November Farm journal, 124

 Monday I got my first acupuncture - it was a little scary but not painful and I had an amazing visualization initially of being an insect pinned to a board - which sounds awful but was more intriguing than anything - and near the end had a visceral visualization of being a caterpillar forming a cocoon and then beginning to form wings. 

I felt lighter leaving the session and better overall. Yesterday I had the brilliant idea to give away the plethora of extra goldenrod coming up (that I really needed to clear out)  to local beekeepers if they would come and dig them out. Today four people came by, we all wore masks, and I spent the entire day doing gardening and hanging out while they got their goldenrods. It was a super fun day, with great conversations and in some way seemed to mark a shift in my overall mood toward (a new) normal. Masks - yes - but still, social interaction. 

I feel that the acupuncture is a big part of this happening.

Thankfully my farm helpers worked hard on Tuesday doing a lot of weeding in the pollinator beds and finishing up the work under the deck in the back yard. As always, there are more projects than I can tackle, but today I was able to start the process of transplanting some extra growth from one side of our front sidewalk to the other side. I hope I can move one species across a day, and extend the visual field of that pollinator bed across the sidewalk as a continuation. I need to take some photos to show this, and I will if I can remember to stop and do it while doing the work.

Everything is coming in nicely so far. I’ve gotten on the mulch delivery list early and will try to get these beds cleared of winter foliage, weeds, and mulched before the end of this month! I’ll make that goal thanks to my helpers, who work like speed demons compared to me. :)

The herd will be moving to night-time turn-out soon. Rafer’s grazing muzzle has been fitted and he accepted it without any drama. It is light in weight and not restrictive for air flow, and he seemed fine grazing with it. Unfortunately, the halter size that I thought would fit the donkeys is too small, so Rafer went into the pony size and now I have to order two more pony size halters. This weekend we have to get the track set up now that everything has arrived.

We’re in the throes of pollen season now and it’s a mess already! Will get worse before it gets better, but I’m so happy to see leaves on trees and green and spring, I won’t complain. 

Too much to do, too little time, but I love that today I got some work done and also took the opportunity to enjoy great conversations and camaraderie with several very interesting beekeeping gardening women. Joy!

Happy Easter from November Hill

 We’re having a lovely day overall. Hope you are too!

November Hill farm journal, 123

 This week we have scout bees checking out both our bait hives. Hegemone hive is bursting at the seams, and as soon as we get past the point of having cold nights (several nights this week we could be seeing temps at 29 degrees F!) I’m going to try doing a runaway split using Sam Comfort’s method of taking the brood box and base of Hegemone, moving it to where the Echo bait hive is now sitting, and move the Echo base to Hegemone’s current location with Hegemone’s top box. The idea is that the original Hegemone brood box contains the queen and she and nurse bees plus lots of eggs and brood will go to a new location. The old location will have some brood and resources - and a number of foragers will return to the new Echo hive we’ve placed there. The Echo hive will have to raise a new queen, and this gap in egg-laying will create what’s called a brood break, which is a good way to also create a varroa mite break. The runaway part is that you don’t get invasive - you simply move brood boxes and let the bees do their thing.

The main benefit is that with Hegemone thriving right now, we’ll avoid their natural swarm - or to be more precise, we will get to keep what would have been their swarm - and by doing that we’ll have two very good hives going into the nectar flow. Hegemone genetics are good by all measures we can make, so we want to keep them and build our apiary using their swarms as much as we can.

Artemis hive is still very small. I’m seeing a little bit of activity and we’ll see if they pick up as we move forward. 

The scout bees I’m seeing around the two bait hives are very light in color, so I’m thinking these are not any of our bees scouting. I’m hoping we’ll get to see a swarm move in.

Over the weekend I did a mild power-washing of our back deck. After a lot of consideration, mostly having to do with what I can tolerate in terms of work being done this spring, we decided to simply repair our existing deck and spruce things up a bit instead of having the entire thing redone. I ordered a few things from Lowe’s, did curbside pick-up, and here’s what I ended up with:

I have to admit that I’m a failure at power washing. It was obvious as I worked on it that if I really went at it, I could get the deck back to near original condition and then would need to treat it for best results. However, doing this in the few spots I tried it meant that a lot of dirt was flying onto the sliding glass doors and side of the house, and I would have needed to then clean THAT off, and I definitely did not want to end up having to treat the decking right now. It feels like everything sets off a series of domino chores needing to be done. I pulled back well short of that happening. 

Today we had some help taking care of an issue that’s been developing over the past year with a certain canine family member who methodically dug out a cave den beneath the deck steps that was 3x her size. This hole was holding water when it rains and generally just a big fat mess. 

This is where we got to addressing that today:

The muddy when wet clay beneath the deck is now covered with clean gravel, the cave den has been filled in, and we have a tidy grid panel to keep the dogs out. The panel to the far left is removable for accessing the dryer vent, and the deck railing and stair rail have been repaired so they are stable again. I’m going to plant something in front of the longer section of railing that will act as a rain garden type thing to help with run-off which has been happening since we bought the house. We’ve slowed it doing some other things but this should really make a difference. 

Once we get the rest of the deck underlay graveled and paneled, we’ll also have a cat door so they can go in and out. They like having space where the dogs can’t go, and this will do nicely for them. 

I really wanted the grid paneling to be black enamel, but it’s been out of stock at all the local (and beyond) sources for months and this project couldn’t wait. At some point we’ll redo the entire deck and when we do, we can make some upgrades. This will do for summer and fall and then we’ll see where we are. 

I’m grooming huge wads of fur off the equines this week, in particular, the pony, to the degree that I am getting his ACTH checked when the vet is here this month. He may be having PPID symptoms. The pastures are greening up quickly and we have all our materials to move to donkey and pony get fit boot camp. 

In other news, I received my second Covid shot today (it feels like today still but at this point it was yesterday). I have a sore arm and I woke up at 4 a.m. but other than that am not having other issues yet. 

We’re expecting rain/storms this afternoon/evening, a few days of much cooler weather, than more clearing and warm days beyond that, when I can move on to the garden beds that need to be prepped for spring!

Welcome to the world, Baby Will

 This happened over the weekend and we are very very excited to meet this little poppet. Photo credit to his beautiful mama.

November Hill farm journal, 122

We’re rolling along into spring here on November Hill. The maples have bloomed, redbuds are blooming, the red deadnettle is full of bees, and the dogwoods are preparing to pop out. In the garden beds, many things are leafing up and out, and I’ve started removing the winter foliage that we left for birds and insects. It’s time to start the weeding too, but I like to let the early flowering weeds stay since they do offer some pollen for native and honey bees.

Spring means grass, right? And for people with easy keeper equines it is a mixed blessing. This year Rafer Johnson is carrying more weight than he needs to, and honestly, so is the pony. Redford was gelded later than the norm and either because of that or because he just has different genes, he doesn’t tend to pack on the pounds. Even he has a little bit right now! So, I made the hard decision to put all three of them in grazing muzzles and ordered the new Thinline “Flexible Fillies” ones with padded halters to secure them. These are softer and lighter in weight than the old basket muzzles, and they offer much more “breathing” room. I am sure they won’t be popular with the donka boys or the pony, but my hope is they’ll be the least worst alternative to endless calories.

I also ordered supplies to create a track area in the back pasture that will connect to the riding arena. When the herd is turned out to the front, the littles will wear their muzzles. But when they’re turned out to the back, the littles can have the arena plus a track that will run most of the perimeter of the back pasture, with two areas that widen out for a lot of room for puttering around. They won’t need their muzzles on when they’re turned out in the track area. 

My plan is to do a full-on boot camp with them this spring, on through summer, and into fall, in hopes that I can turn things around with the weight gain and they can handle late fall - early spring normally. We’ll see. The good thing is that Keil Bay and Cody will be right in the midst of the track so no one will feel isolated or separated. And when they’re in during the heat, the paddocks are both minimal in grass so they won’t have to wear muzzles for that time either. 

Right now out the window the donkeys are playing their donkey-go-round game, which reveals their dexterity and burns a lot of calories I’m sure, so I’m happy to see them in such good spirits. Imagine how much better Rafer Johnson will feel when he can run like his namesake!

Keil Bay is having some minor symptoms this week. We had the roof replaced, then the next week we had the arborist do some tree work, and we also had a rain/storm event (that thankfully did not really hit us the way it could have) - all these things combined created some stress on the farm and it’s during these times that I see Keil sticking a hind leg out. He’s in super spirits though, and his chiropractor did some big adjustments last weekend, and she said she thinks he’s doing well and that I shouldn’t get too upset by the leg thing. He’s stable and he really does seem happy, so we’ll keep doing what we’re doing and celebrate his 32nd birthday next month!

Speaking of birthdays, Cody just had his 18th. How in the world is he that many years old? He remains the handsome, easy-going, sweetheart he’s always been. And honestly, he could use some riding, so maybe that will be our adventure this spring. Happy birthday, Cody! 

In other news, we have put up a bait hive in Poplar Folly. And it has scout bees checking it out! Maybe we’ll get a wild swarm to move in. I’m eagerly checking it daily. For some reason, I can’t get any photos to load right now, so I’ll add a few in a new post later.

Hegemone hive is bursting at the seams and I’m going to try something called a “runaway split” to see if I can get a new hive going from this very robust one. Their genetics seem perfect and I want to expand them in my apiary.

Artemis hive - a puzzle. They were not as strong as Hegemone from the start, but they made it through the winter. They are just not very active, and the next warm/dry day we’re going to go into the brood box and see what’s happening. I’d like to seem them build out and get stronger and I may try to move a frame of brood from Hegemone into Artemis - I’d love to get them to accept a queen cell from Hegemone if I find any. All this is more manipulative than I really want to be with the hives, but while I’m learning about beekeeping I’m going to push myself to experiment some and see how things go. 

Generally, we’re taking a little break from home repairs. I’m getting a quote today for exterior painting, and since that will at least be quiet and I can keep the herd in the back, we’ll move forward with that when we can get on their schedule. 

Writing news: I learned yesterday in a pure piece of random whim, that my short story Trauma Tattoo was honorably mentioned in Ellen Datlow’s Best Horror of the Year, volume ten. This happened in 2017 and I just learned of it yesterday! I’m truly honored, as she is the queen of horror anthologies (horror being an umbrella category that includes science fiction, fantasy, and speculative fiction, which is what Trauma Tattoo is). My stories in this vein are more Twilight Zone than pure horror, and I’m really happy I found out that TT got some notice the year it was published. 

Writing weekend is coming up, so I’ll be putting in some writing time and getting on the track again after a busy month.

On the Covid front, my immediate family is almost totally 1/2 vaccinated. I get my second shot next week. This feels like progress, and I’m grateful for the leadership that made the roll-out happen. To be clear, that is Biden/Harris and our governor Roy Cooper. 

I trust spring is starting to peek its way into many of your farms, yards, and windows. It’s good to be where we are this year, isn’t it?