Spring has Sprung

Ahhh… spring.

I have spent all winter thinking about what we would be doing through the spring and summer (of course the two most beautiful seasons in Washington!). And now that spring is finally here, I feel as if I have already fallen behind! The garden should have been started, I would like to have had the chickens already, the yard needs work, the roof needs replaced… the list goes on.

Realistically I should be planting right about now. The lettuce and broccoli would have withstood the last few frosts that we have had recently, but I think the warmer weather plants, like tomatoes and corn, may not have made it through the cold spring start. Never the less, we should have already prepped the garden for planting.

I really am avoiding it… as once the garden is done for the winter, we don’t weed until we plant again. As you can imagine the weeds take control and flourish and it will be a solid day of weeding and soil prepping.

As for progress on the chicken coop, I have finally found some time to invest in it!

After much deliberation with Jordan about whether or not to paint the coop, I have decided that in the interest of preserving it through the elements, it must be painted. Unfortunately, I had no idea what a monumental task it would be to find paint that would be safe for the chickens! I called store after store, and spoke with too many irritated paint counter clerks. After about the 10th store, I finally found a paint that would suffice.

To sum it all up, I found paint that was non-toxic and USDA approved for use in contact with farm animals and food. Apparently the paint that we all buy at Home Depot and use on the walls in our homes is pretty toxic to most living things when ingested or when it comes into contact with food. It makes me wonder what would happen if we started licking the walls… would we grow a third hand or ear? Either way, we have no need for those chemicals around the food that we are going to eat.

As soon as I got home with the paint I started to it. In order to best protect the coop from all the rain, it was recommended that I put a double coat of primer on the whole thing. I had no idea what a task it was to just get the whole coop primer-ed! For mobility and ease of painting, I thought it best to paint the individual disassembled pieces of the coop. This way I could easily paint the pieces in the front yard if the weather would allow, or I could move them into the garage and still continue to paint regardless of what mother nature was tossing at me.

As expected, it rained and I did most of my painting in the garage. What a surprise.

It took me about 7 hours to just get the two coats of primer done! I had honestly thought that I would have been done painting the whole thing in 4! So, by the end of this evening, I have only gotten one of eight pieces with the first coat of ‘communist grey’ one the siding of the actual coop portion. I was highly disappointed in the lack of instant gratification.

As I have been busting my butt all day, I think that this is where I will close for today. I have a one hour shower ahead of me to try and scrub all the primer of my hands and face. I am not a very clean painter, it looks like I was trying to paint my hands as and arms as well as the coop.

I will try and get some of the picture of the coop uploaded tomorrow.

Good Night For Now.

A few months ago I started watching a show called "The Wild Within" on the Discovery channel. The show was about a guy who had made it his personal goal to get back to the basics, to dig up that primal instinct within every human to hunt and gather. He travels the world (obviously a bit unrealistic, but the traveling is what makes it interesting on a weekly basis) hunting game and gathering food from the earth, taking pride in being able to literally bring home the bacon (or venison) for the family. The point of it all being that we as a society have lost that age old connection with mother nature, we have lost the natural ability to eat from the earth.
Over the course of the last few years I have slowly started to get back in touch with nature and the cycle of life. Two springs ago Jordan and I planted our first garden in the back yard. We ended up with a plot that is about 25 feet long and 10 feet wide. At the time I had absolutely no idea how much work it was to maintain that much space! I mean what was so hard about it? You plant, water, and enjoy the produce, right?
Not!
The truth of it was that the first summer was time consuming, laborious, tedious, repetitive, dirty, and exhausting. And if that doesn’t sound bad enough, I probably haven’t done it justice. But come mid-summer when things really start growing and you pick that very first sweet pea pod off the vine all those bad memories fade away. You forget about all of the blood, sweat, and tears that went into it… and savor the best sweet pea you think that you have ever had! To be fair, it really could be the most rotten pea pod ever, but you grew it from seed to vegetable… and it is damn good!
In all reality, that first year I really hated that garden. It seemed like one thing after another disappointed. We spent almost a whole weekend removing all of the grass (as we decided on a spot in the middle of the lawn for optimal sun / shade patterns), tilling the soil, hoeing it into rows, and fencing it off from the dog. That first weekend didn’t even include any of the planning or planting!
We did get the garden planted, we reaped the benefits, the next spring came and I had forgotten all about hard work. I was really excited to start that garden again. We had learned so much, tweaked some of our plans and got a new garden planted. It was amazing how much easier things were the second time around! And this year, with all of the knowledge I have from the past two years, I am confident that this year will be even better. We have learned tricks to cut down on the weeding time, learned about the best times for watering, optimizing plant output by appropriately pruning, and now we know what plants are best for our area and soil type. All in all, I am confident that Garden 2011 will be successful, and a relaxing hobby to enjoy. JThis year, I have decided to go a step further in my "not-so-urban" experiment. I finally took the plunge and purchased a chicken coop and will be bring fresh eggs into the mix. This seems to be a slightly less bloody way to get back in touch with raising my own meat or protein in this case. I don’t know that I would be able to kill a creature for food that was not a fish. It is difficult for me, as it is for most modern Americans, to look at another living animal as a slab of raw meat, so chickens for me are a way to satisfy that need without all the… guts.
For those of you that know Jordan and I, you most likely have heard us talk about Thomas Jefferson. We first were introduced to Jefferson by a radio program on NPR called the "Thomas Jefferson Hour". Jefferson had wanted the new United States to become more of an agrarian society. He ran a self sufficient farm and was quite the farmer. Jefferson was also fastidious man. He kept a multiple journals in which he would take notes on everything; weather conditions, planting notes, pruning notes, general farm notes, correspondence notes… do I need to continue?
Jefferson has inspired me… these are going to be my notes. I am going to write (hopefully on at least an every other day basis) about my agrarian conquests in my city home. I am embarking on my "not-so-urban" experiment.
"A Jeffersonian resists the dependencies of modern life; at least in some symbolic way." - Clay Jenkinson in ‘Becoming Jefferson’s People"