Vines

I keep thinking about how to get more vine plants into the mix. I get these crazy visions of all kinds of supports criss crossed over the back yard. It would be nice to keep things a little formal near the house, but it would be fun to let them get a little more wild as we get further away. I'm just uncertain about just how crazy I can get away with. Some books have made it clear that I need to be mindful that vines can end up being pretty heavy, so flimsy jury-rigged supports are probably not a good idea. Still, one can dream....

I have also been thinking, with all this stuff "up in the air" that I am going to want to pick and prune, how am I to get myself up their for the work. A ladder just seems like such a pedestrian solution. Maybe some kind of climbing rig and pulleys? Stilts? Elven walkways suspended above ground?

Baking wish list

In addition to looking forward to getting back into baking with sourdough, there are a bunch of things I'd like to figure out how to bake:

• flat breads: Pita Bread, wheat tortillas, naan, Injera "Ethiopian sponge bread"
• sopapillas (my family used to make these when I was a kid)
• bear claws
• asiago garlic bread (one of my favorite artisan breads)

Natural calendar

I have been thinking about how to break down the year into parts that are short enough to have similar weather from year to year and across the period, and the breaks along the eight days in the Wheel of the Year (Solstices, equinoxes, and their mid-points). I am leaning towards 16-divisions of about 3 weeks each:

6/21 Summer Solstice

3 weeks

7/11 Mid-early Summer

3 weeks

8/ 1 Mid Summer (Lughnasadh)

3 weeks

8/21 Mid-late Summer

3 weeks

9/23 Autumnal Equinox

3 weeks

10/12 Mid-early Fall

3 weeks

10/31 Halloween

3 weeks

11/20 Mid-late Fall

3 weeks

12/21 Winter Solstice

3 weeks

1/11 Mid-early Winter

3 weeks

2/ 2 Groundhog Day

3 weeks

2/25 Mid-late Winter (Gas Tax Day)

3 weeks

3/20 Vernal Equinox

3 weeks

4/10 Mid-early Spring (William of Ockham Day)

3 weeks

5/ 1 Beltane

3.5 weeks

5/25 Mid-late Spring (Towel Day)

3.5 weeks

6/21 Summer Solstice

Not really sure what to call the mid-mid-points.

Some of the dates are fudged (e.g., Beltane) a little to match cultural traditional dates rather than the astronomically derived date. I'm more interested in fostering some cultural resonances than being a slave to accuracy.

I think this will be useful for organizing garden tasks, planting dates, gathering statistics, grouping journal entries, seasonal menu planning, managing and planning around solar access, etc.

Gardening on the North side of a house on a North facing slope

I've been doing some more musing about gardening "on the the North side of things".

The seven feet of yard nearest the house never see direct noontime sun because it is always in the shadow of the house. The next seven feet only get direct sun in the height of summer (June - mid July). Then we get into the region that gets sun from the spring through fall equinox.

So I guess this means I will have a strip of shade garden (maybe with some trellised shade tolerant vines). Then I'll do raised bed gardening between two swales.

This is the side of the garage facing East. It seems to be screaming for espaliered fruit trees.

I am also becoming more interested in figuring out how to make best use of the roof of the garage. It probably gets pretty good light for growing up there and it isn't really set up well for solar power because of the tall trees just to the South of it. But maybe windows that capture some passive solar heat to drive the green house behind the garage.

Here is a look at the 25' x 22' space behind the garage.

That's about a three foot drop behind the little wall.

I had always thought of the chickens / ducks/ quail going against the back fence, but they may do better right behind the garage, then the greenhouse / pool house?

There are a couple trees that we need to work around or deal with. I need to determine how much space they need as well as how much space we need for the exercise pool. I am hoping I can "stack" the functions of the greenhouse vertically sharing the same space with the pool. It seems to me they should have compatible requirements and issues.

This is the tree I climbed to take these photos. Shasta showed me how it was done.

This cherry tree has a pretty funky form at the moment. It has a lot of character. I am looking forward to seeing what kind of micro climate it creates in the heat of the summer.

Shasta has been having even more fun than me exploring the new back yard.

Economies of local

I have heard a lot and read about economies of scale. It seems like we need to develop a better understanding of the economies of local.

We should understand the forces that help keep operations local and tied to community and offset the benefits of growth. Maybe I should plan to fly to the next International Conference on Localism? I find it ironic the tension between promoting local thinking to the world and researching and sharing best practices in the widest possible way, with the ethos of focusing on that place we are at.

The role of raccoons?

While planing for life in the backyard section I keep encountering questions of dealing with raccoons (Procyon lotor). There is something unspeakably cool about raccoons -- crafty, intelligent, versatile, fastidious, silent, lurkers. I don't like thinking of them as enemies. But I also don't want them nabbing my hens and such.

Their diet consists of about 40% invertebrates, 33% plant foods, and 27% vertebrates -- eating invertebrates is good, usually. Since raccoons are able to increase their rate of reproduction up to a certain limit, extensive hunting often does not solve problems with raccoon populations. Older males also claim larger home ranges than younger ones, resulting in a lower population density. The costs of large-scale measures to eradicate raccoons from a given area for a certain time are usually many times higher than the costs of the damage done by the raccoons.

In an enlightened world, what then is the place of a raccoon in the urban environment?

Understanding place

It seems like there are a lot to understand about a place.

Here ares some aspects about our new place

• Climate
• Geology
• Hydrology
• Solar exposure
• Topography
• Ecology: flora, fauna, mycology
• Soil
• Demography
• Agriculture: where does my food come from
• Economy
• Government: agencies and representatives at city, county, state, nation, global level
• City systems: city services, power, gas, water, storm water, sewage
• Architecture
• Society

I am thinking it would be nice to put together something like a scrap book with all those different sections and add to it as I gather more and more information on each topic.

Some of them would be good as map overlays. Some as photos with captions. Or maybe it would be better as a blog of sorts. It will take some experimenting to figure out something that makes sense.