From Our Coop to Yours, Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

The Beeze Won't Freeze

You never know when winter is going to hit, so you have to prepare, usually sooner than you think you do.  This year we have gotten some colder than normal weather, earlier than normal.  The list of what didn't get done in time is too long to share, but one important item did get accomplished...winterizing the bees.
Honey bees are cold blooded and reflect the ambient air temperature.  If they freeze, they would die, so, to live through a long cold winter they need a source of heat. One big benefit is the fact that bees are furry. That fur provides a dead air space that insulates them. And when two bees get close together they have more dead air space and if  5000 bees cluster together they can all stay a bit warmer for even longer, using all that fuzz as an insulator to keep warm air in. So, for starters the bees all cluster together in the middle of the hive.  But that only works until there's no more warm air to hold. When there is no more warm air to hold in, the bees have to start making their own heat.  The bees on the inside of that cluster vibrate their wing muscles and  they warm up. And that warmth is moved up, down and sideways throughout the  cluster and keeps all the bees warm. To help keep that warmth in the hive, Don did a little energy efficiency and installed some insulation and a wind-proof wrap to their hives.  So now they are all tucked in, left to eat their honey, vibrate their wings, and hopefully keep warm and healthy.

Fall Harvest

The freezing nights have finished off the flowers and the tender vegetables. Now we're left to harvest the root vegetables and our perennial harvest of........

Catching Up

Wow....where did summer go? and where is fall going? There are lots of developments/changes/happenings at Sherman Hollow to catch up on. To start with, Maurine got a great start on her flower farm. Many different perennials were planted. She made lots of beautiful bouquets all summer long. and at the end of August she did an amazing job on the flowers for a wedding at the Monitor Barn in Richmond. The bees made a strong comeback and produced a surprising amount of honey. In mid-September we harvested about 50 pounds of honey!
  I am harvesting and drying lots of chamomile in hopes of making some tea to put that honey in.
 The new batch of chicks lost a couple of roosters to the soup pot, but the girls and one 'succession' rooster are now integrated into the rest of the chicken flock. Today I got one of the first eggs from one of the newbies. She still has a little maturing to do. Fall is now full upon us! No more time for picnics....it's time to prepare for winter, and next spring! Order and plant bulbs, till and cover crop the garden, winterize the chicken coop, and stack the fire wood.

We're In Luck!

I thought I had hit yet one more rock that I needed to dig out of my way in the vegetable garden. But a little bit of nudging with the garden weeder revealed not a rock, but a well corroded horseshoe. What horse, how long ago, plowed these fields and lost his shoe in his toils? Once the garden shed is built, we will hang his shoe over the door and hope it fills with luck for a fertile and bountiful garden.

A New Resident in the Turkey Barn

This guy is found almost daily, on one or another of the hay bales in the turkey barn. Lately, I've noticed that the turkeys aren't laying eggs anymore, but the end of their laying coincides with the appearance of this guy. I'm wondering if it's just that he's getting to them before me?

No Farm is Complete Without a Plow

Nothing is so quintessentially farm as is a plow. And since we had such a large area we wanted to turn over into gardens, and since I'd succeeded in almost causing a hot oil fire by overworking the tiller attachment on the tractor while trying to do so, we concluded we really needed to get a plow for the tractor. Don, the aficionado of Craigs List" Farm Equipment For Sale", tracked down a used plow right down the street. Despite it's very used appearance, it was in great shape. As Don dragged it behind the tractor and down the path, it reminded me of a water-skier putting out a dirt wake, and stirring up the earth into a stoney froth. Now we can plow through all that heavy, stoney dirt and turn it over and ready it for the tiller. None too soon. The rain has kept the earth a heavy, clumpy mess. With the help of some much needed sun, the plow and the tiller, over these next few days, we will get in the seeds and plants hopefully in time to mature before falls first frost.

Feathering Her Nest

It took seeing it in person for me to understand how birds actually do feather their nests. This lady turkey has feathered hers by pulling out all her breast feathers to use. Motherly love!! I only wish one of her eggs would actually hatch so that she might not have made all these sacrifices in vain.

Bad News and Good News

As you may already know, we lost 75% of our bee hives over the winter. Seems like most bee keepers had significant losses. We aren't even sure why. It may have been mites, but it may have been the bees warmed up during a warming period and then subsequently froze to death when the temps dropped again. Regardless of the reason,we'll be harvesting less honey this summer. The good news is, we've got 6 new 'nucs' (starter hives) from a local honey bee supplier and we're starting again. The other silver lining, is the bees that died left behind the honey they didn't eat so we were able to harvest that honey and resupply our inventory, which had dropped to zero. It's a little darker than the honey we harvested in August, most likely because the honey from August was wildflower/clover honey, and the honey we took from the winter stash was from goldenrodOur dead bees.The new hives You can see the difference in color in the picture. The honey on the right is clover, and the one on the left is goldenrod....or so I guess. Both are delicious and it's hard to tell much, if any, difference in the flavor.

Flower Farming

Maurine planted She protected She pampered She picked and she produced beautiful flowers for her cousins wedding

Pig Pile

My little egg incubator was 100% successful in helping to nurture and hatch out 7 baby chicks. When I moved them into the brooder I made the inexperienced mistake of letting them out without drying them off a bit under a very very warm heat lamp, and so they got very chilled due to the evaporation process (they were very wet in that incubator). So those wet chicks had to pig pile in the corner of the brooder to keep warm. I did wise up when I saw them shivering and helped to get them under a heat lamp to dry off and warm up. Since that first night in the brooder, I've lost a couple of chicks. One had deformed feet and never seemed interested in eating or drinking despite my encouragement and help. So he eventually died. The other chick, I guess was just not strong enough. But now I have five little fluff balls happily running around and eating and drinking and peeping. Keep your fingers crossed that at least some of them are little girls. I really want more layers. But, a good little boy may live to replace my current rooster, who has taken to attacking me.

Next up....

will be a garden shed and a barn for the creatures. Don got his hands on an old timber-frame, lettered and numbered and, hopefully, ready to put together like a set of tinker toys. It is the frame only, so we will use our pine boards for the sides. It will be nice to have a place to keep the garden tools down by the garden, and a more permanent structure for the creatures. Although you know what they say, there is nothing more permanent than a temporary garage (which currently houses the turkeys and hay bales). It is scheduled to be re-purposed as a hoop house.

Sure signs of spring

It's been one of those winters that plays leap frog with spring. But gradually spring is taking over, and there are all sorts of signs of it...like taking the sap taps OUT of the trees, the spring beauty daintily opening on the forest floor, and daffodils piercing through the packed down leafs of last fall.

21 Days and Counting

The incubator is warmed up and running....keeping 7 chicken eggs with the proper humidity, warmth, and turning schedule. A real mama chicken couldn't do it any better. I will keep you posted over the next 21 days as to the healthy and viability of our little embryos.

Hopelessly Hacked

Sometime late Sunday afternoon, a person with little productive to do, hacked into my Sherman Hollow Organic Farm website and hijacked everything there. And, despite a contract with my web-hosting company whom I paid to keep back-ups, they were unable to produce one. Needless to say, I was madder than a hornets nest. But, anger wouldn't accomplish retrieving my web site content so instead I opted for my money back. Now I am back out in the large and frightening marketplace of web hosting sites looking for a manageable and affordable place to hang my domain name. Come back in a week or two and look for us back up and on-line with a whole new look, and lots of newly bottled syrup for sale. At least the company removed the obscene dancing stick figures and annoying music the hacker had put in the place of my site.

Sunday Breakfast of Pancakes and Syrup, plus more Boiling and Bottling

The sugaring season is winding down, so it was a full day to try and boil as much sap a possible and start the bottling process. Fueled by some pancakes and syrup right out of the bottler at 9 AM gave us a great start. By 9 PM the dregs had been emptied out of the evaporator and syrup bottles stood ready to label.