muddy monday

Lately I seem to spend a large part of every day soaking wet.
Maybe it's been a tremendously humid Spring and Summer,
or maybe I'm becoming even less tolerant of humidity, which has always been difficult.
I don't know.
But even the simplest task, done slowly, soon has me soaked in sweat.
And then, there's been all this rain.
I'm not complaining! Just commenting.
I feel very concerned for those living in drought conditions,
especially in fire-prone areas.
People and wildlife alike.

Today, I was puttering in the barn, doing the daily mucking out
and dragging the big trugs-o-muck out to the Very Raised Bed,
then raking the wet hay and goat pellets down into the piled wood.
It wasn't very hot at all - maybe low 80s - and I had a fan blowing in the barn.
And still, I was soaked.
When I finished up (it's never finished, I just mean when I couldn't do any more)
I came back to the house to switch to dry clothes.
About two minutes later, I looked out the window and saw a wind coming up.
And the sky going dark. Really dark.
Hurricane dark.
I went back outside to quickly add more hay to the feeders,
so the goats sheltering in the barn would have plenty to do without squabbling.
And my, what a rain. It started when I was nearly back at the house,
but water was dripping off my hair and clothes when I got in.

Here's a terrible shot through my bedroom window, of the porch roof:

A deluge, with roll after roll of thunder.
Fortunately not much wind.
I'm hoping no more trees came down.
(There's been a lot of that in recent storms.)

When it ended, the light was dramatic.
This is not a flash picture, but it looked so much like one
I had to check the camera twice:

And amazingly clear air, and sunshine:

I went out to check on the goats, because there had been some
really big thunder cracking right overhead,
and I was a bit concerned about the babies.
All was well. Everyone was eating.
Of course I couldn't get a picture of the babies, because they started
bouncing around as soon as they saw me coming.
They consider me an excellent Entertainment Opportunity these days.
(Fair play; I feel much the same about them.)

But this little snapshot captures year-old Tsuga pretty well:

You can tell from her face in this picture that she is still a youngster.
She is Lily's daughter from last Spring.
I feel really sorry for Tsuga.
She doesn't have anyone to buddy-up with now that Lily
(who was glued to Tsuga every hour for an entire year,
even sleeping with her chin resting on Tsuga for a fluffy pillow)
has her new babies and hasn't got a kind word for Tsuga anymore.

This is typical behavior when a doe has new kids, but it's very harsh.
Very hard to watch.
I remember vividly when LeShodu had the boys, Acer and Betula,
and immediately turned on the year-old Lily and Violet.
It was terribly sad, but as sisters, at least they had each other.
Tsuga's cousin Sambucus is the same age, but has a harsher disposition
and I keep her with her mother, Violet,
because they are peas in a pod. Tough peas.
Even if I put Tsuga and Bui together, they wouldn't really buddy up.

And although I do my best to cheer her up,
I am no substitute for a goat when it comes to company and conversation.

So Tsuga is odd-goat-out until the herd dynamics shift again...

when the babies get a bit older, perhaps,
or when the herd numbers change for one reason or another.

Hang in there, Tsuga. 

It may seem stormy at the moment, 

but this too shall pass.

~~~~~

satisfaction

The first (affordable) cherries of 2014.

Mmmmmmmmm.

~~~

In other news of long-awaited pleasures, a project I've been trying to begin for the past year is suddenly underway! It's a new little garden area:

The Very Raised Bed.

This is something I knew I could not do alone, not even on a good day. (I wonder when it will become easier to say that?) So, when friends with a farm in town said one of their teenage helpers was looking for more hourly work, this garden bed seemed the perfect "test project" to tackle.

There's a little spot at the top of my driveway that - unlike 99% of my property - actually gets quite a lot of sun. It's just a scrubby little rock-strewn sloping pocket of sunlight, maybe 30 feet deep and 90 feet long. My plan is to build a very high raised bed in this spot, without modifying the ground at all (which would require a backhoe). Just starting at ground level, slope and all, and building right over the rocks.

This is an example of the kind of rock I'm talking about:

 The last time it moved any significant distance, it was bring propelled by a glacier.

A great deal of wood will be incorporated into the Very Raised Bed: chunks of storm-damaged trees, or sections of trees that were cut down but which I could not split into stovewood, branches that have fallen or been pruned, saplings the goats have girdled, and so on. Coarse woody debris (CWD) is what forestry folk call this material, and it is important stuff in forest ecosystem function. There is so much coarse woody debris on my property, I feel very comfortable channeling some of it directly into garden substrate. Long-term compost, so to speak; first giving structure to a high raised bed, and as it very gradually decomposes, generating warmth, retaining moisture, and making nutrients available to plants.

Gardening with wood is not a new idea at all - in fact, it seems to be quite trendy and google-able under the uselessly uninformative term "hugelkultur" - and I've done it before, but never on such a large scale. This bed will be about 22 feet long and about 5 feet high along a central ridge, sloping down on both sides. Ultimately, there may be room in this sunny spot for two or three such beds, which is why I decided to align this one roughly east to west on the east-rising slope, instead of going cross-slope, which may have been a safer choice, erosion-wise. Time will tell, and we shall see! My present goal is to get this southernmost bed constructed completely before deciding whether to add others. When it comes to labor-intensive experiments, I prefer to work out possible problems and improvements on a prototype. This method has worked out well for other things. Remember the little floored goat bungalows from last Autumn?

~~~

On Wednesday afternoon, my new helper showed up on time and ready to work. I marked out the border of the first bed, explained the entire idea, pointed out the sources of heavier materials for the border, and we were off and running. Well, not quite "running," as it turned into a hot and muggy day. But steadily chugging along for three good hours.

A "Before" picture:

For scale, the opening on the right is where I park the Little Green Sportswagon. And for a reference point, in the middle of the above snap, do you see that horizontal stack of little bits of scrap lumber, surrounded by what looks like a round shrub? That lumber (which will end up inside the new bed) is temporarily piled on a maple stump, just outside the northwest corner of the bed. That leafy globe is all stump sprouts; maples are masters at stump-sprout regeneration. Those sprouts will also end up inside the bed. The stump will remain. I like to think it will become a seat where I can rest after picking pounds and pounds and pounds of vegetables from this garden next year.

The picture below was taken less than an hour into the job, and from another angle - those stump sprouts are now on the left. My unrecognizable (and therefore bloggable) helper is lining up chunks of timber along the northern edge of the bed. You can see the southern edge, already complete. We checked periodically with a 5-foot stake to keep the bed a fairly even width for its entire, pleasantly curved, length.

Three hours and a couple of gallons of water later,
we had the base of the Very Raised Bed: 

The outline is complete, and an initial layer of woody material is in place. Much more will be added in various sizes ranging from small trunks to twigs. Along with the coarse woody debris will be many (many, many) trugs of slightly-used hay from the goat barn, bedding from the Poultry Palace, pulled weeds and the like, eventually topped off with a layer of soil. Even a thin layer of soil will be much harder to come up with than all the other materials combined.

I know it may not look like much in these pictures, but I wanted to share a glimpse of the very beginning of the process. It is a first step, and exactly what I have been envisioning every day for a year. I will take more pictures next week, when my helper is scheduled to return. He made a very good first impression, and I'm hoping to have him here for at least a half-day each week through August. Many small but useful projects have been hanging fire for lack of physical strength or a second pair of hands. Making progress will be very satisfying!

~~~

And while I've been typing this post, I have eaten all the cherries.

Also very satisfying.

~~~~~

drawing august

Decisions, decisions...

I'm trying to choose a sketchbook, sight unseen. It's exciting. A little scary, even.

(By the way, I don't draw.)

Thanks to the suggestion of the very kind and talented Jean Stevens of Somerset, England, I have selected the manufacturer (Stillman & Birn), and have now narrowed my choice down to two sizes of spiral-bound sketchbooks: 7x7" or 10x7".

(I used to draw when I was little, but that was a looooong time ago. If I was a good "draw-er" I probably would not have become a photographer.)

I "met" Jean earlier this year on twitter, where she is @JeanStevens4. Jean is an artist and a printmaker, and she was posting progress shots of a woodcut. Since woodcut/linocut is one of my all-time favorite art forms, I found her work immediately captivating. Plants. Animals. Birds. Landscapes. Seascapes. All: Wow.

Apparently last year Jean started a lovely little twitter thing, called DrawingAugust. People signed up, and drew (or painted, or whatever) something each day, and posted a picture of it with the hashtag #DrawingAugust. No pressure, no competition, no judgments; just a collective spirit of encouragement and an incentive to create something every day for the month of August. When Jean invited the world at large to participate this year, I looked back at some of the work that was posted last year, felt a little flicker of excitement, and thought, "Why not?"

(Perhaps I should provide the context: this was around the time my camera had been in the shop for three years weeks.)

I'm mentioning this here because I know some of my readers are artists, and I imagine many of my readers are non-draw-ers like myself, who are nonetheless a little excited by the idea of exploring a creative path just for the fun of it. And sharing the results with others because that's fun, too.

Here's what Jean said about it on her blog:

Who is interested in doing #DrawingAugust 2014?

It’s the same as last year.  For the month of August, you try your hardest to produce a drawing/sketch every day and post it on Twitter with the # (hashtag) #DrawingAugust.  By using the hashtag, people can easily find your drawing and keep supporting each other throughout the month with comments, retweets, favourites etc.  The whole aim is to get people drawing.  There’s no preset skill level required, it really is a supportive community that wants to encourage others to pick up a pencil, or whatever medium you wish to draw with, and get drawing.

~~~

What do you say?

Sounds like fun?

If you are interested, just contact Jean on twitter - or on her blogpost linked above - so she can add your name to the list of participants. The last count was 85, and many have mentioned what good fun it was last year.

Oh, and if you ever need a model for a sketch,

Lily of the Valley has offered her services:

~~~~~

that's what bilbo baggins hates

Chip the glasses and crack the plates!

Blunt the knives and bend the forks!

That's what Bilbo Baggins hates—

Smash the bottles and burn the corks!

Cut the cloth and tread on the fat! 

Pour the milk on the pantry floor!

Leave the bones on the bedroom mat!

Splash the wine on every door!

Dump the crocks in a boiling bowl;

Pound them up with a thumping pole;

And when you’ve finished if any are whole,

Send them down the hall to roll!

That's what Bilbo Baggins hates!

So, carefully! carefully with the plates!

J.R.R. Tolkien, from The Hobbit, "An Unexpected Party"

~~~

Another of my favorite and most useful pots has met an untimely demise.

Rats.

No point in crying over spilt milk (or broken glass),

but that saucepan - my last big saucepan - will be missed.

I really must pay more attention to the excellent example of 

Miss Ruth Kellogg:

Miss Ruth Kellogg demonstrating correct posture for dishwashing.
1921-26. Div. Rare & Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library

~~~

But while I'm off improving my posture

and searching the thrift shops for an uncommon Pyrex saucepan,

I'll be thinking of Bilbo Baggins.

And here is a nifty little half-minute gem for your entertainment:

a recording of the Dwarves' clearing-up song,

sung by J.R.R.Tolkien!

~~~~~

wordless wednesday

 ~~~~~