Some Updates

The Old Amigo realizes that he has been remiss in his blog postings lately. The reasons are manifold:

• We've had lots of family and friends visiting us this season. Angel and I are grateful for the company and the reassurance that people want to see us.
• I continue to look for work. Many, many hours of my life are poured into this channel each week. From what I can tell, the channel leads to an abyss.
• The yard. The yard. The yard. Heavy, satisfying work. A new retaining wall is underway. More soil trucked in.
• I've been working on my novel. It's immensely satisfying, and against my better judgment, I hope something comes of it. I have passed page 430 in my first draft. The effort has transmogrified into "what should I not write about?"

The list goes on and on of course.

Today, I dug a new bed in our main garden area so that Angel could plant two blueberry bushes that had been in pots for some months. The new bed is about 5' x 2' x 1.5' (L x W x D). I carted much of the soil down the steps in a wheelbarrow to dump near where we are building the new expansion area of the garden. I did sift some of the soil to combine with compost that I carted back up the steps in said wheelbarrow. Then Angel added some special "Dr. Organic" amendment for acid-loving plants and planted the two blueberry bushes. They look great and I fancy that they are already happier.

A single raspberry bush continues to languish in a pot, awaiting its turn. The work is heavy and must wait until I feel ready. Perhaps tomorrow.

Most days I weed a little. It is easy to fill one or two big barrels with weeds between yard waste pickups.

Also today, I "did the compost." This entails turning all the existing mixture from one bin to the other while adding food scraps saved up during the week. Our friends, D. & S. live nearby and they drop food scraps off at the house too. Angel also goes down to the Starbucks at the Safeway once each week and gets a bucket of coffee grounds to go into the mix. While I don't much like cleaning out used containers, the turning of the compost is generally fairly pleasant. Since I turn the mix each week, the reaction stays mostly aerobic and hence not very stinky.

This week I observed that the magic is beginning to happen. For a while, it seems that little is going on in the bins. Eventually, however, the microbes reach critical mass and things begin to cook. The mixture begins to look less like table scraps mixed with straw and more like, well, compost. If you've never done it, it's probably a bit hard to explain, but trust me on this: It is magical.

Perhaps I'll write a bit more on the creative process soon. For now, I note merely that it is an interesting phenomenon to experience. For me, writing a novel seems mostly to be about creating some characters and a scenario. Then I watch the characters interact and write down what I see. It, like the conversion of table scraps into compost, seems to be a magical process.

That's all from the rock at the edge of the continent on this day.

Press On

Big Step

Yesterday, after lots of effort, lifting, sifting, and digging, we wrapped up the retaining wall project. The long side of this wall is nearly 40' from the stairs in the background to the leading edge near the camera.

We've filled behind the wall with over 60 wheelbarrow loads of "Roger's Magic Dirt" mixed with a modest amount of what passes for topsoil on our property. As I wrote in an earlier post, Angel & I sifted all the dirt behind the wall and let the rocks fall against the bottom part of the wall to improve drainage. The remaining soil is sandy and powdery with tiny pebbles. Mixed in with the Magic Dirt, we're hoping/expecting that the local soil will provide trace minerals.

You can see several plants that Angel put in place after I finished the small section of wall that moves off to the right. Once these grow and fill in, this ought to look pretty good. This part of the yard is very visible from the street and it is intended to provide a welcoming transition between indoors and outdoors.

Eventually, we're planning to put a poured retaining wall basically at right angles to the long edge of this one. When that happens, I'll remove the small bit and curve the long wall around to meet the poured wall. The poured wall will give us enough space along the south edge of our property to allow a small truck to drive to the east section. Having truck access opens up huge possibilities, including a greatly expanded vegetable garden and rain catchment.

There is one problem with this plan, namely the fencing. Much of the property around here is developed but not fenced. Oh, some of the properties have fences – some nicely done; others more funky, but the town has lots of unfenced properties. Several of our neighbors walk across our property to reach a nature trail at the eastern boundary of our lot, and we do not want to fence them out at all.

The deer, raccoons, coyotes, and so on are quite another matter. Deer decimate the gardens. Raccoons and coyotes do the same to chickens, rabbits, and house cats. If we go to the trouble of building a high intensity, small-scale urban ag system, we're going to need to keep the local critters from wiping it out. We'll revisit this as the story unfolds and we learn more.

After all the recent lifting and shoveling, it would be good today if I were to give my body some rest. The Amigo's knees and lower back feel a bit abused. On the other hand, there is so much to do... and it is so very satisfying to see the results of one's efforts.

Maybe one more cup of tea...

Another Sunny Day

I'm pretty much worn out at this point. I hurt in more places than I care to list. Some of you may recall our wind chime collection. Well, it's once again in place. The house is surrounded by happy, mystical sound. Angel & I have had some of these chimes for a long time, so this time around I've had to re-string and do other repairs on many of the pieces. The end result is good. As I type this I can hear some of the nearest chimes.

It is interesting (to me, anyway). The chimes sound pretty loud close up, but the sound drops off very quickly with distance. That's probably a good thing. Keeps the nabes from getting irritable.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Ray got the gates up. Now, when the gates are closed, no large (or even medium-sized) animal can pillage the garden without scaling or leaping over some kind of fence or gate. We had a few antique (circa 1900) hinges left, so I put a clear coat on six of them and asked Ray to hang the gates w/ those hinges. Today I pulled all the pins out, cleaned them, and greased the hinges. Then I drilled a hole in the deck so that the gate pin can anchor properly.

The gates need a coat of oil sealant, but that will have to come later... perhaps next weekend.

I also built a cool trellis-type-thing for the pole beans in the main garden. It is at the east end of the garden facing west. It's one of the first things I've built here using my shop. I used scrap wood. It would have looked a bit better if I'd had somewhat stouter uprights, but this has a bit of coolness as it is.

Speaking of the shop, I put in a couple of hours cleaning it a bit more. It's now quite usable. The next order of business is to begin sorting through boxes of fasteners and small parts and get those organized and usable.

Angel and I also put up a bird house today. It's visible outside the kitchen window. All we need are some finches or other small avian-type creatures to take up residence. It's too small for crows or ravens.

As we finished erecting the bird house, Angel noticed a large number of raptors catching a thermal just northeast of us. She counted 16 hawks all soaring, gaining altitude, with nary a flap. Again, the weather forecast said 61°F, but the outside temperature measured 68. I guess that was enough for an updraft to form.

While I did the above chores, Angel focused her attention on relocating the small scrap wood pile. The scraps are small; the pile is big, by-the-way. Rats had been living underneath the pile. They're gone now, but the mess they left behind was still there. Anyway, the pile is now mostly down the hill east of my office with the rest of the main firewood supply. Once the remaining scraps are relocated, we'll be able to landscape that area. It's one of the more visually appealing spots on our property. It's north of our porch, but it gets good sun from April through September.

Dinner was Cape Cleare salmon (that's a wild fishery) steaks. Some of the fishermen quick freeze their catch and bring it down to the local farmers' market. Angel got some yesterday. I poached the salmon in white wine with a few herbs. It doesn't need much. I brought it to a gentle boil, covered, in a stainless steel skillet. Then I basted the steaks a few times and turned them. Another three minutes and they were done. I served the salmon w/ brown rice and fresh cauliflower steamed w/ olive oil and garlic. For a wine, we had "Seven Deadly Zins," one of our favorites. Actually, I like this wine so much that I only took a couple of sips during dinner. I've been savoring my glass as I typed this entry...

As I type this, Angel reads a novel in the big chair by the window. In a few minutes we're going to watch the second half of Kurosawa's "Seven Samurai".

Sounds pretty good, doesn't it?

On evenings like this, it seems like it cannot really be the Wrong Rock.

The Worms, Reloaded

The Venerable Friendly One is having a cup of tea on a glorious afternoon here, north of the 48th parallel. A rest break is in order. Today's forecast called for 61°F today. It is now 68. No clouds. It's just past 3:00PM and the PV array is still pumping out more than 3KW of power.

It seems to be a perfect time to chat with The Wrong Rock for a bit.

"Why a rest," you ask? Well, I have just spent about 4 hours futzing (that's a technical term applied to clueless urban farmers) with my worm bin. It's been clear for weeks that the worms were not thriving, so today was allocated to:

1. Investigating
2. Diagnosing
3. Improving

...the habitat of the worms.

Now this delightful activity was best performed in the basement – the finished part of the basement. "Why," you ask?

Well, worms don't like bright light. So if you dump the contents of their bin in a place with bright light, they'll burrow away from the light. This reflex on the part of the worms make it easier to herd them. You just keep brushing the worm bedding around and the worms keep burrowing. Eventually you can separate the two. The finished part of the basement has a wall lined with windows. When the blinds are up, it's bright in there. Not basement-like at all.

It's cold and dark in the unfinished part of the basement. Carrying loaded worm bins up and down the stairs wasn't that appealing. That left the finished part of the basement.

So I found a giant piece of cardboard and laid it beneath the windows of the basement. Then I placed several sheets of newspaper on the cardboard. Then I opened the worm bin and dumped the contents onto said newspaper.

Immediately, I was able to diagnose at least one of the problems with the worms' habitat. It was too wet. Food was moldy and stinky. So was some of the shredded newspaper. The whole thing was a slimy, stinky mess. I took the worm bin pieces out to the garden and hosed them off so they were clean.

Now I have read that cardboard is a good component for worm bedding, so I snagged a nice box from Angel's stash of potential shipping boxes. No color printing. Check. Pretty clean. Check.

I cut this box up in a couple of different ways. First of all, I cut one piece that would just about cover the bottom of the worm bin insert. That's the place where the worms live. It's got a bunch of holes in the bottom and you need to have something to keep the worm bedding from falling through the holes into the bottom tank. I sprayed this piece of cardboard with water from the garden hose (not too wet!) and placed it in the bottom of the bin.

Then I cut the rest of the nice clean cardboard into strips. I made a sort of woven "place mat" thing with cardboard strips and wetted that too.

Next I got some new bedding. I decided that my first try was too easy to compact and get gooey, so this time I decided to try to reproduce something closer to a worm's natural habitat (whatever the heck that might be). We still have some organic compost that we used in the main garden. We also have some of the soil that I took from the garden and strained to remove the rocks. Finally, we have some sawdust from my adventure with the chipper/shredder.

All three piles have been sitting out in the weather. It rained pretty heavily last week, so when I dug down a couple of feet into each pile, I found nice moist stuff. This is what I used for my worm bedding.

I mixed some of all three (compost, earth, and sawdust) together, emphasizing the compost, and placed a couple of inches of this mixture in the bottom of the worm bin. Then I laid the damp "place mat" on top of that and added some more mixture. Then the remaining damp strips of cardboard, peeled to make them thinner and (one hopes) tastier and easier to eat. I topped off the bedding with another inch or so of the compost-earth-sawdust mixture.

I did this whole thing in the place in the basement where the worm bin stays. This new bedding was both deeper and heavier than the original. It is moist, but not wet. It is not sticky and smells pretty much like moist earth.

Next I tackled the stinking mess on the floor of the basement.

Over the next few hours, I pawed through the stuff, looking for living worms. Each time I found one, I carefully cradled the worm in the palm of my left hand while I continued pawing with my right. Much of this was done kneeling on the floor (wood over concrete... padded by the edge of the big piece of cardboard). Sometimes I sat on the floor. After a while I realized that I could spot living worms better if I wore some of my reading glasses.

Each time I got 10 or 20 worms out of the mess, I carefully transferred them to the new bedding.

Oh, and I wore some latex gloves while I did this. I just couldn't see any benefit to smearing my skin with slime. This whole process was sort of smelly. Even now, I'm slightly nauseous, but it's getting better.

After a few hours, I had separated hundreds of worms from the old bedding. Clearly, the old environment wasn't as toxic as I'd feared, but it clearly wasn't that comfy for the worms. I found full size red wrigglers, significantly smaller red wrigglers, and what I'm pretty sure were baby red wrigglers. These last worms were paler in color and tiny, but they were shaped just like and moved just like their larger brethren. I am choosing to be optimistic here. Hopefully they are not the larvae of some kind of alien invaders.

Some (peripheral) good news: I am still able to get down on the floor and get up, over and over, for hours at a time. It's not as fun as it was when I was a child, however.

In the process of sifting through the muck, I also encountered some tiny spiders and what looked like an earwig or two. I didn't transfer those to the new bedding. At the end of the whole thing, I swept up. I didn't make too much of a mess, so it was only a matter of 20 minutes or so to clean up.

Now the worms are safely bedded down in their new quarters. I hope these are more suitable and that the worms thrive. I must say that so far, vermiculture has been much more challenging for me than regular old composting. I just read the wikipedia article on "Vermicompost" and it seems just as simple in theory as it originally did. Oh, well. I suspect that the new bedding is a bit deeper than it needs to be, but probably this will be okay. I hope so anyway.

For the next few weeks, my plan is to emphasize things like lettuce leaves that are too funky to go in a salad, finely chopped vegetable trimmings, and things like that. I will put these on the surface of the new bedding. This is much less aggressive than the articles on vermiculture say, but after the first experience, I need to take this slowly.