It's a New Day

It hurts a little to note that my last post was in July. It's telling to note that grasshoppers were mentioned. 

Farming is so humbling. 

One of the advantages of living in a rural place is that you can usually throw a raging temper tantrum in your driveway, unwitnessed. One afternoon I was doing just that; smashing grasshoppers with a shovelhead and shouting expletives when, unfortunately, my neighbor Durwood pulled in. I failed to pull it together in time and Durwood, who knows a thing or two about crop failure after a lifetime of peanut farming, watched with sympathy. Then with great kindness he suggested I fog the whole show with Sevin and poison the little suckers.

"But I caaaaaaaan't do that Durwood!" I wailed.

Sometimes holding the line blows.

Later that same day, Ranch Boss drew his own line by announcing that the grasshoppers on the balance of the Kirk Ranch would be sprayed in the morning, to protect his hay crop. I know when things are non-negotiable. So, last summer the Kirk Ranch became something like a restaurant with smoking and non-smoking sections.

But thank God hope springs eternal and we are back at it, with our second year of organic gardening in Central Texas. We are wiser and better prepared now.

Seed catalogues arrive daily, baby green Bermuda shoots are poking up through their dormant beige brothers and we've had four calves in seven days. Here are a few things on the horizon that have us excited. 

1. Lavender. I decided, over the winter, to quit pretending I don't want the front of my ranch tolook like a farm in Provence. I have surrendered and plan to plant several hundred lavenderplants in the open space between vegetables and orchard. In my mind it looks like this. Lavender likes sandy, loamy, sweet soil with good drainage, which I have, it is a drought tolerant plant as well, which, well duh..There are thriving lavender farms in Austin, which we may visit in an upcoming post.

2. Bees. If we aren't concerned about bee colony collapse, we should be. Remember the plants that sustain us are pretty undemanding except for a couple things. Their need for pollenators is absolute. Given that the EPA says that pesticide overuse is at least one probable cause of colony collapse, we hope to provide a haven - if possible. Plus bees love lavender. I love honey. See how this works? Of course I know almost nothing about beekeeping, but I know people who do. Stay tuned.

3. Pullets. I am happy to announce that my baby pullets are becoming hens. Six fresh brown eggs this morning! This may deserve its own blogpost but these little babies came from the Leon Valley Hatchery just down the road. Come to find out they are the largest distributor of fertilized eggs on Ebay! Who knew? People buy fancy breeds of chickens for 4-H or whatever, the eggs are shipped in special packages and then incubated by the buyers. By the way, because I wondered about this too, fertilized chicken eggs are dormant until somebody with a fluffy butt (or other technology) sits on them.

Oh and did you notice the funny looking comb on Tom the Rooster? Do you know what happened? Frostbite! Yep, it got that cold for that long in Texas a few weeks ago. When it doesn't break 18 degrees for four days, it's hard to keep your comb warm.

He's fine though, surrounded by six "blossoming" pullets, if you know what I mean.

4. Farmers Market. The bottom line is this: I don't want to drive to Dallas to sell produce - especially with trouble in the Suez. So I wonder, if somebody started a Farmers Market in Gorman with a mess of backyard growers and then marketed the pants off it, well....If you build it will they come? Perhaps its worth a try. Saturday mornings starting in April/May? More on this to come.

5. Raised Beds. You might recall the industry that double digging 500 square feet of raised beds required last spring. Because Ranch Boss is a genius, he promised he could duplicate the process with all the required finesse if I would just come "look at" this sweet backhoe attachment for his tractor. See how things work around here? Turns out he was right. We more than doubled our raised bed planting space in less than eight hours. Last year each bed took 8-10 hours to dig by hand. We are so ahead of the game that shallots, onions, peas and spinach have been in the ground for a week now.

I promise greater diligence here, stay tuned. February 26, 2011

Oh Yah Spring!

Spring exploded all over the Kirk Ranch this week.

Apologies to our Pagosa friends for spreading on the "No way, you still have snow on the ground" routine. It's inevitable.

I'd like to think we are out of the woods with freezing weather, but the old timers say if it thunders in February you can count on frost on that same day in April. It did. So this gardener is betting on April 9th.

This is the fabled Texas Bluebonnet. It and several friends are growing in our front yard. The Lone Star State will be silly, gorgeous with them for the next month or two. Local lore holds that because of former first Lady and wildflower advocate, Lady Bird Johnson, the pockets of state highway workers were filled with wildflower seed. It is a fact, according to the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in Austin, a 1987 federal law mandated one quarter of one percent of all highway landscaping funds be devoted to planting natives. This was largely due to her efforts. She was an early and avid environmentalist and a proud Texan.

I've been dying to show off this fabulous greenhouse. I'm dying even more to tell you that its mine. 

Well....It's not. This is the home of Hardwick Nursery & Produce in Rising Star, Texas. It is the mothership for three separate retail nursery operations. They must have, on site, fifteen or so 100x30 foot green houses packed to the gills with daisies, petunias, bouganvillea (which in Texas is a hanging, potted annual - smart) peonies, begonias. lobelia, hotpeppers, bell peppers, tomatoes, okra starts and countless other plants. 

It is possible to feel a little inadequate wandering through the Hardwick greenhouses, but I had to remind myself, they probably started with one, little recycled materials greenhouse too.

Grandaddy Kirk was able to celebrate his 85th birthday on the Kirk Ranch, last week.He was escorted all the way from Lexington, North Carolina by our good friend and gynecologist Dr. Quiche. (The gynecologist jokes, believe me, are never not funny).

A fried chicken, creamed-potato dinner was held in his honor and also in attendence was Ms. Garrett, who is our favorite 91 year-old neighbor/friend. After comparing some notes with Grandaddy on the Depression and dirt roads, she told some amazing stories about growing up in DeLeon, Texas (10 miles south).

Her family lived in a two-room house and farmed peanuts with teams of horses. As a child, she was the smallest and was often tapped to ride atop a cultivator of some kind and drive one of the teams! Due to my complete lack of mastery in the "southern woman" arts, I was preoccupied with frying chicken and I can't remember how many kids were in her family - but I think there were a bunch.

She told Ranch Boss that baths were taken on Saturday nights. That's where the expression "don't throw the baby out with the bathwater" comes from. Baths were taken largest person to smallest, so the baby got washed in some pretty dirty water. Ranch Boss asked "Ms. Garrett, did you have running water?"

"Oh Lord no!" she answered and giggled. She has a great giggle.

In our spare time, we also planted 27 new trees. The driveway now has a unique landscape design I like to call "compromise."

You see, the principals at the Kirk Ranch agreed that the driveway should be lined with trees. One principal favored a tidy, flowering manicured tree called a Bradford Pear. It is pictured at the right.

Another principal, who happens to also be pictured at the right, believes that Bradford Pears are not a "manly tree" and prefers something a little more "masculine" and "western." As such, the bottom half of the driveway features fourteen manly, western, Mexican Plums. The top half features eleven tidy, pretty Bradford Pears. 

We often talk about the amazing availability of resources here in Texas. All of these trees came from the Snider Nursery which is less than a half mile from the Kirk Ranch. The owner, Mike Snider, has a zillion trees for sale there, so if you are in the market for a bunch of really nice, high quality trees - masculine or feminine - Mike's the guy. He also set Ranch Boss up with a gorgeous Weeping Willow that will make some fabulous shade for our front yard in the long, hot Texas summers.

So yep, spring is pretty sweet 'round these parts. I know it is still snowing in Colorado, so y'all come visit now!  April 3, 2010