Are you in need of a hobbit house?

Today I read in the Mail online a story about a family that built their own version of a hobbit-house totally eco-friendly.
 



For someone without any experience I think he did an amazing job as you can see in the picture. Simon Dale has also a website with more information and pictures, if you click here you are able to see it or you can look at the youtube-video below.

Have fun while looking at a sustainable home in Wales.

Elizabeth

charming chickens

svensk sortehøns (black swedish chickens) - this rooster (aptly named "blackie") is my favorite.

as you know, we got chickens back in june. and then husband built them a veritable mansion that we dubbed chez poulet, because it's so fancy. the coop has two entrances - one into a totally enclosed area, where we give them table scraps and one into a back yard, where they can fly (and yes, i assure you they can fly, tho' it's not the most elegant sight) over it and get out to explore.

in fact, they were letting themselves out to explore so often, that we've just left the gate open of late, to make it easier for them. it's nice to have them wandering in the garden, cleaning up, tho' i have found them as far afield as over in the shelter belt near our bees. but charmingly enough, they come running from wherever they are when you go out there and talk to them. i hadn't expected that. they're really quite charming. and a bit funny. and their plumage makes a perfect fall fashion statement.

dansk landhøns (danish land chickens)

the three roosters can spend hours trying to outdo one another with their cries of cock-a-doodle-doo. and the other day one hen was a rather insistently clucking midwife to another one who was in the nest and clearly laying an egg. it was as if she were a little chicken cheerleader. later, i realized it may have been more of a complaint, because i found that hen in the same box, laying an egg of her own, so she was probably just telling that other hen to hurry up. there are five nest boxes, but as they've begun to lay eggs, i've noticed that they stick to the first one and the fourth one. it's hard to know what chickens are thinking, so i'm not sure why that is.

we're getting 2-3 eggs a day and they're starting to be a little bit larger now (they were pretty tiny at first). i've already checked an all-eggs cookbook out of the library, as once all 9 hens start laying, we're going to be eating a whole lot of eggs around here! at the moment, we can keep up.

in all, i'm enjoying this chicken thing much more than i thought i would. they're easy to have around. plus, we've cut back significantly on the amount of garbage that goes into our bin on a weekly basis, because so many scraps go to them - the only thing we don't give them is chicken, but otherwise, all greens, leftover rice or couscous, cheese, other kinds of meat go to them, anything we didn't manage to eat all of ourselves. in return, we get plenty of eggs and quite a lot of amusement.

the moleman cometh

there are a lot of amusing aspects to living out in the countryside. like that the way to get 100+ straw bales is to casually mention to the neighbor that it might be nice to have some for winter. not because he has any, but because he will talk to the guy down the road, who lives across from hay jørgen, whose son will come by one evening, in a rush to deliver the straw bales, fresh from the field, just before dark and before the rain starts. and then there's also the widespread rumor (which i'm not doing anything to dispel) that i'm canadian.

but my favorite thing is, hands down, the moleman. he's a marvelous elderly gentleman with a rusty old ford escort full of mole traps and various pans, bowls and buckets. sometimes you look outside and see him wandering across the lawn, setting mole traps. he digs them in and then covers them with an old pan or bowl or bucket. he seems nearly psychic as to when moles have put in an appearance (tho' that's also obvious, of course, by the fresh dark mounds of dirt on the lawn) and he shows up and suddenly instead of mounds of dirt, you have old pans here and there on the lawn. he doesn't knock and he doesn't announce himself, tho' he will say hello if you happen to be outside.

we don't actually have his phone number, the neighborhood retired pilot originally contacted him for us. but all you need is the initial contact and you're a customer of the moleman for life. he comes by, sets traps, checks them, and notes it all on a scrap of paper in his pocket. he comes by once in awhile, shows you the tally - 30 kroner per trip he's made out here, plus 10 kroner per mole - and wants to be paid. each mole that's met its maker is carefully marked on the scrap of paper, which he's happy to show you as proof. he caught 47 moles over at our friends' house. he's probably gotten around 30 or so here in the past year.

the only bad habit he has is that he leaves the dead moles lying around. however, our barn kitties think that's just fine.

how do you get rid of moles at your house?

Farm Bags Year Two

Last week I announced the end of year two's farm bags.  This year was quite a ride.  The weather was unusual, to say the least.  We were very cool until July, then began searing much warmer than normal temperatures and zero rain, it was capped off by a return to very cool temperatures just as the tomatoes should be ripening (we had our first light frost September 4!).  Despite the uncooperative weather we had a very successful season.  This is especially illustrated to me by the number of home gardeners who I talk to, that had little to no success with anything this year. 

We had changed our planting volume this year to specifically accommodate the number of families that we had taken on.  Even with this pre-planning, each week when I would announce a new farm bag was ready (half of the group would pick up on say a Wednesday and the other half on a Friday), I would begin to have some anxiety.  Would I have enough so everyone could have the same volumes?  Is everyone perceiving value from their bags?  By the time delivery would take place, each bag seemed to have grown exponentially from what I had envisioned on it's announcement.  We had eight successful farm bags when I closed last week.  We do have all of our fall planting, which has been loving the cool weather, so I informed the families that later in the fall we may have one or two more bags available for those interested in greens and sweet potatoes. 

What lessons from year two?  I need to focus on our own consumption and preservation.  We did fairly well, but my main concern was meeting the commitment I made to the produce families.  So when the season was less than ideal, I wanted to make sure they were accommodated.  I don't think I would change the planting strategy.  We had plenty of plants for the families.  The season dictated the yields and I feel fortunate we got the volume we did!  We had green beans coming out of our ears, which I feel quite proud of, since so many said they had none.  We have a lot of work ahead.  We won't begin fall prep/tear down until later this year because we are still nursing things along.  We began a gorgeous Indian Summer yesterday and it's set to last for another six days.  We hope to ripen enough tomatoes to get some canning done.  Whatever doesn't ripen, we are going to process all of the green tomatoes. 

Will we continue on?  Absolutely.  As with anything, we need to find the balance to handle it all.  But it is the direction we are going and sometimes you need to juggle while creating a new life path and maintaining the old.  I was so inspired by The Chef's Garden from Julie's post yesterday.  I wonder if we will get there someday?

The above shot is our lazy housewife green beans drying.  These beans make amazing dried soup beans and I can't wait to shell them at the end of the season.  They will be a warm creamy winter treat!

already dreaming of next year's garden

200 new strawberries

our gardening year is winding down. we've just had 4-5 days of sunshine and warm temperatures (in the 70s), which breathed a bit of life into the tomatoes and eggplants in the greenhouse, so they're not as done as i thought they were, but they soon will be. we're also hoping that the sunshine will prove to have ripened the sweetcorn so we can actually eat a few ears of that before the season is completely over. but largely, the garden is in its last stages.

waiting for the corn

big successes were strawberries, raspberries, artichokes, kale (until some kind of caterpillars took it), swiss chard (which strangely was right next to the kale and the worms ignored it), borlotti beans, broad beans and runner beans. my herb bed, which is over closer to the house, did very well - apparently cool, rainy weather is perfect parsley and sage weather, as my parsley and sage have been phenomenal.

less successful were the patchy carrots (tho' i'm feeding fresh carrots to the bunnies every morning these days). not a single beet came up, nor a single leaf of spinach (i planted that twice!) only a single kohlrabi grew, our brassica bed resulted in 3 small heads of white cabbage and tho' the red cabbages are leafy and lush, they're not actually forming proper heads. the broccoli was only enough for a few spindles in the odd stir-fry and the cauliflower, which started off beautiful went strange and black - possibly because of the wet, cool weather. my onions are small and the tops died off quite early, tho' some of them are growing new tops no (which i can't explain). the onions themselves are ok when you pull one to use in a salad or to cook with, but they should have been much better. some of this, i don't know what to learn from it other than to say that we'll just try again next year.

kind of a lot of grass grew up in the paths!

in the greenhouse, we had enough tomatoes for salads, but not enough to can any. the aubergine had loads of blooms, but i think the cool temperatures prevented them from really growing into something, tho' we've had enough to be hooked on home grown aubergine as opposed to store-bought.  plus, some of the kinds i bought were actually petite varieties, so the size didn't matter that much.  the cucumbers produced well, after we saved them from the aphids, but with a cucumber-addicted child in the house, there weren't enough for pickles.  it's partially because we had a cool, wet summer and partially because we didn't have the greenhouse up 'til the end of may, so we missed quite a lot of the growing season. next year, it will be better.

black plastic on the left is where next year's garden will be.

we have super sandy soil and while it has great drainage, it seems like the nutrients quickly wash away as well. we conducted a few experiments, putting horse poo only on one squash and not another and learned that horse poo is KEY. we've prepared a large area for next year's garden - loads and loads of horse poo went into freshly-turned soil and then were covered in black plastic to prevent weeds.  luckily, our neighbors have eleven horses and love to be rid of their manure pile.  husband has built an elaborate composting area, so we'll have compost to add to the soil next year as well.

the new compost staging area

but i find i'm already thinking about what to plant next year. i want to try some new things and do better at some of the old ones. we planted 200 new strawberry plants, so i'm going to be busy making marmalade next june. i want more herbs and i want to try some unusual things, like mustard and horseradish. i'm also feeling pretty inspired looking around the chef's garden website. and despite our dark winter, i would like to try to extend the season a bit by planting lettuces and things inside the greenhouse. hmm, maybe i'd better go pull some weeds in there...