2012! The End? No...Just Another Beginning.

It's almost time to get seedlings started for the garden. I waited too long last year to get tomato and pepper seedlings started for the garden. This year I'm going to start them in February so that they're well along come May.

My good friend Harvey Ussery had his book, The Small Scale Poultry Flock, published by Chelsea Green. If you are at all interested in raising chickens, ducks, or geese I highly recommend his book.

I'm not a big hunter by any means. I usually take a deer or two (almost always does) for the freezer. This year I decided to keep the hides and to try my hand at tanning them. I purchased Deerskins into Buckskins and I have found it to be a very straight forward reference for home tanning. My hope is to create soft buckskins that I can have made into gloves. I'm thankful for what the deer provide and it makes me feel good to use as much of what the deer provides as possible.

Last year I saved about two dozen primary feathers that my tom turkey shed during the moult. I researched the making of quill pens on the internet and fashioned the feathers into quill pens. This past fall I gathered up a few pounds of black walnuts and allowed them to dry completely. I threw them into an old stock pot and boiled them over a campfire outside. After about 24 hours total, the whole mixture had been rendered down into a very serviceable ink. I'll post some pictures of the pens, the ink, and the awesome inkwell I found as soon as I can.

Nice Flush of Shiitake Mushrooms

Last week I took the opportunity to soak a few of the mushroom logs I innoculated last year. After about 5 days of waiting the first flush has begun to emerge. These little fellows are delicious. Check 'em out.

Apitherapy

a·pi·ther·a·py
Apitherapy is the medical use of honey bee products. This can include the use of honey, pollen, propolis, royal jelly, and bee venom

Well in my case it relates solely to the use of bee venom. A little over a week ago I started having lower back problems again. Not to bore anyone with my medical history but my lower back hurts and makes regular life quite difficult when it begins to act up. I, unlike most people, have ready access to honeybee venom. I limp out to the apiary in the front yard, grab a half dozen worker bees one at a time and hold them to my waistline above the spot where the pain is. Generally it takes only a second or so until the bee stings me. I leave the stinger in for about 5 minutes to deliver the entire venom load and it's warm (albeit temporary) relief. People look at me incredulously when I tell them about my treatments. "You did what?!" is the typical comment. I respond by telling them that pain, if severe enough, is a potent motivator to try new methods of treatment. I have no systemic allergy to bee stings and it's important to mention that until you know if you do, intentionally stinging yourself with bees is a potentially lethal thing to do. The sting from a single bee, if you have an undiagnosed allergy, can lead to anaphlaxis and death without prompt medical attention. For the vast majority of people though, bee stings are a painful, itchy nuisance but that's all. I have found relief from some of my back pain through the use of bee stings. Apparently the pain is relieved by the bodies' reaction to the area of the sting. The effect is similar to acupuncture in that you are stimulating the body's own systems to relieve pain.

Donielle in the Bees

Now here's something you don't see everyday. Donielle in the bees! It's a little known fact that not only does she handle most of the marketing and delivery for Fern Hill Apiary but she's also a very capable beekeeper in her own right. I recently found myself out of commission due to back problems. Since the nectar flow waits for no man (or woman) Donielle threw on her veil and added honey supers. To my great surprise the honey supers I put on just last week were all full and nearly completely capped. It has been a banner year for black locust blooms. One of the best blooms I've ever seen. Often you'll get a decent bloom but then a couple days of rain washes the nectar out of them and it's all for naught. This looks to be a good honey harvest year.

Last week I got a call at work from Donielle saying one of our colonies was swarming and that she was going to split them. A split is nothing more than making one colony into two. By the time I got home she had the new split moved into a different bee yard and the bees were getting oriented to their new home. Kudos D!

M

Successful Apple Grafts

Last fall I tried my hand at grafting fruit trees for the first time. I purchased (10) M-7 apple root stocks from One Green World (http://www.onegreenworld.com//product_info.php?products_id=1184) in Oregon. I have Gravenstein and Esopus Spitzenburg heirloom apples that I'm training to a trellis in the front yard (a technique known as espalier).

I took several branch trimmings from each tree and grafted the leaf buds from them onto the root stocks. The union where the scion (the trimming from the tree you hope to grow) meets the root stock must be sealed to hold the graft in place and hold moisture so the union doesn't dry out. I used Parafilm tape but you could also use beeswax, string, or plastic food wrap. Success or failure is determined by whether the buds begin to leaf out in the spring. Well, I'm happy to report that the majority of the grafts did take and have leafed out very nicely. My goal is to graft at least three and hopefully four varieties of apple onto each root stock and to espalier these as well. Five of the trees are planted in buckets because I hope their eventual home to be the orchard in my son's former school, Mountainside Montessori.

Note: Grafting isn't difficult but it does require a little technique. If you're interested in trying it I'd recommend a grafting workshop hosted by someone who has done it. If that's not an option you could learn it as I did from any of the excellent videos on YouTube.

Enjoy,
M

A Very Large Swarm of Bees

While I was out in the garden on Mother's Day a very large swarm of bees departed one of the hives and began to settle down on a small oak tree in the yard. The swarm was way above my head but I was able to capture it by setting up some scaffolding and then placing a step ladder on top of that. I took two nuc boxes full of wax foundation and placed it on top of the ladder and then shook the swarm down into the box. Well, that was the plan. I ended up shaking about 1/3 of the swarm onto the front of my shirt but I didn't receive a single sting. After a few hours the bees were completely inside the boxes I had set up for them and I moved them over to the main apiary after dark.



This was pretty large as swarms go. It was about 4 feet long and I'd estimate it to weigh around 4lbs. I was very happy to have recaptured them. They should have the new boxes of foundation completely drawn out in a few days. Swarms are comb-drawing machines!

Enjoy.
M

Life and Death...We all have to eat.

So the Friday before Easter our last remaining hen hatched out 6 new chicks. One of the chicks died shortly after hatching which is quite common but the remaining 5 are plugging along. I put them in the pasture shelter in the front yard and momma takes them all under her wings at night and keeps them warm. They're very cute and a lot of fun to watch. The little ones learn a lot from watching mom. She'll find bugs for them and crunch the bug so it can't get away and drop it in front of them. They compete totally and run around with food in their beaks trying to keep it away from their siblings until they can eat it.

Well, the only problem with being a cute little chick is that a lot of things would like to eat you too. Donielle came home today to find the turkeys going nuts and momma hen squawking like crazy. She went over to find a medium-sized black rat snake had taken one of the chicks. Black snakes are constrictors who normally eat mice, birds, and bird eggs. A tiny little chick is right on the menu. The snake had already suffocated the chick so Donielle removed the snake with the chick still in its coils and took it into the woods to finish its meal. I've heard of people taking mice and rabbits away from snakes to 'punish' them. That's ridiculous. Snakes consume many, many mice that would otherwise get into everything we hold dear. Mice are cute in someone else's house but not in one's own. I'd much rather have the snake. Anyway...this photo shows the snake just finishing up. The 'bulge' is quite prominent. I'll miss the little chick but we all have to eat. Snake 1 Chick 0
M

Catching a Swarm

So while I was away this morning helping a friend with a project, one of our honeybee colonies decided to swarm. A swarm is when a colony divides itself naturally with about 1/2 of the workforce leaving the hive in a matter of seconds, taking the queen with them. Usually they perch on a branch while they find a new home which can take a day or two. At our place the majority of swarms choose branches that are way too high up to safely reach. This VERY large swarm chose a highbush blueberry tree very low to the ground. These are the ones you love to catch.

In this video I'm shaking the bees off of the branch and into a box filled with combs that I've set up underneath it. Newly issued swarms are generally so docile that you can put your hand into them without fear of being stung. I did so with this one to show one of my son's friends that it was indeed possible. After the swarm drops into the box there will be a period of confusion as the bees get reorganized and hopefully begin fanning at the entrance to indicate that they accept this as their new home. Enjoy.

Plugging Logs

So Saturday I headed down to Louisa, Virginia to the home of Dan Boone (7th Generation from the original guy) who hosted a blacksmithing Hammer In at his home. A Hammer In is a get together for blacksmiths. It's kind of like a meeting of beekeepers except that instead of thousands of stinging insects you play with red-hot metal and shape it with a hammer. I could explain more but if you don't understand the allure of it nothing I can write is probably going to make a difference.

After leaving there I headed over to Cismont, Va to Sharondale Farm. Sharondale is run by mycologist Mark Jones who, among other things, propogates various types of mushrooms and inoculates sterilized sawdust that can be used to grow mushrooms at home. The process is quite simple. I bought several bags of spawn from Mark for shiitake mushrooms. The 'spawn' is nothing more than sterilized sawdust on which the mycelium for a specific strain of mushroom has been started.

Starting with freshly cut (though aged several weeks) hardwood log/branch sections, numerous holes are drilled into the logs with an angle grinder that has been fitted with a special drill bit. Once the hole is drilled, a plunger is 'loaded' with spawn by repeatedly stabbing it into the sawdust until the plunger tube is full. The plunger is positioned over the newly drilled hole and the handle is pressed down firmly ejecting the spawn plug into the hole. The hole is then capped with warm cheese wax to prevent dehydration and then the log begins to sit. It will take the logs 6-9 months to become fully colonized with the filaments of shiitake fungus before the log begins to 'fruit'. The fruit I speak of is what we recognize as a mushroom. Ninety percent of a fungal colony is hidden inside a substrate of some kind. The ground, trees, etc. It's only the fruiting body, the mushroom, that we see. Mushrooms exist to release the billions of spores produced so that the whole process can begin anew at some other location.

The 'Y' strain I purchased from Mark comes with a hearty recommendation. It supposedly produces abundant flushes of delicious mushrooms and is a reliable producer in our area. Time will tell.

Mike

More Projects

As spring begins to ramp up I have eagerly bit off more than I can chew, as usual. On Friday I drove out to visit the forge of my new friend, and world-class blacksmith Nol Putnam. He graciously allowed me to watch as he split a piece of iron bar stock for a project he's working on.

Back at the house I'm working slowly, but steadily on a small forge setup of my own. I've decided to locate the forge in a small shed away from what will be the garage/shop/barn for reasons of fire safety. It also means it will be ready more quickly and that I can get going on a few things. I'd like to see if the boys would be interested in hammering a little iron themselves. I know it sounds a little quaint but I think it's important for young men to have 'manly' things to do. We live in a society where opportunities for adolescents to prove themselves evoke images of stupid stunts ending in injury, property damage, or tragedy. Put in a little time in the forge and you might build some muscles, get some energy out, and make something useful.

I checked on the bees on Friday and was pleased to see that to this point we've lost only about 3 over the winter. It's to be expected that you will lose colonies over the winter for a number of reasons. Sometimes you lose them and never know the reason. Check back soon and I'll be posting some pictures of the projects in progress.

M

Barn Building

I finally secured a dozen old utility poles to use in the building of a small barn here. I bought plans about 5 years ago for a 20x30 barn but I think we'll actually build it 20x32 to make the best use of plywood dimensions, etc. The utility poles are all at least 16' feet long and VERY heavy. Tentative plans for the barn include parking for the cars and tractor, a small workshop, and a FORGE. My good friend and blacksmith Jeff Dunkelberger has piqued my interest in giving it a try. Jeff does some very nice work in his shop and we have several of his pieces here at the house, including an iron cross and a candle holder.

I've warned Jeff repeatedly that my wife is gonna give him an earful if he gets me hooked on another money-losing hobby. Jeff has assured me that there's big money in blacksmithing and that the profits just keep rolling in! Wink!

Check out his blacksmithing shop at www.blackforestironworks.blogspot.com

Almost time to plant veggies! Stay tuned.

Michael

Battling Elk

A great video of bull elk bugling and battling during the rut. My father and I took a float trip on the Madison River a few years ago but we didn't witness anything like this. We did see and hear a large number of elk in Yellowstone. Very impressive.

M

Pretty Good Group

I found this family group on one of the blogs I follow. Regardless of your religious affiliation you have to appreciate talent. The guy playing the dobro (the guitar played on its back) is really good.

My youngest Jake commented that no one is smiling in the video. I responded that the father (the man playing the guitar in the background) is smiling and Jake asked why. I told him it's a smile of satisfaction....that everything is functioning the way it should all at the same time. It's a rare moment in my life when that happens and would make me smile too!

Enjoy.
M

Smart Dog

This is a video that Donielle took of our puppy, Champ. His ball rolled under the bed and Donielle told him to go get it. Very funny.

Michael

Raising Chickens (and flies?)

Early in the fall Donielle and I ordered a flock of Freedom Ranger chickens to raise for the freezer. These chickens are able to forage for more of their own food than the traditional meat bird, the Cornish Cross. They grow more slowly and their feed/weight conversion isn't nearly as rapid but we decided to give them a try. Here are the newly arrived chickens in our stock tank. The stock tank stayed on the front porch where we could keep an eye on things yet keep the 'stinky' chickens out of the house. They got new food, fresh water, and a nice heating pad to sleep on. We actually split the order with some friends down the road so we ended up with about 15 birds of our own.













This next photo shows the collection tub of our BioPod. One of the blogs I follow regularly is called Blacksoldierflyblog.com. The larvae of black soldier flies are actually wonderful composters. What takes weeks or months in a traditional compost pile takes just days with BSF. The adults are attracted to decomposing food scraps in the pod and lay their eggs in the 'egg disc' in the lid of the pod. When the eggs hatch, the larvae drop into the food scraps and begin to eat. They consume the scraps and molt several times until they're ready to pupate. Their instinct is to go 'to ground' and they seek a way out of the pod to burrow into the earth. Immediately prior to pupating they 'poop' and molt one last time. The larvae are able to negotiate an incline of up to 45 deg which is something the pod is designed to exploit. The larvae climb the 'exit' ramps and drop into the collection bucket below. What you end up with is a totally clean, self-harvesting supply of grubs that are very high in fat and protein. Take it from me, the chickens (both chicks and adults) love them.












Look for more about Black Soldier Flies and BioPod in the future. Compost for the garden, grubs for the chickens. What's not to love?

Michael

Homestead Butchering

Should have posted this one earlier. Several months ago our 'main' tom turkey Albuquerque got tangled up in the electronet fencing during a duel with one of his sons. Actually both turkeys got tangled but we were able to free the younger bird in time. Albuquerque, sadly, didn't survive. We don't regard our turkeys as pets; rather we see them as breeding livestock. When we lost the tom I immediately dropped what I was doing to dress him out for the freezer. We got some nice turkey breasts, legs, and quite a lot of turkey stock. I learned how to butcher my own poultry from my good friend Harvey Ussery in Hume. You can check out Harvey's site at www.themodernhomestead.us.

The first photo shows the turkey mostly plucked of feathers. This was all done by hand as my homemade chicken plucker won't handle a bird as large as this. The larger (primary) wing feathers were plucked first and set aside to be made into quill pens. Seriously, I've wanted to try this for a long time and found that it's not difficult at all to do.






The second photo shows the plucked bird in my processing sink about to be eviscerated. The evisceration or 'gutting' process is actually pretty straightforward. You are removing the entrails and separating them into the edibles (liver, heart, etc) and inedibles (intestines, lungs, etc). My youngest boy Jake watched with great interest and was especially interested in what the heart and lungs looked like. It may sound gruesome at first but it's actually quite interesting. We, as carnivores, are too far removed from how our
food is produced.

The next photo shows what young, healthy turkey livers look like. Chicken livers, though smaller are the same, rich, dark color. The light, anemic-looking livers you find at the store tell a story about the lives those birds lived.















It isn't my intention to gross anyone out with these photos. The photos on Harvey's website are much more detailed, in fact one could learn how to butcher their own poultry just from studying the photos on his site. One phrase from his site sticks with me. It's a rhetorical questions he asks playing the part of the shocked observer seeing a chicken butchered for the first time. "How can you kill and eat a bird that you've known since it was first hatched?" Harvey's response is, to paraphrase, 'How can you eat a bird that's unknown to you?' Literally Food for Thought.

Michael

Deer Hunting

So I got up early last Thursday and walked out into the woods, in the dark, and climbed into my treestand. I sat absolutely still for about an hour until I could hear footsteps in the dark. I closed the bolt on my rifle and waited. In about a minute I could make out a small buck and a smaller doe in the small clearing beneath the stand. I watched both but could tell that both deer were very small and decided to give these deer a pass in the hope of getting something larger. I climbed down about 8:15 and walked to the top of a nearby hill. I sat down at the base of a small tree to see what might come along. I immediately noticed a very small squirrel coming down the log in front of me. The squirrel came closer and closer until I wondered if he'd come all the way down the log to where I was sitting. At the last moment he seemed to notice that something was wrong and froze. It was at that moment that I looked beyond the squirrel and noticed a herd of deer on a hillside about 100yds from where I was sitting. I found a large doe in my scope and steadied my rifle to take the shot. The rifle discharge caught me by surprise and I looked up to see a good-sized herd of deer bounding out of sight into the woods. I watched to see if one looked like it might be struggling to keep up with the others. After they were out of sight I walked over to the spot where the doe had stood and looked for signs that she might be wounded. Nope. It was a clean miss. No deer today.

I truly am thankful for the meat provided by any deer I kill. I don't have a preference for bucks over does since I'm not in it for trophies. I'll be out again next week hoping for something to put in the freezer.

Michael

New Direction

I've decided to take the blog in a new direction. I used to use the blog to document the going's on of Fern Hill Apiary, the name of our hobby beekeeping business. The business has taken on a life of its own and now has its own site. www.fernhillapiary.com. There we feature the products and prices for the bee-related things we produce. I'll continue to feature beekeeping photos, etc on the blog so you can see what's going on here but the 'new' blog is going to have a more general focus on our family, homestead, projects, etc. We hope you enjoy.

2010 Honey Harvest! 430lbs!

We finally got this year's honey crop harvested. We collected about 12 medium boxes of honey from the colonies in our out yard and here at the




house. Once the boxes were collected we moved them into a screened tent so the bees couldn't get to them. Removing the boxes from the hives involves the use of a fume board. A fume board is simply a plywood lid with a piece of felt stapled to the inside. You squirt some VERY foul-smelling liquid onto the felt and put it on the hive. The smell drives the bees down out of the super so you can take it off with very few bees in it. The boxes full of honey weigh approximately 50lbs a piece. It's an awkward lift so you have to be careful not to hurt yourself lifting or carrying them.

Once inside the tent we begin the extraction. First the wax capping covering the honey is removed with an uncapping knife. This knife is the only heat this honey will feel. The knife slices through the wax sometimes lifting it off in a single white sheet of wax. This capping wax is the most sought-after wax for making candles.

After the capping is removed the frames are put into the extractor. The extractor is nothing more than a little centrifuge. When fully loaded, the lid is closed and you crank the handle, spinning the frames within, which throws the honey out of the cells. It drains to the bottom and flows out of the honey gate and through several filters. After that it's ready to bottle.

Once the frames are empty (you've spun the honey out of them but they're still wet) we put them out for the bees to rob clean. They clean the frames, boxes, and tools until they are completely free of honey. Bone dry! It's total pandemonium when you put the boxes out but it's the best way to get the combs cleaned.

Honestly I sort of dread extraction every year. It's extremely hot, heavy, hard, painful work. You get some stings even though the bees aren't being aggressive for the most part. You pinch bees under the frames when you lift them, roll them against your leg when they come to clean up the honey you spill on yourself, etc. The actual extraction is miserable but the end result is worth it. Lots of pure, golden honey. MMMMMMmmmmmmm.

Enjoy.
M

So Dry But a Bit of Rain

We finally got a little rain this morning at the house. I was having to go out every evening and water the garden to make sure everything didn't dry up and blow away. The 'lawn' itself went totally brown which is the grass going dormant. It should green up again in the late Summer/Fall, meanwhile I'm enjoying a break from mowing.

A few plants actually LIKE the heat we've been having. Next is a photo of the sweet potato vines taking over the greenhouse. I usually don't have anything growing in there in the summer because even with the door open it gets too hot. Sweet potatoes love the heat. I give them a drink about every other day (via the mist system you can see hanging from the top). I put them in the greenhouse for two reasons...they love heat and the deer/rabbits can't get in there.
It's time to start harvesting some of the herbs I planted in the garden. Many have already gone to seed (dill, cilantro, etc). With the cukes flooding in it's nice to have some fresh herbs to use in the canning process.

Just for the fun of it I let one zucchini plant go and one cabbage too. The idea is to let them get large enough each so that the boys have something to enter into the county fair. The zucchini, I think, is a little smaller than one I had last year but you get what you get. I put my keys on top of the cabbage for scale. This cabbage is supposed to be able to top 50lbs but I don't think we're going to get there. Still, it's pretty big right now.















The corn is coming right along. The tassles have been visible for a week or so and now the ears are starting to show. Corn is air pollinated which means it doesn't rely on bees to get the job done. Tell that to the bees though. I've seen lots of different insects (including honeybees and bumblebees) going from tassle to tassle collecting the pollen. I have two type of sweet corn growing. One variety is Country Gentleman and the other is Stowell's Evergreen. Both types are shoepegs which means the corn doesn't grow on the ears in straight rows but shows up in a more haphazard pattern. The bumblebees are hitting the sunflowers like crazy. Strange but you often find them spending the night on the blooms. I guess if they work late they just spend the night out and return home in the morning. This year's crop of sunflowers are smaller and shorter than normal but I attribute that to the heat and drought. Still, it's hard to find a cheerier sight in the garden than a stand of sunflowers. The next update will likely be in a week or so as we extract this year's honey crop. Despite the drought it looks like we'll have a pretty good year where honey is concerned.

M