How to Attract Ladybugs to Your Yard in Israel
Every gardener wishes that they had ladybugs in their yard! Besides being iconic and adorable, ladybugs are voracious munchers of those pesky aphids. But how can we get these cute and hungry guests into our gardens? It’s not that easy, especially in the city. But BH we finally succeeded in creating a thriving ladybug colony […]
A Tale of 2 Cute Chicks and a Cute Little Farm
Today I went for a meeting at the Educational Farm to make sure that everything is ready to go for our launch event on Wednesday morning. If you remember, this is how our land looked before Pesach This is how our cute little farm looks today – all ready for us to build our raised beds […]
My Chicken became a Ba’al Teshuva!
This chicken is perfect in every way – except for one problem. The problem is that this chicken is a boy! We bought him as a chick back in July – as written about here. He’s a purebred Buff Orpington. He used to be tiny and docile, and that’s how he earned his name – […]
Animal Instincts: Do Humans Have them?
The amazing thing about living with animals is I get to observe a very powerful force of nature up close: Instinct. For example, my pet hen Stripey knows exactly how to incubate and hatch eggs, even though she never read a parenting book, never saw another chicken do it, and she herself was born in […]
Meet Our New Chicks!
Meet our new babysitters! Two little chicks. You may remember the story of Stripey the Hen sitting on her eggs with dedication for 3 weeks. None of them hatched, so Yaakov, the breeder who sold us those fertilized eggs, offered to compensate us with chicks. That meant a family trip to his farm on Moshav […]
Bloomah Hatches an Egg: A Story About Farming, Faith and Flops
This is my pet hen, Stripey. She’s not looking too plump right now. Her usually cherry-red comb has faded and her eyes are dull. She’d not sick, Thank G-d. It’s just that she’s been sitting on a nest full of eggs for the last 16 days. During that period, she’s barely eaten or drunk. She […]
My 5 Latest Farming Failures
I’ve posted a bunch of successful projects and people are starting to talk like I’m some sort of farming wunderkind, unlike them, who are “untalented” or have “a brown thumb.” So let me know clarify: I have failures ALL THE TIME. I kill plants, I waste money, I make things that no one in my […]
Keeping Chickens in Israel: A Backyard Guide
In the past week, several people have contacted me to ask where they can buy hens and how to care for them. This seems to have been spurred by Israel’s massive egg shortage, coming right before Pesach – the most egg-intensive period on the Jewish menu. Perhaps this egg-istential crisis is pushing people to reconsider […]