Lifescapes

Chick update: Week 4

 

Still think they're cute? These Cornish roasters (that's the name of the breed) have the biggest feet in chickendom, and they're on their way to filling out the rest of themselves to fit their feet. I weighed three birds today, and each weighed in at two pounds--gaining now at the rate of about a pound a week. They're friendly, curious, and gregarious, like most chickens, and lots of fun to watch (a serous distraction, since I'm supposed to be writing!) When the air temp climbs to around 93 or so (about 1 p.m.), I turn on the mister to keep them cool. They eat constantly, and there'll be plenty of chicken poop for the compost.

The spring garden is just about finished. I cleaned out the spring Three Sisters planting (corn, squash, and beans), although there's one more planting of corn (you can see it in the photo), which is just beginning to tassel, and the Porter tomatoes are still going strong. I pick enough for a couple of pints of tomato sauce every two days or so. I'll be harvesting spring cantaloupe and a few little watermelons soon. Just getting started: sweet potatoes, southern peas, pigeon peas (this is a new crop for me), and okra--Texas summertime favorites. In a few weeks, I'll be planting in the empty beds: fall corn, beans, squash, and potatoes. In some ways, having two seasons is great. But it does multiply the garden work.

Family stuff. Had a great weekend with son Michael, visiting from Juneau by way of Ohio (on a family vacation with wife Sheryl and their kids, Becky & little Michael). Several meals and some good talking time with Michael and his daughter Dorothy and her husband Jason. Wonderful to catch up on everybody's doings and be impressed by their multiple talents.

Bill reports from Coyote Ridge (our place in New Mexico) that it's been hot there, too. The Pacheco Fire is still burning, over 10,000 acres now, and the smoke drifts over the mountains and into our valley. You've probably been seeing the more dangerous fire, near Los Alamos, on television. Los Alamos has been evacuated in an impressively orderly way, which is good news. The bad news: these fires are likely to burn until there's a break in the weather. They're caused (in part) by the long-term drought and heat produced across the Southwest in this era of global warming. For more (including the 116-degree record-breaking high temp in the Texas Panhandle), check out Jeff Master's blog post on the topic. Here in the Hill Country, June has brought us the highest temperatures ever, and the longest string of 100+ degree days.

Book report. The Darling Dahlias and the Confederate Rose is moving a little slower than usual, because life has been so full lately. (I'll take that tradeoff!) We've rescheduled the publication date to September, 2012 (instead of July 2012), which gives me a little more time. I got my author copies of The Darling Dahlias and the Naked Ladies--they're beautiful! Absolutely terrific cover. Hope you all like it as much as I do. The book goes on sale on July 5. If you've ordered from Story Circle, I'll be packing/shipping your book next week.

Reading Note. The question is not whether land belongs to us, through titles registered in a courthouse, but whether we belong to the land, through our loyalty and awareness. . . In belonging to a landscape, one feels a rightness, at-homeness, a knitting of self and world. Scott Russell Sanders

Chick Update: Week 3

 
The chicks graduated from their bathtub brooder to their coop on Saturday, and from the coop to their yard on Sunday. The photo was taken this morning, Tuesday, and they are perfectly at home. The heat has been brutal (we hit 106 three days in a row), but I've hung sheets on three sides of the pen and across the top, partly to shield them from the wind, which is brutal as well: 15-20, gusting to 30. I've been spraying the sheets with the hose every hour to help the chicks stay cool. We're due to cool off for a few days, with maybe even a shower, then back into the heat again next week. No rain so far in June: the driest spring on record. The new normal for us, I'm afraid.

And with the heat and the drought come the wildfires. The field grasses are crunchy dry and there's too much fuel on the ground. There are fires all across Texas. Austin has cancelled its Fourth of July fireworks, and some local counties (not all, unfortunately) have banned the sale of fireworks. Fire is a threat, too, at Coyote Ridge, our place in New Mexico. Bill is spending a few days there, and took this  picture from our deck, looking west toward the southern Sangres: a rising plume of smoke from the Pacheco Canyon fire, north of Santa Fe. It has now consumed about 4000 acres of the Pecos Wilderness. No immediate danger, but there's plenty of smoke--which is a challenge to people who suffer respiratory illnesses.

But I'm enjoying the quiet here at Meadow Knoll, batching it by myself this week. The tomatoes are producing like crazy. These are Porter tomatoes--a little smaller than usual (they normally average about 3-4 ounces), but the vines are producing abundantly. 9 pounds in this batch, and this is the third batch of the season. I've been cooking, pureeing (in the ricer), and freezing them in 2-cup containers.

And I'm writing, naturally. The Darling Dahlias and the Confederate Rose is more than two-thirds finished. As usual, I have too much story material and am having to corral and maybe even cut some of it. But I'd rather have too much than too little!

And reading. As you probably know, I'm a nut for food history. Last week, I ran across a marvelous book by Andrew Smith called Starving the South, about the role food (and the lack of it) played in the North's victory in the Civil War. Original research pulled together in a very strong narrative. I'll try to put together a review of it this week. I'm listening to a book that I somehow missed during my years of college reading: Robert Penn Warren's All the King's Men. Another wonderful find. I ordered a print copy, because the book is too rich for just listening.

Reading note, from Starving the South: How the North Won the Civil War, by Andrew F. Smith: The Civil War wrought great changes in the foods Americans grew, raised, and consumed. Before the war, most people at what they had grown or raised themselves, or could buy from their neighbors. After the Civil War, Americans began to eat foods that came from  hundreds or even thousands of miles away... Americans had traditionall bought the staples they did not grow themselves at general stores or farmers' markets; after they war, they began shopping at grocery stores. Americans increasingly opted for meals that were convenient and easy to prepare. The industrialization of American food, from the farmer's field to the consumer's plate, was in full swing.

 

Central Texas Gardener

In case you missed the airings of my interview with Central Texas Gardener host Tom Spencer, you can watch it online. And do check out Linda Lehumsvirta's Central Texas Gardener blog, with some gorgeous photos of crape myrtle and Linda's new to-die-for shrimp plant. Thanks, Tom and Linda, for putting together a great show. It was a pleasure, as always!

Chick update: Week 2

 
The chicks are entering their second week, healthy, hearty, and hungry. Always hungry. And just look at how fast their feathers are developing! This little guy not only has wing feathers, but his tail feathers are popping out, too. They're still in their bathtub brooder: you can see the oak leaf litter I'm using. I've brooded chicks in a basement, in an RV (Amazing Grace, the antique RV that took us on our honeymoon in 1986), and on a porch. This bathroom arrangement is by far the most convenient. Everything (including water) is handy, and I can shut the door and keep the cat and dogs out.

I'm concerned about the outdoor heat. It was 106 in their new coop yesterday afternoon (air temp: 103). I need to find a way to keep them cool, once they get outdoors. Irony: keep them warm in the house, cool them off when they graduate to their coop.

Garden report. I've harvested all the corn--about 3 dozen smallish ears, all Jubilee. I stripped the kernals and froze them, since Bill isn't here to help eat corn on the cob. There's another bed of Merit, and I'll have a second crop of Jubilee (I hope) with another planting in about 30 days. The sweet potatoes are flourishing (oh, they do love this heat!) and the okra, Southern peas, and the new (to me) pigeon peas are looking good.

Deer problems. The veggies are fenced, but my flowers are not, and the deer have been unrelenting this year. They ate my dahlias last week--I've moved the tubers into the veg garden, hoping to salvage them for next year. Last night, they sheared the petunias and portulaca in hanging pots. They leave the natives alone (naturally) and go for the blooming exotics. Grrr....

Book report. Slow going on The Darling Dahlias and the Confederate Rose: life has been getting in the way. But it looks like we may be able to move the publication date for the series from July to September, since the Cottage Tales will be finished and there'll be an open September slot. So I can take a little more time with this book. 54,000 words (out of about 87,000) so far. No problems with the book, just little things that pop up in the day. Like blogging...

Reading report. I do save time for evening reading, 2-3 hours. On the current stack: Indigo: In Search of the Color That Seduced the World, by Catherine McKinley; The Control of Nature, by John McPhee (the first essay, on the levees of the lower Mississippi is just magnificent); Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet, by Mark Lynas (factual and frightening, especially given our current situation here in Texas); and What I Learned at Bug Camp, by Sarah Rabkin (reviewed by Susan Tweit). Wishing for more reading hours!

Wild weather. We're breaking all records here in Texas this year for hot/dry. But I know that many of you are, too. In terms of precipitation, this has been the most extreme spring in record-keeping history. Don't take my word for it: read Dr. Jeff Masters' blog post on the subject. Is global warming a contributing factor? Scroll down the page and you'll see Masters' discussion of this question. Mind you, this isn't an academic question, because the wild weather we're seeing here and around the globe is (in part) responsible for higher food prices. Feeling the pinch? Time to begin to consider becoming more self-reliant where food is concerned.

Reading note. In my view, homeland security derives from having enough potatoes.--Barbara Kingsolver, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

New arrivals: baby chicks

 
If you've read my memoir, Together, Alone, you know that for years, we raised chickens here--broilers for the freezer/table, laying hens for eggs. When the China Bayles series gathered readers and I began to travel to promote the books, we had to stop. It's hard to manage animals when you're a thousand miles away. But I've missed them. And since I've recently cut back on book travel (for reasons I describe in An Extraordinary Year, my journal for the years 2008), I've decided to start raising chickens again. It's another one of our efforts (along with the garden) in the direction of food self-sufficiency. We love the idea that these chickens will be raised here, with affectionate respect for their needs and comfort. We also love knowing what they're eating, because, as Michael Pollan puts it so succinctly, "we are what we eat eats." Simple as that.

We're sharing this batch of 26 (there will likely be another batch later in the year) with our friend Dolly, who shares her ranch-raised beef with us. These are Cornish Roasters from Murray McMurray Hatchery, which sent us our baby chicks back in the 80s and 90s. The old catalog has become the website, which is much more convenient. An eons-old practice, raising chickens, now facilitated by a new technology, the Internet. The chicks arrived yesterday morning, 27 of them. One was a casualty of the journey, but the others are healthy, full of cheeps, and fun to watch. They're also eating their heads off.

The chicken coop is finished, more or less, but these little guys will be spending a couple of weeks in our bathtub, which serves very well as brooder until they don't need such constant temps (90-95F the first week) and can graduate to the coop. They'll be plenty toasty out there, too--yesterday, it was 102, just another day in a string of 100+ degree days, breaking all records for the first week of June. Which is a whole other story, of course. The story of global warming, which is certainly having an effect on the garden.

Garden report. Briefly. We have tomatoes, green beans, onions, eggplant, and more summer squash than anybody deserves. The tomatoes are Porters, which are small but do well here in the heat. The green beans should have flourished through the end of June, but the temps are a challenge for them. They'll do better in the fall garden. People often think that there's one long growing season here in the South, but that's just wrong. We have two short seasons (Feb-June, mid-Aug-early November), separated by a fierce, unflinching July. This year, it looks as if June is joining July. Let's hope not. Let's hope that this isn't a harbinger of things to come.

Book report. Moving forward on The Darling Dahlias and the Confederate Rose. Which I need to get back to right now. Thanks for reading--more later....

Reading note. As a responsible omnivore, I need to know where my food comes from and understand and respect the needs of the fellow creatures whose deaths make my life possible. The chickens that gave us eggs and went into the freezer were treated with care and concern; they had the run of the meadows, with all the green grass and grasshoppers they could eat...  What's more, all these animals came from this place, or nearby. They shared the soil with us, the water, the weather, the air. In that, there is a certain deep integrity, a wholeness, a relationship which I find richly satisfying.--Susan Wittig Albert, Together, Alone: A Memoir of Marriage and Place