Drex’s Adventure

Photo by Sue Weaver
Last night, Drex wound up on the wrong side of the fence.

Last night, my boy Drex (one of Bon Bon’s triplets) came galloping to the dairy-goat barn with a downcast expression on his face.

“It’s embarrassing,” he muttered.

“What is?” I asked him.

This is what he told me:

The sheep and goats were down by the big brush pile nibbling bushes when Bon Bon decided she’d like to go next door. She leapt over the woven-wire fence (Bon Bon jumps like a deer) and Drex and Simka (my cute, brown daughter from Big Mama) shimmied under it to join her.

When Mom called the goats to come eat, Bon Bon and my kids were gone. She walked toward the road and spied them on the other side of the fence. Then she ran and got Dad. Mom and Dad don’t want us over there–ever.

They scooped some yummy goat feed into a pail and took it to where the goats were standing by the fence. They tried to figure out how the goats got out because the fence wasn’t down. They jiggled the feed. Bon Bon stuck her ears out like the Flying Nun. She wanted the feed but not enough to come and get it. Finally, Mom and Dad climbed over the fence and tried to lure them up the hill to the road. They had to walk through a big stand of blackberry canes and the goats wouldn’t come.

Bon Bon heaved a huge sigh, turned and sailed over the woven wire fence like a jumping horse with her neck stretched out and her legs tucked neat as could be. She strolled up the hill without a backward glance. Drex said he called and called his mom and tried to follow by pushing back under the fence. It wouldn’t budge. What to do!

So Mom climbed back over the fence. Dad hoisted Drex as high as he could. Drex is a year old, so he’s a pretty big goat. Dad huffed and grumbled and somehow flung Drex’s front parts over the fence. Mom grabbed Drex’s front legs and Dad boosted his butt. Drex said he screamed like a girl. They lifted him across, but he didn’t put his landing gear down and collapsed in a heap on the ground. He screamed again, scrambled to his feet, and lit out for the dairy goat barn to find his mom and sisters.

About the time he finished his story we heard another anguished scream. That was Simka getting boosted over the fence. Uzzi and I shook our heads.

There’s a saying, “If you can throw a pail full of water through a fence, goats get through it, too.” If you know goats, you’ll believe it.

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Tags dairy goats, goats, Martok, Sue Weaver

Urban Farming

Milagro on Parade

Photo by Audrey Pavia

Milagro got dressed up for the Norco Horseweek Parade.

Every year in my town of Norco, Calif., we celebrate Horseweek. This is a week of fun equine events, kicked off by a Saturday-morning parade. Unlike the other parades held in Norco throughout the year, this one features only horses. Horses being ridden, horses being led, horses pulling carts. It’s all about horses.

What’s great about this parade is that there are no motorized vehicles or marching bands, so it’s a lot less stressful for the horses. Years ago, I made this event Milagro’s first parade. He was fairly calm and seemed to enjoy walking down the main drag in town, with little kids waving at him from the curb.

Last Saturday, we walked in this parade once again, only this time, we had a costume. We were part of Moonshadow Farms exhibit, a boarding stable down the street from me that is owned by my friends Randy and Cathey. Because the theme of the parade was “Where City Meets Country,” we decided to dress our horses up “city,” while we, the riders, dressed “country.”

Lisa, my friend and trainer, created the horses’ costumes, which consisted of blue glitter-covered derbies for the geldings and pink glitter-covered derbies for the mares and cardboard bowties covered with little cut-outs of cowboy boots, cacti and saddles.

On the morning of the parade, I brought Milagro down to Moonshadow, where all the horses were being adorned with their garb. He stood patiently as I fitted the shimmering derby to his head, cutting out the sides to make room for his ears. He didn’t even flinch when I attached the giant bowtie to his breast collar. One of the other horses wanted nothing to do with this stuff, so I was particularly proud of my boy for being so tolerant.

After I finished dressing him up, I stood back and admired my work. I couldn’t help but notice that he looked a bit humiliated. I am anthropomorphizing? Perhaps. But he really did look embarrassed.

When the group of us walked down the parade route, the boys in their blue hats and the girls in their pink, Milagro was strangely relaxed. He usually gets a little jacked up at parades—sometimes very jacked up if there are marching bands and cars honking. But this time, he was so calm I started to wonder if he was feeling all right.

Of course, he wasn’t sick, just calm. It did occur to me that he was too humilated by his costume to act up. After all, how cool would it look if he was dancing and prancing around with that dumb hat on his head and his giant bowtie flopping around? He probably just decided to blend into the background. If he didn’t call attention to himself, then maybe no one would see how silly he looked.

OK, that’s probably not what was going on either, but it sure is fun to pretend.

EPA Requires Spill-prevention Plan

Post author By Dani Yokhna
Post date April 22, 2011
No Comments on EPA Requires Spill-prevention Plan

Courtesy Hemera/Thinkstock
Farmers who store petroleum products to fuel their tractors and for other means must have a spill-prevention plan in place by November.

The start of a new season is a good time to reassess your farm safety plan, and now there’s a new regulation farmers will have to follow. Farmers storing more than 1,320 gallons of fuel or other petroleum products on their farms soon will need a written plan for preventing and handling spills, according to amendments to the EPA’s Spill Prevention, Control and Countermeasure regulation, taking effect Nov. 10, 2011.

“The SPCC’s basic intent is to make sure growers who store large amounts of these products are putting in place measures that will protect the area around their properties, specifically groundwater and surface water,” says Fred Whitford, coordinator of Purdue Pesticide Programs, who co-authored “Aboveground Petroleum Tanks: A Pictorial Guide,” providing general information about the SPCC and fuel and oil storage. “With this regulation, EPA is saying that we need to be thinking about fuel storage as much as pesticide and fertilizer storage. It doesn’t take much oil or gas to pollute water.”

Under the new amendments, only petroleum products stored in stationary tanks and containers of at least 55 gallons are counted toward the regulated total. Gasoline, diesel fuel and oil in tractors, trucks and other vehicular machinery are exempt.

Farmers will not be required to write a spill-prevention plan if their more than 1,320 gallons of petroleum products are stored on separate farms, so long as no single farm stores the regulated 55-gallon minimum, Whitford says.

The spill-prevention plan should include information such as how petroleum products are stored, the location of storage units, the farm’s topography and steps to be taken in the event of a spill. The document is kept on the farm; the EPA does not receive a copy.

“If EPA has to respond to a spill on your farm, they will ask for this plan,” Whitford says. “Regulatory enforcement likely would occur only if an EPA representative visited a farm on an unrelated matter.”

Find a template for writing a spill-prevention plan on the EPA’s website .

The federal Spill Prevention, Control and Countermeasure regulation was adopted in 1974. It has been amended over the years.

Tags EPA, farmers, oil

Urban Farming

Azalea Prime

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Photo by Rick Gush

Hopefully, I’ll be able to get my own potted azaleas to grow as big as this beauty.

I’m crazy about azaleas and rhododendrons, so I’m particularly appreciative of the Rapallo municipal gardening department this time of year. They’ve scattered huge potted azalea and rhododendron plants throughout the city center this week, and most of these monsters are spectacular specimens.

Red and pink dominate and most of the plants are evergreens, but they do have a few big pots of the deciduous Exbury azaleas with orange and yellow flowers. It’s a pretty good show and most of these venerable explosions of color tower over the pedestrian traffic passing below. This is about time for azalea shows in the States, too, so I urge you all to take advantage and visit local shows. Azaleas and rhododendrons are lush bloomers and can make a landscape seem unreal.

The Rapallo gardeners keep all their big potted azalea and rhododendron plants in a nice semi-shaded nursery area. They tell me they do a heavy root pruning every two or three years, during which they remove a slice of the roots and soil and replace that with new dirt. They also told me they feed the plants with an acidic liquid fertilizer every month. I think not feeding potted azaleas regularly is the most common mistake people make with this plant.

The next most common mistake, aside from forgetting to water, is over-zealous repotting in which the root ball is buried a bit deeper. Azaleas like to have their roots at the surface, and can suffocate if buried even an inch too deep.

I worked in a wholesale azalea-production nursery when I first started in the nursery business. I worked for a Japanese grower in California, and he told me, as have several other prominent Japanese nurserymen in California, that he learned to grow and propagate azaleas while interred in the Japanese camps in Idaho during World War II. I started working at the azalea nursery for $1 an hour, and I still have a picture of myself posing proudly with my paycheck after I’d been given a raise up to $1.25 an hour. Ha!

I remember that the most hated pest in the azalea nursery was a brown moth that would lay eggs in the plants. I was given a book of matches and instructed to catch these brown moths, gently squash them and then build a little fire with grass and straw to burn them.

We’re getting close to the point in our own garden that we might be able to host some azalea plantings. The Exbury azaleas are a bit more cold and heat tolerant, so I’ll probably plant a few of those in the beds while I’ll keep a few florist’s azaleas in big pots.

Voilà! Patio Complete

Photo by Jessica Walliser
The crew at Concrete by Bruno that worked on my patiowas fabulous—courteous, efficient and just plain nice—all a person can ask for.

The new patio is now complete! We just need to add the sealant coat later this week. It’s soooo beautiful, and I’m relieved that we seem to have made the right material choice—the exposed aggregate is really lovely. Once the sealant is on and the patio is polished up a bit, I’ll post some close-ups of the surface.

Now the garden planning continues. The fire pit will be built in the empty circle when the grading work and retaining wall are completed. I am now left to wonder how to lay out and fill up all the planting beds that will eventually surround the patio.

Photo by Jessica Walliser
The crew finishes up a job well done. Now, I need to figure out plants.

I do know for sure that there eventually will be some evergreens going in, namely boxwoods, inkberry hollies, a Hinoki cypress and maybe a few dwarf conifers. I always think a winter-bare backyard looks so uninviting in the off-season. If I can get some evergreens and berried shrubs in there I’ll be a happy camper.

I’d also like to get a few of the new Invincible Spirit hydrangeas. They are a pink version of my favorite Annabelle hydrangeas, and a percentage of the nationwide sales go to breast cancer research. Now that’s gardening with a purpose!

Invincible Spirit hydrangeas are beautiful plants, and as far as hydrangeas go, there’s very little you can do wrong with them. They’re reliable bloomers for sure, unlike my big-leaved hydrangeas that seem to be pickier than a toddler at a luau. I’m lucky if they bloom every three or four years even when I do everything right.

I know it will be a long time until we can afford to plant everything we want, but we’ll get there eventually. It’s all part of the process of gardening, right? In the meantime, the forsythia is in full bloom here, the daffodils are smiling and spring has most definitely sprung.

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Tags hydrangeas, Jessica Walliser, patio, plant, planting

Urban Farming

Easter Eggs

Tags Hungry Locavore, locavore

Equipment

Check Tire Pressure

Tire pressure gauges
Photo by Jim Ruen
I started using a digital gauge to check tire pressure in order to ensure accuracy.

With the rising price of gas, the inevitable news stories will remind us to check our tire pressure to save fuel.

Underinflated tires can lower gas mileage by 0.4 percent for every psi below the recommended pressure for your tires. The fact is, of course, that this doesn’t amount to the cost of a cup of coffee at a truckstop, much less a Starbucks or even a McDonald’s cup.

A much bigger reason for proper tire inflation is life of the tire and safety. Underinflating tires by only 6 psi can reduce tire tread life by 25 percent and lead to tire failure.

Too much air can be a problem, too. Overinflated tires are more easily damaged by potholes or debris in the road. They also reduce traction and increase the distance needed to stop.

The real problem is knowing when you have your tire properly inflated. While I’ve always used the information on the side of the tire, Michelin says to follow the car maker’s recommendation. You can find that in your manual and on a sticker on the driver’s side door.

Knowing the correct pressure is half the battle. Checking the tire is the other half. I recently bought a digital tire gauge, in part because pen-type gauge readings are increasingly inaccurate the lower the tire psi. Because I run my ATV at pressures of 14 pounds and less depending on use, I needed more accuracy.

When testing it against my pen-style gauge, there was a difference of at least 2 psi. My next step is to take it to my mechanic and test it against his more accurate gauges.

Then comes the real test. Will I remember to use it?

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Tags Jim Ruen

News

Safe Spring Planting

Courtesy John Deere
Maintain the farm equipment used for spring planting to reduce frustrations this season and practice farm safety.

While you may be eager to head back out to the farm this spring, setting realistic work priorities and being prepared for planting season are among the most important safety tips for farmers to remember.

“Farmers often feel pressured to get out into the fields too early, and that can often cause problems,” says Bill Field, a farm safety specialist with the Purdue University Extension’s Agricultural Safety and Health program. “Taking time now to get ready for planting season will prevent more mishaps in the long run.”

Field offers these tips to farmers for a seamless transition to the growing season:

1. Maintain Farm Equipment
Preparing machinery and performing preventative maintenance is a good place to start for farm safety. If something seems like it may fail later, change it now.

“It only adds frustrations when equipment breaks down in the field, so farmers should be sure to start the season confident with their machines,” Field says.

An assessment of previous years can help prepare for this year, too. Looking at previous years’ problems and making changes before planting starts can save time and energy once the season begins.

2. Begin to Exercise
Stress and fatigue often present greater risk for on-farm accidents. Field recommends farmers keep themselves in good physical condition heading into the growing season.

“I encourage farmers to get out a few weeks before planting and exercise a little more than usual to help them personally prepare for the weeks ahead,” he says.

3. Carry a Cell Phone
“Farmers should look at their phones as a safety feature, not an inconvenience,” Field says.

Having cell phones handy at all times can save time and energy and provide timely help in case of emergency.

4. Share the Roads
Sharing the roads is always an issue this time of year. Drivers of both passenger vehicles and farm equipment need to be careful and considerate of one another.

Tags farm equipment, farmers, safety tips

Urban Farming

Sports Teams Unite for Sustainability

Post author By Rachael Dupree
Post date April 19, 2011
No Comments on Sports Teams Unite for Sustainability

Courtesy Hemera/Thinkstock

The Green Sports Alliance hopes to influence the sports industry’s sustainability practices, from the pros down to little league.

As Seattle Mariners pitchers begin to throw out the first balls of the season, fans will have more to cheer on than just the home team. The baseball club has collaborated with other sports teams, venues and partners in the Pacific Northwest to form the Green Sports Alliance, a nonprofit organization dedicated to proving that if sustainability can’t win, it’s a shame.

The GSA announced its launch at the end of last month after 15 months of development. The idea began when Paul Allen, Microsoft bigwig and owner of the Seattle Sounders, Seattle Seahawks and Portland Trail Blazers, began to brainstorm ways to increase his teams’ sustainability practices. He reached out to the Natural Resources Defense Council, and what started as a small greening exercise grew into a much larger challenge.

“In a ballpark, you have tens of thousands of people coming through the door … so it takes longer to get people to turn the lights off and turn the faucets off,” says Scott Jenkins, member of the GSA board of directors and vice president of ballpark operations for the Mariners and Safeco Field.

The founding members of the GSA include the Vancouver Canucks (NHL), the Seattle Storm (WNBA), the Seattle Mariners (MLB), the Seattle Seahawks (NFL), the Portland Trail Blazers (NBA) and the Seattle Sounders FC (MLS). Although they all reside in a ozy nook of the country already making waves in sustainable development, the GSA hopes to expand its membership to include major-league teams nationally and internationally as well as filter down to teams on the minor-league, college and community levels.

What is hopeful about the project is that sports venues are already starting to pay attention to their waste streams and energy consumption. For example, the Mariners’ Safeco Field currently recycles 70 percent of its waste, and in five years, it reduced its electric consumption by 30 percent, natural gas consumption by 60 percent and water consumption by 15 percent, Jenkins says. The GSA aims to build on that, serving as a resource for players in the sports industry to share their green achievements.

“It’s really about building best practices,” he says. “We hope to be a resource for greening information and measuring and collecting environmental metrics.”

One way the GSA plans to meet that end is by sharing sustainability success stories, he says. The GSA will pinpoint some of the sports industry’s environmental pitfalls—like transportation to sporting events, which significantly contributes to the industry’s carbon emissions—and highlight what members are doing to combat them. For example, to counteract the transportation problem, the GSA is publicizing the Storm’s free-parking incentive for fans who carpool.

“When you start to employ these strategies that are environmentally sound, other benefits come along with it,” Jenkins says.

The GSA hopes to spread their sustainability message with sports fans and encourage them to adopt recycling and conservation strategies in their homes and offices. In August 2011, the GSA will hold the first Green Sports Summit in Portland, Ore., where individuals can learn from professional sports leaders about how to reduce their environmental impact. Details will follow on the GSA website.

Tags seattle, sustainability

Urban Farming

A Visit from Elvis

Photo by Audrey Pavia

Elvis the peacock took up temporary residence in the yard of our urban farm.

This morning at dawn, when I went outside to feed the horses, I heard the usual chorus of roosters crowing all over town. But I also heard something else I hadn’t experienced in a while: the low kee-yaw kee-yaw kee-yaw of a peacock.

A flock of feral peacocks lives about half a mile away, and every spring, they begin their ritual of calling in the morning and then again at sunset. The bird I heard this morning sounded a lot closer than usual. I started to wonder if maybe Elvis had returned.

Elvis was a stunning male peacock who showed up at our house one week before Christmas Eve two years ago. I remember walking out the front door and seeing this stunning bird in the front yard, surrounded by our desert landscaping. I’ll never forget the blue of his feathers. It was a color I had never seen before. You could get completely lost in it.

Randy promptly named the bird Elvis, and we watched with amazement as this gorgeous creature made our front yard his home for the next two weeks. We were the talk of the neighborhood. People kept asking me where we got the peacock. When I would tell them that he just showed up one day and decided to stay, they stared at me in disbelief.

During the days Elvis was with us, I always wondered why he chose our home. There must be 20 houses between where the feral flock lives and our house. Why did he settle in our yard?

Elvis spent most of his time wandering among the cactus, but would roost at night on our porch railing. We had a lot of rain in those two weeks, and he found ample shelter under the awning.

Sometimes Elvis would sit on the windowsill of my office and look in at the cats, who were transfixed as they stared back at him through the glass.

Randy and I loved seeing this incredible bird in our yard every day and hoped he would stay forever. I began feeding him chicken pellets to encourage him to make our house his permanent home. But it wasn’t to be. The day after New Year’s, Elvis left. A few days later, I saw him hanging out on a roof down the street. He seemed to be slowly making his way back to the flock.

The time Elvis was a guest in our yard was magical. When he left, our sadness was immense. To help ease our woes, we bought a stained glass panel of a peacock and hung it in the dining room window that faces the front yard. In the late afternoon, when the sun shines through the glass, the peacock’s indigo features glow. They are almost as beautiful as the real thing.