The baby ducky episode is quickly coming to a close. Pretty soon these “quacker doodles” won’t want to be seen in public and there’ll be less and less pics of them here at LHITC.
Here’s some really cute photos that Justin took of the now 2+ week old duckies – they certainly are growing fast! Just to point out as it seems some folks are confused — this is our THIRD time raising ducklings (started our first flock 8 years ago)
The little peepers are sure growing fast! They graduated from the kiddie pool to the big one last week and are eating greens.
“Momma duck” took the little peepers swimming today (under close supervision of course)! I know, you are saying, “but they are only 3-4 days all and that goes against all the stuff in books!” We are pretty radical in our approach to raising poultry
Khaki Campbell (a heritage breed) babies have arrived on the urban homestead. Khaki Campbell’s are an excellent duck breed for the urban homestead. Medium size, they are relatively quite, good layers (they don’t go broody) and are consider land ducks so all the need is a shallow tray of water to be happy.
The latest episode of Critter Vision. Funny antics from our cast of characters here at the urban homestead. Wanna go for a ride?
Raising chickens naturally and holistically has been a passion for Jordanne these last nine years. During those years she’s acquired a lot of knowledge and know how which is now available to help you naturally boost your backyard flock.
After a busy week, boy we sure did look forward to our Saturday stroll with the goats. Saturday is our “Time Out” day in which, for 24 hours, we take ourselves off the clock and away from computers and the like. Nothing de-stresses and renews the spirit a body like a walk in nature with these creatures.
After a cold and drizzling beginning to July which delayed us a few week, and ‘thanks’ to the hot weather, we got around to extracting honey and bringing in nearly 55 lbs in just under two hours! From what I heard, this is only about 1/3 of the what’s still in the beehives.
This week, Fairlight the foodie, gets up close and personal with a jar of peanut butter. Warning: the montage of photos are not yet rated and may not be suitable for folks who are drinking their morning coffee or tea while reading….
Bye bye, cool July – hello heat! With the temps back to more normal “summer-like” weather, the critters water needs on the urban homestead need to be taken care of. That includes even the honey bees.
Farmer of food now turned fish farmer, Justin, checking on his aquaponics experiment. He spent a good 5 minutes or so floating the net back an forth, “Here fishy, fishy!”
Oh, the personalities of the creatures here on the urban homestead – now we know what they did for entertainment in the “old days.” Forget cable, we got critters. Speaking of critters, like to send a BIG “Thank You” to Nor Cal homesteader Julia for passing along a dvd set of All Creatures Great & Small.
Spanky and the camera share a special relationship. He loves it and it loves him right back… Seriously, the cat turns on the charm like a lightbulb and struts his ginger-striped self around like he’s on some sort of catwalk.
The tilapia fish are still alive and swimming and the plants that are growing in the nutrient laden water are growing quite well. I have to say the sound of water circulating right outside the kitchen is very soothing , pleasant sound.
Beekeeping is slightly more involved than say keeping ducks or chickens. Sure the bees do most of the work, but you have to stay on top of your hive maintenance – no slacking. Besides, bees are independent – they don’t listen to nobody!
The evening couldn’t have been more perfect, not too hot, not too cold. It was to time leash up the goats, go to the Lower Arroyo Seco for our weekly goat walk and stock up on oak, pine and sycamore leaves for the goatsies to eat during the week.
Since we captured that feral freebee swarm back in April 2007, we’ve taken a pretty relaxed approach to urban beekeeping by letting the bees, well just “bee.” However, we are constantly checking the health of the bees and hives. Just recently, we noticed that one of the hives was different.
“.. I was wondering if you could just point me in the right direction towards organic duck feed? I am not finding ANY sources that carry organic feed for them–especially not for the baby ducklings.”
With the rising awareness of the honeybee crisis and popularity (trend) of backyard beekeepers there’s another looming threat that could potentially add problems to the already unstable bee situation – newbie “beekeepers!”
You never know when friends drop by the urban homestead for a visit – even better they never know what to expect!
Our little Amy peacefully passed away on last Tuesday evening.
Thank you all for your kind words, support during her injury rehabilitation and this latest egg laying issue. What she went thru was enough to stress a normal human out – let alone a wee little animal.
How much more can be squeezed here at our little plot in the city – you’d be surprised. There’s always improvement and maximizing/utilizing space better.
Every year we like to try out new projects, especially as part of our life-school training.
This is a new experiment of here on the urban homestead so there’s still lots of [...]
Giving her warm baths during the egg binding crisis
We’ve dealt with our fair share of problems & pain – having more animal increases the chance of one running into some illness, injury and even death. That’s a farm life – nature gives and nature takes away.
Dawn had a leg injury awhile back – with a [...]
Ya’ll know those dwarf peas we’ve been bragging about for these last few weeks – the ones that were supposed to only grow 3 feet high but topped 9 feet high instead? The peas we joking referred to as our “Tower of Peasa!“ Here’s a pic of Jordanne picking peas from a ladder!
Well, they are [...]
Amy enjoying the new fish pond
It’s been a rough week. Just as soon as we saw such a dramatic improvement in Amy (which made us so happy) there arose some complications – laying. Good news, bad news sort of whiplash. Good news she was looking and doing so much better but it’s been ages [...]
We are back! It was nice break but not really sure I can say I actually caught up or anything – but that’s life!
Another storm blew yesterday and dumped about 3/4″ of rain – what a tremendous blessings that was! The garden seems to have grown overnight. Everything is lush and beautiful.
Justin tallied up the [...]
We wrap up another busy week with a pictorial dispatch – highlighting our new grey water project and more!
Goat Walk & Talk
Student working on an profiling some local eco heroes for a NPR radio piece comes along on one of our goat walks. Jordanne shows her some wild edibles that are popping up all over [...]
It’s been awhile since we’ve posted how Amy’s doing these days.
She’s doing well. Slowly, oh so slowly, improving. Thanks to concern and feedback from one of our readers after I wrote her describing Amy’s present symptoms, we’ve both come to the conclusion that she could be very well suffering from a very, very bad pinched/pulled [...]
Continuing our pictorial peek into life here on the urban homestead. As for the previous entry with the fish: FYI, we won’t be naming them anytime soon in case you are wondering!
Weekend Wanderings
Farmers Justin & Sergio visit the local nursery that’s right across the street from our urban homestead and check out the vegetable selection [...]
Wow, ya”ll put up a great bunch of comments/contributions to the Time Management post – check it out if you missed it. Thanks for some great dialogue!
There’s lots happening here on the urban homestead, I can’t even begin to start with details. So I am going to let pictures do the “talking.”
Once again here’s a [...]
Yesterday it rained (at times torrential) buckets, we got over 2 inches! What a tremendous blessing – great for the garden!
Around the urban homestead we’ve been busy. There’s so much to do, I can’t even begin to start. Spring is so about “happenings” don’t you think? And we are ready to roll… are you?
Linked’em
Oh, and [...]
“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.”
~Thomas Edison~
After a long winter, one never tires of seeing the peaches pretty in pink
Another projects and element of the modern urban homestead – DIY. Here’s a utility bench that the guys just finished putting on the back porch.
Picking salad [...]
Snoozing on the straw bale
zzzzzzzzzzzz
Packing seeds and shipping them out. Thanks to those of you who are supporting FreedomSeeds.org
Saturday Social. Party at the urban homestead — table full of good food! That plate of homemade biscuits on the left were dangerous – dangerously good in that I could polish off the whole plate. Have [...]
The weather changed over night – weather whiplash we call it! After being spoiled with a week or so days of 80 degree temps, it’s dipped back into the 60’s with a chance of rain today and more next week.
Continuing with our pictorial posting blitz….
Playfulness! Jordanne and Fairlight make faces at each other
A week with [...]
Gearing up for spring, not only is there planting to do, new projects to tackle, there’s lots of maintenance to be done too!
Justin give the citrus a hair cut
Hive maintenance. Look at that frame – heavily loaded with dark “winter” honey!
Hive tool in hand, checking on the brood
Watching bees is mesmerizing
Everything looks good!
Last Saturday Farmer [...]
Ok, we aren’t done having fun! This is what happens when you don’t have cable – uh, life!
First we had Fairlight modeling hats trying to drum up support, now we have her wielding the trusted tool of the urban homestead movement – a trowel (you can buy the very one here or here) We’ll make sure Fairlight [...]
“If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.”
~J.R.R. Tolkien~
I know I could have separated this post into individual entries; but, just going to give you a “vegetable soup” of sorts post (little bit of everything) to savor.
Monsoon February
Well, they were right. El Nino [...]
Here’s a pictorial post from our weekly goat stroll in the Arroyo Seco on Saturday evening
The rains have brought mushrooms to the “Sherwood forest”
Wonder if these are edible? Does anyone want to try it?
Under the Colorado Bridge. Blue skies and fluffy white clouds
Moss grows on the rocks
The “Big Muddy”
Fairlight and sunlight
The ever dramatic San Gabriel [...]
Actually I’ve come to dread going into the animal yard with a camera. Why? Because I end up with like a bazillion photos. These guys, er gals, are just too fun to be around.
So this time around Jordanne took the camera into her possession and snapped a few photos
You just saw synchronized preening and here’s [...]
Still a boat load of work that welcomed us on arrival home – the dreaded T word loomed. Justin was burning the midnight oil often this week. Occasionally one would hear verbal outburst – geez what’s going on in there? Can you guess? The tax man cometh!
With winter fleeting fast and spring ready to, well, [...]
The new Urban Farm Magazine dropped by and did a brief interview with city farmgirl, Jordanne, and city farmer, “D.”
The Dervaes Family: Pioneering the Urban Farm
Take a tour of the Dervaes family’s urban homestead in Pasadena, Calif.
In the bustling city of Pasadena, Calif., lives a family of urban-farm pioneers. Jules Dervaes has spent more than [...]
Before we head up North (check out our itinerary of places we’ll be) here’s another pictorial dispatch from the urban homefront.
After the early cold snap, we’ve been enjoying some beautiful weather (yep, just in time for all those hoards of out of towners) Thanks to our beautiful weather, we probably have another slew of folks [...]
Amy (in the middle)
Amy (middle center) walking better (more centered in her alignment)
It’s been awhile since I wrote about Amy and I know many of you readers who are interested in Amy’s progress from her (lower neck/wing/back – whatever) injury (read about it here).
Why the guessing? We couldn’t afford to pay for an x-ray [...]
Busy as bees! One of our urban bees visits the blooming African blue basil.
and the humming bird hangs out in lemon verbena tree
Dispatches from the Homefront
With our some of “hopesolutions” in front of us and the old year behind us, it’s time to look forward! It’s a new year with new paths to travel.
Thank you [...]
