Pallet Salad

"If you do it," my sister laughed over the phone, "you have to blog it."
(She was laughing about Spring Project :: Jen's Hen's)
"No really, you should document it."
I struggle with running a blog called 'The Johnson's in China,' while living solidly in the Bible belt of the American Midwest for nearly 18 months, after promising to document repatriation. There is only so much overhaul and redefinition you can make of a blog ... but for the thirty faithful followers that keep adding to my hit count, and, of course for my sister (whom I love) (even though she laughed at me), here is the documentation (not of chickens, but of another worthy homesteading attempt) I promised my giggling sister that night on the phone.

Tonight each Johnson girl took out a dinner plate and picked their salad. They could choose from spinach, romaine, butter crunch and three varieties of leaf lettuce. They picked their greens, washed them, and created salads according to their own preference. Mr Johnson marinated and grilled some steaks, and we had an awesome summer meal.

The Accidental Homesteader (part one)

Last fall, sort of by accident, I picked up a book at the library about homesteading.
My limited knowledge of the word had me thinking in "Little House on the Prairie" terms ... of the time in our nation's history when pioneers moved West, claimed land and improved it. The modern day homestead movement relies on many of the same "back to the basics" principles: using wisely, choosing renewables, and living sustainably.
I was happy to have stumbled on this basic book that offered practical tips on ideas I had found more and more attractive after living in China.I feel that an unexpected part of our international experience has been that we have acquired a sense of urgency about really thinking about how much and what "we" (The West) and "we" (The Johnson's) consume.
The impact of pollution generated by the Middle Kingdom is far reaching. Factory and industrial pollution from coal-dependent China has been documented thousands of miles from Asia in places as far away as the west coast of North America. Yet despite this, in our daily experience, we witnessed that our Chinese neighbors were far more conservative consumers, more thorough recyclers, and more frugal over all.
For example, They ...

• flash fry food in woks


• use air conditioning sparingly (and at much higher minimum temperatures)


• take public transit


• buy local produce


• And wherever possible grow their own veg.

Of course, many of these practices in China are more out of financial necessity than a conscience lifestyle choice. But regardless of the motivation, the end result is practical.
With my observations of Asian frugality, my new found homesteading literary interests, and months of plotting over the winter, I created an amalgamation of schemes that took shape this spring.Mr Johnson (and reality) had to talk me down from the more extreme endeavors (each of which sounded so good in the housebound days of January.)
There will, alas, be no worm bin for indoor composting. And, there is not a small flock of hens* free ranging out in our in-town back acre.

(*Generically, I would have called them "Jen's Hens" and named them Ingrid, Adele and Nora. I would have gotten them, my mythical fowl of February day dreams, as pullets, instead of as chicks. In my homesteading day dreams I really had it all planned out).

It turns out raising chooks and having a penchant to travel aren't good bedfellows. (While we may be able to cajole a green thumbed neighbor into watering our garden every other day while we are on holiday, most folks would be reluctant to feed and water three hens named for female vocalists, not to mention drag their chicken truck to a different location in the yard or compost their droppings!) I was simply not willing to trade my passport for poultry.
But other dreams have come to fruition.

(to be continued ...)

{Compost}

One week ago a semi arrived at The Bungalow with eight steamy yards of black gold. I had ordered this delivery and scheduled it for Wednesday. What I had not anticipated was the size of the delivery truck, which did not fit down my leaf lined drive, or in fact my neighbor's. So, instead of having an extra large pile of evolving cr@p deposited in a discrete and manageable space near my raised beds and rain barrels in the back yard by the barn, it has sat for the last week in my front yard.


Don't get me wrong. 


I. love. compost. 


{In a huge pile in my front yard, not so much!}


We have spent the last week shoveling and loading the nutrient rich organic matter around every plant and shrub on the property. We have filled our raised beds with it and all of my planters. We have worked in along the roots of the peonies and the rhubarb and the lilacs. When I put in twelve new hosta lilies along the now tamed hedge I back filled with compost. (When my friend Sarah visited last summer, she said, "That's a hedge?!?" about the monstrous, leafy 15 foot high expanse that separates our property from our neighbors to the North. It's now a more manageable six feet tall. The width of the expanse that we cut back allowed us to use the space to create a six foot wide mulched bed.)


We have offered compost to all of our gardening neighbors. We sent it in trash cans for my MIL's rhubarb. If you live in drive-able proximity, please come help yourself! We have whittled the pile down to about a third. Which means we still have the equivalent of two pick-up beds of compost available. 


Compost is magic. It feeds plants, keeps down weeds and is living. It's warm to the touch. (This kind of freaked my kids out.)
* Side note: my oldest promptly volunteered for all dishwasher and laundry duty to avoid any contact with something that is warm and steamy!


When we bought The Bungalow a dozen years ago we were thrilled to stumble upon the garden files of Phyllis, the thoughtful perennial gardener who lived in The Bungalow with her husband in the 1970s and 80s. The owners between Phyllis and The Johnson's had let everything become overgrown, but with the help of Phyllis' garden maps, sketched on yellow legal pads, we were able to decipher what plants where popping up around the yard. We transplanted the rhubarb and asparagus, that was overgrown with trumpet vine to a sunny spot in the back yard. We moved peonies, that after thirty years of tree growth where then in the shade, to a sunny row in the back. With all of these transplants we used compost. For good measure we tamped it around other beds as well, and threw it down with grass seed on bare spots in the lawn. It was miraculous.


After our five years in China, The Bungalow was looking pretty overgrown again. But with the sweat equity of four of the five Johnson's, and with the help of compost, we are hoping to bring it back to the glory it once knew in Phyllis' care. 


Thank you compost.