If it quacks like a duck...

As some of you might know, a few weeks ago one of our chicky girls, Kiwi, was attacked by one of the neighborhood dogs. She has made a full recovery, but since she was out and away from the other girls for so long they are being kinda rough on her and she is getting bumped down on the pecking order. So, the other day I grabbed her out of the chicken coop and took her over to the duck pen just so she could get outside and away from the rest of the girls for a bit.  Well, that created a monster. Every morning now when I let the girls out, Kiwi is the last one out and promptly jumps the fence, follows me back over toward the house, and hops into the duck pen. Kiwi now thinks she is one of the ducks, but Nibs is not so sure about that.

Duck is standing on the edge of the pool, Houdini and Victoria are to the left,
Kiwi's bum on the right, and Nibs is in the doorway of the little house.

First Hive Inspection

Yahoo! After several days of fighting with my video rendering programs, the first hive inspection video is finally ready! We were delighted to find that the bees have quite a bit of comb built and have settled in quite nicely. We will be opening the hive again soon to check their feeder and make sure they are continuing to make progress. I promise the next video will be posted much sooner as I finally worked out the rendering program kinks. :-)

Without further ado, I give you, the bees:

Bee happy! 

~Sarah

Hiving the Honeybees: The Movie!!

Ok, so I'm sure you all wish you'd been here to watch us get the bees hived as we take our first big steps into the world of beekeeping. Well... good news! Now you can feel just like you were here, except with no danger of being stung (unless you happen to have a bee in your house). I did do a little creative editing to remove some bloopers (such as the point where I got stung and yelped loudly right into the microphone and then filmed several minutes worth of lovely footage of the grass and my shoes). We do hope you enjoy and continue to join us in our journey towards sustainable living.

Thanks for Beelieving in us! (Yeah... the puns are going to be awful for awhile.)  ;)
Sarah

The Bees Have Landed!

So today was the day! We drove straight from work to Bedillion Honey Farm and got our bees. After picking up three pounds of bees and a interesting twenty minute car ride home (we had 3 tagalongs and one of them decided to go on an adventure around the car), we got ready to put the bees in their new home. I know what you are thinking, and yes, bees are usually sold by the pound. 3 lbs of bees is somewhere between 12,000 and 15,000 bees, all depending on how many were flying at the time... sorry I stole that one off another page. And in case you were wondering, they use a big funnel and just knock the bees off of the comb of the original hive into the box that they sell them in.

12,000 - 15,000 Bees waiting for a new home

Spring Cleaning

Hello all!

Just wanted to pop in to keep you all afoot of what has been going on at the micro-farm! Spring is in full gear and we are planting, nurturing, raising, and developing. We just enjoyed our "weekend" with two days of working around the homestead. (Where we work, we get Tuesdays and Wednesdays off instead of the traditional weekend days.)  I spent yesterday weeding and tilling the Fairy Garden and planting the seeds for the wildflower section. How kind of Mother Nature to make it rain today so I didn't have to water it again today. I spent a good bit of the day yesterday tidying up the yard and tilling the beds and I ended up seeding the wildflower beds by moonlight last night. (Seems appropriate, doesn't it?)  The green tufts you see to the sides of the pathway are tulips coming up, and the mounds of green in front of the stones near the top of the platform are Blue Hill Salvia. Some irises and maybe some dahlias will be going in around the tulips too, so that there are flowers blooming year round in the Fairy Garden.

The dark areas at the sides are where the wildflowers will grow! :)

BEEEESSSSSS!!!

This April 25th Sarah and I (mostly me) are taking a very big step into the world of beekeeping.  We are getting a package of bees from Bedillion Honey Farm. The bees are described as survivor stock of mainly Italian and some Russian honeybees. I have been looking about since Sarah gave me my hive back in 2011 for which bees I wanted to get and after bouncing around between a couple of different places we felt that a local stock would be the best option for us instead of trying to get a shipment in from a different climate (one of the packages that I was looking at was going to come in from Texas).  So in preparation I have been placing the orders for the last minute equipment that I did not have yet, got some flowering plants to give the bees a bit more of an immediate forage options, making sure that the hive is in place and ready to go, and re-reading all the books and info that I have.  I feel ready (other than the last minute things that I need to put together) for the bees, I am excited to get my hive up and running.

Picture property of Bedillion Honey Farm

As a few of you may know we had gone out to Mark and Brandi's last year and grabbed a swarm that had shown up in their backyard.  We got them home and in the hive but they ended up taking off, leaving our hive empty once again.  Now after more reading and a better understanding of what the bees want we are ready to get our package in and all the bees settled.  We will make sure that we take plenty of pictures and video of getting the bees set up in their new home.  So this summer for our Fourth of July party our hive should be up and humming with a happy and healthy colony.

Thanks for reading and Happy Spring!
Nate

Happy Spring!

Hello everyone and welcome to Spring!

We've come to the busiest time here at the Micro-Farm. Every day we are working towards preparing for the big growing season. Seeds and seedlings are arriving from our nurseries and seed companies of choice, we've got tomato and pepper seedlings started in our craft room, and new critters have arrived in time for the coming of spring!

How-Tuesday: Episode, the First!

Happy January, everyone! We hope you all had a wonderful holiday season and have all had a healthy and happy start to the new year. Today's blog post marks the beginning of a new weekly blog series we will be posting, How-Tuesdays. (Read it out loud... yep... how-to's on Tuesdays!) A number of people have commented to us about how much they like the fact that Nate and I have a multitude of hobbies and passtimes. Well, we got to thinking and decided that a dedicated weekly how-to blog would be a good idea. So, here we are! The very first blog of the How-Tuesday series! :)