Signs of Spring 2013

Posted on February 15, 2013 by jkmcintyre

Spring is arriving in the Pacific Northwest. I know, I know, it seems unfair to everyone at similar latitudes still struggling under their heavy blankets of snow, but we’ve earned our due with the Long Wet Grey. Besides, there will be much much more wet and grey before we are finally delivered to summer sometime in July (argh!!).

For cheer, I share the first signs of spring on our wee homestead:

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Blooming Heather (Will you go laddy, go…and we’ll all go together….)

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Pussy willows shining against the sky

Fragrant, Brilliant, Blooming Witch Hazel

Fragrant, Brilliant, Blooming Witch Hazel

Crocuses! (Croci?)

Crocuses! (Croci?)

The first asparagus shoot...see it?

The first asparagus shoot…see it?

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We have eggs again…(to the tune of ‘On the Road Again’)

Posted on February 5, 2013 by jkmcintyre

We have eggs again,
That’s right you heard me we have eggs again,
So bright and yellow, fried or scrambled, I don’t care,
I’m just so glad to have those eggs again…

Eggs at last, Eggs at Last! Thank the Gods Almighty, we have Eggs at Last!

Eggs at last, Eggs at Last! Thank the Gods Almighty, we have Eggs at Last!

The Unfortunate Moult of 2012 left us sans oeufs for several sad months. We eventually started buying eggs.  Oh how I hate to stand in front of those many many options, weighing the cost against the quality and the environmental and animal welfare choices they represent. And, of course, they weren’t all that tasty.

But that sad, dark time has passed. We are very lucky that our hens recovered from the harrowing deprivation they experienced in August, once again granting us the bounty that comes from their butts.

(Technical note: The eggs do not come out of their butts, but rather the ‘cloaca’, which is an all-in-one, multi-purpose orifice. Although ‘cloaca’ is vernacular for ‘sewer’ in Spanish, the bird cloaca is sanitary for egg passage. As the eggs descend the reproductive tract, a flap of tissue unfolds over the common area so that the egg can leave the hen’s body without touching anything that her waste touched. Nif-T)

Slide from one of my chicken talks that demonstrates 'The Sanitary Egg'

Excerpt from one of my chicken talks demonstrates ‘The Sanitary Egg’

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Urban chickens a boon to small business development

Posted on January 27, 2013 by jkmcintyre

There are many good reasons for cities to allow chicken husbandry, including autonomous food production, fostering better connections to our food supply, and because they are relatively very tolerable pets.

Chickens have been legal pets in Seattle for more than a decade. In 2010, the city of Seattle voted to raise the chicken limit from 3 to 8 per household as part of their urban agriculture initiative. Although I was disappointed that roosters were now officially banned in the new initiative, I am pleased the City is taking more seriously local, sustainable food movements.

I admire small businesses that are born from insight into a local need. The introduction and subsequent rise in popularity of raising urban chickens has led to many such businesses. It used to be that backyard chickens were all DIY. This worked well for those of us both handy and innovative. But many potential chicken owners were deterred by the DIY aspect – starting with ‘How am I going to build a coop?’.

And so local chicken coop building companies began appearing to fill this need. Several local examples include:

Better Coops and Gardens:

Better Coops and Gardens
Comfy Coops:

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Mainstay Coops, which hand builds elegant subtle A-frame coops
Saltbox Coops – one design was so popular that it is exclusively available now through Williams-Sonoma Agrarian
Kippen House became so popular for their modern coops that they have published a book of design plans and are no longer taking orders!

To meet the needs of urban farmers, local pet stores began carrying chicken feed and accessories. But now chicken and urban farming-focused businesses and co-ops have also appeared.
Seattle Farm Supply
Seattle Farm Co-op

The next small business to appear was chicken sitting!

Seattle Chicken Sitter

Seattle Chicken Sitter Webpage

The latest small business to service Seattle’s urban chicken owners is a contract service that will clean your chicken coop. The cleverly-named ‘ReCoop‘ has a tagline that says it all: “Foul Management System”! Cleaning your coop, yard, and roosts can’t be a fun job, but with the extra tag “We’re here for the poop”, you can bet they will make good use of the ‘waste’ by composting it for re-sale.

ReCoop

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Rainwater Cistern Report 2012

Posted on January 22, 2013 by jkmcintyre
Blanca with southern cistern

Blanca with southern cistern

In the spring of 2012 we installed three 500-gallon cisterns on our property. For the recap read Starting with Cisterns and Installing Cisterns. The goal of this project was rain water collection for use outdoors.

In the figure below you can see that our city water use is typically low in the winter and rises during the summer months as it stops raining and we draw more water for our extensive gardens (grey bars).

Interpolated city water use comparing pre-cisterns (2010-2011) with post-cisterns (2012). Cistern water use is only for outdoor projects.

Interpolated city water use comparing pre-cisterns (2010-2011) with post-cisterns (2012). Cistern water use is only for outdoor projects.

Every summer in the Pacific Northwest is the same in that it rains infrequently. And every summer is unique in the particular pattern of that drought. In 2012, summer did not arrive until July, but then we had 83 days without any (appreciable) rain. One day with 0.01″ rain and 82 days with no rain.

So how did we fare? We did not finish installing the cisterns until May, so we started the summer with approximately 1000 gallons of stored rainwater. That water exclusively fed the gardens during June, July, and August. In September we ran out of stored water. But it was not raining yet and the garden still needed to be fed. Thus city water usage rose in September.

Now, you can’t help but notice the October water use is high. Like really high. That may be explained by house guests. We had them in the spring and then sequential 24-7s in September and Oct. The Oct guest was visiting for several weeks from the tropics. You know what that means – many showers, both for custom and warmth.

Take Home Message: I am pleased that our summer city water use reflects the use of cisterns until September! In 2013 the cisterns will be full when summer starts, so they should take us further into the summer. And we’ll try to keep those house guests to a minimum to get a more ‘normal’ water use history for comparison!

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