There are constantly unexpected occurrences in the urban farm. Its a grand experiment in which I am learning how to work out the kinks of keeping food and livestock in an urban setting. I would like to point out that the concept of urban farming is not new. Farming is something people have known how to do for thousands of years. When urbanization occurred it accommodated farming. For instance in San Francisco, many of the Victorian and Edwardian homes have garages out of what was once the barn. Urban dwellers kept all manner of livestock, rabbits, hogs, goats, poultry, horses…you get the picture.The big question is how did they manage?

I just got done picking my Fuji apples early because there was a rat eating them, one by one. Each night would see about half an apple eaten. Being the clever girl that I am, I picked them all off and stored them in a cool unlit place in my basement. The same place I kept my potatoes last year. I calculated that of first harvest bestowed by the young apple tree (11 lbs!), the rat only got about a pound or two. However, I went to retrieve a few apples three days later and found at least a third had been tainted with rat teeth.

Initially, when the apples were on the tree, I felt like sharing was not so bad. At least the rat was eating one entire apple at a time. It was very tidy. In the basement, it had an apple orgy and gnawed drunkenly on apples throughout the entire bin. Plus, it is in my basement! When I vented to my husband, Dipak, I just ended up sounding like the Firesign Theater skit on the cat-squirrel.

I have since moved the remaining apples to the fridge and crossed my fingers that some will last for Thanksgiving stuffing. It does not stop there though. Now that all edible items in the basement are secure from wanton rat teeth, I turn to the turkeys.

I have been letting them roam the yard with greater frequency as they seemed adjusted. Things were very promising when they even found there own way back to their coop one evening. Unfortunately last night I came home to Tompkin on top of the chicken coop. I was able to get him down and secure him in his coop but Nash and Fern were missing (again). I looked all around and then caught sight of a huge turkey silhouette on a telephone wire about 20 feet above me. All night, both Nash and Fern are perched up there. I had to wake at dawn to coax the turkeys down before they fly into the 76 station and wander down Grand Avenue again.

I wish I had the time to peruse local libraries for stories on how people continued to farm during urbanization. I imagine stumbling upon practical approaches for containing turkeys in an urban setting.

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