The Carriage House

There are exciting endeavors afoot here at Finca 57. One of highlights of this house when we bought it was the carriage house in back. It soon seemed to be more of a liability than an asset since it is in such disrepair that it's leaning towards the neighbor's and appears ready to fall into their yard at any moment. I found a Notice of Violation complaint in the city's archives from 1976 regarding this structure and all the items listed on it appear to be in the same condition as more than 35 years ago.

I'm not sure what it was originally used for but I'm assuming it was for parking a carriage since there's a second floor with doors for what seems like loading hay. There's also this strange wheel and axle thing hanging from the floor joists that may have used belts to run a piece of machinery. I'm hoping that can be rehung somewhere decoratively.

The first half of this year I spent putting plans together and trying to figure out what can be done with it. It's considered an accessory structure but it doesn't conform to many of the rules for that type of structure. It's too tall and it's too close to the rear and side property lines. So I designed the ground level to be a garage and workshop with a separate entry for access to the upstairs. I can't legally make the upstairs a living unit so I showed it as a multi-purpose room with a half bath and wet bar. I submitted the plans a couple weeks ago and picked up the approved plans on Friday. Construction should be starting next week.

Huerto Hellarity

Evolution of a Square Foot Garden

Starting with the eviction of the Hellarity House, the workers came in and created piles of trash in front of the house that then went in the dumpster. One of the piles had a bunch of salvageable lumber. I thought it was going into the trash but someone did end up coming by and picked the remaining pieces that I didn't take. Oops. I'll call it payment for all the nights we lost sleep because of their partying.

Most of the pieces were 2" x 2 1/2" studs, generally used for interior partition walls. If you've never seen this kind of wood, it's beautiful. It comes from old growth Douglas Fir and is usually closer to full dimensional as opposed to nominal. Here in the Bay Area I've seen houses with 2x12 joists in continuous 25-foot lengths. Magnificent.

I had to remove all nails, screws, electrical boxes, etc. from the studs. Then they were clean and ready to use.

With the cleaned studs I was able to join three pieces together with Timberlok screws to make the sides for two 3'x7' beds.

In honor of the source, I named the beds Huerto Hellarity. It looked a little too ghetto, though, so turned it around and faced the name in the other direction.

Using the Square Foot Garden method, I divided it into 21 squares and filled it with Mel's Mix.

I added an end frame with trellis netting for vine plants, or in this case tomato plants grown using the single stem technique.

This being my first attempt, I didn't quite fill all the squares. Next year I'll do a full bed and also prepare the second one with two trellises.

Liquid Gold

A few weeks ago we harvested honey from our bees for the first time. It was an awesome experience. A couple fellow homesteaders from down the street, Sophie and Rachel, came over to help. The first step was to move one of the supers away from the hive. I pulled the first frame and Sophie brushed the bees off the frame. That was probably the most intense part. We weren't quite prepared for the mass of pissed off bees and suddenly they were everywhere and agitated. Even though I had my head protection on a bee got in and stung my throat. Another one got Sophie on the wrist. After that we covered ourselves a little better and calmed down enough to move quickly and steadily. I didn't get any more stings but Sophie got another four. She also didn't have the long gloves that I had so I think all were on her wrist and arm.

The first thing you do is uncap the comb. When the honey is ready the bees cap the entire frame with wax. Using a serrated knife we cut that wax cap off uncovering the mass of honey.

The honey comes in all shades, depending on the pollen. The dark honey looked so rich and delicious.

The the frames go for a spin in the extractor, which sucks all the honey from one side. You have to be careful not to go to fast otherwise you start sucking the honey from the other side along with the comb.

I think we had to do both sides of three frames before the honey started to come out slowly. But then from there it just kept coming and coming.

Beautiful honey with me in the background working on the last drops.

We harvested forty pounds of honey, about 3 1/2 gallons, from twelve regular frames. We filled miscellaneous jars that we had been collecting along with some mason jars. It was magnificent to see them all.

Tiny Eggs

The Americaunas are starting to lay. We got one yesterday and then another one today. I tried to take a photo that shows how small they are but it's hard to get a sense of how tiny they really appear in person.

The one on the left is from our Buff Orpington. The second one is from a full grown Americauna that we were hosting for awhile. The third was laid yesterday by one of the Americauna pullets; and the fourth was laid today by another.