Kitchen Sink Collective

And by that I mean it is 2012, and as of Monday (Gung Hay Fat Choi!!) we’re now in the Year of the Dragon as well.

I am not someone who likes to pontificate about new years’ resolutions, so I live in terms of goals and needs which need to be met. It is a lot easier this way.

One of my largest goals for the year will be to get the topic of urban farming onto the city of Pittsburg list of Things Which Need Addressing Right Now. This will mean city council meetings and the like, once my lung issues are sorted out and I’m no longer a bazooka-cougher.
Why the farming? Well, remember the bullshit I went through at the end of October, after attending a city goat-tending class in Berkeley? I got smacked upside the head because the class leader is having hell of issues with cities now, because the people adopting goats are basically jackasses with visions of chevre in their eyes, but little else. And, well, you know… I am not part of her circle, so I am probably one of those jackasses myself. Fuck it, I am leaving it at this for now; I’d rather get chickens legalized here.

Pittsburg has nothing logical, much less legal, in its code about people raising poultry for eggs. Or quails for food, or rabbits for food. Never mind goats. Well, what it has is grossly hypocritical. “You can keep your livestock if you have ___ acres, and live in an appropriately zoned area. And did we mention that zone will be OUTSIDE city limits? Neener neener!!!” The nice lady I spoke to in zoning and planning said they realize they need to fix this post-haste because people raise chickens for survival at this point. It’s cheaper to have a laying flock scratch in the backyard and eat kitchen veggie and fruit scraps, than it is to buy eggs; let’s face it. Way healthier, too.

My neighborhood is packed with poultry now. Not because of us, but because the residents are resorting to old fashioned animal husbandry to feed their families. We had a good rooster friend a few blocks away, Charlie. Charlie chased stray dogs away from his block, kept stray cats from pooping in his front yard, and he kept an eye on all the little kids in that small row of bungalows. But, well, he was a rooster. So he was inevitably dinner. We’re guessing he went into a huge pot of tamales for the feast of the Epiphany, because we no longer saw him once we were eating rosca de reyes bread with our evening coffee. We went out for evening walks nightly, would always stop to stroke his purty feathers where he was roosted on the fence for the evening, and would remind him to watch his back. I am just glad he was not a victim of cock-fighting, frankly. Charlie made excellent dining, I am sure.

But livestock…

We have neighbors asking for help with chickens and such, and will we kill and sell one, or sell eggs, etc. That’d be “no” and “no” on those questions. But we share laying flock manure, offer assistance on building a coop or tractor, and offer assistance on where to source chicks and organic feed, etc. No serious takers so far. Maybe this year, I dunno. And everyone who is interested has met the Laying Lady All-stars, gawked at the yard, and asked about growing the ladies corn (in a nutshell, corn does poorly in Pittsburg), and don’t we need roosters to get eggs?? At least the questions are being asked

My goal for this year is to get livestock addressed by city council. On the home front we are going to start growing “pasture” for the birds, start raising quail, and hopefully start raising rabbits as well. It is a start.

So, we’ve had a couple more young cockerels learning to crow, early morning. The dood’s had his eye on Jose Carreras for a couple weeks, whereas I’ve been looking more at The Genie w/ the Light Brown Hair who sports this shocking reddish muff of feathers around his neck; let’s call him Salvatore Licitra and keep up the operatic theme.

Jose was by far the largest roo. I think he weighed 8 lbs, holy poultry spurs. Beautiful gent, too. All black, big flashy comb and wattle, and very dramatic plumage. Which brings me to the point where I observe that cockerels are easy as pie to pluck, but their long feathers are a PITA when they leave quills behind. Which is all the time. Anyway, he got lots of hugs this morning, and heart-felt apologies and compliments on his dapper development. Lucy was sitting at the patio door, looking outside, watching it all. She knows that the poultry traffic cone means innard treats, eventually, and she was feeling very patient today. Pancho was having deep dreams about calling birds and moths to please fly into his mouth, snoring. Just as well, because it was pouring rain this morning.

Jose was selected because he’s gotten articulate quite swiftly. It isn’t just a muddled “urp a babooooo!” that flies out of his throat, but a lusty “fat Lucy-pooooooo!” first thing in the morning. He was the kind of roo who would roll his “R”s, frankly.

It took ages to clean him up, but he’s in the fridge now, and the cats dined on fresh innards for dinner. We’re cooking a pot of soup tomorrow while his meat relaxes another day.

This stuff doesn’t get easier over time. I’m actually glad it doesn’t. Jose was a hell of a young roo. I am salt-drying his wings in the kitchen.

Today is January 8, 2012. The temperature outside in our urban hedgesteader’s yard is 64 F. The sun is out. The laying hens are confused as hell. Pancho is confused alongside them, and the soil itself, and all the ambient weeds are having existential crises in plural.

Last year at this time, it was a rainy day. January 2011 wasn’t insanely wet, but the soil was damp enough that we had to spread tons of old corrugated across swathes of soil to keep the weeds at a dull roar. Mostly? The outside temps were cold. You know, winter-like. This meant Pancho’s visits outside to dance in and out of rainfall were brief and efficient, and we had to keep a beat-up towel on the floor next to the patio door, just to tamp our feet onto after going outside to fish him out of puddles a couple times per day. Last winter was also a season where we had to re-straw the chicken run multiple times in order to: 1) keep the ladies busy and active and therefore warm, 2) keep the floor of the run itself dry and cozy, 3) distract the ladies from the weather during their waking hours outside w/ the waterer and feeder. I think I raked out damp straw and replaced it with 1/2 a bale of fresh dry straw at least five times. The dood did this when I was getting over a cold and stuck indoors.

All this being said, it was a freakishly warm winter last year, too, a few times. In February, we had Daisy put down on a particularly sunny and warm day, for example. The only reason I remember this is that the deep hole we dug for her under the half barrels of garlic and onions was in very solid clay, we broke a serious sweat digging it, and it took forever for the soil to re-settle after we’d interred her with picked flowers, and after we’d popped a pomegranate cutting on top. It wasn’t until some torrential rain a couple weeks later that that the earth settled. The dood had a slight brain freeze, and pondered could she possibly have decomposed THAT much in two weeks? and I had to remind him about the rainfall and water seeking its level and taking the dirt with it.

Let’s be frank, 2011 had no normalish winter either.

February 2011, we ran the cultivator in the back corner, planted a beautiful checkerboard of Anasazi corn and beans. A huge checkerboard. And watered. And then, in that post-Daisy deluge which lasted days, the ground got so compacted that the only seeds which germinated grew in this dwarfish stunted state. Corn up to the knees. Beans no taller than Pancho the rain-obsessed kitten. And I might add, it took over a month for those seeds to even sprout, because the earth was so damn cold. 4 big rubbermaid trashcans’ worth of beautiful composted horse shit from the local stables, mixed with still-rotting chicken manure, and the earth was cold.

March 2011, we had an afternoon of snow in the yard, when I got home from work and was busy reinforcing the plastic covering and some recycled tarps over the baby chicken coop in the patio. Snow. I’m one of the few snow virgins I know, having never traveled anywhere to ski or snow-shoe, and here I was in my commuting rain gear with these fat clustered clumps of snow landing on my hood, arms, and shoulders, as I was fiddling with bungee cords and wire. Pancho was howling to come outside and see what the white stuff was, and the young pullets in the baby coop and run were so flustered over being feathered and sheltered, yet feeling cold, dangit.

April came, and the soil sort of warmed up. And… we just limped through the rest of the year. It is a damned good thing we don’t rely on the yard for all our food, because even the nettles had a shit year. And the edible dandelions did as well. Wild lettuce took over the yard though.

I guess the reason for this rant is I am really worried about what the rest of the year will bring. This is the second week we have unseasonal warm weather on the left coast. No freaking rain. No juicy worms for the hens to go wild eating during recess. The tomatoes took eons to produce and then rotted because of the cold snaps in December. The peppers are still standing but I have to yank them up before they rot as well. Is this desert-type weather? Cold as heck nights and warm as heck days?

Very puzzling.