Backyard Chickens & Bees

Well, since it’s well past harvest time for the bees, I thought I’d put together an update and take stock of what’s gone on this year, bee-wise. Let’s make a list of things to cover, and we’ll see how many of them I get through in one post (warning: it has been a while since [...]

Ah, last Saturday was the final CHIC gatherings for the year. This month was held at our house, and we had a near-perfect day for working outside (sunny skies, mid 60s temperature). The original CHIC date was set for last weekend, but several schedule conflicts had come up due to the long time in between [...]

I was planning a nice quiet evening, maybe going to the hardware store to get supplies, maybe develop some film that needs to be developed, maybe write up something about the strawberries and opium poppies that are all in bloom right now… A quiet evening. And then I walked outside and Kristin (neighbor to the [...]

Another month, another installment of CHIC! Actually, this is the last one until our place gets hit up in October. It’ll be nice for the households with kids to not have to worry about working in the CHIC schedule to camp and vacation time, and I’ll be happy to have a few months to work [...]

Last Saturday was May CHIC day here in the fabulous Sabin neighborhood. This month’s workday was held at Jim and Harriet’s place, and was spent outdoors in the fabulous Spring weather. Harriet set a precedent this month by putting together a chart to organize all the activities and ensure that tasks were completed in a [...]

Q: How do you get chickens from the coop to the pen without fear of them being attacked by dogs, raccoons, or other varmints? Also, how to do that when you’re not there to watch them? A: A Chicken Habitrail™!

Well, today was the day that we’ve been waiting for! The bees arrived at Ruhl Bee Supply on Monday, and I took some time off from work this afternoon to go down and pick them up (I picked up packages both for us and for Matt and Kristin). The pick-up was very well organized, as [...]

Exciting! We are getting the bees tomorrow. Ruhl Bee Supply is getting all the bee packages in today, but we’re unable to get there until tomorrow. I’ll have to take a half day of vacation to get down there early and avoid the rush-hour traffic along I-205. Still, we’re are all getting ready for the [...]

Yesterday was our April CHIC day over at Ben and Carol’s house. The projects that we worked on this month included building a shed (or at least getting some work done on the building of the shed), installing two raised beds, pulling out a lot of old rosemary and sage, etc, and putting in some [...]

An e-mail that came in this morning from Matt provides a key to which chick is which. Apparently Claire and Samuel named all eleven of the new chicks, and took photos to aid in identifying them all. The images are below: