Cabin Crafted

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  • Gardening for a loser

    As I age, the heat bothers me more and more. We actually run the A/C in summer now, not just relying on the fans. And as I have had my third skin cancer removed this week after having 6 keratosis frozen off last month, I have to wear long sleeves, sunscreen, and a big hat to be outside, so not comfortable when it is in the upper 80’s, so the garden is winning, I’m losing. All of my efforts last year prior to the garden season of putting down cardboard, building boxes, and mulching paths hasn’t helped much. The paths are full of grass and prickly weeds, there are two weeds that seem to love the beds and require lots of weeding. It can only be done first thing in the morning or late in the evening and the weeds are winning. The heat has caused the spinach to bolt, the peas to wilt, and the potato foliage is already dying back. All but two spinach plants were harvested last evening and stripped of useable leaves, the last of the stressed sugar snap peas were picked and shelled as shelly peas as the pods were too tough.

    The line trimmer needs to be taken to the paths, the comfrey cut back, the potato bed heavily mulched with straw until they can be dug, the tomatoes and peppers hand weeded.

    More cucumbers and sunflowers were started late last week and there were nice shoots in starter pots on the deck table. We had a wicked storm last night that required bringing the umbrella in, flipping the glass top table over, so the shoots were placed on the deck floor, in a sheltered place. When trimming this week, I twice spotted a field mouse under the deck and this morning, half of the new shoots are gnawed off.

    The back flower garden that was so much effort last year is a weed fest. The flowers are mostly potted as we aren’t finished back there yet, but the soil surface is full of unwanted growth and since the soil layer is thin over weed mat and cardboard, hoeing it doesn’t work. The deeper section below the retaining wall has enough soil to be fairly easy to hand weed.

    The deer are feasting on plants they have never bothered before and the hay is still standing. At least the mowers are back home and local grandson got the yard mowed this week with me getting the parts I don’t want him doing by mowing in the evenings.

    At this point, instead of enjoying it, I am frustrated with it. Maybe it is time for old lady beds that are at least knee high and set over a substrate material that will actually block out the weeds. I love the stuff growing in half barrels that are easy to reach and maintain, but not a lot can be grown that way. Once we are really getting food from the garden, my feelings will become more positive, but right now, I’m glad we have a great Farmer’s Market and a grandson who enjoys riding the riding mower for a few bucks every now and then.

  • Not a good Bee Mama, I guess

    On June 1, my friend and I did a hive inspection. One hive had a virgin queen, one was queenless, 1 had a queen that died of shock while she was being marked, and 1 was truly Queenright. We hoped the virgin queen would make her mating flight and return to provide brood, shifted a couple of frames of brood around to queenless hives with queen cells on them, and waited to see results. Yesterday, I went to inspect them alone. Three hives have no eggs, no larvae, two with good population, the third not so good, the 4th hive thriving with a marked queen. A message was sent to Son2, the bee owner, but didn’t hear back from him. Messaged my friend and posted on the local bee keeper’s forum and it was suggested to shift frames again, look for queen cells, wait and hope they make new queens.

    Another inspection with intervention will occur this week, maybe tomorrow before the heat dome returns to cook us. I feel bad that this has happened, but am at a loss as to a solution. We may have to reintroduce new queens to the three hives and hope for success. Three of the hives are or have been making honey and the honey supers on those hives are heavy.

    I fear that the weakest hive has a worker layer as there are lots of drone cells in that hive and that is not sustainable.

    Unfortunately, the beginner beekeeper class occurred before I knew there would be hives here, so I missed it this year. A couple of the keepers offered to come put another set of eyes on the situation, but today is Father’s Day and other plans had already been put in place.

    Son2 is due here this week at the end of their vacation, I hope he has time to inspect while he is here and can offer guidance.

  • Purgatory

    The hens are 2 1/2 years old and laying has significantly fallen off the cliff. Only about half as many per week as a year ago, plus this summer, they are taking turns being broody that also slows production. The first hen to go broody was a Buff Orpington and trying to wait her out was unsuccessful. She sat for 5 weeks. Without a broody cage, the only solution that came to mind was to put her in the Chicken Palace, a large A-frame coop made from scrap wood and extra roofing material that was going to be for meat chickens. It has never really been used that way, but is used to isolate old hens when new pullets are ready to go to the coop. It has proved a good purgatory for a broody hen to be isolated for 3 days and 3 nights with food, water, and an old homemade ladder to perch on, but no nesting boxes. It worked with her and when late last week another Buff went broody, she was immediately removed to Purgatory for three days and three nights. She was freed Tuesday night, just in time for an Easter Egger to go broody beginning last night. Tonight, she was put in there to begin her cooling off period.

    She is most unhappy with her current situation, but if left alone, she would just encourage more copycat behavior.

    Early in the week, we had two of our grandchildren for two nights. They are 10 and 15, so old enough to do adventures with. We took them to the Amish store in Whitegate for the best sandwiches that are huge and relatively inexpensive, then a few more miles to Dismal Falls or Falls of Dismal depending on which sign you see. Last time we were there, almost no water was going over the falls, but there was still a swimming hole. This time, a lot of water was spilling down, very, very cold water. Still not as much as photos show, but still very pretty. Though none of us were brave enough to actually swim, we all waded, and granddaughter managed to dunk fully under once.

    An AT thru hiker and I debated whether this was a water snake or a copperhead. I didn’t want to get close enough to see if it had pits, but it did have the hourglass markings. The hiker thought it was a water snake. At any rate, he knocked it off the log with a trekking pole and it went downstream.

    Tonight a thunderstorm passed to the south down the river, producing a lot of cloud to ground lightening that I tried to capture with a photo unsuccessfully, but the storm light made the still standing hay look red.

    Even though it didn’t pass over us, hopefully it will cool the 92 degree day down. Tomorrow is still very hot and Saturday is supposed to be 16 degrees cooler, a welcome relief after this week. Our hay is still standing, the deer are eating the lower branch tips on all the fruit trees, the potted plants on the porches and back garden are requiring daily watering.

    The garden still has no cucumbers and few sunflowers, corn is beginning to show. More cucumbers and sunflowers were started today on the back deck. The heat is going to wipe out the peas, but the beans are beginning to flower. The potato plants are beginning to die back, so a storage plan needs to be decided on soon.

  • Little Dinosaurs

    The past several weeks have been very frustrating with the hens. They are about 2 1/2 years old now, so should be at the peak of laying. Egg production has been dismal which leads one to believe that their nutrition is off or they are hiding eggs. They get premium feed, oyster shell, and until yesterday, free ranging all day every day, so it must be egg hiding. A search has been made in their hidey holes and all around the house and gardens, but no hidden nests have been found. Monday through Wednesday there were only 16 total eggs for 13 hens. There should be at least 9 or 10 each day as they don’t all lay an egg every day and some breeds only lay 3 or 4 times a week. Yesterday, they weren’t released from the coop at all and there were 8 eggs. This morning, some extra fencing and some 8 foot poles threaded through their shorter fence were cobbled together to make the fence about 6-7 feet tall around three quarters of their run. The other quarter already had fencing over the pop door in an angle down to the fence so they couldn’t jump from the door over into the garden.

    This kept them in the run today and so far there have been 8 more eggs today, so as many in 2 days as in the prior 3 combined, still not as many as there should be.

    To add to the reduction, there is a second Buff Orpington that has decided to be broody just as the other one was broken of it. They are a broody breed. This time, she was put straight into the chicken palace with food, water, and a ladder for a perch, but no nesting box. She will stay there for three days and three nights and hopefully will cease the nonproductive behavior.

    Not knowing if their coop could be the cause, it was thoroughly cleaned today and pine shavings instead of straw added to the floor and nest boxes. It is probably time to consider replacing them for next year. There will not be as many added this time. After this year, there will only be enough kept to for daughter’s and our use. This fall, the hens will molt and their egg production will stop entirely during that period, so a good time to cull them.

    Yesterday, a mouse was caught in the house and tossed out into the tall grass on the edge of the upper hay field. It is on the path over to the coop. Seeing activity there, a closer examination showed American Carion Beetles. I had never seen them before. There are quite an interesting looking bug.

  • Oh to be a mechanic

    I mowed last week, parked the riding mower in the garage as usual. It took me 3 days to work sections to get it all done then, so this week, we called Grandson local to see if he wanted to get out of the house and earn a few bucks. Hubby had an early dental recheck of some work done two weeks ago, the weather was better than the forecast has predicted, so we took an early walk and went the couple of towns over (only about 20 -22 miles from our house, much less from the dentist office) and picked up the young one. Fed him lunch and brought him home to mow. The riding mower started right up, I put air in the tire that doesn’t hold air for more than 24 hours, and set him to work as I prepared to get the tractor and grade out some of the recent rain damage on the driveway. He pulled off and it was immediately obvious that the blade did not engage. Google sent me to check out various potential problems and it seems that the PTO clutch has failed, not repairable, just replaceable. The shop we have always used closed last year, so research to find a new one was done.

    Grandson local said he would do the front of the house with the push mower, not self powered, but it wouldn’t start. The spark plug was pulled and cleaned, reinstalled and three of us took turns pulling the cord to no avail. Yes, it has fresh gas and enough oil. He ended up using the string trimmer to clear an area from the front door to the side of the driveway.

    Daughter is going to come over tomorrow and hitch our trailer to her car as we can’t tow it with ours and is going to take us and it to the shop along with the push mower, and pick up a new gas grill to replace our old one that was seriously damaged blowing across the yard in a wind storm and the burners and grates disintegrating a year or so ago. She was going to help us do that in a couple of weeks, but since she has to come help with the mowers, we will go ahead and make that purchase now.

    I can’t replace the PTO clutch, the lawnmower issue is a mystery, and the grass is growing as I watch it.

    After returning Grandson local home, the driveway did get done, just in time for another intense thunderstorm. I think the driveway survived.

    Tonight, we will be rewarded with a couple of new potatoes pulled out from under a plant and a handful of fresh from the garden Sugar Snap Peas.

    I should have staked the Sugar Snaps, they are tall and have fallen over and the stems are quite brittle. There are plenty more to enjoy and freeze for later.

  • Gardens

    Every year the gardens produce new challenges and sometimes rewards. Two years ago, I couldn’t get corn to grow even after three plantings. Last year the popcorn was prolific but wouldn’t pop in the microwave or a pan of hot oil, but the chickens loved it and I still find dry cobs in the yard. This year in the adjacent bed, it is nothing but grass and about a dozen corn shoots about a foot tall in a 14 by 4 foot bed. Last year the peppers did nothing, but I was overwhelmed with cucumbers. Potatoes last year provided a little and volunteers keep coming up in the beds from the past two rotations, this year the bed is waist high in green tops, flowering, and hopefully producing plenty for our table. This year the cucumbers have not germinated, only three sunflowers germinated, but the peppers look great and are beginning to set small fruit and flowers. There were cucumbers and sunflowers in Jiffy pots on the back deck that were started a week or so ago and they were planted out as starts this evening.

    The tomatoes and peppers were hand weeded this morning and after our walk, a hoe was taken to the corn bed and most of it was done. After dinner, a hand maddock finished the job. I know the crows didn’t get the corn seed because the bed has a welded wire fence laying over the top of the wooden box frame about 3 inches above the soil. It has been wet. We have had enough rain in the past couple of weeks to destroy our driveway. This upcoming week there are rain showers several days, so maybe the corn will germinate this time.

    Corn bed before
    And after

    Peas and beans are thriving, sugar snaps ready to start harvesting to eat, blanch and freeze. Shelling peas will soon follow and the second planting has germinated nicely. No onions or garlic were planted this year, but garlic has been ordered for the fall garden. The asparagus are now as tall as I am, going into their summer fern stage so there will be more next year. Two quarts of asparagus pickles are in the refrigerator to enjoy until they are gone.

    Last year, the deer discovered the daylilies until I put a fence in front of them. This year the fence was put in place before they emerged and they are just beginning to bloom, but the deer discovered other treats in the walled garden so the ones they are favoring had low fence erected around them. The deer population is heavy and they have no fear of our ancient pups, coming right up to the house to graze when the dogs are in, lounging under the pine trees even when the dogs are out as long as the dogs don’t notice them.

    Each year, I change up what is in the vegetable garden with the staples of tomatoes, peppers, peas, beans, cucumbers, and spinach. I really want a dent corn patch for cornmeal and chicken scratch, sweet corn can be purchased as desired at the Farmer’s Market, but success with corn has not been good. The freshly weeded bed was replanted with dent corn, but there is no more sweet corn seed here. The pumpkins were planted out today even if there is no corn, the seminole pumpkins make good pie, are nice for stuffing with rice and sausage, and they are good keepers.

    The hydroponics were shut down and the parts that could go in the dishwasher were run through a cycle. When lettuce at the farmer’s market becomes scarce and the rest of our spinach bolts, the larger one will be reseeded for salad greens. The herbs were all planted out and that one doesn’t need to be reseeded until near frost time so there are fresh herbs for the winter.

    The garden is rewarding, but the work to keep it up is getting more difficult.

  • Bee Downer and hope

    The babies are all feathered out on the front porch, but as of this morning, still have not fledged. I haven’t checked tonight, I’m spent.

    Today, my spinning friend and local bee mentor came over to help me inspect hives and mark queens. There were 4 overwintered queens, 1 in each nuk when we installed them. Four queens or evidence of them about 3 or 4 weeks ago when we inspected. Today was a different story. The first hive installed and the first inspected today had a lot of bees, brood, eggs a few days old, larva, and the only queen found was a virgin queen. Hopefully she will make her mating run, return safely and continue to build that hive, but it means we probably have already had a swarm that we didn’t catch. The second hive had larva and brood, but no eggs, no queen, and several queen cells. The population of that hive wasn’t as strong either. The third hive was very active, eggs, larva, brood, and honey being capped, but we caught the queen, she was active in the catcher, marked, and she never perked back up. The workers tended to her, but we don’t think she will make it, so we took a frame with queen cells on it about to open and took a frame from that hive, hoping they will nurture a new queen and she will also take a mating flight and return. Hive 4 was strong and so many bees, brood, eggs, and larva and the most gorgeous golden queen who we marked and put back in her hive. They have filled several frames in the honey super full already. We stole one of their frames of brood, eggs, and larva for the second hive. Another inspection will be done next week to see the status, and I hope it isn’t as hot that day. I don’t handle heat well and ended up having to sit in the shade while my friend finished hive 3 and started hive 4. Once back up to the house, we sat, discussed the situation over glasses of iced tea. In another hour, when it has darkened and cooled down some, she suggested I reinstall the reducers to help deter thievery. We are hopeful that today’s efforts will provide viable queens before the hives die off. It was brutal, 85 f, no shade, and lots of sweat. I didn’t wear the bee jacket, just a veil, jeans, long sleeves, and the long gloves from the jacket. I can’t imagine working the hives in the jacket on a day as hot as today.

    I knew this project would be both disappointing and rewarding and some days it is both. I am thankful to my friend that is more than willing to come work with me as I learn. I only wish that I had had the energy to go help her after we were done as she headed home to get in her bee yard which does have some shade, but also more than 3 times as many hives.

    Last night, we went into town to get a pizza to eat on their patio and purchased a pot of flowers. A couple of decades ago, my Dad built me a wooden wheelbarrow to use decoratively. It needed repair so that was done earlier yesterday and some houseplants and a hanging petunia that hubby gave me for Mother’s Day were installed in the wheelbarrow on the front porch. The new flowers added to the front for more color. (not in the photo taken earlier)

    On our way home last evening, we had a severe pop up thunderstorm that took the new umbrella off the porch and broke it, but we saw our first rainbow of the year, actually a full arc and for a while, a double.

    Faint double

    Just before we left to go into town, I let Miss Broody out of isolation. She had spent 3 days and 3 nights in the Chicken palace with food, water, and a ladder to perch on, but no nesting boxes. That seems to have broken her. Though she is still walking around slightly puffed out and clucking, she isn’t avoiding me and hasn’t gone back to the nest, even last night. This New Hampshire red was out when I went to lock the hens in last night and she wouldn’t enter the run with me in there. First she flew to the top of the gate, then to the top of the coop.

    Not a weather vane.

    Once I left the run, she came down and went into the coop, silly bird.

  • Rural living

    Our farm of about 30 acres sits in a hollow (holler up here) on the side of a 4000+ foot mountain. There is a large holding running cattle to the west, open hay and corn fields to the east with a home in a wooded lot between part of it and us. Wooded lots to the south, and a home in a wooded lot to the north. Our farm is mostly open, former grazing land and now hayfields maintained by local men who run cattle on other properties.

    For the most part, everyone is respectful of other people’s land, asking permission to cross or look for an animal they wounded but not killed while hunting. Once in a while, there is total disrespect. Trash strewn along the gravel road that passes north of us, recently, a broken recliner dumped at the top of our property down a hillside to the creek. When we purchased this land, the sink hole near the top was full of appliances, glass, cans, tires, and part of a vehicle. With a neighbor’s help, we removed the large stuff and hubby and I spent many hours removing cans, more than 100 tires, and unbroken glass, leaving what we couldn’t get to be covered by composting leaves.

    The first autumn I was in the house, alone for a weekend, I heard dogs, shouting, and gunfire entirely too close to the house late at night. Hunting raccoons, I guess, but rather unnerving. Last night, there were gunshots, some too close to the house, some farther off in the woods to the south, but they didn’t all sound like rifle shots, followed by a flashlight moving across in front of our house. It was probably coyote hunters, but we don’t allow hunting on our property after an incident a few years ago, not an accident, just disrespecting our rules. There is no way to know who it was to speak to them, but it is still alarming to have middle of the night gunshots near the house and seeing someone in your front yard.

  • Ups and Downs

    What a week, a week of ups and downs. The loss of a friend and a renewed friendship. An unexpected brief visit by Son 2 and family and an equally unexpected cancellation of a long weekend with Son 1 to celebrate his birthday.

    The day my friend in Tennessee passed, Son 2 called and said he and his family would be in late the next evening to prep and then leave in their RV that lives here between trips. They arrived in pouring rain in two cars, he and his eldest son first to get the generator going while I dragged garden hoses from the back of the house and connected to the one at the yard hydrant to fill the water tank. They spent the night in the RV after loading it up, visited the next morning and left for a family vacation.

    A couple weeks ago, a received a message and called a friend of 4 decades. When we both had young children and lived in Virginia Beach we were fast friends. Her husband’s job took them away from the area, then returned them to the area and we picked up where we left off. Then they moved again for his job and then back again only to be moved yet again. During that station, they were planning to return back to Florida where they were both from and we kept in touch with cards and letters mostly. I did take our children down one summer for a week, then when they were planning their move back to Florida, she went to see how their house construction was going and invited me down to spend a few days with her, just the two women. Our daughter was living less than an hour away from her and they both met me at the airport, spent a couple days with both of them at her little house where she was staying and then just the two of us. That was about 20 years ago. The message was to call if I could and we talked on the phone. She was driving north to a family event (her husband needed to fly later) and she wanted to meet up with me. I finally convinced her to stay here overnight and we had a delightful visit, again catching up and picking up where we left off. She arrived just a few hours after Son 2 and family left.

    This whole week has been a steady rainstorm, about 3-4 inches of rain has fallen this week. When we could catch a break in the rain we would dash out for a quick walk.

    Son 1 was due in last night to spend the celebratory weekend, but he found out yesterday morning that he may have been exposed to Covid and did not want to potentially contaminate a train car or his Dad and me, so he had to cancel and reschedule in about a month. This was disappointing to all of us. He was looking forward to coming, I was looking forward to pampering him with no chores and lots of good food.

    All of the ups and downs caused the days of the week to blend together and I lost track. We were out taking a walk yesterday when I got a text asking if our spinning trio was getting together, I had totally forgotten it was Thursday.

    Box turtle from yesterday’s walk

    A text exchange between our trio ended with me being dropped off at my bee mentor’s house to spin for a couple hours, the third member deciding to skip. It was just what was needed to boost my spirits.

    This morning, the sun is shining, at least for a little while. This hen has been sitting on this empty nest for nearly a month hoping to have babies. An impossibility as there is no rooster here and I don’t leave eggs under her, but she is persistent and very evil about being removed from the nest.

    Brooding takes 21-22 days, so I had hoped she would get over it early in the week, but nope. She still sits, puffed up, growling, and pecking at me if I try to move her.

    There are 5 baby Wrens feathering out on the front porch. They will fledge in another week or so.

    The Bumblebees and our honey bees love the blooming Comfrey plants.

    Early in the week, we replaced the back porch umbrella finally after two years without. I love sitting out there with my morning breakfast, but only when there is an umbrella. It hasn’t gotten much use this week because of the rain, but it only took one day to realize that the small round table back there wasn’t large enough for it, so I moved it to the front porch for the succulent pots and the square table that is only 11″ larger to the back for enjoying the back deck.

    When the storms stop, it will be a nice place to have breakfast or dinner to enjoy the view and nice days.

    It has been quite a week. Now we are alone again in our house, hoping Son 1 doesn’t get ill and being a bit irritated for him that his co worker was not responsible about letting people know and staying masked or staying home with her sick family member. Hopefully the co worker doesn’t get ill either.

  • A friend lost

    💔

    Today I lost a friend, a fellow fiber lover, a playful, gentle soul who fought cancer for 9 years. Her loss is felt by many today, leaving her husband, an adult daughter and her husband, and many, many friends who loved her.

    When attending retreats with her, a part of a small contingent that would go out to lunch together. To know her, you knew a true friend.

    Through her failing health, she was always concerned about you, not herself. She was gracious and loving and fun to be around. She will be sorely missed by many.

    Goodbye my sweet friend. Rest now that you are no longer suffering.