Blanquira

We have a new addition to the Finca 57 family, aka Los Martinez Williams. A little over a week ago I was out checking on the chicks...oh yeah, we have new chickens. I'll have to come back to that. Anyway, I noticed Domingo hunting something, which he never does because he's fat and lazy (and the best cat ever), and saw a little white bird in the plum tree. This was obviously a domestic bird and I was guessing a parakeet, which explains why Domingo was hunting it, it's the only kind of bird that he has a chance of catching. I tried to grab it but it took off and landed in the neighbors' lemon tree.

I called Ron out to help and we both attempted to grab it but it kept flying from branch to branch. I tried one last time and missed but it left the tree and flew right into Ron's kitchen. That allowed us to close all the doors and limit the chase to one room, although that didn't make it much easier. We spent a good amount of time chasing that little bird down, much to the delight of Molly, the daughter. It was a bit Keystone cops but I think it eventually wore itself out and we got it into a box.

I posted a photo to the neighborhood Facebook group and while no owner presented him- or herself, a neighbor did offer a loaner cage for a few days while we figured things out. My first inclination was to get rid of it as quickly as possible but it actually grew on us pretty quickly and we decided to keep it. So then we needed gear. The cage was the biggest item to find and as luck would have it, a friend of a friend had an antique cage that she was willing to donate to the cause. The rest of the equipment was easy and the cage needed to be hung but it came out alright. So please meet Blanquira:

Honey 2.0

Last weekend was a full one. The jugglers from Long Beach came up for the Second Annual Genoa Street Juggling Festival. It was a slightly smaller turn out this year with only three jugglers came up, Will, Rhonda, and Aidee. Bill, my brother, who came last year is now living here but, unfortunately, he had to work most of the weekend. He's the best dressed one in the video, ready for work.



Saturday was a juggling and BBQ day. Sunday was an urban farm day combined with some juggling and socializing. Rachel and Sophie came over to harvest honey from their hive so we had an operation going in the new garage, which was the perfect place to have that set up, while others were out juggling and snacking.  The operation went a lot more smoothly last year and we beat the previous harvest by ten pounds. They got fifty pounds of honey out of about twelve frames.

All jarred up.

Staging on the new hive stand I built. The peach colored box is a super and that super had eight frames. You can see the capped honey on the visible frame. The comb in the bowl was some free form construction the bees made. The brown comb didn't really have anything in it but the whitish one was full of honey and were able to bite of chunks of it for fresh honey from the source. Delicious.

An uncapped frame right before placing it in the extractor.

I built a new stand for the hives. I made room for at least one more hive with space between them to fit a super while inspecting the hives. The hive on the left is Rachel and Sophie's. The blue one is mine.