Gates and a Bat Box

Another guest post from Tom about construction...

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One of our plans for this year was to raise the height of the fence that surrounds the yard, so that we could grow more food for us and less for our local deer population. This past weekend we finished the last part of that work, installing new and higher gates.

The work to make new gates gave me an opportunity to work with Elizabeth's dad Tim Killen,  who comes from a line of woodworkers and who blogs for Fine Woodworking. Tim's focus for a number of years has been in using SketchUp, 3-D modeling software, to plan his woodworking pieces. I'd dabbled a little bit with SketchUp, but I've always found that having a specific project is always a good way to learn software. This gate project would be a perfect opportunity.

After a few fits and starts and YouTube tutorials, I was able to work up a model for the gates:

Front View

Rear view

We had some lumber left over from the chicken coop construction project, and used that to form the main frames of the gates. Working with Tim gave me a chance to try making some mortise and tenon joints, and at one point we used nearly every clamp that he had:

The final gate design looks a little different than the model I'd created, as we simplified the work needed to make the pickets that attached to the frames.

The gates wound up being pretty heavy, so I was glad that I'd followed Tim's advice and ordered some pintle hinges online to hang the gates. Pintle hinges come in two parts -- there's a metal strap that attaches to the gate using carriage bolts, and a pin (the pintle) that gets screwed into the post. The gate is then lowered into position so that a loop on the end of the straps goes over the pintle. Here's a closeup:

Pintle hinge

 We used two straps per gate, and each one is rated to 100 lbs, so that should hold up. Here's one of the finished gates in place:

It was a lot of fun working with Tim on the gates, and I learned a lot (like, when you subtract off the width of the stiles when measuring your rails, be sure to add back in the length of the tenons, or your gate frames will be a lot more narrow than you had planned. D'oh!).

Our other construction project of last weekend was for an Eco-project for Adam's 7th grade science class. For this project, he needed to make something that would contribute to an environment. We've been working on making our home environment a better place for animals, both wild (birds, insects, lizards) and domestic (chickens, bees), and so we decided to follow that same path and work on a bat box.

There are a lot of plans for bat boxes online, and the construction is pretty straightforward. We settled on a design from This Old House that has a fun bat motif. The box itself has an opening on the bottom, and is fairly shallow – only about 3/4" between front and back.

Adam has to bring it in to school next week, then we'll put it up high on our shed.

Foraging for Poo?

There are times on my urban farm journey where I don't recognize myself. Slicing jalepenos to add them to almost every dish? Breaking my back using an ax to take out a stump? Opening a bee hive and studying the comb? These are all things I didn't do two years ago. Sometimes I say to myself, who ARE you?

Today, the answer to that question was quite clear: "Oh, you're THAT lady. The weird one."

This morning I took Joe into a part of the open space near our house, and I saw that the cattle were back. Seasonally, some farmer who has some contract with the city brings his steers here to graze; we see them every year. I like seeing them, though I think after the cattle leave, someone should bring goats in, because the cows don't eat the thistle, and it's taking over. But I digress.

As I was walking Joe, I noticed very many fresh piles of manure. "Hm," I said to myself. "I wonder if I could bring the wheelbarrow up here?"

So that's precisely what I did this afternoon. Except, the wheelbarrow wouldn't fit in the back of the Honda, so instead I brought two garden Trugs (I use these for nearly everything, they are worth every penny) and my trusty shovel. And Joe. Who basically sat himself under a tree far, far away from me, as if even he was embarrassed by my behavior.

I filled up the trugs, hoping no hapless hiker would come by, and rehearsing my explanations just in case. The cows hung out in a shady thicket near the nearly-dry pond. Three turkeys with a rafter of chicks strolled by, probably themselves eating bugs from the patties. A darkling beetle eyed me warily, probably pissed I was taking something from him. I wondered what a ranger might say to me? Was I removing precious resources from the open space? My two small buckets surely wouldn't count for much, surely there were plenty of 'resources' left to improve the soil and feed native wildlife.

None of my internal arguments mattered; no one came by to question my actions. I put the buckets in the car and got outta dodge, feeling slightly criminal.

I upended the buckets in my compost  - hopefully it'll speed up the decomposition of the pile of straw there. Then I washed my hands real, real good.

This patty was the size of a small dog

You can't see them, but the cows are chilling in this thicket of willows

Hard to see, but three turkeys and their babies were checking me out

Darkling Beetle

My haul. The poo looks dry, but when broken, was nice and fresh inside

break down that straw!

The surprising cruelty of nature

It's always surprising to me, anyway. Maybe some folks are jaded by what happens in nature, but I am always finding a certainly melancholy in natural systems.

This morning, early, I was out in the garden, and I realized I hadn't heard the young in the black-capped chickadee nest in a while. You might remember that there was a family of these birds living in a nest box behind a ribes bush, and I posted a short film of the mother bird visiting the nest.

I figured the birds had grown up and flown the nest, and it would be interesting to take what remained to work, to show the kids. So I opened the box and removed the nest, which was square - it totally filled the box. But sadly, there were two dead chicks on top of the nest.

I don't know what killed them. I don't know if something happened to the parents, and that meant the birds starved to death? Or if they something was wrong with them, structurally? Nothing can get in the box except very small birds, so nothing got in there and hurt them. Were there more chicks, and they flew away, and these two didn't make it? I'll never know.

It makes my heart hurt.

I've posted the pictures below - I don't find them macabre, but you might. The nest itself is very interesting in its layers, with dryer lint on the top (I regularly put dryer lint out in the garden for this exact purpose - another reason to stop using chemical detergents in our wash).

I decided to put the nest back out in the garden, on the ground - perhaps the tiny bodies can be used as nutrition by some other creature, perhaps the nest can be re-used by another bird.

Nature can be very joyful, but also quite sad.

Pictures below:

top view

the two babies

layers in the nest

Weekend Baking

My weekend consisted of very mundane chores, cleaning the house and doing laundry, that sort of thing. I spent a bit of time in the garden, making things look nice (the Urban Farm Tour is less than two weeks away, and I'm feeling anxious about the appearance of things!), but that does not a blog post make. Tom worked very hard to finish the gates and helped Adam build a bat box; I'm hoping he'll write a post about those things later this week. You may not be in the market for making new gates, but everyone could use a bat box!

I did get a chance to do some baking this weekend. For our Memorial day celebration, I made a blueberry cobbler with a biscuit topping, using a recipe from America's Test Kitchen.

It proved delicious and felt like the perfect late Spring dessert. This recipe calls for six cups of blueberries, so we could tell ourselves it was healthy and enjoy a nice-sized serving.

We've been watching The Great British Bake-Off as a family, and as a result, Kate's been interested in making pastry. So today we made Kolache, which I remember having as a kid and loving it (Mom, I need your recipe!). Kate wanted to make hers with a Nutella filling, so we made one that way, and one with a cream cheese filling, which is more Adam's style. While we were working, we spoke in British accents, which was fun. (Go ahead, I dare you to say "Let's place the pastry in the oven to prove" in a British accent. Fun, right?)

Kate rolled hers much more nicely than I rolled Adam's. But they both turned out lovely.

I'll leave you with a book and movie recommendation. I'm enjoying Pig Tales by Barry Estabrook; it is making me really think about how we source our pork and what kind of businesses I want to support. I'm also enjoying Farmland, which is streaming on Netflix at the moment. Yay for young farmers!

More this week, as we prepare for the big event on June 6. Yikes!

This means WAR.

Yesterday, I noticed that one of the wires had come off our new deer fence - in the corner - behind a compost bin - not a convenient place for deer to leap, so I didn't put it at the top of my priorities. We were out until late last night at a band concert and I completely forgot about it.

This morning I went out into the garden and found fresh scat at the scene of a horrible crime: the corn has all been snipped, neatly, as if it had been given a haircut. It was a similar story at the bean patch and in the butternut squash patch.

the break-in

DNA evidence

corn

butternut squash

pole beans

This is the last straw.

How deer-proof do we have to make this place, anyway???

Our gates are still not done, so we've taken to leaning boards up against each one - I'm about ready to sharpen them into pikes. The poor UPS people and the meter readers are wondering why we've banned them from our yard.

deters delivery guys, but not deer

I'm discouraged, maybe even a little depressed. But I'm not beaten!!!!! Priority one this weekend: gates and reinforcement. Meanwhile, I might have to cowboy camp in the garden.

Today has been very nice; I was unexpectedly released from work, as the kids went on a field trip and they had enough parents attending! The first thing I did was take a nice long walk with Joe, in the lower woodland elevations of Las Trampas Regional Wilderness. I almost never get to ramble with the dog anymore, and it was really lovely - extraordinarily peaceful and idyllic.

wild plums

wild blackberries

a trickle of water in the creek

wild grapevines growing up a tree

native honeysuckle, about to bloom

native mallow

shelf fungus

Then I came home and started on my list of chores. Always first up, weeds. The bermuda grass and bindweed are coming up all over the place in the North Garden. "Tenacious" is an understatement.

Evil #1: Bermuda Grass

Evil #2: Bindweed

As I was weeding and giving supplemental water (and moaning to myself about deer), I noticed that the huckleberry was full of ripe fruit! So I stopped for a snack. These berries are delicious - smaller than blueberries, but quite similar. 

The tomatoes are already reaching jungle proportions. A combination of good starts and good soil, I guess. We haven't had very hot weather, so I can't imagine what they'll do once it gets truly warm.

The peaches are ripening, and getting large. Soon it will be time for frozen peach smoothies again!

We got a new rain barrel, so I set it up. Tom will have to get the downspout adjusted over to the screened opening.

Dad brought over five bags of fresh sawdust and I spread the contents of three of them in the coop. The chickens have gotten noisy lately. They aren't annoying like a barking dog, and they aren't terribly loud, but there is a constant clucking and hooting which I didn't expect. Several of them have gotten their combs and wattles, and I'm expecting to see some egg laying starting next month. They love to dig down through fresh sawdust and take baths in it. They have gotten braver about coming close to me, and I often feel them peck the rivets on my jeans or the ends of my shoelaces, while I'm kneeling and working in their coop. And they come close when they see me heading over with fresh kale from the garden. But when I clean the coop or change the water, you'd think I was a terrorist. They just can't seem to calm down at those times, or maybe they just forget that I'm the person who gave them greens earlier in the morning. I understand now why people think chickens are dumb. It's because they ARE. However, they are cute and funny, and a nice addition to the garden (despite all the hooting and quarreling!).

Molly, checking me out. She's the bravest one.

Minerva and Hermione, with Luna looking on.

Next on the list, weeding the flower beds. Things are looking quite nice, I must say, and I hope the flowers stay abundant for the Urban Farm Tour (June 6!). 

Gilia tricolor, or Bird's Eye Gilia

Guara

Bush Anemone

Flowering pomegranate

California poppies with Elegant Brodiaea

penstemon

The potatoes are growing beautifully, as are the carrots and peas. It appears that the collards and lettuces have also had a recent trimming by those four-footed devils. The shallots are starting to look drier and may be close to harvest. The strawberry wall is recovering from a recent deer attack, and the blueberries are producing a few each day.

Yukon Gold

Our potato crop was eaten by deer last year, so it would be very depressing to have that happen again. I don't mean they ate the actual potatoes; as far as I know, deer don't dig (though I wouldn't put it past them). They just completely decimated the leaves. Twice. Are you noticing a recurring theme? 

Next chore: pulling out the kale, adding a few wheelbarrows of dirt to the bed, and planting basil seeds. Red Russian Kale is a star in my garden, producing well for six months out of the year. The chickens love it, we love it, it's a nutritional powerhouse - an all-around great plant. But I'm dying for fresh basil, and I have to get it in the ground now if I want a crop. And the kale was starting to flower and get quite leggy, despite my daily pickings. So with a sad heart I fed most of the kale to the chickens (and gave some to my neighbor for her chickens too!) and composted the rest. 

Unbeknownst to me until I began this project, the lower reaches of the kale was full of aphids, which can certainly happen once the plant is stressed. What an ABSOLUTE pleasure to feed the aphid-ridden bits of kale to the chickens, to whom Christmas had come early! Chickens dearly love bugs, of all kinds.

I hope I didn't feed any on-the-prowl ladybugs to the chickens while I was at it

The worst part about aphids is that after you get rid of them, you feel all crawly.

I noticed a bunch of bees hovering around the hive today. My best guess about this is that they are the first flights of the new bees. I'm anxious to take a look in the hive this weekend and see how much the colony has grown.

I'm finishing up the day with a fancy dinner, because when you have the time to cook something special, you have to take advantage! I'm roasting a beef tenderloin, which is a splurge - but we will eat leftovers from it for days. I've made a compound butter to go with it. This sounds complicated, but it's not; just soften a stick of butter, then whip it with garlic and herbs. I used thyme and sage from the herb garden, as well as our newly hung garlic, which is really fun to use - it's not dry, like grocery store garlic. It's quite moist and easy to peel, and has a wonderful flavor. With the tenderloin, I'm going to roast some beets, and make some parmesan polenta. It'll be a great end to a great, full-of-accomplisments day!