Here is the flyer for our upcoming Bakers Alley in September. We’ll be back in the Bayview districts, Double Rock Community Garden.

Bakers Alley came into being from a feeling, from a memory, a place. A place where you wanted to be, a place that made you feel welcomed, at ease and that you belonged. A place to cook and bake together. A place to eat together. A place filled with conversation and dialogue.  A place of storytelling, and sharing of your memories of how your grandma or grandfather used to do things, a place to catch up with someone, spend time with someone. A place where you bring your gift of music, song and instrument. A place to share your skills with the community. A place to learn how to grow plants that can sustain us, feed us, and heal our bodies. A place to sit in a knitting circle, a space to learn fermentation, cheese making and canning. A place to learn pruning and grafting fruit trees, growing your compost, planting a vegetable garden. A place to learn about raising chickens and ducks. A place to learn soap making, weaving, looming, pattern and clothes making. A place to learn about water systems, herbalism, carpentry, bicycle mending.  A place to plug into the needs of the community and find ways to meet those needs.

Bakers Alley is about reacquainting ourselves with the need for ‘relationships’. A relationship with one another, a relationship to all the living creatures and a relationship to this precious earth on which we all live upon. We are all related by the common desire to express ourselves, our common need to feel love and compassion, our common need for shelter, clean water and air, and a place to grow nutritious food, and a place where the community freely shares it’s gifts of wisdom, knowledge, experience and skills with one another. Relationships embrace the understanding that each of our lives and actions affect one another. If you are in need then our community is in need, if you are in pain then our community is in pain, if you need support then the community needs to be there to support you. Relationships within our communities go beyond the boundaries of blood or a marriage license.

Bakers Alley is not only a real place to come and participate it is also a symbol of what in the past used to be called “the commons” meaning “equally with or by all”. The commons well before the European history and meaning of the Commons (a tract of land belonging to or used by the community or the name of a political class of people the commoners) was the understanding that no one owns the land, no one owns the air or water, no one owns the seeds that we use to grow our food. No one has the right to take, dispossess or hoard the bounty that is within our communities. It is for no one individual to take. Rather it is for the whole of the community to decide how to wisely and compassionately share the burden and the bounty of our resources and efforts (our skills, our labor)

Dr. Martin Luther King began to explore a new kind of revolution, one that would challenge the systems, values and institutions of our society. He combined the struggle against racism with a struggle against poverty, militarism, and materialism.   Dr. King understood and knew in his heart what “a beloved community” really was. Dr. King believed in the power of the community and the power of the individual but in the context that the individual has the responsibility to represent the needs of the whole community.

Bakers Alley is for our community to come and engage in relationship building. Everyone is welcome. Bakers Alley is open once a month either on a Saturday or a Sunday from 10 am-5 pm. The earth oven is stoked all morning and is ready for community baking by noonish~~~~  *we encourage people to bring their baking for the oven and or to bring  “pot luck”.  Bring a favorite food of yours and share your recipe. We usually have at least 2-3 skill sharing workshops going on throughout the day (usually free), we encourage musicians to come and start a jam! We encourage everyone to sign up to teach a skill share at Bakers Alley. We encourage you to bring your whole family. There are always meaningful and fun things to do for the children. Please get on the Bakers Alley mail list so you will know the date of the next gathering. We hope to soon have a schedule that extends 2-6 months in advance.

* We do encourage bringing food but we never want any one to feel that they cannot attend if they do not have food. Please always know that you are welcome~ just bring your smile 

Here are some photos from our first Bread Baking Workshop with Tracy Wolfe.

(L) The earth oven made of a brick hearth floor over an urbanite and mortar base, a brick and mortar archway, a 4 inch thick thermal mass inner layer made of clay and sand, a 4 inch insulating outer layer made of clay and straw, and a rough earthen plaster cover. (R) Professional baker, Tracy Wolfe, shows how to pre-cut bread to allow it to expand while rising.

(L) Loading the freshly formed dough balls into the heat soaked oven. (R) Mmm, fresh baked bread loaves and rolls.

(L) Scones and loaves, together again. (R) Homemade pizzas sizzling up on the hearth floor.

(L) Baker’s Alley is a place for people to come together and meet their neighbors, share skills and experiences, talk about challenges and solutions facing our lives and planet and enjoy the cultural tradition of sharing food and place together. (R) Cracking acorns from a Valley Oak that graciously offered some of its seed for our food.

January 2009 - Hand Build Pottery Workshop with Bea Bloom

(L) The wedge, demonstrated by Renee, is compressing all the air bubbles out of your fresh clay so you can work it with less chance of cracking. (R) Bea Bloom teaching how to get familiar with clay between your fingers, and the specifics of the pinch, coil, and slab hand build pottery methods.

(L) Here Bea is showing how to give texture to a piece by wrapping small cord around a piece of wood used to tap gently against the piece before the clay dries out too much. (R) Davin’s mom came by to work on a nice mug with clay art relief.

(L) Annie brought some of her fine, hand made wool hats and scarves to offer, (R) Music was provided by the political folk group, the Peaceniks.

(L) Some of the finished pieces at the end of the day (R) What’s a community baking day without pizza?

Here is the flyer and photos from our most recent Bakers Alley in April. It was a fermentation festival of sorts with fresh baked vegan delights like scones, cornbread, and taught to us by Chef Alyssa Cox, Home-brewing  by Brennan and Max, and pickled sustenance such as sauerkraut, and kimchi with Erin from Bay Area Source. We were also graced with the music of Easy Leaves and local author Alex Hatch stopped by to talk about and sign her new book Cracks in the Asphalt. Annie Katz wowed more folks with her hats and knitting skills but as always, shared them with anyone who needed a break in the living room. Hope to see you next time at the oven!

The USDA Economic Research Service reported that in 2007 the per capita egg consumption in the US was 259. That’s like saying, on average, everyone in the US consumed 259 eggs in 2007. That’s actually down from a high of 380 per capita in 1950. If you imagine that 750,000 people, about the population of San Francisco, consumed 259 eggs per year, that would equal 194,250,000 eggs. If there are 365 days in a year, and we hope the hens get at least a month off they average laying 335 eggs per year, and that would mean you would need about 58,333 hens. If we imagined this population of 750,000 was made up of households with an average of 4 people each, then you would have 187,500 households. In our current food system, these people would typically drive to a store; to purchase eggs; layed by hens raised in undesirable conditions; dozens to hundreds of miles away; and even if they wanted things to be different, that just seemed like the way things were. But what if instead, those 58,333 hens were lovingly cared for by the 187,500 households? That would be just 3 hens per household!

Of course in a city full of apartments and condos, it’s unlikely San Francisco would adopt so idylic a scenario, but there is a growing interest in raising chickens and ducks in San Francisco and there have always been various forms of animal husbandry going on in San Francisco homes and lots. If you have the space to care for chickens or ducks and you enjoy eggs, there is little reason not to consider building a coop and sharing your space with a small flock. Tori recently welcomed 3 hens into her backyard that she shares with her neighbors. They have a fully enclosed ‘range’ about 5 ft by 14 ft, and a coop to protect and keep them warm at night that is about 3.5 ft by 2.5 ft. The aviary fencing is 1/2 inch wire mesh to prevent predators crafty hands from poking about. This unique coop we decided to make out of natural and reused materials where possible.

     
(L) The slip straw chicken coop with unfinished exterior. A chicken door locks up at night with two pins. Galvanized water and feed containers are easy to work with and last a long time. (R) Rear view of coop with lockable door for people access. A nice reclaimed double paned window for only $20 at Building Resources.
     
(L) Here are the girls, from L to R: Joni, Nina, and Frida. (R) The inside of the slip straw walls with a rough earth plaster interior. This roughly 4 inch thick wall with mostly straw provides lots of insulation for the hens, especially because they release a lot of heat through while breathing, so they’ll always be warm at night. The floor was made of two pieces of scrap plywood sandwiching a 2 x 2 frame and filled with straw for added floor insulation. The thermometer reads the interior temperature.
     

(L-R) Frida, our resident Plymouth Barred Rock; Joni, our hawkish looking Ameraucana; and Nina, our fiesty Silver Laced Wyandotte.
    

(L-R) Chicken security measures: fully enclosed chicken run with 1/2 inch aviary mesh, and a good lockable door for cleaning and gathering eggs. It’s nice to have a thermometer to check the temperature.

Alemany Farm empowers San Francisco residents to grow their own food, and through that process encourages people to become more engaged with their communities. We grow organic food and green jobs for low-income communities, while sowing the seeds for economic and environmental justice

Learn More at www.alemanyfarm.org