Goat Heads, But No Goats, Yet.

Rabbits and ducklings and goat (heads), oh my.

Here’s an update on the goings on at Miles Away Farm.

Seriously, could we be any cuter?

The three turkeys (Bourbon Red’s – heritage breed – same species Barbara Kingsolver raised in Animal, Vegetable, Miracle) and 16 Ancona ducklings (they sent one extra) arrived last Wednesday. I bought them from Strombergs, and they mailed them out Monday morning from Minnesota. The Post Office called me about 9:00 am Wednesday morning to say “come get them”. They were all fine, and hungry, and seemingly none the worse for wear, which never ceases to amaze me.

Radish Smadish

Maybe it’s been our wet cold spring. Maybe it’s because the garden is in an old alfalfa field. Maybe it’s because there are a ton of wild mustards growing everywhere. But the radish crop, which was planted in early April, is a total bust. Cabbage maggots (yuck) burrowed into their roots, and they either never developed, or had holes running through them, all complete with small white larvae wiggling about. The maggots (and they really are maggots, the adult is a fly) tend to be most active in the spring, and go after cole crops (i.e. mustard family). I have pictures, but some readers might be eating.

Note the lack of radishes, which would not be here even if they had been perfect. Those are homemade sourdough croutons, by the way.

Turns out I didn’t plant very many radishes, because it’s hard to get excited about growing a vegetable that you don’t really like, so no great loss. But if they go after my broccoli, cauliflower, kale and cabbage plants, well, that’s a whole other sadness. I’m spraying with insecticidal soap (likely won’t do much unless I get lucky with a direct hit) and putting diatamaceous earth around the stems (might help). This pest is new to me. Ah, the joys of gardening in a new location.

Otherwise, I’ve been eating a lot of salad with beautiful baby greens thinned out from the garden. Yum.

The lodgepole pines are throwing pollen for all they are worth, and everything, inside the house and out, seems to have a fine dusting on it. Sometimes, it’s quite beautiful.

Speaking of beautiful, I have always thought Cedar Waxwings looked like a bird an artist would have made up, right down to their yellow paint dipped tail. They tend to visit in flocks, making a very distinct high-pitched call back and forth. One you’ve heard them a few times, you tend to look up when you hear it.

Not the sharpest picture. I was zoomed in and there wasn't much light. Got to love the Mafia Boss attitude here. "What chou looking at?"

A group of them descended on the grandaddy apple tree in the yard, and proceeded to eat most of the blossoms that were left. As this is a red delicious, my least favorite apple, I’m happy to make the sacrifice to see these beautiful feathered friends.

The apples are pretty much done blooming now.

The lilacs, however, are still going strong. We had quite a few swallowtail butterflies visiting one weekend, and of course, the big fat bumblebees seem to always be around, in several species, all bigger than my thumb.

The zinnia was the first flower to bloom in the garden, planted from seed inside back in early March. What is most surprising is that these zinnias have mostly looked like they were going to die any minute from the moment I put them outside and I had taken to telling them to piss off, because I was tired of their whiney attitude. Was quite surprised when they won the “first to bloom” race, though the cosmos was only a day behind.

When I say we’ve had a wet spring, I’m not kidding. I have mushrooms coming up in several places in the garden, including the onion patch.

But sometimes the rain makes for some spectacular misty mornings!

Miles Away Farm Blog © 2011, where we’re moving a large pile of rotted hay over to the garden one cartload at a time, and wishing our bathtub (for soaking the sore bits) was larger.

May Flowers Bring…Rain!

Three apple trees on the property. Fingers crossed for a good crop this year.

I hereby officially petition that the first day of Spring should be floating, depending on where you live, and tied to the first apple blossom. It finally feels like spring is here, in the third week of May!

The wild lands near my house are starting to bloom, the plum flowers are almost done, the apple blossoms are just starting, and one of our 5 lilac bushes just started to bloom yesterday. Nights are still in the high 30′s/low 40′s, so the garden is growing S L O W L Y. But it IS growing.

All of the seeds, except for some basil and a second crop of edamame and green beans, are in the ground. I did not have a tiller, and was planting in an old alfalfa field that still had a lot of alfalfa in it, so this was a huge accomplishment. The drip irrigation system, which I ordered back in March, is also in, though I haven’t needed it, as we’re still getting rain every 3 or 4 days.

I’m currently battling a gopher, who has taking a liking to my onions and potatoes. I’m feeling a bit like Bill Murray in Caddyshack. So far, I’ve put out traps and spread a castor oil containing repellent. We’ll see who wins.

I love how Lupine leaves channel rain water to their center, leaving the plant looking like someone took a “BeDazzler” to it.

I've seen the fuzzy seed heads from Virgin's Bower for years, but this was the first time I've noticed it blooming. This one is Columbia Virgin's Bower. It's a type of wild Clematis.

Wild strawberries cover the hillside across from our property. The berries are the best, most "strawberry" tasting treat you've ever eaten.

Oregon grape is a wonderful medicinal with anti-bacterial and anti-inflammatory properties, and the berries can be turned into jam (if you are really really desperate for jam).

Mock orange, which is not related to citrus at all, has a wonderful smell when it blooms. It's blooming all over right now.

Other than lilacs, this flowering quince is one of the few landscape plants on our property.

Maple flowers on walkway stepping stone. The bees loved this tree when it was in bloom. It was all about the pollen.

We have both Italian and wild plum trees.

I have about 2,000 sq ft under actual cultivation. The drip system is 15 mm t-tape with 8 inch emitters. I'll try to take a picture from this vantage several times this season, to document the progress.

Miles Away Farm Blog © 2011, where we have heard that Juicy Fruit gum is a good gopher bait, and we’re more than willing to try it.

Fall – What’s Not to Love?

I think if you asked 100 people on the street what their favorite season is, about 80% would say fall. Why is that? Is it just all the pretty colors? The nip in the air? Or does this time of year somehow hit an ancient chord with us, knowing that the harvest is in, the storage bins are full, and there is high hope that we will survive the winter (even if it is by running to the store)?

I have great memories of fall. I spent my Jr High/High School years in Northern California. In October, the walnut trees on our property would drop their nuts to the ground amid piles of leaves. We shipped walnuts to family all over the country and so one of my jobs was to pick up the nuts under the trees. I would plop down in the leaves with my 5 gallon bucket, the distinct tannic smell of walnut leaves rising up from the ground, the sun on my back, and work my way in a circle, searching through the leaves for the hidden nuts. It was like a late season easter egg hunt.

I remember one morning waiting for the school bus, the first frost of the season on the ground. A huge walnut tree attracted my attention as a leaf from the top of the tree dropped and hit other leaves on the way down. This in turn encouraged other leaves to fall, like organic dominos. The tree rained leaves until the bus arrived, and by the time I got home that afternoon, it was bare.

Part of the fun of moving to a new place is to experience the seasons with new eyes. The Inland Northwest, while not possessing the spectacular fall colors of the eastern U.S., still has a lot to offer. Aspens, maples, and my favorite, the Larch, all turn color in the fall.

The Larch, also called Tamarack, is a deciduous pine. That’s right. A pine tree that looses its needles in the fall and regrows them in the spring. You never know quite how many of them are around until they turn a beautiful golden color in the fall.

I had the opportunity to travel both to Walla Walla Washington in the southeast part of the state, and then down Interstate 5 to northern California to visit old friends this fall, so I got my full dose of color change in a variety of different ecosystems. And it gave me an excuse to take lots of pictures.

Hope you fell for fall this year too, and that your thanksgiving (my favorite holiday – yeah, I know – go figure) is wonderful.

I wonder if cat’s like the feel of dried leaves under their feet?

Butters says “I’m helpppping”.

The hills just south of Walla Walla.

My friend Tracy’s son Reece (age 3) on a visit to the pumpkin patch in northern California. He LOVED the tractors.

Next year, this will be my yard!

Miles Away Farm Blog © 2010, where we’re miles away from winter, busy raking leaves for the compost pile, and are thrilled with how long the fall season has lasted.

Time For A Walk

One of the things I like about having dogs is that they make me feel guilty if I don’t take them out for walks. And no just going down the driveway to get the mail. That does NOT count. I can almost hear them whining “Not this again. We’ve seen this and smelled this already, like, a thousand times”.

Our blue healer, who is getting old and arthritic, has taken to stopping at the top of the driveway and waiting to see if we are really going somewhere new, or are we just getting the mail. No point walking all the way down, just to walk all the way up again.

But this morning dawned somewhat overcast, giving a wonderful respite to the 90+ degree days we’ve been having, so it was time to venture out and see what was new in the world of mother nature.

We saw a bumble bee bigger than my thumb.

We saw a flock of turkeys. One of the advantages of having older dogs is that they don’t chase everything. We watched this hen for quite a while.

We saw LOTS of Mullen. Mullen is a great medicinal plant, and is a biennial. That means that it takes two years to bloom and produce seed. There is an old wives tale about the height of the mullen predicting the amount of snow in the coming winter. I don’t put any stock in it. I think it is more of an indication of how wet the spring was. Mullen seed is also eaten by a lot of birds in the fall. The brown stocks you see in the background are last year’s blooms.

When I looked at the mullen closely, it had lots of interesting insects. Because these beetles have snouts, they may be some kind of curculio beetle, but one in four insect species on the planet is a beetle, so I’m not going to try to find out!

We also saw this thistle. Yes, that is the tail-end of a big beetle. Its head was so far down into the flower eating pollen and nectar that I couldn’t see its head. And tapping on the nether regions produced no response. Must have been really tasty down there.

We also saw thistle with the seeds pulled out. This is a sure sign that finches have been around. They pull the seed fluff out to eat, and sometimes (though it seems too late in the year) to line nests.

It was a good morning and a nice walk, though Freya was quite tired. We went farther than I had planned.

Most importantly, I’ve now learned how to link my Flickr photos to my blog, even if I don’t know enough code to make the photo frames come out right.

Miles Away Farm Blog © 2010, where we’re miles away from traffic, and enjoying the breeze on our face.