Cabin Crafted

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  • Hot stuff and bees

    The week has warmed a bit more each day with intermittent thunder storms, not producing much rain, just a lot of noise and light. Today it broke 90 f. We got our walk in when is was 6 degrees cooler than that, but on a section of the trail with little shade.

    A few days ago when we walked our hay guy down to see the bee installation so he and his helpers were aware, three of the feeders were still half full. Last night they were empty. This morning while it is still below 80 f, the heavy bee jacket and veil were donned and the hike down the hill to fill the feeders and flip the inner covers to give them more ventilation. My local mentor suggested cutting a notch in the inner cover, my brother said to use shims, the internet suggested craft sticks diagonally across the two back corners to slightly lift the outer lid and provide additional cooling when it is going to be brutal. I like my brother’s idea, but lack the acrylic to cut the shims. My “craft sticks” are coffee stirrers and not thick enough to provide space if laid on the inner cover and not sturdy enough to put diagonally. The syrup I had wasn’t sufficient to fill all the jars, so syrup is being dissolved now and I will look for another shim solution today. I don’t have a battery operated jig saw, but do have a battery powered drill and some hole saws that fit it, so maybe a semi circular hole in the back of the inner cover with the screen material provided by my mentor is the solution. After the syrup is fully dissolved and the bees are quieter in the dusk, a solution will be devised. All 4 hives are filling brood and making honey.

    A few weeks ago, Mountain Mint was ordered from a Tennessee nursery, three plants, $20+ dollars. They arrived yesterday, 3 dried out bare root segments in a couple tablespoons of potting soil in a plastic bag. I’m quite irritated by this. My bee mentor has Mountain Mint that she recently divided and she said she would give me a start. The bare roots were planted and watered, but without much hope of success. The Baptisia nearby is blooming gloriously.

    It is such a pretty plant and the dark seed pods that form, dry and make interesting addition to dried flower arrangements.

    The Wren eggs in the spider plant have hatched, but the babies don’t raise up with open mouths yet, so the count hasn’t been made yet.

    Once they fledge, the baby spider plants in the starters around the mother plant need to be set it soil. They aren’t sufficiently set in and the one below the nest in this picture is totally uprooted.

    The electric around the fruit was a waste of time. The single strand wasn’t slowing the deer down at all. After our walk today, since we were close to Lowe’s, a second bird net was purchased. In the afternoon heat, the grass within that area was weed whacked down, cardboard put down around the plum and a fence erected around it. Several long coated steel posts were angled over the grapevine, a long cord tying them to the end posts and lashing them together and the net was draped over the line and covering the grapes. There are many clusters starting and the deer can’t have them this year.

    a bag of mulch needs to be spread around the little tree.

    Hopefully, they are protected now. The electric is just around the top of the garden again, though there has been no evidence of deer in there. The pintos, bush beans, second planting of peas, and some of the sunflowers are sprouted. Not much of the corn is up and no sign of the cucumbers yet. On a cooler day, some work with the hoe is needed out there though. For now, a bottle of water and a rest under the ceiling fan is in order. I like spring, not summer heat. It will be cooler after today for a while.

  • And More Rain

    The crazy boomerang storm has alternated between partly cloudy skies and real rain storms with thunder and lightning. When it leaves this time, it will keep going and it is going to get hot, summer hot.

    When I went over this morning to free the chooks into the yard, the path is between the garden and the young plum and grapevine. The plum has fruit for the first time, but it also has new deer damage. Since the fence charger was taken down to use on the bees then returned to the garden as a stronger charged one was needed for the bees, it had been sitting by the post on the ground, and not remounted and turned on. After the Saturday morning routine of breakfast, Farmer’s Market, and daily walk, efforts were made to try to deter the deer from finishing off the plum and grape leaves. The charger was remounted on the pole with new mounting screws and new poly wire strung as the old wire was several years old, showed some burned spots, and wasn’t long enough to go around the fruit and the garden. Because the wood pile, uphill from the fruit and garden already had a couple of T-posts set at the ends, insulators were added at a lower height than the garden wire and the fence wire strung to enclose the plum and grapes. This will require relearning to walk above the wood pile to the chicken coop, but may protect the plum tree and grapevine. If it doesn’t deter the deer, a fence will go up around the plum and another bird net purchased to drape over the grapes.

    My portion of the sweet potato bundle was planted out in the half barrel and just as water was about to be set up to sprinkle them in, it began raining a very steady, heavy rain. The sprinklers haven’t been needed on the flowers or vegetables for a couple of days which is nice. The only thing left to be planted out in the spring garden are three Thai peppers, but they are still in the hydroponic starter and not large enough to go outside. They could be planted with paper tubes around them to deter the sow bugs, but it is better to let them get some size on them. As there is still about a full quart jar of dried Thai’s from last year, it is no hurry.

    The hay is getting tall and deep.

    This doe is standing, not lying down.

    It is broody hen season, too. One of the Buff Orpingtons has been sitting on an empty nest for two weeks. She would make a good Momma hen as she growls, puffs up, and pecks at me every time the egg door is opened. If she is removed from the nest to the yard, she growls and stays put until the door is closed or one of the other hens pecks at her weird noise, then she runs right back to the nest. No real effort has been made to deter her as past efforts on that front have never worked. A fleeting idea to put fertile eggs under her was quickly abandoned as the coop is already too small for the 13 hens that live there at night. About another week, she will tire of it and return to the laying flock. If not, she will go to freezer camp as a non productive hen doesn’t need to be in the coop.

    Her most indignant self.

    In anticipation of a bumper crop of assorted hot peppers, most of the remaining hot dried peppers from last year have been started as a hot pepper ferment to make sauce in a couple of weeks. Last year’s sauce is nearly gone. There are still enough dried peppers left for cooking purposes.

    That is the spring’s second ferment begun. The asparagus are delicious and a second jar of them will occur as soon as another quart jar of them are available.

    For days, the buds on the peonies have been opening more and more. This is the first year that there have been more than a couple and one is full of buds. During college years and when available, a small bowl of a floating bloom adorned my desk. This green glass bowl was hand blown at Jamestown Historical site and was perfect to float two beautiful peony blossoms.

    Spring is a wonderful time of the year here in the Virginia mountains. It is great to be able to get the garden in and still cool enough to keep it weeded. The hot, humid summer will be upon us too quickly.

  • And Then Came the Rain

    After yesterday’s errands and walk, the last tomato was caged, two more peppers planted and staked, the blueberries netted against thieving birds, so I can enjoy all of that luscious blue fruit. A stop, no, 4 stops to try to get sweet potato starts were a failure, but the last stop said they had been shipped and should be in today or tomorrow, so today’s check in was a winner and a bundle purchased. It is much too large for our garden or our family use, so the bundle will be shared.

    We got our walk in just before the rain began and between showers, the half barrel that will contain the sweet potatoes was moved to the garden on a cardboard layer to deter weeds from growing through the bottom or up around the sides and then filled with fresh soil. The slips are soaking in a pot of water for a few days to freshen the roots and they will be planted out. Herb seed and transplants were also done between showers, but now it is raining in earnest, good for the freshly planted seed and transplanted starts.

    In my quest to use open pollinated vegetables and save seed, the small Oui yogurt jars seem the perfect size for seed storeage. A google search produced silicone lids that fit the jars. A dark box will be scrounged and the seed will be stored in the back of the refrigerator between seasons. For several years, flower seed has been saved and replanted each year, beans and peas have been saved without much thought to how they were stored.

    The next year or two, the open pollinated varieties may be switched until the ones that best suit us are tried and approved. The beans and peas that have been the spring and summer staples are already on the list. Dent corn varieties will be tried to provide corn meal and chicken scratch. Seminole pumpkins have been favored. Cucumbers are different each year, but maybe the best one has been selected this year. We use a lot of Jalapenos, but often grow several hot peppers, and they will cross pollinate, so that choice might be more difficult. The same with tomatoes. A good paste tomato for sauce and canning is great, but a fresh sliced tomato can’t be beat in the summer and again, there is the cross pollination issue. Lettuce and spinach are planted out repeatedly and not allowed to seed.

    The battle with grass and weeds in the paths of the garden has been ongoing. Cardboard and mulch work for a short while. A huge load of wood chips would be ideal and could be added to each year, but it costs an arm and a leg to get it hauled up the mountain. Weed whacking around the beds seems to be the best that can be done for now, and hand pulling those that will come up. Some weeds are so persistent they will go through the barrier layers. It is exciting that the garden is coming together and fresh homegrown vegetables and fruits will soon be on our table and in our pantry and freezer.

  • Another Stellar Day

    To vary our retirement routine today, we went up the mountain instead of down. The top of the mountain is Mountain Lake Conservancy and Lodge. The lodge property is the site of the filming of most of the original “Dirty Dancing” movie. Signage abounds identifying what occurred where, including one that says they spray painted the grass and trees green because it was autumn. We had a very nice lunch on the porch (where Baby first saw Johnny) looking out at where the lake used to be. Unfortunately, within a couple of years of us moving here, it disappeared through a fissure in the bottom of the lake. It has done that before and refilled, but it probably won’t happen in the rest of our lifetime. We were fortunate to have visited when there was a large, full, deep lake. The feeder streams still flow down, but the water disappears into the fissure. A few years ago, attempts were made to plug the hole, the lake partially refilled then failed.

    After lunch, we took off on trails through the woods. The Conservancy is about 2,000 feet higher elevation than our house and spring time is just beginning. Flora and fauna abound.

    Red Trillium
    She wasn’t 20 feet from us and unconcerned.
    May apples, past bloom and forming the fruit.
    Not many leaves on the trees yet though.

    Lots of fiddlehead ferns, violets, tiny white wild flowers. A cool breeze and lots of sunshine.

    Once home, it was back to the garden planting.

    Sweet corn and Bloody Butcher dent corn fill this bed, then topped with a sheet of fence wire to deter the crows until the corn is 6″ high. Pumpkins will be planted in that bed too, but the third sister was a purchase error and the Pinto beans are a bush bean, so they were planted in a separate bed nearby. The tomatoes were caged, the peppers staked, cucumbers and sunflowers planted, and the sprinkler started on it all. Once sweet potato starts can be purchased, they will be planted between the blueberries or above the potato and asparagus beds. There are a few more peppers to plant out when the starts are large enough and some basils that are in the hydroponic to intersperse between the tomatoes. Hoops were installed over the blueberry bed to support netting which will be purchased on the next Tractor Supply run, maybe tomorrow. The garden is now in maintenance mode until time to begin harvest. Late season beans will go in after peas are done, and garlic and fall greens when the time comes. So far, only spinach and asparagus are being harvested.

    Last weekend’s rains are a storm that is boomeranging back to hit us again this weekend with the same storm. That really is a thing according to the local weather blogger for the newpaper. The garden won’t need watering again after today for a while.

  • Garden Time

    Last week, my spinning friends that were visiting went out to the garden with me to see if they could identify this:

    It starts like this and becomes this…

    It has a matt of copper colored roots with below ground runners that can go a couple of feet from one plant to the next. It was overtaking the blueberry bed and beginning to take over the adjacent bed that is slated to be the three sister’s bed. After our glorious walk on a beautiful day yesterday, an attack on the weed was tackled. When done, the above bed was clear (for now).

    My experience with it is that if you don’t get all of the roots, which is impossible, it just comes back, so I will have to keep at it. The blueberries are full of tiny berries. Bird net may be in order this year as it looks like it could finally be a good harvest if I beat the birds to them.

    The two nights of potential frost didn’t get cold enough to freeze and the forecast looks like spring nights have finally arrived, so the tomatoes and peppers that have been in and out of the house for a while, were planted out today after that bed was weeded. The tomatoes spaced out nicely for the number I had and there is room for the Thai and Serrano peppers once they have achieved enough size to transplant them into the garden. The bed is getting a good watering in right now. Maybe later, the second planting of peas and the first planting of beans will be sown. The three sister’s garden will be a day in itself. My garden plan has been altered somewhat so the cucumbers need to find a place to be planted.

    Yesterday’s walk was an extension of the walk we do from the end of the Huckleberry Trail. About 3/4 of a mile into that walk, another trail that travels through the Heritage Park, also known as Brown Farm. The farm was a dairy and beef farm and was purchased by the town of Blacksburg under the New River Trust. It has a large pond and trails through the fields and old farm buildings.

    Wonderful old buildings and silos. The shot up through the silo was taken by holding the camera through a hole in the side from outside.

    Interesting nature finds, a nut shell, an all white daisy like wildflower, and just look at that tree. Hubby is 6’1.5″ tall to give you reference to it’s size. We finished the rest of the usual walk with this side trip.

  • Tick Season and preparing for new garden

    It is only May 1 and already many ticks have made their way into the house on our bodies or on the pups. Three bites already on me. It is going to be a bad year for them I fear.

    There is a mowed path to the bees that will stay mowed as the adjacent hay grows, but sometimes you have to walk through the branches of a cedar tree to brush off any hitchhikers and in spite of pants tucked into socks into boots, the bee jacket, veil, and gloves, they are still finding their way in. I dislike chemical sprays even around my pants legs, much less on upper body, especially since most are from going to the bee yard. I’ve had folks suggest wrapping a dog tick collar around my lower pants legs, but that doesn’t stop them from the cedar branches above the lower legs.

    They are disgusting, creepy crawlies, disease carriers. We need Guineas, but doubt they would stick around and they are so noisy, but definitely tick gobblers. This will be a difficult year to wild berry pick because of them.

    This week, the last of the tomatoes frozen toward the end of the season last year were finally processed into pasta sauce. That puts 11 pints of pasta sauce on the shelf to start this year. Three from last year, 8 new ones, plus 3 in the freezer, 3 pints of canned tomato puree added this spring. There is still a supply of assorted tomatillo sauces/salsas/jams, and a bag remaining in the freezer, so they won’t go in this year’s garden. There are 8 peppers ready to plant in two weeks, plus another variety started from seed that will be a bit later. One of the Farmer’s Market vendors had several varieties of tomato starts so one each of two varieties were added to my purchase to give me 8 tomato plants, 2 more than originally planned. The huckleberries didn’t come up in the starter flat which gives me some space to accommodate the extras. The corn patch will be half sweet corn and half Bloody Butcher so seed can’t be saved, but extra seed of the dent corn was purchased to use next year. The plan this year has two varieties of beans and two varieties of peas, so again, seed can’t be saved. Already, a plan for next year is in the works to grow only single varieties of heritage vegetables and save seed for future planting. This will be somewhat limiting, but our primary hot pepper use is Jalapenos, primary tomato use is sauces, sweet corn is such a short season, the Bloody Butcher will provide corn meal and roasting ears. Though we enjoy bush beans, young Pinto’s can be eaten green and if enough are planted, dried for winter chili and goulash. With peas, we enjoy both sugar snaps and shelling peas, but if only shelling peas are grown like year’s past, seed can be saved. It will be an interesting experiment to see if the lack of variety bothers us or if the variety will just come from Farmer’s Market purchases. Seminole pumpkins are great for stuffing or pies and will be the third part of the Three Sister’s garden. Spinach will be planted, but I have never tried to save seed from spinach or lettuce. Cucumbers of course will be in the garden to eat fresh and to make pickles. Garlic was not planted for this year, but will be added back in for the fall garden to overwinter and provide bulbs next summer.

    Here’s hoping for a great garden season and more putting by for the off seasons. I need to start gathering jars for processing vegetables and later for when honey gathering commences, probably not until next year though.

  • Bees, so many, many bees

    The hives owner (Son 2) purchased screen bottoms with slide out boards for the hives. He thought that is what he had purchased initially, but the hives came with a solid bottom base piece. Yesterday, my spinning friend/bee mentor came over to help me examine the hives and install the new screen bottoms with out the slide out boards for the warmer weather. We had the smoker but never lit it. The spring bees are so mellow, but busy. Lots of pollen pants on the girls as they flew into the hives. They are making honey in brooder frames so excluders and honey supers will soon be added. All the hives were active, we found 3 of the queens and evidence that all 4 have active queens. Every hive has a Queen cup or two that require watching. The hives look healthy, a few hive beetles that we smushed, no mites (knock on wood). She again gave me so many suggestions to make life easier for the bees and for maintenance. The bottom slide out boards need a rim to pull them from the slots as they will get stuck in otherwise so that will be done before they are installed late fall. She suggested a small vent slot in back end of the spacer to aid with ventilation. When the supers are added and the spacers are removed to place them, those slots will be cut. It would be nice if I had a battery powered jig saw, but mine has to be plugged in. Also she discussed a syrup feeder style that slips into the brood box like a frame that holds a gallon of syrup so it doesn’t have to be made quite as often. I don’t know what you do when it isn’t needed, I guess replace it with another frame. I am still using quart jars that sit outside the front of the hive.

    Just before she came over, one of their hives swarmed, high up into the trees. While she was here, a second swarmed and her husband said it settled on their electric box so he set up to capture and move them as soon as she arrived home.

    Before she arrived, one of the overstuffed 2 gallon bags of frozen tomatoes from last year was dumped in a sink of warm water, the skins slipped off and dropped in a big pot to simmer with herbs and seasonings while we worked. Two and a half hours later, there was a nice pot of pasta sauce awaiting. We had spaghetti and salad, a pint was frozen and 4 more pints were canned after dinner and put on the shelf to begin resupplying our canned goods. I have plenty of lids this year and need to begin to gather jars as the honey is going to need jars as well, and my supply is just about what I use to can sauces, salsas, and jams in each year.

    The hens are producing about 8 or 9 eggs a day. One of the Marans thinks she is an ostrich and lays super jumbos that don’t fit in a carton and one of the Easter eggers often produces “oopsies” a tiny egg that is only an egg white.

    And it is definitely asparagus season, cutting many spears each day to enjoy and share.

    This week has brought news of the loss of two of our acquaintances, one was a neighbor who has been in very poor health for a number of years. He was my age. The other from my childhood. He was a son of the director at Shrine Mont when I was a child visiting there in the summer, about 11 years my senior, he was a teen and young adult then, later he became the director that replacing his Dad, and the father of the current director. I was told that he also had been in poor health for a while.

    And the news this week included the deaths of two young college athletes, both good students, who took their own lives. Suicide is a topic that demands more discussion. As a retired school counselor, experiencing the suicide of a few students over the years, it is difficult to discuss, but it must to save the lives of people in distress.

  • The Pin Cushion

    With the onset of Covid and advancing age, there have been many vaccines administered in the past months for protection. With 4 Covid vaccines and boosters, a pneumonia vaccine, and the two vaccine series of shingles shots, I feel like a pin cushion. Most of them didn’t bother me except for a sore arm, but the second Covid shot and the second booster, both made me feel yucky. Today I got the second shingles vaccine and first off, that injection burns and often causes the recipient to feel poorly. We will see. Another reaction I get with every vaccine, also the three times I have had imaging dye is a metallic taste that lingers for several hours. But hopefully, protection levels are higher at this point.

    We have been experiencing very warm weather and the lilac has blossomed with it’s delightful scent in the front of the house. Behind the house, the first Bearded Iris have bloomed and they are the grape iris that are not only light purple, but smell like grapes. Soon the other iris colors will bloom, then later the Dutch Iris and then the day lilies. Some of the deck pots and the small annual garden have been seeded with Cosmos and Coreopsis, a half barrel awaits the herbs that were removed from the hydroponic garden, but more potting soil needs to be obtained first.

    It amazes me that those two iris that couldn’t be dug out have come up between the stones being set for the patio. Most of them are not bound in by stones.

    Tomorrow will be about 20 degrees cooler than today and will remain in the 60’s during the day for the next 10 days or so. Fortunately, there are no freezing nights in the forecast, hopefully no more for the spring season. Mother’s day is the target date for planting out the tomato and pepper transplants and seeding out the rest of the garden.

    Water has been set up for the bees so they can drink without drowning. With the boggy bottom of the sink hole, they may discover that as well.

  • A Bee-utiful day

    The weather is glorious and we took a walk, followed by a visit with my local bee keeping friend and her husband as they did their post winter box inspections. That was delightful and a bit overwhelming as we asked questions and got answers, they offered other information, showed us around. I am glad we live where we do as their property doesn’t have a flat spot on it that they haven’t created themselves. To the point that many areas are being made into gardens so it doesn’t have to be mowed. They also don’t have a lot of open space for sunshine and they are only a few miles from us, less as the crow flies. One of my issues was how quickly the bees are emptying the feeders, and they suggested switching to quart jars instead of pints.

    Once home, new batches of syrup were started and the son that got us going and is the official owner of our hives called for an update and he answered more questions. I hope my feeble brain can hold all this information. As we were talking, he walked back to check on his two hives and his feeders were empty too, so I passed on the suggestion of quarts.

    Because we haven’t had rain in a few days, the hoses were moved around and the back garden was watered. And the little garden built last year over the septic clean out received a bird bath half filled with rocks so the bees can find water and not drown. To keep the chickens out of that bed as seedlings of flowers are beginning to germinate there, a section of old fencing was cut as a cover with a hole in the middle to allow the birdbath base to fit through.

    After dinner, it was still bright sunny and hot, but the bee garb was donned, the quart jars of syrup loaded into a large bucket and the bees were fed. They were pretty agitated that the empty feeders were removed, but calmed back down when the larger feeders of syrup were placed in the hive openings.

    The very novice bee lady.

    What couldn’t be captured with gloves through the veil net was a picture of the cloud of bees circling the hives and me. This turned into a bee filled day and is quite an adventure. I had read that the hives could/should be different colors or decorated, so some of the remaining boxes are going to get painted and decorated before they are installed on the existing boxes. I need to get some acrylic paints and get creative.

  • Bee Help

    Part of the excitement of this new project is the help that is offered by near and far friends. Friends I have met through this blog and friends that I have met through other friends. The local one, recently introduced to me by a spinner friend, with her husband has 14 hives and she was excited to see our set up. She came over yesterday and made a few suggestions. One was to lower the bottom strand of the electric fence as it was high enough for skunks to go under it without touching it. She said a skunk would scratch at the front of the hive at night, causing bees to come out to examine why and get picked off as they left the hive.

    Last night after dinner, bee jacket and veil put donned, fence equipment box hauled down to the enclosure and the electric fence reworked with strands 6″ off the ground, 14″ off the ground, 30″ and about 42″. This should discourage most of our local predators. There are now 4 strands instead of 3, lower and closer together. If I can figure out how to use the volt meter, I will test it’s strength.

    When the enclosure was reached, all 4 feeders were empty and the hives were very active. After fencing was finished, syrup was made and the feeders filled. The activity at the hives was encouraging and many of the bees were out foraging. Soon it will be warm enough and they will be settled in enough that the feeders can be removed.

    She also suggested placing a brick or rock on top of each hive. That didn’t get done today but will tomorrow.

    The distant friend from the blog has offered many suggestions on predator deterrent and winter feeding, providing a website link and all that has helped and will help as I move forward with this project.

    I did learn that that the bee suit is very hot when the outdoor temperature is above 70f. I can just image what it will be like come August. But the bees are very docile. I have filled their feeders from behind the hives twice, reaching over to pull the feeder to fill and today mowed a 10 foot wide path in front of the electric fence both with no protection on and no bees bothered me.

    None of this would have been possible without our youngest son asking to put hives on our property and teaching me how to work with them between his trips up here to check on them.

    Our local teenage grandson came today for riding mower lessons after farmer’s market. It was nice having most of it done while I stayed on the porch or in the house. Since this was his first time, I did the “difficult” parts, the steeper embankments, orchard, around obstacles, and the section below the garden that used to be garden and is very rough. He did a great job and seemed to have fun zooming around the yard.