Notes to Self

springtime

2010-04-23T22:23:00.000-07:00

I was walking from Pastor Toni's birthday celebration back to the garden with Jeremy today. He stopped to tie his shoe and I waited, and still waited after he told me I could go on ahead. He thanked me for my patience and I wondered out loud if there were scissors at the garden for cutting lettuce for the salad we wanted to make for the party. Jeremy knew that there were, and I said that I like that he always knows where things are and he returned that he likes that I am patient. I've been hearing that a lot lately, about patience--from children and adults. And that is rarely how I feel. There is so much to do, but there is so little good that comes from rushing, particularly in gardening.

Today I rushed to wash off a glass gallon jar of fresh milk and I broke it in my porcelain sink. That was all of Myrtle and Flair's milk from this evening. Yesterday I left a roll of chicken wire in the new coop, and today when I stopped home for lunch I heard a chicken ruckus. A biddie was stuck head and wing in the wire and was getting a nearly fatal lesson in the pecking order from the big girls. The little one is recovering in her box on the book shelf, looking like a vulture with her defeathered, scabby neck, and now the remaining two have a properly fenced area of their own, safe from those from whom they cannot protect themselves yet.

Life requires attention, and attention requires patience.

It has been a busy spring, as usual. We've been working on building a pizza oven in the garden out of found materials. Another exercise in patience. Hauling concrete rubble from neighboring yards; sand and clay from a construction site down the street; more sand from the banks of Sugar Creek where it crosses under Arkwright. And then sifting the clay and sand, and making mortar out of it, mixing to the perfect consistency with bare feet. And placing the stones and concrete just so around the rubble-filled tires to build the foundation. And leveling the brick for the oven floor. In the book it says you can build one in a couple of days. We're not going by the book anymore.

In the midst of oven building the redbuds bloomed like pink popcorn. I mentioned to fellow builders that the flowers are edible, and tasty. Some concurred and some did not, and one became a redbud aficionado, who tasted flowers from every redbud we passed in our forays for materials. He noticed that each tree has a different flavor, and decided that the one in the garden tastes best. That tree was stripped clean of all flowers within reach, which he nibbled directly from the pulled-down branches. We ordered pizza for lunch as the oven was still in progress, and he topdressed his slice with a layer of redbud flowers.

Just beyond the redbud tree, the rye grass and clover that got seeded out in January is a few inches high now, struggling along in the heavy clay, and now where ever I dig there are worms. Sometimes people tell me they think the garden is abandoned because they never see people working there, and I feel like I haven't done my job well enough. But it has taken 4 months for the grass to grow a few inches. Reclaiming this site will require even more patience than I have yet doled out. And I am hopeful.

Last weekend at the neighborhood potluck in the garden, a woman came who grew up down the block. Her granddaddy farmed the land that is now the garden and the middle school, and she remembers being on his farm. The land will remember what it once used to do, and as we patiently call it back to its past purpose, it will pull us in the right direction toward the future we are beginning to allow ourselves to imagine.

soil prep

2010-01-25T15:07:00.001-08:00

P1180042
Originally uploaded by Southeastern Horticultural Society

I've been looking at the huge patch of woodchips since we reorganized the garden this fall, moving all the blueberries and perennials to create some more usable space, dreading the thought of tilling the soil. Or, rather, clay with an icing of woodchips.

So last Monday, to celebrate MLK day, about 30 volunteers showed up at the garden to build new compost bins and do some tidying up. And instead of renting a tiller, we just dug up the clay, turning the woodchips into the red earth in hopes of attracting lots of big fat worms to break down the chips and build up the soil. No noisy, stinky, dangerous machine, and everyone could help. A two year old boy wielding a shovel half his size happily dug a little section while older boys swung their shovels seriously.

We turned the whole area, about 30'x30', in a little more than an hour, then seeded it with rye and red clover. The boys moved on to hammering in nails to finish off the compost bins afterwards.

At the end of the day, after working pretty hard for a few hours, the oldest boy who had been helping, a middle schooler, asked if I'd be there on Saturdays so he could come back and help some more. This on the heels of an Atlantic Monthly editorial eschoriating school gardens for putting kids to stoop-backed work in the hot sun, when perhaps their parents or recent ancestors had worked hard to avoid this very fate (http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/201001/school-yard-garden). Hmm. The school garden as a tool of oppression. Something rings false about that, but the accusation deserves some thought.

Agricultural labor is historically and currently poorly paid and brutal. Farm workers held as slaves in Florida last summer, locked in sheds after long days of work. Itinerant workers travelling across the country, following harvests, living in unsanitary conditions and getting exposed to agricultural chemicals. So do I support this oppression by extending the opportunity to dig up a patch of soil, preparing the ground for cover crops and eventually vegetables, to some young boys on a January morning? Should I rather be inside teaching them something on a computer?

There is a huge disconnect here. First of all, the oppressive nature of agricultural labor is a symptom of the larger problems of agribusiness and immigration policies, and really, free market capitalism. But it does not mean that agricultural labor is innately demeaning work. And most importantly, most kids who have the opportunity to work in a garden fight to maintain that opportunity.

What is the purpose of this garden? My goals with it are not to prepare children for a future in itinerant agricultural labor. No, we are working on imagining a new way of feeding ourselves. This garden is an opportunity to discover the natural world, a place to learn how to work together toward common goals, to share the resulting harvests, to test ideas, to create art, to make good dirt.

And good dirt starts with feeding the soil--digging in the woodchips and planting cover crops is the first step toward the rich tilth that will bear fruit. It's a slow process, as will be the creation of truly sustainable and fair agricutural systems. It's where we start. The worms will show us the way.

cold snap

2010-01-05T11:19:00.000-08:00

We are cold in Atlanta, and plants have stopped growing. The lettuce unhappily defrosts every morning, and succumbs again each night to ice. If you touch it when it is frozen it will die. If you let the sun thaw the leaves, the cells become elastic again and live one more day.

The fava beans look like they won't be as tolerant as the lettuce. Only last week they were blooming. It was taking a chance to plant them so late--I think they went in late September--but the flowers, unexpectedly small for such a robust looking plant, were a hopeful sight in January. We'll replant in a month or so for an early summer crop, or perhaps just as a cover crop to feed the soil.

The board over the window of the slowly-imploding house next door has been removed. Someone may be sleeping inside on these freezing nights, and it can't be much warmer in than out.

In this garden rest time, the seed catalogues are pouring in, full of bright colors and tantalizing new varieties. Also, a mural wall has sprouted in the garden. We went shopping for paints just before the holidays, and picked out colors to rival any seed catalogue. With a blank canvas, a palette of fancy spray paint, and an artist to lead the project, we will create a vision of the garden in full bloom before the first season's seed gets tucked into the earth.

This and other projects will easily fill the time before planting begins. Farmers in colder climates get a little longer break than in the South, but we'll take what we can get and hopefully use it wisely.

kudzu

2009-12-12T09:40:00.000-08:00

I am finally surfacing from the first half a year working at the new garden: officially, 'the Southeastern Horticultural Society's Community Learning Garden at Edgewood,' but known in the neighborhood simply as 'the garden,' or more specifically, 'the garden across from the red store.'

I have a lot of catching up to do. A semester of after school programs, installation of a water catchment system involving repurposed utility poles and highway signs, starting a garden from scratch, and neighbor relations.

I have little to no budget for programs, so we had to get a little extra creative for fall craft projects this year. One thing we have in abundance in Edgewood is kudzu. Much maligned for turning roadside forests into emerald oceans of vines with the hulking monsters of overcome trees, kudzu is a treasured resource in its home territory across the sea. Like poison ivy, it thrives in disturbed areas. Originally imported to prevent roadside erosion as highways started to creep across the South, kudzu reached its tendrils much farther than its keepers ever intended. Growing up to a foot a day, and free from the confines of pests and conditions that keep it in check in its native Japan, kudzu seems to be taking over the South.

Edgewood boasts some acres of unbuilt, unkempt lots where kudzu has made itself comfortable, covering trees, tires, mattresses and the other usual urban detritus. A field recently cleaned of kudzu unveiled a giant James Brown bobble head doll, old paint buckets and a squeegee. The long ropy vines reach up into the trees and run over the ground, thick and flexible and, we discovered, perfect for wreaths.

Kudzu is a prized basket-making vine, easy to work with, plentiful, and durable. IMAGE afterschool program helped harvest long vines, pulling them down from the trees and yanking them up from the earth. Dragging our harvest behind us like strands of seaweed we shaped the vines into wreaths and decorated them with holly leaves from Edgewood Courts Apartments and dollar store ribbons.

Not only useful for holiday decorations, kudzu is used medicinally to help overcome alcoholism, and its spring shoots, flowers and roots are all edible. Kudzu is one of a host of plants from other countries that most people lable "invasive," or "invaders." Or sometime "aggressive," "exotic," or, more generously, "introduced." Common in Edgewood yards, along with kudzu, are privet and English ivy.

A lot of energy and resources goes into controlling these species as part of 'restoration ecology.' The interesting thing about this is that there is no natural point to which to restore a natural system--systems evolve forward in time; they don't go back to a previous point. So by pulling out all the 'invasive' species, a restoration project may temporarily (until humans stop maintaining the restoration process) increase biodiversity, it slows down the system's own process of working toward equilibrium with a new set of species.

To borrow a phrase from Bobby Wilson, I said all that to say this: using conventional wisdom, Edgewood is a resource-poor neighborhood. That conventional set of lenses looks out at Edgewood and sees overgrown lots, trash, youth engaging in crime, and a shifting population trying to create a safe community. However, shifting perspectives, Edgewood offers up more useful treasures than sun-bleached plastic effigies of James Brown.

In addition to craft materials, the invasive species' provide healthy fodder to the neighborhood's small flock of goats, converting kudzu and privet into milk and meat. The garden across from the red store, as it gathers purpose, provides a community gathering spot as well as a place to learn, grow food, and spark the imagination of a neighborhood trying to become a community.

With the scent of pie wafting tantalizingly from the Edward pie factory, Edgewood even smells like hope and home on baking days. I'm not saying all we need is rose-tinted glasses and apple pie to make all the challenges disappear, I'm just thinking that a shift in perspective will help in working out creative solutions using the resources at hand. If life gives you kudzu, then there's nothing to do but make wreaths.

transition

2009-07-14T05:25:00.000-07:00

I've missed a few months, it seems--so much has been happening at the garden and there's been no time. The corn was planted, grew tall, tassled out, grew ears, and the ears were prematurely eaten by squirrels and rats, as they are every year. I don't think corn is a good crop for the garden, as it takes up lots of space and nutrients, but rarely yields a harvest to us humans. The bees and the rodents may beg to differ though--the bees are still diligently collecting the pollen.

Bee camp came and went, two weeks of a garden drifting with smoke and sticky children draped in veils. The hives survived the daily poking and prodding, and the last group set up an observation hive with glass walls for viewing the inner activity. The frames of honey put up in this spring's good flow are almost gone now--we may have to start feeding that hive soon, or add it to our queenless colony.

The other camps have been running smoothly, with the help of a diverse team of interns, who come to us from as far as Bhutan and as close as a couple blocks away. This is my fourth, and final, summer at the garden. I will be moving to a new garden in my own neighborhood, doing very similar things. Except, no chickens, no beehives, no pond, no stream. Just the bones of a garden, planted 3 weeks ago, on the corner of a busy sidestreet across from the corner store.

I've been working at the new garden in Edgewood in the evenings after full days at Oakhurst. Mainly I've been spreading woodchips there, with a dependable team of 3 young boys who magically appear every time I'm about to give up on the never-ending chip pile. This corner was a patch of rubble left over from a tear down a couple years ago, but already there is a black swallowtail caterpillar on the one parsley plant, and little brown and orange butterflies and a variety of bees (even some honeybees! From whose hives?) visiting the echinacae, butterfly bush, and black-eyed susans so recently planted. What else will come with this garden? It is in a neighborhood on the cusp of gentrification, what some of my older neighbors who've lived here for generations ambivalently call "the change." Being in this new place reminds me that gardens can be so much more than they seem.

plants

2009-05-14T14:40:00.001-07:00

I realize I've spent a lot of time writing about the animals here and have missed the less obvious goings-on of the plants. The peas bloomed, and then were laden with pods, and then were picked nearly clean and are now starting to yellow. With the Boys and Girls Club group we sauteed the peas with soy sauce, honey from the hives here, and some red pepper flakes. The week before, we picked the last of the pokeweed before it starts to flower and is no longer edible. We did the recommended boiling in two waters, and in the meantime made cornbread (with cornmeal from Riverview Farms and eggs from the chickens here). There was a small fight over who got to eat the last of the poke greens.

The cilantro and Paris Island romaine have been harvested and sold to Nectar. Just planted beans and okra between lettuces and the red mustard in preparation for the transition to summer crops. And we planted about 500 flowers--marigolds, zinnias, sunflowers, cosmos, quinoa, celosia, gomphrena, bachelor's button, calendula, coleus, strawflower and pincushion flower. Most of these had sat in their pots too long and are stunted, rootbound, and bolting. Hopefully they'll overcome this adverse beginning, take root and grace us with a very colorful summer.

The spring weeds are beginning to give way to warm season plants--the chickweed is yellowing and the ragweed knee high. And the bees are finally getting some good flying weather. Ok, a little bit about the bees, because a lot has happened. We've added 3 nucs, a swarm someone caught and gave to us, and a split with a new queen. A total of 7 hives now, one queenless, or at least, queen-not-right. One of the nucs came to us queenless, and they were raising a few new queens. When I checked this week, at least one queen had emerged but there were no eggs and the colony roared loudly, a sign that all is not quite well with the queen--either there's no queen, or a queen who's not laying yet. I'll check again next week and hopefully see eggs.

The elephant garlic, grown from seed passed on by Daniel, who got it from Omar, who himself passed this winter, is nearly ready to harvest. Its long scapes are starting to kink, with pointed buds on long graceful necks seeming to peer this way and that in the garden.

I have given up planting by the biodynamic calendar--I plant whenever I can at this point in the season, trying to get everything in the ground in time, and waiting impatiently for the garlic and potatoes to give up their space so I can plant more summer crops.

The push pull of the garden is at its highest tension right now. Wait to harvest cool season crops, but not too long or the bugs will get them, and not to soon or they won't be ready. Wait for space to open up to plant more summer veggies. Where to plant all the flowers? And the gourds and okra that need so much room? The garden is sometimes like an overcrowded closet, with plants thrown in wherever they fit, or even if they don't. And remember to leave room for the people...

i heart bees

2009-04-17T08:58:00.000-07:00

I realize I need to witness some passings. The egg bound hen did eventually die, as did Alex White, the white chick, which was too white for her own good. The little Cooper's hawk had no problem picking her out from her brown surroundings and coop mate. Swingy Shark John is growing well. We're not yet sure if it's a hen or a rooster.

Curtis installed a new beehive a couple weeks ago with a class. We had decided not to use antibiotic treatments for the American Foul Brood, but rather use good sanitation and make splits from hives that survive in our colony to select for more resistant bees. The new hive made a this heart-shaped comb around the queen cage after she found her way out, I'd like to think in approval of our decision. This bit of comb, built in less than two weeks, is already speckled with pollen and nectar as the bees are taking advantage of a good flow from the tulip poplars.

Now we are one less tulip poplar in the garden from winter storms and just lost our hickory in Monday's winds. It fell away from the house, fortunately, but squarely on one of the art installations for tomorrow's earth day event. The elm that came down at the Decatur High School garden also fell on an art installation. The installations were designed to be temporary from the beginning, but I don't think anyone was planning for that short of a time. These were like cooperative mandalas with the earth--instead of the people building and deconstructing the art, the people built and the earth deconstructed.

The hickory that fell in the garden had a little fairy hole at the bottom that children were constantly leaving offerings of berries and small stones, like a shrine. It was protected by a sprig of poison ivy. I never put it together that the little arched hole indicated a compromised structure. I don't know if knowing would have made a difference, though.

In the trees that are still standing, I've noticed so many more little green inchworms dangling from the trees this year than ever before. My car is covered in frass. That's biologist-speak for caterpillar poo. Little dark specks. And yet the trees are still covered in leaves, with a few holes, but definitely more leaf than hole. Perhaps these luminous ornaments are the trees' collective contribution to the art show.

Death and life is a constant theme of the garden--not a big drama, but a matter-of-fact balancing of accounts. It is not all or nothing. The caterpillars eat and the trees survive and the birds feast. Some trees fall and space opens up for new growth. The chickens die and the hawks eat. Weeds get pulled and vegetables thrive. As we move into the busy gardening season, I try to remember to pause and give thanks to both life and death, and to pay attention to the garden's gestures.

garden heroes

2009-03-26T12:28:00.000-07:00

This past weekend was a big one for the garden. The bloodroot is nearly done blooming. The trilliums are up, the mayapples starting to unfurl their umbrella leaves. The oakleaf hydrangea's fresh pale leaves are budding out in supplicating pairs. I didn't go in the woods for a week and missed the trout lilies' yellow blooms, but their leaves are there, like spotted green tongues. The wild ginger is sending up fresh green leaves, demurely covering its fleshy dark flowers. All these woodland ephemerals come from plant rescues over the past few years, dug up from sites about to go to 'development.'

We have 2 new chicks courtesy of a garden friend who hatched them out himself. The toddlers named the white one Alex White and the brown one Swingy Shark John. It was a collective naming effort.

Friday morning on my way to Agnes Scott for the Georgia Organics conference, a barred owl swooped close by me and perched quite near with a very intent look. It looked from me to a spot below it, where I saw its owlet hopping on a low branch near the fallen tulip poplar, trying to get back up its tree. For a baby bird, it was quite large, in that awkward stage between fluffball and adult. Mama kept a close eye on me till I was a good distance away.

That evening at the Slow Food cocktails event in the garden, mama owl was back watching the party at dusk. And the chickens, who were too hopeful for scraps from the partygoers to go to sleep at a timely hour. The brown-headed nuthatches scolded unsuccesfully as people paused too close to their new house by vegetable gardens. And I had the chance to spend time with some of the people that have inspired my work.

I chatted with Janisse Ray, author of Ecology of a Cracker Childhood, Georgia native, and humble activist, as well as Will Allen, founder of Growing Power in Milwaukee and expert on worm composting and many, many other things. Their work inspires me deeply because of their competence mixed with their understanding of how this work of agricultural revolution and ecological literacy is so intimately linked with people--it is not work that can be done by one person in a laboratory. Or one person on a tractor. It must be undertaken by communities. Unlike some agricultural and ecological activists, Janisse and Will will never be guilty of alienating anyone. Their warmth and love and vision are so clear, inclusive and inspiring. The garden felt very small after this event, and its potential very big.

spring

2009-02-13T10:52:00.000-08:00

I spent some time this morning in Ox, the cob house, and caught the sun coming in the moon window, infusing the bottles, red, green and white for the full, gibbous and new moon, with bright light and warmth. This time last year we were putting the finishing touches on the building, desperately trying to engineer a roof and coat it with final layers of linseed oil and beeswax. No more blue tarp! No more piles of building materials!

Ox has held up beautifully during her first year; minus all the pretty bits and bobs that were so tempting for curious hands to tug out, she is remarkably intact.

The garden has seen a lot of changes since Ox's completion; minus one big tulip poplar, the Earth Goddess vine hut and the labyrinth. Plus new garden plots, new chickens, and a reconstructed and replanted woodland.

Amidst and among all these macro changes, spring is creeping up in its usual micro form. The maples bloomed a couple weeks ago, and the sap started running. The maple in back of the garden house had a sap popsicle hanging from an upper branch during one of the recent cold spells, with various sapsuckers and squirrels visiting to lick this icy treat. The magnolias have been testing the weather regularly for a month or so, allowing one flower bud to open at a time until last week, when they found it amenable to all come out.

The chickens have accepted their new rooster and all but our two old sick birds are laying about an egg a day now. I think the change came when I let them out one day to help me scratch up some beds for spring planting. Sir Half Pint, as he has come to be called, was desperately bobbing his head up and down in the vicinity of a couple of red hens. After being pointedly ignored, he picked up the fat seed he had been so vigorously pointing to, walked up to a hen, drop the seed, and kept bobbing and pointing until she picked it up and ate it. This worked much better than the physical intimidation tactics he came with, and the flock seems at peace and intact.

The egg bound hen is back in the yard, showing no improvements, nor worsening for having spent a week getting special treatment indoors. She's getting along ok back with the flock, spending her days in the sun with the other old sick hen. I don't expect they'll live much longer, but they seem peaceful enough for now.

The after school programs have planted carrots, radishes and peas, and are working on getting the hives ready for the spring nectar flow. Finally warm enough to enjoy being outside, it's hard to get some groups back on their buses to leave when it's time.

And the surest sign of spring yet, more so than the magnolias, daffodils and crocuses all together, is that cleavers has sprung up, seemingly overnight. I saw no little sprouts, just full blown plants. I'm sure they weren't there yesterday....but here they are.

chicken drama

2009-02-02T12:24:00.000-08:00

Last Thursday we swapped out our big barred rock rooster for a little bantam less than half his size--the old rooster attacks people, so he had to go (not in anyone's pot, yet, unless he doesn't reform his manners out at Mary's farm). The hens are less than pleased with Half Pint (in the photo with Boss Hen). He didn't make a very graceful entrance--came in and started attacking the girls, flapping his little body high up to try to slap them in the face. Boss Hen gave him what for, tearing out a chunk of feathers and sending him after the meek little black hens. Whereas the old rooster stood watch while the flock pecked and scratched, Half Pint fights for his food. The girls probably wouldn't let him eat otherwise. I think he has a Napoleon complex--he spends a lot of time chasing the hens around and hopping up onto high places to crow his tinny wind-up toy crow. He was trembling as I held him and carried him into his new home; it took a lot of bravery for him to storm in and claim a place. I'm sure they'll get used to each other soon enough, and he is a beautiful little bird. Beautiful and hen-pecked.

When Mary came to swap roosters, I asked her about a sick-looking hen. Egg-bound, said Mary. The egg won't come out. Treatment options? Range from sitz baths to hysterectomy. Oh dear. I took her home for the weekend, gave her hot baths (which she seemed to really enjoy), got oil down her both ends (lubrication is a crucial component to this issue--one blog actually recommended KY jelly. I used sesame massage oil). My roommates thoroughly enjoyed having a chicken in the living room for the weekend, and she does seem somewhat better, but still has a swollen body and hasn't laid any eggs.

This weekend, the Georgia Aquarium vet operated on a penguin with the same problem. Maybe if our little red hen doesn't get better we'll dress her up as a penguin and leave her on the Aquarium steps...

oh death

2009-01-22T12:15:00.000-08:00

This is the time of year when things that are ready to die go ahead and check out. A friend's dog went from happily cleaning the breakfast dishes to dead in the span of a short afternoon. Another friend's cat, also not too long after breakfast, passed in a similar way. Healthy, then just gone. In body, anyway.

Here at the garden we've been cleaning out old bee hives that had died out over the summer. We discovered American Foul Brood in some of them, which we know two of our hives had died from earlier in the summer. To prevent its spread in our apiary, we must burn all the old wooden frames and get rid of the leftover comb. We've been keeping our little chiminea going for the past week, and have melted down much of the old comb into wax for candles and salves. We'll have to blowtorch the old boxes to be sure that the disease does not carry on, and we'll also have to remove the comb and frame from the three hives that are still living. These means destroying all the brood (baby bees) and honey and pollen stores. Not good. But the only other option is treating with antibiotics for as long as we keep bees here. Not organic, nor a healthy way to manage the hives, in my opinion. It would be similar to the sub-clinical doses that most dairy cattle receive. The colonies might survive if we successfully transfer the queen and a good contingency of workers to new equipment.

After clearing out the last of the old bee equipment, this raccoon stumbled out near the compost piles and collapsed as I was getting some worms out of the bins today. Probably infected with rabies, too weak to get back up, it curled up in the sun, eyed me frankly for a moment, and put its head down. Later, another garden visitor spotted it and called animal control. I was hoping it would be allowed to pass peacefully overnight, but by the time I returned from my after school program, it had been collected. Probably the safer option, but not a graceful way to go.

So we'll start this spring with fresh bee equipment, and one less raccoon. The chickens will be safer I suppose. I wonder if it's the same raccoon that leaves tidy little tracks in the sand by the creek?

what a chicken knows

2009-01-09T10:03:00.001-08:00

My nephews came to "work" at the garden this week. At 3 1/2 and 4 1/2, they are proud to help where they can. Digging holes in the sandbox is part of their job. We also spent some time digging up worms in the worm bins, marveling at the stink of the putrid bin with bad drainage, and the sheer masses of worms squirming within. After covering the worms back up, we harvested some chickweed to add to our leftover noodles and went to feed the chickens.

As we watched the chickens snatch up the noodles from the ground and each others' beaks, my younger nephew observed that the chickens must think the noodles are worms. Probably so. And the older one chimed in with the question: "Kyla, does a chicken know it's a chicken?"

Hmm. Good question. They know perfectly well how to be chickens--how to scratch, how to lay eggs, how to communicate in their own chicken way. And the rooster didn't need any lessons on his job--he stands proudly over the flock, making sure they all get to eat while he watches for dangers (among which I am unfortunately included--but that's another story).

The ego must certainly belong to humans more so than the rest of our animal family. If chickens worried about whether or not they were good chickens or bad chickens, lonely chickens or poor chickens, they wouldn't have time to eat and preen and sleep and cluck. Or they might preen when they should be eating, or eat when they should be sleeping.

I wonder if the chickens at the garden experience themselves not as individuals, but as part of the garden community. Not separate from the worms they tug out of the earth or even the humans that come to feed them and witness their antics, but of a piece with their small world.
Or do they think "I am a chicken, and I am eating a worm, and those people are watching me"?

I didn't get a chance to answer my nephew--by the time I finished thinking about the question, he had moved on to something else. But I think a chicken must know that it is a chicken, and also that it would mean nothing to be a chicken were there not also a world to live within, full of chicken food and chicken shelter, eggs and hawks. I don't know if this constitutes an ego, but if it does, it is ego in its most healthy expression--a knowledge of self in context of community.

after the rain

2008-12-29T12:41:00.001-08:00

mysteries

2008-12-17T11:58:00.000-08:00

Curtis came by today with wax cappings from this summer's honey extraction to melt down into solid chunks of beeswax. We postponed the project because the Decatur High students who were supposed to be here had exams, but Curtis pointed out an interesting phenomenon to me.

When he had placed the cappings in the tray, he left them out for the bees to clean up a little. Later, they were transformed from flakes into little pellets, the size of rabbit droppings (what else is that size?) Mystified by this change of form, Curtis kept an eye on the area where he left the tray out. Turns out, possums came to nibble on the wax, attracted by the tiny bit of honey still stuck to it. Then they spit it out in the form of little balls. So I guess that is how much beeswax a possum can stuff in its toothy little mouth at one time--a rabbit-dropping-sized amount.

salad days

2008-12-16T14:08:00.000-08:00

I was a little late planting lettuce this year, so although we have plentiful kale, tatsoi, red and green mustards, we have only a few tiny mild lettuces to balance out these flavorful greens.

But on this warm day, everyone in the after school program wanted to make a salad. So we cut our greens, added plenty of the chickweed that grows happily among the salad mix (and out of the worm bin in the photo), added garlic, olive oil, a few easter egg radishes soaked in apple cider vinegar, and some goddess dressing. Oh yes, and don't forget soy sauce.

No one missed the lettuce. After scraping out the last leaves, they ran out to harvest more and do it all over again, ignoring the cranberry squash muffins on the table that we had just made with one of the last squashes of the season.

This group has been coming to the garden for a few years, and were in fact the ones that sowed the seeds for the greens they harvested today back in October. They can also find the chickweed, wood sorrel, and a couple other choice wild edibles when garden greens are scarce, or when they want to feed the chickens. Some among them have chosen coming to the garden over going to the mall. They've named the chickens and know where their crops are growing and what's ready to harvest.

Few of us belong to a geographical place anymore. We are so easily uprooted, moving for jobs, family, or just a change of scenery. Though this is supposed to be a community garden that belongs to the gardeners, more often than not, the gardeners end up belonging to the garden, an intimate artistry in which we shape and are shaped by a place.

As today's after school group explores the garden, naming its nooks and crannies, tasting its offerings, their experiences here change the way they see the world. Once they know what chickweed is, they begin to find it everywhere, not just where they met it. The world comes alive in a different way. Becoming more deeply rooted in one place, our branches reach farther.

bone ticklers

2008-12-12T11:08:00.000-08:00

Rainy days--a chance to catch up.

The high school crew comes over on Wednesday and we build frames for bee hives so we'll be ready for the spring increase in the apiary.

This time last year we had three active hives. Through donations, ordering new bee packages in the mail (they arrive in a small screen box--3 pounds of worker bees and a queen, herself secluded in a tiny screened throne with a few attendants), and catching two swarms out of the alder tree (see photo), we were up to ten active hives over the summer. They survived Bee Camp, being inspected by groups of children nearly every day for two weeks. Through all of this, only the instructor got stung, and only once. The bees are very tolerant.

I've been stung twice by honey bees here, on the same day. Another kind of bee stung me that day as well, but I didn't see the culprit. I've been working with bees for almost three years now, and that's the only time I've been stung. I was in a bad mood, to put it mildly. I was not 'sending the bees love,' as I usually consciously do when working the hives. Bees are tuned in, ready to remind you be present in your actions.

Fortunately, my friend Plantain, Plantago major, grows abundantly in the garden. For each sting, I chewed a leaf, taped it on the sting for about 10 minutes, and was left with just a small itchy spot as opposed to the massive swelling I would have had in the absence of treatment. I thanked the bees for yanking me out of my funk.

This fall was hard on our apiary. We lost two hives to American Foul Brood, so named because of the stink of rotting flesh it produces as the bacteria breaks down the cells of the larvae in the hive. This spore-bearing bacteria can spread in the wind, so we must remove these hives and burn or bury them. The only other option is to treat with antibiotics, not in line with our organic practices.

We're not quite sure what happened to the five other hives we lost. We think two were queenless and just dwindled. Others were weakened and infested with wax moths and wax beetles, imported pests that feast on, yes, wax. What was left of the honey and bees and brood from these hives, we added to our strong hives. We're back down to 3.

Now we must clean out the equipment from the abandoned hives and continue to build new hives to prepare for a more organized year of beekeeping.

Observing the hives with a group of 4 and 5 year olds one day, a child exclaims "bees tickle your bones!" I ask for clarification. "You know, they tickle your bones." Oh. Do you mean from the vibrations of their buzzing? "Yes!" Of course. Add that to the list of benefits of having bees in the garden. They tickle your bones.

cockadoodledoo!

2008-12-10T07:45:00.000-08:00

Sometimes a group of mothers and toddlers comes to the garden to watch the chickens. Everytime the rooster crows, they cheer. This starts a cycle of crowing and cheering that can go on for a suprisingly long time. Yesterday, a mother asks: Does the cheering make him crow? Another mother, with experience of growing up with chickens, says no, it's normal for a rooster to crow about 10 times, with encouragement or without.

Later, he starts crowing again. We count how many times. Twelve with no cheering. So it is.

cockadoodledoo?

2008-12-09T09:05:00.000-08:00

The rooster made a noise I had never heard before--similar to the proud exclamation of a hen announcing an egg fresh-laid, but in the rooster's throatier voice, and a bit more commanding. Obviously, he has not just laid an egg. So what are you saying, rooster? I look over and the hens are all under the coop. He is still making this unusual call from within the protection of the inner pen. I follow his gaze--oh, a hawk. He joins his flock under the coop.

Later, he crows from the yard and the hens come out to scratch and peck.

It was about this time last year, in the flock's pre-rooster days, that one hen lost her head to a hawk. Good job, Mr. Rooster.

concentration

2008-12-08T14:03:00.000-08:00

A change comes over a person when attention is focused on one thing.

Today in the garden we explored the compost up close, with a group of 4th and 5th graders. With 3 or 4 children gathered around a tray of compost fresh from the bins, armed with a magnifying glass and a spoon for closer inspections, initial "eww, gross!" comments faded and a look of intense concentration overcame each child. Exclamations of discoveries--"a centipede!" "a worm cocoon!" "what's this?"-- and a general settling down overcame the whole group.

Wandering bodies and minds and eyes gathered themselves to focus on this tiny universe. The group stopped looking at each other, too engrossed in this new way of seeing dirt to be distracted by anything.

The whole body changes at this point. Fidgeting ceases. Eyebrows crease. Worms are brought inches away from the face for observation. Squeamishness is forgotten. This is when questions start to bubble up, and real knowledge begins.

Back inside, we piece together a compost food chain after experiencing many of its links. The invisible ones--bacteria, nematodes, molds--are more easily understood in this context. Relationships are imagined.

Compost now is understood not as a pile of rotting stuff, but as an intricate community with a cast of characters, some of which have been be seen and touched. The compost taught about itself; all that was necessary was to provide the right tools and a little direction. Then the worms and the earwigs, the millipedes and centipedes, the snails and the pillbugs finish the job. They call on our focus and once they have it, our minds and imaginations are activated. We enter a learning dimension. This is my school.