• Catching Up,  chickens,  My little city farm

    November already?

    I’ve been on the road in the past month, and trying to catch up after travel is like trying to stop the salt from flying everywhere when you refill the shaker. Even if you use a funnel, it still spills, and you have to throw pinches over your shoulder just to keep the luck flowing. At least, this is what happens when I do the job. And here I am in November, with another only-in-California warm spell that makes me want to go work in the garden. Our weather is so weird anymore — climate change is real, chickadees. Really, really real. Speaking of chickadees, we had a brief interlude of joy…

  • cats,  chickens,  food,  garden,  green,  My little city farm,  sustainable living

    of mice and moles

    Hidee-ho, fellow inmates!  Today we have an urgent task ahead of us, which is raising the fence between the garden and rest of the yard. My hens have learned how to fly over and have torn up several vegetable beds in the past week or so. Really annoying, as I watched my English peas, baby collards, sprouting turnips and carrots get scratched into oblivion. I could trim the feathers on one wing of each hen, if I could catch them, but I can usually catch just two of the four (Poppy and Rosie like to be petted). The other ones (Violet, Bluebell) seem to loathe the touch of human hands and…

  • chickens,  food,  garden,  green,  My little city farm,  squirrels,  sustainable living

    return of the blog

    Oops — has it been a month? I have been snapping pix and doing stuff and keep planning to blog about it, and then — well, here I am on the road to hell. So here’s what’s been happening on the Little City Farm… Our exchange student, Fabi, joined us about a month ago, and that meant emptying my office/studio and turning it into to a bedroom suitable for a teen girl. Which meant that all that stuff ended up on our bedroom floor. So we tripped over it as I slowly went through it, Freecycled, recycled, dumped, reassigned, sorted and filed. A month later, our bedroom is livable again, and…

  • food,  Mr Husband,  My little city farm,  My World and Welcome to It,  writing

    zucchini report #575, and news

    New and noted ~My dear husband did some fixing of the plastic garbage can that the squirrels chewed, and did it in a most manly way that involved power tools and bleeding. He drilled holes, added lots of reinforcing metal and duct tape, and managed to slice open two fingers on the sharp metal edges. No stitches (I thought he needed them, but no, he preferred my home doctoring). I wonder if the smell of blood will keep the squirrels away? So far so good, three days later. ~Said squirrels are getting aggressive. Peanut addicts! They are resorting to threats and intimidation for their nuts. One nipped Patrick’s bare toe…

  • crafty,  family,  My World and Welcome to It,  photos,  random

    such a weirdo

    This is my life. In pictures. These are the sunflowers that went wild in the garden, then squirrels went nuts (heh heh) and tore them to shreds. I rescued these beauties because they look like something right out of Van Gogh’s studio. And…they shed pollen everywhere. And are a pain in the a** to clean up. And now their vase water stinks. Here I am, simultaneously appreciating their beauty and going wah wah wah [insert whining noises here]. Oy vey. Here is what a tree-hugging urban-farmer hippy chick eats for breakfast:  homemade granola (crunchy!), homemade whole milk (from a local dairy) yogurt, local honey and farmers’ market peaches and plums plus backyard…