La Casa Grande Colectiva

Tag: yard

  • identifying the plants in the yard

    We recently had a house guest, Aaron, who works for the Chicago Park District maintaining parks and natural areas. He walked around the yard identifying everything he could. There were several prairie species, and lots of invasive weeds. We learned that the big pink flowers that the carpenter bees love is called Joe Pie Weed.
    Joe Pie Weed and carpenter bee
    We also found the beautiful orange flowers of butterfly milkweed.
    Butterfly milkweed (native) topview

    There were a couple plants the Aaron couldn’t recognize.  I found the flickr photo pool called ID Please, where you upload photos of plants and animals you can’t identify and the people who troll that group ID them for you.  I was able to identify this mallow plant and some comfrey that way.

    Scroll through the slideshow to see some of the identified species.

    Vodpod videos no longer available.

  • Another weekend recap!

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    Jacob, Andrew and Ronna re-sodding our muddy front yard.
    New Sod!
    A beautiful grass island was formed.
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    The neighbor’s yard was covered in spring time flowers!

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    Sophie howled and barked at dogs across the yard.

  • weekend update, permaculturist, beds, holes, lots of talk, and eggplant parmesan

    There’s a lot going around the house these days. Here’s a quick recap of the weekend.
    Transplanting sod to the front yard
    Andrew and Ronna transplanted some of the sod that was leftover from new garden beds to a bare spot in the front yard. Sophie supervised.
    Rob and Peter chat in the garden
    Rob brought over a friend and longtime permaculture expert, Peter Bane, for a chat in the garden. It turns out the Peter grew up in Urbana and had lots of stories about home-scale food production in the area.
    Gretchen and eggplant parmesian
    Gretchen brought over some eggplants and whipped up a two stellar pans of eggplant parmesan, one vegan. It was incredibly delicious.

    There were many hours spent outside, digging, thinking, and moving.  Plans for the pond that we’re digging have taken off.  Now we’re thinking about ducks, fish, and waterfalls, although lots of research needs to be done still.  Garden excavations have continued, and Mac, Kannan, and JohnE have improved their beds with compost and more topsoil.  Ronna has been ‘potting-up’ some of the seedlings as its not yet time to move them outside.  All in all a good weekend.

  • garden progress, weekend recap

    There were several changes made to the garden landscape this weekend.
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    Ronna sowed a bed of peas and lettuceRonna works on the pea and lettuce bed.
    Rob, Rob, and members of the Catholic Worker House turned the old compost pile.
    talking about compost
    Mac, Kannan, and JohnE pulled up some sod to make a vegetable bed for the members of their house.
    chicken inspects fresh bed
    We began digging a hole at the end of the canal system that runs through the garden.  We spent a lot of energy and the pond that forms will probably get really gross.  We did use the topsoil to raise a few vegetable beds in order to alleviate the Sping flood that we’re expecting.
    THE HOLE

  • chicken behaviors – dust bathing

    Our chickens love a good dust bath.  While it looks dirty and gross, its actually an important part of their natural hygiene.
    dust bathing leghorns

    On nice sunny days the chickens will spend all afternoon showering themselves with dirt.  They’ve found a few spots in the yard with suitable soil, but their favorite is over by the garage in the full sun.
    dust bathin

    The fine soil is sifted down through their feathers and helps by rubbing dry skin off their bodies.  It also helps by clogging the breathing holes of lice and other parasites.
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    A quick shake and she’s as clean as ever.

  • bicycle rack – new location, what does everyone think?

    Drew and I moved the rusted bed frame bike rack out from the house a bit.  Is everyone happy with the new location?  Please reply with a comment 😉
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  • House Meeting, march 16, 2009

    I wouldn’t normally blog about a house meeting, but our meeting today was really enjoyable and I wanted to explain how we organize ourselves and stay informed.  We set aside an hour each week to discuss things of importance related to the house.  An agenda is made up on the spot as we begin by proposing what things need to be addressed.  We depend on whiteboard and dry erase technology to keep track of the meeting, and notes are taken with someone’s computer.  All notes get posted to our internal house wiki that contains a variety of things no one will ever see but us.

    House meeting, march 16, 2009

    Today’s meeting was beautiful.  Food was prepared and we ate outside on the pic-nic table.  Fresh eggs served from cast-iron, mmm, mmm, mmm.  We were short one housemate, Jacob, who was at a cybernetics conference in Washington.  We had a lot to talk about but the meeting went quickly and we were soon done and working in the garden.  With the warm weather and time-change I can sense that we no longer need to worry about seasonal depression.  I have a bit of a sunburn to prove it, too.

  • Spring Comes Early in the Garden

    Last Friday was a beautiful day. After a day at work I came home to find housemates and friends working in the garden.
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    gardenwork2

    Drew, Rob and JP clearing out bamboo to make room for fresh beds.

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    The chickens were out pecking for worms and enjoying the nice weather.

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    Sophie was really excited about the chickens.

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    The bamboo was burned.

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    And the resulting fire was strangely beautiful.
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    Just another day at La Casa.