Earth Day chicken-feedin’ ride !!
On a lovely Cascadian spring day (that happened to be Earth Day and I didn’t even know until later), three of us hopped on our bicycles and did a quick turn through the Hawthorne District to hit up gardens for chicken food. We were hunting for and uprooting a particular variety of mustard greens that was bolting that we don’t want to save seed from. A few plants were left because they were displaying “off-type” characteristics and we’d like to see what happens if we save seed just from those.
First stop was Ninja Garden (formerly known as “Subcommandante Ramona”, a previous feline resident, and before that as “Magic Wormhole”). Here is the plot before picking.
Here is Ninja !! She is rolling around on the ground in appreciation of some catnip we shared with her. We try to always have catnip with us to share with the cats we meet. We call it “bribing the guards”.
Here is the plot after picking. Look closely and you will see that a great number of tall plants have been removed, and are now loaded on bikes. Ninja is still stoned.
Next stop: Tic Tac Toe Garden (formerly known as “Ninja”, who left The Wheel last year after being hit by a car). Tic Tac Toe also enjoys catnip but did not make an appearance that day. This is the before picture of this plot.
Chickens at Tic Tac Toe enjoying the greens.
Here is the marker for Ninja’s grave.
After photo of this plot. Clover still remains and will be chopped down to get worked into the soil, which is clayey. Note the bike packed full of greens.
Next stop was Crabapple Cottage, a CSA subscriber household. Here is the custom bike known as “The Glider” that Farmer K often rides. It was made by the brother with the orange shirt in these photos, who welds.
The chickens at Crabapple Cottage enjoying the bounty.
Last stop was the “OG Garden”, which stands for “Original Gangster”. Paris and Puffy are the cats who live at this garden. These are the chickens enjoying the greens. Note that they are eating right out of the bike buckets into which the greens were picked in the first place.
This mission was typical of the spirit of Sunroot adventures: bike-riding, cat-worshipping, seed-saving, chicken-feeding, free-flowing fun!