It's Hive Time!

So being off of school for a week definitely lends itself easily to starting new projects! Like this one: bee keeping.

My grandfather, Otto Braunohler, was a bee keeper in Mountain Lakes, New Jersey. He had a little shed for honey extraction/packaging, gifting jars of honey to friends and family at Christmas. It is in my blood.

With Chris's birthday fast approaching, I decided it would be the perfect gift for him. Plus, this would mean that when it came time to smoke out the bees and collect their honey, Chris could don the white suit and bee hat while I stood a safe distance away and took photos (for the blog, of course!)


So I purchased all the bee hive equipment one needs, according to "The Backyard Beekeeper" and a very expert woman named Jenn, who works at Biofuel Oasis. I bought two boxes, or supers, of wax frames for the bees to inhabit. I got a queen excluder, which is a nifty metal screen that allows all smaller bees, and not the queen, through its slats. That way, she can't leave the hive with the rest of the colony following her. That would be what is called a swarm of bees - bees on the lookout for a new home. And that is ONE way (the most exciting one) to acquire a colony of our own. Last week, I put our name on a 'swarm list,' and if we get a call that a homeless community of bees is found, we get to say "Yes, we'll take them!" There is a whole chapter about how to actually go and tap the swarm off of a branch into your bee box, but I am thinking that we'll have a more experienced apiarist do that.


One cool thing happened last week as I was unloading our bee boxes and carrying them up to the house: I ran into Enoch, a friendly neighbor I'd never met. He has apricot and lemon trees and proposed a trade: Honey in exchange for fruit! It is one of our first true signs of being a producing urban farm (Chris always points out that I use this term too loosely). We'll have a surplus that we can provide to members of our community!

P.S. The chicks are thriving! Souffle, Streetlight, and Blow-Blow all got a thorough butt cleaning this evening and settled down for a cozy time. Here we are reading a chicken magazine that decidedly has too much information about backyard chickens. Basil definitely is curious!

Total Sucker for Chicks!

So today I was at BioFuel Oasis, my new favorite urban farm gear store, with Nikko. We were on different errand, but couldn't help but notice about 60 fluffy day-old chicks for sale. $5 each - how can one resist? At first I thought, "let's get two," even though we only really have room in our coop for one more adult. Then I thought, "well, two would keep each other company." Then further reasoning somehow brought me to figure "three would be best because if one dies or turns out to be a rooster, then we still have two." So Nikko happily chose three chicks (Breed: Aracuana; Read: blue-tinted eggs!)

On the way home, Nikko came up with three names: Blow-Blow, Streetlamp, and Truck. I told him we would use Blow-Blow, but that we'd have to let Chris name the others since they would be his early birthday present.

So when Chris came home, I led him to a covered cage. They gave themselves away with the peeping, and a huge smile spread across Chris's face. Happy birthday, sweetie! I hope you like this gift I got for us.

Homesteading in Oaktown

You may know this already, but Chris and I are busy farming here near downtown Oakland. After reading Novella Carpenter's blog last week, we deem our garden project "city farming." Doesn't that sound way more grand?

We have three chickens who have the rotating names: Emmy Lou, Jessie Rosalee Wildcat Tennessee, and Hawking. They started off needing a lot of care (heat lamp, personal indoor bedroom, daily butt cleaning) but now are pretty self-sufficient little creatures who each give us an egg daily (except on Saturdays because of Shabbat - seriously, that's the only reason we can think of). Our generous neighbor, Lor, has taken to giving the chickens amaranth, dandelion greens, and other choicest bits from her kitchen. Rachael, across the street, brings them apple cores and old bread. They are just loved, and they give us eggs to show their many thanks.

So our ears perked up at the thought of getting a turkey as our next project. Our own turkey for Thanksgiving 2010 - how neat would that be? Chris got online and found some really cool heritage breeds, but the minimum requirement for all orders is 15, simply so they huddle and stay warm during shipment. We really just want one, but they are social animals, so we'd have to get two. Somehow.

And then we read on and learned that turkeys can get a nasty disease from chicken poop called "Blackhead." This will happen especially if they live in the same smallish pen. Don't you just find that sometimes too much information can drive you away from your original great idea? We'll have to wait for more space or create another pen alongside the woodpile...Hmmmmm.