The ugly side of winter and Parrot Flower Power

Typically winters in the upper Midwest are snowy, with many bright days and surprisingly bright nights, when the snow reflects all of the light and makes midnight look like daytime. This is especially pleasant to view if you have an outdoor hot tub available.

But this winter we have had some oddly warm days followed by normally cold temperatures, resulting in melted snow turning to ice.

The low spot in my yard collected all of the melting snow and then froze into a solid mass of dirty ice (unfortunately, I have to cross this twice a day to check on the hens-- Yaktrax really do help).

It's hard to believe it with the mini glacier in my yard, but planting starts next month (indoors) so I've started working on my planting plan. (A sneak peak at the 2017 season will be in the blog next week!)

For now, my new toy!


Parrot Flower Power

The Flower Power is a small, waterproof, indoor/outdoor sensor that gives real time (as well as historical) information on a plant's growing environment. I decided to try one out because we needed temperature information under the indoor lighting system. There is a slick app to run this Bluetooth enabled device, so I can sit in the living room and watch tv while checking on the plants. Not only does it track temperature, it also monitors light intensity, fertility, and moisture. The only thing it's missing is the ability to monitor humidity.

The Flower Power is set up to monitor the conditions for a specific type of plant. In the app, the user designates the plant type and the advice given is species-specific.

The app's display is easy to understand and the reminders to water and fertilize are handy.

The Flower Power has been fun to play with, especially with my tomato plant. The light I'm using isn't really bright enough for tomatoes (they need very intense light), but it's good enough that I do have some baby tomatoes-- fingers crossed some of them mature! Luckily, the lights work great for growing baby salad greens!

Baby tomato and a flat of salad mix.

Baby greens with some lovely organic tomatoes from the co-op. A 10" x 20" flat of densely seeded salad mix gave us 10 side salads. And the baby greens are so cute! I've never seen anything like them for sale.

So for now, I'm thinking ahead to spring weather, but keeping my fingers crossed for some nice, new snow for fat biking before the winter is over. I'm also enjoying my last 45 flexible winter days, because once I start growing transplants, the fun doesn't stop until fall!

So, what do you do?

At a party last week, a good friend introduced me to a woman, and in doing so told the woman a few things about me, including that I am an urban farmer. The woman was very kind and interested and asked many questions about the urban farm, including where my plots are, what I grow, and where I'm planning to sell produce this summer. We talked about bed building, keeping chickens, vegetable selection, and how I'm looking forward to a busy spring season. After all of this discussion, she posed the question, "so, what do you do?" I looked at her, probably with one of my scrunchy, screwed up faces that people say I make when confused or irritated, and she added, "I mean, what is your job?"

*Sigh*

I get this sometimes, and I am am reminded that "urban farmer" isn't a typical job description (it's never an option in a form's occupation pull-down box). It's also a society norm to ask people what their paying jobs are. So instead of feeling resentful that she thinks my vocation isn't a "real job," I've decided to be thankful that I am in a position to be able to farm without having to support my family financially-- though I do take feeding my family seriously, and with good business practices I'm hoping that my market business will be solvent!

With that, some things I will be working on in 2017:

Be thankful every day. I will find 2 or 3 things every day to be thankful for, big or small. Concentrating on these will keep life in perspective.

This cartoon my mom had made really sums up what I have to be thankful for!

Today I'm thankful for indoor grow lights. I originally set them up to grow transplants for summer, but they have filled the dark winter with light and leafy veggies. And if these flowers work out, tomatoes, too!

Make my own bread. This is something I really enjoy doing, so I want to prioritize it. Also, it gives me satisfaction to know I can pronounce all of the ingredients in my recipes, and I love the way baking bread makes the house smell like a home.

This is a King Arthur Flour recipe that I have been making recently. It toasts up great, too!

Homemade stollen-- a new holiday tradition. And another King Arthur recipe.

Organize the garage. Since the garage serves many purposes for us (barn, tool shed, bike storage, carport) it needs an organization upgrade. I'm happy to say that we can fit our car and my parents' car in the garage as well as all of our bikes. That said, starting this spring our two-car garage is also going to be our urban farm pack shed, and I have big hopes of putting a vegetable refrigerator (probably an old beer cooler) out there.

The organizational system needs a 2017 reboot!

Keep a list of books read. A list will help me go back if I need to review some piece of important information. I will also keep a list of books I want to read. Most importantly, I plan to not always give in to the easiest thing when I'm tired, and instead turn off the television or the internet and read!

Winter is a great time to cozy up with a good book.

5 chicken lessons (see you in 2017!)

This is going to be my last post of 2016. I'm looking forward to spending the last half of December focusing on family and the holidays and hopefully enjoying some new, deep snow on my fat bike. I will, of course, still be tending to the urban farm's chickens and indoor plants, and starting in January I will officially kick off the new growing season, so there will be a lot to talk about next year!

So now for my chicken lessons learned:

1. Chickens hate snow. I let them outside to run around after we got a few inches the other day, and they immediately ran under the big evergreen tree and refused to walk back to their coop. (I chased them, caught them--eventually-- and carried them one by one over the irritating white stuff!). I'm glad that we built a covered run so they can get some sunlight and hang out snow-free.

Until we can find some hen-sized snow boots, the chickens aren't having anything to do with it.

2. Chickens love to stand on top of things. I now feel extra sorry for the factory farmed chickens who have to walk around on the ground all day. Chickens love being high up and playing queen of the hill. The "playground" equipment in their run should keep them more entertained over the winter and will hopefully keep them from trying to stand on top of their feeder.

This wood from a friend's cut tree works great!

3. Providing water in freezing temperatures is a challenge and having electricity in the coop really helps things out. We have finally settled on a system (until I can find a better one) where there are two sources of water. The first is a Hen Hydrator with a bucket heater. The water in the bucket stays thawed, but the nipples freeze overnight and don't thaw until quite a while after sunrise-- this doesn't mean that the day has to get warm, but when the sun comes up there is usually enough radiant energy to thaw them out. I'm going to really like this hydrator once spring arrives. It's easy to fill and see-through so you know how much water you have. It's also keeps the water source very clean!

FFA-approved (except, apparently, in freezing weather).

The backup system is a heavy, shallow, rubber bowl that I put fresh water into each morning before the sun comes up. This water (surprisingly) has been staying thawed throughout the day, even when the outside temperature stays well below freezing (see item #4). We'll see what happens when the high temperature is 0F. If it gets too cold I will remove the Hen Hydrator and put the bucket heater into the rubber bowl.

It doesn't stay as clean as the hydrator, but it won't tip over and if I need to put the bucket heater in it over the coldest winter days I can.

4. Coop winterizing is essential. We keep hardy breeds, but protecting their run from wind and snow has proved very worthwhile. The plastic not only keeps the run dry, but it's significantly warmer than outside in the wind. And since we have a source of electricity, a heating lamp can be used in the run if needed. I've also installed temporary weather stripping in the coop, so they can stay warm over the long, cold nights.

The run is covered on three sized by thick plastic sheeting. The hens like sunning in the open south side.

5. Hens like having a sand box. The chicken run is built over an old children's sand box, so the soil is very sandy in some areas. They hens love to take dust baths, and over time they dug a 6 inch hole in one spot. Today I filled it in with some new sand. This will give them something to dust with and dig around in over the long, snowy days when they'd rather be foraging for worms and grass in the yard.

I added new sand so they wouldn't dig themselves out of the run!

Happy holidays, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and Peace on Earth! See you back here in 2017!