Big News!

In 7th and in 8th grade, Coxsackie-Athens middle school in Coxsackie NY invited a man named Dean to come in and do a presentation for students. He is, by far, my favorite presenter of all time. He's the only presenter who's name I can recall.

Dean captured my attention because he brought us animals. He had reptiles of every size, the madagascar cockroach (which he let me touch), birds of prey, and a bobcat. I learned that Dean allowed certain volunteers and interns at his facility to help out. Before I had the chance to get on this track, I discovered we were eventually moving to Connecticut.

I always thought the person who stood at the front of a class or an assembly and held a hawk on their arm was the coolest person in the room. "Hi, I have a MOTHER F-IN HAWK on my ARM." I never figured out how to become that person. Until now.

Before I get into that, let me share some other news.

I have not been happy at my current job. Public health is important, but my passion lies in ecology and environmental health (which I know to also be public health). I sent some feelers out for jobs along those lines, and got offered a position to expand a youth development program centered around gardening.

COUNT ME IN.

While the position pays well, it is not full time. So I also accepted the job of being a naturalist for a local nature center. Which means I do outdoor education with school groups, AND bring critters into classrooms to introduce to kids.

I AM SO SUPER PSYCHED.

Color me all the shades of grateful.

The funny thing is, while I am coming up with hawk deterrents out in the backyard to protect my chickens, I am also looking forward to working with these big, beautiful birds in an educational setting.

Life can really come together if you keep planting good seeds, even as challenges approach.

Sources for Heirloom Seeds

Heirloom seeds do not contain GMOs and can be successfully grown with organic fertilizers and compost. Here are a few places to choose from:

The Wild - a poem

In the empty lot - a place

not natural, but wild - among

the trash of human absence,

the slough and shamble

of the city's seasons, a few

old locusts bloom.

A few wood birds

fly and sing

in the new foliage

--warblers and tanagers, birds

wild as leaves; in a million

each one would be rare,

new to the eyes. A man

couldn't make a habit

of such color,

such flight and singing.

But they're the habit of this

wasted place. In them

the ground is wise. They are

its remembrance of what is. -Wendell Berry

Grow Write Guild: Your First Plant

(This blog post is prompted by Gayla Trail's "Grow Write Guild", 

a creative writing club for people who love to garden. 

Check it out here if you'd like to know more.)

I can't recall what my very first plant was. My mother was a gardener, and in our small apartment on the US army base in Schweinfurt, Germany, she kept boxes of flowers on the balcony. I know that somewhere there is a photo of me on that balcony helping her plant. I can't be more than four or five. I'm wearing red corduroy overalls, my blond hair is in long pigtails, and a smile lights up my face as my little kid fingers poke into the soil.

Fast forward, and we're in the backyard of our little house in the suburbs of East Greenbush, NY. My mother has planted flowers with seed pods that explode when you squeeze them with your fingers. I'm nine, and my brother is three. The burst of yellow seeds from the green pod elicits giggles of surprise, much like when you wind a jack-in-the-box. You know it's coming, but you still jump when the box pops open, even if it's just your heart giving a little skip.

When I am eleven or twelve, my mother has given me a little partly shady spot to begin my own garden. We have moved to Coxsackie, NY, and our house is a light blue Victorian sitting atop ten acres of field and woodland. The garden sits on the north side of the house, and is already full of lush, green ferns. I add a bleeding heart, and a group of pansies. I loved pansies as a kid - their painted faces made me think of colorful cats. I also loved the Disney version of Alice in Wonderland. The pansies Alice meets among the flowers were my favorite with their feral faces and soft voices. (I still have dreams where I am dwarfed by plants, stalks of clover reaching the height of oaks.)

I weeded the pansy plot in the beginning, but as the summer stretched, I lost interest in the weeding and focused instead on our inhabitants on the farm. Our rabbits kindled and we raised the kits. The sheep and goats were moved from pasture to pasture. The chickens had to be fed. The dog needed attention. The cats needed love. I played Barbies with my cousins who had come to live with us. I caught garter snakes sunning themselves by the rusted water pump. I climbed the tallest pine tree to look over the field that had once been home to an orchard. I picked cherries from the cherry tree and grapes from the vines that had gone wild.

I entered one of my pretty little pansies into a 4-H fair, and got a red ribbon instead of a blue. The summer sun had hit that shady spot and warmed them up, and the weeds threatened to take over the pansy group. The pansy I entered was pale in the stem and limp in the leaves, but I thought the cornflower blue of the bloom was the most beautiful among them. I looked at the ribbon and decided the judges didn't see the world the way I did.

I have grown pansies only once since then. I prefer perennial blooms and vegetable patches. I planted the pansies last year to perk up the corner plot which faces the street. It was in an awkward stage where the green leaves of perennials were just beginning to unfurl from dead sticks and weathered mulch. My pansies were creamy yellow blooms among kelly green leaves. As the summer swelled, the blooms faded in the searing heat. The phlox, speedwell, and ornamental grasses stole the show. Still, I looked at the pansies and thought of flowers a hundred feet tall, blue ribbons waving in the wind.

Visiting Kentucky

Fiance's parents live in southeast rural Kentucky now. It's a big change from the metropolitan area they left, but it's on his mother's childhood homestead.


This is the view from their front window (sorry about the screen, I am writing in iPhone mode and am using iPhone pics for now). The snow blanketed everything on the first day - gorgeous and ephemeral.

We brought them three of our hens. We love these girls, but we know they'll have a good him here, and we need room for the new ones coming this year.


They didn't seem to mind the fourteen hour car ride too much, but they did stage a breakout of their box from time to time.





Malai loves car rides and laps, so this was heaven for her.

The hens laid two eggs in the box on the way down, and a third egg once we arrived. Productive girls!


We checked out the local feed store to see if they had any prefabricated coops for sale, and I discovered seeds come in huge bags for cheap prices!!




The only problem is that you have to be careful of which kind are genetically modified. But I did pick up a bunch of peas, peanuts, onions, and rapini.

We celebrated Passover with Fiance's parents, and his uncle and grandmother who live on the homestead. Malai took to Grandma Hazel immediately!


There was matzoh brei the next morning for breakfast - egg made with matzoh and sugar. Next time, I'll take mine without the sugar!


While there a thousand and one Walmarts and fast food places and dollar stores in these rural counties (bleh), we were starved for coffee shops.


When we saw this in a town 45 minutes from his parents' house, much excitement ensued. We're happily/sadly addicted.

There's a lot of poverty and crime in the area of the homestead. Fiance's grandmother owns 400 acres of farm and woodland. Trailer parks border all around the edges, several decorated with confederate flags. It's a different sort of life, here. Very different from our coastal CT lifestyle. But I enjoyed driving around looking at everything and observing people.

I especially enjoyed the miles and miles of rolling hills.


One day, we drove to Mammoth Cave National Park.








That is a Kentucky cave cricket. We also saw a bat!

Overall, it was a scenic and southern experience, mixed with a Jewish holiday and a national park.

I have some wonderful friends watching over my plants and animals at home, and this morning one of them sent me this photo:


These are my crocus babies I planted last fall. What a welcome sight! We'll be home to see them tomorrow. Can't wait!

Happy Spring!

For the Nephew

Fiance's sister is having her second baby boy in two or three weeks.


I made this hat using the Bulky Baby Hat pattern, and then appliqued the chick.


Here it is with the Done in a Jiffy baby blanket I whipped up for the new arrival. While the hat was simple to make, I did have to unravel the first hat I made as it was too big. The recommended size crochet hook in the pattern contributed to the size, so I went a full mm down in crochet hooks. This hat is perfect for a newborn.



The blanket was a really simple pattern, but the yarn I used, Lion Brand's "Baby's First Yarn" (in honeybee, which is NOT showing its real color here - it's a warm and buttery yellow), has a tendency to fray. I'm going to go over the frays with Alene's, but I'll test it in the washing machine before I give it to mom.


And here's the stitch up close - I think it's really lovely.


So, that's one for the nephew, and one for the niece! The next blanket coming up is for a cousin's baby. So many babies this year!

Feed Store Fluffies

At the feed store this past weekend, there was the most adorable sight!


Ducklings!! I begged Fiance to let me take home two of them - but a sign there said it was a minimum of 6 to purchase. I couldn't take 6. Even I know that. :(



There were also chicks!! And I can't wait to get our fluffy butts in the first week of May!


I spent a good five minutes leaning on the fence they've erected around these tubs of cuteness, watching them longingly. But ours will come soon enough!

Starting Seeds and Transferring Seedlings

I've started thirty tomato varieties, twenty something pepper varieties, two tomatillo varieties, and several cole crops. Some of the tomatoes, peppers, and cole crops have grown a second set of true leaves and are ready for transplanting.




Sometimes people get confused by the term "true leaves". When seeds germinate, the two green leaves that unfurl directly from the seed are called cotyledons. The next set of leaves to grow will be more distinctive to that species of plant, and are the first set of "true leaves." This year, I have decided to transplant my seedlings from the tiny cell trays to 4" peat pots once they have developed a second set of true leaves. The second set often indicates a healthily developing root system, and though many people prefer to wait until the plant is root bound, I prefer to not have to harm the roots during transplant.







The brandywine tomato seedling is already becoming rootbound. The orange bell pepper seedling was just starting to grow the second set of true leaves, and already has a good root system.



At this point, Quadrapus is all sorts of curious about what I'm doing. And, she's not crouching in the photo. She's really that high...or low. She's a munchkin breed, which have genetically short legs.




I'm not sure she approves of the peat pots. I fill the 4" peat pot with more sterile seedling mix, but I add a spoonful of compost from the pile in the backyard. I poke a hole in the middle of the dirt for the waiting seedling.




Q is all like, "Mmmmmm, dirt..."

I use a spoon to pop the seedling from the tray, letting the dirt stay with the seedling's roots. At this point, I have thinned out any competing seedlings to ensure the healthy growth of a single plant. (I pinch the less robust seedlings with my nails below the cotyledons.) Some people like to tease out seedlings from each other and pot all the plants. I prefer not to damage any root systems that can be especially sensitive at this time of growth, and I get enough plants. But, it's up to you.




Quadrapus thinks I should plant this pepper next.

With tomato plants (and with tomatillos), you can place them into the soil all the way up to the bottom leaves. Roots will form all along the stem below the surface.
With other plants, place in the soil above the crown of the roots.




Once all the seedlings have been planted, I water using a weak organic fertilizer solution. I place them back beneath the grow lights, and in another week, they'll wow me with size and luster.

The leftover seed cells I will use for more planting. I often don't even sterilize them (I know, blasphemous!). I fill them with a sterile seed mix, plant my seeds according to package directions, and place them beneath the grow light.




I keep the soil moist at all times, and I find that beneath the warm glow of T5 HO bulbs, I don't have a problem with damping off fungus killing the little guys.

Here are some more photos of Quadrapus "helping". Apologies for the blurriness.












Happy Planting!

Mindful - a poem

Cucumber plant growing in the tree.

Every day
I see or hear
something
that more or less

kills me
with delight,
that leaves me
like a needle

in the haystack
of light.
It was what I was born for -
to look, to listen,

to lose myself
inside this soft world -
to instruct myself
over and over

in joy,
and acclamation.
Nor am I talking
about the exceptional,

the fearful, the dreadful,
the very extravagant -
but of the ordinary,
the common, the very drab,

the daily presentations.
Oh, good scholar,
I say to myself,
how can you help

but grow wise
with such teachings
as these -
the untrimmable light

of the world,
the ocean's shine,
the prayers that are made
out of grass?

- Mary Oliver

Spring Crochet

Oh my gosh! Spring is almost here! I am so excited!

I've also been working on three different crochet projects between work, class, homework, and garden prep. Here's a sneak peek:







A new baby blanket! Don't you love these colors? It's Martha Stewart Extra Soft Wool Blend in Buttermilk, Lemon Chiffon, Gray Pearl, and Gerbera Daisy. Choosing the right colors took three weeks of hemming and hawing - I was originally stuck on shades of blue, and while they were beautiful, I wanted something brighter!

I also am crocheting a pair of baby converse, and another hat. I expect to be done with it all by the end of the month! Then I will move on to a light, spring scarf. Can't wait!

Any creative projects that you're working on?