Tree Trimmer

Okay, here's one of the two culprits. He has a buddy and they like to hang out together. I'm pretty sure they both have apple breath.

Here is one of my intrepid guard dogs hard at work.

To be fair, the deer don't budge when they bark.

Meat

It was an exciting day today for the 4 footeds. 

Today is meat delivery day. Since 2008 I've had these guys on a raw diet. Homestead Ranches in Paonia does a raw dog food which combines muscle and organ meat. They get this ground up meat with a supplement of raw bones 3X a week.

They deliver to my area once a week and this week it's time to restock the dogfood.

40 lbs of meat and 3 pork ribs.

This will last about a month and a half. I keep checking to see if they're getting too skinny or too fat and adjust accordingly. They also get variety- like treats from my favorite local "fast food" place (Scot makes a killer egg sandwich) Scotties

They arrive frozen and I get them in the freezer as quickly as I can.

It's easier to cut this into portions when it's partially frozen. I use a separate cutting board just for the raw meat. If you're going to do this wash your hands thoroughly after you've fed the beasties. If you think that's going to be a problem you can always use chef's gloves.

1/6 pound for breakfast and 1/6 pound for dinner. 

I separate Duff and the Pulis when I feed them otherwise Duffy would steal BB and Luv's food

It's gone in about 10 seconds.

Maybe 5 seconds.

BB and Luv sitting pretty for dinner.

Luv chomping on his and BB waiting his turn.

BB gets his and promptly takes it out to the driveway.

The raw diet is controversial and if you'd like to know more about it why not go to the yahoo group and get more info? 

I can tell you this, my guys love it, they're happy, they're healthy and  they have shiny white teeth. 

There are lots of reasons to do this- not the least of which is we waste so much food why not use the less popular cuts of meat for dogfood? It's what we used to do, give the scraps from the table or the extra bits from the butcher to the dogs. 

But the major reason is because we have them for such a short time and it's great to see them enjoying things... like dinner.

Jinks

Oh yeah, I don't eat meat, just the dogs....

Wasp Jenga

I don't have water, but I do have mulch, clay and rocks, a lot of rocks.

Using all these "locally sourced" items is why I found myself playing a game of "wasp jenga" yesterday morning.

I asked Owen Hablutzel to evaluate my dryland ranch last year. I was looking for someone who understood the techniques used by Geoff Lawton in Greening the Desert.

My reasoning was if these techniques could work with 2" of moisture a year they should work with my 6" a year.

One of the things which Owen suggested was a hugelbed.

His idea was to use these as swales on slope leading up to my house.

I've started on my bottle wall (a future post) and the first thing is to dig a foundation- which means dirt.

I have lots of "punk wood" from patching the deck so I decided to do a small swale with the old wood and the dirt from the dig.

I started dismantling the wood pile for the pieces of the old deck and found that it had become a home for wasps..... yes that's a zoom image- you think I'm getting any closer you're nuts.

Gently gently dismantle woodpile...

 

Okay, probably not the best stuff for a hugelbed- you want some vegetative stuff in there too- but it's what I had... 

 

At least it's the start on a swale.

 

...and the woodpile is back in order...

 

..and the wasps are back, doubtless making another hive, I haven't checked...

... and Duff is extremely pleased since he killed the packrat which was hiding in the woodpile. No, I'm not posting pictures of the dead rat , just Duff searching for more. 

See those little ears perked straight up?

 

Of course when Duff checks something out he has Puli backup...

 

Nope, nothing there... those are the "nothing there" angle ears...

 

confirmed by the Puli backup inspection team...

Killer...

Da hellboyz

Well, the pulik are 6 years old and counting and Duff is somewhere in the 8 year range, maybe .... but they still *love* to race along the driveway...

 

The Puli brothers are still boxing with each other

 

Duffy is still herding them....

 

They still look like cute rag mops with teeth...

Okay, more using BB as a pull toy than herding...

Happy 4rth of July

By the dawn's early light....happy 4rth from BB, Duffy and Luverboy. We're enjoying the morning and we will hide from all fireworks later tonight. There may be a BBQ in between and *that* we're gonna be all *over* that......

Groasis Waterboxx

It's all about water.  I'm always looking for ways to harvest water.  This led me on an internet search for an earthbox. I thought this would be a good solution for our short growing season. I could start some veggies indoors while it was still to cold to plant or I could have a self-watering herb garden.

But instead of googling "earthbox" I googled "waterbox" and this is what I got:


Waaaaaay cooler than an indoor planter. I especially liked the accordion  lid which promoted  Condensation even better I could buy them on the Groasis web site.

One of my main goals is to help restore local wildlife to the levels they were at 18 years ago when everyone was still using flood irrigation (sprinkler irrigation has really changed the local wildlife *a lot*). One of the ways to do this is to plant things which the locals like to eat.

I bought 10 Groasis Waterboxxes and 20 baby choke cherry trees.

Itsy bitsy chokecherry trees.

 The "bucket" part of the box is like a doughnut with holes for the trees. There is a template to help place the seedlings and nylon wicks for the water to "weep" from the box into the ground.

The top of the box has the accordion shape to promote condensation. 

I took rainwater out of the cistern. I got a little help from BB.

 Next I dug holes for the boxes. The one place where these tend to fail is the wick. If you don't bury it below the roots of the native grasses the grass roots will choke the wick.

 That means at least 18" deep in my dense clay loamy soil.
Then soak the hole with water and stir- to help aerate the soil- and let it soak in for at least an hour- then stir again.

I got help with the "stir" part. There is nothing quite like a muddy Puli.

 Poke holes in the template for the seedlings.

 Poke holes in the mud for the seedlings.

 Snip a little off the roots and the top of the seedlings (helps promote growth).

 Plant 'em. Cover the template with dirt to help make a tight seal between the bucket and the template (0% evaporation is the goal) See where the compass is? Orient the seedlings East/West for the best shade/sun.

Place the wick and put the bucket over the seedlings.

Snap on the lid.

 Place the funnels in the holes.

 Fill the bucket with water. If you overfill there is an overflow hole on the North side.

 Thirsty work says the Duffmeister.

 Fill the hole back up around the bucket. I'll post a picture of the mulch/rocks later but that's what comes next mulch around the box and cover the mulch with rocks to stop grass growing too close to the box.

I planted these Memorial Day weekend and we haven't had more than a wiffle of rain since.  Eight of the boxes are still full of water. I've refilled two of them. One still seems to be losing water and the seedlings aren't doing too well in that one. The other nine are really looking pretty good right now. This is a picture of the healthiest one. 

The water in the box is supposed to last 1-2 years. By that time the trees should be well enough established to keep growing without the boxes.

If this works I will definitely do a happy dance.