decided to change our lives completely, quit our jobs, packed a house and garage full of stuff, drove it across the country, stowed it away in my mother's house, started a vegetable garden from seed, and bought 12 baby chicks and 4 laying hens.

But now the adventure truly begins! We bought this land with the intention of building a house and a small farm on it. It will be a tiny house (between 500 and 900 square feet, depending on how brave we are) and we will work towards reducing our dependence on stuff and instead focus on what matters to us most - love, life, family, integrity, hard work, a connection to the earth, and pure simple fun. We will raise chickens and grow vegetables, while doing other work until we learn what works and where we can make money off the land. But first - we need something to live in. Over the course of our relationship, we have lived in a tiny apartment in NYC with another couple, in a house in San Diego with another couple, and now in a house with my mother, and it is time for us to have our own place! What is on the property is not really livable and we are far too choosy to live in house some else built anyway, so the summer's project is to build our little house. And work begins tomorrow!