Well, whatever it was came back and sort of got the other one.  We came home from work yesterday and the other chicken was outside the pen, but the door was closed.  I found a small hole which might be where the critter made it’s way into the coop, or ours got out. 

Normally the chickens move around when I come to them.  They are rather hard to catch.  This one just stood there and let me pick it up and look it over.  It was pretty banged up.  I won’t describe it.  But it wasn’t dead.  I had to put it out of it’s misery though.

Strange feelings of guilt about the life of a chicken that died because of my lack of observation of this hole.

I went out to the coop yesterday to take care of the chickens and one of them was dead.  I can’t really figure out how it died.  It does look like trauma of some sort.  There are feathers all over the place and the carcass was pretty mangled.  But, I can’t find a hole anywhere in the fencing or a hole that something dug under the fencing.  The carcass wasn’t eaten either, it was just kind of chewed up.  It’s possible that the other chicken killed it, but it doesn’t have that appearance, although I have no experience with dead chickens.

It’s kind of a strange feeling.  I’m a lot sadder about this dead chicken than I expected to be.  I’m not really sure why.  I guess because in some way it seems like a failure on my part by not taking care of them somehow.  This really throws up the question of what to do with the other chicken.  I’ve read that you shouldn’t have just one of them, but I don’t really want to give it away.  I guess I’ll have to make plans to pick up a couple more this next spring.

Wish I knew which chicken it was.  Either Poke or Brownie.  Gotta tell the boys sometime still.  I have a feeling they will be upset.

I picked up some new pants yesterday.  My pants have gotten so loose they hang on me really badly, and sometimes just plain fall down.

I was almost able to get into a 38, which is two pant sizes less than than the ones I was wearing at the time.  Rachael thinks the 40 waist pants I got may be too big as they loosen up so I may go back and look at the 38s again.

Pretty exciting for me as I haven’t been under a 40 for a long time.  If I remember correctly, that would be a drop so far this year from a 44 to a 38.

I need to plant a lot more sunflowers.  They grow great, need little care and make a ridiculous amount of seeds to feed to the chickens.  Simply break down the stalk, chop off the head and throw it in a bin to be shaken to release all the seeds.  By using plants that grow shorter I could plant a lot more in the plots.  Definitely do this next year.

Oats fall into this too.  They grow well and make a great addition to the chicken coop.  I threw the whole stalk in there with the oats still on them and the chickens had a grand time figuring out how to eat the oats off the stalks.

Peanuts are too much work.  You can get most of the nuts when you pull up the plant but you still have to dig them and it’s really not worth it.  But, if you wanted to grow some feed for pigs I think they would be great.  The pigs could eat the tops and then root out the nuts and the high fat content would be good for them.

It is possible to plant too many green beans.  For me, bush beans work better than pole beans.

Don’t waste space on tomatillos.  They produce heavily and grow well, but we aren’t into them that much.

 I didn’t miss tomatoes this year.  It was a bad year anyway, but all the time I saved not slaving over the plants and canning them was better spent other ways.  I’m going to just plant a few next year too so that I can use all that space and time on other things.

Don’t be afraid to pull up some squash plants.  You don’t need as many as will sprout.

Sweet potatoes yield very well.  Plant more plants in the future.  4 gallons from 2 plants is a good deal, especially when this year was cool even so I would expect they under-yielded compared to a normal summer.  They were almost no maintenance even, I just kept them halfway weeded and then dug them up.

Plant peppers earlier in the spring so they will be bigger when they get outside.  They are heavily loaded down now but don’t have time to get ripe before the frost.  (I don’t like green peppers)

Hello all!  I haven’t been on here in forever but I’m starting to feel my writing mojo coming back.  I’m not really sure why I stopped, other than just being super busy.  Some of it is that I’m getting more involved locally and some was just burnout from all the writing.  Anyway, I’m going to get writing again, although I’m sure at a lower production rate.  I’ll feel you in on what I’ve been up to.

The garden has been doing pretty well.  Cool summer this year (which makes it easy to live without air) but not to grow tomatoes.  But potatoes and green beans produced like crazy.  Squashes and pumpkins were growing great too.  We’ve really enjoyed the CSA shares this year.  Having her grow a variety allowed me to grow for preservation for our core canning and freezer items, which has been really helpful.  I must be getting better at this because my efforts seem easier each year.  Some I’m sure is that I’ve become less strenuous about making the gardens look perfect.  I’ve been enjoying the garden plot immensely.  I’m debating what to do with that plot; I know I’ll have at least one but I wonder if I can work two if I set up the one to be mostly corn and squash or something.

The chickens are doing great so I don’t have anything to add about them.

I got a new job recently.  (If you follow me on Facebook you’d know this)  I’m working on flood recovery here in Cedar Rapids.  The website link is Block by Block.  It’s a great job and very rewarding.  It has eaten into some of my off time and caused me to be more tired at night a lot, but it’s all worth it.  Earlier this year I was concerned about trying to be less of an assbag, and it seems like the job was a big part of why I was being an assbag.  Now that I’m happier at work I’m happier at home too.  I guess this makes a bigger difference than I realized.

We had a great time this summer going to Canada for my brother’s wedding.

The weight loss has been going good.  I’m down to 246 which is just over 30 pounds so far this year.  Counting the weight I gained on vacation and re-lost it’s actually around 45 pounds for the whole year.  J

Took a bunch of time off too with my reading because I was busy but I’m starting to ramp that up again, which is great.

Plant something:  Peppers (g), tomatoes (h & g), tomatillos (g), sweet potatoes (g), peanuts (g), painted pony beans (g), lazy housewife beans (h), bush green beans (h), cowpeas (h & g), watermelon (h), canteloupe (h), strawberries (h), herb garden (you name it, it’s in there), 3 or 4 types of squash (h & g), zucchini (g), sunflowers (g).  I think that’s all. And it will be for a while as most of my space is full.  At least until I start pulling cool weather crops in a month or two.

Harvest something: Eggs, lettuce, spinach.

Preserve something: I preserved my sanity when I stayed home 4 days last week with my kids.  Ha!

Reduce waste: I have started adding the cardboard tubes from toilet paper and paper towels to the compost pile.  I used them as holders for plants (which seems to be working out great) but when I had enough I was just recycling them.  I think composting is a better use for them.

Preparation and Storage: Nothing.  Cleaned up the storage shelves so they are ready to start accepting new food stores.

Build local food systems: Continued with previous efforts.  Received this great new book to read called A Nation of Farmers.  I’m looking forward to it!

Eat the food: About the same.  With Cub Scouts and baseball we are eating less meals at the table and more sandwiches (well, not me, I’m not eating bread right now) so we aren’t really eating our stores up like I would like.  But, it’s a trade off between doing activities and doing this.

Sharon has once again challenged her readers to do an Independence Days challenge this summer.  This past winter was perhaps our best winter in using home preserved foods, and I think this challenge had a lot to do with this.  So I’m participating again in the hopes that we’ll have another good winter.  We ate almost all home preserved food this winter (except carrots and celery), until I ran out of potatoes in March. But other than potatoes we had enough of everything else, and actually I’m trying to get items in the freezer eaten before more needs to be put away next month.

I do have a huge block of time in late June-July that will be dead as I’m traveling to Canada for my brother’s wedding, which makes it even more important that I stay organized and keep things rolling.

In the interest of catching up what I’ve done so far I’ll be including all plantings to date in this post.

Plant something: So far I’ve planted 4 apple trees (small), 3 cranberry bushes, 3 blueberry bushes, 1 cherry tree (replaced a deceased tree), a bunch of broccoli, herbs (didn’t label my starts so I’ll be surprised when I see what grows), carrots (h& g), parsnips, cabbage, lettuces, tons of onions, kale, swiss chard, garlic last fall, spinach, scallions, potatoes (tons)(h & g), oats (g), and peas (h& g).  (Items labeled with a ‘g’ are planted at my garden plot, which hasn’t flooded so far this year)  I also planted a lot more flowers this year than in year’s past.  The flower beds are finally starting to take on some good permaculture organization.

Harvest something: Nothing to harvest yet.  Rhubarb should be ready next week it appears.  Oh, harvesting eggs.  Usually 2 a day.  The chickens have been enjoying the fresh green grass, as well as some lettuce when they snuck into the cold frame.  Who knew they could get through such a small window opening?

Preserve something: Nothing

Reduce waste: I got nothing.  I had a lot of onions go bad this year, so I need to either buy less, use them faster or pay attention enough that I can get them chopped and frozen before they go bad.  Same with the squash.

Preparation and Storage: Nothing comes to mind right now.

Build local food systems: I’m working on a few things but I’m not ready to spill the beans on them yet.

Eat the food: We seen to be doing good on this besides the aforementioned onions and squash.  In baseball this year so our spring is busier than usual, not to mention some of my activities.

This coming week should be a busy one as I plant out the rest of the garden here and at the plot.

If you’re wondering about the oats, I’ll explain.  I’m trying to grow some of my own food for the chickens heading into this winter.  (I’m also going to try to grow field peas and sunflower seeds)  On top of that, the soil at the garden plot is awful.  I’ve planted 40% or so of it and I’ve come across one worm.  At home I’ll dig up a dozen or more a handful of soil.  My plan is to use massive amounts of compost on it through the summer (it’s free) as well as round up some manure to apply in the fall.  Growing items with a lot of plant matter should help as will as plants with a lot of roots.  We’ll see how it turns out.  In the fall I’ll spread a fall manure crop and then let the city till it and all the leftover plant matter into the soil when they do their tilling in the fall.

On Tuesday we paid off all our debt, except out house. Definitely a good feeling.

I have to admit though, it came about because we pulled some money out of our IRA accounts. I found a tax clause that allows the owner to pull out their contributions, even for a rollover to Roth conversion, so we did it. Our accounts were almost 100% in cash between a money market fund and some CDs. The interest rate return was around 3% or so. It didn’t make sense to keep that money in there while paying higher interest in other places. After I found out I could remove this money with no taxes or penalties, it was pretty much a sure bet.

But, even given this, I think there are some valuable strategies that we employed that might help others with paying down your debt.

First, I read Dave Ramsey’s book about Financial Independence. It’s a good book, although I don’t agree with all of Dave’s philosophies. But, his cash envelope system to manage your budget is spot on 100% the best way to move from a check/credit card system to a system where you can put some serious limits on what you were doing. You are required to be serious about your budget and this cash system forces you to do that. You have cash, you can spend it. You don’t, you can’t. No slipping them the plastic!

Second, if you want to do it you will have to struggle. Many times we ran out of cash, so we just didn’t do ANYTHING. Even grocery shopping. There were plenty of times where we only ate what was in the pantry or the freezer. For a while I didn’t have enough cash to restock our freezer for meat products, so we went without quite a bit. It didn’t hurt us.

But, as most of you know we buy most of our vegetables and fruit in the summer and put them up for the winter. I was able to do this with our normal weekly spending, so it’s possible to do something like this and still eat local and organic.

Third, it takes a team effort by both parties. Rachael and I have been on the same page a lot of things for most of our marriage, but this changeover was quite hard for us even. We had plenty of disagreements about the spending. You need to know that going in. But, the adjustment was worthwhile, and we are comfortable with the cash envelope system.

Fourth, the changeover from using a credit card to using cash is an extremely taxing month. We had to pay for everything with cash while also paying the previous month’s credit card bill, which was our normal spending. This was a really hard month. I dipped into just about every source of cash I could find to make it through this month.

I’m not sure if I really offered any tips here, but let me know if you have questions or anything.

By the way, if you are on Facebook look me up. I’m listed under my real name. Facebook people found this out on Tuesday.

Sorry I’ve been away for so long, I’ve got a lot to say but not a lot of time right now.

Weight
Well, most of the month of February was lost. I ended up gaining 3 pounds by the time the week in Vegas (and subsequent week long readjustment after wards) was over. That puts me as of now at 15 pounds lost. Still have 20 to go. This week might be the week though. I feel some changes in my body and with gardening starting up I’m now busy in the evenings too (even if I just want to lie down) which means even more calories burnt. I typically lose 10-15 pounds over the summer so hopefully that will continue.

Chickens
Loving them. I’ve been spreading out mostly finished compost in the garden and they are finishing the work for me. I’ll be planting or trimming something nearby and they are digging up the beds and spreading around the compost looking for things to eat. Unfortunately they got into my cold frames when I had the lids off but I think I was able to stop most of the damage. They are doing a great job though earning their keep.

Gardening
I planted lettuces, Swiss chard and spinach in the cold frames. Also transplanted some so we’ll see how that takes. First results aren’t very good. Last night I also planted onions, carrots, parsnips, beets and turnips. I’m waiting for the moon phase to turn again at the end of the month and I’ll plant peas, broccoli, cabbage and other things, although I did start their seeds to see how they take. I also started some tomato and pepper plants. I’m not planning to grow many tomato plants this year. I’ll plan to buy most of what I need to can. Squash and melons will be started when the moon phases line up too, although they’ll only have about 6 weeks in the tray by that time. Seed potatoes are sitting on the counter waiting for the right time.

I heavily mulched some spinach last winter and it seems to be coming back just fine this spring, which is really cool. I should get my first asparagus crop this year and the garlic is doing nicely, although I planted less this year. I haven’t seen the rhubarb coming up yet.

Food stores
I did a lot better stocking up last fall and managing it through the winter. We ran out of pizza sauce, but that was really all. Most of my potatoes are unusable because of shriveling and sprouts, but that was because I was sold bags of mixed potatoes instead of just long storage ones. Otherwise we’ve had plenty of jelly, tomatoes, sauces, beans, corn and other things. We ran low on meat for a while but we’re past that now. I guess heading into this summer I have a much better idea what I need to stock up on and how much to stock up on.

Volunteerism
If you live in the area and want to help I’ve got some opportunities for you!
I am planning to do my runs again this summer from a local CSA farmer to the food kitchens. This would be once or twice a week. You would need to be able to pick up about 40 pounds and have a large enough vehicle to hold 4 or 5 boxes of produce.

I’m working with the Matthew 25 hub on a couple of projects.
1) We are setting up an effort to beautify the flooded areas of the city. Right now (pending city approval) we are planning to build a sheet mulched garden bed in the public space at intersections (maybe 6-8 ft around) that will be studded with native Iowa wildflowers, sunflowers, etc. Sometime in late April we are planning a gardening blitz, so keep your options open at the end of the month. Contact me if you would like to donate some seed packets.

2.) Additionally, through Local Food Connection we have two CSA shares being delivered to Cedar Rapids to Red Cedar Farm that will need to be picked up and delivered to the Matthew 25 hub once a week for 18 weeks. This produce will then be distributed to local low income families at a time to be determined. We’ll need volunteers to pick up the produce on occasion as well as people to staff the area during distribution time. We’ll also be doing some education opportunities which might be fun and interesting to be involved with. Let me know if you are interested.

My friend Aaron was recently interviewed by a local news organization. The interview is below.

His new book, A Nation of Farmers, is coming out very soon.

Interview originally appeared here.

I can’t get the interview button to embed here so follow the link over and listen to what he has to say.