Day Sixty-Nine: Biochar

Last night I promised Taiya I would read her a chapter of Prince Caspian first thing in the morning, so when the kids finally woke up (they slept late, until 8 o'clock!) I got them breakfast and we snuggled up in bed and read the first chapter of book four of the Chronicles of Narnia. I don't remember this book at all, so it's going to be all new to me. 

So much depends upon a yellow wheelbarrow
filled with biochar, beside the white dog.

It was a gorgeous, sunny, warm day. I piddled in the garden. Jeremy had shoveled up a wheelbarrow full of charcoal from the brush fire and I sprinkled it on my garden beds. The proper way to use "biochar" (basically charcoal used for soil) is, you're supposed to mix it with compost and let it sit together for a while (people call this "charging" the biochar), otherwise you risk binding up nitrogen in the soil. I just lightly sprinkled it on top of the soil, though, and didn't mix it in, so I'm hoping it won't have too detrimental an effect on productivity. Why add biochar, you ask? Charcoal is an extremely persistent form of carbon in the soil, and it can stay in there without decomposing for hundreds of years, adding water-holding capacity and cation exchange capacity, all while being a long-term carbon sink. I love biochar, but have never made enough myself to add to my gardens, so this is a fun experiment. 

The kids played in the hose/sprinkler for a long time (William prefers just spraying stuff with the hose, Taiya likes to dance through the sprinkler, so they have to take turns). They completely swamped their sandbox, and had quite a little river going down the driveway by the end. 

They don't look happy to see me.

In the afternoon both kids wanted to tag along with Jeremy to do chores, so I was left blissfully alone for a little while. I checked on the chickens, got them a five-gallon bucket of water to refill their waterers, and then rounded them up from their outdoor recreation area back in their coop for the night. There was a hawk hanging out in a tree nearby, and I wanted to make sure it didn't get a chicken dinner. Daisy kept me company during this excursion, but since she's fenced out of the chicken area, she just prances around the perimeter, reeeeeaally wanting to be helpful. 

For dinner I roasted broccoli, slow-cooked great northern beans with rosemary and olive oil, and made pasta with pesto. The kids got back from the farm with all kinds of stories about snapping turtles and king snakes, and sat down and gobbled up dinner. (William ate only broccoli, Taiya ate two helpings of pasta, Jeremy ate a mountain of all of it since he had skipped lunch). It was a lively dinner on the porch, and I appreciated it so much more, having had a little quiet time beforehand.

We watched part of the movie of The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. Taiya was so into it, saying things like, "That's not what I pictured Edmund like," and, "I thought the White Witch would be whiter," and things like that. We didn't get the chance to finish it, though, so we have the conclusion of that movie to look forward to. All in all, day sixty-nine was a satisfying one.