Fran Sale Stafford

Life and Death on the Farm

Twelve years ago, we began talking about adding a dog or two to the farm. Hubby wanted an English Mastiff. I had no idea what they were, but he found a litter due in December in Pennsylvania. When they were 8 weeks old, we drove up and picked up our 22 pound puppy. Two weeks later, driving up again to purchase a beautiful German Shepherd pup. They were best buddies, but unfortunately, the German Shepherd, who we later found out had come from a disreputable puppy mill, developed Canine Wobblers and at 16 weeks, due to her paralysis and a heart murmur, she had to be euthanized. Later that summer, we purchased another German Shepherd pup but they never truly bonded like the first one did.

Today we had to say goodbye to the big guy, he far outlived the life expectancy of a giant breed and was the best gentle giant in the world.

It is such a tough decision to have to make, but this was the last gift we could give him.

Life on the farm continues with the saga of the hatchlings and the orphans. The orphans have been in a wire dog cage in the coop for a couple of weeks and in the cage in the yard during the day Yesterday, I left the hens penned in the run and let the orphans out into the yard. The hatchlings can still escape the run and the 5 of them played nicely all day, but if the orphans got near the run fence, a hen would lunge at them. Today I repeated the same procedure and decided that the best option for now is to put the hens in purgatory, AKA the chicken palace, AKA timeout. I left Mama Hen with them and she promptly separated her littles from the orphans, but didn’t attack the orphans. Tonight the 5 littles and Mama will have the coop and for a while, the run of the farm without interference. Eventually, I will release the hens one at a time to rejoin the littles in the coop. I hope it works. Egg production is minimal right now anyway.

Bee Keeper vs Bee Haver

My intent has been to be a bee keeper, not just someone with a hive or two sitting down the hill in an electric fence enclosure. These bees came to me via local purchase in the spring and were diligently set up with the idea of being successful this year. Then bursitis in my left shoulder, followed by a ruptured bicep also the left (my dominant side), then the heat. The bees have basically had to fend for themselves, though I did do one hive inspection, finding old larvae and low population in one hive and no evidence of the marked queen, and new and old larvae and much higher population in the other hive, but again, unable to find the marked queen. I closed them up and hoped that the first hive had made a new queen before the marked one took off with her helpers.

Yesterday, my bee keeping, spinning friend offered to come over today and help me do an inspection. Walking up to the hives, we weren’t hopeful with the first hive, but found eggs (which I can’t ever see), young and older larvae, capped brood, some honey, and some stored pollen, but not enough. The amount of brood is hopeful that the new queen is doing her duty to build up the population before it gets cold. The second hive is thriving. We pulled a lot of drone larvae off for the chickens, it is about time for the workers to kick the drones out anyway. We pulled the queen excluders, and decided that since there isn’t enough honey stored for winter, that I should begin feeding them 2:1 syrup that they can cap and store for winter. Next week, it is supposed to be cooler, so we are going to treat both hives with Formic acid pads to kill off any mites before it gets cold.

Not a single photo was taken today, but the hives are set up with an empty box on top to hold two quart jars of syrup per hive. A need to purchase a 20 lb bag of sugar on the list as I used all that was in the house. Four quarts of syrup are cooling on the counter and I’m waiting the the thunderstorm that came up to pass so they can be taken down and put on the hives.

After we were done, both hot and sweaty, we visited over a cold lunch of Quinoa salad that I had made this morning, then picked her a few gallons of apples to take home. Though it wasn’t as hot as the past week, it was still plenty warm in long sleeves, long pants, boots, hood, and gloves.

My appreciation of her help can’t be explained enough. With the difficulty of lifting the heavy boxes and the inability to see the eggs in the cells, it is great to have her younger eyes and greater strength.

Soapy Day

The schedule has had a soap making day floating around it for several weeks. Today was the day to begin for this year’s supply. My potter friend who loves my soap asked for a batch, Son 1 needs about 20 bars for personal use and gifts, hubby and I are each on our last or near last bars of our preferred ones.

Because it is a home football evening at the University, we went into town a bit earlier, got breakfast and supplied for the week at the Saturday Farmer’s Market, and because of the football game, all of the parking near where we wanted to begin our daily walk is off limits, we headed to a more distant portion of the trail and got our walk in. With those daily tasks completed before noon, the Orphan chicks were moved to the outdoors for the day and the kitchen set up to begin the soap making production. Three of the batches were the same scent, so they were done first as it didn’t require significant clean up between batches as long as I tared out the scale before measuring the oils and fats. They all go in loaf molds. The fourth batch for the day using the sheet of round bar molds and is for me, so I didn’t care that a little bit of the scent from the other batches would blend in with my Eucalyptus and Tea Tree which is my favorite, and that batch was also made and the four batches are curing overnight. Tomorrow, if they are sufficiently cured to unmold and cut, two more batches will be made. The molds are all currently in use.

Tomorrow’s batches will make 6 done for this year’s use and all of the equipment will be again packed away until more is needed. With no shop and no markets, less is made these days.

Soon there will be a hands on class at the museum. I need to find another emersion blender before then and order molds that won’t come back to me after the class.