On the farm, the rhythms of life so far remain pretty much unaffected by global concerns such as global warming and peak oil.

Increasingly frequent extreme weather events aside, the day to day climate we are experiencing now doesn’t seem different than before. Any change has been so minute, so gradual, so overwhelmed by natural variability. Earth takes several decades to respond to increased CO2 because of the thermal inertia of the oceans. Consequently, the effects we’re seeing today result from what we thoughtlessly dumped into the air 25 to 50 years ago. Annual global greenhouse gas emissions really took off about fifty years ago . . .

. . . and are today greater than ever.

By the time the effects of today’s (or even yesterday’s) emissions are felt, we’ll be long dead. The consequences will be borne by our children’s children’s children.

We can’t pin unusual events like a mid-May frost event on climate change wrought by global warming. The loss of ~75% of this year’s grape crop is just one of the vagaries of farming.

We’re already seeing what peak oil looks like. Stubbornly high gas prices. Stubbornly high unemployment. An economy that refuses to return to “normal”. Asinine describes our new reality in a post at Daily Kos:

[T]he economic and geopolitical turmoil we’ve been observing is exactly what Peak Oil would look like.  Oil production has stagnated, ceasing its endless growth that we were used to in previous decades.  Economic growth rates have also stagnated, causing problems with debt financing that have brought the Euro zone to the brink of collapse.  Austerity plans cause even more economic pain and fail to alleviate the debt problem, while stimulus plans fail to result in sufficient growth to overcome debt burdens, although they do mitigate the impact on the lower classes who suffer most.  Any amount of world economic growth feeds directly into an increased global demand for oil, which quickly runs into our inability to increase global oil production, raising oil prices.  With great respect for Krugman’s opinion that Keynesian economics offers the way out of our current mess, he has not yet addressed the negative feedback loop between stimulus, growth, and oil prices.

Peak oil or no, spring means it’s time to muck out the sheep shed, clearing it of a winter’s worth of manure. I used to do this job with a tractor. I’ve found the work to be much more rewarding done as it was in the past and will be in the future, by hand. It doesn’t take any longer. It’s peaceful and quiet. There’s no inhaling of exhaust fumes. And the absence of machines means you can enjoy the camaraderie.

When the work was done, we all sat at a shaded table on the patio, sharing a lunch of burritos and beer, salsa and chips. The misthaufen will be next year’s compost. Our soil grows richer and richer each year.

Our children’s children’s children deserve a life equally bountiful and joyous. We owe it to them to do what we can now, every day, to increase the odds that they’ll at least have a chance.

For the last two nights, the low temperature hit 30° – a bit scary for the grapes, which are already in bloom. Tender young leaves were frostbit on about 50% of the shoots. It’s a little early yet to tell how much damage was done to the blossoms. Viewed through a loop, it looks like most may have escaped harm even though surrounding leaves were killed. Hopefully. It would be a bit discouraging to lose half the crop this early in the season.

Tomatoes, which are still covered at night, escaped damage. Elsewhere in the garden, spring is in full spring. The side panels have come off the solarium. With hot weather in the forecast, squashes and cucumbers are now in the ground and protected from foraging ducks.

Our first batch of ducklings has hatched – a communal effort among three hens, who laid and incubated the eggs as a team. Seventeen hatched – a single flock, with three mothers. Here they all are, on a walkabout.

With a couple of weeks of warm, dry weather promised, it’s time to get corn and beans seeds in the ground. And at the end of the month, peppers.

Flowers are blooming like crazy.

Nasturtiums

Dogwood

Iris tenax, growing around an erratic – a chunk of Montana granite, detritus from the Missoula floods

Even the oaks are beginning to leaf out. It’s spring in earnest on the farm. No reason to go anywhere else.

This last week the sun came out, and the soil dried out a bit. Our raised bed gopher-proofing project could finally get underway.

First, the beds had to be excavated, down to a depth of about 16 inches. Luckily, Zooey was there to help.

Then we lined the beds with hardware cloth.

Finally, fill the beds back in again. The one is now planted with peas (tomatoes are in the background).

The other, with carrots – prime gopher bait. That’s a sheep grazing in the background, on lush spring grass.

Gophers – hahahahahaha. You’ll not be munching our carrots, peas, and beans this year. Or so we hope.

Nasturtiums, overwintered in the solarium, are already in bloom . . .

. . . and the ivy geraniums are beginning to come on.

So much beauty – and it’s not yet May.

March was a really wet month in Oregon, a record-breaking month in Portland. Here on the farm, 11.76 inches of rain fell during the month – more than Eugene, more than Salem, more than Portland. April has continued to be wet. We’ve measured 4.81 inches so far through the 18th.

Still, there have been sunny days, and warm enough to eat lunch outside on the patio and enjoy a glass of wine on the deck in the evening before dinner. During the occasional respite from the rains, we’ve managed to begin getting the garden in.

Cabbages, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower, and onions have been planted out and are now growing in the raised beds.

Potatoes are planted, garlic is growing, and the winter covers have come off the lettuce beds.

We repaired fencing this winter, replacing posts that had rotted and broken off at ground level. We used the old posts to make raised beds for artichokes and for vining plants – summer and winter squashes, and cucumbers.

Leaves have erupted on the trees and shrubs, turning the woods a fresh, bright green.

Grape buds are starting to swell. The apple trees are beginning to bloom.

And there’s sunshine and warm weather in the forecast for the weekend – and no threat of frost in sight. It’s enough to make the heart sing.

There is one thing and one thing alone I never tire of watching –
The spring river as it trickles over the stones and babbles past the rocks.

Po Chü-i

It’s been cold and wet – too cold and wet to work much outdoors. Indoors, the greenhouse is full of seedlings.

Everything is thriving – the heat mats really make a difference. Two heat mats now cover the entire top shelf. This week when my new cables and thermostat arrive, I’ll redo the bottom shelf so the the entire area can warm the seed trays from the bottom. Currently the lower heat mat is not quite as warm as we would like. The external thermostat should enable us to better adjust and control the temperature.

We’ve got more spinach and lettuces ready to plant out, as soon as we get a break in the weather. Herb seeds are planted – basil, parsley, chervil, and cilantro (which we renew repeatedly, throughout the summer). Various members of the onion family are up. Brassicas (cabbages, broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts) are sprouted and growing. Having lots of space in the greenhouse presented the opportunity to start a wide variety of tomatoes and peppers, for friends’ gardens as well as our own. In a couple of months when the weather will at last be warm enough for them to be planted out, the plants should be big and strong.

In the solarium, geraniums and nasturtiums are already growing. By the time the danger of frost is past and they can be moved outside, they may be already blooming.

Our citrus and artichokes are thriving, as well.

A couple of days over the last couple of weeks the sun saw the sun triumph briefly over winter clouds. On those days, temperatures in the solarium got up to over 100°. Next time the sun is forecast, I’ll have to reinstall the automatic vent that I disconnected and plugged for the winter.

Those precious days of sunshine presented a window of opportunity to help a neighbor build a horse shelter, using salvaged sheet metal and timbers. And just in time. The short respite of sunshine was followed by a mid-March snow storm.

Our neighbor raises Puerto Rican Paso Finos. He claims to be the only breeder of this variety west of the Florida panhandle. Irina passes this spirited fellow every day on her morning walk. She insisted he gets a feeder for his alfalfa and a bedding of fresh straw.

It’s been a quiet week on the farm. A few weeks of warm, almost springlike weather in January and February have been followed a renewed (hopefully last) assault from winter. Too cold and wet to work outside. A good time for cozying up by the wood stove and catching up on more sedentary tasks.

And time for comfort food. A friend surprised us with a gift of four duck carcasses. Ooh, duck soup! We have a favorite recipe, from the south of France.

Alicuit

Ingredients, for each carcass:

Carcass of duck (including wings & neck)
1 onion, diced
2 carrots, diced
1 turnip, diced
~ 1 doz. mushrooms, sliced
~ 1 doz. Kalamata olives, rinsed and sliced
1 large potato, diced
~ 1 T flour
1 C white wine
bouquet garni (thyme, parsley, bay leaf, celery)
1 clove
1 piece star anise
salt & pepper

Preparation:

Roast the duck carcass(es) in a roasting pan in a 400° oven, turning a couple of times, for about an hour or until bones are golden brown. Move to stove top. Add a healthy splash of white wine & add water until carcass is immersed. Add a couple of cloves, a piece of star anise, salt and pepper, & bouquet garni. Bring to boil and simmer for about an hour.

Strain stock through a colander (don’t forget to put a pot under the colander to catch the stock!). Skim the duck fat from the surface of the duck stock & save – it’s precious stuff.

When the carcass has cooled enough to work with, pick out and discard the bouquet garni and then pick the duck meet off the bones (save the skin, fatty bits & other bits you don’t want to eat as a treat for your dog).

While the carcass is cooling: in a stock pot, sauté the diced onion in duck fat until softened and translucent. Add the diced carrots and cook a bit, then add the turnips, then the mushrooms, & finally the olives. Add the flour and cook a bit (we were having a gluten-intolerant guest for dinner, so we left out the flour  & thickened with corn starch at the end instead). Add the stock, first a little bit at a time, stirring to incorporate the cooked flour as a paste.

Add the duck meat to the stock pot, bring to a boil, and simmer for ~ 1½ hours. About 30 minutes before the end, add the potatoes. When the potatoes have cooked so they’re just tender, serve.

Speaking of comfort food, nothing says “comfort” on a cold winter day better than a pot roast. I remember as a kid looking forward to a trip to Grandmother’s house on Sunday afternoon, where a pot roast would be simmering on the stove top. We’ve since discovered that adding a couple of spicy sausages to the pot makes a pot roast even more delectable.

Pot Roast à La Ferme Noire

1 beef rump roast
4 of your favorite sausages (we prefer something spicy, like Hot Italian or Southwest Chicken)
1 onion, diced
2 carrots
1 doz. mushrooms, sliced
1 oz olive oil
2 T flour
1 C red wine
1 T tomato paste
bouquet garni (thyme, parsley, celery, bay leaf)
2 cloves
salt & pepper
1 C beef stock

Pat the beef roast dry, then coat generously with salt and pepper. In a stock pot, heat the olive oil. Brown the meat and the sausages on all sides; remove and set aside. Add the onions and cook, stirring, until softened and translucent. Add mushrooms and cook a bit, stirring. Add flour and cook, stirring, for a couple of minutes. Splash in some red wine, stirring to make a paste with the flour. Add the rest of the red wine, stirring, then the beef stock. Add the tomato paste and stir in. Return the beef roast and sausages to the pot. Add the carrots, bouquet garni and cloves. Bring to a boil and simmer, covered, for 1½ hours or until the beef is tender enough to pull apart. Discard carrots and bouquet garni. Arrange roast and sausages on serving platter, surround with sauce, and serve.

Pot roast served with boiled potatoes & shredded turnips steamed with apple

We had a set of triplets this week, all girls. Triplets are always a bit worrisome, as you never know if the mother will be willing or able to handle all three. Two were big and strong, and appeared to be faring for themselves okay from the get-go.

But the littlest one, even though she’s feisty, gets a bit of supplemental feeding.

Zooey is mighty interested in that new lambchen

The forecast is for the weather to warm up and dry out a bit. As soon as it does, I’m back out into the garden. We took care of the deer problem last year. This year:  gophers, consider yourselves on notice. You’re not getting my carrots again!

Brent crude hit a nine-month high last week, breaking through $125 a barrel. While oil in dollar terms remains $24 below the all-time nominal peak of July 2008, oil is now above the July 2008 peak in terms of both sterling and the euro.

The reason? Global crude use is soaring, while the most important oil wells on earth are rapidly depleting. We basically stopped finding conventional super-giant, high production rate oil fields forty years ago. Oil production has remained stubbornly flat regardless of price, as shown in this chart posted by Gail Tverberg at Our Finite World.

The oil supply shown above is “all liquids,” which includes unconventional sources including biofuels, extra heavy oil, tar sands, and natural gas liquids, as seen in this chart posted by Stuart Staniford at Early Warning.

“Crude plus condensate” on the right hand scale, other components of the liquid fuel stream on the left-hand scale.

Staniford notes that during the C&C plateau period since 2005, about 1 mpd in additional total supply has come from a long standing trend in the increase in natural gas liquids (NGPL), while another 1 mpd has come from “other liquids” (mainly biofuels).

These “other liquids” are not the same as crude oil. Natural gas liquids are not oil, and they contain only 65% of the BTU of oil. Biofuels are much worse. They are, at best, barely an energy source: rather, they are the product of a conversion process of other energy inputs. Taking into account energy returned on energy invested (EROEI) – the amount of energy required to extract, process, and deliver oil, natural gas liquids, unconventional oils, and biofuels – the world’s energy situation is much more dire than apparent from the gross “all liquids” production numbers. Even if “all liquids” production has still been rising – barely – the same can’t be said for net energy from liquid fuels.

High prices for crude means high prices for gasoline. Oil prices in 2011 averaged record highs, and 2012 isn’t looking to be any better as gasoline prices in the U.S. have never been higher this time of the year and are continuing to rise. No matter how much we might like to believe there’s a “solution” to high gasoline prices, there is very little government policies can do to deal with increasing demand for oil from Asia, or depleting oil reserves, or intractable conflicts in the Middle East and Africa.

Why do I bother to talk about oil supplies, when people say they much prefer to read about farm life: the ducks, the sheep, and the garden? It’s because the reality of peak oil is the driver behind this kind of life we have chosen to live, the main driver of the decisions we make. Peak oil means the end to the growth paradigm. However haltingly, we’re struggling to come to grips with this reality in our daily life.

Over a decade ago we began to think about disengaging from an oil-dependent lifestyle. We’re far from independent of oil, but we realize oil represents the past, not the future. So it seems silly to invest in new vehicles. For farm chores, our pre-WWII tractor will probably still be running even after the oil runs out.

1939 Ford 9N

We keep repairing our ’80s-vintage cars and ’70s vintage farm truck rather than replacing them. We drive as little as possible, fondly remembering the days we lived in the south of France where we get around almost entirely by foot and pedal power. Life has never been more glorious.

Sallèles d’Aude, “our” village in the south of France, by the Canal du Jonction

Sallèles d’Aude, street scene with pickup

We don’t take on debt, as haven’t now and don’t expect in the future to have any income to pay it back. We grow as much of our own food as we can, and as much as possible turn to neighbors for what we don’t or can’t. We rely on our own woodlot for heat.

We seem to not be alone in dis-investing in the automobile culture. Jazzbumpa at Angry Bear points to Department of Energy data showing vehicle ownership in the U.S., measured as vehicles (both cars and trucks) per 1000 population, peaked in 2007 at 843.57. It dropped by 1.88% to 828.04 in 2009. Nationmaster.com shows that the “most recent” value for the U.S. is 765 (though it’s not clear what “most recent” means). If this is accurate (which Jazzbumpa questions), then vehicle ownership has fallen off a cliff and is back to 1994 levels.¹ It is pretty clear that automobile ownership in the U.S. has peaked for good and is now going down rather than up.

Driving is down, too – both vehicle miles traveled and total miles driven. The Federal Highway Administration reports that last year, U.S. drivers logged 35.7 billion fewer miles than in 2010 — down 1.2%— to 2.963 trillion miles. That’s the fewest number of miles since Americans drove 2.890 trillion miles in 2003.

A drop in both vehicle ownership and vehicle miles traveled are indicators of a change in the way people are choosing to live in this world. Don’t be surprised when other indicators begin blinking, too. In our lifetime, we’ve come to expect to see GDP and other economic metrics always going up – after all, growth is normal, isn’t it? Perhaps growth will prove to not be normal, after all – and sooner than anyone thinks.

¹ The Census Bureau estimates the population of the U.S. as of January 2012 at about 312,780,000. The DOE’s Transportation Energy Data Books pegs the U.S. light vehicle fleet at 234,880,00 as of June 2011. Using those numbers results in a vehicle ownership rate of 751. A vehicle ownership rate of 765 may be too high, not too low.

Snows in December, a solid week of 23°- 24° lows just this last week. Yet we’ve been eating lettuce out of the garden all winter long. Row covers have proved to be the trick.

The wire framework is made from 5′ wide remesh, which comes in 150′ rolls. The wire frames are covered with 6 mil polyethylene sheeting; a weight at each end an another section of wire mesh thrown over the top keeps the plastic from blowing away when the wind blows. The row covers not only provide additional warmth during the days and protect from frost at night. They also keep the soil from becoming soggy and compacted from the rains, keeping the soil loose and fluffy.

We’re now harvesting lettuces we planted out as seedlings late last fall.

We planted spinach at the same time, but it mostly got eaten by voles. A few surviving plants are finally beginning to send out new leaves.

In early January, we planted out a new set of seedlings which should be ready about the time the bed we’re harvesting now is done.

We grow mostly loose leaf lettuces to be harvested leaf by leaf: Australian Yellow, Black-Seeded Simpson, Flashy Butter Oak, Royal Oak Leaf, New Red Fire, Merlot, Red Sails. We’ve also planted a couple of head lettuces: Anuenue, a batavian; and Winter Density, a romaine type.

After years of frustration, mâche is finally thriving beneath the Solexx row cover.

In the greenhouse, seedlings are growing for the next planting of mâche, lettuces, and spinach.

And we’ve started other seeds as well, so plants will be ready to transplant out when the weather warms up in spring: onions, scallions, shallots, and leeks; pak choy; a selection of tomatoes; and a few sweet peppers. Normally we wouldn’t start tomatoes and peppers this early, but rather wait until temperatures warmed up a bit in March. But a friend loaned us a home-made heat mat, and since we’ve now got an outlet in the greenhouse we just had to give it a try. We’ll see what kind of germination rate we get.

The worst of the cold weather is probably behind us, as spring approaches. The sun is out, and thoughts once again turn to the garden. It’s timely to review: how did our solarium perform over the short days and freezing nights of winter?

Adding thermal mass proved not to be enough to protect tender plants if outside temperatures dropped below ~25°. For the coldest nights, we needed to come up with a supplementary heat source. We use brooder lamps for ducklings. Why wouldn’t the same concept work for plants?

Electricity was the primary problem: a source wasn’t readily available, and providing a permanent hookup didn’t seem worth the cost or effort since power was needed only a few nights out of the year. So I wired an outlet at the solarium ceiling for two heat lamps to hang above our most sensitive citrus, an Improved Meyer Lemon and an Owari Satsuma Mandarin from One Green World that we planted right in the ground.

Power is provided when needed by plugging as extension cord into a male receptacle in a weatherproof exterior “inlet”.

This system works so well that we’ve moved into the solarium all of the cold-sensitive plants that we previously overwintered in the greenhouse. Space is at a premium in this 7′ x 7′ structure, so we’ve had to be inventive. Around the Yuzu Ichandrin, we installed shelving for pots . . .

. . . and above, a piece of ¾” pipe serves to hang containers.

Staggering the height of the plants allows more to be squeezed in along the pipe.

In the ground within the solarium, we’ve been growing herbs all winter long, herbs that otherwise wouldn’t grow in winter: cilantro, parsley, and an herb form of celery.

Fresh “cutting” or “soup” celery is great to have in the garden as celery, along with carrots and onions, are the three essential aromatic vegetables used in making stocks and sauces. Buying a whole head of celery in the store is wasteful. Although a good market will let you buy one stalk at a time, we’re a long way from a market. So keeping fresh celery on hand would otherwise be a challenge. Now all we have to do when celery is called for is wander outside -  with the solarium, any time of the year – pluck a few stalks, and tie them together with other herbs in a bouquet garni. Nichols has the seeds: VCE185, Afina. Plant seeds once, and from then on the celery will self-seed prolifically.

An added benefit: as long as I was wiring the solarium, I installed an outlet in the adjacent greenhouse to provide power for a heat mat. A heat mat will enable us to begin sprouting seeds in early February, a month earlier than would otherwise be possible. So it’s now time to begin perusing the seed catalogs and planning for spring plantings. Nichols and Territorial, here we come!

After a barren spell in November, our Muscovy ducks are laying again. Keeping a light on in the duck shed until 10:00 every night seems to have made a difference, as they began laying again shortly after we began that regimen.

Some of the ducks are content to lay in the duck shed. When we open the doors to let the ducks out in the morning (having been shut in over night to protect them from predators) there the eggs are, in the nests the ducks nestle into the straw in the corners of the shed. All we have to do is bend down and pick them up.

For other ducks, laying their eggs in the duck shed simply won’t do. So they seek out less convenient places. Some locations become semi-permanent, and they revisit them regularly: underneath the outdoor workbench behind the potting soil containers, behind the garbage and recycling cans, underneath the tarp covering the compost pile.

A few hens, however, are really secretive. They don’t want you to know where they are laying their eggs, and if you discover one location they tend to abandon it and find yet another. When the duck shed door is opened in the morning these secretive hens set off: alone, determined, and with a purpose. If you want to find their eggs, you have to follow them, and do so carefully and innocuously.  If they see they’re being followed, they will abort their clandestine mission. And if you divert your attention for just a moment they can vanish, disappearing into the brush.

Meet one of our surreptitious hens.

After watching this hen for several mornings I finally succeeded in tracing her to her nest right in the middle of a pile of brush and prunings waiting to be burned. And I do mean right in the middle. I had to carve my way in, using hand shears to tunnel a passageway through the bramble. Stretched out flat on my belly with only my ankles hanging out, I retrieved eight eggs.

Crawling on my belly like a reptile to find eggs simply wouldn’t do. I set a torch to that pile. She’ll never use that nest again.

The next day, that hen once more set out for her burn pile. What few coals remained of that pile were still smoldering. She circled it again and again, repeatedly coming back to and stopping at what had been her entrance. You could almost see her scratching her head: what the hell happened here?

Still, every morning she’s setting off towards where her burn pile used to be. There’s got to be a new nest. One morning I’m trying to follow two hens. Our burn pile hen disappears behind a copse of trees and brush. I rush to see where she’s gone. Damn, lost them both!

This morning, she’s off again. I’m keeping a loose tail. When I see her round that copse, I high-tail it over there. She sees me, pretends she’s just out on a stroll. But I’ve seen where she’s been looking, where she was headed.

That’s an abandoned wood rat mound, next to an old, rotting Douglas-fir stump. A little searching, and there it is, nestled under and inside the wood rat mound: her latest nest, containing a half a dozen eggs.

Another victory, albeit temporary. Tomorrow the game begins anew.