Farm haps for the week

Hmmmm. It's been an insanely busy week around the farm,what with everyone winding up their summers with vacations and work travel. We've all hardly seen each other, but that will come to an end soon. The manic busy-ness can take over sometimes. Colin is back in town and back in our lives, at least for the time being. We just got finished with a marathon camping trip over the last week, so we are adjusting to a life full of hot showers and really coffee again. We've finally just about "processed" all of our roosters. I really hate that word, but can't think of one better. It was really fantastic yesterday morning when some started crowing right before 5:00 am. They were loud for about 10 minutes and then tapered off. I was restless and couldn't go back to sleep (remnant from teaching that 5:30 spin class for so long!). I looked at the clock at 5:30 and was contemplating rolling out of bed and working out. No sooner had I decided to pull the blanket back around me and attempt sleep when I heard a rustling in the kitchen and the sure drip of a fresh pot of coffee. I hopped out of bed to find a very wide-awake BJ.

"what are you doing, so wide awake this early?" I asked. I was grateful for the early morning company.
"well, I figure no better time than now to get a couple of roosters processed before getting going for the day" he says. Ha! I jumped on that boat and plucked some feathers as the morning light was breaking. I feel sadistic admitting that it was such a pleasant and meditative way to start the morning. I almost felt like a real farmer!

Moral of the story? I guess if you can't sleep, c'mon over and be productive for us! We've still got a half a dozen left.

Cute kitties.

About two weeks ago we were volunteering to do a neighborhood work day.  One of the guys from our neighborhood sets this awesome event up once a year.  He scours the neighborhood and asks for references, hoping to find a few people who REALLY need some help with some general house maintenance.  The house we happened to be working on this year was an elderly woman, along with her daughter and young grand children.  Men were visibly absent from the mix and it looked like they had lived in that same house for a LONG time.  The yard was full of trash and decomposing furniture.  Things like empty glass jars and children's toys looked like they'd been stored outside, uncovered since the '80s.  It was a real train wreck.  I didn't take any pictures, and for the sake of the family I wouldn't post them if I did.  There are a couple of sweet things that we took away from this house, though -

Two of the very cutest kitties ever!  They are finally about 6 weeks old and they could use a good home.  We are down with keeping ONE of them (maybe), but if you or anyone you know would love a very sweet baby kitty, please let us know!  The boy is all black and the girl is the gray tabby.  They were hiding behind a piece of old furniture outside the house, and we are very glad that we were there to take them and try to find them a good home.  Help us stop this vicious street-cat cycle and adopt your very own today...

What's on YOUR plate?

Hey, folks!  Just wanted to let you in on a little something that's going down at the farm this weekend...

We are SO excited to be doing this for Project New Village.  PLEASE make sure that you RSVP, either by giving a holler here in the comments section OR by logging on their website here at www.projectnewvillage.org.  Hope to see your faces!

Chicken Workshop and Victory Gardens!

Victory Gardens is offering an awesome workshop series at the Southeast Farmers Market, in case you haven't heard or didn't read my earlier blog post on it.  You really should consider checking out some of them!  Last week, there was a great one on growing berries here in San Diego.  It was extremely informative!  It's also a great way to network and connect with other people that are doing the same thing.  It's never bad to have people you can call when you have questions on this stuff!  We did one a few weeks ago on "How to Backyard Chicken".  Here are some pictures!  It was loads of fun, and Sarah has the .pdf that we handed out - she will post it as a link soon.

A balancing act

Hi, guys!  It's been a while since I've written anything here.  I feel like I say that a lot.  It just seems like I can never stay on top of life quite as much as I'd like to.  I do have the excuse of starting a new job just a few weeks ago, so it's been this crazy dance again of trying to find equilibrium.  I am super excited about this job, though!  It's in my community, and it's for a cause that I really care about.  I'll fill you guys in on a different post, as stuff grows there!
It's recently struck me that this dilemma of equilibrium must be the strife of every "urban farm project".  In each of these situations, the folks that are trying to be urban farmers also have jobs in the real world, since we live in such settings that it is impossible to actually make any money off of farming this small square of land that is worth an exorbitant amount of money.  It's really just a gesture of pure insanity that we decide we want to take on more chores and more work in order to gain this extra closeness to our food.  Maybe it's a little bit of madness in wanting to be self-sufficient, and a little bit of paranoia that we've got to be prepared when "stuff goes down!"  Any way you cut it, I guess, it's all just a crazy, maybe a little bit out-of-control hobby.  We are hoarders, of sorts, addicted to animals and heirloom veggie seeds.  Ask any one of us.  Ask us if we can pass through a nursery without buying something.  Ask us if we ever "browse" craigslist, seeing what kind of awesome deals they have on chickens or hatching eggs.  Find a single one of us who actually comes out on top, financially, by "growing" our own meat and eggs.  Not with organic feed and fertilizer in the city, anyhow.  But it's an addiction, an obsession and a hobby.  It's the love of our lives, and dammit, it's just plain fun.