Tornado Flies the Coup
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.
Digital Garden Record-Keeping Tools
- when was that seed planted,
- when did the sprout come up,
- when did it start to wilt, brown, or
- when fortune smiles upon us, when did it flower?
All these questions can be answered with Garden Record Keeping. Certainly this is not an easy or simple task. There is so much data to track.
I remember trying to keep track of life when we used those little sticks of wood and graphite and dried sheets of wood pulp to make records. Then we’d have to leaf through all these pages to find what we wanted to know and correlate data both manually and use up valuable brain cells to think it through.
Now I rejoice in all the digital record keeping tools at my fingertips. Here’s an example:
One of my gardening friends, upon visiting my greenhouse wanted to know when the growth of the lettuce (at this point, I’m forgetting a word she used to describe the growth pattern. Let me digress to investigate. We corresponded by email, so I go to my email program to do a search on mail with her name in it. I didn’t have to go far, only to the next item on my dock - yes, I’m on an Apple, but don’t worry -even Windows users have these cool tools.) accelerated.
Hmm, I said. I don’t know. Let me consult, not the oracle - but the visual record. Moving over to my Photo database, I created a folder and labeled it “lettuce growth”. Then scanning through the photos from the time the lettuce seeds were planted. Oh, how did I know the date?
By consulting the calendar program. I have a calendar which shows up in a different color for each of my life paths (all integrated on one monthly page). Recently I’ve added several to accommodate all the gardening areas. My favorite one is for yearly activities. I set each item to be repeated once a year, so as I learn what needs to be done, when, in this Ozark environment, my trusty computer can let me know when its time for what.
Yes, I’m giving a computer a lot of responsibility, which means I have to BACK UP frequently. I’m sure that my rusting brain cells can remember to do that. Much better than they can remember all the details of everything I’m planting and growing and having to do to keep the garden growing.
Back to the Calendar program, input in search field “lettuce” and I can see when I planted them, 12/31/08. Back to the photographs at the beginning of the year to see more details and place representative pictures of the lettuce growth in the folder marked “Lettuce Growth.”
I love photography. But in the old days, though I had a good camera, I didn’t feel that good about the cost of film and development. And I never liked the date burned onto the photograph. However, I love the date that comes with digital photos! And the ability to label each one and sort them into folders.
Frequently I take the camera with me into greenhouse and field just to note what is going on, so when the questions come up later, there’s the answer!
I planted too many different types of seeds into one tray yesterday. I have little mini popsicle type sticks as the labels that fit in the tray. I know that they can easily be dislodged. And I’d really like to know what variety and color of which plant each seedling is. To keep it straight, I photographed the labels in the tray in order so I will be able to put the puzzle back together if it falls apart. Digitally assisted gardening!
Back to the lettuce - Wow, they were transplanted into the greenhouse bed on 1/5/09 (photo below). That’s fast!
Then (below) the lettuce plants started to overlap on 2/6. (That’s probably when I should have started to thin them, but my “right to life for plants” perspective is not today’s focus.)
I find great beauty in the unfolding leaves.
And below, complete overcrowding occurs on 2/20. My friend received a couple of photos and the answer in her email!
Another example of digital recording keeping:
I’m preparing a post on a comparison/review of two brands of watering cans. I couldn’t remember one of the brand names and the photo did not show the logo clearly enough.
Back to my digital records in the Mail department. I did a search for “watering” in the body of the emails and came up with the email receipt for each item, including model number and brand name. Hazaah! No wonder the Baby Boomers and the Digital Age are such good friends! Whatever my little mind forgets, the super-big hard drive kindly remembers.
I just have to recall what word to search for...
However you garden, May you have joy in both the remembrance and the forgetting!
Digital Photos as Gardening Log/Record
- when was that seed planted,
- when did the sprout come up,
- when did it start to wilt, brown, or
- when fortune smiles upon us, when did it flower?
All these questions can be answered with Garden Record Keeping. Certainly this is not an easy or simple task. There is so much data to track.
I remember trying to keep track of life when we used those little sticks of wood and graphite and dried sheets of wood pulp to make records. Then we’d have to leaf through all these pages to find what we wanted to know and correlate data both manually and use up valuable brain cells to think it through.
Now I rejoice in all the digital record keeping tools at my fingertips. Here’s an example:
One of my gardening friends, upon visiting my greenhouse wanted to know when the growth of the lettuce (at this point, I’m forgetting a word she used to describe the growth pattern. Let me digress to investigate. We corresponded by email, so I go to my email program to do a search on mail with her name in it. I didn’t have to go far, only to the next item on my dock - yes, I’m on an Apple, but don’t worry -even Windows users have these cool tools.) accelerated.
Hmm, I said. I don’t know. Let me consult, not the oracle - but the visual record. Moving over to my Photo database, I created a folder and labeled it “lettuce growth”. Then scanning through the photos from the time the lettuce seeds were planted. Oh, how did I know the date?
By consulting the calendar program. I have a calendar which shows up in a different color for each of my life paths (all integrated on one monthly page). Recently I’ve added several to accommodate all the gardening areas. My favorite one is for yearly activities. I set each item to be repeated once a year, so as I learn what needs to be done, when, in this Ozark environment, my trusty computer can let me know when its time for what.
Yes, I’m giving a computer a lot of responsibility, which means I have to BACK UP frequently. I’m sure that my rusting brain cells can remember to do that. Much better than they can remember all the details of everything I’m planting and growing and having to do to keep the garden growing.
Back to the Calendar program, input in search field “lettuce” and I can see when I planted them, 12/31/08. Back to the photographs at the beginning of the year to see more details and place representative pictures of the lettuce growth in the folder marked “Lettuce Growth.”
I love photography. But in the old days, though I had a good camera, I didn’t feel that good about the cost of film and development. And I never liked the date burned onto the photograph. However, I love the date that comes with digital photos! And the ability to label each one and sort them into folders.
Frequently I take the camera with me into greenhouse and field just to note what is going on, so when the questions come up later, there’s the answer!
I planted too many different types of seeds into one tray yesterday. I have little mini popsicle type sticks as the labels that fit in the tray. I know that they can easily be dislodged. And I’d really like to know what variety and color of which plant each seedling is. To keep it straight, I photographed the labels in the tray in order so I will be able to put the puzzle back together if it falls apart. Digitally assisted gardening!
Back to the lettuce - Wow, they were transplanted into the greenhouse bed on 1/5/09 (photo below). That’s fast!
Then (below) the lettuce plants started to overlap on 2/6. (That’s probably when I should have started to thin them, but my “right to life for plants” perspective is not today’s focus.)
I find great beauty in the unfolding leaves.
And below, complete overcrowding occurs on 2/20. My friend received a couple of photos and the answer in her email!
Another example of digital recording keeping:
I’m preparing a post on a comparison/review of two brands of watering cans. I couldn’t remember one of the brand names and the photo did not show the logo clearly enough.
Back to my digital records in the Mail department. I did a search for “watering” in the body of the emails and came up with the email receipt for each item, including model number and brand name. Hazaah! No wonder the Baby Boomers and the Digital Age are such good friends! Whatever my little mind forgets, the super-big hard drive kindly remembers.
I just have to recall what word to search for...
However you garden, May you have joy in both the remembrance and the forgetting!
See The JOY - 4 Best Photos
Above is the Mid-August Garden, in its first year of growth!
Above are lovely Anne yellow raspberries with a late October frost upon them.
This winter squash harvest is my joyful delight, my vegetable, cookie, cupcake, quick-bread even pancake staple. Even with the great numbers which were given away, there’s more in the larder and some steaming, fresh out of the oven, in the kitchen right now!
This little friend never came to my gardens up North. Diligence every day helped me learn to find him, his friends and family, and not willing to share everything with them, I did frequently interrupt their dining experience.
Thank you for joining the Celebration on this newly renamed journal, from GROWING FOOD to GROW JOYFUL !
Multitudes of Grasshoppers & Morality Questions
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!
And I still don’t have a flock of chickens to feast on these critters. I’d need to have more fencing first; know that I could grow feed for them; want to get out at the crack of dawn to care for them, and have every plant I care about behind fencing. In other words, I’m not ready for chickens. But will my garden thrive without them?
I’m hoping that last year was an aberration, and this year will not find waves of them fleeing as I walk across the yard or through the garden.
