That is definitely a question that I would answer – not to bee. But Chris has a bee in his bonnet, and thinks this will be a good idea. I do love that our farm produces “things” – vegetables, eggs, and maybe – honey. I don’t love the idea of getting stung.
I’m not unfamiliar with the idea. My family used to keep bees. I can build bee equipment, and I know how to extract honey. It’s the stuff in between – actually tending to the bees – that I have no idea about, nor do I want to. So Chris is now attends the Chester County Beekeepers Association and he is also enrolled in a beekeeping class to get an overview of the ins and outs of a hive.
He came home with a collection of beekeeping catalogs and a Beekeeping for Dummies book. I’ll leave it at that…
Coffee Table reading on the farm lately.Stay tuned…
I confess, I’m a fair weather friend. When it’s cold outside, I’m not usually the one schlepping to the chicken coop or feeding the horses. Last week we had an unusually warm day; I bundled up and ventured to the coop to collect the eggs and say hello to the girls.
They looked horrible! Their feathers were half falling out, they looked like they have the mange AND they haven’t been laying as many eggs. I was convinced they were about to die. I asked Chris how long they’ve looked like that. He said, “Like what?”
So, I Googled half-dead chickens and found that they are molting. Apparently it happens every winter, but not until they are about 15 months old, so I guess they missed the molt last year. They need a special diet high in protein to help them develop healthy, pretty feathers.
We made an emergency run to Tractor Supply, and guess what – they sell food called Feather Fixer, especially for chickens while they are molting. That’s easy enough. Feather Fixer, combined with some lovely blocks of mealy worms for extra protein and our little ladies should be sprouting feathers all over the place in a couple of weeks.
We didn’t want to shock their systems with changing their food all at once so we mixed the first “dose” with their regular food.Who knew there is Feather Fixer food.They look horrible.Is this the equivalent to a bad hair day — bad feather day?
I love to watch those tiny house shows on TV. Our house isn’t really tiny; but it isn’t big either. So, I’m always on the look-out for creative storage solutions to expand our space.
With the onslaught of Christmas baking and cooking for company, I realized how much I hated the cabinet where the spices were stored. I had them on one of those cute little stepped-up shelves so I could see all of the containers, but invariably, whatever I needed was toward the back and retrieving it meant either pulling out everything in front of it, or if I was lazy, reaching in and delicately retrieving the one spice jar I needed — and knocking everything else out of the cabinet anyway. So I was on a quest for a better storage system.
I found some organizers at Home Depot and convinced Chris it would be an easy project. Several hours later, we had a masterpiece! It’s so organized now, I can find what I want without dumping everything onto the floor and it looks so nice I sometimes leave the pantry door open just to admire our new-found space.
Now that the holidays are over and everything has been put away, I’m on a search to find a better way/place to store all that Christmas gift wrap. The basement can get damp, the attic is dreary, and the house — is full. I’m still looking for a solution to that puzzle.
An “easy” project adding storage to our pantry door.It’s awesome — I can find everything now.
What the heck is a pot crane, you might ask. I didn’t know either, except that I had these two round brackets in the fireplace where something used to be. After scanning the Historic Housefitters website for other accoutrements for the house, I saw the pot crane and realized we just have to have one. If for no rhyme or reason other than to sit in the brackets that were already embedded in the stone walls of the fireplace, just waiting for something to fit there.
It was a bit of a process. Historic Housefitters has ready made pot cranes in standard sizes. Who knew there could be such an unfulfilled need that they come in standard sizes. But not much in this house comes in a standard size. So I called the company, explained my dilemma and got a lesson in pot crane lingo at the same time. The round brackets in my fireplace are called gudgeons, and the pot crane, would be made with a 30″ swing arm attached to a riveted post joined by mortise and tenon.
We measured and re-measured and looked at the scaled drawings that Historic Housefitters created. Finally, we said “yes.” I waited impatiently for the package to arrive, holding my breath, wondering if it would fit.
A triangular looking packaged showed up at the door, looking much smaller than what I had envisioned. We opened it up and I continued to hold by breath while Chris raised the top tenon into the the top gudgeon, aligned the bottom tenon with the bottom gudgeon and let it fall in to place. A perfect fit!
Then it needed something to hang from the pot crane — like a pot. I have an old copper pot, not of cooking quality, but attractive none-the-less. It makes the fireplace look like we’re ready to stir up a pot of stew. The next step will be getting a cast iron Lodge pot that we can actually use, hanging it from the crane and stoking up a fire.
In the meantime, the wrought iron pot crane and shiny copper pot add a little colonial bling (if there is such a thing), to our awesome fireplace.
It took some time for the design to be just right.It slipped into those gudgeons like it was made for it.Now we need to strike a match and make a stew or a pot of soup.
Disa has been a resident of our farm for quite a while now, but we traded her for something smaller. Well, it wasn’t quite like that.
Disa eats a lot, and that’s hard on our pasture. We cordoned off part of the pasture so it could recuperate and grow, but it’s winter and the grass isn’t growing much anyway. So it made sense to swap out Disa for Lollipop. Disa moved to Becky’s other pasture and brought Arianna’s pony here instead.
Lollipop seems to like her new home. Pono was a little skittish right after Disa left. He wouldn’t come near us for fear of being snatched and taken away in that horse trailer into the dark night, never to be seen again. But he seems to have calmed down now that it’s apparent that he’s staying. And Fiona? She’s still here, and probably always will be because no one can catch her (except maybe Chris).
Meet Lollipop.Disa got traded, and she’s been replaced by this little thing.Pono’s not so sure what to think about the swap.Pono definitely has his winter sweater on.
No, not moving — just moving on to the next holiday. The Thanksgiving decorations have been put away and the Christmas decorations are now in place.
While Chris’ family was visiting, we began to transition from Thanksgiving to Christmas. They went with us to pick out our Christmas tree at the local fire station. We threw it in the back of that always useful pick-up truck and brought it home where it has been standing at the ready waiting for lights.
Chris tackled the outside decorations, I strung the lights on the inside tree, and between Sunday football games we got it decorated, put up the Christmas houses and hung the stocking by the fireplace.
We’re ready Santa. I’ll send you our list because we’ve been VERY good this year.
Decorating the TreeAdding the StarA fire in the fireplace — ready for ChristmasThe outside lights are up.The tree looks greatNow we need blankets on the porch!
It was a Thanksgiving week to remember. Chris’ family arrived from Switzerland the Friday before Thanksgiving to visit the farm and for a whirlwind of day trips to NYC, Washington/Baltimore — and most important of all — to the King of Prussia Mall. We were busy.
But to make it even busier — we had a wedding! We decided several months ago to get married while his family was already planning to visit. When we met with the minister, he asked why we wanted to get married now, after all these years. When I said “there’s No Rhyme or Reason,” I’m sure he was perplexed. I doubt many people get married for no rhyme or reason. But for us, this has become our home, where we want to grow old(er) together, and where we want to spend our lives…married, here on No Rhyme or Reason Farm.
So with family and friends together, we got married the Saturday before Thanksgiving, spent the week doing field trips, and had a HUGE Thanksgiving dinner. Definitely a week to remember with family and friends and food — what’s better than that!
The Family here for a visitWedding Day on No Rhyme or Reason FarmYou may now kiss the bride — except she can’t watch!Arianna waiting for wedding cake
We have quite a few Black Walnut trees on our property and they create several problems. First of all, there are a lot of things you can’t plant near them because they have toxins in their root system and bark that things like apples and pears don’t like – so we have to keep them apart. Then, the bark or chipped wood is also toxic to horses – so we have to keep them apart. And then, they provide food for the squirrels who are multiplying like rabbits on our property – so we need to keep them apart! I’m not sure how.
In addition to those problems, they drop these green-husked balls the size of hand grenades all over the yard. They are like ball bearings. If you step on one, it’s likely to take you for a ride. And trying to cut the grass with all these hand grenades all over the place sends them shooting in different directions and/or dinging up the lawn mower blades.
I spent the better part of a day raking them up, filling a 5 gallon bucket and moving them into some of the underbrush where we don’t cut the grass. But it wasn’t “a” 5-gallon bucket, it was 20 trips with the 5-gallon bucket, and that’s only from two trees, and more are continuing to fall as we speak.
Putting them in a pile is like creating a squirrel grocery store. That isn’t going to help solve the squirrel problem, and over time – we’ll have thousands of new black walnut trees sprouting from the black walnut patch.
I contemplated husking them, shelling them and picking out the nut meats – for about two seconds until I remembered that:
I’d need a corn sheller to run the husks through to peel off the tough green outer layer
I’d need rubber gloves because otherwise my hands would be permanently stained black (well, almost permanently – it takes a long time to get those nails clean again), and
I’d probably only get a pound or two of nut meat for all my hard work.
So, I called the cooperative extension service and left a voice mail to find out if anyone has a commercial black walnut shelling operation around here. Since they still haven’t called me back, I guess the squirrel grocery store is open for business.
It’s a beautiful tree, until it starts dropping green tennis balls all over the yard.They’re everywhere.Bucket by bucket, I moved them……into a pile of black walnuts where the squirrels can find them.
We’ve been in the house for just over a year now – and other than some spot cleaning, I haven’t really washed the windows! The year just flew by, we were busy with other things and you could still see out of the windows – so it just never crossed my mind. Now that it’s time to close up for the winter, the spots from rain, dead bugs and dirt looked pretty bad.
When we renovated the house, all the old windows came out and new, energy efficient windows went in. Not only are they energy efficient, they are cleaning efficient. They have a magic latch that allows me to fold the window into the house so I can clean both sides without even contemplating a ladder (because if a ladder was needed, they still wouldn’t be getting cleaned).
Still, I hate washing windows. You get one side clean, and then when you do the other side, there are streaks, and you can’t tell which side they are on, so you end up doing both sides, and then there are different streaks. It takes FOREVER.
I told Chris I was about to clean the windows and he recommended, more like insisted, that I use his auto glass cleaner and old towel rags. I’ve cleaned with Windex-type cleaner and paper towels my whole entire life. What’s with auto glass cleaner and old towel rags? He even demonstrated how I needed to do it (one window down, 16 more to go). I thought about saying, can you show me that again (then there would only be 15 more to go) – but I figured I had the concept down. Spray stuff on, wipe stuff off.
And that was it. Done. Sparkling. Finished. I threw out my Windex-type cleaner.
I think men everywhere must be keeping this a secret. They say, “honey, I’m going in the garage to wash the car windows, I’ll be back in HOURS,” and we believe them!
Dirt and dead bugs!The windows fold in! What an amazing invention. No ladder needed.
Today would have been my Mother’s 90th birthday. She passed away October 1st.
Birthdays have always meant a family gathering. Last year we celebrated her birthday at the farm. This year we won’t.
Her arthritis made it difficult to climb the front stairs to get into the house and her poor vision made it difficult to see the house once she was inside, but she loved her visits here anyway. She saw the house before we started the renovations. She could see the potential, but as mothers do – she worried. She worried about how this would ever come together, worried if we knew what we were doing, worried where we would live while the house was being renovated, worried about how we would manage to move everything, worried, worried, worried.
We moved into the farm last October. Our first family get-together was for her 89th birthday. She was happy to see it finished, but still worried. She worried how we were going to keep up with the property, she worried about the big trees that line the driveway, she worried about the poison ivy that seems to find me if I even look at from afar, she worried how we would manage when it snowed.
Despite her worries, she liked hearing about the garden and the birds at the feeder and the deer that roam through on a regular basis. She liked to know about her great-granddaughter collecting the chicken eggs, and how, try as she might – she can never catch Fiona the goat. Mostly she liked knowing that this is our home.
Nancy’s 89th Birthday — October, 2015Christmas Day 2015
No Rhyme or Reason Farm 