Blog Posts

Rachel is One!

6/24/2010

Rachel's first year went so quickly for us and on Earth Day, April 22, we marked the official end of her infancy. We are glad the trials of the first year are through, even as she provides us with different challenges with every new thing she learns.

She is quite a physical little girl: little because she remains solidly in the 10% for weight, and physical because she is a climber, if anything. The smart - and strong - little kiddo has learned to push chairs to places where she wants to reach things and she feels free to climb right up into danger zones. We also have to be vigilant lest she unroll all the toilet paper in the house or try to stir the toilet water.

Now she wants to participate in everything we do and the desire to imitate her older sister is coming on strong. If she had it her way, she would get to stay at preschool with Madeleine. She is quite shy and reserved with anyone outside of her immediate family and she makes people work to earn her smiles and affection. Luckily for Mommy, Daddy, and Madeleine, she graces us with a lot of the both.

We've posted new photos here:

February 2010:

March 2010:

April 2010:

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Alameda Backyard Chicken Coop Bicycle Tour

5/5/2010

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Ann is helping coordinate the second annual bicycle tour of Alameda chicken coops, which is scheduled for Sunday, May 16 at 1pm. It will also be stopping at our house.

The idea came up last year on the Alameda Backyard Chickens Group, and we had about 50 folks attend last year with no publicity. We're expecting a much bigger turnout this year, now that it's being promoted in area newspapers and blogs (it should be in the Chronicle's 96 Hours section this week).

The tour will start at 448 Lincoln Avenue, where a map will be provided. The route is about 4.5 miles long and will end at 1342 Grove Street.

Join us for a fun afternoon and spread the word!

P.S. Ann will also be teaching her introductory class on raising chickens this summer. If you're thinking about getting chickens or know someone who is, it's a great way to get started.

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An Amazing Garden Tour Experience

5/5/2010

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On April 25th we had 540 people trek through our garden as part of the 7th annual Bay Friendly Gardening Tour. We spent six straight hours answering questions about our chickens, rain barrels, bat house, beehives, and greywater system, probably in that order. After that came questions about many of the 33 fruit and vegetable crops that we've squeezed into our small back and front yards.

We got many comments about the enormous size of the strawberries in our patch as well as the prolific raspberry and blueberry bushes, and lots of questions about our asparagus and fava beans ("What is that plant? And what is that one over there?").

Many of the people on the tour are novice gardeners, and it was wonderful to hear their excitement as they noted what can be done in just a small space. We were gratified to hear so many people tell us that they were going to go home to put up a bat house, set up rain barrels, convince a spouse to let them get chickens or bees, plant a fruit tree, or build a raised vegetable bed.

Overall, preparing for the Tour was a huge amount of work, but we are thrilled that the re-landscaping project we began a year and a half ago is finally finished (we think). Now that the weather is beautiful and we've begun to eat meals on our back deck, we can enjoy a yard and garden that is busy producing our summer crops without much effort on our parts.

(The top photo shows our Fuji apple tree in the foreground. The photo below shows raspberries along the chicken fence, an apricot tree just in front and near the center, fava beans at the bottom and toward the center, and asparagus at the bottom and to the right.)

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Hosting the Bay-Friendly Garden Tour

4/8/2010

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Our yard and those of three of our close-by neighbors will be featured on this year's Bay-Friendly Garden tour on Sunday, April 25th. The free, self-guided tour is sponsored by StopWaste.organd includes over 40 gardens in Alameda County, grouped in geographical clusters. Pre-registration is required.

Our yard is pretty well qualified, with native plants, rain water catchment, gray water, chickens, bees, food production, and landscaping with salvaged materials. We've been told to expect over 500 people (and perhaps well over that, since registration has been particularly strong so far). There's also a need for volunteers to help out, so sign up if you're interested.

Here's a fuller description of the tour from StopWaste: "The 7th annual tour continues to celebrate the diversity of Bay-Friendly gardens. Urban farmers grow abundant harvests of fruit and vegetables, and keep chickens and bees. Native plant enthusiasts embrace the local flora. Salvaged material aficionados blend recycled art into the landscape. Bay-Friendly gardens offer something for everyone—come and discover ideas for creating your perfect haven.... Gardens range from professionally designed postage stamp-sized lots in Berkeley to exuberant one-acre market gardens in Pleasanton."

We're pretty excited, although we have a bit more prep to do over the next few weeks.

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Rain Barrels 2.0

3/29/2010

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I first reported on our rainwater catchment endeavors back in February of 2009. That post had a lot of good details and references for getting started, but we've learned some things along the way and have settled on an improved method for converting and connecting barrels.

Our original approach involved cutting off the tops of the barrels, primarily so we could access the inside more easily. The advantages were that we could clean the insides more easily and install the hose bib more securely. The big disadvantages were that the barrels lost some structural stability (particularly when full), were harder to keep mosquito-proof, lost some capacity, and were not easy to link together.

Also, that approach was more work, involved more parts, and was therefore more expensive. Cutting the tops off and getting a nice clean cut was fairly challenging, even though it got a little easier with practice. Not having the most secure top meant we needed an overflow valve in the main part of the barrel. We also spent extra money piecing together washers and makeshift nuts to secure the hose bib from both sides. And then the nuts ended up rusting.

Back to the Drawing Board

I ended up going back to a very simple approach we had rejected early on: simply drill a hole for the hose bib and screw it in. We had been concerned that the connection would leak or wear over time. I've now converted six barrels with this approach, and I've only had one problem. One has a very slow leak that I'll patch once it's empty. Otherwise, I'm much happier with the new approach.

Here are the specs: I drilled a 3/4" hole as close to the bottom of the barrel as possible and screwed in a 1/2" male hose bib. It's a little hard to start screwing it into the hole and you have to be careful to get it in straight, but once it's in it should be pretty secure.

I also found sink strainers that insert snugly into the barrel openings. They strain out leaves and other gunk, while keeping bugs out.

So that's it.

It actually takes me more time to wash out the barrels beforehand than to convert them. That's because while the car wash soap and tire dressing is labeled as being "safe for the environment," I've been pretty particular to make sure none of that drains into groundwater or the bay (since we do live in Alameda). So with each rain barrel upright, I spray the insides with a hose nozzle through one of the top holes. I empty the barrel into a bucket and the bucket down an inside drain. Rinse, repeat. Rinse, repeat. Actually, the 30-gallon barrels fit in my bathtub so it was very easy to clean with a hand shower spray.

Linking Barrels

I was interested in filling more than one barrel from a single downspout from the beginning, but couldn't figure out a good approach. One of our downspots with the greatest volume output is located at the back of out driveway where there was unused space that was perfect for lining some barrels up.

The biggest problem was just a method for connecting them. I read through a number of approaches published online, but none of them were very appealing. They were either more complicated than seemed necessary, or had other downsides.

The breakthrough I had was finally finding an adapter that would screw into the (unusually-sized) holes in the tops of the 55-gallon barrels. It is a 2 inch PVC Male Adapter that converts to more standard PVC piping sizes. From there you can reduce down to the size of PVC piping you want and connect up the pieces. I just snapped them together so I can easily remove the piping to clean it or a barrel later on.

The downspout drains into a funnel, which I nested a sink strainer in. Each barrel has its own hose bib, so it can be emptied independently.

This approach means that we can fill the barrels above the normal fill line, fitting about 65 gallons into the large barrels. So we now have about 360 gallons of capacity!

One other note: we mostly have white semi-opaque barrels, but have two blue ones. We had read that an advantage of opaque barrels are that there is less concern with algae growth. The disadvantage is that you can't see what the water level is. We haven't had problems with algae and now have a clear preference for the white barrels.

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Winter News

2/21/2010

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Our girls are growing up! Madeleine now vigorously corrects people when they assume she is three years old by telling them, "No, I'm three and a half!" She has definitely become a pre-schooler in terms of social maturity and independence, which is fun for her and a relief to us.

Madeleine often still asks us, "I forget, how old is Rachel again?" It's hard for all of us to keep track when we count in months and they are flying by, but Rachel is almost 10 months old now. The two sisters are best of friends and it is beautiful to watch their interactions with each other. The more Rachel develops and learns new things, the more Madeleine roots her on and celebrates her. We love watching her develop too, although the early crawling (at 7 1/2 months) and standing up and now "cruising" have made our lives more complicated.

In January we took a trip to South Bend, Indiana to visit Ann's parents and introduce the girls to snow. Madeleine had some memorable quotes. On a day when the high temperature was 12 degrees she asked "Why are there clouds coming out of my mouth?" She spent about 4 minutes on the outdoor ice skating rink before calling it quits ("I'm getting cold and this is very hard") but she wanted to go back the next day. Making a snowman/snowpyramid was a big hit, as was Grandma's hot chocolate when she came inside.

Back in Alameda, we've welcomed three new chickens into our flock. Madeleine chose all the names: Scramble (named after the one who died last fall), Pancake and Waffle, now bring our flock up to six. We are enjoying glimpses of spring, time to work in the garden, and the prospect of Rachel's first birthday soon to come.

We've posted new photos here:

October 2009:

November 2009:

December 2009:

January 2010:

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Rachel At Five Months

9/26/2009

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Rachel is already five months old. Her newborn infancy has come and gone, and now our girl is wanting to grow up and PLAY! She does full-body wriggles when excited, and she flaps her arms and legs when she watches her big sister Madeleine run, jump, dance, etc.

She seems eager to eat solid food (she positively panted and drooled over our pesto pasta the other night), but in the meantime she sucks on her big toes a lot. A couple weeks ago she began rolling over and she's never looked back. She loves to practice making new sounds, and we swear sometimes she vocalizes "just to hear herself talk." We are still yearning for the time when she will begin sleeping through the night and taking more than 30 minute naps.

Now that Madeleine has started pre-school two mornings a week, Rachel gets some special one-on-one time with mom, which we hope makes up for all the time she gets set down so we can get something done around the house. In the last month, Rachel's Grandpa Naffziger got to hold her quite a bit during his two week-long visits. Look at just a few of the newest photos and you'll see why we call her our "little Pauline girl."

We've posted new photos here:

Month 4:

Month 5:

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Ready For Bats

9/26/2009

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So last month we finally put up my Christmas gift from Ann: a bat house! Hopefully some area bats will discover it, although we probably will have to wait until next summer.

Bat's are great... a single bat can eat up to 1,200 mosquitoes in one hour. There are a lot of misconceptions about them and it's often difficult for them to find lodging in urban areas. Being nocturnal, they stay in the bat houses during the day.

We spent a lot of time trying to find the best location, as it needed to be placed where it gets plenty of sunlight to stay warm. We ended up placing it along the roof of our old shed. The bats enter from the bottom.

Some more bat facts:

Bats are not infected with rabies more than any other animal species, and they very rarely are aggressive when infected (unlike other animals). Bats that get rabies usually become paralyzed, so you shouldn't touch a bat that is laying on the ground.
Bats are a protected species. It is illegal to own, sell, or purchase bats.
Bats are not aggressive, and will not intentionally people or other animals. They may bite if you try to touch them, though.
Bats can live up to 30 years.
About 70% of all bats are insectivores.
Bat houses will not encourage bats to roost in attics or attack people.
In our climate, bats hibernate to warmer areas from late Fall through early Spring.

We'll keep you updated on the house's occupancy...

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Rachel at Three Months

7/23/2009

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We've been meaning to write a "Rachel is Two Months Old" blog for the last month, but the diaper changes, extra laundry, and hours of rocking to sleep got the best of us and now Rachel is three months old. She is a great smiler, a good nighttime sleeper (she still likes those half hour naps during the day, however), and a fairly calm baby. Occasionally she does feel the need to scream for a bit, we think to steal some of the attention from her big sister.

She's had several big outings for so early in her life: Ardenwood Farms, two Oakland A's games, the Oakland zoo, etc. Madeleine is excited at Rachel's increasing interactive nature and is eager for a time when she can play with her more purposefully.

We've posted new photos here.

Month 2:

Month 3:

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Rachel's First Month

5/24/2009

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Rachel has turned from age zero, as Madeleine says, to one month old. She's done it quickly and quietly as she is a calm and easy-going baby for the most part. Her biggest challenge of the first few weeks was waking up to eat so that she could gain weight. In fact, we actually had to set our alarm clocks a couple of times a night to wake her and feed her since she didn't like to awaken on her own. Now she is more active and alert and we let her wake us when she's ready for some homemade milk. Her continuing challenge is learning digestion. We forgot how hard that is for some newborns and how loud they can be as they try to do it.

Ann has ventured out with her around town a few times, big sister in tow. Mostly, she gets quiet time with mommy at home in the morning when Madeleine has someone special come to play with her (Paul's mom, friends, and neighbors), and "loud" time when Madeleine is around. She seems mostly unphased by the high decibels Madeleine is able to achieve in all manners of her moods, but we have noticed she especially seems to enjoy quiet alert time with both parents after Madeleine goes to bed for the night, just when we're ready for bed.

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Rachel is One!

Alameda Backyard Chicken Coop Bicycle Tour

An Amazing Garden Tour Experience

Hosting the Bay-Friendly Garden Tour

Rain Barrels 2.0

Winter News

Rachel At Five Months

Ready For Bats

Rachel at Three Months

Rachel's First Month

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