Category Archives: Food

May 2012 Newsletter

This past month we transitioned from clearing out and processing trees to actually breaking ground on our major projects.  Just today we finished up grading the foundation for the straw bale duplex.  Yesterday, we had the excavator dig out as much of the root cellar as he was able to and then graded the shed/workshop site.  That’s been the major hold up on our projects, and with that completed we’ll be splitting up somewhat and focusing on specific projects.

John and Tony are working on the shed/workshop/root cellar, and recently refined their roof plans.  They’ve already built a few roof trusses and we received the lumber to do the rest of them yesterday.  The root cellar is going to need quite a bit more digging, but they may wait until they get the shed roof up to do that.

Jesse is tasked with the duplex, although I’ll be helping him with the planning.  Now that the foundation is graded we’ll start in on building the timberframe.  Once it’s protected with the basic frame and roof we’ll start on the rubble trench, stem wall, and then the earthen floor.

I’ll be heading up the work on the common house and the rainwater catchment system and cistern.  Over the last several weeks we’ve put in a little less than half of the interior walls using rammed straw lightly coated with clay.  Because the forms won’t fit over things like light switches, outlets, and plumbing that sticks out of the wall we’re using cob to fill in around those spots.  We’re also using cob at the top of the walls since there’s no space to ram the straw down if you put the forms all the way to the top.  So far it seems to be working well.

We’re reclaiming some broken chunks of concrete (AKA urbanite) from an old patio that was being ripped out.  We’ll use that for the retaining wall on the cistern and whatever is left over we’ll use in the stem wall in the duplex.

We’ve also done some work on John’s cabin.  We’ve cobbed in the open areas in the roof except for a spot in the back where he’s putting in a flue for a small rocket stove.  We’ve also put the first coat of earthen plaster on the roof bales and started on the second coat of plaster, or infill coat, on the lower part of the cabin.

Clay is a hugely fundamental part of our building methods here, and so any innovation in our sifting technique that speeds it up or makes it easier help greatly.  We’ve begun layering the different sifting screens and placing wheelbarrows underneath them.  This means less bending and shoveling, and has increased our sifting rate by probably 33% or so.

Workshops

I applaud the people who bravely attended the humanure workshop.  It went well and we’ll post the video from the workshop when we have time to edit it together.  The next workshop will be the Primitive Skills Primer on June 16 taught by Justin McClain.

 Garden

So far all we’ve harvested from the garden has been lettuce and peas, although that should be changing in the near future.  Our squash plants have taken off and the tomatoes and potatoes are not far behind.  With the help of  Bobbie and Janis we’ve managed to stay on top of the weeds this year.  Also, we’ve discovered that s spray of just water and a small amount of Dr. Bronner’s soap will kill squash bugs.  It looks to be an epic year for squash, and with the dehydrator cooking away we should be able to preserve huge amounts of it when the time comes.

Unfortunately for the garden we haven’t gotten much rain in the last month, although that has certainly helped with our construction plans.  We’ve been watering sporadically the few plants that need it from our rainwater barrels by the solar shower, but unless the drought breaks soon we may be forced to truck in some city water.

Fundraiser

We’ve raised $4,700 towards our fundraising goal of $8,000!  Thank you to everyone who has contributed!

Photos

We’ve got more pictures posted in our photo gallery for those who are interested.

 

 

Counter-Camping Frisbee Fun

The Yard

What a wonderful Memorial weekend it was.  While the typical American was camping, boating, floating, and/or backyard BBQing, We decided to sneak into the mainstream for a day of icy cold drinks, running water, air conditioning and  television.  A friend of ours was out of town for the weekend, so we “camped” at his place for Memorial Day.

The weatherman said it would rain that day, but the clouds parted especially for our retreat.  The sun shined so bright that I’m still feeling it!  The day began early in the morning setting up the outdoor kitchen, Frisbee golf baskets, and determining the Ultimate Frisbee zones and hazards.  There were random games of  Frisbee Golf and Ultimate separated by good food and meditation.  Some went inside the to absorb the air conditioning and Lord Of the Rings, some sat to relax by the lake.

Memorial Day 2012 Tony and the bounty.

Janice, Tony, and I went fishing.   It started a little slow at first, until Tony brought out some magical plastic worms that the fish seemed to crave.  We only kept a fraction of the fish we caught, but it was just enough for dinner.   Janice caught the  biggest bass of the day and Bobbie cooked them all to perfection.   The mood was playful and relaxed.  Our bellies were full.  Some of us were even napping.    What a great day.

Zones and Hazards...not the best place for Ultimate

Paul suggested we have another Ultimate Frisbee game.  The competitive spirit began flowing again…I could feel it.  The sun was down, everyone cooled off and rested. This was going to be an epic game, I imagined.  The game was indeed epic, a shutout even.  The rematch was turning out to be more of the same merciless torture.  Suddenly I smashed my thigh into a tree stump hazard.  I wanted to ugly cry, it hurt so bad.  I was out for the game and the rest of the week as it turned out.   Our team was now outnumbered, and minutes later we had another injury.   Tao twisted his knee keeping him out for the game as well.  We were riddled with bad karma.  It wasn’t looking good for Paul either.  He was our last man standing facing a determined team of three.  Luckily, Janice mercifully volunteered to change teams.  She certainly picked up the slack from Tao and I.   It was another epic win!

Chicken of the Woods

We found this nice sized Chicken of the Woods mushroom(Laetiporus sulphureus) on a walk through the woods today. Supposedly they have a texture like chicken, we’ll cook it up tomorrow and see.

This is the first chicken we’ve found out here. We inoculated several logs with this fungus, but it hasn’t produced so far. One of our newly buried mushroom logs just started producing oyster mushrooms, which is interesting since we inoculated it with shiitake fungus. We’ll get it worked out one of these days.

Eastern Tent Catepillars

We’ve pulled a dozen or more of these eastern tent caterpillars off our fruit trees.  They’re around every year  mainly in the spring and they’re easy to spot once you know the kind of damage they do to the leaves.  They seem to prefer the apple trees, but I did find a few on peaches and plums as well.

I’m hoping they won’t be too big of an issue once the trees get larger and we plant more of them, for now hand-picking them is no problem.  We’re just squishing them and leaving them for the birds, but when we get poultry again we’ll turn them into eggs.

Lumberjacking

It’s not fun to cut down trees, for the trees or for us.  No one likes using a tool as noisy, smelly, and dangerous as a chainsaw, but this last month has been packed with tree felling and processing. We’re clearing out our construction sites for this year, and turning the trees into firewood, mushroom logs, and we’ll be milling some of the trunks into lumber.

We’re also culling some cedars, trimming them up, and peeling them for use as posts in the shed and strawbale duplex.  They’re rot resistant, beautiful, and plentiful here.

In exchange for harvesting some trees we’re taking on the responsibility of protecting the other trees on the property and providing for their survival.

 

Workshops Posted

Update: The date for the Primitive Skills Primer is actually June 16, NOT June 19.

We’ve finally settled on the workshops and the dates that we’ll be holding them this year.  We chose these based on how much experience and success we’d had with each of these topics.

All of the workshops are free, but we do ask that you register ahead of time so we know how many people are coming.  We doubt that we will have too many, but you never know.

We’ll be hanging flyers around the area, specifically in Columbia.  Although if anyone wants to print some out and hang them around their areas we can either give you some or you can print your own from this pdf.

Looking forward to seeing some of you there!

 

Summer Kitchen

Also thanks to the efforts of the new volunteers, we’ve now got the kitchen moved out onto the porch.  The new layout gives a lot of space for prep, serving, and dishes.  The dishes are especially easier since you don’t have to go far to fill up the water container or dump the dirty water.

Everything will hopefully stay considerably drier and cleaner under the porch than it was under the tarp in the campground.  Gusts of wind still stir up the dust from time to time.

Hopefully when we move the kitchen in this winter it’ll be the last time we have to go through the ordeal of moving it all.  Hopefully…

Foraging for Breakfast

Mallard Duck Eggs

 

After a long weekend of cleaning barns and making compost piles, I woke up with a craving for eggs.  Luckily we introduced 4 Mallard ducks into Mom’s pond a few years back.  4 ducks soon turned into 50, then their numbers began to shrink gradually through attrition (and the families of fox that moved in).   These days we try to keep the population around 15.  With 8 ducks producing eggs, there are plenty to go around if you can find them before the Great Pyrenees do.

Pea and Bean Trellis

While Jesse and John finished hauling alpaca manure from Jesse’s mom’s farm to a compost bin here at Maya Creek, I was busy working in the garden again today.  I’ve been trying to find a simple trellis design that’s cheap and easy to clean up at the end of the season.  I found a guy who used fence stakes and fencing wire and then weaved bamboo between the wires, which held the bamboo pieces in place.

We don’t have bamboo, right now anyway, and I wanted to avoid getting out fencing wire and stretching taught and then taking it down next year.  Instead, I put 3 fence stakes in and used 5 strands of sisal string.  Then I wove different kinds of branches I had laying around or cut from places that needed it on the driveway.  In between the branches I wove pieces of jerusalem artichoke stalk from last year, it kind of looks like bamboo but isn’t as strong.

Since the branches reached well above the top string and the branches wanted to slide along the length of the string I put another string across the top wrapping it around each branch.  That really seemed to give it a lot more stability.  My plan is to leave the pea vines on when they die, then plant the pole beans, and once they’re done I’ll cut the strands and roll everything up, string, branches, and vines.  Then I’ll bury that in the bottom of a garden bed as a type of hugelkultur.

Maya Creek TV: Improving Our Raised Garden Beds

It’s March 9, 2012 and we took advantage of the beautiful sunny day to improve some of our raised beds in the garden. We raked off the mulch covering, yanked out all the weeds and put them in the middle of the beds, then dumped alpaca manure on top. The idea is that the weeds and manure will compost in place, heating up the soil, and increasing the fertility. We are also broadforking the beds, which means using a broadfork to loosen up the clay subsoil. This allows the soil to hold more water and makes it easier for the vegetable roots to access the nutrients in the clay as well. Finally, we put some more straw mulch on top to keep the beds moist and facilitate the composting process.