Seasons change

I look at my last entry and realize it was near a year ago. Ouch. Feeling guilty indeed. Therefore, realizing that there is probably no one following this blog anymore, I shall write for myself. Fair enough.

It has been a quiet year on the cloud farm. We have not made as much progress as I had hoped. Mostly this is due to a lack of finances. As we have covered the more inexpensive jobs we are now approaching the big ticket items and thus need money. Where possible we have done whatever preparation we can while we save for the materials needed.
Some projects we have covered though include finishing the first of the kitchen gardens so we can grow herbs and soft vegetables near the house. I have also completed the rock work for a fish pond for the youngest cloud farmer to keep some goldfish in. No doubt the goldfish will have to share the pond with the occasional plastic toy truck and irate cat as he attempts to broaden his knowledge of aquaculture.

The bees are doing really well. I managed to get my hands on some Genoese, an excellent strain of Golden Italian that I have wanted for a long time. These are an extremely quiet variety but still produce a very good amount of honey. So quiet you can almost do light work without smoke on the hive. This is something I would not have even dreamed of attempting on my previous varieties of Italian bees- good producers but stroppy indeed! From one small nucleus hive of four frames of brood and nurse bees the colony is now large enough to fill two large boxes (meaning a brood box and one super) to capacity and are working hard. I will leave them to it over winter and then split off another hive or two come spring.

We also now have meat pigeons. Once a staple part of the western diet, meat pigeons became unpopular after the great depression, viewed as a poor mans food, and so largely died out in most English speaking cultures. In some of the more enlightened countries -with no silly following of food fads, pigeon has remained a staple meat. It is cheap or free to produce, healthy and can be produced in a very small space. They are also very easy to prepare taking around five minutes to kill, pluck and draw ready for the pot.

At the moment we have six pairs although I might be picking up a few more pairs soon. The birds are currently incarcerated in their housing for three weeks until they get used to this being home. They can then be released to fly free range and will return to roost each night. Each pair will raise two squabs (young) each month or so when breeding. This should supply us with a regular addition to our diet throughout the year. The squabs are harvested at around four weeks when they are almost fully feathered but cannot quite fly yet.

The other important product from pigeon is their manure which is the highest nitrogen manure to be found. So rich that it must be well composted and broken down before you can put it on the garden. I intend to be adding this to my #1 lucky mineral mix that I brew for the garden.