Articles come off my keyboard kind of… scattershot. That might not work for everyone. That’s okay, there’s a Guided Tour!
Sticky: Guided Tour
June 17th, 2010July 23rd, 2010
One of the things the Arborist said was that it was absolutely necessary to have a Master Plan. And then he said some other things that completely deconstructed my original Master Plans, such as the little oak over there in the front garden would get to be at least 100 feet across in a decade or three. Not the place to site rotational beds.
I think I need to talk to some Permaculturists, some Landscape Designers, and other folks I don’t even know the name of yet. If you know of anyone, please point me in their direction, or them in mine?
Fun Fact: I think I might be able to lure them into a tour and a bouncing-ideas session with dinner. I’m a pretty good cook.
Back in Black Green
July 23rd, 2010We got the keys!
What a day. We took possession, met with a Drafter, neighbors, and an Arborist, and were perpetually rushing. Got home and crashed so hard I think I drooled right through the mattress.
Drafter: made some rather beautiful plans, was a pleasure to work with, and worked 3 1/2 hours straight through to get all the necessary measurements for drafting up the roof, floor, and elevation plans. Can’t wait to see them! He said it was easy to tell the additions apart because the dimensions changed; for instance, one set had windows that were exactly 3 feet across; the other major addition had windows that were one inch under a full count, so 2′11” or 1′11”.
Arborist: started out thinking that 2 trees would have to come down — this number doubled. Boooo. Also thought to put orchard in the backyard. Well, yeah, I’m an amateur at this, hello. Good ideas from the Tree Dude:
- Front side yard = best place for fruit trees. Yeay!
- Back yard = not all that great for growing food crops. Boo.
- Don’t let existing trees stunt yer hardscape. Yeay!
- Especially seeing as they have fireblight and gummois. Boo.
- And have, maybe, 10 years left on them if doctored. Boo.
- They’ll have really really excellent fruit for those 10 years. Yeay!
Fun Fact: as fruit trees reach senescence, they start producing rather marvelous fruit. It’s like, at the end of their life, they want to make their last fruit the best.
Insert dancing Jujubees here
July 19th, 2010Please enjoy this intermission music while Our Fearless Heroes slog through the last stages of paperwork hell with The Evil Bank.
*horrible humming sounds*
Fun Fact: Stinging nettles sting, but only on the top of their leaves. There are stinging nettle eating contests, and to choke down that much raw nettle the leaves are rolled or folded so there’s no poking nettle needles waiting for an unwary mucous membrane.
Chook Fence
July 11th, 2010Raccoons, neighborhood dogs, gophers and opossums find chickens and/or their feed quite tasty. They should be excluded. Fencing is good. Want to see the definition of ‘overengineered’?
Not sure if all this is necessary. That’s a LOT of concrete.
Fun fact: Chickens find mice quite tasty. Not necessary to exclude!
Tree requirements
July 10th, 2010I had started a post that was REALLY DRY, a big list of the trees we want with their height, requirements, etc etc etc. Then I had to keep my eyes from crossing. Here’s almost the same info, better put together:
The stuff at the top and bottom may have needs to extreme for the property to provide, but we’ll see. All the tree’s sitings are where they need to be on a property, regardless of irrigation.
Fun Fact: Cold runs downhill. Siting the trees on a slope can put those needing more coolth farther down.
What has gone before
July 9th, 2010So we went down to the Planning Commission and picked up copies of everything that was in the files on The Property. Sometime in the 1980’s they rescinded the law that required blueprints of alterations be kept on file, but we have good records up until then.
And boy oh boy were there a lot of changes. We noticed a bunch of oddities while doing the inspections: for instance, there used to be a septic tank or leach field in the back, and there are still pipes running out that way. And there was a section under the kitchen floor that was completely inaccessable to the inspectors. Totally blocked off. Weird, huh? Found the answer! The reason is below.
- 1958: Owners Ace and Dorothy C build a house.
- 3 bedrooms, and one each: bathroom, kitchen, fireplace, dining room, living room, and a sunken “rumpus room”.
- 1962: kitchen remodel
- An insinkerator and dishwasher… what novel ideas!
- The rumpus room floor is raised to the level of the rest of the house
- Outbuildings put up of good 1×12 redwood (no records, we’re estimating erection date)
- 1971: Owner Joel G (who did not live onsite at the time of the work) alters the rumpus room and and adds a wing.
- New wing: 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a hallway and a seperate furnace & water heater
- Extends the Master Bedroom and adds new Master Bath.
- Repurposes one of the bedrooms to be a ‘transition’ lounge room between the old and new wings.
- Apparently, one of the new rooms is set up to be a darkroom with a sink, who knew?
- Rumpus Room: removes the wall seperating the kitchen from the rumpus room and bumps out its external wall into an alcove.
- New wing: 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a hallway and a seperate furnace & water heater
- 1978: Owner Michael J. adds a pool, using the last flat space in the back yard.
- Later: final bedroom is added onto the end of the wing.
- Later still, the current roof goes on.
It’s fascinating to see all the changes each owner has put onto the house; each adding their own flavor. We even had a dentist, his name is still up on one of the garage doors. I hope they’re all well and happy, wherever they are.
DTM
July 8th, 2010“Days to Maturity” — is that from the day you rip open the seed packet? From the day it germinates? Does it start when you move it from the windowsill to the garden proper? Different seed companies have different stats, argh. But in general one can say that it takes longer to grow a tomato than it takes to grow a head of lettuce.
As a matter of fact, some short season crops are so short you can grow two or three sets of them when you could only grow one set of the long-season. So in one year in 4 sq feet:
- one tomato plant, giving 30 lbs of fruit over 2 months
- five lettuce plants, three crops, giving 15 lbs over the whole year
Fun fact: this gets even more deliciously complicated when one looks at cool and warm season crops, succession planting, and rotational cropping. I love jigsaw puzzles!
Wind
July 7th, 2010
Chooks, mutts, and thought baloons
June 29th, 2010Talking about stuff I picked up over the years is suddenly not as interesting as talking about what will be in the Property. So unless there’s any objections, I shall now commence to dream.
We wants eggs. And maybe meat birds. So that means two different chook operations: layers in the run with a brood box so the eggs are easily collected, and a set of tasty meat birds either in a movable box to scoot around the back yard, or let free to roam. If they’re free to roam, I’ll have to trim their wings and have good fences. Otherwise they’ll be in the neighbor’s yard, and both our neighbors have very large dogs.
Like all dog owners, we are convinced that our little fuzzy butt is perfectly trained. But other people’s mutts? Oh, the horror!
So… two sets of birds. The chooks in the run would be let free rather regularly, and those in the back yard would help take care of pests and dropped fruit there. Hm. The slope in the back yard is rather steep. Gonna have to make it free-ranging, I think. Lots of trees for them to race up and hide in if someone’s mutt gets loose. It’s only for 6 weeks, should be OK… and then we slaughter, bury the offal, and plant a tree in that hole.
Fun Fact: chicken with feathered feet scratch to find bugs (and out of a small joy in destruction) less than those with naked feet, and ducks do not scratch at all.
Trees and wind
June 28th, 2010We were up at the Property this week, and it was hot. Not as hot up on ‘our’ porch in the hills
… as on the flats, but hot. Bleckh. Annual cropping gardens are hot, moist places; that and a chicken run may not be the best thing to put first as the wind comes on the property. If we can rip up (boy, that sounds easy) the cement inside the compound, that would be an ideal place for the rotational beds. The wind comes up over the front garden — currently bare and hot — and could be planted to be cooling and scented. Citrus trees, maybe. Jasmine. Tuberose, even. That would be lovely.
Fun Fact: proper landscaping can reduce temperature extremes by 20 – 30 degrees or more farenheit.
