Poison Ivy Tree

Last year I saw what I thought to be a poison ivy tree. I always thought that poison ivy was a ground cover, but I was certain that I discovered a poison ivy tree and discovered it growing adjacent to our yard in the railroad ditch. I had a hunter I knew check it out, along with some other people, but they all said they were pretty sure poison ivy didn't grow that way.

As I sit typing this though, my fingers on my left hand are so swollen that I can't put them together. I have blisters and oozing bumps (yeah, I look kinda gross right now) not only covering my fingers, but also on my hands, wrists, forearms, neck, face, around my eye, on my lips, and even some in my mouth. There is also a spot on my ankle and maybe one or two showing up on my back. Yup. Poison ivy trees do exist.

Okay, so I may be stretching the story a bit. Not with my poison ivy rash - I really do have all of that, but with the tree. It is actually a big, dying tree covered with massive poison ivy vines which pretty much cover up the tree. Here's a picture of it. If you click on the picture you can see the leaves of 3 and the way they turn color before most other plants. Also, take note that the tree itself is wide enough that I couldn't put my arms around it if I tried (which I didn't, and I won't!). That will give you somewhat of an idea of how massive this vine is.

How did I get the poison ivy if I didn't hug the tree? Well, that is my own fault. I was cleaning out our overgrown railroad ditch again at our walnut dumping spot - this time quite a ways away from our raspberries, but about 10-15 feet from our poison ivy tree. Even though others disagreed, I had a suspicion that the tree had poison ivy on it so I should have been watching out for it on the ground too. It turns out that whole part of the ditch has poison ivy on the ground. And I found it. Before I saw it.

I thought I would share some of the things that have worked for me to keep the itch bearable. My favorite is to run as hot of water as I can stand on the spots as long as I can stand. I guess it overloads nerve receptors and turns them off for awhile. This lasts around 4 hours. (edited 5 '08 to add: Although this feels REALLY, REALLY!!! good, it might actually make the poison ivy worse - opening up pores and causing it to go deeper.) For the spots that I can't burn with water, vinegar helps take the itch away a bit. Also, a paste of oatmeal left on until it dries feels nice. I also have heard that rubbing the inside of a banana peel on the spot helps. Feel free to share your favorite home remedy. Also, I would love to hear how to get rid of this stuff.

So now I guess that I am going to have to find another spot in our yard where I can play. I'm starting to run out of options of cheap outdoor things to work on with our lot in town. Thankfully though, our yard has 5 or 6 really large walnut trees on it so I can comb the yard for walnuts for awhile if I can't think of anything better. I will just have to watch out where I dump them.

Here are Caleb and Hannah helping me pick up walnuts. I am so glad they didn't get into the poison ivy as we were dumping them.

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Why Farm?

I remember often as I was growing up being at the farm when my grandpa and uncles were farming. I also remember many times where they were quite unhappy with the equipment as it was broken and deadlines were needing to be met.

Yesterday, Ethan, myself, and the kids took the day to go pick up some more cattle. At noon we stopped at a roadside historical marker to have lunch. We were about 2 1/2 hours from home and about 45 minutes away from the farm we were heading to. Before Ethan got a chance to bite into his sandwich, he noticed a problem with the trailer tire. We soon discovered that the bearings were no more.

We couldn't pull the trailer back into town so we unhooked it and drove the truck back to see if we could get some help. Ethan ran in and out of shops trying to find someone who could help. Some of the responses he got included: "We're about ready to go home." (Turning to fellow employee.) "Do you want to do it?" (Fellow employee) "No." Also, "We don't do that kind of thing here." And, "Yeah we do that, but the mechanics just went home."

So we headed back and sat by the trailer to finish lunch. Ethan called his dad, who owns the trailer and lived about 1 1/2 hours away. He said he would come help out, but it would be a bit until he could get away. We took the kids to a park for awhile and then went and sat by the trailer again to wonder if we were going to be able to get our cattle.

Around 3:30 Ethan's dad and brother arrived with some tools, and they got to work. After some more running around, we were able to locate the parts that we needed (or at least that were close enough) and got the trailer temporarily fixed. Off we went to get our cattle, and we were able to unload our new additions to our herd and get home 15 minutes before midnight.

So what's so appealing about farming? I think there are many things, but one thing stuck out to me today - the importance of community and helping others out.

As we were sitting along the side of the road with a tire laying on the ground and with our 3 1/2 year old and 22 month old, there were many, many cars that drove right on by. Some of them would slow down and look and then keep going. Some of them would slow down and look, wave, and then keep going. I'm sure they had places to go, people to see, and deadlines to meet.

The whole time we were there we had one guy step out of his truck and ask if we needed anything. He was a farmer. An interesting thing about farmers is they also have deadlines to meet, many of which effect their income - getting crops in before the rain, getting crops out before the rain, taking care of livestock to keep them healthy and productive. This farmer that stopped even had a deadline for today he was trying to meet and was having problems lining up equipment, but he still stopped. He even drove back later when he came up with an idea for us. I think he realized the importance of community and helping others out.

Also, when we finally located a part we needed, it was in another town. The owner of a trailer business was just about ready to leave for an event he was helping with, but he said that he would stick around for us. When we got to his business we saw that it was located right beside his house on his farm. I think this man also realized the importance of community and helping others out.

Now, I'm not trying to idolize farmers. I know there were a lot of farmers that drove right past us . . . many times. There was a coop down the road and we watched them take their grain in throughout the afternoon. I also know that there are lots of non-farmers that realize the importance of community and helping others out. But I think that when you are a farmer you often depend on help from the community and from others and begin to realize the importance of it.

That is one thing that I think is missing in our culture. So many people fence themselves in: their property and their lives. I think we have a lot to learn from those who don't. And that is one of the reasons that farming appeals to me.

Coffee, Anyone?

My garden has had trouble all three years we have had it. One of its problems is that it only gets partial sun during the day - the most sun we can find in our yard. The other problems is that there are walnut trees all around our yard, including by our garden, which release a toxin through their root system that is hard on many garden plants.

This year my tomato plants looked quite droopy most of the summer. I decided that they might need some coffee to perk them up.



Twice a week I go to the coffee shop on the square and pick up a bucket of coffee grounds and filters to throw into my garden. Used coffee ground are an excellent fertilizer and filters decompose and add organic matter, both of which can decrease the toxic effects from the walnut trees. The coffee shop is more than happy to give me their heavy, wet garbage too.

Although I didn't mind the coffee filters out there (they make a great mulch!), Ethan didn't really care for the look of them in the garden. So now I add them to my kitchen compost barrel outside of our door, which eventually goes to the larger compost pile in the railroad ditch adjoining our property.

After pulling out the filters, I am left with a bucket of pure coffee grounds to spread on the garden. The coffee grounds have a 20:1 ratio of carbon to nitrogen. To balance the ratio out to a 30:1 ratio, ideal for composting, I add sawdust - given to me from my dad who is a woodworker. The sawdust will "capture" nitrogen (fertilizer) from the coffee grounds and will make it available as the sawdust decomposes. It also adds some of the extra organic material to my garden that I was looking for.

It sounds like it is quite a long drawn out process, but really it only takes a couple minutes. It also gets me out of the house and outside where I can feel like I am doing farmy type things. I think if/when we get to the country, I might still go after the free coffee fertilizer but will just dump it into the compost pile to be spread later - after the filters decompose. As for now, I am hoping that all of this will help turn my golf ball sized tomatoes into softball sized tomatoes next year!

Where'd Ya Get Your Jeans?

A funny thing happened a couple years ago. We were at a football game and one of the kids in Ethan's youth group (Ethan is a youth director) asked him where he got his jeans. She thought they were pretty cool. Later that week, another kid asked the same question during youth group about the same pair of jeans. What was so cool about them? They had been patched from the inside - the new style that came with a nice price tag.

There was something about these jeans, however, that the students didn't know about. These jeans were probably at least 3 years old at the time, and when they were purchased - there were no patches. Yes, these jeans actually earned their patches, and I put them on. On the inside. Before I knew it was cool.

Today I spent the better part of my afternoon patching up the pile of jeans in the picture. The pile has accumulated since spring, and I figured that they better get fixed up since the fall weather is coming. Unfortunately for my husband, jeans with patches are not what is cool anymore. Now it is jeans with holes all over - unpatched. If only I would have let them be. But some of the holes were getting a bit, well . . . indecent.

We aren't really that concerned with the changing tides of coolness anyway. We're just trying to go another year without having to buy more jeans. So I'm just going to keep patching away. And when you think about it, fashions cycle - so jeans with patches will eventually be cool again. And I bet these jeans will be there to see it!

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Fall Plantings

I am by no means an expert when it comes to fall gardens. Actually, this is the first year I have tried some fall plantings, although I heard about my Grandpa putting in his fall seeds while growing up. Today, I finally picked my first vegetables from my fall planting - BEAUTIFUL green beans!


I had planted green beans in the spring. The plants looked great at first. Nice solid leaves with no signs of pests. Well, that didn't last long. By the time my beans were ready to be picked, the leaves looked like lace from being chewed up so badly. The beans were just as bad. I tried to salvage some of the crop, but it was hard to find even an inch on a bean that hadn't been nibbled by insects.

Many people suggested powders and chemicals that we could treat them with to chase away the bugs, but that equaled more expenses. As you might have noticed, we are trying to do things with as few inputs as possible. So I gave up my hopes of canning beans, pulled all the plants, and decided to do some research so I could try again next year.

As I was doing my research, I found out I didn't have to wait until next year. I read that many times fall beans will be better than beans planted in the spring since most of the pests are gone by the time the beans mature. So off I went in search of more bean seeds. Most stores had sent theirs back, but I found one greenhouse that had 1/4 cup of seeds left. I bought them out.

I had a little bit of a late start in getting my fall beans planted since it took me so long to locate seeds so I soaked them overnight to hopefully cut down on some germination time. After they were well swollen, I put them into the soil. A few days later, up popped my beans!

I was pretty excited with the thought of another try with beans this year, but I soon became somewhat worried as I saw their leaves starting to look a bit like lace again. As I resisted the urge to pull them out, the nights started becoming cooler. As the nights started to become cooler, I noticed that the new leaves weren't getting eaten. (Hopefully you can see the difference in the picture.)

Today when I went out to the garden, I saw that there were a few beans ready to be picked. I was somewhat apprehensive as to what I would find hidden within the plants. What I found though were beautiful, long green beans without any signs of insect damage. It seems as if the insects clocked out for the season when the nights started to get cooler - and just as my beans started to mature!

So now I still have some hope of canning beans this year. I also still have some hopes for my spring planting of beans. While doing a little digging around I read that planting savory next to your beans will help ward off bugs. I think I will give that a try next year.

Here are a couple other pictures of my fall plantings. The first is peas. I don't know if they will amount to anything. I found extra seeds in my basement quite late but decided to throw them in the ground since I had them. The other is lettuce. I will be planting new patches every 2 weeks until it stops growing so we can have fresh lettuce too throughout the fall.
I'd love to hear comments from other fall planters as to what works for you.

Supper

I had a hard time today deciding what to title this post.

At first I thought about titling it "We Paid For It, I'm Using It" since that is something Ethan teases me about saying. I thought maybe I would talk about how I wash out the cereal sacks to use as toss away table coverings for projects like making noodles and bread and for the kids to do their Play-Doh and other crafts on. It only takes a second to rinse them out when the cereal is empty and makes project clean up SO much faster. The "We Paid For It, I'm Using It" phrase is a phrase that I also used a lot when I would toss my banana peels in the back flower bed to decompose and add nutrients to the soil before we started a real compost pile. But I decided against that title.

Then I thought I'd title it "Cereal Sacks and Alternative Farming" and talk about how a farmer only receives a fraction of the price of an item in the grocery store. As I was making my noodles today and using the cereal sacks we paid for, I was thinking about how we also pay for the cereal box, the processing of the cereal, the transportation of the cereal, the advertising for the cereal (unless you buy the generic like we do), the wages for the store employees, the overhead for the store . . . and really the farmer that grew the grain gets very little of the amount that was paid for the box of cereal. I thought maybe it would be interesting to post about how alternative farming and direct marketing take out a lot of those additional expenses so the farmer gets a higher percentage of the market price, but I decided against that post too.

Next, I thought about titling my post "Where Do You Want to Spend Your Time?" and talking about how trying to save money at home will reduce the amount of money that you need to earn, which can help you be at home more, which can lead to more opportunities to save money at home, which means that you will need even less to live on, which might eventually lead to allowing one parent to stay at home with the kids or even the other parent to be able to farm - all taking into consideration that you aren't trying to save money to be rich but to be able to spend time at home with family and friends. But I thought that post might get a little confusing.

So I finally decided to title my post "Supper" and let everyone know that for supper we are having ham and noodles, mashed potatoes, green beans, and bread.

By the way, the ham was from leftover ham broth I had canned. The noodles were homemade with eggs from our chickens, and I used the cereal sacks that we paid for while making them. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to can any early beans and our fall beans need another week or so before they are ready, so I had to use green beans from the store that are hardly worth the 33 cents I paid for them (and the can, and the transportation, and the. . .). And although I had spent most of the kids' nap time making bunches noodles so I could dry some for later meals, I decided to go ahead and make the bread too since a penny saved is a penny earned.

Raspberries, Rabbits, and Fire

Raspberries, rabbits, and fire. What do they have in common? . . . our ditch!

My husband is an associate pastor/youth pastor, and we have lived in this parsonage in town for 3 years. The property we are on borders the railroad tracks which comes along with a deep, thick, woody, weedy ditch. The police caught a fugitive 2 years ago in our ditch while my husband was on a mission trip and I was home alone with the kids, but that's another story!

Before we moved here, and a short while after, many of the church members would use that ditch for dumping brush and clippings. Thankfully, we receive no more outside yard waste, but there was quite the pile of brush that had accumulated in the ditch. Right beside the brush pile that first year, I found three raspberry vines.

For 4 summers now, I have been pruning those vines and allowing runners to root. I have also been weeding the area and cutting down saplings so they can get more light. Many of the tall weeds aren't around anymore, and creeping charlie is starting to take over the vacant ground around the vines, making a nice carpet to walk on. I now have so many vines that I don't even bother counting them.

There is one problem though. Since my raspberry patch has expanded so much, the rabbits found it last winter. They chewed almost all of my vines to the ground while the snow piled over their other choices of food. Needless to say, I didn't have very high yields in my berry patch this summer.

One of the big problems is that the brush piles that were dumped here make quite a nice home for little bunnies in the winter, and the biggest brush pile was just a couple feet from my berry patch. Very convenient for cold little rabbits who don't want to hop far in the snow to have their breakfast . . . or lunch . . . or supper.

Since one of the things we are interested in having is pick-your-own fruit, we decided this would be a good opportunity to do some experimenting and learning with pest control. We figured that we had two options. One was to fence in the raspberries, and the other was to wage war on the rabbits. A big aspect of alternative farming is keeping your inputs (expenses) low so your profits remain high. To fence in the raspberries, we would have to buy fence. So you guessed it, we decided to wage war on the rabbits.

Since we live in town and shooting them is legally out, to the disappointment of my husband, we started by destroying their shelter. Over the weekend we burned up and cleared out the brush pile by the berries. While Ethan was managing the fire, I took care of the fall pruning of our raspberries and cleared out some more saplings. When we were done, we were left with a nice clear area that has had decomposing matter on it for quite a few years and now ash, which is good for fertilizer. I will either trail some raspberry runners over to our newly cleared land to extend my patch or plant some blackberry starts from my mom's garden or my father-in-law's farm to experiment with.

As for now, we will start setting our rabbit trap to decrease the overrun rabbit population in our ditch and will take them to the woods. Sure, more rabbits may move in, but at least they won't have a house right next to my vines. We'll see if my berry plants survive this winter.


Here are some of my black raspberry plants all pruned up.


This is a picture of our ditch. In the foreground you can see the area we just cleared out and burned. The green growth behind the cleared area is part of my raspberry patch - all started from 3 vines!

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