End of summer

It feels like fall at Mucky Boots. There's still a full week of August left and it continues to be hot and dry, but there's something different about the sun light - the angle? the intensity? - that speaks of autumn. I need a fleece when I go out to the verandah with my early morning coffee now, and dusk is signalling bedtime for the chickies earlier than it used to. But the biggest sign is the irresistible urge I have to buy new school supplies. I'm about to turn 48, and this is only the third time since I was 5 that I haven't returned to school in September, either as a student or a teacher. That kind of ingrained patterning is hard to change - and why would I want to? Why give up the hopeful imagining that comes with embarking on a new year, the feeling that anything is possible provided I have enough sharp new pencils and different colours of sticky notes?

I'll be absent for the next while: I'm heading here with my mom for this. How lucky can I be? I wish you all a peaceful and happy end-of-summer, and I'll see you here again in September.

Artichokes

I feel very ambivalent about our artichoke plants. Almost as ambivalent as my feelings about our gooseberries, now successfully overcome thanks to this delicious jelly.

The problem with the gooseberries was that they tasted awful and stabbed me with their wicked thorns every time I got near. The problem with the artichokes is they take up an enormous amount of space for relatively little food pay-off.

When we came to Mucky Boots we inherited a bed of about twenty mature plants, each needing six to eight square feet and producing (if we're lucky) two or three artichokes. I confess I'm something of a neophyte, so beyond steaming the artichoke, pulling off the leaves and dipping them in aioli or garlic butter, I wasn't quite sure what to do with them. Our neighbour Nick is a chef, so once I asked him to show me how to take an artichoke in its entirety to an artichoke heart. We began with a nice big artichoke and ended up with a single heart about an inch-and-a-half in diameter. Six or eight square feet of garden space for an inch-and-a-half artichoke heart. In my head, it just didn't add up.

But all that math just went out the window. Because this morning, on a day that feels like the start of fall with hazy sunlight filtering through the trees and the air crisp and cool, the unharvested and now flowering artichokes are looking magical.

Hangin' out in the dirt

Remember the pile 'o dirt? Apparently these former Math and Science teachers aren't very good at estimating volume, because we ordered too much soil for our landscaping project - way too much. So for the last number of weeks we've had a slightly smaller pile o' dirt sitting in our front yard waiting for us to think of some other use to put it to.

Our neighbour Nick gave us a good idea. As he predicted, our chickies quickly decimated the vegetation in their enclosed yard, and he suggested we section part of it off and grow some fall rye for them. But the existing soil is poor and rocky and needs some help, so this morning Kim got shoveling, with a little help from me. Nine wheelbarrows of soil and three of compost later, we called it quits: too darn hot. It will take a few more mornings of wheelbarrowing before there's enough good soil to plant the rye, but in the meantime the chickens have the perfect use for it: dirt baths.

The case of the missing zucchini

This is a misleading photo. These are not our squash - at least not this year's squash. This was a typical every-other-day harvest last summer.

Now picture the colander empty. Absolutely empty. We haven't had a single zucchini or patty pan squash yet this year, and we have no idea what's wrong.

The plants are stunted. They are producing flowers like mad, and some small fruit that either get stuck at the size of a dime and don't get any bigger, or die and fall off. We have applied compost and fish fertilizer. We have checked for bugs, and can't find any. The neighbouring winter squash plants are doing great: growing vigorously and setting fruit.

I never would have imagined saying this, but I don't have enough zucchini!

Growing in the light

After the dark, here is the light.

"Ten Mile Stilts" by the Wailin' Jennys.

Changes at the chicken corral

Meet Red Toe. He is one of what has turned out to be five roosters. (Yep, that's right. After all that hemming and hawing about how many roosters and how many hens our gender-mysterious chicks would turn into, we ended up with five and five. As a former math teacher I find this hilarious.)

Red Toe is so named because of the lovely red nail polish he sports on one toenail - Flartus's suggestion for how to tell our chickies apart. We wanted to distinguish this particular rooster from the rest because he's so darn friendly. He's a keeper. He's the one who comes a-running as soon as he sees one of us near the chicken yard, and who used to climb onto Kim's lap for a snuggle when she settled in for a session of Chicken TV. (She can't do this anymore since the chickies started using her chair as a roost in her absence. Poop. Enough said.) Since our plan is to keep only one rooster and send the rest to the stew pot, we don't want any cases of mistaken identity - hence the toenail polish.

There were big changes at the chicken corral today. Shortly after this nap time photo was taken, the roosters were separated from the hens and will remain that way until the fateful trip to the slaughterhouse for four of them. They have their own enclosure in the coop, and their own fenced-in and disco-dance-themed outdoor area. We knew this was going to have to be done eventually, but we decided to do it now because the roosters are repeatedly chasing two of the smaller hens away from the food.

We have been busy painting and otherwise sprucing up our guest room in preparation for a visit from my dear, dear sister next week. I can't wait. Sister Kim (it gets a little confusing when the two Kims are in the same room...) is keen to have a repeat of our canning and preserving sessions last summer, so I've got my eye on what's ready to harvest from the garden. There are lots of beets we can pickle, but I think that's about it. Definitely none of the tomatoes or apples we canned last year - it will be a couple of weeks before there are sufficient quantities of those ready.

Onions, though. We've got lots of onions. Yellow onions, red onions, shallots and leeks. Mucky Boots is a fragrant place these days...

Rain

After an endless spell of hot and dry weather: finally, rain - all day today and probably tomorrow. We are saying "Aaahhh," the plants are saying "aaahhh." The chickens are a little confused.

We have all the windows open, letting the cool air flow through the house, and I have just gone for a walk around the garden in nothing but a t-shirt and shorts, feeling the rain on my skin and the damp grass under my bare feet. Heaven.

Turning a corner

Something interesting happened yesterday. I didn't even notice at the time. I was busy transplanting pots of double-decker echinacea I grew from seed this year into one of the beds beside the verandah, and when I'd finished with the job, I grabbed a clay pot of little pink annuals and plunked it in the middle of the birdbath, just because it looked nice.

As the afternoon wore on, I found myself coming back to the birdbath. It made me feel happy to look at. It was pretty. I spent all afternoon returning for another look, trying to figure out why it made me so happy. And then I understood: it was the first thing I've done here at Mucky Boots just because it's beautiful.

You can probably guess how hard I've worked since we moved here a year and a half ago. A lot of it, inside the house and outside in the garden, has resulted in things looking better than they did. But all of it has felt like work that needed to be done, to fix things that were broken, or water plants that were dry, or weed beds that were overgrown. It's all been interesting and satisfying, but all of it has been for a purpose. None of it has been just for beauty, just because. There hasn't been the time, or energy, to do things just because.

There's so much that's beautiful here: the bee balm waving above the vegetable garden. The gladiolas that have just begun to flower. The perfect canopy of the Japanese maple by the pond. I am not responsible for putting any of it there - all I've been doing is maintaining it as best as I can. But yesterday, feeling pretty much on top of the garden for the first time since we got here, there was enough space to do something non-essential, just because it was pretty.

It's like the song Bread and Roses. Small art and love and beauty. My heart needs beauty-just-because.

Globe thistle

I just love this plant, and we have masses of it here at Mucky Boots. It reminds me of some people I know: so emphatically and unapologetically prickly you just have to stop and admire.

Growing on the dark side

Enough of all these pretty flowers. Sure, they're nice enough. But most of my time in the garden isn't spent interacting with pretty flowers - it's spent battling the weeds. So here's what's growing on the dark side at Mucky Boots.

Dandelions, in every stage of development from bud to fluff.

Thistles, though I usually catch them before they reach this stage.

I know oregano is technically not a weed, and I really do appreciate the first 27 clumps of it. After that, it's a weed.

Horsetail ferns, which are a permanent fixture around the pond and at the back of the property where it's wet. There is absolutely no way ever discovered or invented to get rid of horsetail fern. It will grow through landscape cloth. It will grow through plastic. It will grow through six inches of gravel, plastic and landscape cloth. You have to admire that kind of persistence.

And I have no idea what this is, but it keeps growing in the beds along the perimeter of the pond. It starts off in a nondescript weed-like way. Then it erupts like a party favour in a giggly mass of tendrils and tiny pink flowers. It's so good-natured it usually wins a reprieve.

Mailbox chicken

Meet the chicken that keeps watch over the community mailbox where our mail is delivered. I like living in a neighbourhood with a sense of humour.

Speaking of a sense of humour, we're having to work to keep ours every night about 8:30 as we try to convince ten chickens it's time to go to bed. We're getting marginally better at it, but it still takes both of us, each wielding a piece of board as a traffic control device, to get those independent-minded chickies into the coop. They probably think that now they're almost eight weeks old, they merit a later bedtime.

We have tried shaking some grit (which is like candy to chickens) in a pan inside the coop to coax them in, but that only worked once, sort of. Does anyone have any other suggestions for us?

Ginger cookies

If you come to Mucky Boots Farm for tea, the chances are pretty good you'll be served gingersnaps. At least that's what the recipe calls them. They're actually not snappy at all, but chewy and moist, which is how I like them. The recipe comes from here, and, by popular demand, here it is.

Gingersnaps

2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour (you can also substitute your favourite gluten-free blend)

2 t baking soda

1/4 t salt

1 t ground cinnamon

1/2 t ground cloves

1/2 t ground ginger

1/2 t ground nutmeg

3/4 cup canola oil

1/2 cup molasses

1 cup packed dark brown sugar

1 large egg

1/3 cup granulated sugar

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment.

2. Sift the flour, baking soda and spices together and set aside.

3. Put the oil, molasses, brown sugar and egg in the large bowl of an electric mixer and beat on medium speed until smoothly blended together, about 30 seconds. On low speed add the flour mixture and mix until incorporated.

4. Put the granulated sugar in a small bowl. Roll the dough by level tablespoons between the palms of your hands into balls. Roll each ball in the sugar to coat. Place the cookie balls 2 inches apart on the prepared sheets.

5. Bake for 8 minutes, reversing the baking sheets after 4 minutes, front to back and top to bottom. The cookies will be evenly brown and have large cracks across the top, and will flatten towards the end of their baking time. Cool them on the baking sheet for 2 minutes, then transfer them to wire racks to cool.

Equally good with ice tea in the shade, or with hot tea by the fire.

Workshop progress

We've been working steadily on our outbuildings this summer: chicken coop and run, tool shed and workshop. And although we've known pretty much what needed doing, and have been working reasonably steadily, nothing has been linear.

We started by painting the workshop and the chicken coop. Then we began installing shakes on the gable ends of the workshop, but we didn't get far before Kim decided we needed to install the trim first. But before we could install the trim, we had to paint it. Then the chickens were ready to move from the house to the coop, so renovations to the chicken run took precedence. Then we had visitors. Yesterday we got back to the workshop, did some touch-up painting and discovered about 57 wasps' nests in the eaves. So while I and my wasp allergy waited at a safe distance, Kim did battle with the wasps and emerged victorious and unstung. Then we discovered we needed some extra trim for around the windows and had to make a trip to Home Depot. Then it just got too darn hot to work anymore.

See what I mean about non-linear? It can be hard to feel like we're making any progress. So in an attempt to boost my morale, here is a record of what we've accomplished so far with the workshop.

This is what it looked like the day we viewed the property for the first time. It's a 24 by 24 foot building, solidly constructed but never finished - it needed siding, trim, soffits, fascia and gutters.

Our first step was to install the tar paper and siding, which we did last November, finishing it just as the winter rains started. At the time, it felt like the hardest job we'd done - come to think of it, it still is.

This summer we painted...

...and then tackled the problem of creating some sort of scaffolding to enable Kim to get up to gable height to install the cedar shakes. At our local tarp 'n tool shop, Kim found these braces that fit over the rungs of an extension ladder. We used two braces, two ladders, and three full-size 2x6 pieces of lumber and voila - a very sturdy scaffold! Kim even screwed some 2x4 pieces to the underside of the planks to make them even more solid. I was extremely skeptical about tackling this job because of my concern about Kim working at such a height (notice there was never any question about me working up high!) but even I am satisfied by how sturdy this set-up is.

(We're doing the gable end on the back of the shed first, so we can make all our beginner mistakes where nobody can see them.)

Once the scaffold was up we finished tar papering the peak and installed the lathes the shakes will get nailed to. (I feel like I need to explain, somewhat defensively, my use of the word we. Even though it's Kim who works up high, it's me who cuts things to Kim's specifications, fetches and carries, helps problem-solve, and most importantly, picks up every item that gets dropped. So there.) At that point Kim decided the vertical trim at each corner of the building should really be installed before the shakes, to make sure they meet nicely, so we took a big detour from installing the shakes and focused on the trim instead. We painted (and painted and painted) and finally, today, we got to start installing the trim.

It's a bit complicated, because the windows and existing trim appear to have been installed with the plan of just painting the original plywood, and not doing anything else. So when we installed the siding, we changed the picture enough we had to add an extra layer of cedar trim inside the painted trim, to make sure there were no exposed edges. We were worried about the cost of buying 120 feet of millwork, but we stumbled on the solution of buying really inexpensive 1x2 cedar and ripping it on the table saw to make roughly square trim that matches the existing trim quite nicely.

This morning we got two windows and a door done before we had to go into town for an appointment - enough to make me feel like we're making progress. I guess it's like most jobs: the prep work takes forever, but once it's done things move along quite quickly.

What do you think...a red door?

It's a party...

...a disco dance party! The fishing line and holographic tape are up, criss-crossing the chicken yard, fluttering in the lightest of breezes and looking like a party.

If they actually work to keep the chickies safe from eagles, it will be a nice solution to protecting a yard studded with trees and with fences only 6 feet high. The previous owner tried to piece together lengths of bird netting from fence to fence, around the trees, but it sagged in the middle, which meant we had to crouch to move around in the yard, and when the leaves fell on top of the netting in the autumn it was a big mess to clean up. And then the whole thing just collapsed in the snow.

We started with lines strung Maypole style from the biggest central tree out to the perimeter. Then we criss-crossed lines, making sure there are no gaps as big as an eagle's wingspan, tying on the holographic tape as we went. It's tall enough for us to move freely underneath, and leaves and snow will be able to fall through to the ground. We have our fingers crossed and our eyes peeled.

The chickies are taking it all in stride. When they're not pecking and scratching and eating and pooping, they're waiting for Kim at the Chicken TV viewing chair.

Anti-ouch ointment finished!

A few weeks ago I began infusing oil with some of the plants growing here at Mucky Boots, as the first step in making a skin-healing salve. Today I decided the brew had been steeping for long enough and made the ointment. Here's what I did.

As you might remember, I began with about 2 cups of sweet almond oil (you can also use cold-pressed olive oil) and 1 ounce each of calendula petals, lavender flowers and comfrey leaves, all smushed together in a jar and set outside to gently warm in the sun. That lasted a day before Frankie decided it smelled promising and knocked it to the deck of the verandah. Kim was there in a flash, but not before half the oil had leaked out, leaving a messy (but quite nice smelling) oil stain on the wood planks. Rats. So I topped up the oil, capped the jar firmly, and set it on my seedling table behind the fence in the orchard, out of Frankie's reach.

Today, almost three weeks later, I strained out the vegetable matter, squeezing out as much of the oil as I could. Then I melted 4 ounces of beeswax in a double boiler on the stove (I used a bar of natural beeswax, rather than the white wax beads you can buy) and gently warmed the infused oil in another pan. When the beeswax was melted and the oil was about the same temperature, I gently poured the wax into the oil, whisking as I went, and then added an ounce of vegetable glycerin (to make the salve a bit creamier) and a few drops of lavender and rose geranium essential oil. Then I poured the mixture into the assortment of containers I had assembled and left them to cool and solidify. Easy as pie!

The resulting salve is rich and creamy, and feels very nice on my skin. I can't speak yet for its healing properties, but I've smoothed it into a couple of insect bites and a healing blister, and will see how it does.

I enjoyed doing this - it was easy to do, and I liked that it was such a gentle process: no mashing and bashing the plants, just a warm oil bath to coax them into releasing their scents and healing compounds. I like the end product: it's a gorgeous colour (like a cafe latte) and very silky in feel. I like the thought of making something good for me, instead of what I usually make (brownies, which aren't so good for me). And it has made me curious about the other non-food plants growing here, and what I might do with them. Most of the other herbs are already flowering, which means I have missed the optimal time for harvesting, but it's nice to think about what I might do next year.

Just another day

It was just another day at Mucky Boots. The sun rose. The plants grew. The birds sang. Frankie barked. We drove into Victoria so I could see the physio for my sore back (now definitely on the mend) and so we could buy a few things, including a new B-A-L-L for Frankie and a new Lee Valley garden apron for me.

Oh, yeah, and a few rolls of holographic tape because this morning AN EAGLE LANDED RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE CHICKEN YARD WHILE THE CHICKIES WERE OUT PLAYING!

Photo from here.

We knew this was a risk, since there are resident eagles nearby. But the yard is largely tree covered, and the holographic tape (which we are going to string on line in a kind of criss-cross Maypole roof above the chicken yard) was on our shopping list for today. But it seems we were just a bit too late.

Fortunately Kim was just on the other side of the fence filling the waterers. She didn't see the eagle land, but turned immediately when she heard an eruption of chickie-squawking, to see seven of the chicks running full-tilt into the coop, while the other three were trapped in a corner of the yard with a full grown eagle between them and the coop. Kim yelled and clapped and tried to get the gate to the yard open as fast as she could, and apparently caused enough of a fuss the eagle thought better of the whole thing and flew away.

Whew.

So the chickies spent the day in the coop while we were in town, and will stay there until we get the lines up tomorrow.

They're probably wondering exactly what they graduated into...

Graduation

Thanks to mostly Kim's hard work (I have been taking it easy with a bit of a sore back) the chicken yard is now safe and secure, and the chickies have graduated to the big time: the chicken-sized door to their personal playground has been opened and the world awaits them!

All that is left to do is string some lines decorated with holographic tape over the yard to keep the eagles from swooping in and carrying one off.

Kim is having such fun with these birds. When she pulls up a chair for a session of Chicken TV, one of the roosters (we think) flaps up to her lap to be petted . We had no idea chickens had such personality!

We're having a lot of trouble telling them all apart - even the roosters from the hens, as you can tell from the ever-changing hen/rooster count. If we can't tell them apart, how can we give the hens names? How can we decide which rooster to keep? Natalie at the Chicken Blog doesn't have that problem - her chickens are exotic super models compared to our all-the-same-plain-Janes.

Chicken renos part 2

Before.

After.

What you can't see, behind the new paint job, is that we have also done more work on the inside of the coop: we moved the interior wall to make more room for the chickies, and cut the remaining space in two with another wall. So now we have two separate enclosures for chickens (which will come in handy when the roosters start picking on the hens) with some remaining space for storage.

We're also doing more work on the fencing, replacing some rotten bottom boards, shoring up three wobbly fence posts, and patching a few holes in the chicken wire. We've also had to sink a new post to mount a secondary gate. That means we not only have two separate interior areas for chickens, each half-flock can also have its own yard, if necessary.

Boy, this has been a lot of work, and we're not quite done yet. The current rooster/hen count is 5/5, so those five roast chicken dinners and all those lovely eggs come spring are going to feel well earned.

Poppy epilogue

This will be the last post on poppies this year, because after three months of glorious blooms they are finally finished for the season.

Sigh.

This lavender one was the last, and what a lovely way to finish.

And even when the petals have all fallen, these poppies manage to look splendid.

Cultivating imperfection

I have an embarrassing story to tell: the first time my parents came to visit us here at Mucky Boots I spent an hour raking all the pine cones off the drive.

Erk.

I really, really wanted things to be perfect for their first visit. But that's not just a bit overboard - that's diving over headfirst with all my clothes on.

It's not just visits from my mom and dad - I have this problem all the time. If I haven't dead headed the rhododendrons, or the peas are cascading all over the ground instead of climbing obediently up the trellis, or it's hard to see the perennials for all the weeds I feel awful, as if every deviation from a Home and Garden magazine photo spread is a sign that I'm not in control of my life. A sign that our decision to leave jobs and the city behind and try a different way of living was a big mistake.

I've struggled with perfectionism for a long time. I feel as though there's something wrong if I don't have all the strings of my life not only firmly in hand, but woven into a lovely design of historical and cultural significance. I used to think that changing the circumstances of my life would fix the problem. But I've learned that I am truly excellent at transferring my perfectionist tendencies to any and all new pursuits. It's not the circumstances of my life that create the problem: it's me!

Just to have it on record, I am not perfect. My home is not perfect. My garden is not perfect. Neither my life nor my relationship are perfect. All those things are usually pretty great, and sometimes even wonderful, but not perfect. Why, oh why, do I have such a hard time with that?

Perfection, I am learning, is an impossible goal in the garden. There are just way too many things to get in the way, over which I have little or no control. I can't decree the weather, or the size of this year's mouse population. No matter how hard I try I can't always achieve a 100% germination rate. And I have learned that weeds always, always grow back, especially when my back is turned. In the face of all this, my perfectionist streak is taking something of a toll. So once again (for about the fifteenth time in my life) I am suiting up for a good wrestling match, to try to squash it back into submission. Here are the things I'm hoping will help:

• Think of imperfection as a kindness to others. Perfection makes people uncomfortable. When our neighbours hosted a garden tour a couple of weeks ago, one visitor exclaimed in relief over seeing some weeds in their flower beds, saying it was the first garden she had visited that gave her permission to have weeds in her own garden. If there's one thing I'm good at, it's making people feel comfortable. So I'm going to think of those columbines waiting to be dead headed as a small contribution to a happier world.

• Focus on my own pleasure in the garden, rather than always seeing it through critical eyes. I'm going to spend more time just being in the garden without picking up a trowel or a pair of clippers. We have a number of comfortable garden chairs and loungers and we never sit in them - I'm going to change that.

• Think of the garden as a classroom of students. When I was a teacher I was really good at letting my students be individuals and giving them confidence that I didn't expect them to be perfect all the time. I never wanted a classroom of cookie-cutter students in orderly rows. I loved having classes of interesting individuals with funny hair and strange adolescent senses of humour. I tried to teach them not to be afraid of mistakes, but to view them as the most interesting parts of the learning journey. I'm going to try to look at the plants in the garden with the same appreciation of an interesting process, rather than trying to achieve a perfect end result. My students were glorious and fascinating in their messy imperfections - the plants in my garden are, too.

• Cultivate imperfection. I've read enough self-help books to know that new behaviours and ways of thinking usually feel unnatural at first, and need to be practiced. So that's what I'm going to do. I have designated the back field behind the greenhouse my field of imperfection, and have decreed that it will not be mowed. It is a mess of dandelions and scrubby plants, and every time I look at it my hands just itch to get out the lawnmower, but I will resist. Instead I will stand in my field of imperfection and appreciate its many colours and textures.

Even as I write this I am aware of a trap: I am going to be so good at this imperfection business, I'm going to be perfect in my imperfection! Whoa, Nelly. I should remember what I wrote about being especially talented at manifesting my perfectionism in every new aspect of my life. So here's my last advice to myself:

• Relax and enjoy the beautiful gift of this Mucky-Boots-time of my life.