All tucked in for Winter

Bee hives at Yellow Door Farm

Winter came with a wonderful snowfall this year.  Luckily I had prepared the hives for winter.  Bitter cold followed the snow and so I hope they are all ready.

I experiment with different types of winter wraps each year. I am trying black tar paper this year. It is fairly cheap, easy to work with and black so it absorbs heat. These are some of the properties that make it useful. You need to apply it early in the Fall as it becomes brittle as the weather gets colder.

Notice the electric fence to the right. It goes all around the hives as we have had some bear attacks lately.  I think we also had a deer walk into the wire late in the summer. The hives were not really disturbed but the wire had been snapped off a pole at one end and the wire appeared to be wrapped around a large animal's leg. The animal bolted, and knocked over another hive.  Eventually the wire was released and the animal took off. If it was a bear, it would have come back and started to eat the larva and honey that was in the hive.  Oh boy the challenges never end!

Swagging

I'm thinking about swaggin again. Don't tell my wife!

Swagging is a term plumbers use to stretch out a pipe to allow another to slide and and then be soldered together. I am always kicking around the idea of running a solar water heater along my roof over my deck.  My wife does not approve of the ugly ideas that I want to have projecting from any surface of the house. 

We use a lot of hot water - it is currently heated using a oil fired water heater. I want to get as far away from oil as possible. A few years ago we had an oil spill in the basement. It was awful. You could not sleep in the house due to the fumes. Also oil is the only going to become harder to get, more regulated (oil inspections, carbon tax etc) and it is terrible for the planet. 

My elegant solution has incorporated a stealthy sneaky solar panel that is mounted along the west facing deck of my house. It receives punishing heat and light late in the afternoon. I am going to run some copper pipe along the lower edge of the deck and cover it with glass or plexiglass and circulate the heat through a large cistern in the basement. The cistern will also connect to my water heater with a copper heat exchanger.  I want to have the water moving constantly as long as the heat inside the solar collector is greater than the heat in the tank. For that, I need to run sensors to the cistern and to the hot water panel.

Another aspect to the installation is the use of our wood stove in the living room. It basically runs all winter and is a main source of heat for the house. The hot water heat collection system will be turned off of the outdoor solar in the winter, and routed along the back of the wood stove during the colder months.

Ahh to dream. I think I spend more time thinking about ways to save money from energy than it is worth. But, it is my hobby. Some people have expensive cars, trips or toys, for me I get a real kick out of getting energy - whether it is a plant, hot water, maple syrup, honey or whatever.

I hope I can piece together this system over the year. I have been planning and working on it since 2014.

New Year's resolution for 2017?  We will see. 

Summer heat.

Slow and steady does wins the race, that is for sure. The older I get the more I realize that life is not a sprint. Life is a marathon, a slow grinding difficult journey at times, and yet a beautiful experience at the same moment. Sitting on my deck last night watching the clouds roll in, feeling a cool summer evening breeze after an excruciatingly hot day, I reflected on how wonderful it is that we have this beautiful world.

My kids were fighting contentedly in the living room, and my wife was out at a concert. A perfect time to kick back and daydream the night away.

Enjoy the day, you may as well.  This is a beautiful time to be alive. 

Is small Agriculture Possible for Profit?

I don't think you can earn a living competing with the big guys. If you want to earn some income it is possible but how can you compete? I can't afford to feed my family on organically grown, gmo free, free range food sources.

I can feed myself, because I do it myself,  but forget about competing. Does the average person know how much work goes into producing a head of lettuce? What about a stalk of broccoli? Raising a chicken? Man it is hard work.

So we have to race to the bottom and get the cheapest prices.  There is an old saying that you get what you pay for. I have seen the studies that say that organic food is just the same as factory food.  I do not believe it for a second. Our eggs, when compared to a store bought egg are far superior.  Just looking at them shows you the quality that is imbedded in the yolk. You can tell it is a richer orange than the store eggs. The whites are not as pale as the store eggs.  I do not know what it is exactly that is missing from the factory eggs but it must be micronutrients that the birds get from eating a varied diet of seeds, bugs, larva, real gravel for their gizzard etc.

These are the intangibles or the micro fill in the blanks that nutritionists are saying are missing in our diets. They show up later in life as a strange illness or rash that won't go away, or something that is unexplainable. 

We have totally free range turkeys, chickens, layers and goats.  They are not penned up in a coop with access to sunlight.  They go wherever they want. Let me tell you, more than once I have been very frustrated to find duck poop on the deck, or all of my strawberries gone. It is a tradeoff. I need to make more secure netting to keep the poultry out of my gardens.  It is a pain but the payoff in the end is worth it. 

Nuts are a dropping!

Well it is about that time of year. The walnut tree has been dropping nuts like crazy over the past few days.

The squirrels like to throw the nuts down at me sometimes as I'm cleaning them up.

A tool that has been revolutionary to backyard harvesting is something called The Nut wizard. 

It is a device with a wire cage that rolls over the ground easily collect half dozen donuts at a time so you can deposit them in a bucket or wheelbarrow. It stops the stooping and the bending over. One thing I would do next year and be a little more careful about is cutting the grass really low and close and removing all the sticks before did not start the fall in September.

Here is a sample of what I gathered in 1/2 hour with the Nut Wizard. 

Friday's can be tough

The day started out tough and got tougher.

The chicken tractor got stuck between a stump and a hard place - literally.

So each day we move our hens to a fresh spot on the grass. I actually move them twice a day. They love scratching for bugs, worms and other sources of natural protein.  There are lots of benefits to moving the birds. They get fresh food and cut down on the feed they need by between 10-30%.  They fertilize the fields. It helps us both.

The problem is the movable coop is heavy. It is a prototype that I made 1 year ago and it has a pool liner as a top. It is made of 2x lumber and has a ABS watering pipe down the middle. It is tough just to drag it 3m on a cut lawn, let alone through a hay field.  As I said I move it twice a day. Currently it is stationed outside the goat pen.  I am travelling around the goat pen and will end up inside it where I will let them free range when they are large enough to be out on their own. I am interested to see how the 3 different types of birds do.  I have the standard white rock hens - large breasted, heavy, fast growing birds.  Frey's (that is the breeder) dual purpose birds - these birds are slower to grow and can be used as layers or meat birds, and some layer hens.  When I let them out, The white rocks will probably just sit and eat, the dual purpose will be more athletic and move around and the hens will love to move and scratch. Those are my predictions and we will see.

As I was saying, the day got tough fast.  The tractor got jammed in between an old stump I had forgotten about and the electric fence that holds back the ever curious goats. Damn!  I have to get it off there or the fence will not be effective and god knows what the goats will do when they figure that out (and they will) while I am at work. So I start dragging the tractor violently forward to get it off the stump - but I had already fed the hens so they were right up against the back side eating. What a gong show. I had to move it 5 cm then wait, free any chickens and then move a bit more. What a damn mess. I decided to break off and do the other laying hens and let out the horses and do their stalls. That way the birds will eat most of the feed and I will be able to move the tractor easier.

So off I go to the barn and all is well there. Check the tree nursery and water the plants in the greenhouse. All is good there - lettuce looks good, fruit trees coming up nicely, persimmon seeds have not germinated yet but they are usually slow. Ok - run by my high school aged boy's window and get him up to get on the bus.

Back to the chicken tractor. Most of the birds were done their frantic feeding and I could move the tractor a little easier. I continued for about 1 metre until I hit another obstacle I had forgotten about - a large any hill that was about 50cm tall and in line with the stump. DAMN!!DAMN DAMN!!!.  Run and get a shovel and pick to get the ant hill out of the way and taken care of.  Then keep moving to get the tractor off the frigging electric fence.

Finally I am free, but now what - a chicken has been rolled under the tractor and looks to be on the way out. Dispatch him now or ...?  I decided to keep him and place him in the new brood area with the 50 chicks. We will see.

Down the drive to water some of the hazelnuts. They are taking a beating in the hot dry weather. The trailer was positioned to take in some of the rain we were expecting last week that never materialized. Damn, too far from the hazelnuts. Ok lots more walking involved. Done - finally.

  Phew - off to look at the trunk on my car - it was not catching yesterday and I had to drive the Land Rover. My High School son exits the house - I am really running late now-  he asks me if I am going to work.  Of course I am, I am just having a tough time here. Where is my allowance he says. oh crap I forgot.

The trunk takes me 40 minutes to figure out - lots of cussing and sweating. Into the house, fast bowl of cereal, do the dishes and shower and off to school.  I make it by 8:32.  Glad it is a PA day dedicated to Report Cards.

So I arrived home that Friday night, burned out and jumpy from a day in front of a computer screen.  Ah the beautiful grass, bugs, and birds working together in nature.

Wait what is going on at the hives?  A swarm?.... Oh no I'm going to lose a new hive!  The bees were in flight on mass not a good sign.  Why? They were too crowded. Last weekend we had lost of room.  4 frames empty and the bees looking strong with their new queen. This week they must have filled most of the frames and are working on looking for a new space to live in.  So that is bad for a beekeeper.

I should have known that they might have built up quickly. The weather has been perfect for blossoms. Hot and dry with no frost what so ever. We quickly progressed from dadelions, pussy willows,basswood and all the fruit trees to almost desert like conditions. The hay fields have taken off. But we may be entering a dearth.  That is when the flowers naturally enter a low phase. Not much will be coming out in the next few weeks so the bees have to hold back a little and consume some of their honey and pollen stores.

Back to the bees.  I frantically raced up the driveway and ran in to see Rach and tell her what I was going to do.  She said that was fine and off I went. Luckily I had purchased new boxes and frames last week and was prepared for the buildup.  It is quite spectacular when the hive explodes. Bees are everywhere. I ran a few boxes down the drive and started to fill it with frames. Damn!  The hive had a feeder on the top and did not have a inner cover. Oh well there goes the inner covers I was saving for Saturday's installation of 2 new nucleus hives I am purchasing from a local supplier. Man it never seems to end.

I slap them all together and congratulate myself on slowing them down a little. I notice that a few more of the single box hives are building well. Off I go to give them some more room as well. It is better to have them with some space and time than to lose a hive.

Back to the house and start the lunch-box dishes and try to relax be fore evening chores.

Later that night when I was out trying to get some latches on doors in the new barn before my son's football practice when I notice that one of the chicken feed bags I had set in the shed was ripped open - damn squirrels. I am pretty sure that is what it was. Dixie - where are you?  Get those damn squirrels!  Off to the barn to get a steel drum for the feed and to take care of the horses. I decide I'll pop into the nursery and see how the plants are doing in the heat. What the????? All my planters are dug up. chickens?? Nope what ever it was went systematically to each pot that had a seed and dug it up. What the....SQUIRRELS!!!!!!  Dixie!!!!!  Persimmons - Quince - Seeds - lovingly cared for for months - gone in 1 day.  DAMNNNNNN!!!

Will this day never end. Oh well my own stupid problem. Put the laying hens away.  Move the tractor again - went well this time.  Close up the chicks - hey the white rock hen that got rolled is acting like a mother hen to the little chicks and it is eating and moving around. It might make it.  Good.  Latch on the barn door works well. Feed sealed up. Electric fence on, kid home from football.  Starting to calm down. Make some sugar feed for the new nucleus hives, ok spilled a little on the kitchen floor but not too much mess, clam down some more, make some popcorn, watch Game of Thrones, clam down some more. Relax, fall asleep in the middle, back out to turn on the heat lamp for the chicks, all is quiet. Calm some more. Brush teeth - bed. Wife already asleeep, and so am I.  Ahhh Friday. I get to sleep in tomorrow. At least to 5AM.  Ah going to be nice.  Friday's.

Water catchment is in place.

The water catchment system is finally in place. It is ready to supply water to my tree nursery stock as well as vegetables that I hope to have growing in it later in the summer.

I have a thousand litre tank suspended above my Greenhouse. It catches water from the south side of my barn. In a good rainfall that thousand liters can fill up in about an hour. The tank feeds into a sand and gravel filter that I have elevated to near the roof of my Greenhouse.  I have that running towards a water barrel that is elevated above the floor so that I don't have to bend over to fill up buckets of water.

Having the rain barrel elevated will also allow a future installation of a 12-volt sprinkler system. Ultimately I would like to have the sprinkler system running off and Arduino computer module. That might get up and running this summer. For right now I am glad that the catchment is in place for the next big rainfall.

We had a little rain the day after I got it set up, and all seemed to work out quite well. I got about 20 liters that I probably used up feeding some of the plants that I have started already. Currently we have sea Buckthorn, Birch Pear, Gallery Pear, Autumn Olive, Chinese Quince, Persimmon, Sweet cherry, Chokeberry, Fuji Apple, Japanese Quince, Black Cherry, Bartlett Pear, Medlar, Date Plum, and Siberian Pea Shrub all waiting to germinate. 

To start them I ignored the normal stratification process of placing them in a controlled temperature environment. I figured this would work fairly well, with the temperatures dropping only to -2 - 3 over night. That being said, we did have a few nights where it went 2-8 with the seeds in the greenhouse. It was a little challenging, and I hope the effort is worth when does pay off with a reward of many many trees to plant in the spring.

I also have several batches of wildflowers germinating in various pots and trays. My Hope was to use the natural process that they're used to in the weather to germinate and it seems to have been successful. Pretty soon I will cut them out of their trays and place them in various places around the property to try and get more wildflowers growing here to feed the bees.

Speaking of the Bees, they are looking really strong and healthy. Today was a great day with the weather being dressed right and the pollen is starting to pop out on some of the early growth trees. I think it might be coming from some of the basswood trees, willow trees, or other early pollinating trees. It does not matter to me, I'm just happy they're getting some fresh food. That will start The brood rearing process and allow me to split my hives this spring into more these.

The basic process is that you take a hive take several frames of bees, eggs, and larva, and place them in a new hive. Then with the purchase of a new queen, you insert the new Queen 3 or 4 days after you've created this new hive. This has a double positive effect on the original hive as it allows for more space and prevents the original hive from swarming, or leaving the house. It also cuts down on the varroa mite problems that may be going on in the hive at the time.

So not only do you get to double your money so to speak, you also help out the original Hive. It's a win-win situation.

Our laying hens are out in the fields scratching like mad at anything that might hide a warm or a grub. It is wonderful to see and I know they are getting great protein but it is awfully hard when they're in my garden. I work really hard to get mulch to lay down around my flower beds, vegetable beds, and trees, and when they start digging and scratching it's all I can do not to strangle their little necks. 

At any rate I know it has a net positive result as they fertilize the area, as well as feed themselves a little bit so that I don't have to feed them as much. Again it's a win-win situation. Nature doesn't have any losers, it's just the cycle of life.

Bee Stoic!

Planning is Over - Now the Real Work Begins

Work on the farm is never over. Some people see it as a chore. A friend of mine at my full-time job recently divorced her husband. She stated that when she was rid of the albatross of the farm, she was so relieved.  It was a constant burden.  I have mixed emotions about that. Yes I agree it is constant, yes it is a financial drain, yes it is challenging.  On the other hand it is rewarding, healthy (when you avoid pesticides, chemicals and unnatural solutions to nature's challenges) physically beneficial, mentally stimulating, bountiful (in the sense that nature surrounds us with so much!) and enjoyable.

The chicks were ordered last week. Slow growth meat birds, White Rocks, Hatch Day Choice for layers. It should be a big order.  I need to develop a brooding/hatching area to protect the chicks.

We are going to see a couple of goats this Thursday.  We are hopeful that they will work out here at the farm as workers.  I want some animals to start taking on the chores of cutting grass and knocking back brush. Goats are great for that, but the challenge is trying to keep them in!!!  More on those adventures as we move ahead.  I am looking toward it with trepidation.

Also, as we move more into livestock we need to have some guardians. We are torn between a donkey and a large pair of guardian dogs. With the goats so small my wife is worried about coyotes. We have lost a few chickens to predators in the recent weeks and we think it is a fox. Well I want a donkey and Rachel is leaning toward a pair of digs. I see the donkey as a natural addition.  He would fit into the feed schedule well.  They work the fields with the animals and I think it would be enjoyable to have a unique animal.

The bees will be split next week. New queens are coming in from Australia or Hawaii and I will be placing them in the nucs with the other bees. Next Thursday.  I have one colony that is really bursting and the other two are a little slower to respond.

Trees have been tubed and are mulched, new Hazelnuts are due to arrive this week and so it will be extremely busy.

I could have done better.

April 26, 2016

So the other day I split my bee hives into three nucleus colonies. The weather was perfect and all seemed to go very well. I had a little screw-up with one of the boxes being damaged an the bees were able to enter and come and go as they pleased through the 1/2" gap. But with that rectified with a little red tuck tape, a Bee Keepers best friend, all was well....until the weather turned.

Since I split the bees, we have had some very unsettled weather. The actual split occurred on Sunday, and on Monday we had snow! Yes snow on April 24th. April 25th! I awoke to a slight rainy drizzle, and small ice like pellets were landing on my windshield as I drove to work. Today April 26 we had......more snow.

As I was reflecting on the poor bees and their meager clusters,  I thought there must be a better way to keep them warm and yet keep them secure in one deep Langstroth hivebox. The idea came to me that I could use rigid foam insulation to sandwich the bees in their cluster. The reflective insulation packed either side of the bees and across the top to act as an inner cover, would be perfect to keep them warm on cold days like this. As the weather breaks and they're able to relax and not have to worry about keeping the brood warm, I could remove the insulation panels and move them out towards the outside edges if the hive.

This follows the idea of a follower board that is used in the horizontal hive system. Follower boards keep all the bees in one place and not growing too far horizontally away from the brood chamber thus stranding the brood on a cold night. 

Oh well live and learn. As with all things, I have heard Joel Salatin say if it's worth doing it's worth doing again. What a crappy saying! But true. I will definitely try this next season when I split the hives again.

Great fun on the farm hope you can stop by and visit us sometime. The bees are out on the front driveway with hazelnut bushes planted around each one. Come have a look.

Bee Stoic!

Bees, Queens, Trees, and Snow.

March 15, 2016

What a crazy week this has been. Weather wise it was bizarre. Snow several days now and finally we have the sun breaking out on Tuesday afternoon. I am so busy this week (and so it seems every week) that I do not know which end is up!

I have queens arriving to install in nucleus boxes. Trees arriving to be planted in my wind break. Snow to shovel?  What 

Bee stoic. hmph

What a day!

March 12, 2016

Spring has finally arrived. Even though it was s mild winter, we still ran through 6 cords of wood. And as usual, I am behind on getting it cured for next winter! Oh well one year I will be ahead. But today was magnificent! Sun and warm temperatures. It felt great to make some vitamin d.

I checked on the progress of the tree nursery and the humidity is dipping as it warms up and dries out. I really need to get on top of that. But with no rain expected all week and lots of sun forecast, I need to work on alternatives to buckets and rain catchment.

I have installed several new sites for the hazelnuts expected this spring. They are going to form a dual purpose actually tri-purpose role for me here on the farm. Number one they will act as a snow fence that I will not have to maintain, repair, take up, and put down each year. Secondly, they will act as a windbreak to my bees and also serve as a potential spot for them to rest, or collect pollen. Thirdly we will generate a nut harvest in three to five years. This eventually will be to feed hogs, or for sale. So you can see that when you layer and stack functions it's an absolutely fantastic way to prepare your farm for a future. This process can be applied to almost anything in life, if you find something that serves more than one purpose I feel you've doubled its value. I'm trying to look at things more from that angle as I move into the world of permaculture and intelligent design.

For example the manure from my horses was always a source of irritation for me; cleaning out the stalls. Now I see it almost joyfully as a source of nutrients. We buy hay from other farmers as well as take some off of our property here. That function is actually a nutrient input into the farm. Eventually I want to have the fields managed with cattle and intensive daily rotation type system as outlined by Mark Sheppard Allen Savoy and many others. That is a long way off as cattle are very expensive and require much more in the way of infrastructure.

The manure actually acts as a nutrient bank for the farm currently. I am piling it very high into a hot composting method to generate an enormous amount of usable compost for my gardens this summer, and into the fall.

Additionally, the manure can be placed as a winter mulch over your gardens. It breaks down slowly over time and the worms, grubs, insects, microorganisms and all the other flora and fauna start to decompose the manure and deconstruct into its basic minerals and compounds. That is another benefit. The only problem with this is weed seeds. Horse manure is not processed very long in the stomach of equine animals. Therefore you need to do something to germinate those seeds and get them to pop out of dormancy early so that you can clear them out and plant your annuals later. More on that in another post later.

Lastly the manure is also used when combined with wood chips from the farm and other places, into a woodpile that was generating heat for my Greenhouse; recycling the heat out of the pile into my Greenhouse using PVC tubing. It was marginally successful as the temperatures do tend to drop off rather quickly after about a month. The initial heat it produces is quite astounding as the pile was over a hundred and sixty degrees Fahrenheit for at least 30 days. This kind of heat is unfathomable. It is enough to heat your hot water tank and actually require the temperature to be dropped somewhat as that is too hot for humans to have on their skin.

So by finding multiple uses for the same product you really do increase your value of each item.

Have a great day and Bee Stoic!

Bees are doing well

I was out to see the bees last week. The temperature has been quite mild for March and I've been able to open up the hives and see what's going on. The bees have consumed all of the white granulated sugar that I put on top of their inner cover, and are hungry for more. With the warm weather, it's kind of a dilemma because they are out and active but there is no pollen available for them to pick up. I do hope the weather remains constant so that the early blooming plants start to produce pollen for them.

I'm expanding, and hopefully will get to about 10 hives this year. I'm purchasing two nucleus hives for June, and 3 new Queens for the beginning of May. With that, I should be at 8 hives,  all of them basically nucleus hives.

If I play my cards correctly, and feed them aggressively, I may be able to split three more hives before the fall. I'm working with a gentleman named Terry Langford on his hives, and I'm seeing how he is doing with them. He is a much bigger deal than I am, but focuses more on producing nucleus hives for sale. I would like to work on selling honey, until I get my number of hives up to the level where I can start to sell nucs.

On another front my green house is coming along well. I'm putting some finishing touches on it this week, and I'm looking forward to germinating some vegetables for myself, and using the greenhouse to help further the tree nursery stock.

Much of the work around the farm is going to be automated using Arduino, or Raspberry Pi technology. I'm excited about this opportunity and I look forward to sharing some of the results with you in the future.

Yellow Door Farm is waking up!