Garden planning

Just as the trees store their resources for the winter and enter their quiet dream state, so the gardener spends the winter dreaming. There may be white snow outside, but the gardener sees the loamy black devil's food cake baking away in the compost heap, preparing to nourish another year's worth of crops. I turned the compost pile yesterday and more than a dozen worms wriggled out of my first pitchfork full.

This year we are expanding our blackberry and raspberry patches and adding one more blueberry bush. We plan to add a strawberry fountain, which I am most looking forward to, even if the plants don't bear fruit until next year. Strawberries are somewhat finicky and can be nutrient hogs. By building them into a raised bed shaped like a fountain, they can receive the best soil, more sunlight and warmth and it's easier to pick them. I'm not yet sure if mine will be square or round, but I'm looking forward to building it and planting the 50 strawberry plants that will arrive sometime this spring. I often order my fruits from the local nursery, Miller Nurseries. I like ordering from a local company that grows and rates all of their plants for my area. It can be cold in NY state and I appreciate that they've already done the testing for me. They send out the plants you order right after your area's last freeze date, so they always arrive right on time, even if that's a different week or month each year.

I plan to test out the three sisters planting method that so many native peoples have used. The three sisters are corn, squash and beans. The idea is that the beans use the fast growing corn stalks as support and scaffolding to climb, while the squash quickly fills in the shaded underside, preventing many weeds from growing up. All three seeds are sown directly into the soil.

One of my favorite places to order seeds from is the Seed Savers Exchange. This organization saves and shares heirloom seeds, meaning these seeds will grow into plants that bear seeds so you can forever propagate your crops by saving the seeds they yield. This makes the gardener part of a long legacy as well as independent. Plus, it's exciting to plant seeds for crops you could never find in a grocery store. Last year we had heirloom organic black beauty zucchini, early fortune cucumbers and beautifully striped Amish melons with pale flesh. This year we are planting many new heirloom varieties. I'm especially looking forward to the yellow tomatoes that look like lightbulbs and the white and purple and white striped eggplants.

Eventually, we plan to grow some of the feed for our chickens. As was recently pointed out to us, even if you have chickens or other livestock, you're not a step closer to sustainability if you're not growing your own feed. I'm not sure how this fact escaped us before but now we can plan a feed garden for 2011.

In honor of St. Patrick's Day this week:

"You will never plough a field if you only turn it over in your mind."
- Irish Proverb

Monster or witch repellent

It seems every kid goes through a stage where suddenly their imagination turns to the dark side and in addition to imagining Santa and Easter bunnies, tooth fairies and pirate adventures, witches and other unsavory characters start creeping into their dreams. Sometimes it is not enough to simply tell your child that there's no such thing as monsters. It helps, but they're still skeptical of us grownups who make them eat green things. So it helps to have some magic in your bag of tricks.

Here is a special product that I had to "custom order" for my daughter. She's not afraid of monsters (thank you Monsters, Inc!) and is not afraid of ghosts or vampires but ever since her Girl Scout troop sang carols in an old folks home, she has had reoccurring nightmares about a witch in a wheelchair. I told her that I knew of someone who made a special potion that you spray around your bedroom at night to repel witches. She asked if it worked. I told her it was 100% guaranteed to work or we'd get our money back and that it was just like a bug repellent but made just for witches, who have special big noses. Then I got to work fulfilling the order.

Materials:

• spray bottle
• labels you can custom print on
• water
• few drops of essential oil such as lavender (optional)

I chose to fill the spray bottle with filtered water and a few drops of lavender essential oil. The lavender gives just enough scent to make it smell authentic without ruining rugs or furniture. Lavender is valued in aromatherapy as a relaxant even for children, so it's suitable for bedtime, but any herbal, floral or fruity scent that you can stand could work.

I packaged it and "mailed" it to my daughter because she likes the idea of special ordering it and it appears more authentic to her. Another option is to present this to your child as a printed recipe or potion and ask your child to help you make it in the kitchen. The instructions for use are printed on the back (mine say to spray once in the doorway and once near the bed) and the bottle sprays a very fine mist so we're not soaking the floors, rugs or bedding. So far, we have one happy little girl who fully believes in the power of her "Witch B-Gone" and sleeps much easier now at night, which means I can sleep easier at night, ahh!

Moms and dads, please feel free to copy this or make up your own version if your child has a monster under her bed or a witch in his wardrobe. I hope it leads to more sweet dreams in your household as well!

Ten and counting

William is 10 months old already and one thing we've learned about him is that everyday he loves to laugh and make others laugh too. He has three games that he plays with us everyday, one of them is peek-a-boo or hide and seek. If we don't initiate it, he will! He crawls over to the drapes and wraps himself up in them. Then he'll wait there patiently until someone catches on.

Hmm, wonder who could be hiding behind the curtain???

 

Peek-a-boo! It was William. This makes him roar with laughter, which makes everyone else laugh.

 

Here he is at dinner stuffing his cherub cheeks with as much orange as will fit in there. He won't eat anything pureed, including yogurt, but adores lumpy cottage cheese, bananas, and whole beans.This funny little guy will also eat Japanese salad dressing with garlic and ginger like there's no tomorrow and gnaw on my spicy Indian chicken with curry and garam masala but try to give him apple sauce, or any other standard baby food, and he's totally disgusted. 

His new thing is clapping, which he can do to tempo if the song has strong percussion. He figured this out during Ravel's Bolero, which he appears to adore. Perhaps big sister's music class is rubbing off on him?

Look who's 10 months old!

Bright and shiny

To brighten up our suddenly white, white winter wonderland, we have a dozen balls of fluff to take care of. They arrived bright and shiny, right as the storm began to hit. This year I wanted to be sure to have one of the earliest shipments of chicks because I want layers by late fall, instead of the middle of winter. I also wanted the girls to be able to be fully grown to enjoy free-ranging safely before winter and to be able to help me in the garden. My big girls will be helping me "till" the garden this spring as soon as the ground thaws. They will also be charged with eating all of the grubs that have overwintered there so they won't hatch and eat my plants, a chore they have been dreaming about all winter!

The babies mesmerize us with their antics. Suddenly a chick will be in a hurry to get somewhere but halfway through its run, will pause for a nap, eventually toppling over and waking up again.

Some will tunnel into their food and feel they are in heaven. Others aren't content unless they are seated on top of another, or have one foot in the water dish.

We have four of each, Buff Orpingtons, Rhode Island Reds, and Silver Laced Wyandottes, all excellent egg layers, all large sized birds (a deterrent to aerial predators when fully grown), all cold hearty and friendly, and hopefully, all girls. It's hard to imagine at this moment, seeing the chicks in their coats of pure fluff and knowing the long road of care that lies ahead for each one of them, but if one does turn out to be a roo, I most likely will have to play the role of Alice's Queen of Hearts ("off with his head!"). At times there can be little room for sympathy on a farm, even an organic one. So let's hope the chicken sexer is profoundly good at his or her profession so we can enjoy the eggs and company of all of our little fluff balls for many years to come.

Savannah kisses a RIR chick that fell asleep in her hands. They often fall asleep as we cradle them - we like to think it's because they're imagining themselves under the warmth of their mother's wing.

Little of this and that

We've had such a busy schedule lately I never have time to blog about what we're up to. In the homeschooling department, we started a big science kick, robots, volcanoes, exploring our senses, the states of water, and bird form and function.

Here's the papier mache volcano that Savannah made from a toilet paper roll, cardboard, newspaper and the flour and water "glue". She looked at images of real volcanoes before deciding how to paint it in black, brown and red. We mixed some red food coloring and dish soap together along with the baking soda so the volcano's lava would appear red. It looked more pink than red so next time we'll definitely use more food coloring.

For homeschool we do a page of math everyday and since September have completed double-digit addition, double-digit subtraction (now with borrowing), telling time, basic multiplication, and are now working on a unit on money math. Savannah still reads as many as three chapter books a day so I've eased off the reading "for school" and am trying to get her to spend more time outdoors. She always resists but the second she's outside she's in heaven.

 

Let's face it - some states of water are more fun than others!

I called the elementary school in our district to talk with the administrators about their educational program and attended the open house of a private school near us. I am so disappointed in how little they offer. One school recognizes the importance of reading at different levels so they divide kids into reading groups with two classes having reading groups of just one student where the child is particularly advanced. However, the same school uses one math curriculum for all students in a grade, with no chance for movement up or down, all the kids learn math at the same speed, which is dictated by the slowest learners. The other school lets children work independently in their workbooks during "math" time and children work at their own pace. I noticed one child was on page 3 in her workbook, while another had nearly completed it, but with plenty of wrong answers. I plan to homeschool for a few years mainly because I feel I don't have a choice. I'm so disappointed in the quality of schools and education in our area, both public and private. It helps that Kevin is an engineer and I'm biochemist and writer.

 My box of secret items for our blind senses activity. Savannah correctly guessed everything except for the chopstick, which she wrote down as a pencil.

Savannah touching the secret objects to determine what they are while blind folded.

Writing down her guesses! She got 11 correct out of 12. I fooled her with the chopstick.

Pirates

In case you didn't know, pirates are a big thing in our house. This year in Florida, I asked Savannah if she wanted to help me look for shells and she said, no, she would rather spend her time looking for buried treasure. Savannah made friends with a lady who had a metal detector and before long she had herself a buried treasure, a metal tin filled with coins and bath toys and shells. Not sure who might have buried it there, ahem, but she believes it was Captain Kidd's first buried treasure.

So, it was only a matter of time before William crossed the plank from a landlubber to a pirate... Big sister has ensured his place as first mate on her fine vessel and William hopes to be promoted to Apprentice Captain as soon as he gets his sea legs.

Ahoy thar me hardies!

Arrgh! I take me rum with milk!

Savannah's reward after she's finished her schoolwork and chores is getting to play her favorite pirate game on the computer. She plunders ships and finds buried treasures, romances governor's daughters, and gets into tavern fights to obtain information about her captured family. Let me just say that if I'm ever on a ship in the Caribbean, I want the fearless Savannah to be my Captain.

Nine months baby

For my nine month birthday Daddy let me hold the remote control and I knew just what I wanted to do with it.

Mommy told me the funniest jokes that made me laugh...

and laugh...

I watched the pelicans dive in the ocean and saw a helicopter too.

I played with a cute little boy who was also named William. And saw the dolphin show at the aquarium from above ground and below.

I swam in the pool, soaked in the hot tub, swam in the pool, soaked in the hot tub and swam in the pool again.

Then I watched the sun set with my family in the hammock and had watermelon for dessert. What a great nine month birthday!

Soda can robot

 After a recent excursion to the science museum, Savannah wanted to build a robot, and why not, her dad is an engineer? So I got a starter kit for her with the idea that this was something she and her dad could bond over during the weekend. One nice thing about homeschooling is that it can take place at any time.

But the weekend was filled with farm chores, family time, pond snow removal, and finally ice skating. So that meant Mommy had to be the assistant engineer. I placed the parts list in front of Savannah (who received the soda can from a neighbor since we never have any) and she had to locate and name all the parts and help assemble them. Little fingers sure come in handy when tightening nuts to bolts in tight places! Her robot can move forward and backwards on its "belly" or upright and most importantly, it has a survival feature, namely, it can outrun her little brother! At least it can this week.

Can you tell she's proud of her creation?

We learned about batteries and motors, axles and cams and had some fun in the process.

Love

Love has many faces, but you know it when you see it...

This evening while I was making dinner, William crawled out of the kitchen where I usually keep an eye on him. I was worried that I couldn't see William and worst of all, it had become quiet.

When I ran into the living room to check on him, I found big sister with an arm snuggled around her little brother. She had shared her apple with him and she propped her pillow up behind him so he didn't bang his head. And best of all, no one even asked her. Ahh, love...

Tick bytes

Through necessity, we've had to learn a lot about ticks and Lyme disease since moving to upstate New York. Like many New Englanders and Pennsylvanians, we live in an area that the CDC considers to be high risk for Lyme disease. High risk means that a tick bite here is more likely to infect you with Lyme disease than a tick bite elsewhere, mainly because so many of the ticks are infected with the disease-causing organism, Borrelia burgdorferi. There is still much scientific debate about a variety of aspects concerning Lyme disease, so I feel it is important to be more conservative when dealing with bites. After our daughter's first tick bite, with an attachment time of just less than 24 hours, she became Lyme positive in the middle of winter even though she received prophylactic antibiotics. (She received a second course after her blood titer was positive.) Also while Lyme disease is the most prevalent tick-borne illness in the US, there are others to be aware of, including babesiosis and ehrlichiosis, transmitted the same way.

Here are some of the things we have learned and implemented to help our family.

Preventing a tick bite is the most important thing you can do. Here are the prevention techniques we've found useful:

1. Keep deer off of the parts of your land that you use regularly. No matter how sweet and docile these creatures are and how useful their manure may be to your lawn, they are among the primary carriers of Deer ticks (aka Black-legged ticks). In every study where deer populations were decreased, the incidence of Lyme disease significantly decreased as well.

2. Deer can be deterred naturally through deer-proof landscaping. No matter where you live, there will be a garden or landscaping center in your gardening zone that carries or is knowledgeable about deer-resistant plants. The goal is to keep deer away from your house and front yard so replace any plants that deer usually eat with those they find less appetizing. Bird feeders and salting your driveway in winter can also attract deer.

3. Maintain a clear lawn area without long or tall grasses, piles of leaves, or suckers growing around the base of trees (mulch, mulch, mulch your trees!). This will both deter deer and leave less "habitat" for ticks to wait in while hoping for their next blood meal to brush against them.

4. If you have other rodents around your house, barn or garage, get rid of them too. Rodents can be carriers of ticks and keeping their populations down is just as important as keeping the deer away from your house. In many areas, the white-footed deer mouse is the primary carrier so do what you have to do to remove mice from your garage, shed and barn, and around your home.

5. If you have a cat or dog that goes inside and outside, the cat or dog can carry ticks in that can bite you. Do regular tick inspections on your animals and have a kit nearby to remove any ticks found on them. We are partial to the tick twister for removal from animals and humans alike. We keep a tick jar (a small glass canning jar) filled 1/4 with rubbing alcohol to place ticks in. It helps us to identify the ticks we find on our clothes, or embedded in our skin so we know when to call the doctor or be concerned.

6. When you're outside playing, hiking, doing yard work, or cutting trees, wear long sleeves and socks pulled up to your calf. Then remove your clothing for washing when entering the house. We keep a laundry basket hidden near the front door for this purpose.

7. If you live in or will be travelling to an area that is considered moderate to high risk for Lyme disease (or any other vector-borne disease including those carried by black flies, mosquitoes, chiggers, etc) try the line of clothing by Buzz-Off Insect Shield. We have been very pleased with the results of their long-sleeved shirts, hats, bandanas, and socks for keeping insects away for 70 washings. The clothing is treated with permethrin, a manmade chemical that mimics a chemical found in the chrysanthemum plant. You can order it through many outdoor clothing companies including LL Bean, REI and directly from the manufacturer. Even the very sensitive skins and noses in my house aren't bothered by this clothing and it prevents all sorts of bug bites while making me feel safe-r when sending my daughter out to play. But don't take my word for it, read other customer feedback.

8.  Learn to recognize a female and nymph deer tick. Humans are accidental hosts for ticks. They attach to us when they sense our heat and carbon dioxide as we brush by them. A blood meal helps them survive but they require the white-tailed deer to complete their lifecycle.

9. Inspect your body once a day. Remember to check your neck, under arms, groin, behind the knees and ankles and in between your toes. Also check your neck and in and around your ears. I check my children's hair but to check my own, I use a fine-tooth comb. Remember that you don't have to find a tick to get Lyme disease. Ticks will attach for varying amounts of time, feed, and then drop off, possibly without being seen.

10. For tick removal, follow the instructions from a reputable agency. Any method of removal that requires rubbing, agitating, heating or applying a substance to the tick may cause more saliva from the tick to enter your body, which is not good if the tick carries a disease-causing organism. We stick to the tick twister mentioned above or use forceps, fine tweezers. Here are three sources (of many) in agreement for the proper tick-removal process, CDC, Lyme Disease Foundation, and my personal favorite, the U.S. Army's Center for Health Promotion and Preventative Medicine (this one is a nice one-page PDF that you can tape inside a cabinet for easy reference). Swab the area with alcohol after tick removal to kill any possible bacteria on the skin.

11. If you're the farming or homesteading type, consider free-ranging chickens or guinea hens for tick control on your land. Our girls happily patrol the brush along the edge of our mowed land snapping up any insect morsel their keen eyes come across. We went from finding lots of ticks on our skin and clothing to none after letting our chickens free range during a year when local agencies studying the tick population found large increases in the tick population.

Life in the country (and suburbs) is filled with the joys and beauty that nature has to offer. Let's hope for many outdoor adventures that are free of tick bites.