Gorgeous Girls

A couple of my ladies enjoying some of the recent sunshine.

The Scourge of Scurs

What? For those of you not in the know, scurs are little shards of horn that grow out when a goat hasn't been properly dis-budded. Huh? Dis-budding is the hideous, yet often necessary, procedure of taking a goat, two days fresh from the womb, placing her in a box with just her head poking out one end, and burning off her horn buds with a red hot iron. Not pretty. Regardless of whether or not dis-budding is humane, it is essential to have a hornless goat in an urban setting.

Lucy was most unfortunate to have not had her horn buds completely burned off. I'm not surprised. She's a feisty one when it comes to being poked and prodded. I'm sure she kicked up quite a fuss in that tiny torture chamber and, consequently, has bits of horn sprouting out both sides of her head, one side worse than the other. The problem with these horn bits is that they can curl back, growing into the goats head, or break off easily. In Lucy's case, the latter has temporarily resolved the former problem.

After lying in bed for 48 hours last week, struck down with a nasty case of food poisoning, I decided that a trip to the backyard for the animals' night time feeding would do me some good, what with a bit of fresh air and all. I entered the animal pen right at dusk, finding Lucy with a big bloody mess on her head. Upon closer inspection, I saw that she had ripped her horn off and that it was bleeding pretty good. I hate to admit that I panicked, but why should I lie? By now, you all know that's what I truly excel at. I had read that there are loads of blood vessels in the horns and that it is possible for a goat to bleed to death if the issue is not addressed immediately. As you can imagine, this was very bad news given my physical state. I rushed inside to get a towel to cut off the bleeding, doing a quick Internet search to see what the proper procedure would be in this situation. I found a lot of sites telling me "make sure your goat doesn't have horns because they can break off and cause problems." Yeah... thanks for that incredibly helpful tip.

I went back to the animal pen and attempted to subdue the bleeding by placing the towel over the broken horn. Well that went over about as well as a lead balloon. Mind you that I had ingested a mere six saltine crackers in the past two days and now found myself wrestling and being rolled by a 60 pound, really pissed off creature... in the dark. I "threw in the towel" so to speak and went for help. The Disgruntled Farmhand, to my utter relief, agreed to play vet on this evening, brought Lucy into the garage, trimmed off the hair around the horn, and applied a good deal of Betadine to the wound.

I was still worried that the bleeding didn't appear to be stopping, but lucky me, I've got an old high school classmate who is a vet. My friend Enita, a.k.a. Skeeter, runs the Tender Care Animal Hospital in Gretna, Nebraska and is kind enough to give me advice in these situations over Facebook (this social networking thing has proven to be way more useful than I had once thought), which is so amazingly helpful since we live 60 miles from the goats' vet. She told me to put some flour or baking soda on the wound to control the bleeding. So I went back outside and dumped a fistful of soda on Lucy's head. Now it is a bloody, cakey mess, but it worked and she is now on the mend. Within two days, she was back to her old tricks - head butting her buddy Ethel. Crazy goat!

The Grass Is Always Greener

Guess THAT fence isn't working.

We've Got Trees!

A lot of them. A few weeks ago, we trekked down to Morro Bay for a bit of R & R and to pick up a mess of fruit trees, vines, and canes. Back in October, I placed an order with Trees of Antiquity, a nursery that specializes in rare, heirloom fruits and carries a fantastic selection of low chill varieties that do well in our cool summer coastal climate. Even though the trees weren't delivered until January, the beginning of fruit tree planting season around here, you have to get your order in early otherwise you might miss out on some of the more popular or harder to find items. I was a bit late with my order and consequently didn't get the pomegranate tree I wanted. But that's okay. It gave me an excuse to stop by Bay Laurel Nursery for a practically seedless, pale juice variety of pomegranate called "Eversweet".

This is the booty:

I know it doesn't look like much, but there are 10 types of fruit squished together in those bags: a White Tiger nectarine, Fuyu persimmon, Eversweet pomegranate (composing the majority of naked twigginess in the picture), Janice Seedless Kadota fig, Black Butte blackberry, Ollalieberry, Campbell Early grape, Black Emerald grape, and an O'Neal and Sharpblue blueberry.

You're probably wondering where in the hell I think I have room for all of these trees, bushes, and vines. It's a little thing called espalier, baby. That's right folks, I'm using the ancient European art of growing trees flat against a wall in order to maximize production and space. It was all the rage in the Middle Ages. I predict it will be the hottest new trend in gardening with this back to the land/urban farming movement. Right up there with the chicken.

Speaking of space, the goats are a touch bummed now that they've gotten the kibosh on free roaming throughout the yard during the day (they are in their pen at night). At first, I thought I could just block them from the baby trees with some bamboo trellises and deer netting, but those little buggers proved to be too determined for a taste of fresh buds to let mere plastic and a twig stronger than steel stand in their way. After several rousing games of "chase the goat" (damn, can those girls run fast!), in which I was repeatedly mocked by Ethel who would race over the blueberry barrels and grab a couple bites of leaves every time she passed, I decided to stockade them in a one-hour-to-build-it corral in my neighbor's backyard (more on my yard grabbing/theft to come in a future post). They have , of course, broken out twice, since the fencing is a bit dodgy and weak. But I think I've got it well jerry-rigged for the time being. Gotta keep one step ahead of those guys, otherwise I'll be shopping for fruit trees again next year.

Gardeners' Porn

If you thought I was talking about something other than seed catalogs, you probably wouldn't know a tomato plant from a turnip. While very little may be happening in the garden during the month of January, you can bet most gardeners are checking their mail with a religious piousness trumped only by a devout nun's recitation of Hail Marys, awaiting the much anticipated catalogs to start flowing in. This is the time of year that I will spend a ridiculous number of hours pouring over lists of seeds like an entomologist fingering his collection of specimens. My eyes are always bigger than my growing space, but that never deters me from over-indulging year after year. I don't care. I like to dream big, even if my backyard can't quite contain my tendency to gorge myself silly.

Does the fact that Monsanto controls as much or more than 90 percent of seed genetics strike the fear of god in you? How about the latest news from the research world that GMO corn may be linked to organ failure? If you are like me, shaking in your boots at the thought of what our food supply future looks like, you are probably always on the prowl for a good seed source of open-pollinated, non-hybrid, organic seed. I've got a few places I haunt for a little peace of mind:

1. J.L. Hudson, Seedsman - This is a public access seed bank in La Honda, California. They've been around for 100 years, operating under the belief that the "unrestricted exchange of seeds and knowledge are essential to a free society." Amen! They sell a few organic seeds, but definitely no genetically-engineered ones. However, J.L. Hudson lets us know that over time, traits from GE plants may end up being transmitted to heirloom varieties due to cross-pollination and our entire food system will have the potential of becoming modified. Scary stuff.
   
2. Bountiful Gardens - These guys are a non-profit organization connected to Ecology Action, developers of sustainable mini-farming coined GROW BIOINTENSIVE (TM). They offer a load of open-pollinated, organic veggies, compost crops, medicinal herbs, and rare or odd varieties, like Beetberry, a recently rediscovered 400 year old plant that produces tender greens used in salads along with little sweet berries. I can't wait to try this one.
3. TomatoFest - This is the place to go for a gargantuan selection of organic, heirloom tomato seed. I purchased several cool summer varieties from them last year and had beau coup success with my maters. What I like most about them is that they give a good description of the tomato so you can decide if it will work well in your area.
4. Path to Freedom / Little Homestead in the City - I adore these folks with all of my heart. Concerned with GMO corn and soybeans entering our mainstream food supply, Jules Dervaes decided that he needed to do something drastic: unplug from the system and grow his own food. He and three of his grown children live on a tenth of an acre plot in Pasadena where they grow the majority of their food. These guys are really living their ideology. I read their blog daily for inspiration and think of them first when I need something around the homestead. They have an online store that sells all kinds of groovy urban farmer gadgets and a collection of seeds, of course non-hybrid, GMO-free, and grown using organic principles, saved from their crops. Please support these folks and all of the amazing work that they do to educate and enlighten the general public as to what one can actually do with small urban spaces. And check out their film short, Homegrown Revolution, and the documentary Homegrown by Robert McFalls, which details the lives of their family.

Happy planning to all of you gardeners out there. And for all of you brown thumb folks, scared that you couldn't even grow a weed, I just want you to know that I've killed more plants than a fox has gophers. But I get back up on my horse, dust myself off, and try again. I hope these resources inspire you to keep trying too.

Making Repairs and Making Friends

The wire floor of the chicken coop finally imploded this past week, due to Ethel's species confusion - she has a tendency to eat chicken food and perch herself in the hen house. It's incredibly annoying, but goats will be goats... or chickens, as is the case with Ethel. I replaced the old floor made of .5" x .5" wire mesh with a .5" x 1" thicker gauge mesh, hoping that this will make a sturdier landing for the pain-in-the-butt goats and provide a larger opening for the droppings to fall through. Fruit Loop, my Welsummer, was all in a flap about the construction, squawking up a storm and hopping all over the mesh as I tried to pull it out. Apparently, she doesn't like her house being messed with. A few of the other birds also stood in the way of building, curious to see what was going on. All calmed down when they saw that I wasn't going to destroy their home, just fix it up a bit.

The laying boxes were also in sad shape as they were actually cardboard boxes beginning to decompose. Rather than continuing to replace the cardboard boxes with new ones, a perfectly acceptable option, I chose to build proper laying hutches. I soon discovered that my carpentry skills still leave much to be desired. My cuts were all slightly askew, screws poked through creating hazardous conditions, and since I used all scrap materials, refusing to purchase anything new, I sometimes had to use two boards where I really should have only used one. Well, whatever! They're chickens, right? I'm sure they don't care. Here you can see Sweet Pea checking out the new ghetto fabulous digs:



Speaking of chickens, this weekend I went to a get together for chicken owners in the San Francisco area. I found it through Meetup.com. It was great to share information with locals and meet fellow chicken lovers. If you are in the area and are interested in chickens, join the SF Pet Chicken Meetup Group.

By the way, you can now become a fan of Itty Bitty on Facebook.

Itty Bitty at Kitchen Table Talks

Hey kids, if you're looking for something interesting to do Tuesday, January 19th, come see yours truly in a panel discussion on urban homesteading. The event is part of of CivilEats and 18 Reasons' monthly conversation series on the American food system called Kitchen Table Talks. The event will be held at Viracocha, 998 Valencia St. at 21st St from 6:30-8:30 p.m. Other panel guests include Kevin Bayuk, who serves on the Board of Directors for the Urban Alliance for Sustainability, and teaches with the Urban Permaculture Institute, Urban Permaculture Guild, and UC Berkeley Extension and Earth Activist Training, and Davin Wentworth-Thrasher, co-founder of the Ecology Center of San Francisco. Tickets are available by emailing ktt@civileats.com . But don't wait, space is limited and word on the streets is that the event is close to selling out.