The farm’s (my) bee experiment last year was a total failure. Early this spring, two nuks were ordered from a local beekeeper, member of the same organization I joined for help. Son 2 who started this adventure on our farm, picked up all of the deep boxes and frames to expand his hives where he lives. Because of my age, strength, and a recently ruptured bicep, I decided to work only with medium boxes and frames. This morning, I received a text saying my bees were ready to pick up and could I come today. That wasn’t a problem, the graduation ceremony at the University was very early today, so traffic was not as bad as the last few days.
We picked them up, put them in the cool garage, and went to take our walk. Once home, equipment was gathered, the boxes set up on the stands with the bottoms in place. The new spacers and entrance reducers were installed, the extra frames that would be needed to fill in the five from the nuk were put in place and finally, donned the very hot bee jacket with veil and gloves. The nuk boxes were opened and bees transferred to their new homes. The nuks were much better than the ones we started with last year, lots of bees, lots of capped brood, and two good frames of stores.
They will be left to settle in for a couple of weeks, then I will examine them and make sure that all is well. The locust and basswood trees are in full bloom right now, so nectar flow should be good and hopefully, there will be greater success this year.
One summer day about 20 some years ago, while visiting my Dad, he was showing me his gardens and what he had planted that year. He loved his flower gardens and had a vegetable garden at the home I grew up in and tried at the home he and my stepmom bought after they married, but it was too shady for too much success. As we walked around from bed to bed, tucked between a couple of large azaleas, spilling blossoms from pots was a tipped wooden wheelbarrow. I loved it and commented on it to learn that he had made it himself. Fast forward a couple of years, and we had just sold the house that we had owned in Virginia Beach in preparation for the construction of this home in the mountains and we had moved into a rental house. He showed up in early summer, maybe around Mother’s Day with a wooden wheelbarrow he had made for me.
I followed his example and a similar idea seen in a magazine, spilling a partial bag of potting soil from the tipped barrow with potted blooming plants cascading out and filling the remaining space. The barrow was used in that spot for two years, and then it was time to divide and move. Much of the furniture was moved with me to an apartment in the mountains, the rest to an apartment for younger son and his Dad in Virginia Beach until his retirement and move here with me. The outdoor items and gardening tools moved to the barn on the site of our current home. The barrow got broken as smaller items were wedged in the truck. It was 15 months before I got into the new house and fall and winter were looming, so the little barrow sat in the barn, mostly forgotten and in need of repair. It was finally brought down to the house, and repaired, but my repairs were not strong enough to last but a couple of years. Last year, a better, sturdier repair was made and it was moved up on the front sheltered porch and held the houseplants summering out along with a pot of a flowering something.
We had finished re-staining the porch surfaces and putting down mats to prevent the pups nails from marring the newly re-painted porch.
Yesterday, the year’s dust was hosed off the floor and wooden porch furniture and the summering plants put out on one of the folding wooden shelf units by the front door. The little barrow was wheeled off the porch with the plan to again fill it will flowers to help dress up the front that took a beating this past winter between the cold, wind, and scratching hens. All of the Nandina bushes looked like they had died. All are beginning to show some new leafing out but mostly are brown masses of sticks. This evening, we stopped at Lowes and purchased a flat of red and one of while impatiens and a flat of the trailing sweet potato vines. When we got home, all of the empty terracotta pots and a left over hanging basket pot from last year were potted up and the little barrow again filled with flowers.
It is going to take some TLC while they settle in and grow to fill the pots and trail over the edges, but it brings back fond memories of my Dad and his gardens.
The morning in the vegetable garden yielded a harvest of radishes and asparagus. The 7 remaining hens are providing 3 or 4 eggs a day and as long as they do, daughter and I will be okay.
As there was already a bag of asparagus in the refrigerator, these and enough of the refrigerated ones were cut to quart jar length and the first seasonal preserve started, a jar of fermented asparagus pickles.
While out mowing yesterday afternoon, baby apples and baby Asian pears look plentiful. Unfortunately, there will be no peaches, plums, or figs. The peach and plum trees are leafed out, but their blooms came out just with a freeze. The fig bush just did not survive the winter at all. Figs not in a greenhouse are very iffy in this planting zone. I nursed it along for 4 years and got fruit for one.
We are looking at contouring the beds in front of the north facing porch, adding more shrubs while hoping the Nandinas come back and covering with a good layer of mulch. For 16 years we have discussed a walkway from the front stoop to the driveway, so that too is being considered. We may have to recruit a couple of strong grandsons to help get it done.
Finally, it appears that we experienced the last possible frost a few days ago, and it didn’t frost, at least not in our hollow. With the past few warm days and a forecast for many more with intermittent showers, a full on garden event happened in the past couple of days. Grass, Creeping Charlie, and Smartweed pulled from around the edges of the beds and from where it was intermixing with the Comfrey. Soon the Comfrey will get large enough to shade out most of the weeds where it grows, except for the Bermuda grass. Whoever introduced that invasive plant should be exiled to a life of pulling it from garden beds forever. And Creeping Charlie too.
The peppers and tomato starts were planted in a bed yesterday, flower seed sown in areas that can be blocked off from the chickens scratching, and half of the bean bed seeded. The other half will be planted in a couple of weeks so there is a longer season of harvest. Last year, a late summer planting was tried and the bean beetles decimated them in short order before any beans could be harvested. The blueberry bed was weeded, the old, dead, canes on the raspberries and blackberries pruned off.
And for our daily pleasure, my favorite breakfast spot, the back deck was set up with new blooms and the umbrella. It is now warm enough most mornings to enjoy my coffee and some spindle spinning time in the early sun, and with the umbrella up, dinner on the deck. I will definitely keep an eye on the underside of the deck for a returning wasp/hornet nest. We don’t want a repeat of last summer when both of us were stung multiple times for pulling a chair out to sit and eat dinner there.
The flowers in the pots and in the near gardens will attract the hummingbirds, bees, and butterflies to the back to enjoy while sitting out there. The intermittent rains expected over the next few days will help the seed germinate and the plant starts settle in.
After dinner last night, pumpkins, squash, and cucumber seeds were started in plantable pots to give them a head start. They will move in and out with the tomatillos until they are ready to put in the ground in a few weeks.
The line trimmer still needs to be worked on so edging around the fence of the gardens can be done. And the north side of the house needs attention. After years of growing Nandina in Virginia Beach and later here, all but one of them seemed to have taken a death blow this winter. It doesn’t help that the chickens prefer that area to dust bathe and have exposed shallow roots. New soil is going to have to be applied, new foundation shrubs planted, and some sort of barrier to prevent the hens from scratching there. The front porch needs a scrubbing and hosing off and soon the house plants moved out for a summer vacation there.
The little Wren in the front hanging pot is sitting 5 eggs. She is very skittish though and flies off every time the front door is opened. In the past, most of the Wrens that have nested there have been very tolerant of someone sitting on the porch or coming and going out the front. In a couple of weeks there should be babies. The swallow family set up housekeeping in one of the garden nesting boxes and have a babies in there. A peek at them yesterday show they are feathering out and will soon be fledging. The newer bird house at the other end of the garden didn’t attract the bluebirds as I had hoped and it sits empty this spring.
Spring is a favorite time. The emergence of leaves, new blooms, temperatures mild enough to enjoy working outdoors and for daily walks for our health and fitness. Too soon it will get too warm to want to be out except in early morning or at dust and the weeds will win the garden war for a while. Hopefully, before then, there will be peas and beans to enjoy, peppers and tomatoes to harvest and can, and the line trimmer functioning so the paths in the garden can be kept under control.
As an introvert, quiet appeals to me. Sitting silently in the mornings before the activity of the day is a good way to reset before the chaos and noise of the daily events begin. My hubby and children, I think, fear that if I am ever alone in life that I will become that hermit. As a result, they encourage me to participate in activities with folks that share my crafts. It is easy with the two ladies that live in the same village and we try to get together at one of our homes each week. Those sessions are relatively quiet, chatting, quietly spinning or knitting, but each of us comfortable enough with silence to not feel the need to fill it with talk.
Noisy environments have always been uncomfortable to me and now that I wear two hearing aids, even more so. Maybe it was more comfortable not being able to hear it as well, though most conversation was missed. This is where forcing myself to become part of the event is more of a challenge. I will commit to attending the larger spinning weekly group, stating to hubby that I am going, then finding any excuse to not attend, though I made it today and there were only a few of us present. There are a couple of retreats that occur each year, and at one, I know most of the participants and feel more comfortable attending. The other, I have backed away from as many of the folks I knew for various reasons are no longer there. It is difficult for me to try to fit in then even though we are all doing the same sorts of fiber crafts.
Son1 and daughter, helped me get set up to Zoom with an online group of crafts folk, but I find that type of interaction very stressful and our internet is not the best, so keeping a picture and sound varies, making it more stressful. I am thankful that by the time Covid sent the world in that direction that I was already retired.
The hermit tendencies are ideal for garden work. Outdoors with only the sun, wind, and bird sounds as company. Sometimes, help would be nice, but given enough time, it gets done. It is almost time to put the tomatoes and peppers out instead of moving them out and back in the house daily. And the beans can be planted. That may happen today. Yesterday after spinning with the small group in town, the beds that had previously been prepared or planted were given a light scuffle with the hoe. The first radish and a handful of asparagus brought in.
For those who read the previous post, the missing Marans never returned, so the raccoon episode resulted in the loss of two hens, one killed and one missing, probably caught by another predator while out hiding. That leaves a small flock of 7. Day before yesterday, they were too traumatized to lay, but yesterday provided 6. We may be okay with just the remaining flock, but there are no extras to share with friends anymore.
The nice weather, though very windy this week has allowed a profusion of Iris blooms. My bouquet from the Farmer’s Market last week was looking sad, so the remaining blooms from it were added to a bouquet of Iris from the beds around the house. They are a favorite spring flower with their sunny colors and repeat blooms.
So the hermit of the mountain lives on, not writing as much as some years, wondering if the garden will overwhelm this year with trying to keep it thriving, and with preserving it’s bounty for the cold months that follow. She will get out again with friends to spin, even attending an annual social/potluck on the porch of one of the members of the spinning group. As I age, the hermit tendencies grow and it requires more effort to be social, but I am working at it.
Sometime this month, the new bees will arrive and again, an effort to keep a couple of hives alive for the year. The son that initiated this project is having better luck.
At lock up time last night, it was pouring rain. The hens had been penned up earlier when I took kitchen scraps over to them, so I left them to their own devices overnight. That was a major error. Though the pen is fenced with an heavy erosion fence cover, a raccoon got in the coop. I didn’t even realize it until just a few minutes ago when I went to check for eggs. as I had seen hens in the yard today and didn’t even dawn on me that they had been penned up last night. Two followed me with the treat pail over to the run, one was in the vegetable garden and joined the other two. Several were frantic under the coop, but I figured they just wanted treats or to be let out as the strong wind today had blown the gate shut, though now that I think about it, I had rolled the rock that holds the gate shut against it when I penned them up late yesterday afternoon. That only accounted for 7 of them. When I opened the coop door, there were feathers everywhere and one dead hen, the victim that I could find. One is missing, probably frightened off into the woods or thickets, but so far she hasn’t returned.
The Marans that was in the garden went straight into the coop to lay an egg as soon as I did a little clean up. I hope the one that is AWOL reappears or my flock is down to 7. Nine was barely providing enough eggs for daughter’s family and my use.
They haven’t been providing that many eggs for the number of hens, aging out, I guess. but I had really hoped to get through this laying season before having to replace any.
I feel bad as it is totally my fault that they weren’t secured in the coop last night. Not wanting to go out in the storm cost me at least one hen and several eggs. It was easy to be complacent as the coop has food and water in it and with the rain, there is a tub of water outside in the run as well. Lesson learned. Regardless how nasty it is outside, the coop needs to be secured at night.
In June, I will have lived here 17 years. Coming out of my first retirement to re-enter the education field for an additional 3 1/2 years. The first autumn I was here, just a few short months after arriving, there was a shooting by a young man who escaped from a guard at a local hospital, went on the run and ended up killing a law enforcement officer on one of the trails we walk each week. Then 16 years ago this week, the shooting by a student at Virginia Tech, killing 32 students and faculty occurred. I wondered what kind of community we were moving into. The news media were relentless for weeks, every counselor in the region helping with first responders, faculty and students. My temporary apartment was very near the building in which it happened.
It turns out, it is a very close, supportive community. One that we have grown to love with the activity of so much youth, culture, and still a small town vibe with local businesses and restaurants.
Yesterday, the University held it’s 15th 3.2 mile run for the 32. This was on top of the football team’s spring game, and other on campus activities. The town was bustling.
Sixteen years ago, I resented the media attention not allowing healing, but over the years, I have witnessed the healing, the memorials, the activities that are reminders, but also letting the families of those affected by the two events know they are remembered and that their hurt has not been forgotten.
This is not a political statement, as we live rurally and guns are a part of the life here for hunting and for protection from animals that destroy livestock and crops. But the wonton gun violence in this country is heartbreaking. The two events 16 years ago were my first encounter with it, but it now seems to be a daily news occurrence. It needs to end, there are other solutions besides gun violence to solve problems.
We live in the zipcode of a tiny Village. On April 1, 1901, almost the entire village was destroyed, leaving only a couple residences, two churches, and a stable. Two stores, a tavern, a hotel, the drug store, and a tannery were among the buildings destroyed.
“Newport was a thriving community with many businesses. An iron foundry, located on Sinking Creek, made pig iron from ore mined near Newport. A woolen mill in Newport obtained power from a 37-foot diameter overshot water wheel. The mill was later converted into a woodworking plant, then into a blacksmith shop and then into an automobile workshop. There were several mills including the Zell Mill and the Payne Mill. The town had three distilleries, each with a bar room.” Keister, Susie Reed (1969). A History of Newport, Virginia. Virginia Leader
The village now is a handful of houses, a US Post Office, a small general store with gas pumps, and two churches. There were two professional baseball players and a nationally known songwriter that called Newport home.
The village is surrounded by National Forest and farmland that is usually a mix of pasture and wood lots. With all of the woods, when we see smoke or a scene like the one we saw last night, we alert.
This was seen when I went down to make a late evening cup of tea, to the south east of us, just over the hill at the back corner of our farm. Knowing that the neighbor back there has recently cleared areas of woods for more pastures for his cattle, I texted him to see if he was burning piles. Since there is an open burn ban until after 4 pm, he had to wait until then to start the burn. We had a few light hearted text exchanges and he let us know that there were several more big piles, so we will see more nights like this.
Almost exactly a year ago, our sons helped me pull Autumn Olive bushes in the area where the bee yard was going to be placed and we piled them in the yard away from the house and the woods. That night, the guys tried to have a bonfire that was less than successful as the bushes were green. A second attempt latter in the spring or early summer still didn’t get rid of the pile, but left a ring of trunks and branches that the grass grew through. Today, I piled it all into a teepee type pile and mowed the grass as close to the pile as possible. This afternoon, that pile was burned.
Continuously dragging in the unburned portions until the pile was reduced to cinders. The cinders were shoveled into the burn barrel and allowed to burn down until dark. It was then thoroughly doused and lidded. On another day, when more time can be spent monitoring it, more small wood will be added to the burn barrel and allow it to burn down to a layer of ash. The barrel isn’t considered open burn. That area is in the upper edge of the hayfield, so it is good that it is now gone and the hay can now grow there and not be a mowing or haying hazard. Once the burn barrel can be moved, it will be placed a bit higher on the property and used to burn pruning from the fruit trees.
Though a single Hummingbird is visiting during the day, only the one has been spotted and not frequently enough to try to catch a photo. But other signs abound.
The apple blossoms against a bright blue sky, as I mowed below them yesterday, the second mowing already this spring, though less of the property is being mowed, with the hope of either more hay mowing or at least a wild meadow. Son 1 suggested last year when he mowed for me that too much was being done on the little riding mower. Without consistent teen helpers around, I agreed and less is being done this year. The section below the garden where the garden used to extend, and between the garden and the orchard where an extended chicken run used to be are very rough and hard on the mowing machine and the mower rider. I have self debated whether it could be smoothed with the tractor blade and reseeded, but somehow the chickens would have to be kept out while the grass grew or the effort would be fruitless. They have denuded two areas where the grass was thin to dustbathe already since being freed back to wander the farm. Trying to keep them penned is an act of frustration as they dig out under the fence and once a hen has succeeded, others follow. The entire run needs to be disassembled, expanded with new fence wire, a chicken wire base that turns inward a foot or so to prevent tunnelling, and a top. It isn’t worth the effort or expense to do that, so they free range and become hawk bait.
Part of the entourage that run to see what “treat” is in store whenever anyone steps out of the house.
A very poor photo, zoomed to the extent of my phone and cropped to further enlarge, of two Toms doing their spring dance to entice the 3 hen turkeys nearby. Zoomed as they are about 200 yards away. This dance is a sure sign of spring.
The first bird nest of the year in a Viola hanging pot, just put up a few days ago. Probably the Wren that builds in one of the pots each year, but I haven’t seen the bird on the rim yet and there are no eggs to identify. In a day or two, there will be eggs and in about 24 days, babies. It is hard on the plants in the baskets, but providing a nesting spot for the little Wrens is more important. Watering those plants has to be done carefully so as not to soak the eggs and nest. The only time I see them is on the planters, as Wrens don’t come to the feeders.
Today, the swallows were checking out the nesting box that they steal from the bluebirds every year. The bluebirds will get the second one as the swallows won’t occupy two as close together as the two in the garden are set. I still want at least one more house for the garden area. The birds help keep the insect load in the garden reduced.
The Peony’s are up. Though they are about 15 years old, they only began blooming a couple of years ago. Hopefully, they will bloom this year. It isn’t the best location for them.
And the lilacs are beginning to bloom.
The tomatoes and tomatillos have been planted deeply in tall single use plastic cups from fast food to allow them to grow more roots up their stems as many nightshades are prone to do, it will make for stronger seedlings when time to plant. At that time, they will still be planted more deeply than they are in the cups. Along with the pepper starts, they are spending their days on the back deck table in deep mesh baskets to protect them somewhat from the breezes, to harden them off and strengthen them for planting out next month.
Another sign is the proliferation of Carpenter bees. Living in a log home, they are inevitable, drilling into the fascia boards to nest and emerging on every warm day. Though we dislike the damage the woodpeckers do trying to get at the larvae, the bees do not sting and are pollinators like other bees. The fascia boards could be replaced with a material they wouldn’t use, but then the fear is they would attack the logs instead.
Definite signs that the dark winter has drawn to an end. There will be more chilly days, even a frost or two, but the worst is over. Today it will approach 80f here with clear, blue, sunny skies. There are a few days of cooler, not cold temperatures and some rain in the half week, but the trend is toward more consistent warmer weather.
Spring is always fickle, this entire winter has been though. It was subzero for a week of nights around Christmas with single digit days, and there have been weeks of late spring/early summer temperatures with nights that didn’t drop below 50f. Flowers and fruit trees bloomed early. Fearing our pear trees wouldn’t produce fruit this year because there were blooms before another week of deep freeze temperatures, as it became time for them to bloom, there were more blossoms. Three of the apple trees are blooming heavily, one lightly, one not at all. There will be no plums, it bloomed way too early and all the blossoms froze.
Seven years ago we awoke to snow. Last night we had our first frost in weeks, but today it will be 60f and by later this week, almost 80f. Friday, though the Hummingbird tracker doesn’t show them here yet, I hung my feeders and yesterday saw our first one of the season feeding on the more popular feeders.
The hens have dug out under their fence, holes filled, hay layered to fight the mud, but today with the Forsythia nearly leafed out, though there were hardly any blooms, I have again given them free range. They will hopefully hide under the foliage of the shrubs or the cedars for their safety. I hope not to lose anymore, but they can’t stay penned up in a run only slightly larger than their coop.
Two of the remaining Marans foraging the front yard this morning.
The yoyo weather seems to have taken a toll on the row of Nandina bushes along the north front porch. Not a single one of them retained any leaves this winter though the one in the protected breezeway nook did. If they don’t grow out new leaves, and that looks doubtful, a decision will have to be made as to how to treat that area. It is not great soil, but the Nandinas had thrived there for about 15 years until this winter. With the chickens scratching up the soil there, growing grass might be a challenge unless I can block them off until it is established. A few large pots with evergreen shrubs scattered along the edge is a possibility or even low growing evergreen juniper planted in the soil.
The other victim of this winter might be my fig. It produced fruit for the first time last year, but I see no sign of life in the form of new leaf buds.
This is Penny, she is a jumper, belongs to our neighbor as one of her herd, and she thinks our grass is greener than the fields on which she lives. She visits in the spring time, leaving her calf for a little while to go over the 4 strands of barbed wire to come graze. She is a welcome visitor, it amuses me to find her munching away on the tall grass that will become hay in a few months.
Her sister was a jumper also and used to visit, sometimes bringing friends.
The tomato, tomatillo, and 2 of the varieties of pepper starts are thriving. This week, they will begin daytimes on the back deck sheltered initially, and later full on in the sun to harden off for planting in about a month. Yet again, I seem to have started them a couple of weeks too early.
Today is Easter Sunday and when we have family here, there is usually an Easter Egg hunt for the kids, even for the teens. Last year, daughter created an escape room sort of series of clues to lead the older ones from hidden large egg with the next clue that eventually led them to small baskets of goodies, mostly of the non edible kind. This is always followed by a meal that has traditionally been ham, au gratin potatoes, asparagus, another green for the haters, deviled eggs, rolls, and some sort of dessert. This year it is just the two of us and hubby will get his favorite home cooked Mexican food fiesta instead.
Maybe tomorrow, we will venture to the plant nursery to check out the herb selection, to Tractor Supply to add wild bird feed and suet cakes and if I can find one, a third Bluebird house. My carpentry skills just aren’t up to building my own.
The peas and radishes are beginning to emerge in the garden, the lettuce in the large pot on the back deck is growing, and I await the asparagus that have yet to show in the garden. Last year about this time we added the 4 hives of bees that did not succeed. Two nuks of bees with marked queens are on order for early May and two hives will be started again, hopefully with more success. While I await their arrival, new excluders for the openings will be ordered and sugar syrup will be fed inside the hives this year. I am really raising them as pollinators and not looking for much honey, but some would be a bonus. There is one capped frame of it in the freezer that survived the demise of the last hive. I really don’t know what to do with it, it may go in one of the new hives as starter feed for them.
Spring is officially here, though the chance for a frost lingers until the first week of May.
The museum, Wilderness Road Regional Museum, where I get to dress up in Colonial Period clothing and teach about spinning, fiber, fabric, and clothing in the Colonial Period is always fun. Even more so when it being offered to young people. Today, we had about 100 sixth graders from Blacksburg Middle School. And 9 stations including the film about Wilderness Road and Henry Hance, a couple in the loom house, a blacksmith, an herbalist, a militia man with his muzzle loader that he fired off after talking about his kit and uniform, one volunteer was portraying an enslaved woman and talking about slavery, one allowing the students to shell corn and a safe William Tell sort of game with the apple on top of a plexiglass shield and the arrows, a child’s set with suction cup tips, and me as the spinner. The groups rotated through the stations to get the presentations and ask questions.
My station was in the log kitchen, a newer replica of the original Newbern houses, a 16 foot square log structure with a loft and fireplace. The students were well behaved and had many great questions.
The spindle, wool, combs, cards, teasles, flax were all in the chair. Unfortunately due to the space, my back was to the kids when demonstrating the Great Wheel. It was a great day with well behaved, engaged, inquisitive middle schoolers.
Cabin Crafted 