"Sprummer" in the Hollow

It's not even officially Summer yet, but the garden, critters, and occasionally, the weather, are all in Summer mode.

Those 3 or 4 days we had of 90+ degree heat we had a few weeks ago seemed to put our raspberries over the top. We've been getting a pint per day as of late, and they haven't even hit their stride yet. I think I'll be making a LOT of jam this year!

The strawberries are doing good as well, but tend to fall victim to the slugs and roly-poly bugs if not picked the second they become ripe. Thankfully, the duck yard is directly next door to the garden, which keeps the slugs and bugs in check, though a few still get through and leave their unmistakable mark.

The pumpkins, beans, carrots, sunflowers and watermelons are all up and looking decent. The potatoes are growing like gangbusters - we need to hill them up again!

The snow peas have finally bloomed, and will hopefully have their first fruits ready by this weekend. Besides a little Sungold tomato or a sun-warmed raspberry, snow peas are my favorite garden sneaky-snack. ;)

The pollinator bed is taking a little longer than usual to get going. The borage, not surprisingly, has reseeded itself con mucho gusto, to the point where I may have to pull a few out to ensure that my breadseed poppies, calendula and phacelia have half a chance at making it.

The lemon balm and spearmint have all but squeezed the chamomile completely out of the tea bed, meaning that a minty-reckoning is overdue. Since none of our critters are terribly fond of the stuff, and I have waaaay more already dried and put up that I could ever need for tea, I think I'll be offering up cut mint & lemon balm this weekend to anyone who is willing to take the stuff.

As for the critters.... OY.

The ducks are doing well, but their egg production is down due to thieving ravens. We're looking to add a net or some sort of barrier/deterrent to the duck yard/Quack Shack to keep the hungry little buggers at bay. Especially since we want to hatch out some babies, which we learned the hard and heartbreaking way, are also a favorite food of hungry ravens. :(

The chickens are doing well. Ruby the Easter Egger took off for about a month and came back with a single little black and yellow chick. We're calling her Garnet, though he/she is still way too small -and fast! - for us to get a good look at in the hopes of accurately sexing him or her. I suspect that Garnet's papa is our Cuckoo Marans rooster, Godzilla, which would make Garnet, if she is in fact a she, an Olive Egger pullet. The other gals in the flock seem to be falling prey to chick envy/baby fever and have been trying to sneak off to raise families of their own. Wrangling our stubborn laydies has been more challenging of ever as of late.

Just hatched! "Kotori", Japanese for "small bird". :)

Our quail flock is expanding! We have ten 5-week old babies, and another four 1-week olds coming right behind them. We'll be hatching out more later this Summer, but the ducks have dibs on the incubator next.

The bees are humming along (see what I did there?)! We have three top-bar hives and one Langstroth, and as of last week's peek, all are looking healthy and full o' honey. Beekeeper Bill says that we should be able to pull some honey at the end of this month! These were all new packages as of this Spring, and they're off to an awesome start owing to everything blooming so early this year. Let's hope that our luck (and theirs) holds.

The goats are happy. We're down to just our two old ladies - Sophie and Chardonnay. They're doing a pretty good job of keeping goatlandia mowed down, and will soon be the recipients of a big windfall of blackberry vines just as soon as Bill and I can find the time to bushwhack the chicken yard. There's never enough time for everything!

So, that's about that. The critters seem happy, the garden seems happy, and the lawn and weeds are out of control, as ever. Life is busy, but good. :)

Playing Catch-up

Birthday season, for the most part, has come and gone, allowing us to focus a slightly larger portion of our time and money on gettin' 'er done around the house and farm. A few developments since I've last posted -

I think she thinks she's invisible.

*Blueberry, a Muscovy hen, has made the executive decision to go bat-crap broody, and sit on a fairly-well hidden clutch of eggs. She's rarely off the nest, but based on the few quick glances that I've had of the clutch, I'd say she's got at least 15 or 20 eggs in there. If you happen to be one of our egg customers, this may help explain why the duck eggs have been fewer and farther between these past few weeks. But...

*We have another half-dozen layers just around the corner! The Khaki Campbell girls are now almost 8 weeks old, and have been integrated into the main flock. They seem to have unanimously chosen Kiki, our black Swedish hen, as their mama. "Keeks" seems mostly indifferent to her new brood, but to her credit, does not seem to mind overly much that they follow her every move. Kiki's fella, Tombo, thought he hit the jackpot when his harem grew by six laydies overnight. Alas, he was too... er... vigorous in his attentions and traumatized the heck out of the Khaki girls. And so, Tommy-boy is living in the ducky bachelor pad chicken tractor for now, where he can see, hear and chat with his gals, but not have direct "encounters" with them. He'll stay there until - a) the Khakis are fully mature, b) he learns how to be a gentleman, or c) we re-home him. We'll play it by ear.

Kiki and her little 'uns.

*Our eleven 8-week old chicks have also transitioned into living with the main flock. So far, so good.

*We've been averaging about 10 chicken eggs, and 1 or 2 duck eggs per day from the laydies.

*I planted a whole bed of carrots this past weekend. Half are Cosmic Purples and half are Red-cored Chantenay. I also started a second plot of Watermelon Radishes.

*The new beehives are doing pretty well. The Langstroth hive started to build a bit of cross-comb, which Billy cleaned up, but other than that, everybody appears to be settling in nicely.

*We're gearing up to make our first batch of soap of the season - Dandelion & Honey, provided that the bees don't begrudge us a little of the sweet stuff. The next batch on deck is Sugar Pumpkin & Spice, with homegrown pumpkin. :)

*We've had some fun and different bird sightings over the past few weeks - male and female Rufous Hummingbirds, California Quail, and a very vocal Raven.

And that's about it, I think. I need to get crackin' in the garden this coming weekend - cilantro, spearmint and kale are on deck fo' sho', with chamomile, thyme, calendula, breadseed poppies and borage to follow soon after.

Taking the Good with the Bad: Late Winter on the Farm

Saturday was the first rain-free day we've had in a while here. It seems like it has been windstorms and Pineapple Express-born heavy rains in our little neck of the woods all Fall and Winter. No severe cold this year and no snow to speak of, just endless wet.

It puts a strain on us, our garden and our critters. Trying to keep bedding clean and dry is a battle without end. Making sure that our beehives are draft-free and cozy for our little honeys is something we fret over, especially when the winds pick up.

So it seemed like a good omen - actually, a bit of a surprise - when Bill went up the hill to take a look-see at our three hives. The temperatures are still just a tad low to actually open the hives up and check things thoroughly, but observing your girls' activities can still tell you a lot about the health of the hive. Bill saw comings and goings at all three hives, a promising sign of life. Better yet, he saw bees coming in with pollen on two of the three hives, which is indicative of a happy hive, as pollen is what is fed to the "brood", infant bees.

We were pretty dumbfounded to have all three hives seemingly healthy and active, especially after one of them had the roof blown clean off their hive during one of the larger windstorms we've had this season.

Alas, if the bees' good disposition was our Yin, the sadness that awaited us in Goatlandia was the Yang.

After greeting and giving good head scratches to my goat gang, I went in search of Blue, who usually heads up the treat shakedown/scratch-fest. I found her in the goat house, looking very much like she was asleep. Our strong, sweet, sassy, irrepressibly-maternal little girl Blue, left us on an unseasonably sunny Valentines Day.

Blue was 14 years old, though we'd only had her for her last 4 years. She came to us with her little tiny buckling, Blackjack. He would be the last baby for our Bluey, and as though she knew that she'd reached the end of her new-mothering journey, she coddled and protected that little stinker to the point of spoiling him rotten. She was small but fierce.

Blue & her little man, Blackjack, chowing down.

In the years following, Blue became Auntie Blue, the maiden aunt/foster mom to many of our kids. If a doe had quads and couldn't keep up - the kids nursed Blue. If a Mama rejected/neglected a baby, Blue took them in. Even when her infant charges were nearly taller than she herself was, she nursed them when she could, fought for them to get their fair share at the feeder, napped with them in pools of warm Spring sunlight and slept close to them in the goathouse at night.

Bluey, in all her chunky glory :)

Waiting (uncharacteristically!) patiently for head scratches from her Papa

It hurts - literally hurts - to think that I'll never hear her insistent, distinctly unladylike "EH-EH-EH-EH-EHHH!" and see her rotund little form come trotting around the corner of the goathouse, in hot pursuit of snacks and head scratches. Her sassy little spark has gone, and I miss her.

So long, sweet girl.

Today's Take & Seeds Started Indoors - 4/27/13

The first three flats of veggies that I started on the seedling heat mats (tomatoes/tomatillos, peas and lettuces/kale) have graduated off of the mats and are now under the grow lights without any supplemental heat.

In their place on the mats I just started one flat each of German Chamomile, Calendula and Minnesota Midget Melons (cantaloupes). The melons are a big experiment. We've never had much luck with the traditionally Southern, sun-loving crops like melons and peppers, but decided to gamble a whole three bucks on this short-season variety. They're supposed to take just 70 days from seed to fruit, and I figure that if folks in Minnesota can get these badboys to grow, I stand a decent enough chance at having at least a few make it.

As for the flowers - those are primarily for tea and soapmaking. I hope that they both make it, but I'm especially excited about the Calendula. Orange is my absolute favorite color for flowers. I challenge you to look out on a patch of verdant, colorful veggies, surrounded by sunny orange flowers and not feel happy. Can't be done. ;)

On a completely separate note, today was the day that we said goodbye to sweet misses Hop & Hope, Chardonnay's two "big girls".

Liberty & Hope, February 2012

Hop & Barley, February 2011

The girls went together, to a wonderful little family in a home on some acreage. They will provide companionship, entertainment, weed eating services and delicious fresh milk, hopefully for many years to come. 

The gals' leaving us means that we have just two more kids who will be moving on before too much longer, leaving us with our new, lean and mean herd - Blue, Chardonnay, one of Chardy's doelings who is not yet named, Sidney, Sophie and Buckley. We were hoping to sell Buckley, but we've had no interest yet. Maybe in the Fall?

This Spring has been a real doozy, full of goat-centric drama, so as much as we'll miss the sweet faces of our babies that have moved on, we are also pretty relieved to have scaled the herd (and the feed costs) back to a manageable number.

As if all that weren't enough excitement for a single day on the farm, today is also the day that we finally picked up our honeybees!

We now have two hives of Italian honeybees in our waaaaay back forty. Upon installing the bees in their hives, Bill discovered that one of the queens (you get one per colony) had died. Not good. 

We were fortunate that the folks who sold us our bees are good, honest people who stand behind the critters they sell, and had no qualms at all about giving us a replacement queen, which Bill picked up this evening and will install in the morning. The reason that the queen died is unclear, but it isn't a super uncommon occurrence, so we're not going to sweat it. 

So - minus two goats, plus 40,000 (give or take) honeybees and plus three flats sewn of future fruits and flowers. That, my friends, is one heck of a productive day in these parts. Time for farmer Chelle to kick back with a well-earned (in my humble opinion) bowl of ice cream and a Netflix. ;)

Bees!

Meet the newest residents of the Hollow, 40,000 honeybees. :)

We're installing them in their hives now. The rain is not ideal, but we're hopeful that we've made the transition as easy as possible for them. As soon as the weather clears, these gals had better get busy visiting our fruit trees!