The funky old chicken coup, roof removed by tornado-like conditions.




Venerable huge and beautiful oak tree, broken at the base by the wind.




At the edge of the creek, this old sycamore has been de-limbed by nature many times. Again in this storm.

We are very grateful that the winds, which sounded and acted like tornados, on a day of many officially sighted tornados, skipped over the house and gardens.

The wind made the decision that, after all, I would not go ahead with keeping chickens any time soon, as the roof of the coup "flew the coup"!

I had been debating about having chickens since the huge population of grasshoppers ate so much of the garden last year. Chickens would eat the grasshoppers. Then fewer grasshopper eggs would mean less food for the larvae Blister Beetles, and presumably fewer Blister Beetles. All of which would make a happier gardener.

However, only the gardener would be available to take care of the chickens. No dog to guard them. No fences to keep them off the porch, the flower beds. One thing leads to another, and we left the funky chicken coup as a leaky storage room, pending further inner debate.

Imagine how freaked the chickens would have been, during the middle of a dark and wind roaring afternoon, to have the dubious safety of their nests wisked away by the tornado.

We'll take some of the materials for other projects and perhaps keep the chicken wire part in readiness for the birds.

May the wind blow away from you only that which is no longer needed.

Tags: history, weather, chickens

Here’s that spindly seedling again from the post on the Widger, which is shown in all its glory tucking a red cabbage into its next home. We addressed the plight of the stretched out little plant in the previous post Leggy Spindly Seedlings.

Now, lets explore what might happen to these guys that could distress them long before they enter the brine for sauerkraut, or are thrown in the steam heat before freezing. Oh, its horrible what I plan to do to these plants I really love! I can’t help but give thanks for the fact that I didn’t have children in this life. Imagine how I might treat a child I loved if this is what I plan to do to the plants I nurture even from seed. Its a horrible thought, worthy of Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal”. If you don’t know the essay, or have a strong sense of moral outrage, or a weak sense of humor, I don’t suggest you go there.

I find the awareness of love, nurturing and tenderness for these green beings and my hungry plans for them once they reach the fullness of their lives a bit duplicitous. However, I recall, at the end of the growing period, the plants and I have such a loving regard for each other, and the awareness that the purpose of the plant is to give its fruit (or vegetable), that at the time of harvest I feel only gratitude rather than guilt.

Also, I try to save seed, and in this way, contribute to the continuity of life of these generous and beautiful plant creatures.

We’ll see how these cabbages will do, even with their stretched out beginning. They have yet to withstand the onslaught of hungry catepillars, the ravages of intense sun, pounding of fierce rain and all the gentle blessings that Nature gives when she is nurturing to growth, not just to toughness. So I hope that they will make it to fertile ground and that the care given to them sustains them throughout their season.

I’ll give you a foretaste of one of the challenges to come: the bug situation.

It may be that last year was a plague year that no one else around here mentioned. I didn’t hear anyone else saying that there were multitudes of grasshoppers afflicting their gardens. It was the first time in many years that the yard which is now mine had not had a flock of chickens eating everything that moved. This means that everything that moved converged on the first plants I had out there - the cabbages and broccoli in 2008. This is how it looked:

Yikes!

Tags: history, garden philosophy, chickens