The Great Sunflower Project

www.greatsunflower.org

Calling all citizen scientists! The Great Sunflower Project gathers information about honey bees throughout the US and Canada. Anyone who wants to help, can aid them in reaching their goal of documenting bee pollination and developing strategies to protect and restore native bees where they are threatened. All you need to do is: 1) grow sunflowers, 2) spend a few minutes each week counting the bees that visit them, and 3) send them your data (by snail mail or online entry).

What a great excuse to sit in a lawn chair, relaxing with some coffee/tea/beer/cocktails, admiring your beautiful sunflower garden.

I tried to participate last year, but when my sunflower seedlings were a couple of inches high, some critter decided they would make a delicious snack :(. I had planted three packets of them, too! This year, I'll be ready with my row covers.

Backyard chickens

Lately, my friend Sarah has been supplying us with eggs from the horse farm where she rides (they're not commercially available, I think the family just happens to have extras right now). Look--the ones in the front are greenish-blue! What's for breakfast this weekend? Local eggs that are only a few days old, some nitrite-free uncured bacon from Chestnut Farms, and homemade potato bread (made with potatoes left-over from my winter vegetable share at Drumlin Farm).

I've been noticing lately that backyard chicken-raising seems to be on the rise. Driving around, I see an increasing number of signs at the end of residential driveways announcing eggs for sale. The chickens laying these eggs are certainly living happier lives than those raised by large-scale egg producers. I'm actually considering it myself, but first I'll need to make sure I have a chicken babysitter lined up for when I go away on vacation. Anyone know of one?