Actually the end, but maybe not

So that was all fun. Summer. Farming. Biking. Friends. Cooking. Sunshine. Perfect weather. Sustainability. Heart. Mind. Body. Soul. So many new beginnings!

End

Aviva painting!

Mel with some gloves; I'm not sure what she was doing

Our Farm!

Dear Chickens

My dear roommate

                                                                Ben and me going to LA:

                                                                  
                                                                What a lovely dream the summer has been...

This Morning I Felt Like Writing a Poem

haven't yet put down roots so
much as feelers,
tendrils from my toes and tips out
out and out affixing to
telephone wires and poles the birds
have just begun perching aside
me, their eyes all shiny and black and
questioning my grasp mangled
upon their perch.
Please i beg
Oh where do i grow from here my
tips and my toes
are searching, itching.
If only i could rest here myself just
a little while longer i
am so tired and so young.

The Amazingness of Honeybees

Honeybees are so amazing and fascinating. Pretty much every day this summer I wonder how I've gone 21+ years without knowing more about the natural world. I am going to list some cool things I learned about an hour ago:

-Honeybees are the second most studied organism in the world next to humans
-They are frighteningly important to the pollination of most of our edible plants
-Einstein said something about how if it weren't for honeybees, man would not survive more than 4 years on this planet
-Each swarm of honeybees (each hive) has unique pheromones that identify the bees of that swarm and the hive itself
-In order for a honeybee to find it's hive, the hive must be within 3 feet of where it was when the honeybee was last in it. If the hive is moved any more than that, but less than 3 miles, the honeybee will not be able to find it. So if one needs to move the hive more than 3 feet, the hive needs to first be moved at least 3 miles away for a few days and then moved back.
-All the worker honeybees in a hive are female
-Male honeybees are called drones
-Drones' jobs are to control the temperature of the hive by flapping their wings, and to fertilize the queen bee of the hive
-The queen bee is bred from birth to be queen by being fed only royal nectar, a special mixture of the normal water, nectar, and pollen
-A special, larger hexagon of wax is built for the baby queen to develop in
-All the honeybees except for the queen die after stinging someone/something
-Honeybees have 2 stomachs: one for normal digestion of nectar; one where nectar/pollen/water are mixed and then regurgitated as honey
-Honey never goes bad
-Honeybees are very sensitive to vibrations so it is important for an approaching person to be relaxed when approaching a hive
-Some of the wax hexagons are smaller than others. If the queen bee wants to lay a male pupa (drone) she lays the pupa in one of the smaller hexagons so that her hole where the pupa comes out of and her hole where the sperm comes out of get smushed together so that the pupa is fertilized/genderized. Female pupa do not get mixed with sperm so I guess they're sort of asexual. Afterall, only the queen bee gives birth.
-Most bees only live 6 weeks, but the queen (being raised on royal nectar) lives 3-5 years. She only leaves the hive once - to mate with a swarm of drones.
-After the queen is fertilized she lays 2500 pupa a day!
-If more than one princess pupa is laid, the pupa that hatches first runs around and stings all the other potential princesses to death! If two are hatched at the same time they fight to the death!

Informative bee video (if you feel like being a nerd):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7cX2cjFunw&feature=player_detailpage

Bean Beauty

                                             

East Bay Express article about City Slicker Farms

This is an article about a backyard garden that the other fellows and I helped to build a couple weeks ago:

http://www.eastbayexpress.com/gyrobase/how-safe-is-your-soil/Content?oid=2947105&storyPage=1

Today!

Today Jonno made a new toy

He used wood and nails (maybe screws) and some hardware cloth

And ended up with this awesome compost sifter!

Aviva painted beautiful signs for visitors to enjoy parts of our garden

Molly gardening

A shot of our solar oven... 

...that Aliza used to bake chocolate chip cookies! 

Farm Manager Tali. She said something so wise today by the blackberry bushes. She told us that a berry is only sweet enough if when you close your eyes and put your fingers around it, it willingly comes off in your hand, and that everything in life is like that; if you pull on something too hard, it may give in to you, but it will not be as sweet as if you reach for it gently when it is ready for you.

Rebecca and her tomato plants (that she is in love with)

Squash, zucchini, and beans we harvested. So beautiful!

A mounded bed between two raised ones.

Now this is what we really did all day: we emptied the dirt from a bunch of our pallets beds that had taken so much effort to fill in the first place! Why? Because the soil was too clay-ic or something so nothing would grow in it :( Oh well, tomorrow the rest of our group will fill them up with hopefully better soil.