The shift to our Colorado autumn is in full swing. We usually get about one to two weeks of glorious weather with the trees changing colors and the temperature in the middle of the day maintaining at about 75. Up in the mountains the leaves have all changed and dropped, but here where it’s a little warmer we still have some.
At night we have had a few light frosts and our tomato plants, basil, and peppers probably have about a week left till they are toast. We’ve started cracking out the cold weather foods like hot spiced apple cider, chili con carne (with Fritos and cheese of course) and an evening chai latte or hot cocoa. Still, during the day you can where short sleeves and take walks in the changing colors.
Here are a few pictures of fall around our yard.
Fog over the lake behind our house at dawn
The chickens enjoy our white birch trees’ new colors
We have this plant called comfrey. I think it is quite pretty with little dangling purple flowers on it. Britton thinks it grows too fast and impedes the flow of water from the sprinkler, but I think it’s great! One thing that this plant also does that is unique is it brings bumble bees to our yard. Bumble bees are very different from honey bees. They are big, buzzing, fuzzy and are the classic yellow and black. I happened to be out in the yard and snapped a few pictures of it gathering supplies on the comfrey plant.
Working hard
Comfrey is actually a useful herb in herbal medicine as well as in fertilizing. The traditional name for it was knitbone as it contains an herbal ingredient allantoin. Allantoin is a cell proliferant that speeds up the natural replacement of body cells. Comfrey was once used to treat a wide variety of ailments ranging from bronchial problems, broken bones, sprains, arthritis, gastric and varicose ulcers, severe burns, acne and other skin conditions. Externally, it has many tremendous benefits as you can see in this video. However, taken internally it should be used in very limited quantities and under careful watch of an herbalist.
Used in the garden, the leaves of comfrey store all of the minerals that the plant accumulates from the soil and can then be composted back into the garden without losing nitrogen. Comfrey has all this and bees beside!
After the chicken ordinance spectacle, Britton and I received an email from the city that said we could come into compliance within a “reasonable schedule of attrition” which we are taking to mean that we can keep them until they die. Which leaves us back where we have been for the last nearly 2 years…with our chickens. In a way we are relieved…the way that the code was going was turning into a bureaucratic nightmare with inspections, fees, permits and government nosey-ness into our business. So in a way, we have bittersweet feelings about how the whole thing turned out.
There are some people who worked on the process with us who really want to push to get this back on the city agenda and to appeal it. I…am just not really feeling it. I am tired of fighting for something that I think was going down the wrong route of micromanagement anyway. I am bitter in that I fully believe people should be able to raise their own food, pets and utilize their property in the way they so choose, but it is sweet that they allowed us to keep our chickens anyway AND we don’t have to get a permit to keep them!
One of my favorite songs and by a great Colorado band!
Bittersweet feelings goes further than just this chicken ordinance thing. We have bittersweet feelings toward Greeley in general. We feel sweetly about this being our hometown and appreciate everything that it has allowed us to do and the personal growth we’ve attained here, but bitter that it doesn’t seem to want to change with the times and feels like it is pushing us out. That is part of the reason we want to move and live in Puerto Rico…we have grown out of shell here and are looking to expand our horizons.
We went to the 2nd out of three bee classes yesterday and decided to wait until we are living in Puerto Rico to get our own colonies. We do want to go learn hands on with some beekeepers in the area however. We just figured that we should be clearing out things from our lives here rather than bringing more in that we will only have to get rid of before we leave anyway.
Yesterday was also Britton’s and my dad’s birthday so we went out to lunch after the bee class and discussed their lives on this earth. My dad is exactly double the age of Britton! Strange coincidences in life.
We are still not sure what our exact ETA in Puerto Rico will be but we are still thinking 2010 will be a year of many changes. A lot of it depends on my job, Britton’s ability to work remote or find another job and whether or not we want to start our own business or just live down there.
It is beginning to feel more and more real, this change that is coming over us. And while I am tremendously excited, it is still that ambivalence, that bittersweet feeling, that makes it all the harder. If it were all bad or all good, life would be so much simpler. But it’s the complexity that makes it interesting.
Today Britton and I went to our first beginning beekeeper class that was put on by the Northern Colorado Beekeeper’s Association. It was quite fascinating all the different things you can learn about keeping bees.
I got to try on the beekeeper hat
We learned about the brood and the queen, the hive and the mead. The honey, the comb, the wax and the drones. We heard just about everything about the biology of the bees and next week the class continues to please.
We will have the opportunity to buy bees and the whole kit and caboodle. It is a more expensive hobby than chicken keeping, but it can also be more lucrative, as they said everyone is looking to purchase honey! It will cost about $200 to get set up with one hive. I think we will try it because we want to have honey bees in Puerto Rico and this will be a great way to learn about it here, although some of the specifics are slightly different.
I searched beekeepers of Puerto Rico and found some info and pictures from the University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez. It is pretty cool that Mayagüez is such an agricultural university there because it will be fairly close to where we want to live, so we can get lots of info on beekeeping (apicultura). We talked with an expert in the class who kept bees in Hawaii and the challenges are somewhat different, but overall, it is slightly easier to keep them because of the weather, but the diseases and problems can also be harder to deal with.
Overall, we had a lot of fun learning about this and found out that beekeeping is completely legal in Greeley! Which makes me laugh that chickens are going to be so regulated. Bees, like chickens, have so many benefits that there is not just one reason to keep them. They pollinate area plants, vegetables and fruit trees, they make honey and beeswax. The honey can be used in all sorts of applications and foods as can the wax to make soaps, candles and even lotions and creams. I’ve even read that taking or eating bee pollen and even local honey can help with allergies!
What wonderful fascinating little creatures. We’ll soon see what this new adventure brings us!
