Okay, so my 6 square meter farm is still kind of theoretical at the moment, but it's definitely in the works. So I live in one of those soviet-style groundscraper complexes, but what we've got aside from a really lovely looking and smelling magenta rose in the parking lot is a cage on the roof for drying clothes. This is the space I have to work with; it is my hacienda.
Hacienda Mixiuhca is rather unimpressive at the moment, with four tomato seedlings (Cherokee Purples! "imported" from la Gabacha (aka Gringolandia, aka El Otro Lado...etc), fancypants lettuces, Asian species of mustardy thing s (tatsoi, mizuna, bok choy, etc), ten or so eggplants, and marigolds. All of this growing in gutted, white-painted waterbottles lying on their sides. The infrastructure consists of 5 wooden trays (1m x .5m) that have been there since Marcos moved in 8 months ago. The plan is to build them up into containers; I'm thinking maybe 18 inches deep (though I'd only fill them to 15 inches-- that should be deep enough for tomatoes, right?). They're pole tomatoes, so I'm hoping to take advantage of the cage situation. The Armenian cukes I plan to swipe from Alfredo (whose roof garden will be the subject of a later post, once I have a digital camera, (which shall be a gradumation present extraordinaire!) can climb up strings I plan to tie to the top of the cage (because I'm going to have to put them on the walled-in side of the cage). The green stuff will have to go in the shadier part of the cage. But since the planters are pretty big, I think it should all go swimmingly. The issue here is cost, of course: the construction of these planters is going to run me from 140 to 280 pesos a piece. (A short one for lettuce, flowers and mustard)... That means about 90 bucks total. Then there's the issue of filling them with soil. At Home Depot (yes, capitalist bullshit palace, but the only nearby resource for such things) a gunnysack of soil runs about 13 bucks (145 pesos). In Tlanepantla, close to Alfredo's house (and about an hour and a half from here without traffic: bus to metro line 2 or 7, transferring to line 9) costs about 2 and a half bucks (30 pesos) piece. Slightly coarser texture, and farther away. I can only carry about one sack at a time, and it's tiring as hell, because they're really heavy. The bus costs about 10 pesos, the metro 3. So that brings the total per-sack cost of soil to 56 pesos, plus a lot of trouble. But considering that's less than half of the cost buying from HD (CBP), and I'll need about two sacks per planterbox, that will make a big difference. So let's see, say I build 4 boxes, one short, three tall: 920ish pesos plus (56 x 8) = 1,368, or about a hundred and ten ish bucks. That's a bit less than what I make per week. But at Hacienda Mixiuhca, we know that these things can be overcome.
Okay, in these harsh times, waste is unacceptable, especially on fabulous haciendas like mine. I have also swiped some worms from the worm crate we rigged up at Alf's place as well. They are currently writhing around in a yogurt tub in my bedroom with some seriously befungused papaya skin. I have a collection of frozen worm food in my fridge for when their population becomes ready for it. I'm trying to decide whether it's better to get a sealable plastic bin from the Home Depot nearby (a semi expensive and cop-outty option) or try to use the wooden crate I picked up off the street, which would have to live on the roof instead of in the kitchen for smellular reasons, is less easily sealed, more complicated, but cheaper and with more street cred. Any thoughts, opinions, designs and other inputs would be appreciated.
And what is an hacienda without livestock? I broke the news of my fowl conspirations to Marcos about a week ago when his Yucatecan buddy came to visit. We were sitting around drinking wine and suddenly I go: "Hey Marcos, what are your feelings about ducks?" And of course he gave me his drunken "what" face and I said, "You know, as animals. What do you think of them?" And of course his response is, "I don't know, I guess they're okay. Why?" So I had to tell him that I was going to buy a couple of ducklings, and asked if it would bother him if I kept them in the clothes cage. "Uh... sure. Why?" "Marcos," I told him in all seriousness, "The best pets are comestible pets." And he considered this for a moment, probably wondering what the nicest way to call me a sick bastard might be, before saying, "That sounds okay. Do you know how to cook duck?" And, okay, the answer is not really, but I mean, this is the age of the Internet. How hard could it be? Furthermore, I have a book of fowl-and-lagomorph rearing instructions from the British Ministry of Let's Not Starve written during the second world war, which is awesome because it's how to grow aminals on the most limited resources possible.
So the plan is to go the market La Merced on Sunday or Monday, pick up some little fuzzies and see what happens.
Viva La Hacienda Mixiuhca!
Friday, April 23, 2010
Friday, April 16, 2010
Hurbanistorias
Mi Rancho
Well. Here I am, center of the Universe, Mexico City, Mexico. Land of deaf-dumb subway singers, endless environmental disasters, lost lonely people from anywhere else, hundreds of
years of history, swank hipster hangouts, yuppie rent-a-bike, one of the richest men in the world, starving drunks, singsong accents, and uncountable other oddities. It's the land of constant stimulus.
I live in a neighborhood called Jardín Balbuena, actually a very pleasant place to exist in the bourough ("delegación") Venustiano Carranza (see map), a block away from the metro station Mixiuhca, across the four-lane Eje 3 Sur from Jardín Balbuena, a big park where they put a big tianguis every Monday and Thursday, where you can find anything from forks to blankets and curtains, 15 peso pants, used digital cameras (and good ones!) to produce, tlacoyos and raw chicken (whole or in pieces!). I'm also within walking distance from the Olympic Velodrome they put up in '68. It's a funny neighborhood because though rent's relatively cheap, we're just a couple blocks from some really nice houses. Must be the screaming of landing airplanes...
My roommates are graphic designers. I
actually only know one (the one with his name on the lease), because the other one's been in Guadalajara for the last few weeks apparently. I don't even know that one's name. Well anyway, the one I do know is called Marcos, a very San Francisco boy with rectangular glasses and a sort of reserved demeanour (till you get half a bottle of wine in him anyway). He keeps the place very clean and hangs out with me when I get back from work all grizzled and tired. Smiles a lot.
La Chamba
Oh yes, work. The thing that permits me to stay here... I found a job doing the most obvious thing possible: teaching Ingrish. I'm teaching at a private company in the neighborhood of Lomas de Chapultepec (=> Cha-pool-teh-PEC), which is kind of like Pacific Heights on a Dubai acid trip, all colonial and modern mansions with
jararandas in bloom, shiny cars, and glass-and-steel high rises hovering around. Writhing masses of three-piece suits. But the place I'm working at is by and large okay; my co-workers are funny and interesting, the pay is all right, and I feel like I'm doing something useful.
The Metro is my friend. I clock into work just before 1pm every day except Saturday (when I start at 9am) and Sunday (which is obviously God's day of rest so I don't go to work), so I have to go running out of the house around 12:45. Fall down the stairs, two stories down to the door of my building, sprint across the parking lot/playground (go figure) open the front gate and hundred-yard-dash to the Metro stairs, past the fruit stand with the middle-age
d guy who greets me every time ("buenas tardes güera!"), the torta stands, and down into the belly of the Metro, that swallows me up as I slip my ticket into the slim silent mouth of the turnstile, disappear into the gum-on-the-ceiling tunnel that leads me to the other platform, the Tacubaya direction platform, where an orange train will sweep me away to the next stage of my trip. Every morning an adventure, the same vendor selling Danzón CDs (I already bought one, but still I always want to dance when he busts out his Benny Moré and Pérez Prado...). Seven stations later I'm in Tacubaya, scuttling around the twists and turns, following the orange arrows to transfer to Line 7 toward El Rosario. Two stations later there I am in Auditorio, probably the deepest station in the damn Metro system, and I'm bounding up shit-tons of stairs, embarrassingly tired as I reach the top, panting like a dog in the summer, and crawl out into the world and onto my Palmas bus, which ten minutes later has me spilling out onto the sidewalk next to the Iglesia Covadonga and the taquero who greets me every day as he unloads his delicious fare from his truck. "No vas a comer tacos hoy, güera?" "No señor, hoy no puedo, voy con prisa, pero mañana seguro." Crossing Palmas is the last dangerous task of the afternoon (provided I have no kids classes scheduled for the day...) and then I wave through the glass door and Rogelio lets me in with the buzzer-button, usually greeting me with some sassy comment or other.
All images come from the Internets. The station symbols are from the Metro website: http://www.metro.df.gob.mx/ and the map is from Wikipedia (the brains of society...)
Well. Here I am, center of the Universe, Mexico City, Mexico. Land of deaf-dumb subway singers, endless environmental disasters, lost lonely people from anywhere else, hundreds of
years of history, swank hipster hangouts, yuppie rent-a-bike, one of the richest men in the world, starving drunks, singsong accents, and uncountable other oddities. It's the land of constant stimulus.I live in a neighborhood called Jardín Balbuena, actually a very pleasant place to exist in the bourough ("delegación") Venustiano Carranza (see map), a block away from the metro station Mixiuhca, across the four-lane Eje 3 Sur from Jardín Balbuena, a big park where they put a big tianguis every Monday and Thursday, where you can find anything from forks to blankets and curtains, 15 peso pants, used digital cameras (and good ones!) to produce, tlacoyos and raw chicken (whole or in pieces!). I'm also within walking distance from the Olympic Velodrome they put up in '68. It's a funny neighborhood because though rent's relatively cheap, we're just a couple blocks from some really nice houses. Must be the screaming of landing airplanes...
My roommates are graphic designers. I
actually only know one (the one with his name on the lease), because the other one's been in Guadalajara for the last few weeks apparently. I don't even know that one's name. Well anyway, the one I do know is called Marcos, a very San Francisco boy with rectangular glasses and a sort of reserved demeanour (till you get half a bottle of wine in him anyway). He keeps the place very clean and hangs out with me when I get back from work all grizzled and tired. Smiles a lot.La Chamba
Oh yes, work. The thing that permits me to stay here... I found a job doing the most obvious thing possible: teaching Ingrish. I'm teaching at a private company in the neighborhood of Lomas de Chapultepec (=> Cha-pool-teh-PEC), which is kind of like Pacific Heights on a Dubai acid trip, all colonial and modern mansions with
jararandas in bloom, shiny cars, and glass-and-steel high rises hovering around. Writhing masses of three-piece suits. But the place I'm working at is by and large okay; my co-workers are funny and interesting, the pay is all right, and I feel like I'm doing something useful.The Metro is my friend. I clock into work just before 1pm every day except Saturday (when I start at 9am) and Sunday (which is obviously God's day of rest so I don't go to work), so I have to go running out of the house around 12:45. Fall down the stairs, two stories down to the door of my building, sprint across the parking lot/playground (go figure) open the front gate and hundred-yard-dash to the Metro stairs, past the fruit stand with the middle-age
d guy who greets me every time ("buenas tardes güera!"), the torta stands, and down into the belly of the Metro, that swallows me up as I slip my ticket into the slim silent mouth of the turnstile, disappear into the gum-on-the-ceiling tunnel that leads me to the other platform, the Tacubaya direction platform, where an orange train will sweep me away to the next stage of my trip. Every morning an adventure, the same vendor selling Danzón CDs (I already bought one, but still I always want to dance when he busts out his Benny Moré and Pérez Prado...). Seven stations later I'm in Tacubaya, scuttling around the twists and turns, following the orange arrows to transfer to Line 7 toward El Rosario. Two stations later there I am in Auditorio, probably the deepest station in the damn Metro system, and I'm bounding up shit-tons of stairs, embarrassingly tired as I reach the top, panting like a dog in the summer, and crawl out into the world and onto my Palmas bus, which ten minutes later has me spilling out onto the sidewalk next to the Iglesia Covadonga and the taquero who greets me every day as he unloads his delicious fare from his truck. "No vas a comer tacos hoy, güera?" "No señor, hoy no puedo, voy con prisa, pero mañana seguro." Crossing Palmas is the last dangerous task of the afternoon (provided I have no kids classes scheduled for the day...) and then I wave through the glass door and Rogelio lets me in with the buzzer-button, usually greeting me with some sassy comment or other.All images come from the Internets. The station symbols are from the Metro website: http://www.metro.df.gob.mx/ and the map is from Wikipedia (the brains of society...)
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