My Mom's Peonies

One of the few people who didn't think I was stark raving mad when I moved to PEI was my mom (Eileen). She thought it was wonderful and totally supported us. One of the ways she showed her support was to send me things that went with the life style, like the peonies.

Three years ago I received a package for my birthday containing peonie roots. I planted them behind the herb garden in between two lilac bushes. Last year I feared they had inadvertently been cut down in a zealous weeding spree. But they survived and this year, they have bloomed for the very first time. You really can't see in this picture but they add a colour and joy to the herb garden. The flowers are humongous, they catch every little breeze and bob merrily every chance they get. It's nice to have a little bit of Mom in the herb garden.

Building the Chicken Coop: Part Three: Rafters and Plywood or "Oh My! Is That Actually Part of a ROOF up There !?!?!?!?

The rafters, once built properly, had to be put up. We decided to leave one wall piece out so we could lift up the rafters from inside the coop. We were hoping it would go smoothly. Well.......not so much. We had to start with the end piece which weighs a ton. The four of us mucked around with that all Saturday morning and couldn't get it up for love, money or chicken feed. I finally had to leave to go get necessities in town, one of them being chicken feed. When I got back, the end piece was up! Turned out that a fellow we knew showed up and basically put it on himself. This guy is as strong as a horse. He used to be a contractor and knew all sorts of little tricks. He suggested Don do a few things before putting up the rest of the rafters. That took up the rest of the week because we got a spat of very rainy weather and that blew a few days. After that, the kids and I put up another wall part which was all good and fine except it was the wrong wall and wasn't put in exactly right. So Don had to waste time fixing our well intentioned mistake. We did manage to hoist the other rafters up onto the coop, they weren't nailed in or anything, but once they were all up, we got the last bit of wall in and our fellow came and hoisted up the other end piece while I took minor heart attacks watching him.

Our 81 year old neighbour came on over to chat with Don Friday night, he offered to help Don put the rafters in place. I wasn't all that thrilled, I didn't want him to get hurt. Well, today he came over and I had a big discussion with him about it. I suggested he just tell us how to do it, 'supervise', as it were, and Don, son and I would do the work. My dear neighbour proceeded to tell me that it wasn't " work for the womens". No, of course not. How could delicate little me be helpful? Hey, I can put up walls, may-be not in the right place, but still, I can get 'em up there. Anyhow, nothing would dissuade him and within 2 hours all the rafters were in place and nailed. Don and I couldn't believe how fast it went. Our neighbour sure showed us that 81 is the new 50 around here. It helps when there is someone around who actually knows what they are doing, there's a lot less discussion on how to do it. Don and I tend to get circular in our discussions on how proceed: "I don't know, what do you think?" "Beats me, what do you think?" And around and around it goes.

Don and son are putting up the plywood on the roof now. Son, aka the spider-monkey, is very adept at scrambling around on a high pitch roof, he has no fear of heights and being a teen-ager, is pretty sure he is never going to die anyway.

With the help of good neighbours and a fearless, agile son it's getting there very s-l-o-w-l-y. Realizing that this might be case of famous last words, I venture to say the chickens should be in by the week-end.

Feathers and All

The little baby chicks are no longer, they are chickens. They're not full grown yet but they are maturing and have left the gawky-oh-my-god-how-can-I-stand-on-these-feet stage. They are at the I-WILL-fly-and-heaven-help-any-human-who-stands-in-my-way stage. They are about seven weeks old now. I turned off the brooder light a while back and I'd say they are ready for the coop. Hopefully the coop will be ready for them soon. The two in the pictures are not the biggest of the bunch, but they were the easiest to catch.

They have three feeders. One standard long one, and a couple of plastic dishes I improvised. I noticed that the chickens higher up on the social ladder would eat first and chase away any lowly wannabe socialite. The ones not eating just kind of stood off a bit, trying to look like they didn't care if they don't get to eat. I found that adding feeders gave everyone a chance to get some food. Mind you, there are a couple of real pieces of work in the crew that are eating at the big feeder and go flying over to the little feeders for no more purpose than to chase away the birds eating there. They don't even seem to realize that while they're chasing the others, they themselves are not eating; definitely not the tightest knit sweaters in the drawer. They kind of remind me of a couple of kids I knew in high school.

The roosters are trying to crow and failing miserably. When I first heard the early attempts, I thought a chicken was choking to death. Now they sound like they have sore throats. I'm sure the hens are laughing at them behind their wings. Everybody roosts from time to time and try to fly. They are have some success with the flying. My son came upstairs and told me there was a chicken siting on top of the brooder. Hhmm, guess it's time to close that in. I have fed them a couple of worms. Now that's funny. I'll drop the worm in and someone will grab it and head out to a secluded corner as fast as his little chicken legs can go. He kind of ducks his head down in the hopes no one will notice he has food. Of course, they always do and chase him. The little chicken scoots along, eating and running at the same time. Then he turns around and shows the chickens his empty beak. The worm doesn't even know what hit it.

As interesting as they are, I'm looking forward to when they are outside, running around and having much more room. They will be happier and so will I.

Emu Egg

I was given this empty emu egg from a couple down the road. They raise all sorts of fancy birds. I've never seen an emu egg. In fact, before this summer, I've never seen an emu up close and personal, let alone pet one.

I think the egg is pretty amazing. That's its natural color. You can't see in the picture, but on one end of the egg has an intricate swirling design on it. Apparently all the eggs have it and every pattern is unique, like a fingerprint. The emu egg is incredibly strong. The couple says an emu does not lie down to lay the egg, it just falls to the ground, from a height of about 2 feet at least. The eggs don't generally crack or break. They are edible, and one goes a long way, basically a one egg omelet. The egg beside it is your average large chicken egg found in any egg carton. I put it in for size comparison.

Summer Aromathery

With the warm summer weather I like to use aromatherapy to deal with the sun and bugs. I'm a little late getting my act together this year what with everything else demanding my attention but today was a rainy-stay-in-and-clean day. Thank goodness we get days like that, or else the dust bunnies would get so big I'd need to get them vaccinated. At is was, it took me 20 minutes to find kitchen table surface.

I'm not big on using commercial bug spray but I do give in now and then. The mosquitoes are really bad this year, especially where we're building the chicken coop, probably because we are trying to have it in the tree shade somewhat. Sometimes I'll just take a few leaves of catnip, crush them and rub them on my skin. What I like doing is steeping lemon balm leaves, adding a little lavender,cedarwood and other bug-repelling essential oils. I put that in a large spray bottle and thus armed am ready to do battle. It works well but it doesn't last long. So I bring my bottle with me when I am outside. It is quite refreshing to spray this fragrant potion while in the sun gardening or whatever. Not only does it keep the bugs away it cools me off and smells nice. Not to mention the lack of poisonous, toxic chemicals all over me. I have discovered it works well as a body splash, too.

As far as the sun goes, I'm pretty lucky in that department. I rarely burn. I do try to stay out of the sun when it's at its peak when I can. I'm not crazy about sunblock, basically for the same reasons as bug spray. I found a couple of recipes that work well for me, something to wear while in the sun and something to use afterwards. For the sun oil, I like to use calendula infused olive oil. Apparently, olive oil has a natural sunblock factor of anywhere between 4 and 8, not real high but does give some protection against burning. I add a lighter oil as well and some aloe vera gel along with the essential oils. One of the added benefits to this that lavender essential oil is a great skin oil and mosquitoes don't like the smell. If they land on me, they just get oily and miserable, which is fine by me. The after sun recipe has beeswax in it and it absorbs nicely. It has light, skin nourishing base and essential oils. I managed to get some lovely unrefined, organic shea butter. I tried adding a little of that to the base oils. Seemed add a creaminess to the lotion.

I always try to use organic, cold press oils when I can. I can usually find them in the organic section of the grocery store. It makes no sense to me to spend money on good quality essential oils and then dump them into sub-standard base oils, especially considering the base oils make up 95 - 99 per cent of the recipe. The beeswax comes from a friend of mine who raises bees so it's pretty unprocessed as well. Happily, I have found a wonderful Canadian mail-order company that sells fair trade, organic essential oils, so that has helped quite a bit. I really like the fair trade idea and try to buy it as much as possible.

So now I'm pretty much ready for the sun and bugs. Next rainy day, I'm hoping to make creams and lotions - after I chase the dust bunnies around for a while.

disclaimer: This is what I do to protect myself from sun and bugs, I am not recommending you do the same.

Building the Chicken Coop, Part Two, Rafters and Walls

I have come to the conclusion that straight, level and square are boring. Really. Crooked, leaning and sideways are quaint and charming, bringing a certain personality to a building. As long as the building doesn't fall down on my chickens and rabbits, I'm going to be a happy camper.

The building of the coop is slow going because I really don't have a clue of what things should look like when they are done. It took us two days to make the rafters because we had to redo them twice. The problem is Don tells me what to do then I do it while he's at work. He comes home, realizes the way he thought it would work, doesn't. So things come apart and we try again. That was the case with the rafters. When I was building them the second time, I naturally assumed if the two side pieces joined properly, the bottom piece would exactly fit in perfectly, it never occurred to me that it could fit in slanted so I never measured to make sure the sides were even. What I said about crooked and leaning notwithstanding; having the roof peaks pointing in all different directions is going to making roofing very difficult, no matter how 'quaint', not to mention interesting, the end result may look.

I've got to say the wall frames went along smoothly and now we are working on the walls. It probably went easier because I actually know what a wall should look like and I'm getting the hang of using the square & level. Mind you, when I use them, I tend to say, "Good enough" instead of "Perfect!" We're hoping with help to get the roof up this weekend. The kids and I work on the coop during the day and Don does a couple of hours after work, usually. Sometimes we stay out until it's too dark to see. We have come up with a new catch phrase as well when things aren't exactly fitting in perfectly "It's a chicken coop, not the Taj Mahal."

My attitude about this whole project has swung back and forth wildly, just like my hammer. At first, I thought it would be a great adventure and somewhat an accomplishment. By the time I finished the rafters I made a solemn oath never to build anything again. Now I'm thinking I better build something again. I put in a lot of effort and actually learned something, it'd be a shame not to use it...sometime...way in the future, when I have recovered.

Three Sisters

I managed to get the rest of the vegetable garden planted over the weekend. The mornings were just perfect for planting. It was sunny and the wind was fairly brisk, keeping the mosquitoes away completely. A couple of lines from an old, quirky song come to mind, "I feel the hot wind on my shoulder and the touch of a world that is older." ('Mexican Radio', by Wall of Voodoo). I think I thought of the lyrics not only because of the welcomed anti-mosquito wind but because I was going to start with The Three Sisters, a planting method that is centuries old, when the world was younger.

I planted my Three Sisters in the main garden this year. The Three Sisters is a companion planting scheme that originates in the Native North Americans from what I understand. It's pretty ingenious, actually. Corn is planted and next to each, you plant a couple of bean or pea seeds. Corn is a heavy nitrogen user and bean/pea plants attach nitrogen to their roots. I don't know how on earth that happens, but that's what they say. So the bean/pea plants supply necessary nutrients to the corn and the corn acts as trellises for the bean/pea plants to grow on. No staking is required, gotta love that. The third sister is squash or pumpkin around the corn and peas. They act as living mulch in a way and they are supposed to keep the raccoons out. I don't have a problem with raccoons; it's the crows that drive me crazy.

I did The Three Sisters for the first time two years ago. I didn't have a lot of info, so I just went by the seat of my pants. I put the corn and snow peas together with pumpkins surrounding them. Everything did well. Pumpkins are iffy here; that year was my best crop yet. Last year, I found information about how to exactly plant The Three Sisters, complete with diagrams and exact measurements. You would have thought that I would have known better. (To see how well I do with diagrams and measurements, read about me building the chicken coop floor.) I decided to plant them in the annex. Instead of using snow peas, I used green and yellow beans. What a mess. I don't know what I did wrong but the beans just about over-ran the corn. The squash, on more than one occasion, started climbing up the corn stalks. I practically needed a machete to venture in there by mid-season. I started calling it the Green Bean Jungle. Having two major wind storms, one right after the other didn't help at all because the corn was pushed down a great deal. I did build them upright using compost but as the season continued, the beans started to over-whelm them I think. All said and done, I got a decent crop of beans and squash but the corn was a little lacking. It also took me about three times as long to harvest the crop because of the tendrils and vines everywhere. I used to tell the kids when I was going out to The Three Sisters to come search for me if I didn't return in half an hour, and to bring flashlights and flares with them.

So this year I'm going back to the seat of my pants. I'm planting snow peas not beans because they aren't so heavy or tall. I planted zucchini every now and then instead of surrounding the patch with them in the hopes I won't get a tangled mess. Just to try something new, along with planting the snow peas by the stalks of corn, I threw in a couple of radish seeds. I've heard they discourage corn and squash bugs. I don't really have a problem with the corn borer, may-be I'll find three or four in the whole crop but I thought I'd try it just to see. What's the fun in planting if you can't screw up a perfectly good system with your own ideas? The only other thing that is different is at the end of the rows, I have sunflowers instead of corn. I like sunflowers in the garden; they're big and boisterous and who knows, may-be they encourage the other plants grow big and strong just like them. A little friendly competition never hurts. Plus I ran out of corn seeds. It's done and hopefully it will do well. We'll see, but just in case I'm going to go hunt up my machete.