Though I attended the recent Oakland Food Policy Council meeting where they decided on strategic priorities for Oakland and I really want to share, I could not miss sharing a post from Fast Grow the Weeds. Thanks El!

Lets start off with this- keeping livestock is not for the weak at heart. This is true for breeding more than anything as it deals with things vulnerable, cute and tiny. Last weekend, I knew my bunny was pregnant. She was lumbering and taking frequent breaks to pant and lay about. I made sure to put extra straw in her nest box. A doe will kindle (give birth) between 28-31 days. The morning of day 28, I checked. No babies and I noticed no fur lining the nest. In fact, other than having munched on some of the straw I put in, “Lisa” was not making a nest. During pregnancy, a doe grows exta fur which she pulls out and interlaces in nesting material to create a well insulated and very soft nest.

Days 29-31 brought the same result, no babies. Normally rabbits kindle by the 31st day so when I checked that morning I was perplexed. However, sometime between that morning and the next, little Lisa did in fact kindle 8 fully developed kits. Sadly, without a proper nest they were exposed during the long cold night. The result of which was what appeared to be box full of dead kits.This was especially odd as Lisa had cleaned the placenta off of each of them and not harmed them. I thought maybe some were alive and that Lisa would gather her wits so I left them there while I went to work, but even before I left, she hopped around on top of them. Stupid rabbit. On my hurried return from work they appeared to be in the same state of scattered deadness.

Feeling sad and confounded, I called the breeder who provided Virgil and Lisa to find out if Lisa is prone to postpartum psychosis. Apparently, she has a good track record of maternal behavior. I then discussed what I may have done. It seems all the right things were done, with the exception of one suggestion made by the breeder. She’s heard from some of the women who breed rabbits that they take newborn bunnies that appear dead but are just cold and place them in their bras. I did not do this. Even now I am having a hard time imagining having gone to my new office job with a bra full of baby rabbits…likely dead ones. Should this occur again, I will intervene with a hot water bottle. I will also feed Lisa herbs to help bring her milk in. This should prompt her into appropriate action.

The breeder read off the list of litters Lisa’s had in the past and they had a high rate of success. She believes this lapse in maternal instinct uncommon for Lisa and suggested I try again. I will. Little bunny foofoo has three chances.

I gave a talk at TechLiminal recently. The topic was Urban Farming 101. I think I overtalked…in fact, I know I did. Turns out there is quite a bit of ground to cover (haha) when it comes to growing and raising your own food. Luckily with this blog, I can keep on talking.

I created this blog to share both the experience of urban farming as it unfolds and the how-to’s. With that, lets talk about light and shade. First, let me introduce my friend the protractor (apparently this image is printable and usable):

I attended a home growing class a few years ago where the instructor distributed nifty “maps” of the sun’s path throughout the year in the Bay Area (click here to download a pdf of the map on google docs) and taught us to use this map of the sun and a protractor to determine how many hours of sun a given spot in your yard will receive throughout the year. This will help you decide what may grow well in certain locations of your yard.

Do this by taking your map and protractor to the desired location and while holding the protactor flat with the arch outward and straight side facing you, point the ninety degree mark on the protractor exactly due south. Now look at your “horizon” which will be where the open sky meets an obstacle in your yard. You are going to use the protractor to plot degrees on the vertical (y) and horizontal (x) axis. For each visible obstacle starting on your left, note the degrees from ninety it first starts. That will be the degrees on the x axis. For the first time it appears in your horizon, consider the angle of it is located from the flat surface of the protractor. You can likely estimate this if you know basic angles. This will be your y axis. Now plot the point on the appropriate location on your chart. As you move from left to right, plot only the transitions in height in your horizon. Once you are done with the full 180 view from where you are squatting (don’t worry about the north side. The sun travels from east, south, west), connect the dots and shade beneath the resulting line. The unshaded portion of your plotted horizon will indicate the hours of light in the day for a given month of the year.

If you have a deciduous tree which is bare part of the year, when you shade make only sparse lines through that area on the map to indicate partial shading. There were some brainiacs at the talk that could recalibrate the Bay Area map to accommodate any longitude and latitude, unfortunately unless they comment to explain how, I am at a loss. The same people explained how they could plot the points by using a photo of the yard…but sitting at your computer to garden sort of defeats the point, smarty pants.