Winter life at our small urban homestead

Posted on February 13, 2009 by jkmcintyre

Our first eggs!


Well, our first ceramic eggs (psych!), newly minted from my studio. They go in the nest boxes cause chickens are very vulnerable to peer pressure.


Other ceramics projects this winter: Rattling Egg Men. They’re eggs! They’ve faces! They shake, rattle, AND roll!



Latest plates


The witch-hazel in bloom at last



Garlic coming up!


Heather in bloom


Goat cheese curds


And hanging to drain


La Gata Loca


Baracka at the window


Yeah, we think this is a bad idea too


Chickens sunbathing


And in the newly pruned Chicken Tree

Thanks for visiting!

Posted in ceramics, chickens, homemade cheese, pet cat, witch hazel | 3 Comments

Composting fence frees us of our ‘view’

Posted on February 3, 2009 by jkmcintyre

Our yard needed a lot of pruning when we moved in this fall. Snip snip the Japanese maple, the Pussy Willow, the rhododendrons, the nameless (to us) shrubbery bordering our property and giving us such wonderful privacy, for the most part. We were left with piles upon piles of brush.

When I lived in the country we’d just burn brush on a good day. Less easy in the city. And I really didn’t want to ‘dispose’ of the stuff off-site – why waste those nutrients?

I thought of composting them slowly in subterranean mounds (oxymoron?). But lucky for us, Jennifer Carlson, a local landscape designer was featured in Seattle magazine for the many sustainable features of her yard, including a lovely composting fence.

It was the perfect solution. Not only did we need to use/dispose of our plant trimmings, we also needed a fence to block some ugly views in a few spots of the yard. One of these I have been proposing we expand – the view of the nearby intersection – by removing a large round pine tree that that blocks said intersection (+), but looms over my garden site (-).


So we decided where, I decided how, and off we went to the hardware store. We came back with some 4″x6″x8′ posts, a 100′ roll of 3′ tall galvanized wire mesh (2×4″), and some bags of crushed gravel. We buried the posts 8′ apart and 2′ down, packed beneath and around with gravel. We then strung up, pulled tight, and stapled on the wire mesh to the front and back of the posts, one layer at a time so we could get the goods in there.


Labour-intensive to fill the fence with our goodies, but fun too as we creatively layered with holly, then pine, rhododendron, cedar, twigs, shrub x,y,z, etc. After a few hours we had a half-fence. That was Sunday. Today in the warming sun, we tacked on the second tier of mesh and filled it to the top. Presto! Interesting, functional, composting fence!


We may yet top it with a trellis. A little light filters through, which we plan to make use of to grow some edible vines such as kiwi or hops!


CONTINUE reading about the composting fence.

2011 Update.

Posted in compost bins, composting fence, DIY | 4 Comments

Exercising is Beyond Ridiculous

Posted on January 30, 2009 by jkmcintyre


So I’m reading this book ‘The Human-Powered Home‘, cause I thought it would be fun to run some motors off pedal power.

The book begins with a brief history of human-powered devices, moving from hand-cranked water spirals to human powered cranes (think coupla guys in mondo hamster wheels!)

And I got to thinking how we used to exercise our muscles to get things done: move water, work materials to make food, clothing, shelter. Now we sit back and let electricity do most of those things for us.

And so we get fat and sick. To combat this, some of us go the gym where we again use electricity, but this time to help us exercise our muscles. People even drive cars and take elevators and then go to the gym where they simulate things like riding bicycles and walking up stairs! It’s beyond ridiculous! And it can be pretty inefficient, especially when you consider the amount of time you must stand with machines while they do work for you, and then later you must travel to a gym and spend more time with yet other machines that then work you.

Post-script: The linked video for this human-powered treadmill epitomizes ‘Beyond Ridiculous’. Thanks to E-MC for the heads-up!

Posted in Health, Rants | 3 Comments

Ostentatious Oeufs

Posted on January 30, 2009 by jkmcintyre


Now that the nest boxes are in place, I’m anxious that our hens (we’re still hoping for no crowers) lay eggs in them, and not random corners in the coop (or heaven forbid outdoors!). To encourage them to lay in the nest boxes we’re going the fake egg route. We have heard a fake egg (or any appropriately egg-shaped-sized object) provides the suggestion that here is a good place to lay that thing you don’t understand you’re about to lay.

I’ve heard of plastic eggs, wooden eggs, even golf balls. Well, I don’t have any of those things, and don’t want to buy them. What I do have is clay and handy hands. So I decided to make my own fake eggs. This decision was inspired by the ceramics class I’m taking in which the newbies are making hollow objects like pumpkins and rattles.

So I took two balls of clay, shaped them into half-spheres, filled them with paper-wrapped little clay balls for fun, and mended them together. This is really fun cause now you have a malleable ball filled with air. After mending the two halves together, I patted the balls with a wooden spatula into an egg shape. When I was sure I was done I made a small hole so air can escape when they fire. After making two eggs I got the idea to put faces on them. This was irresistible and so very fun.

So now I’m off to ceramics class to fire my eggs. Next week I’ll glaze them, and hopefully have them in the nest boxes before the gals start to get that urge…

Rocky on the window sill outside Scott’s office


The shingled coop!



See how the ceramic eggs turned out!

Posted in ceramics, chicken coop / run, chickens, eggs, update | Leave a comment