chickie update

So the Littles aren't so little anymore.

They're starting to look like real hens.

 Here's Goldie, looking fabulous.

And Betty, who isn't so white right now

since she walked underneath some freshly painted chairs.

Curiosity painted the hen, I guess!

Betty doesn't stay still long enough, or she's always at our feet,

making it hard to get a good full-body photo.

But here she is on the top step going up to the pool:

with Goldie and then Emmaline.

 Speaking of Emmaline. 

SHE might be a HE, 

so Emmaline might be Emmett.

If she IS a she, well hot damn...! 

I've never seen a hen with so many colors.

The iridescent green in her tail feathers and at the end of her wing feathers... 

and all of those other colors... 

paired with her very, very bossy and dominant behavior.

She might be a roo.

Then again, I've heard that there can be mixed-sex birds

and some hens can take on the "role" of a rooster,

crowing and some even have spurs.

No spurs or crows here yet, 

we'll just have to wait and see and hear 

what comes out of Ms. Emmaline.

Or Mr. Emmett.

Oy vay.

I've read that Easter Eggers are one breed that are challenging to sex,

and they may have had a mix-up at the hatchery.

We never wanted a rooster 

because the girls are so happy on their own

and we've heard so many stories about mean roosters that make us really reluctant.

If Emmaline is Emmett, we'll just have to see how that goes for a bit.

 But let's not think about that for now. 

Tadaaaaa, here's our one last beautiful girl:

 Wellie.

She is such a pretty girl.

She's a very busy forager, and she often stands up tall.

 When I took this photo of our wacky little additions, 

I told them to 

say cheese!

or, say mealworms!

Say Hi to the blog readers!   

Everyone but Betty listened to my directions the first time,

and by the time Betty tuned in, the others had lost their attention span.

Oh well, such is life with chickens...

losing the hive

Mid to late August, all of a sudden

the hive changed, something shifted.

Only I noticed it at first.

For awhile I thought it was my imagination.

But then it became more apparent that things were definitely different.

And not in a good way.

I couldn't figure it out with any certainty.  

What was certain was that the numbers of bees dropped dramatically

and it was as if the hive lost its purpose and joie de vivre.

There weren't a ton of dead bees around, 

 so I can only hope that somehow the queen and many of her followers 

had a healthy, powerful swarm 

 and in the land of happily-ever-after

they found themselves a location where they can safely survive the winter

and that they managed to build up enough more stores of honey to make it until spring.

It took us awhile to really come to terms with the situation,

and alas, we waited too long.

September came and went and it became more and more apparent

that the hive... the bees left behind, were struggling.  

There was no queen.  The heart and soul of the hive.

We had been waiting for them to re-queen themselves,

which is what bees will do if their queen dies or swarms.

They make extra-large cells that hang down off the comb and look sort of like peanut shells.

They feed her royal jelly and that plays an important part in the "birth" of a queen.

Here's a queen cell, with a yellow jacket robber next to it.

That queen cell never hatched.

There were about 5 or 6 queen cells, and one appears to have hatched but to no avail.

No new brood in sight.

Here's some old capped brood that never hatched...

Beautiful virgin comb
These are the last combs the bees built out while they were still thriving.



Meant to be filled with honey...
Gorgeous row after row of symmetry.

And the last comb they added anything to...

A combination of hatched brood comb and capped honey here.
It makes me think of the moon and the mountains.

Oh, dear bees.
Oh, dear me.
What can we do?
 --------------

Essentially, what's happening right now is that 

the bees are dwindling and they're dwindling rapidly,

and there's very little if anything we can do about it at this point in the season.

Most likely nature will take it's course, and the remaining bees will die.  

It's such a heavy and deeply sad feeling.

 

I was totally unprepared for how emotional losing a hive would be.

It shocked me.  I just started sobbing.

For such a vibrant, humming, intricate, amazing organism 

bustling with tens of thousands of winged workers

to be reduced to next to nothing in a matter of weeks... 

How does that happen?

Why?

Is it from my lack of knowledge and management skills?

Is it from this increasingly toxic world we're living in?

Pesticides, herbicides, GMO's?

Bee diseases and pests like varoa mite?

---------

Beekeeping, like many things in life,

 is such a fine balance between trying to "control" or influence

that which you can, and letting go of everything else,

including the outcome, even when the outcome is devastating.

It's a constant lesson in hoping for the best, but being prepared for the worst,

and to get back at it 

if your heart can handle trying it again.

---------

This experience left me determined to do a better job next season,

even though there are too many variables to know what really went wrong with our hive,

and when/how we could have intervened that may have resulted in a different fate...

Main thoughts on what to do better:
- get hardy local bees who are acclimated to the climate and from a natural apiary.
- manage the hive more frequently.

I won't be so scared to don the white suit and fire up the smoker.

The hands off approach clearly didn't work in this situation.

Next time I won't wait to so long if this happens again -- 

I'll do my best to re-queen the hive so they can hopefully survive.

I might also try my hand at a "traditional" Langstroth hive and see if I fare any better.

 I've heard that the top bar style we're using is the easiest to set up, 

but the most challenging to manage.  

So, we have to become better managers.  

But even increased skill is no guarantee.

Very skilled beekeepers still have losses all of the time.   

 I don't know how they cope with it.

----------

So, one last chapter:
I got in touch with a local beekeeper 

(who is as crazy about her bees as we are about our chickens!)

who graciously offered to help me out. 

She had an extra queen nuc with some brood frame,

so we embarked on a last-ditch and highly unlikely effort to re-queen the hive 

this late in the season.

It's yet another adventure --

this time with  mismatched equipment (her Langstroth frames to my top bars), 

some duct tape, some newspaper, and a whole lot of positive thinking and love for the bees.

It started out looking good, but now it's not looking very promising.

For some reason our remaining bees, and maybe the new bees (?)

ate every single last drop of honey in the hive, so there's nothing left!!!

and now I'm kicking myself for harvesting the little bit that I did

(just a little more than a quart!).

 

There's nothing left to do other than keep feeding them other things

like sugar-syrup and pollen patties

and I can take out the old combs and pour honey into them.

 So, it's a sad story.

I still feel busted up about it, and I'm not sure if I'm cut out for beekeeping,

but I'm going to give it another try next season and do my best by the bees.

But here are some beautiful pictures to enjoy.

Spectacular creatures.

sometimes virgin comb reminds me of skin...

like a delicate snakeskin, paper thin.

I'm pretty sure these are pollen stores...

Maybe the bees wrote a message in pollen?

And some honey shots:

 

 

Up at the top of this bar you can see some dried green bits

it's actually from lemon balm

which we put under the roof on top of the bars to keep ants away

it worked wonders!

the little bits that got inside gave the honey a slight lemon-mint taste.

propolis... amazing stuff.

 sealing cracks and crevices, any little gap.

the bee version of duct tape

or glue

except that it's good medicine, too...

 We love you bees.

Queenie #1, may you and your followers survive the winter well, wherever you landed.

--------

Here's hoping for a better 2015 season.

 Maybe these hard lessons will be behind us!

fall leaf composting

Aaargh! 

My computer is on the fritz and it's frustrating and inconvenient.

The best I can do blog-wise right now is to share some links

while I wait for my computer to get fixed up.

 

As usual, I've got gardens on the brain. 

Thinking about what to do to put the gardens to bed for the cooler months,

and to do as much prep work for next year's growing season as possible.

 

Check out this Ted Talk video. 
I don't love everything about it, but it has a worthwhile message.

I love thinking about leaves as solar energy collectors,

 nutrient-dense with minerals from deep within the earth.

 



I'm going to start cruising around neighborhoods

where they do curbside yard "waste" pickup. 

 

More like curbside composting treasures! 

 

I actually got my first two bags today on the way home from work! 

Time to great shredding and spreading...

the bumblebee ballet

The video on my camera is simply not that great at macro shots.

So, please forgive the horrible video quality...

But at least I managed to quickly capture THREE bumblebees 

inside a single anemone blossom this morning.

I stood by our one patch of anemone

and just watched and listened.  

It sounded almost like a motor running,

there were so many bumblebees clamoring for pollen.

The whole scene

was like a bumblebee ballet.

An aerial ballet with with little chubby ballerinas

and an occasional boxing match

to determine who got the prime spot in the flower.

This year is the first year I've noticed the anemones get so heavy

that after branching up and out,

they fell over from their own weight,

turning into a veritable little jungle of stems and petals.

The branching pattern reminds me of something 

that could be growing underwater.

 

Check out the pollen saddlebags!

If they gather much more, they won't be able to fly home to their nest! 

mojitos... so easy!

I know, I know, I hardly did any blogs this August.

I was too busy living in "August time."

Which, as you know, is a very special time zone.

One of the things I was doing in August time 

was experimenting with making

the perfect mojito,
and getting familiar enough with it
so I could just whip one up any 'ole time.

---------

I've discovered that I have some issues now, though.
New issues, I should say.

I used to just be able to love mint for being mint. 

A nice herbal addition to foods, or a refreshing / soothing tea.

Right?

Well, maybe.

Now, whenever I smell a really delicious mint, 

I can almost taste rum.

I can hear the selzer bubbling.

And I think mojito.

Mint = mojito.

Ut oh.

And after spending time at the beach
with my sister this summer,
now I have another problematic association.

Strawberries = daiquiri.
Actually any fruit = cocktail opportunity.

But I digress.
------------

Let me tell you how to make mojito magic.

It's the easiest thing.

Do it once or twice, and you'll never forget.

 You can add fruit and/or herbs if you really want.

Strawberry  + basil...

Blueberry...

Grapefruit...

Watermelon...

Coconut...

Mango...

Peach...

 Basically any kind of fruit combo you want to create

if you're feeling funky or creative

or want to use some fruit up.

And the rum, well, it's up to you.
You can leave it out if you want,
which I do plenty of times,
and it's still the most delicious lime-mint drink ever!
Sometimes it tastes even better without the rum.

Anyway, I'm not going to tell you
how to make every kind of fruit mojito,

just the basic.
The original.

The purist, minimalist mojito.

Once you've got this down, you can experiment til the cows come home.
Or the chickens get in the coop!

----------

So get ready to muddle things up.

You need:
 rum, seltzer, a lime, simple syrup (1:1 ratio), 10-15 mint leaves.
and 
your favorite glass, a muddler, and some ice.


optional:  lemon-lime soda

--------

As for the mint, any mint will do.

Particularly a spearmint.

But the original is supposedly a Cuban mint
called mentha villosa

which I will be planting for sure next year.

Do this:

Cut half a lime length-wise into 4 wedges.

Put one in the bottom of your glass 

with 2 T of simple syrup, 

and some mint leaves

and muddle it all up.

 I must say I really love my muddler.

It feels good in the hand and has some nice pokey things on the bottom

which help release the flavorful and fragrant oils

of the mint and lime....

Mmmmmmnnnnnnn!

Then add 2 more lime wedges and the rest of the mint and muddle those up.

Add a generous splash of rum.

(I like just enough to make my belly hum...

and in general, I think it's always better to start with less 

and make it stronger to your taste than have to dilute it later.)

Fill your glass with ice.

Then add seltzer, or lemon-lime soda or a little of both.

Stir it well.

(If you're only using seltzer, check the sweetness level

and add a little more simple syrup if you want.)

Rub and then garnish the rim of your glass with the last lime wedge.

That's it and that's all.
The mojito magic is all yours now.
 

Enjoy!

time to take the chicks outside... and an easy way to build chicken perches!

Chicken Update: 

We moved "The Littles" outside! 

It seemed like it was about the right time for them to head outside...

They're more feather than fluff, 

and it was getting awfully boring in the indoor brooder.

 

(Not to mention that our house was getting really dusty!)

Here they are trying to take dirt baths by the strawberry patch:

Silly littles, that's mulch!  Not quite right for a dirt bath.

 

It's always initially so scary to put 

totally vulnerable creatures out in the elements.

We fret and we fret.

What if it rains?  Will they know to go in?

What if our fence isn't as secure as we thought?

What if, what if, what if?

We're so glad we transitioned them...

It was time.

It's a whole new world of interest for them.

And it's amazing how strong their instincts are,

even with no chicken mother to teach them how to be a chicken.

They are scratching, pecking, finding worms and snails and bugs,

they're flapping their wings and getting stronger every minute!

Emmaline, who hadn't been doing so well, perked right up 

with the fresh air and sunshine

(and vitamin water and homeopathic remedies!)

and now she is trying to be the boss of everyone again!

We had to get tinkering to make things work for them out there.

Our main chicken coop is out of the question for now.

The big girls (3 years old), and the medium girls (3 months old) 

would not take kindly to them.  

That whole pecking order business is brutal.

The Littles need a chance to develop more,

and we don't want to worry about their safety 

or their ability to freely access food (i.e. no bullying).

When they're big enough, probably around Thanksgiving,

we'll be trying to do the grand introduction.

(So, stay tuned this fall for that fiasco!!!)

But where oh where to put The Littles

if they can't go in the big coop?

---------------

 

We have a second coop we got 

as a back-up for various needs that could arise:

- outdoor brooder

- infirmary for a sick hen

- old lady coop for hens who belong to AARC

(American Association of Retired Chickens) 

AND we also thought it could be 

a half-way house for hand-raised chicks,

so they have a safe haven (fenced off, but within eyesight)

of the other chickens

so they can all get kind of used to each other.

Well.

We got that coop on Craigslist and it has some issues.

Gaps where it just isn't safe.

No cross-breeze ventilation.

Steps that are way too steep.

etc.

 So, THAT coop is still sitting around

waiting for our handy friend Boz to come and make it right.

 Oy vay.

In the meantime, we needed a coop that would work,

and we needed it pronto.

So, yes, you counted correctly.  

Now we have THREE coops.

One big and two little.

And the easiest place to put this new little coop 

was in a completely separate area in our fenced garden,

close to the house so we can do quick visual checks to see what they're up to,

and anyway it needs to be close to another electrical outlet,

because we needed to be able to run an extension cord 

so they can still have their "mother" heater 

to go under at night on some of these cooler nights

(yep, 50 degree nights in August, more global weirding...)

Here's "mother"

all plugged in and ready to keep them warm if we have a chilly night

or simply for a sense of safety and security, if they're not quite ready to roost at night yet.

 And here's one of our fenced vegetable gardens

where we decided to put the Littles and their little coop for now:

Luckily our local Agway had a coop for $200.

Only coop kit in town.

It's made out of cheap wood.  

And it was made in China.

But hey, it's really cute, like a little dollhouse!

And it does the job.  

It's surprisingly well thought out in design, 

minus their stupid square perches inside.

Who wants to perch on a square stick?!

Would you want to swing a square bat?

Oh yeah, and the ridiculous square perches 

are only 1" off the floor.  

What's the point in perching if you can't be up high?

I guess if you were a chicken with a fear of heights...?!

-----------

So, we had to make some adjustments, 

but nothing even I couldn't handle...

 even with my refusal 

to use any power tools that I deem "scary"

or limb and digit-threatening.

That leaves me with a cordless drill, a jig saw, and an old fashioned hand saw.

 In our 3 years of being chicken mammas, 

we've learned a thing or two about making cheap, fast, easy perches.

All you need are some old tomato stakes (or wooden dowels, or tree branches) . 

Some nails or screws

a mallet

a drill

and maybe some zip ties

  

It's super easy.

You just cut your tomato stakes to the height you want your perch 

(plus extra for the part that goes in the ground)

and hammer them in with the mallet.

Then drill some pilot holes through your dowels or tree branches and 

secure them with screws or nails.

If it's a little wobbly, you can also tighten it up with a zip tie.

We use zip ties for almost every project,

because they help fills the gaps for our complete lack of skills.

I decided to make a high and a low one here.

It would be ideal to have high and low be on separate stakes,

similar to our chicken jungle gym in the big chicken yard...

but we have a very small space to work with in the attached run,

so this will have to do for now.

The Littles give it their seal of approval:

 

 Goldie the gold-laced wyandotte and

Betty White, the white plymouth rock

 Wellie the Wellsummer and

Emmaline the Easter Egger.

 Wellie and Emmaline 

trying to see who can do a better dismount!

 I also took some tree branches

and made little perches in the corners of the fence for them.

When they're not in the coop, they're so busy foraging 

that I'm not even sure they've noticed these corner perches yet.

Maybe with time they'll use them, if not

no biggie!

August Time

 It's August?

Say what?

How on Earth did that happen? 

Well, Summer...
Can I talk to your supervisor please?
Like the Season Manager?  Or, the Calendar?
Yeah, let me talk to the them.

  Because this is seriously messed up.

The other seasons get so much more of the calendar.
What is up with that?

August
!!!!
???????  
It didn't really hit me
until today when my friend razzed me
about it being August
and not having written a blog post yet.

-------

Oh my.
It really is August, isn't it?

Silly me.
I had been pretending all along that time was standing still,
which is basically how I live in July.

Meanwhile...

Summer is flying by faster than ever
and it could break my heart right open if I let it.


-----------

Despite my best denial mechanisms,
there are signs all around me
that summer is chugging along at a rapid pace
not listening at all to my protestations.

Sigh.

The goldenrod is in bloom.
Loosestrife, too.

 The anemones are budding up and getting ready for their show.

Brown-eyed Susans abound.



Blueberries are at the market.

Yep.
All beautiful in their own right,
but definitely indicators that summer
is going to be over before we know it.

But.

Let's take a deep breath, shall we? 

Instead of being in
Oh-No-It's-Almost-Over Mode
I'm going to really live into my
Yippee!  It's STILL SUMMER! attitude
right on up until Labor Day.

(Actually, I am such a stalwart of summer
and so good at ignoring the realities around me if I don't like them,
that anyone who knows me also knows
that I am fairly adept at continuing to pretend "the end of summer"
isn't happening
 well on into September, even after school resumes.
In fact, it's usually October before I give up...!)


---------


Yes, summer is ever so fleeting.
But that makes it all the more golden, doesn't it?

 Maybe one day we'll get to live
in an infinite summer,
or at least an infinite stream of deliciousness of some sort.

Don't think about how fleeting it is.

Just roll around in it.
 And eat it.
  Drink it up.

---------------------


So, that begs the question...
What to do with this precious August time?

How about as little as possible for a change?!
  Right?
 Right.

Let's do it.


The very little.
The almost nothing.
And by almost nothing I mean
very few chores, projects, and things that tie up time
or take you away from what you would rather be doing,
Do lots and lots of what you would rather be doing.

As much as you can!
Just do what makes you feel free,
what makes you feel happy
and satisfied. 


Basically, for me, I give myself permission
to reverse the chores to fun ratio.


So, let the business of living
be what you want to do,
not what you think "has" to be done.

Very few things actually "have" to be done.

 But if you're the type of person who needs things to be "just so,"
(myself included)
try to do just the necessary maintenance to keep things okay. 
Let things go, just for August.

August only comes around once a year, after all.


And if you really need to do those chores for your psyche,
do them with renewed pleasure
because the results they bring you must be
as important as a gorgeous, perfect August day.

---------------------


Ahhhhhhhh.
All of these whole wonderful days! 

I feel better already.

----------

"August time" is a  a way of being, really.
A way of seeing.

August time is dream time.
It's life as if it was a dream,
and it's the stuff I dream about all the rest of the year long.

In August time,

life feels slow and languid
 even though the clock is ticking
 (ssshhh, forget about that!)

Focus not on the dwindling,
but on the golden nature of these days.

----------

This is how I do August time:  

For starters, I believe that August is
the absolute juiciest month of the summer,
and it is not to be squandered with things
that you could do any other month of the year.

(To squander August would be absolute sacrilege!)

I no longer care if the gardens get weeded or 

about the chipping paint
or the million other projects that could be done,
that I would like to get done...

Because when I see
that the golden elixir of summer has an expiration date,
I get down to the business of just reveling in it. 

To relish something with the knowledge it's coming to an end...
that seems to be a lesson I learn repeatedly in my life,
whether it's with loved ones or the seasons.

Even if I didn't get to do
and cannot possibly do
some of the things I had wanted to do this summer.

Even if I barely left the gardens
or did anything that interesting
that I could tell people
when they ask me how my summer was.

Even if no matter what,
life is still always work,
and there are chores that simply can't be avoided.

For me,
August is caring about other things more,
and making as much room for that as much as possible.

Not "What can I get done?"  

More like,
"What can I experience?"

Caring about the quality of the breeze, and the angle of sunlight
and how it makes me feel.

I love putting on my August-colored glasses.

And I'm grateful to my friend for the wake-up call today.

 Now, I can just see the beauty of the garden

and overlook the weeds!

August is really about whatever floats your boat.
It's about dropping everything to lie in the sun.

Doing a spontaneous ice cream run at night.
Having a picnic for two out in our yard. 

 It's about 
the luxuriating.
the chaise lounging.
the hammocking.
 the garden strolling.
the dancing in the kitchen.
 the yawning and stretching because you fell asleep with a book
over your face in the sun.

August is being a little decadent, and a little lazy.
For me it's even eating a slice of blueberry pie for breakfast with my hands

before I put on my garden boots.

MMmmmmmmnnn!

August is honeybees stumbling off of flowers,
so laden with pollen that they fall and stumble a bit,
having to readjust to the new weight of their golden treasure.

So, go.
  Get out there.
Dive into your August time.

Collect all the golden moments
 your wings can carry.