We’ve had bees for three years now. The first year – we got nothing, the second year – we got next to nothing (6 pounds of honey), the third year – we thought we got nothing. The beekeepers association said that if you don’t have honey by the end of July – you aren’t getting any, so pack up your hopes and dreams and wait another year. But… our bees are just late bloomers. They waited until mid August and in the span of about two weeks brought home nearly 70 pounds of dark, sweet honey.
We had used the extracting equipment last year – hardly worth the effort, but I guess it was a good “dry run” to process the amazing 6 pounds of honey. This year, we at least had a process in place and set to work early in the morning. Several hours later – we have CASES of the stuff. In fact, I need to go buy more honey jars! I guess that’s a good problem to have.
We had three shallow supers of frames to extract.And they were packed to the corners with honey.I got stung by a yellow jacket earlier in the week so I was taking NO chances. I don’t mind helping but those few bees that came in with the frames of honey weren’t going to get to me!Straining the honey from the extractor to a bucket. We ended up with a full five gallon bucket plus a little more!The “fruits” of Chris’s persistence. He took classes, kept doing everything he was supposed to do – and here we are – with nearly six CASES of honey.
It’s hard to believe that summer is winding down already. It’s been hot and/or rainy all summer which meant every time I thought we’d eat outside on the patio, it was too hot, too wet or both. But the weather has changed already. Days are shorter, there’s a cool breeze and this weekend was one of the rare opportunities to eat dinner outside. Not just for us – but for “the herd” too. Happy Labor Day!
A pet picnic – they do need better table manners though.Our picnic – the weather is finally cooperating.
We use our basement a lot. It’s not a typical basement. I can’t just go down the basement stairs into a nice, finished space. Instead I have to go outside, to the side of the house and unlock the exterior door that accesses the basement. It’s a bit dreary. It sometimes gets mice in the winter, and it definitely gets cobwebs and other creepy-crawly things.
But it stays fairly constant around 60-ish degrees which makes it a great choice for being my root cellar, wine cellar, cheese cave, and storage spot for all the canned goods from the garden and two freezers full of frozen meats and vegetables. It’s definitely an important part of our house – but it didn’t look like it.
I decided EVERYTHING needed to come out of the basement so we could really deep clean it, and then paint it. It looks so much brighter and I’ve reclaimed corners of the basement that I confess – I was a bit scared of what might be lurking in the shadows. Then we painted the floor with gray garage floor paint to keep the dust down.
And then we pulled out the shop vac. In the four weeks since we’ve painted the basement, we’ve sucked flood waters out of it three times. A gentle soaking rain is no problem – but an inch and a half in twenty minutes is more than the basement can manage. At least it sucks up easily off of the new painted floor, except for the few places where the rain has loosened the paint.
Hopefully we are now out of the rainy season (until next year) but I sure wish those people that built this house back in 1853 had thought to put in a French drain with a sump pump – or at least a hole for a sump pump so that when electricity and such mechanical devices were invented, we could have just plugged one in.
Old stone walls.Dirty dusty corners.It looks so much brighter with a fresh coat of paint.And a gray painted floor to keep the dust down.A perfect spot for a wine cellar and cheese cave.And so much brighter for storing my canned goods, squash and potatoes!
At the end of every day when I finally curl up on the couch to watch a few minutes of TV before I fall asleep, my eyesight is always drawn to the eyesore on the ceiling. We have a bit of a vaulted ceiling and over time, it has cracked where the drywall seam is. It’s a normal thing that happens but it looks ugly.
Now when I climb on the couch, I have a new view. We’ve had box-beams installed to cover the seams. It looks amazing. They are stained dark to match the beams in the kitchen and give a natural flow from one room to the next. I think it gives the room a more complete look and maybe even makes it feel cozy – not that we need cozy as it hits 100 degrees outside – but this winter, I’ll appreciate cozy even more.
First a board got attached to the ceiling that covered the crack in the dry wall.Then it got covered in a box-beam.What a difference it makes, and the beams look like a continuation of the beams in the kitchen.
Maybe we’ve finally turned the corner and spring will “March” in this April. The grass is greening, the daffodils have buds and the days are ever so slightly warmer.
But it’s what inside that is keeping us warm! We finally found a solution to our living room fireplace. From the beginning, it has been a struggle. It is on a north-facing wall against a steep outside slope, so getting a proper draft going always meant using a hair-dryer to blow hot air up the chimney, followed by bouts of smoke filling the room, opening multiple doors and “fanning” them to circulate the air, dissipate the smoke, and coax the fire to draft properly. The fireplace has a shallow fire box, and a very tight throat. I didn’t know fireplaces have throats, but apparently, ours is a problem. And if all of that wasn’t enough of a problem, we couldn’t close the damper at night until the fire was completely out – so any heat we did have, went straight up the tight throat of the chimney. We looked into getting a fireplace insert about a year ago, but nothing would fit in our tiny space.
Finally – we found a very cute (and very small) Vermont Castings wood stove that fits just right – it is the Goldilocks of wood stoves. Even better – it was last years model, end of season and on sale! After two days of four guys trying to figure out how to install this – we could start fires to “season” the stove. We could only burn a small fire and let it go completely out – repeat three times – before really firing it up. We are now in the firing it up stage, and the temperature in the family room has sky-rocketed from 66 to 76! I might have to give up my flannel pajamas and fuzzy blanket.
I can hardly wait for next fall so we can stay warm all winter long! And guess what Chris is doing today? Chopping wood!
A fire in the fireplace — it looks pretty, but it wasn’t very warm.
It’s a tiny thing, but fits perfectly – not sure how Santa will get down this chimney though.What a nice fire! And finally, a really warm family room!Time to chop more firewood!
We are finally starting to show some signs of warmth around here. The snow is melting, temperatures are flirting with the 40’s some days, and it’s almost time to start my garden!
The blanket of snow on the greenhouse roof was headed south, so I started seeds. It’s too cold in the greenhouse to give them a good start, so this year we are starting them on a germinating mat under a grow light in the basement. Things are starting to pop already. By the time they are ready to transplant to larger pots and harden off under some real sunlight – the greenhouse will have warmed up – I hope!
Another sure sign of spring are the blue hoses attached to two of our maple trees. They aren’t sugar maples, but they are maples – so that’s close enough. Last year we started too late and got about one cup of maple syrup by the time we boiled down all the sap. This year I may have jumped the gun, but so far I have three gallons of sap – and the whole month of March ahead of me. Maybe this year we’ll get two cups!
The blanket of snow is on the move – spring must be on the way.If you look REALLY close, you can see some sprouts – spring MUST be almost here.How much maple syrup will we get this year?
Things are a little topsy-turvy on the farm lately. My zinnias are THIS BIG.
And my eggs are THIS SMALL.
We’ve had so much rain this year that my plants just won’t stop growing! It must be helping the granddaughters grow too – because they won’t stop growing either!
And the eggs? We have six peeps that we got in the spring. We’ve nurtured them through their teenage years and now — they are turning into real hens. Their first attempts at laying eggs have been a bit meager, but I guess they will improve with maturity. An egg that is only 1.5 inches doesn’t quite compare to what we are used to. I’m not even sure how to use that in baking. Do two baby eggs equal one normal egg? Hopefully they will get their act together soon and start laying real eggs.
It’s the 4th of July and we decided we need to build a picnic table. Our new goats, Heidi and Peter, are rambunctious kids and they need something to climb on. And we need something to sit on when we take our coffee up to the pasture after dinner to visit with them. A picnic table seems to be the perfect solution.
We bought an unassembled one at Home Depot and Chris unpacked all the pieces and parts. Heidi and Peter were full of curiosity. I’m not sure how he managed to get it put together, what with all the help they were giving him!
They love jumping on it, sleeping on it and leaping from it. And they aren’t the only ones enjoying it.
Curious.Helpful.But not sure what to do with the power drill.Definitely fun to jump on and off.It puts the goats at eye level with the horse.It’s a pet picnic.And Hannah likes the table too. Happy 4th of July!
You never know what you’re going to find on this farm. Sometimes it’s a pleasant surprise — something beautiful, or something useful – or maybe even both. Sometimes, it’s disgusting, useless debris. We’ve found some of both lately.
In anticipation of getting our goats, Heidi and Peter, we cleaned up a part of the pasture that is overgrown with brambles and shrubs. Under the brambles we found some old construction debris – broken toilets, scrap metal and junk. We worked most of the day pulling the stuff out and smoothing out the dirt so that it wouldn’t be dangerous for the goats. Just as Chris thought we were done for the day, I saw a piece of ugly, green shag carpet sticking out of the dirt no bigger than a carpet square. Four hundred and fifty pounds later, we had the back of the truck bed full of dirty, stinking, rotten carpet that necessitated a trip to the county dump. Oh, and an old sewing machine that popped out with the carpet.
But, it was the same week that the violets were blooming all over the lawn – really beautiful, deep purple violets. I picked a colander full, put them in jars with some white vinegar and created a violet flavored, slightly pink vinegar that has been a great dressing (with a little olive oil) on our home grown lettuce.
So you never know around here – dirty, stinky carpet or beautiful, purple violets. It’s just another day around here.
A lot of junk in the pastureMore than we expected to dig upAnd a sewing machineWe needed the front end loader to move 450 pounds of carpet to the pick-up truckThe violets were much prettier than the rotten carpetA nice harvestAfter steeping in white vinegar it took on a beautiful pink hue
Remember those cute little fluff balls — baby chicks that we brought home from Tractor Supply. They were so cute and cuddly, how could you not fall in love with them. And, they were no trouble at all living in a small box in our living room where we could keep a close eye on them.
But they are growing. I think they’ve hit the teenage stage. They’re big enough to be a pain, but not big enough to put them outside on their own yet. They stink, they make a mess and they’re noisy.
But, there is a chill to the air today, it’s threatening to rain — and it’s Mother’s Day. What kind of parents would we be to push our “teenagers” out of the house on Mother’s Day? so we’ll wait until tomorrow — and then it’s off to the coop.
So cute and cuddly.Not so cute and cuddly.Messy, stinky, noisy and time to move to the coop.
No Rhyme or Reason Farm 