Thursday, May 26, 2011

Fate is what brought us together.

Getting into beekeeping almost never happened; at least it not like it is now.  Last year when we were in the discussion stages of building our farmstead, bees were talked about very infrequently, and when Nicole and I did get on the topic of bees it was our agreement that we would get a hive or two so we would have some honey as well as some on site pollinators for our raised bed gardens.
With absolutely zero knowledge of anything related to bees (except for the fact that they sting), I started looking on the internet for bees. This was in July.
Now if anyone out there that knows anything about buying bees will know that you cannot find ANYONE with bees for sale in July.  So now we wait… and start looking for bees to buy in February of this year.  Now if anyone out there that know anything about buying bees will know that you cannot find ANYONE with bees for sale.  But know it’s because their orders are already filled and all of their bees have been spoken for.
Frustrated and desperate, we start scouring the internet for people with bees for sale; craigslist, bee farm websites, bee magazines… everywhere.  We find a site who still has bees for sale, and he had a deal going on that if you purchase his bees, the hives and bee suit from him then he will give you a free class on raising bees.  Holy cow, he lives 20 minutes from our house and we will even get a free class on raising bees.  This was wonderful!
I called the number he had on the website; answering machine.  Called the next day; nothing.  Again I called the next day; nothing.  I did this for weeks and only got an answering machine or a voice telling me that the answering machine was full.  I needed to get a hold of his guy.  I wanted bees, and the free class.  I then got the bright idea to text him…. Maybe the number on the site was a cell number, and then he would get my desperate text.  A text telling him that I was willing to give him money for the bees and hives and suits…..nothing.  Then, I called one last time… and got nothing.  I was just about to give up on him when I decided to call him right back.  And I get “Hello”.  I almost hung up on him, thinking it was his answering machine.  Holy crap I got a hold of him!  I quickly told him my situation and asked if he still had bees for sale and he said he did.  I almost peed myself.  Then I proceeded to tell him that I was willing to buy bees, suits, hives, tools…. Everything from him.  I was trying to throw all of my money at him.  He then told me that he was up in the mountains and that I needed to call him tomorrow after 1:00p.m. to set up a time to come pick up everything.  I thanked him about 10 times and told him I will call at 1:15 sharp and was willing to drive to his house that day to some and talk to him. 
1:15p.m. the next day.  No answer.  2:00, no answer.  3:00, no answer.  I QUIT!
A few days later Nicole gets the most brilliant idea.  Post a wanted ad on craigslist for bees.
Within a couple of days a fellow named Stacy emails, or calls us telling us that if we are interested in bees that we need to call a guy he has been dealing with and he will be more than happy to sell us bees.
So I call Don Kuchenmeister.  I give him my sad story about how I have not been able to get bees and been wanting bees for our farm.  He stops me and tells me that he is willing to sell me bees and to be at his house Saturday.  I called him on a Tuesday.
I called again on Thursday to be sure that the bees are going to be ready and he said that they would be there on Saturday.  We talked for about half an hour. We talked about why I wanted bees, and what I wanted to do with them.  Then he springs on me that I should sign up for his classes.  They were individual weekend classes or a commercial bee class.  I didn’t want to go into the commercial bee business but it was more economically smart to buy the commercial class then multiple individual classes.  So Nicole and I signed up for commercial bee keeping classes.
Now Saturday comes and it is raining.  I mean it was coming down in buckets.  But we get to his house and he is in his garage putzing around.  We introduce ourselves and we start talking about bees and hives and honey and wax and queens and nucs and everything you can think of.  We went into his classroom and talked more about nucs and packages and queens.  The rain stopped and we got a tour of the place and continued talking about hives and pest control and the next thing we knew, we spent 4 hours there doing nothing but soaking in all that he had to say. 
Nicole and I thanked him and paid his wife for two commercial classes.  And we drove away without any bees.  Not that there wasn’t any available, but we had just ran into a huge turning point in our thinking of the farm.
We talked all the way home about maybe we should get into the bee business as well.  We were at Don’s house the next day... no rain.  And we started our commercial bee course.  We learned hive building…..and for the next 8 weeks Nicole and I were at his doorstep every Saturday to learn and learn and learn.
So I guess this is a thank you blog to the bee guy who wouldn’t call me back. 
Thank you for not taking my call.  I really have learned a lot about bees because of you.

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Japanese Giant Hornets


I guess I could have called this blog post "Something I Wish I Knew Before Getting Into Beekeeping", because, wow - I think I might have reconsidered.  Have you ever seen a Japanese Giant Hornet? They are huge. No, I don't just mean large I mean HUGE.  These guys are rated one of the "5 most horrifying bugs in the world" - and just in case you don't already know, let me tell you why:

  1. It is larger than the size of your thumb and sprays flesh-melting poison. (No, I am not exaggerating.) They aim this poison at your eyes. This wonderful poison has pheromones that will bring every hornet in the hive over to sting you until you die. (again, NO - I am not exaggerating).
  2. They can fly 50 miles in a day - so it is not like you can outrun it.
  3. An adult hornet will fly miles to find food. I have learned that it's favorite food is a hive inhabited by thousands of bees. A hornet that finds a hive will spray the hive with some acid to call in its fellow hornets. They then descend upon the beehive like an unholy plague of hell-born death engines and the bees do not stand a chance.
  4. They are all over my bee yard.
These things give me nightmares. I am not even kidding.  I wake up covered in sweat, shaking, after a dream about these things.  And, just in case you were wondering - no - the above picture is not one that I took myself - there is no way on earth I would let one of these things touch me.

Check out this video from BBC about just 30 of these hornets killing off a hive of 30,000 bees.



I swear whenever I see one of these things in my yard it takes everything I have not to scoop up my children and run for cover while screaming my head off.  Instead I just bravely wait until it lands and hack it in half with a shovel (secretly hoping that no other hornets were watching and are now going back for reinforcements).

Friday, May 13, 2011

Making My Own "Miracle Grow"

So I have just spent the better part of the morning making my own "miracle grow" potting mix.

Ted and I bought 8 organically grown heirloom cherry tomato plants. Ted decided he did not want to put them in the 3 gallon pots we used last year - he claims the pots "limited the plants growth". So he brought home 8 huge 16 gallon pots.

I filled a few inches of the bottom of the pots with wood chips to help with drainage, and the rest of the pot was filled with my own soil mixture.  Let's just say, after this experience, these plants better be freaking HUGE!

I went around my pasture looking for fresh (but not too fresh) manure from the animals. I decided it would be best to find piles that were "full of life" - meaning full of all different kinds of bugs throughout the pile.  If the pile is too old, there is no life in it at all so it is not as "good". If it is too fresh, the only thing that likes it is the flies - so, it is also not as "good". Lets just say after a while of looking for the "right" piles - I have become quite the "poop aficionado".

After scooping several piles into the wheelbarrow, I sprayed enough water into it and mixed it with my shovel until it was like very thick pea soup.  Then I started adding soil.  I added soil until the "soup" started looking more like dirt.  I figured when it was no longer required that I breathe through my mouth - the mixture was probably pretty good.

Ok - so here are the important things I learned while doing this task:
  1. While spraying the water into the "fresh" piles - if it splashes up onto your face - don't use the back of your hand to wipe it off - spray it off with the hose.
  2. When mixing this up in your wheelbarrow with your shovel - pull in to the middle from the outside edges not from the middle out. Mixing the wrong way causes the wheelbarrow to tip over and spill its contents all over you and your unsuspecting dog who loves to lay at your feet while you work.  Yuck! Trust me.
  3. Make sure you set up the sprinkler to keep the kids occupied on a hot day. Otherwise, your 2 littlest boys will try to swim in the animal's watering trough.

Now that the monster sized pots are full, I am hoping it will be quite some time before I have to tackle this job again. But, around here, you never know. This might work so well that Ted will make me fill all the raised garden beds with this mixture. Let's hope not.

Thursday, May 12, 2011

Sometimes You Just Have To Let Go...

I wish I had happier news to report but unfortunately, life being the way it is and nature being cruel on occasion, sad news is at hand.

Last night, little Chantilly Lace "Lacy", moved on to greener pastures.  I am very disappointed as she seemed, at least for a moment, like she was going to improve. I am not sure what could have been done differently. She had a very rough start and a difficult, short life - in spite of my attempts to make things "better".

I will miss her, the way she would follow us everywhere we went, the way she would call for me if I was not in her sight and especially the way she would play with Ridge and make him crack up laughing those sweet deep belly laughs that you only see in early childhood.

Good-bye delicate little Lacy. You will be remembered.


Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Check Out Our New Logo!

After much discussion and many, many revisions we finally have a logo for our farm! 

We wanted something that let people know we were a farm, but we really wanted to stay away from the traditional red barn and silo look - because we are sooooooooooooo not a "traditional" farm. We wanted it to show we were a family farm and that we love our animals.  We also wanted to make sure it had lots of blue sky to make people think of the perfect day!

Here is what the designer came up with:


It represents all 5 of our kids interacting with some of the animals we have here on the farm. 

Let us know what you think!

Rollercoaster - What a difference a day makes.

Yesterday morning, Lacy was not doing well. She was so weak she could not stand. By the afternoon she could not pick up her head anymore. After countless online searches trying to find anything - any site that offers a treatment - instead of just the "death typically occurs 24 - 36 hours after onset...." I finally found one little paragraph that mentioned something that might help.

Weak as she was I could not feed her. I had to give her 24 hours of nothing but water mixed with baking soda. And I was only supposed to give her 2 teaspoons of that mixture every 4 hours. An entire day with no food and minimal water. How could I be so cruel on what was probably her last day alive anyway? Well, on the hope that it will work, I was determined to try.

By the afternoon when she could not pick up her head anymore I was certain I was killing her. Really though, what choice did I have? Chances were good she was going to die anyway. So I would pick up her limp little body and wrap it in a towel and take her onto my porch and rock her in my arms as I sat in the rocking chair. Yeah, I know, some "farmer" I am turning out to be.

At 6 pm I laid Lacy outside in the flowerbed where she always liked to be when she was napping back when she was healthier. I helped Alexia with the nighttime farm chores. Around 7pm Ted and I had to leave to go to one of Preston's band concerts. I went and put down fresh towels in our bathtub (Lacy's "bedroom") and went outside to grab her so I could put her to bed before we left. She wasn't where I had left her. She was about 6 feet away - sleeping. I woke her and tried to get her to stand, she couldn't, so I assumed Quinlynn had picked her up and moved her.

This morning I did not want to check on her. I just knew she was going to be dead when I went in there. After all, she never made a sound all night.

After spending much longer than normal getting out of bed I went into the bathroom and turned on the light. I leaned over the bathtub and there she was, sleeping. I petted her back and lifted her head a little. She opened her eyes while I spoke to her. I let her head go and she held it up for only a second before it flopped back down onto her side.

I went into the kitchen and warmed up some milk for a bottle. I brought it back into the bathroom and there was Lacy - standing! Not just standing, mind you, but standing on her back two legs with her front two legs up on the edge of the bathtub and she gave this loud Baaaaaaaah! as soon as she saw the bottle.

She drank the whole thing, by herself, no tube needed. When I set her back down she walked around the tub for a little while, sniffing everything, before she turned back to me and put her front two legs back up on the side of the tub.  So, I took her outside and set her in the front yard where she immediately began walking around and chewing whatever weeds she could find.

Ok, I am not trying to get my hopes up here but WOW! What a difference a day makes. Let's just hope this wonderful change continues!

Sunday, May 8, 2011

Therapeutic Interventions: How Much Is Too Much?

I have been really struggling with my conscience lately. It all revolves around the little doeling that I have blogged about before. We have named her Chantilly Lace - we call her Lacy.  When Lacy was born she weighed only about 4.5 pounds - that's about half the size of a normal, healthy goat kid.  She was immediately rejected by her mother who focused all of her attention on Lacy's sister - the 8 pound doeling we named Delilah.  I left Lacy with her mom for as long as I could stand it before I took her away to bottle feed her.  When I brought her in the house I noticed she was bleeding from her umbilical cord - more blood than I would have considered normal. Even more than I would describe as a "significant amount". I contacted our "goat mentor" and was told not to worry about it.  An hour later, with a blood soaked towel in hand, I checked out what I could find on the internet page "Goat 911" (yes, that really exists). Again, it seemed like I was the one making a big deal out of what most would consider a minor situation. The advice I found was to tie off the umbilical cord with dental floss.  I did. It slowed the blood loss down quite a bit, but it was far from stopping it.

In the meantime, I was trying to get Lacy to take a bottle. She just couldn't get the hang of it. I tried switching to different nipples. I tried warming the milk, cooling the milk - nothing. Finally I resorted to tube feeding her.  The above mentioned bleeding stopped after 3 days. After several days, she seemed to be getting stronger.   We would bring her outside and she would run and play with my children. She was your typical bouncy baby goat. Adorable. We finally got to the point where she was taking a bottle for her entire meal - no more tube feeding.

Then, a turn for the worse. She stopped being interested in eating. Taking less and less by bottle and more and more from a tube. Soon it was like all of her strength was gone and she would just lay there. When I would take her outside she would stand - wobbly - and take a few very shaky steps, and fall over. Heartbreaking. I looked it up and figured she had something called "Floppy Kid Syndrome".  A call to the vet was not reassuring when I was told "sometimes you just have to let them go".

So here is my problem. I really wanted to embrace the Nature's Harmony Farm model of letting nature take its course. But I can't seem to let this one go.  As I spend my 3 a.m.'s tube feeding, I wonder if I am doing the right thing. After all, she would not have survived long "in nature" since her mom rejected her at birth. (Obviously knowing something was seriously wrong.) Am I just prolonging her suffering? Not that it seems like she is suffering at all - but how do I know she is not suffering. I don't. And she is not telling me.

So, against my "original" intentions of not stepping in when nature is cruel - I am currently warming yet another bottle of milk and preparing to feed delicate little Lacy through a tube in the hopes that today is the day she will make a turn around. That maybe soon she can join her sister and half-brothers in the pasture and be the bouncy happy kid she deserves to be.

And yet in the back of my mind I still wonder - Is this right?