Torrance Farmer's Market

As part of my on-going Farmer's Market series, and because I needed mushrooms for my Fungi ecology class and had neglected to venture out over the weekend, Skye and I headed south to the Torrance Tuesday Farmer's Market

For no reason other than habit, I have only been to the Santa Monica and Venice farmer's markets recently, so this felt like a nice change.




Come on dad, I thought you said we were in a rush.

We were actually. We had to find the market, parking and locate a fungi stand, choose, purchase and then get back up to Westchester for Skye's Shakespeare class.

So unfortunately I couldn't relax and really investigate.





One major difference was size, not necessarily in number of vendors, but just the physical space that the other markets don't have.



There was actually room to move, even room for those double -wide strollers that are so popular at the Santa Monica venues.



But there weren't a lot of strollers, or tons of chefs or caterers, just a bunch of "normal" folks buying local foods.





The food vendors were a bit more Latino-themed, kind of ....






There was also more Asian food products available.




All in all it was a well stocked, organized Farmer's Market with easy access and lots of variety. There was not nearly as many people peeping, crowd gazing as the SM/Venice shows but .....


They did have mushrooms.



The mushroom vendor was very sweet and had many, many varieties of fungi.





So many mushrooms, so little....

Did I tell you about the mushroom who walks into a bar and the bartender crosses his arms and start shaking his head.

"Get out, get out now. We don't serve your type here"

I was a little confused as was the mushroom.

"Come on, please, ...."

" Come on, man, I' a fun guy"

Get it a fungi,
a fun guy.

The Hunter Within......NOT

The other day we were visited by a raccoon, perhaps more than one. I initially chased him away, with a camera actually trying to take a picture. I ended up running into a fence and getting this....






That's my upper thigh by the way.


So I tried a different tact and unfortunately ran out of batteries and my 2, yes 2 back-up batteries were also dead.

So I resorted to my I-phone.

But first.....



There's a raccon under that chair, I promise. I thought this might be the best photo. How sad.

We turned on one light and then another and ....



Skye got pretty close to the little critter.





And her pics were much better than mine.



and got better.



Of course I was very concerned for the safety of our cats and even more for our flock of defenseless birds. So I put out a trap.

A Live, non-harmful trap to be sure. The first night I caught a kitten, which the raccoon ended up swiping at and taunting. Skye witnessed this, I was in bed by then.

The second night....





This big toughie had also put the fear in Daisy and he is a big, thick boned feline, however trapped he comes across as well a pussy.






The raccoons seem to have moved on so my trappin' days are done....for now.

Notes from the Farm

Over the years, I've spent way too much time, energy and money on the "farm" So I've taken a step back, or at least tried to.

In spite of this the garden continues to flourish and provide.





Look at all those tomatoes and figs, peppers and eggs, even a pumpkin.....





or two. For some reason this pumpkin started getting greener and greener. Any ideas?





I suspended this pumpkin with a Walmart bag which I thought was pretty fitting. The pumpkin was beautifully shaped, not lop-sided or flattened by lying on the ground.




We picked these just a few days ago. Our plants continue to fruit and its almost November. That's crazy!!

Although with my ingenious tomato "cages" access takes a little more agility than perhaps normal.





It's hard to tell from this how high up I am. Falling certainly wouldn't kill me, but it would sure hurt.



Got one, actually got a whole bunch of beautiful yellow sweet things.

Life's Cycles

A couple of years back Skye got a couple of rats. One from Petco and then after reading that we really should have purchased our rat from a breeder and that you should really have two rats because they are social animals, we did just that and got a second hand-raised rat from a reputable breeder. That rat passed away a while back. The "cheap" feeder rat from Petco however lived much longer. Unfortunately, Spirit died the other day. She died quietly in the night. Skye was sad but handled it well. She made a lovely memorial for her.

Beautiful.




After a couple of weeks nature took over again. BTW these flowers and leaves are edible and we through them in our salads. Also I harvest every couple of days for the chickens. They love it.




Beautiful amaranth.

You can eat the leaves and use the seed as well. I planted these mostly for the chickens. I've planted a lot of stuff for our feathered friends and they have paid us back with eggs, lots and lots of eggs. We got 8 eggs the other day. That means each and every one of the girls are now laying.



Come and get it girls. They are always on the lookout for treats.





You silly birds. That's not a nesting box.

One of the downsides to having backyard chickens is the fly that come with them. Keeping the are clean is important. We use the deep litter method, which certainly cuts down on the flies but it doesn't eliminate them. So we put out a good number of non-toxic traps. I also grow plants that flies don't like as well as promoting beneficial insects. There are some predatory wasps and flies that also help keep down the population.



This is not one of the products I would recommend. In fact this thing barely caught any flies at all. Although it did sure stink.

Downsizing

Originally we decided the absolute maximum number of chickens we could keep was 5 and that 3 was probably a better idea.

Because of one thing or another, mostly the eco-class we ended up with many more birds than that and settle down to 9 birds. One revealed itself to be a rooster and then we were down to 8, which was still more than our space really can handle.

We took the first step towards downsizing by finding a good home for a couple of our girls.

Our biggest bird, Milky Way. She was the one that was laying a whole bunch of double yolks. She still lays just about every day and they are good size eggs as well.






We got Cole at the same time as Milky Way, both from Malibu feed. They've always been inseparable, so it was part of the deal you take one you got to take the other. Even though Cole was much smaller than Milky way she was older when we bought them and she has always been the dominant one. They're both really beautiful birds.




Bye Cole, I'm sure you guys will like your new home.






These are just a couple quick pics of the girls in their new home. We gave them to another family who home schools and already has some chickens.

They live close by and Hannah is in Skye's girl scout troop so I'm sure we'll be seeing them regularly enough.

We still have 6 lovely hens and are getting on average 4 eggs a day.

Life on the Urban Farm

Blogety, Blog, Blog

Were In the World Is Jon?

I started this blog, way back when simply to share with friends and family our travels. That was back when we actually were traveling. Since then it has become a sort of public diary serving as much as a writing exercise as a way to keep track of what happened when, given my already sketched memory.

Lately however, my Facebook updates and posts have sort of taken place of blogging, which is sort of cool and sort of sucks, cause as a writing exercise blogging was a first step, just barely maintaining my shape as it were. Facebook, however is like ordering the salad at McDonald's and saying you've started a new diet. Anyhow, here's some quick updates:

Girl scouts: up and running again.

Home Schooling: Ups and downs as always, but Skye did a speech on dyslexia and nabbed Best Speaker

Fitness World: Sporadic training, doing juijitsu more regularly, just ran a half-marathon and fared ok, ankle good, aerial arts going strong

Milagro Vertical Farm: We've made some decisions to downsize so for a while I just stopped thinking about the backyard. I've had to readjust and realize the process was going to take a bit longer and stuff still needed tending to, kind of like the blog. So I've been "farming" but in a much more abbreviated fashion. Even gave away a couple of the birds.

Cindy's in Chicago and swamped by the job. She'll be missing Halloween with us but after that there are several trips planned going both ways.

Eco-class continues to keep me busy. In fact, I gotta run to straighten up after yesterdays schoolin'. Meal worms, living and dead need cleaning up and sorting out.

Details and photos to follow.

Post Mudder

I FINISHED
I AM ONE TOUGH MUDDER

I finished the Tough Mudder event in a little under two hours. It was a lot of fun. Not nearly as hard as I expected, although the water was every bit as cold. But I wasn't in it as long as I anticipated and it wasn't as deep either. So not so bad.

Now it was time to celebrate and appreciate and document.




Free Beer, Free Tattoo of the event logo,





Free Mullets and Mohawks!!!

What more could a post-race party need?






Music and food....Got it.




There was even a rum swiggin' Tough Mudder version of Jack Sparrow or some kindred spirit.

Bravo!!!!


I went to the finish line to cheer on some of the other Tough Mudders








Go Mudders



It was great passing under this blow up arch and being done.



For most the fire "obstacle" was little more than a final formality and a great photo-op.



These two gals went to grab hands to finish together and the crowd shouted its approval...and then they went crashing to the ground.

They brushed themselves off, laughing and did indeed finish together.



This young las was confused as to what and where to go. Jump over real fire? What kind of race is this anyway?




This was the "surprise" obstacle, downing a Dixie cup of Tabasco.

I went a little ways up and got some shots and video of the Half-pipe obstacle.



Into the mud, the first water/mud obstacle of the course a little after mile two.



Watch in the video for one guy doing a back flip into the mud, impressive.




After the mud, off to face the freezing shower blasting at you as you trudge up the half-pipe. It actually was refreshing. And that was hours earlier for me, when it was still in the high 50s, low 60s.




72 degrees seems ideal, but to be running up and down hills, it's actually pretty steamy.

Poor mudders.

Looking forward to the next one....

There will be a next one.

The Tough Mudder

GO!!!

This was how it started. A mass group start downhill yelling all the way.















It was after all the Braveheart Charge.

We ran down hill, a lot. We come upon areas too steep to run, to narrow to race, in fact there are forced "no run, no pass" areas on the course.

By the time we get to the ridiculously steep uphill portions, there is little need to impose a "no run, no pass" area. Too hot, too steep and if you're marching as fast as the guy next to you is "running", why waste the energy, there is still 17 more obstacles and 6 more up and down hill miles.

We finally get to our next obstacle, a tunnel crawl. I can't fit too well. So I pull my self through with my forearms and lats, dragging my body behind.

Then we're off to more obstacles.

After scrambling over some huge cable spools, helping one another over these obstacles we scamper through a tire field.












Over hill over dale,
A mudder's heart will never fail












This was the water canon aka snow making machines that was aimed at us mudders as we raced up a half-pipe.

We charged toward mud.





And mud we got.













Mud's not too bad.
40F water is bad.

Our not quite freezing lake.




















In we go. Come on guys this is not where we want a bottle neck.












This is actually where I ran into a traffic jam. As I was going under my first barrel people had stopped ahead of me to take a breath, maybe summon some courage. All I know is I was under water in 40F and ran into someone's butt.

Seriously?













And now we have to drag our butts out




, only to......



















have to slide back into the Artic pond.













What followed was a log carry, some fence climbing and a lot of down hill.

Oh and of course the "surprise challenge" taking a nice slurp of hot sauce before running and jumping through the victory flames.

Fire, fire, fire