Fat Guy on a Little Bike

I’m sitting here in Portland, OR waiting for a connecting flight to Bend.  I’m taking my yearly flight to a destination in America to take some training for work.  They like us to go to different places around the country to experience different real estate markets in those cities, so I came west this year.  Last time I went to MIami, which was quite fun.

Everytime I take a trip like this I come home with a new appreciation of where I live.  The past few weeks have been a whirlwind at home as I tried to get all the gardens ready for a week long abscene during this critical planting time.  Lucky for me the moons lined up for my plantings and I won’t miss anything while I’m gone.  I was forced to plant my corn a day before it’s best time, per the moon cycle, but I can live with that.

I can’t figure out why people willing give airlines their money.  The service sucks, the airports suck, the people you travel with are rude.  All around not much of a good time.  Why do people do it?  I guess so they can go see places that they would never see otherwise.  Personally, I think there’s plenty for us to explore around our homes if we would just look a little harder.  I tried to take this class closer to home but was encouraged to go see a different area of the country.  I almost went to Greenboro, NC, but this class in Bend worked out as a better time.  I think Greensboro was in August which is a tough time to be away from the garden.  Maybe next time.

The approach over Portland was interesting.  Being in corn country I’m accustom to monster spreads of farmland that are easy to distinguish.  But in Portland I noticed that a lot of the farms ringing the city appeared to be market farms with a very diverse array of plantings.  That would seem to jive with what I’ve ready about Portland’s local food scene.

I had a turbo prop out of Cedar Rapids today.  Maybe it’s just me, but I can’t think about anything else when I see one of those except the Indiana Jones movie where the Nazi guy gets his face eaten up by a turbo prop while Indy dives for cover.  That image has always stuck with me and I always think about it when I see a turbo prop.

I don’t know why I’m writing all this but I’m sitting in the airport,  enjoying wifi and I can’t really stand to read anymore.   Oh well.  I’m hoping Bend will have some interesting things to do this week.  We’ll see.

I’m going to half assedly participate in Sharon’s Independence Day’s challenge. I say half assedly because I’m already two weeks behind and I’m doing this mostly because I want to keep track of how my gardening and preserving is going this year. I’m really, really, really going to try to keep a poundage total of what I produce here at the homestead and from the garden plot.

The catagories are below (as stolen from Wendy’s nice little round up)

1. Plant something
2. Harvest something
3. Preserve something
4. Prep something
5. Cook something new
6. Manage your reserves
7. Work on local food systems
8. Reduce waste
9. Learn a new skill
10. Store something

Plant Something: I planted a few things this week. I planted 3 peach trees, 2 cherry trees and 2 rhubarb roots. Also planted green beans, dragon tongue beans, 4 kinds of dried beans, corn, all my herbs (borage, chives, cilantro, basil, bee balm, dill, parsley if you are curious), cucumbers, arugala and sunchokes. I think that’s all.

Harvest Something: Nothing ready to harvest yet.

Preserve Something: Nothing to preserve yet.

Prep Something: I prepped 15 garden beds at the garden plot (9X4) for use this year. Also the 5 tree locations. Also ate two more packages of frozen strawberries I found, although that wasn’t a chore, but did “prepare” the freezer for more additions. I also prettified and turned the compost pile to get more compost going. Made plans to buy 2 bushels of corn for the freezer instead of one. Decided never, ever to freeze green beans to eat in the winter. We hate them.

Cook Something New: Hmm, this isn’t really a good time for new recipes because my food options are rather limited. I did put some old meatloaf on a pizza to use it up, and that turned out well. Tried a new bread recipe. Results are inconclusive at this point.

Mange your reserves: Transferred my rice to new containers (only because the bag they came in broke and forced me to do it finally). Ate more food to clear up more space for this summer.

Work on local food systems: I talked to people about gardening. It seems I’ve become a bit of a resource for people at work. Also, there is a group that is starting up a Community Garden program in a lower income area of town, and I contacted them to see how I could get involved.

Reduce Waste: Nothing new. I’ve been stealing my neighbors grass clippings and leaves. That sort of reduces the waste stream, although the city composts them too. I just do it without the diesel truck.

Learn a New Skill: Um, nope.

Store Something: This isn’t on Sharon’s list but is on Wendy’s. I’ll have to figure out what’s up with this one.

Check out the math in this example of how out of whack the housing markets are/were in California.

Those are interesting figures.  I wonder how specific they are just to the areas of the country that are overvalued or if they would also apply to a normal real estate market.  Let’s replace some of the figures with my own figures and see what happens.

Our house was a fixer upper, but I would put the cost of purchase and rehab at $115,000.

We put $5000 down, used two split mortgages and then refinanced after repairs into one mortgage for 20 years at 5.75%.  Our payment is $836 per month with taxes and insurance included, based on a principal balance of around $86,000.  I’ll add in 2% of the principal balance for maintenance and that puts the house payment at $980.  The monthly tax benefit on this would be $392 (following the same formula application).  Net payment after taxes is $588.

I think it’s only fair to compare apples to apples when looking for a rental place.  This house is about 2 miles from my house and is close to the same type of house, although it has .5 baths more than mine but I know houses in that neighborhood do not have basements and we have hardwood floors, which I value quite a bit.  The rent on this house is $970, which you can tell is considerably more.

Just trying to make this work I found this apartment which is in a very desirable area of town, probably more so than where I live.  Even in that case it’s not all that compelling.  The price per month is $13 less, but it’s also 1 bedroom instead of 3 bedrooms.  And no yard.

I think given this information I can say that renting is only better than owning in certain markets and only when the market in that area has stayed reasonable on the price levels of the houses.  It’s a well documented fact that housing prices in CA were way overblown.  Rents have not gone up nearly as much as housing prices have.  Give the numbers in the example housing prices will need to come down quite a bit to make owning a more compelling option than renting in those markets.  I would suggest that this would probably also apply to the Phoenix, Las Vegas, Miami, DC/Jersey/NY and Boston markets.  Those areas seem to be the ones that experienced the quickest price appreciation over the past 10 years or so.

This also reinforces my belief that buying a house that is a fixer is the most advantageous way to buy a house.  You tear them up anyway to make them yours right?  You might as well buy it with that in mind.

Interesting fact about Hellmann’s Mayonnaise:
Most people don’t know that back in 1912, Hellmann’s mayonnaise was manufactured in England. In fact, the Titanic was carrying 12,000 jars of the condiment scheduled for delivery in Vera Cruz, Mexico, which was to be the next port of call for the great ship after its stop in New York.

This would have been the largest single shipment of mayonnaise ever delivered to Mexico. But as we know, the great ship did not make it to New York. The ship hit an iceberg and sank, and the cargo was foreverlost. The people of Mexico, who were crazy about mayonnaise, and were eagerly awaiting its delivery, were disconsolate at the loss. Their anguish was so great, that they declared a National Day of Mourning, which they still observe to this day.

The National Day of Mourning occurs each year on May 5th and is known, of course, as Sinko de Mayo.

WHAT?? You expected something educational from me? I hope you didn’t enjoy it too much!

and shows yet again who stupid and misinformed they are.  In fact, I would go so far as to say they are not much more than a publicity seeking whore who tries to take advantage of situations for their advantage, even if they don’t know what the hell they are talking about.  (In case you don’t know what’s up follow this link to the PETA release)

Here’s the deal.  Sometimes PETA does amazing things and brings great awareness to a great many issues.  Their stance on CAFOs is great.  It’s the result of tons and tons of investigative reporting, and it’s great.  Their heavy promotion of a vegetarian (or vegan) lifestyle is OK, even if they do misconstrue and apply their data in their own specific way.  All special interests do that.  (I don’t enjoy how militant their people are though.  In fact, I would compare them to the conservative right in their inability to see any side to a situation but their own)  But they have done a lot to further this cause, make it more acceptable and show how our food choices impact the earth.

But most of the time they don’t do their research before they rush forward with their stories, which is really too bad.  This lack of consistent reporting is what makes it easy to write them off when they do publish suspect stories.

Their recent release about horse racing is no different.  PETA wants the jockey and the owners of Eight Belles suspended.  What about the other 2 horses a day that are euthanized in America?  Should those owners be suspended?  You can’t single out a specific instance and ask for special treatment.  You have to single out the whole group.  Imagine if PETA had said that we have to avoid CAFO beef from Tyson but IBP is OK.  Huh?  They are saying that this jockey and this owner are the problems when they are simply by products of this system.  You have to attack the system, like you did with CAFOs.

They further state that these horses suffer horribly at the hands of these owners.  Really?  You think it’s in an owners best interest to treat a horse badly that’s worth hundreds of thousands of dollars?  Is that logical?  I heard a horse racing analyst on ESPN state that in almost every situation the horses are treated better than the trainers.  They are pampered and treated like royalty.  Hmm, I guess maybe I’d like to sign up for this type of horrible suffering.

Here’s the thing PETA.  Instead of rushing out a poorly worded statement that is uninformed take some time and do some research.  Talk to experts about the real situation and how things really happen behind the scenes. Don’t judge horse racing by the 2 minutes you see on TV.  If you had done that and then released a list of things that need to change with horse racing it would hold a lot more water with me.

Oh, and if you have a spokesperson go on the radio to defend your actions make sure they can think clearly and talk about the issues more than just spewing verbatim from the press release.  It’s disgusting, insulting and ridiculous to have someone represent you like that.  Especially when this person is asked a question that requires actual thought and they just sit there and yammer trying to find an answer, I assume on your press release, for this question.

I do agree with them that the whipping of the horses has to stop.

Man, I dug up the garden plot today and planted potatoes and I’m really beat now.  The plot is still really, really wet, but I used the field hoe to dig up some trenches to get the potatoes in the ground.  Ended up with 108 sq ft of potatoes.  We’ll see what kind of yield I end up with.  All the digging, shoveling, carrying of compost, dirt and leaves is tough for a desk jockey like me.

My neighbor also let me use her tractor tire to plant the potatoes in.  I’m interested to know what I end up with there.  I ran out of compost so I laid the potatoes on top of the fill dirt and covered them with leaves.  Usually I add some compost to the ground before I lay down the potatoes.  Yet, another experiment.

While I was at the plot I also did the last of the onions, some broccoli and a bed of carrots.  I had a little helper who was pretty excited to be helping, and he dumped a whole packet of carrot seed at his feet.  “To make sure we get some carrots”  We spread it out later.  I’m pretty sure we’ll get some carrots. 

I planted about 250 sets so I think if they all take I’ll be mailing onions to everyone I know.

While I was running around I bought the supplies for the chicken coop.  My wife and I cleaned up our basement and had three sacks of items to return to the home center.  (I’m an ex-landlord so things accumulate)  The one where you “save big money”, and I ended up with enough store credit to buy most of the necessary chicken items.  I also was able to find tongue and groove boards to use as the exterior of the nightime box in their scrap wood area.  I think it should turn out well when I affix that to the frame and paint it.  I’m pretty excited about that.  Maybe I’ll spend a little more and build them a pretty cool house.  I’m seriously considering bringing in professional help to make sure things turn out well.  I have a hard time getting things square, which could be a problem in this situation.

We’re enjoying lettuce from the markets again.  Mine is still lagging, but the only vendor I can find with lettuce uses a hoophouse so I think I’m probably still on target with most people.  Man it’s good though.  It’s been a long winter.

It seems like more and more people are starting up gardens.  It’s great.  Fun to talk about and it’s nice to give people friendly advice.  I love seeing people out off their asses too.

Time for dinner.  I’m starving!

One Local Summer is open for business if you are interested in participating.  It’s a great way to push yourself in the kitchen to move to a local diet.

This is a picture of the garden plot area.  If you count 4 posts back in the photo my plot is about 30 ft to the left of the 4th pole in this photo. You can just barely see the top of the post. Pretty far under water at this point.  The water is receding very quickly though so it may not take as long as you think to get in there, but for once it’s a good thing I’m over busy or I would have had all my taters and carrots already in the ground.

I was here Monday night and the water was up to about where my feet are in this picture, to give you an idea on how fast the water goes down after it comes up.

Tonight I built a swale in a back garden bed. I tore some evergreens out of this bed last year and since then I’ve been fighting the evil forces of Creeping Charlie. I decided I wanted to build a swale here because I have two gutters here that are funneling water away from the house. Our budget is very tight right now and I can’t swing some rain barrels (at least not enough for all 12 of our downspouts) so I figured a swale would be a good way to store the water in the ground. Especially because I have some big plans for this area.

A picture mostly from the front, and one below from the side. These are before pictures.

Pictures of the same two areas after the swale is dug. I used a hoe to dig out the swale. It took me maybe 10 minutes. (Sometimes people call swales “irrigation ditches” or other names like that) I borrowed this hoe from someone but it’s just like the one I ordered. The design works great. I can’t wait to use it more.

All this wood you see, by the way, is for the earth oven I’m hoping to build sometime this summer. After I dug the trench out I laid a few sticks and twigs into it as I’ve heard that wood can help soak up water while it decomposes. I also laid some bricks and rocks under the down spouts so that the water that comes out of them won’t eat away at the soil. As you can tell the soil slopes away to the left, which is north, away from the house. I currently have two blackberry bushes planted there. Also a lovage plant and two little shrubs that have grown since I cut down the evergreen bushes.

I am planning to place some ground covers on the back (north/left) part of the swale and there will be two cherry trees planted down towards the bottom of the slope. These are semi-dwarf plants. Part of the appeal of the swale is to keep excess moisture in this soil for these trees to grab as needed. Additionally, I’m going to plant some herbs (probably chives) as well as some Eqyptian Walking Onions, if they ever come off backorder. I should have a nice little permaculture guild going there, just without the vining plants, for now.

After all the dirt work was done I laid down copious amounts of wet WSJs and covered that with leaves. Hopefully the WSJs will kill the remaining Creeping Charlie.

Now I just have to wait for the plants to come and I can get them in the ground too. It should be just a day or two until it rains so I can see if the swale works. If you’re a permaculture person let me know if there’s anything that I can do here to make this work a little better.