Up the slide, down the slide
Jun. 22nd, 2023 02:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
apocalypseinsuranceI hovered a moment at the top last night, during solstice. I planted more tomatoes -- there are 220 in the upper field, the wood field, now. The day before that I think, I made a deep water culture hydroponics installation on my deck which took 10 more tomatoes, and a few days before that I'd done the 14 pots on the side of the house to bring my potted tomato total to 41 or 42. I have some more to put in but not many -- plug some holes left by the frost on the 18th or whenever that was, fill in a couple edges with the extra-early reds.
I guess I plant in the evenings now. I used to do these things in the morning but mornings are most often difficult now so the evening feels like my stolen time. The tomatoes from earlier plantings are greening up well, and my gaspe corn is maybe 3" tall.
Also my dinner came from here, partly: duck-egg pasta, tossed with blanched lamb's quarters, some feta cheese, and some self-canned tomato sauce all with a squeeze of lime. Half spanakopita, and it made a great pasta salad cold for lunch today.
It's astonishing to see the difference in my indoor hydroponics/aerogarden and my outdoor pots. The indoor plants are a foot tall and putting out flower buds; the outdoor ones are maybe 6-7" tall. Very curious to see whether the outdoor hydroponics split the difference, that's pretty much why I did it. It would also be super fun to make some hydroponics boxes out of marine plywood and caulk instead of plastic bins. They'd want to be raised slightly off the deck so they didn't rot it, or maybe that volume of water would be better against the south side of the house. Maybe in a greenhouse there even...
My house is messy and dirty but I'm picking away at cleaning up after the plumbing thing still.
Oh, and also--
I'm getting a puppy. She's 10 months old, a maremma/caucasian shepherd cross with both parents in a working pack at 100 mile. Like Thea, she was got to be a sheep guardian. Like Thea, she is flunking out of guardianship at the sheep farm because she keeps escaping the fence and going up to the house to get people attention.
Guardian dogs are famous for escaping fences to wander -- one pyrenees the next town over escapes the fence to guard two herds of cows at once over a total of about 400 acres. I want my dogs to guard my property, but my house is the epicenter of the guarding area and I don't want it fenced off from the dogs, so a dog with a strong homing sense is much better for me than one that shows wandering tendencies. A very people-oriented dog is likely to be more easily trainable, too, insofar as one trains guardian dogs (only half a joke; they can only be trained to redirect somewhat, and do things within their character). Plus, a lot of guardian breeds are from lines that don't actively guard, especially caucasian shepherd/ovcharkas who are often bred either to fight and be aggressive, or just to be huge, at the expense of everything else. It's good to know her parents were both working dogs.
Even though she's 10months and not freshly weaned, this will take a lot of work. Caucasians are a handful, they're a more headstrong breed than maremmas generally. She hasn't been trained to poultry yet, though I suspect Thea will do an excellent job mentoring her there. She's already spayed, thank goodness. She's housebroken. But I'm most worried about introductions. We'll see how it goes. I need to do some reading, I'm not even sure if it's better to introduce her to both at once or one at a time. I'm concerned but also very curious - Avallu is a lover of tiny baby things for the most part, and he's a good friend to Hazard the cat. Thea is more friendly to people but I'm not sure how she'll feel about an actual dog in her domain. She definitely disciplines Avallu when he does something she doesn't approve of. I'm prepared for it to take 6 months of separation and management before they are ok being left alone together but I sure hope it takes less time than that.
Her name may or not be Solstice, since that's the day I knew I was getting her.
So that's big news.
I guess I plant in the evenings now. I used to do these things in the morning but mornings are most often difficult now so the evening feels like my stolen time. The tomatoes from earlier plantings are greening up well, and my gaspe corn is maybe 3" tall.
Also my dinner came from here, partly: duck-egg pasta, tossed with blanched lamb's quarters, some feta cheese, and some self-canned tomato sauce all with a squeeze of lime. Half spanakopita, and it made a great pasta salad cold for lunch today.
It's astonishing to see the difference in my indoor hydroponics/aerogarden and my outdoor pots. The indoor plants are a foot tall and putting out flower buds; the outdoor ones are maybe 6-7" tall. Very curious to see whether the outdoor hydroponics split the difference, that's pretty much why I did it. It would also be super fun to make some hydroponics boxes out of marine plywood and caulk instead of plastic bins. They'd want to be raised slightly off the deck so they didn't rot it, or maybe that volume of water would be better against the south side of the house. Maybe in a greenhouse there even...
My house is messy and dirty but I'm picking away at cleaning up after the plumbing thing still.
Oh, and also--
I'm getting a puppy. She's 10 months old, a maremma/caucasian shepherd cross with both parents in a working pack at 100 mile. Like Thea, she was got to be a sheep guardian. Like Thea, she is flunking out of guardianship at the sheep farm because she keeps escaping the fence and going up to the house to get people attention.
Guardian dogs are famous for escaping fences to wander -- one pyrenees the next town over escapes the fence to guard two herds of cows at once over a total of about 400 acres. I want my dogs to guard my property, but my house is the epicenter of the guarding area and I don't want it fenced off from the dogs, so a dog with a strong homing sense is much better for me than one that shows wandering tendencies. A very people-oriented dog is likely to be more easily trainable, too, insofar as one trains guardian dogs (only half a joke; they can only be trained to redirect somewhat, and do things within their character). Plus, a lot of guardian breeds are from lines that don't actively guard, especially caucasian shepherd/ovcharkas who are often bred either to fight and be aggressive, or just to be huge, at the expense of everything else. It's good to know her parents were both working dogs.
Even though she's 10months and not freshly weaned, this will take a lot of work. Caucasians are a handful, they're a more headstrong breed than maremmas generally. She hasn't been trained to poultry yet, though I suspect Thea will do an excellent job mentoring her there. She's already spayed, thank goodness. She's housebroken. But I'm most worried about introductions. We'll see how it goes. I need to do some reading, I'm not even sure if it's better to introduce her to both at once or one at a time. I'm concerned but also very curious - Avallu is a lover of tiny baby things for the most part, and he's a good friend to Hazard the cat. Thea is more friendly to people but I'm not sure how she'll feel about an actual dog in her domain. She definitely disciplines Avallu when he does something she doesn't approve of. I'm prepared for it to take 6 months of separation and management before they are ok being left alone together but I sure hope it takes less time than that.
Her name may or not be Solstice, since that's the day I knew I was getting her.
So that's big news.
