city farm

Today I visited Stepney City Farm to see about volunteering. It's such a colourful, friendly place to spend a summer afternoon. The animals were lovely of course!

I think I will be getting a lot of insight into the sustainable farming/locally sourced movement, which is relavant to my dissertation topic. For one, I learned a bit about beekeeping today. I didn't think it was possible to get this close to a bee's nest without any sort of protection. These are wild bees that were found at Stepney Green park. The volunteer who explained the beekeeping to me was a linguist. They are keeping them here at the farm without using any invasive beekeeping techniques, because that messes up the bee's communication about where to find pollen. I got to get up close and see them dancing, carrying pollen pouches, and also some young bees just hatching. One thing I didn't know was that they actually clean or groom each other. How sweet. The hive was really beautiful, perfectly shaped little compartments.

The Bee Sanctuary is appropriately nestled within these crumbling church walls.

Apparently the very cold, wet weather earlier this summer has had a pretty disastrous effect on the bee population. (I love that there is such a thing as the 'National Bee Unit').

These last three pictures make me laugh. I wonder what Derridawould think about this animal gaze. They look really inquisitive, don't they?

I took a lot more pictures, and will definitely post more on the farm as I go- I'm going to have my volunteering induction next Sunday, bright and early at 9am!