Hovenweep National Monument

This weekend I had a wonderful adventure visiting my friend Miranda in Utah/Colorado. She works/lives at Hovenweep National Monument which is on the border of Utah and Colorado. Hovenweep is the site of some very mysterious 900 year old ruins. At one point they were home to the ancestors of the Pueblo Indians who currently inhabit this region. I've been to Chaco Canyon which is a larger site with much larger and more extensive ruins but visiting Hovenweep was a memorable experience. The ruins are scattered around a small canyon, seemingly miles from anything or anywhere that a human would want to live. The most mysterious thing about these ruins is the actual placement of the buildings. Many of the buildings sit directly on the canyon edge with doorways that open into nothing but air and a 30 foot drop. There are also ruins, like the one in the picture below, which are perched a top huge boulders and look like natural extensions of the rock. Granted, it's known that the ancient pueblo Indians built their homes with defense in mind but there is something more behind the placement of the ancient buildings at Hovenweep. The construction was completed around 1230c.e. but researchers believe the site was abandoned less than one generation later. One theory is that the people that lived there used up all the local resources and were forced to leave. Juniper trees grow to be very old but there isn't one within ten miles of Hovenweep that is older than the ruins. The people there had to put so much energy into the construction of the buildings that when they were done there was nothing left to sustain them in their everyday lives. Maybe they were a little bit vain and built on top of boulders and the edges of a canyon to show off. Nine hundred years from now people will probably look at the houses we live in and the cars we drive and think the same thing. We build and buy with little regard to the resources we consume. Mostly we think about the way things look.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!

Happy birthday mom! The chickens and I send our good thoughts. Me more than them, I have more thoughts in general I think. Hope your day is wonderful.

Love,
Evan

and the chickens

Owls

Over the past three months I have had a few great owl sightings. I think there is a pair that lives near the farm, I see one of them frequently at dusk when I go out to close the chickens in for the night. The sightings started in the early fall. One late afternoon, just as the light was failing, I saw one out of the corner of my eye landing on top of a gourd trellis in the middle of our fields. It was a pretty big owl, which is why I think there is a pair because the one I see more often is smaller. It stayed there briefly and then flew low to the ground to another perch in the orchard. I was awed. It was the first time I had seen such a large owl in flight and close up. The next sighting was a little more ominous. At the time the chickens were staying in their chicken tractor in the orchard. At the end of the day there were two hens and a rooster still outside the fence, desperately wanting to get back in. I assumed they were so upset because it was getting dark and they were too fat to fit back through the holes in the fence. But I think they knew something I didn't. After I picked each one of the chickens up and put them over the fence I climbed over and closed the door to their house on wheels. As I turned away from the tractor to check on their food and water, I turned towards an apple tree which was inside the temporary chicken yard. My eyes went immediately to the top of the tree where sat an owl which took flight the instant that our eyes met. It flew back over my shoulder and whirled me around to see it fly up into another tree across the driveway. I have since seen what I think is that same owl perched a top a very tall skinny tree which overlooks nicely the yard around my new chicken coop. Since the chickens started using the new coop I have seen it at least half of the time when I close the chickens in at dusk. Maybe it has already eaten one of my chickens, I did lose five this summer to unknown causes. But I haven't lost any since they have been living in the straw bale coop. Maybe the owl isn't interested in the chickens anymore and has unknown motives. Tonight I certainly thought it did.

Today it started raining around 11:30. It turned to heavy snow around 12:30 and kept going all afternoon until the sun went down. This prompted me to extend my evening stroll to include a trip past the orchard, the long way to the chicken coop. As I walked onto the driveway next to the orchard I heard my owl friend let out a screech. It came from the distance and I couldn't place its location at first. As I continued walking, the tree that it normally perches in came into focus through the fading, grey light. Fat snow flakes were falling straight down and sticking to the ground in big clumps. This owls favorite tree is ghostly. The maximum diameter of the tree from edge to edge is no more than four or five feet but it stretches forty feet into the air. Its branches writhe straight upward like long slender flames and the whole tree looks like it is the fossil of a column of fire frozen in time. It sits in a field away from all the other trees and with the dim light and heavy snow, tonight it looked like erie faded black brush strokes on a grey canvas. The owl sat at the very top of the tree. The part of the tree where the branches are so sparse that from my distance it looked like the owl was hovering motionless in the air just above the tree. It continued to screech. Then it flew over to the very top of the cottonwood that I was walking towards. They are big, broad birds and are majestic in flight. My owl friend moves quick and despite its size somehow manages to land and perch gracefully on the highest, smallest branches in its chosen tree.

Just before this all happened I was thinking about how much more time I spend outside as a farmer. Not just more time, but more time paying attention to the world around me. I used to think that mother natures greatest wonders only still existed deep in the last few untouched wilderness areas of the world but I'm seeing more and more of them everyday in my backyard. I guess it helps when your backyard is in northern New Mexico. It also helps when you open your eyes and look up.

Sunday Morning Snow Call

After a full day and night of rain, I woke up this morning to a nice dusting of snow on the ground. It's amazing how fast the temperature drops here. This week I installed a gutter on my chicken coop so all day yesterday I was collecting rain water in trash cans. This morning the third 35 gallon trash can was almost full. The roof is 24'x16'. Actually, that third trash can is probably almost full now that the snow is melting.

Installing the gutter on the chicken coop took me one step closer to its completion but there are still a couple of finishing touches before it is ready to house 50 chickens. The whole design and construction of the coop has been a big success for me. There are 19 chickens and one guinea hen (it moved in from next store) living in it right now. The chickens have been laying on average 8 or 9 eggs a day. Two days this week I collected 13 and I also had a couple days with 7.

The coop has semi-temporary straw bale walls which stand underneath a permanent roof. There are two rooms: one big room, which takes up about 75% of the space, is where the birds sleep at night. There are roosts and nesting boxes. The smaller room will be for raising baby chicks. The goal is to let a couple of the hens sit on a few eggs and then raise their own chicks. They need their own space while they are brooding so that the rest of the chickens don't disturb them. Eventually the yard around the coop will be divided into two sections so that we can grow something in one half while the chickens forage in the other half. This will primarily be their winter home. My goal for the whole farm is to have about 60 chickens. During the growing season they will be divided between three or four chicken tractors and will be moving troughout the fields and orchard. In the winter they will live in the straw bale coop.

My favorite time on the farm right now is the early morning. The days are so short that I have to get up at sunrise in order to get enough sunlight to maintain sanity. Yesterday was cloudy and raining, I was inside building a chick incubator out of an old wooden wine box. Today is bright and sunny, I'll be outside helping my coworker Wade build a small bungalow for he and his family.

One of my favorite things to do in the morning is take pictures. Today I got up and took a few of the chickens and the new snow. I went inside, downloaded my new pictures and ate some breakfast. When I left the house again to use the office computer to post this, it was a much brighter and sunnier day. So I went back and got my camera, unfortunenately the brighter, sunnier pictures are still on my camera.

the simple life

Life is very simple right now. I'm concentrating all my energy towards the piece of land that I live on and live off of. I've never been so excited about anything in my life. I'm staying here because I have the opportunity to work on my dream projects. The seeds of change farm is taking on a new mission. It is transitioning from a research facility to an educational facility. Everyone here is united behind the idea of turning this place into a model of sustainable agriculture and sustainable living. Though I love farming and love plants, my main interest right now is in developing a sustainable energy system for the farm. My first goal is to make the switch from petrodiesel to biodiesel. (More on that once I'm further along.)

A couple of weeks ago I made the transition into the seed cleaning warehouse for the winter. I finished building a winter home for my chickens and now it is time for me to help make sure all the farmers and gardeners across the country get the organic seed that they want for next season. Seeds of Change contracts out almost all of its seed production. The seed that we sell is grown on farms of varying size all over the country. Right now those farmers are shipping this seasons harvest to us so that we can clean it. The seed arrives in varying conditions which means that each batch of seed is a new problem. Seeds come in many different shapes, sizes, colors, and weights and it is our job to remove the weed seed and debris from the good crop seed. We have many different tools: some sort by weight, some by shape, by size, by color, by propensity to roll. Some of these tools are hand held screens that sort by size and some are big complicated machinery with an on board computer that sorts by color. The fun part is figuring out what tool I need to use and what order I should use those tools in. The people I work with are my friends and they make each day more fun that the last.

I have decided to recommit to this blog thing and use it as an outlet to talk about the things that are on my mind. This is just the first of what should be much more regular posts. I know I had a small audience when I started and I hope to get them back. So if you are reading this post a comment and let me know. Or not and I'll just keep writing anyway.