Post-Christmas at Dun Hagan

With the usual holiday family obligations I've been hard put to find time to get much done outside other than the "must be done right now" necessities.

Still, we haven't quite gone into holiday hibernation. Weekend before last I hauled the family down to St. Petersburg to visit with my wife's snowbird grandparents. They came early this year to avoid the New England early winter weather though the other migratory species that normally come to Florida have been slow to arrive. It's past Christmas and I haven't seen a sandhill crane yet nor can I recall having seen a robin. Neverthless off to St. Pete we went for our usual pleasant visit and afterwards made a quick stop by Jene's Tropicals way out on the Central Avenue in St. Pete to pick up a variety Flame grapefruit. I've been wanting one for some time but haven't managed to come up with a tree locally so I took advantage of the trip to buy the last one they had. It's in the greenhouse now until spring when I'll plant it in the orchard with the other citrus. If they don't get frozen out grapefruit trees can grow rather large so I'll probably put it on the north side of the grove so as not to shade the other trees.

About three weeks ago while at Lowes for plaster of Paris and big rat traps (weapons in the squirrel wars) I stumbled over a nice looking Eureka lemon in the three gallon size at a good price so brought it home. This now gives me two Eureka lemons, two Tahiti (Persian) limes, two thorny Key limes, two thornless Key limes, a Lakeland limequat, and a Meiwa kumqat that I'm keeping as a container tree. Looks like I'll for sure have to build a larger hoophouse for next winter!

The week before the St. Pete trip the charger for the electric fence running around the top of the henyard failed and a coon got in to kill several birds. I replaced the charger, put up new stand-off insulators and reran all of the wire. So far, so good. For something so simple in concept keeping that hot wire running properly has been a major pain in my behind. Managed to jolt myself good with it day before yesterday which gives one a confidence in its coon repellant properties that no amount of meter testing can give.

The coon mostly took Maran cockerels and a Maran pullet. I hated losing the pullet, but I have mixed emotions about the cockerels. They were slated for freezer camp so I hated to lose the meat, but I also hate butchering chickens! The losses did not disrupt egg production which has gradually improved these last several weeks as the Marans and Silkie come more fully onto line. I've come up with a temporary work around for their winter greenfeed by soaking alfalfa cubes overnight until they've softened up and become juicy again then feeding them. The birds seem to find them palatable and the yolk color has intensified nicely.

Usually I would be feeding greens from the garden for their greenfeed but with our El Nino winter this year we haven't had any significantly cold weather yet. It's now December 28 and we haven't yet had enough of a frost to bite back the peppers in the garden though we did get enough to bite the sweet potatoes. This means the garden bugs that like greens haven't been frozen out yet so between the bugs eating them and the hens getting into the garden once I'm not getting much greens production. It also means that the cold tender weeds haven't been frozen out either so this weekend I'll need to weed the garden then put down some fertilizer to see if I can get the greens perking along. The elephant garlic and Granex onions are doing well though. The multipliers it is too early to tell yet.

Weekend before last I got some chainsaw work in mostly cutting up deadfall as well as trimming tree limbs that get in my way while mowing. I also tore down the old dock that was falling down rotten then used the debris to burn an old stump between where the dock used to be and the pump house. That old live oak is tough stuff though so I'll to have repeat the burn a few times to put paid to it. Still lots of chainsaw work left to go unfortunately. I try to do my saw work in the winter time so there's plenty of it waiting still to be done.

Many of the container citrus are blooming now in the greenhouse as are the camellias that I need to transplant now that I've finally decided to give up the camellia row behind the retaining wall. Most everything else is winter dormant and in need of its annual pruning, dormant oil spraying, and mulching all of which are on my January and February chore list.

Hopefully I'll get them done in a timely manner. We'll see.

.....Alan.

Indoor gardening of a different sort

So, the eldest child has had a flu-like bug these last five days or so necessitating staying home from school which in turn has necessitated daddy or mama staying home with her. This gave me an opportunity to get some things done that I had not been finding time for such as not only cleaning the aquarium, but getting it set up again the way I wanted it.

Earlier this year the Kinder Major 'won' a free goldfish at the Spring Fest in town as some of you may recall. We still have them and they have grown now to about twice the size or thereabouts they were when we first got them. I am determined to use them as an ongoing life lesson for the kids so we went beyond the usual goldfish bowl and flush them quietly a few weeks later when they finally gave up the ghost.

I must say though that so far most of the lessons have been mine! I haven't kept an aquarium since I was about her age and I'm quite sure I didn't listen any better about the ins and outs of what it takes to keep one running smoothly than she does. This means I've been climbing the learning curve and relearning things such as nitrogen cycles that I hadn't thought about since that limnology course years and years ago.

One of the biggest lessons that I learned is this: Goldfish are pigs!

When we first brought the tank home I had several bunches of plants to go in the tank with them. I knew I'd need some way to cope with the nitrogen buildup and plants are the way to do it if you don't want to have to keep flushing the tank out. Got everything set up, the tank filled, gravel in, cycled the water for a few hours then arranged the plants artistically throughout. I was quite pleased with the overall presentation and used it to explain to the Kinder Major the whys and wherefores (pedantically - as she and Diana would assure you).

In two days they were all floating.

So, planted them all over again, but burying their bases a bit deeper in the gravel. This time it took nearly a week before they were all floating and it's been an on-again, off-again battle to keep the tank clean and the plants looking presentable ever since. Not enough light intensity and the internode length stretches out so the plants grow spindly. Higher intensity bulbs! The nitrogen cycle replete with necessary microbes finally hits its stride and the plants start growing so that I have to do the bonsai thing. Tank isn't staying clean enough so add a couple of snails. A surprise in every box.

The tank needed cleaning again (periodic maintenance makes the world go round) and I had another idea of how to keep my plants planted. I bought a piece of the plastic mesh that needlepointers use, cut it into one inch squares, tied each bundle of plants to a square then buried that in the gravel. Now they have to move considerably more gravel before they can float the plants again. Sort of like gardening with a herd of pigs running loose!

Anyway, I was happy with the way it came out so I took this photo. I think the camera is actually focusing on the glass of the tank which is why the plants and fish look a bit fuzzy. It'll take a few days to a week for the plants to completely adjust to their new settings which is why they don't look completely natural yet, but they will eventually. So far the fish haven't managed to uproot them.

At their present rate of growth we'll have to have a larger tank by Christmas of next year.

Always, but always look a free goldfish in the mouth!

.....Alan.

The Shell of the Day

Gardening is sort of betwixt and between at Dun Hagan at the moment. We're in that place just before our first really cold weather of the year (for Florida) where the cold tender things are gamely hanging on and the cold hardy plantings are just starting to take off. The sycamore tree behind the house finally decided to start dropping its leaves about the first of the month so I spent an hour last Sunday raking up wheelbarrows full for use in the hen yard. The leaves are so big they don't make good mulch for the wind blowing them off. Naturally as soon as I had the area cleaned up it we had a windy night so that the next day you couldn't tell I'd raked at all. This weekend I'll round those up too for the chickens.

Speaking of which the Maran pullets have finally started to lay, two of them at least. The one surviving Silkie hen is laying now as well. I was becoming a bit exasperated with the Marans for taking so long, but it seems that in the short day part of the year the lesser light hours can have that affect on pullets.

The photo here is of the house eggs that I took tonight. There's no doubt about the ones the Marans laid with them being nearly the color of milk chocolate! The small pale cream colored eggs are from the Silkie. The green eggs are from the Easter Egger hens Snowball and Marshmallow. The rest are from the regular laying flock.

So far, so good.

.....Alan.