2010 Harvest Fair!

Making Cider - Check out this big apple!

It is full circle for us and this blog. Last year our first post was on the Harvest Fair and now here we are reporting back on another fabulous Fair. 

This year Fair was almost a wash out but miraculously the clouds broke and the sun shined down on lots of happy faces. The music was great, the food was great and it was great to see the people - kids running wild, parents chasing them, grandparents, and new born babies. Totally full circle. 

We made cider from apples that we picked earlier in the day. One gallon of cider from one paper grocery sack full of apples. 

Thanks to Friends of the Farms for putting on such a great event!

They may not look tasty but they sure are, perfect for the cider press

Worst Hard Time

Just finished Timothy Egan's book, Worst Hard Time (http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d.html/ref=redir_mdp_mobile/176-3789840-1422665?a=061834697X). Was hard to read cant imagine living through it!

Will get a review out soon.

Pullets! Humphf!

The four Americana pullets are now 23 weeks old. A pullet is essentially a chicken in their teen years - teenagers.

They look great, act normal, and are eating and drinking well. The rub is that they are at the age when laying normally commences and so far no eggs. I know what you're think, gimme another week. And that is what we'll do. One more week and then I will demand they start laying, that ought to do it.

Poof! Summer...almost gone!

Ok, so I'll be the first to admit it, I've not held up my end of the bargain. The posts this spring were a good start, but what happened to all the updates from the summer? Well...summer happened and then I slide down this crazy rabbit hole and and I chased a rabbit and I ah...chased a chicken then I...I ah...chased a turkey and ran from a scary bee hive and woke-up and it was August!

Stay tuned for an upcoming series of posts to update you all on the progress this summer...it's been a wild ride - mating flights, chicken processing, pullet growing, foraging, and eating some amazing local food. Stay tuned!

May bees with you, and also with you.

That's right I said bees! As a wonderful birthday gift from my family, I now have a hive that is ready for it first bee package - said to be arriving April 10th at Stedman Bee Supplies in Silverdale. I'd add their link here but they don't have a website.

In fact Stedman's is very very oldschool, which makes it absolutely perfect! I purchased a complete hive, two honey supers (just in case my bees really take off their first year, which is very unlikely), protective clothing, smoker, hive tool, and come April 10th a bee package.

Bee packages weigh between 3-4lbs and contain several hundred worker bees and one queen who is enclosed in a special case within the package. Once placed in the hive the bees will chew their way into the queens enclosure and free her to get to work.

I am very excited to begin the adventure of bee keeping. After taking a class at Beez Neez apiary last spring, and helping my brother with his hive last summer, I feel that I am ready to give it a go. Whether the bees feel the same about me is something yet to be determined.

23 weeks and counting....EGGS!

Peas are in the ground, rest of the garden is ready, and the starts need to be thinned - desperately!

Also the chickens have started laying! Or at least a few have. See the smallest egg in the image. It's next to "regular" sized eggs in a carton of store-bought eggs. Is it the last store-bought? Fingers crossed.

The leghorn, Miss Blanca, is the smallest of them all and she is already showing her genetic strength, laying the largest of the pullet sized eggs and nearly the most regular already.

It is such a wonderful surprise to open the nesting box door and discover these jewels waiting. I am checking the boxes a couple times a day for now and will increase to three times as more chickens begin to lay.

Also, the turkeys are scheduled to arrive at the end of April or early May. I am getting ready.

Review of Farm City, by Novella Carpenter

As a reader of the Ghost Town Farm blog, I picked this book up in hopes of getting a guidebook with good tips and bits of knowledge. What I got was that and more.

At times heartwarming, others heartbreaking, Farm City is a snapshot into the very challenges we face as a culture reacquainting ourselves with food and each other again. The author, Novella Carpenter, allows us to see through her direct experiences, the blunt inner workings of a place that is grappling with major societal issues at every turn and she still manages to put bacon (amazing tasting to be sure) on the table.

As an aspiring urban farmer, I found valuable insights and instances of hope and in Farm City. Here we are nearing the brink of sorts and yet here is Novella Carpenter doing what needs to be done: breaking ground, raising animals and growing food in a place that is far from a rural picturesque setting, in fact in an urban setting that is more like a place where over 50% of the worlds population now lives.

It is the reapplying old knowledge in a new setting that is encapsulated in this book. A lot of what is presented in Farm City is old knowledge, but it’s for a new generation that now lives in cities in apartments or postage stamp lots that want to take control of what they are eating. Feeding ones family from the land was common knowledge a mere 50 years ago, yet here we are teaching ourselves in new ways, adding knowledge and know-how with books like Farm City.