Geek.Farm.Life

Comment by John G

October 16, 2006 @ 8:05 am

Andrew, once every two days I am pedantic, too! :-)

Q: Which animals do you butcher yourselves and which do you have a knackerman take care of? I imagine you do the birds yourselves but leave the mammals to others. Could you describe how to clean and pluck a fowl, please?

Comment by Will Williams

October 16, 2006 @ 10:14 am

hey guys, I got a question about the bees. We’re thinking about getting some in the spring but where we live is bordering national forest and we sometimes get bears coming through. Have you every heard of someone building fences around the hive or defending them in some other way?

Comment by Lulu

October 17, 2006 @ 7:45 am

Can you post the name of the podcast or website of the person who gave the freezer storage tracking idea? Sounded interesting but I’m too lazy to listen again and write it down.

Oh, and I have been wondering…how long do you each have to commute to your day jobs?

Misty, I’d love to hear more about spinning and soapmaking.

Love the show!

Thanks.

Comment by andrew

October 17, 2006 @ 8:02 am

Hey Everyone,

John G, I started a poll on the right hand side of the page with your idea. It might be a little sensitive for some people so I wanted to get a feel for what people thought.

Hey Will, I found a great URL when I was looking up this exact thing a few months back:

http://www.ext.colostate.edu/PUBS/natres/06519.html

It’s called “Managing bear damage to beehives”. They have some quick facts up top, and it seems electric fences are on the top of the list. Also, it seems at least Colorado compensates beekeepers for damage to hives.

So it seems like it’s pretty easy to do. A small electric fence could be setup easily. It’ll probably add $100-$150 to cost of a setup, but that’s not awefull.

They are mainly concerned about black bears, I’m not sure there are many grizzly bears there are in the lower 48.

Hey Lulu, The comment was by the podchef and he can be found at:

http://podchef.motime.com/

Looks like he’s talking about apple pie this week, yikes. :)

Both our commutes are about the same, around 20-25 minutes depending on if we get stuck at the traffic light. ;) Oh, and if we get stuck behind our old neighbor who drives at 40mph. We can’t pass him since there’s some hills with no passing area. :)

Comment by Ellen Bloomfield

October 17, 2006 @ 2:17 pm

We defintly want to hear more about spinning and soapmaking. Mindy did a great job talking about rendering so we should be ready to hear about the use of using milk in soap.

Also the garden wrap up was cool. We got the same cold snap and it left me with a ton of green tomatoes that neither one of us like :P

I know things I learned from this past year:

To be more vigilant about slugs and other pests.

Square foot gardening is great for two people in a surburban lot.

Heirloom tomatos are not all created equal.

No sense in growing a vegetable that neither of you will eat, no matter how cool it looks.

Shelties like tomatoes

Slugs are evil

Square foot gardening is a lot more work than portrayed in the books.

Comment by Brenda

October 18, 2006 @ 6:15 pm

was it this week that you mentioned wiggly wigglers? Earlier today I was surfing around some of the websites I don’t get to as often and saw gfl mentioned :)
You’ve likely seen this article:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/09/23/HOGS6LA3GR1.DTL
by Amy Stewart, a gardening (etc) author who blogs at
http://blog.amystewart.com/ Note her September 24 post. I very much enjoyed her first book about gardening (more narrative than step by step): From the ground up : the story of a first garden.
I think you’ve hit the big time :)

Comment by Brenda

October 18, 2006 @ 6:18 pm

okay, we’ll try those links again!
first article:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/09/23/HOGS6LA3GR1.DTL

website:
http://blog.amystewart.com/

too bad I’m not a geek; could have done a better hotlink.

Comment by India

October 20, 2006 @ 3:02 am

yep - more spining!
India

Comment by India

October 21, 2006 @ 3:37 am

You’ve probably used up all your squash, but if you have any left over and fancy a slightly different taste, I made a great one with butternut squash, lemon and vanilla. It isn’t my own, it’s from a book by http://www.newcoventgardenfood.com/ . It sounds like a freaky combination, but it’s great. Real simple, subtle flavours. If anyone wants the recipe, I can post it.
India