Beware

Bees, Uncategorized

This title should really be “Bee Where?” We were anticipating a delivery of packaged bees on Friday. We had placed the order back in January – three packages of bees to be delivered the first week of May. My husband received a call from the apiary during the first week of May telling him that the bees would be delayed a week because of weather. The bees were to be shipped on May 11.

I received an email from the USPS on May 11 stating that the bees had been shipped from Tennessee. They were sent second day priority mail. They had left that post office at 4:30 pm on May 11, and our expected delivery date was May 13th.

Friday, May 13th came and even though he hadn’t received a phone call, my husband stopped by the post office in the morning since he was already in town. The bees had not arrived yet but they were expecting another truck around 11:00 A.M. When we hadn’t heard from them by about noon, he called the post office and was told that the bees were not on that truck. The online tracking had not been updated since the bees left the Tennessee post office at 4:30 P.M. on Wednesday. Frustrated, we resigned ourselves to the fact that even though the weather was not forecast to be favorable for it, we would be hiving bees on Saturday.

Saturday morning when we got up, I checked the USPS website and the tracking had still not been updated. My husband kept his phone nearby awaiting the frantic phone call from the post office eager to get those things out of there. By 9:30 when the call did not come he called them again. Still no bees, but they again were expecting a truck in an hour or so. Again around noon he made the call to the post office. No bees, was their answer, and was he sure they were shipped. According to their website, which still had not been updated, they were.

At this point we were not only frustrated, but also left with a lot of questions. Where are the bees? Will they ever arrive? Will they be alive and healthy when/if they do arrive? What happens if they are not?

Sunday, May 15, 2016 I checked the USPS tracking site and received this message “The package is delayed and will not be delivered by the expected delivery date. An updated delivery date will be provided when available. Your item departed our USPS facility in GRAND RAPIDS, MI 49588 on May 15, 2016 at 3:17 am. The item is currently in transit to the destination” Checking the website several times later on Sunday gave me the same results.

This morning, Monday, May 16 the USPS tracking finally reported that the bees were at our local post office. My husband also received a phone call telling him that the bees were there. He went to the post office and upon his return one look at his face told me that things were not good. I felt like crying when I saw that all of the bees were dead.

The feeder cans still had plenty of sugar water in them so we know the bees did not starve to death. Without knowing where the bees were for the past five days leaves us only guessing that, since we have had overnight temperatures in the 30’s, the bees perhaps froze to death.

It’s hard to define the emotions we felt today- sadness about the death of so many bees, disappointment that we will not be starting the new hives as planned and anger that perhaps feels like hopelessness because we don’t know who to be angry with. We can’t blame the entire USPS and I sure we will never have an explanation as to why this happened, but somewhere along the way their system failed. We trusted them to deliver our bees in just two days. It ended up taking more than twice that long and it cost the bees their lives.

I am certainly not writing this to bash the USPS, if fact I have always been satisfied with their service, and the two previous times the we received bees through the mail we did receive them alive, healthy, and in just two days.

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Bee Packages Received Through USPS in 2013

It’s been a pretty quiet and somber day around here today, and we are now waiting for a return call from our supplier to see if they will ship more bees or our money will be refunded.

I am glad I did not publish at this point, because it turns out there is more to the story. Even though it was difficult to get motivated to do anything else, because of this whole ordeal, my husband decided to go to the farm and get some tractor work done play on the tractor for a while. Shortly before I expected him home my phone rang. When I answered, my husband informed me that we had just received a gift from God. One of our hives had swarmed, and the swarm had landed in a spot where he could capture it.

I grabbed some honey, that we had saved for feeding the new bees, and my camera, and headed to the farm. He filled the feeder so he could place it on top of the hive as soon as he got the bees inside, and I snapped a couple of photos.

My husband captured the swarm by brushing them, with his gloved hands, off the branch and into a five gallon bucket. He then dumped the bucket into a hive that we had ready for the new bees. He made a second trip up the ladder to get more bees that had gathered on the branch.

So our day ended on a positive note, with a message from God saying, “Hey, don’t worry. I got this.” I believe the moral of this story is, that people will fail you, but God will not.

Spring 2016

Mullein, Planting, Solomon's Seal, spring, Tadpoles, The Farm, Toads, Weather

I do love spring in Michigan. I’m not really sure that I’d call it my favorite season. In fact I am happy to live in a place where we can enjoy the unique qualities of each season, seeing the earth come alive in the spring, then the summer heat and growing season, followed by the crispness of fall and the glorious colors when the leaves change, and while I’m not a huge fan of cold weather I do enjoy a fire in the fireplace and snow in the winter.

To me spring seems to be a magical time. As we walk our farm I am fascinated by seeing the life emerge from below the ground. I observe the daily changes in the vegetation as the trees get their buds then the  buds turn to leaves and blossoms. I enjoy walking in the wild areas of the farm and trying to identify the various plants, as much as I love seeing our first asparagus shoots appear, the blueberries blossoming, or picking a piece of green garlic and chewing on it.

I have to say that I am truly thankful for my husband who also has a great appreciation for nature. We shared the excitement of watching the daffodils flower, we were delighted to see the bees foraging on the dandelions, and we marveled this year as our forsythia’s, that were just small twigs 4 years ago when we planted them, have brightened the back of the pond with their beautiful yellow blossoms. Yellow is the color of early spring on our farm. A very appropriate color in deed. Yellow is a happy color. It makes me smile.

My husband doesn’t think it’s corny when I give him daily reports about what is blossoming. He indulges my crazy ideas, and he will help preserve the natural beauty of our farm by doing things like moving wild rose plants before we disturb the ground in which they reside.

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These rocks have become my rose garden. Four wild roses have been relocated here. They are all doing well.

He has also designated an area where we can transplant Mullein this year. We have discovered mullein coming up in several areas where we will be mowing, and rather than kill these valuable plants we have decided to give them their own spot. Mullein is a medicinal plant which I will use for teas, infused oils and tinctures. This website explains it’s uses http://www.herbcraft.org/mullein.html

We also enjoy bringing new life to our farm. So far this year we have planted 4 basswood trees, 3 willow trees, 25 new asparagus crowns which are sending up small shoots, a row of potatoes which are beginning to grow, a small row of sugar peas, and two rows of cabbage.

We also planted my Mother’s Day gifts from Tina and her husband Ken. Tina knows of my love for growing things so she called me a couple weeks ago and said rather than her just picking out something, she thought it was a good idea to ask what I wanted.  Upon going to the website of the nursery she shops at I discovered that they had the one plant that I thought would be hard to find. Solomon’s Seal.

Solomon’s Seal grows in wooded or shady areas, and although we have some wooded areas where Solomon’s Seal might grow wild I had never noticed it growing on our farm. It is another plant that has desirable medicinal properties, and even though I will not harvest it this year I intend to use it for teas, infused oils and tinctures in the future. You can check out this website to learn more http://www.herbcraft.org/solseal.html I also planted the three Thyme plants, that Tina and Ken brought me, in the prayer garden.

The new life of Spring is not limited to plants. We had the first hatching of tadpoles in the pond this week. I believe these are baby toads since we have seen many toads in the pond lately. Toads are beneficial for the farm as they live on the land and eat insects, grubs and slugs that that might cause problems in the gardens.

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Another part of spring in Michigan that we enjoy is seeing the birds return to the area. Seeing the first Robin and Red Winged Black Bird are sings that Spring is here. We have fun watching the Killdeer protect their nest by doing the broken wing act to make the dogs chase them in the opposite direction. We also try to identify birds we are not familiar with.

This year we have two birds that have become rather annoying. One is a duck who is visiting our pond regularly. Since we use our pond for swimming and fishing as well as irrigation we really don’t want ducks in the pond. There are many other ponds in our area that go unused where this duck could stay and no one would care. Even though we tell Trooper and Scout to chase it away whenever we see him, he just keeps coming back. The second is a robin who likes to sit in the maple tree outside our bedroom window and sing. There is no nest being built there, and there are plenty of other trees in the area, but this robin insists on sitting in this particular tree, every morning in fact. It starts singing before the sun comes up – sometimes as early as 3:30 a.m. While we are usually up around the time the sun comes up, and it may be true that the early bird catches the worm, we find this birds wake up calls to be a little too extreme. I do suppose this is one well-fed robin.

 

 

Vaccines-Informative Workshop

Uncategorized

Vaccines are a very controversial subject nowadays and education about the topic is the best way for people to make informed decisions. This educational workshop on the topic is being held in Clarkston, Michigan. I have been invited to be a vendor at this workshop and will have Don’t Eat It! natural soaps and skin care products available for purchase.

 

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Since I was unfamiliar with the presenter I did a google search and found her website which I have linked at the bottom of this page. Clicking on the tabs at the top of her page leads to many health related articles.

http://childhoodshots.com/about-mary/

Another New Soap

Aloe, Grapefruit Soap, homemade, ingredients, soap

While my last soap experiment, Spearmint Soap, is currently being tested and I await feedback, I decided to try something new. As I’ve mentioned before I love to try new things, but rather than make a full batch of something new and find out that it didn’t turn out to be a great soap, I decided to make a split batch. This is easy enough to do since many of my soaps have the same base recipe. The recipe includes Olive Oil, Coconut Oil, Water and Sodium Hydroxide (lye). After combining these ingredients in the proper order, and mixing them at the appropriate temperature until they are the right consistency, I poured half of the soap in a separate bowl.

To the first half I added fresh aloe juice/gel that I had removed from the inside of several aloe leaves. That is not the new soap. My aloe soap has actually become one of my more popular soaps and I thought I should make some more.  For the new soap I added grapefruit peel to the second half. I had dried and stored this peel a while back. When I opened the container the fragrance was strong and pleasant and unmistakably grapefruit. I ground the dried peel until it was a powder. Then mixed it into the soap before it was poured into the mold.

I am not certain what effects this will have on the finished product. Even though grapefruit peel is reported to have vitamins and enzymes that are beneficial for skin care I don’t know that they would survive the chemical process involved in making soap. Unfortunately, the fragrance will barely, if at all, survive the processing that is yet to take place. It will probably add some color, maybe yellow, and some texture to the bar.

The most difficult part about cold process soap making is waiting six weeks for the soap to be ready to use. I’ll let you know how it turns out.

Chickens, Chickens and More Chickens

Barred Rock, Buff Orpingtons, Chickens, The Farm, Uncategorized

I thought I would do a quick chicken update since when I talk to family or friends I often get asked how the chickens are doing.

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The Barred Rock chicks, otherwise known as “The Six Pack”, made the move to the farm last week.

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They started off in a small penned in area. They loved being on the ground where they could scratch and peck. Some of the older chicks were curious.

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Scout loved being able to watch them. They were only in the penned in area for the first two days. On day three they ran out of the coop in the morning before we could round them up and get them in the pen. They are now free to forage the farm as they please, but they do stick pretty close to the coop.

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Meanwhile the young Buff Orpingtons, A.K.A. “The Gang of Eight”, are doing well. They tend to stick together.

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They are getting bigger.

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And they are very friendly. While sitting in a lawn chair near the coop we often end up with one or two or three of them sitting on our lap or perched on our shoulder. They are a lot of fun.

Sadly we lost one of our old Buffs to a hawk a couple weeks ago. She was from the first batch of chicks we bought. We had her since 2013. Her name was Super Chick. She got her name when she was young because she would stand in front of the gate when it was closed and fly up to the top. The way she flew up reminded me of Superman. She continued to live up to her name as she got older.  When we would leave the gate closed to keep the chickens penned in we would always arrive back at the farm to find Super Chick out of the pen. She usually didn’t stick with the flock, but wandered on her own a lot. When our younger rooster, Autumn, grew up he took a liking to her and he seemed to follow her everywhere. Autumn seems lost without her.

Loosing an occasional chicken to a predator is one of the risks involved in allowing chickens to free range.  However, the rewards of having happy, healthy chickens, reduced feed costs and fabulous eggs, have far outweighed the occasional loss of a hen.

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The rest of the flock are enjoying spring time. The photo above is Autumn with a group of our Silver Laced Wyandotte’s.

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There is lots of scratching and pecking to do this time of year.

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This is Honey. She too is from our first batch of chicks. Honey won a special place in our hearts early on, as she would jump up on my husbands lap, peck at us if she wanted our attention, or squat down in front of us if she wanted to be picked up. Honey is also one of our two hens that have brooded chicks.

Our chickens are allowed to free range during the daylight hours and spend their nights roosting in the coop. As the daylight hours increase so does the amount of time the chickens spend outside. In the dead of winter the coop is opened up around 8 A.M. and closed around 5 P.M., but today they were ready to exit the coop by 7 A.M. and we probably won’t be able to close up the coop until 8:30 P.M. or so.  The chickens naturally return to the coop at night, but some of the young ones are still requiring a little coaching.

This time of year we too are ready to retire to our “coop” when darkness falls, but as the weather warms I am certain we will spend many evening sitting around a campfire long after the chickens have gone to bed.