Cheap and simple rat control in an elvish forest

Recently my family and I had the pleasure of visiting the most gorgeous lifestyle block owned by a clever and resourceful couple. It made us long for more land - for more flowers, more vegetables, more space for chickens, and most of all more space for our children to play in. Our urban section is quite small.

However, the drive in and out of town wouldn't work for us. Too much petrol, too much time. We like being able to walk and bike daily to many of our destinations. Plus I don't think we have the energy or time for maintaining a large block.

The current owners are doing forest restoration and pest control in an adjacent patch of beautiful kahikatea forest. It was a magical place. Kahikatea trees thrive in swampy ground. The land around here has been drained for farms now, but the trees' crazy above-ground roots remain. The forest felt a bit elvish and secret, like a magical, mossy, fern-filled world in which the trees should have windows.

I noticed that the couple were using the cleverest and cheapest little bait station for rats that I've ever seen, using old icecream containers. They told me they'd invented them and that they work really, really well.

You can read about how they work and how to make one on my other blog, www.keepingchickensnz.com.

I also noticed these ferns that have made a home of a fencepost - amazing!

Our friends gave us a bag of freshly dug new potatoes for our dinner. Yum... what a nice ending to a lovely afternoon.

Dreaming of HenPower for the elderly

The lovely blog of Melissa at tinyhappy has thrilled me this week with its link to a story about HenPower.

An image from the Telegraph article about HenPower.

Consider a group of elderly people, in a rest home or retirement village. The demands of their own homes and sections have gone or been hugely reduced, spouses have died, and for some of them gaping holes have been left behind.

Enter HenPower. A chicken coop, and some hens or even eggs in an incubator that hatch into delightful little chicks. (I know not the fate of the roosters.) What happens?

It turns out to be tranformative for some of the elderly people. They say things like "‘My life has been a lot fuller since we’ve had these hens. I think I’d be lost without them." The chicken-keeping tasks lead to social interactions, a point of interest, and a sense of purpose and fulfilment. In turn, there are reduced amounts of antipsychotic drugs in rest homes and all sorts of other good outcomes.

The project started with bare-bones funding, but last year they were awarded £164,000 of lottery money to extend the project to different parts of the United Kingdom.

There's also a lovely seven minute video on the project called Hen Men here. In it, one man hasn't seen his family since 1980 and didn't talk to his neighbours until the project began. Now the local chaps get together over their chooks. (If only I could interpret the other 70% of what the men say - the accents are strong! Which is quite fun in itself - my son was gobsmacked.)

It would be fantastic if something like this could get going in New Zealand. Wouldn't it be a lovely thing for the old people to show visiting grandchildren? I can even imagine local kindergartens going on field trips to see the chickens and collect the morning's eggs, and the residents being delighted by seeing the children. Some of the children would probably start wanting their own hens at home...  what a wonderful ripple effect it could have. HenPower indeed.

I also wrote about HenPower on my chickens Facebook page and blog. If you're missing chicken posts here, please visit the other sites, which are where my chicken writings mostly are these days.

New Scientist and the future: old stuff is precious

Yesterday was a happy old day. Quite illegally, I took the children out of school and we charged across the countryside to join my mother on her 77th birthday. We didn't want her to spend it alone, and she seemed pretty chuffed.

The four of us walked down to a cafe, Lynne's Kitchen, that has opened up in a block of shops that was there when I was growing up. I'd huff and puff past it on my ten speed bike on the way to and from school. In those days there were definitely not things like cafes in blocks of shops! There were fish and chip shops, dairies, hairdressers and bike shops - and maybe a butcher, pharmacy, doctor or post office in more major 'blocks'.

The old theme continued. The cafe was staffed by women of a grandmotherly age, who were about the most charming and friendly people you could ever find in such a place. Furthermore, the cups and saucers were beautiful old china. The lady at the till told me that people come from quite some distance just to use the old crockery! (I suspect she is too modest, and her charm, the lovely food and reasonable prices have a lot to do with it too.)

I'm always singing the praises of old, especially when it comes to homeware. I got a thrill recently when New Scientist magazine mentioned that particular love of mine. They predicted that 3D printers will one day give us anything we want, from electronics and building supplies to food and synthetic organs, all at the touch of a button. (Fortunately these things will made out of used materials.)

"We may also come to value old things over the new, as antiques become increasingly rare in a world of super-efficient recycling," the article states. They also predict that even as these changes seem to separate us ever more from nature, we'll want it more and more, and 'rewilding' and 'de-extinction' will become prominent. Hey, that's three loves in one place - old stuff, science and nature! (Although for me the line between science and nature barely exists - science is just about finding out more about nature in an objective manner.)

The customers at Lynne's Kitchen and I are already heading down the route of valuing old things over new. Bring it on, I say - maybe I'll make my fortune with the old things I've collected!

Like a bought one: the mulched garden

I got around to mulching our vegetable garden over the weekend. Last year I was reluctant, having read that my favourite mulch, pea straw, is processed by being sprayed with roundup. I'm not sure if that's true. I know it is for potatoes, though. How dare they?

Maybe this autumn I'll collect enough autumn leaves to mulch the summer garden.

Here are parts of it, before and after the mulching makeover.

"It looks like a bought one," said a friend to me once after having spread pea straw on her garden.

Last year I mulched just one garden section, and when the drought got bad it was the only place the tomatoes kept growing healthily. The soil underneath was friable and moist. Underneath other tomato plants it resembled a concrete pan, which the water ran off when I hosed. (That unpleasant condition is called hydrophobicity, the friend's husband informed me.) The plants died.

So now I am a committed mulcher.

Does anyone have other ideas for summer vegetable garden mulch?

Flowering phacelia: a great plant for beneficial insects
that sprouts and grows at any time of year. The bees adore it.

Happiness, excitement, health... it's all relative

What a busy time we had near the end of last week! It taught me a lesson or two.

On Thursday there was a school gala and Anna had to dress up as a cowgirl. She got to sing and dance in front of a crowd - bliss!

She missed her musical theatre class the following evening in order to attend a Halloween party.

A New Zealand Jack-'o-lantern that I carved.
Pumpkins aren't in season here, but a grapefruit is a fine substitute.

On Saturday we went to the Waikato Show - a fair/agricultural and pastoral day rolled into one. Miniature horses bowed and did various tricks on command, and a dog walked a high wire. I squirmed, noticing the trainer's long riding crop close to the horses at all times, and their mouths working against the tight bit. Anna was entranced, though.

We saw baby goats, alpacas, rabbits, a turkey (their snoods are wild!) and of course spent plenty of time in the poultry shed. Anna fell slightly in love with a grey rabbit with fur that felt like velvet, and completely in love with a baby chick, which she begged to be allowed to take home. Please Mama, please Mama.

Then all of a sudden she wanted to leave. "It's not very exciting," she said, as we walked past the bouncy castle, pony rides, wood chopping and sheep-shearing show. Now, it might have been due to me spending a bit too long with the poultry, but I think she has so much stimulating stuff in her life that it takes a lot for something to stand out. Too much.

I could hardly tear myself away from this
magnificent Black Orpington rooster.

I had the opposite experience. During the early hours of Friday I began a two-day migraine (they come less frequently now, but last longer) on top of a very sore back, associated unhappy intestines, a gum infection and a sore throat. I don't think I've ever had as many things wrong with me at once, and I was miserable. By Saturday only the head remained as a big problem, and even that was waning. Suddenly I realised that a migraine alone was quite manageable compared to four other illnesses at the same time! I felt quite liberated.

I even photographed the freshly leaved oak trees lining the park where Jack was playing cricket in sheer joy. The world seemed such a beautiful place.

It's all relative, isn't it?

Grow your own tomato plants - growing, selling, planting

It's Labour weekend this weekend, the traditional time for New Zealanders to plant out their tomato plants.

This brings me great relief, because I raised about 60 tomato plants this year - a few for us, but most to sell to raise funds for our local environment society. It was a lot of work, but fun. The seeds were sown in late August, and for a month or so the pots were brought in every night into the warmth, then put outside again each morning. Then the plants had to be repotted as they grew bigger.

My home garden centre.

May I say how fantastic they were? I checked our local garden centre to figure out how much to charge, and we came up with a price that was half theirs, but our plants were twice as good.

What a relief it was to load them into the car yesterday for the market we sold them at. I helped set up the stall, but the selling was done by some faithful supporters, and we raised a bit of cash. Anna came along too, and together we happily inhaled the scent of tomato leaves as we drove there.

A quick aside to mention what tomatoes we're growing: for the market it was Gardener's Delight, a cherry tomato ("sweet grape-like trusses," says the blurb). We kept a couple of them. We've also got Tomaccio, at a mere $5 for just two seeds, but I tasted a friend's last summer, and with the memory of raisin-like sweetness on my taste buds there was no stopping me. Yes, both seeds sprouted and the plants are flowering. Plus we've got another new cultivar for us, Baxter's early bush cherry - tomatoes by Christmas, anyone? - and an old heritage favourite, Brandywine - for sheer flavour power, as the sales blurb goes.

I wrote out an information sheet with tomato-growing tips on it for our tomato purchasers. Maybe the tips are of interest to you? Here they are:

·        Make sure your tomato pot is well watered at least 30 minutes before planting.

·        It’s good to bury the first few centimetres of stem into the soil. When you do this, the tiny hairs on the stem turn into roots, so you get more roots to absorb moisture and nutrients.

·        Mix plenty of compost into the planting hole, and maybe some sheep pellets.

·        Place a tall stake or two next to the plant (about 20 cm away from the stem) at planting time.  As the plant grows tall, tie it to the stake(s) to support it. Cut old clothes and rags into strips to make soft, free plant ties.

·        After planting, water well. When the soil is very moist (ideally after a good rain fall), cover the soil around the plant with mulch (e.g. pea straw, old leaves, or whatever you can get your hands on) and immediately water the mulch so it doesn’t blow away. Mulching keeps the soil and plant much healthier, especially when the weather gets very hot later in the season.

·       Many gardeners pinch off some of the lateral branches. These are the ones that grow out of the plant at about 45 degrees. The emerge in the right angles formed by the stem and a branch that grows straight out. There are different schools of thought on this – you could Google it! But if you let all the branches grow, you’ll need a lot of stakes.

Our winter garden, much of it ready to be farewelled now
that Labour weekend is upon us. The photo is framed by that
quintessential kiwi backyard accessory, the rotary clothesline.
It's utterly practical, if space allows.

Have a lovely Labour weekend, in and out of the garden!

Gourmet food, virtually for free

If you heard me groaning in pleasure in our back garden the other day, it was nothing untoward. I was just tasting the first strawberry of the season.

It was ugly, yes, and small, but oh, the flavour. I'm not sure how the commercial growers manage to transform strawberries into comparative bags of red water.

We have a video of Jack, just turned two, having just eaten the first strawberry from the garden in the first year we lived in this house. He starts running in circles around the back lawn (a barren wasteland compared to the garden jungle it is now), getting faster and faster, while his red-juiced mouth cries 'Stwawwwwberry! Stwawwwwberry!' as all the nerves running from his taste buds to his brain explode with flavour fireworks.

This year, in between the strawberry rows (yes! I planted actual rows of something!), are a new favourite of mine, radishes. Until I tried eating them with butter and salt, I thought I didn't like them. Mostly I eat them with olive oil and salt now, or chopped up in a salad. And they are so fast and easy to grow! Every radish seed sprouts, which is most certainly not a general rule in our garden, and in a month or so there are big pink radishes ready to eat. Gourmet food virtually for free ($3.75 for 250 seeds).

These are some of the flavours that have been coming out of our spring garden, along with herbs, spring onions, gourmet lettuces and parsnips, the latter eaten roasted - so very, very good. Broad beans are also there for the first time, although nothing interesting has come from them yet. I'm going to try to overcome that with this recipe from Nadia Lim.

The other sensation that hits me each spring is the smells. Each year I remember that the smells change so much with this season. Citrus blossom makes me pause beside our house. Old-fashioned roses yank me to a standstill as I walk along the road. Oh, the smells.

A honey bee visits our orange tree.

The orange tree is thick with blossom, despite
being pruned severely over winter.

Spring is good.

Farewell to a feathered friend

Our magnificent black Orpington died last weekend. She was a heap of beautiful glossy black feathers, her body pushed out of the nest box by brown shavers who desperately wanted the space to lay their eggs.

No one saw that hen without commenting on how big she was. Only a week earlier my brother couldn't tear his eyes away when he visited. "That is a BIG chicken," he said. She was the size of a smallish dog, and probably weighed 4-5 kg.

She was one of our first batch of chickens, remaining behind when I sold her one of sisters for being too broody and the other for being too mean. She's had two batches of new flockmates since then, all brown shavers (Boring! Utilitarian! But oh, the eggs, the eggs.) The second lot she was mother to, and the third lot grandmother. I kid you not - that's how she behaved. I wrote the story of how she cared for her dearest daughter last year in this post, The old beauty lays again.

With her best pal.

The shock of her sisters and daughters leaving sent her into the nest box: it was her retreat during rough times. And there she went to die.

Why did she die? She was five and a half years old. Chickens of traditional breeds can live for 12 years, and I was planning on her being a well-aged beauty. Yet she hadn't laid one of her distinctive creamy, symmetrically oval eggs since last summer, in spite of coming into breeding condition, so I thought something might be wrong. I was about to worm her, for the first time ever, in case that was the problem. But her plumage was stunning and her comb red and erect, so she wasn't particularly ill.

She did have a swollen 'bumblefoot' again - it had troubled her for a couple of years, on and off. Maybe. Maybe.

I was away for the weekend, by the way, and a neighbour was caring for them. He hadn't realised she was dead!

Anna and I cried a bit, and stroked her still-stunning feathers. Then we plucked the bits of her that weren't wet and maggoty. Her plumes will go to a weaver I met a couple of weeks ago. Chicken feathers are some of the best for beginner weavers of Maori cloaks to use, apparently. When she sees these ones, her eyes will gleam. Never were there more beautiful chicken feathers.

Her inner 'insulating' feathers.

In a plastic bag ready for the weaver.

With sadness I dug a hole in the garden for her burial, and planted some peony poppy plants on top. She'll be pushing up poppies instead of daisies, or however the saying goes.

Peony poppies. The image and
the seeds I bought are from
Kings Seeds.

A jolt from the Dalai Lama

I love this quote. I'm sure I've put it on this blog before, but I just spotted it among my files and it's been so long since I read it that my eyes sprang open wide and I got a bit of a jolt.

The Dalai Lama, when asked what surprised him most about humanity, answered,

 “Man. Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, then dies having never really lived.”

Do you like it too?

Why Buddhists let possums eat bird eggs

As I've written before, I went on a Buddhist meditation retreat in Easter this year. It was held in a beautiful valley lined with native bush, north-west of Auckland.

The Vipassana meditation centre north of Auckland, NZ.

Had I not been trained during my 10 days there to be equanimous about everything - "This too shall pass" - I would have got more angry at the end. You see, Buddhist won't-kill policy means that they let the possums and rats breed and eat unhindered. Possums wandered around the buildings after dark. "We don't bother them, and they don't bother us," I was told.

Most of the nesting attempts of forest birds in New Zealand end in the eggs being eaten by rats and possums. Considering the setting of the place, birdsong was notably quiet. The exception was the incredible chorus of morepork at night. I suppose carnivorous nocturnal owls are not only awake to see egg-hungry possums, but able to defend their nests. Most forest birds are defenseless at night.

My solution - an instant-kill Timms trap. I caught this possum
near our house last weekend. I'm sure I heard tuis sighing with relief.

When Buddha made the don't-kill call 2500 years ago, humans hadn't brought possums and rats to New Zealand. Today they (and the stoats) have decimated our stunning birdlife, which isn't equipped to deal with such predators.

What do you think? Should the Buddhists exercise their moral muscles, or remain committed to the old teachings?

Postscript: Buddhism is a wise and lovely approach to life and has helped me hugely. I just think this unfortunate conundrum is worth discussing.

Plants, or gruesome news?

As I ate breakfast this morning, I contemplated the little forest of vegetable seedlings on our dining room floor. I sowed the seeds about five weeks ago. Each night we tenderly carry them inside out of the cold, and each morning they go out into the sunshine of our front porch. They are thriving, and the tomato plants have that unique ripe tomato smell.

Some of the tomato plants will be sold
- we're not planting out that many plants!

What else am I to think about as I eat my first daily meal? We cancelled the newspaper. The ipad could provide me with a world's worth of terrorist beheadings, priests molesting children and political scandals. To me, these things are a bit like junk food and malicious gossip - juicy and inviting to gorge on, but completely unhelpful to a calm and happy life. (Watching TV may also come to mind, but it's thankfully it's not in the house.)

I could talk to my children. This morning, however, after almost an hour of lunch and breakfast making, calming arguments (calming is the wrong word - I yelled 'Cut it OUT!') and requests for things I don't have the energy for, I wanted an escape while I ate. I'm a productive and functional mother on school mornings, but not a particularly warm-hearted or patient one.

It's amazing how different strains of tomatoes have such different leaves, artichokes are already furry when still tiny, and basil leaves are so tidy and compact when young.

Baby basil leaves almost look like cartoon leaves!

I do love reading selected blogs, and would have done so this morning except I was already up to date. My current favourites are Soulemama for her daily dose of calm and creative inspiration, Ben Hewitt for his amazing writing and unconventional thinking, and tinyhappy for her little posts that so nicely represent her own handmade New Zealand style. Homegrown Kitchen also gives me a nice healthy foody buzz.

These lovely people, and my baby plants, leave me in a much better place than beheaded journalists do.

Let there be flowers

Every spring I am stunned at the beauty of flowering bulbs, and swear I'll plant some in autumn. Every autumn I forget. Thank goodness for the 'instant tulip' garden on sale at The Warehouse two or three weeks ago. I carefully transplanted the almost-flowering tulips into an old planter, and look what appeared.

They make us smile every time we step in or out of the front door. But truly, our entrance way is a bit less beautiful when you see the wide angle shot.

We also have blossom trees, which will give us summer fruit. The white blossoms are on our two plum trees (a red and stunningly flavoured Hawera, and a yellow and almost nectarine-like Luisa) and a pink-flowered miniature peach, which strangely is taller than me. After a week of high winds and rain - just when we need the bees most! - today has given us enough stillness and sunshine to allow those most vital insects to come. I couldn't see any on the blossom when I checked, but hopefully they've visited and done their good work.

We love summer fruit, and plums grow very well in Hamilton.

When I get our 2015 calendar, I'll be writing 'bulb time' on the April page in big capital letters.