Palazzo Rospo

Car Show in Elizabethon, TN

noreply@blogger.com (Leslie) — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 22:21:00 +0000

When I went to visit my Dad in May, we took one evening and went to Elizabethton, TN. During the summer, all summer long, the town of Elizabethton closes its main street on Saturday evening and folks bring their hobby cars in various states of renovation. There's lots of showing off and the car owners talk about how to get this or that done, and where they've found good suppliers for various parts. There's no admission charge and the atmosphere is relaxed and friendly.

I really liked the old cars. My favorite old cars are the ones with huge fins. There weren't very many "fin" cars there the day we went, but there were a couple beautiful old cars. The one in front is a Packard with a swan hood ornament from probably the early 1940s. I don't remember what the other car is but I think it was also a Packard.

My husband really likes the old Shelby Cobras, so I had to photograph this little gem!

There were some hot rods, too. My favorite of the hot rods was this unlikely Ford Pinto. Look how tall they've stacked all that engine stuff! I don't even know what that stuff is called, but it's impressive. Look at the back - it has little "training wheels" so it can't flip over backwards when popping a wheelie. On a Ford Pinto!

Sawing Lumber - part III

noreply@blogger.com (Leslie) — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 22:43:00 +0000

The last of my sawmill (and related) photos.

My Dad puts the cut off rounded sides of log on this table/bench/shelf thing he made. Rather than having a solid top like a table, it's an open structure with occasional supports going front to back. He has it marked at intervals, and he uses his chainsaw to cut through the entire stack of scrap and make them regular lengths so they fit well in his wood stove. Clicking the photo for a larger view makes it much easier to see how it works. Simple, yet ingenious.

Sometimes the wood is flat on both sides but the edges are too wiggly and non-uniform to be suitable for lumber. Or sometimes it's flat on both sides but of an odd thickness, due to shaving off the "extra" in order to get all 2x or 1x thicknesses. He uses these odd pieces to make "stickers" which are used for garden stakes or for stacking wood. The stickers can be of non-uniform width, but they have to be a consistent thickness.

Here is a stack of 1x lumber of varying widths. This lumber will be used for siding on sheds or board-and-batten construction. To stack wood, Dad places cinder blocks, rocks, or whatever on the ground and then puts cross-pieces of wood in place; he'll lay the lumber on these cross-pieces. This is to keep the lumber off the ground so it stays dry and doesn't rot or get infested by insects. The lumber stack isn't exactly level; it slants ever so slightly toward one end. This facilitates air flow and drainage of any water that should get into the stack of lumber.

He puts the cross-pieces of wood at about 30" intervals. Then he lays a layer of lumber on the cross-pieces. Then he puts stickers on the layer of lumber directly above the wood cross-pieces. Then a layer of lumber, a layer of stickers, etc. until all the lumber is stacked. It's important not to get the stickers too far apart, and to get them placed directly over one another so that the lumber doesn't dry in a warped fashion.

On top of the whole structure he puts old tin roofing. He overlaps it, with the top piece being on the "uphill" end of the stack (remember, it's not quite level). Then he weights the tin down with cinder blocks or rocks to keep it from blowing away. Lumber stacked like this will stay good for years if the weeds are kept out of it.

Sawing Lumber - part II

noreply@blogger.com (Leslie) — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 22:38:00 +0000

As always, you can click any of the photos for a larger view.

Here the log is in place and the first cut is being made. Getting the log positioned properly is, to me, the most tedious part of the whole thing. A log that looks straight can turn out to be surprisingly crooked when you try to line it up for cutting. All those lumps and bumps where branches used to be get in the way and have to be dealt with, too. It takes some turning and jostling to get it lined up so that your cuts go straight down the log and produce the most lumber possible.

The log has been turned so that the flat side is flush against some vertical dogs. Wooden wedges are seen holding the log in position for the second cut. These first two cuts are critical. After this cut the log always lies on a flat side and things square up pretty well. Dad said the first log he cut, it took him a couple of days just staring and turning, turning and staring. Now he does several in a day. He sees a lot when he looks at a log.

Here the wood is being cut to two inch thicknesses. In all these pictures Dad is using a 2x2 (more or less) to help push the blade mechanism forward. Lots of times he just wedges that stick between his hip and the mobile portion of the mill and walks slowly forward. He's figured out a lot of little tricks to make the sawing less strenuous on both him and his sawmill.

Pure magic! 2x4 lumber from a tree trunk.
You see how those boards are raising up? I didn't know this but trees have a lot of internal stress and as you cut them, they like to twist and turn. So when you see warped lumber it's probably not that the sawmill did a poor job cutting the lumber, it's more likely due to internal stress within the wood itself.

Rabbit Ear Problem

noreply@blogger.com (Leslie) — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 16:10:00 +0000

I have something weird going on in the rabbitry. A few of the rabbits look like their ears have been bitten and chewed on. Wednesday I was able to grab the worst and we took photos of its ears. They're not the best quality photos, because it's surprisingly difficult to photograph a rabbit's ears. No flash, and they're blurry. Flash, and they wash out. ANYway.

Here's another shot of that same ear. I thought perhaps the problem was overcrowding, and they were nibbling on one another's ears. I have about 21 or 24 rabbits in there, plus one litter coming above ground. Now that I've beat the rat problem, I have lots of rabbits. I have some ready to butcher this weekend or next, so that will relieve some of the stress from crowding.

But then look at this. This doesn't look like chewing on ears, does it? I'm not sure what I'm dealing with. Maybe a fungus or a parasite?

Another shot of that right ear. I'm going to ask my rabbit buddies on the Homesteading Today forums what they think.

I have about 5 rabbits affected by this, but only this one has the bad spot in the middle of the ear, and only this one looks so chewed up. The others are just slightly chewed looking and for the most part it's right on the tips. I do have one other one that has a naked spot on its ear where the fur has come out but it's totally naked, not messed up like this one.

Dad's Sawmill - a close up view

noreply@blogger.com (Leslie) — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 22:22:00 +0000

You can click on the pic for a pretty darned large version (2272 x 1712) where you can see the letters and what I'm describing.

I wish I'd thought to take more photos of how this amazing machine actually works, but this will have to do.
A - This jar holds either water or kerosene, depending on what kind of wood is being cut. More about this later.
B - A 5 gallon plastic bucket hanging by a rope; it catches excess sawdust and has to be emptied regularly.
C - A square plastic box that holds fuel. The little cylinder on top is where you open it to put fuel in, and the bent wire thing is the fuel gauge. It's on a float inside the fuel tank and you can poke on it and bob it to see how much fuel you have left :)
D - A silvery yardstick. This is used to calibrate the height of the blade so you get 1x or 2x or 4x lumber. My Dad had to make special marks on it with a permanent pen, to allow for the kerf (the part of the wood that gets eaten up by the saw).
E - These horizontal logs/branches are at the bottom of the step-like area on the hill (the hill is to the right of this photo) where the logs are rolled down and onto the sawmill. They roll down the hill, across these pieces of wood, and onto the metal frame of the sawmill.

Under the log you can see the metal structure that supports the logs (Dad welded it around a construction I-beam), one of the wheels (it's a portable sawmill), and on the ground you see what looks like scrap wood. The scraps are triangular and are used to wedge the log in place while it's still round and the first cuts are being made.

Although it looks cluttered, every bit and piece serves a purpose. The only part my dad didn't assemble is the gray part that shields the saw blade and has the big wheels in it that propel the saw blade.

This is looking from the other side of the sawmill, at the blade going around a big wheel. This is inside the gray plastic shield (temporarily removed while the blade was being changed). See how the sawdust wants to build up on that little black roller? A buildup of sawdust causes the blade to stretch and slip - and it can break, too! Dad says it's spectacular when a blade breaks. And very dangerous.

Remember the jar marked 'A'? There's a hose running from the jar to this roller. Dad drips kerosene or water on this area to wash it clean. Kerosene for sappy softwoods like pine, water for hardwoods like oak (or Weekend Farmer's walnut :)

Sawing Lumber - part I

noreply@blogger.com (Leslie) — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 23:04:00 +0000

My Dad has some logs lying in his field. Folks in the area know he has a sawmill and when they clear land sometimes they bring him the logs. They do this because they don't need the firewood and it's a good way to get rid of the logs... and besides, they like my Dad :)

First you have to figure out what type of lumber you're going to need. 2"x4"x12'? 1"x3"x10'? Then you go hunt up a log that's about the right length. We had figured out what lumber I'd need to build a chicken coop, and we marked the appropriate logs with red spray paint. We measured twice, just to be sure.

Then my Dad dragged the logs over to the sawmill with his tractor and the tongs.

This photo is taken from the hill to the right of the sawmill building. It shows some extra logs to the left of the ladder (foreground), and the area where my Dad rolls the logs down the hill to the right. The area where he rolls the logs has lumber laid out on it, to make sort of like a staircase. He rolls the logs one or two levels at a time, and uses bits of stump or other scrap wood to stop them from rolling all the way down at once.

A log is amazingly heavy. It could break your leg or crush you before you even knew what was happening. So you want to keep it under control.

Also, if the log rolls down the hill all in one fell swoop, it gathers speed and can roll onto the sawmill and right off the other side of it. Or jump partway off and get lodged awkwardly against the sawmill. It would be a royal pain to fix that kind of a mess.

So, my Dad has created this staging area and it works great. Click the photo for a larger view, where you can see the engine/sawing part of the sawmill and the metal frame that the saw rides on down there in the shadows of the building.

Dad's Sawmill

noreply@blogger.com (Leslie) — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 21:43:00 +0000

This is the building that houses my Dad's sawmill. Like his garage, it is a pole structure and he built it himself with wood that he cut on his sawmill. The sawmill lived in the field until this structure was built.

The left-hand bay currently houses a flatbed trailer. The right-hand bay houses the sawmill. It's on wheels so it can be towed, and my Dad made it himself. The only part he got already assembled was the blade housing. He welded the I-beam and a bunch of parts together, and attached the axles, and put on a motor, and a bunch of other stuff I don't pretend to understand. It's a COOL thing. I didn't really appreciate it until I got to help him saw wood with it. Well, he sawed. I stayed out of the way and dumped the sawdust bucket when it got full.

The big white barrel halves hold sawdust. Behind them is a big fan, to blow the sawdust away from you while you work and help you breathe; it also keeps you cool on hot days. The sawmill itself is back in the shadows (click for a larger view) but you can see some of it, orange and black and white. To the right is a clever shelf thing with some scraps of wood on it. I'll talk about the clever shelf thing in another post.

The sawmill building is built next to a hill (to the right of the building in this photo) so Dad can drag logs over with his tractor, then roll them down the hill and onto the sawmill. He can do everything from start to finish by himself.

Logging Tools

noreply@blogger.com (Leslie) — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 21:32:00 +0000

My Dad has a sawmill. When I visited in May, we cut some lumber. These are a couple of the tools we used.

This Peavey was my great-grandfather's. Dad has a couple of them. They're used to maneuver logs.

A "cant" is a squared off log. A "cant hook" looks like this but it doesn't have a pointy end (so you can't stick it in the ground and tell it to wait for you). A peavey is a cant hook with a spike on it.

These tongs are used to haul logs with the tractor. You just open them up, put them on the log, and then when the tractor pulls they close automatically. It looks simple but they're big and heavy and I was pretty retarded looking the first few times I tried to get them to hook and unhook.

Road Trip

noreply@blogger.com (Leslie) — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 21:51:00 +0000

I went out of town for a long weekend this past weekend. My travels took me across the New River Gorge Bridge. I've been across a few times, but this time I decided to stop and enjoy a view of the bridge. It was about 5:30 in the evening, the air was visibly humid, my lens wasn't exactly clean, and the sun was in my face. But I snapped a photo anyway.

This is the second highest bridge in the US (876 feet) and the largest steel span bridge in the world. I didn't even know it existed until I drove across it because MapQuest said that was the best way to go.

Clever Shelf

noreply@blogger.com (Leslie) — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 12:42:00 +0000

Our old house has two closets. They were added into two of the bedrooms after the bedrooms were built, so they intrude into the room. They're pretty small, about 4'x6'. Maybe not that deep. We have no coat closet, no linen closet, no place to hide the broom and vacuum cleaner, no place to put aspirin and bandaids, no place for board games or toys.

Evidently, the prior owners also felt the need for more storage space, and they had some very clever solutions. Here is a shelf in the mud room, fashioned of a piece of board and some baling twine. I wouldn't have thought it would be stable if you described it to me, but it works like a champ.

Clever, huh?

Walking Onions

noreply@blogger.com (Leslie) — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 21:25:00 +0000

I really like the idea of walking onions. I like the idea of anything perennial, or that's easy to save seeds from - like berries, asparagus, garlic, or beans. Thus, I was moved to order some Egyptian Walking Onion sets. I planted the little sets in the ground around October/November, when I planted garlic. They came up looking a lot like any old onion. The above photo is of walking onions that I planted last fall; the photo was taken May 5th.

I'm not sure when to divide and replant the onions. These are onions that were new last year, and are big and thick and in a group this year. I do know that walking onions don't form bulbs. You eat them early in the Spring before they form topsets, or you can eat the topsets like pearl onions. You only need a little. They are supposed to be very potent. I haven't eaten any of mine yet because I wanted to save my topsets to increase my stock. I'll probably eat some next spring.

Here's an onion just forming a topset. The first thing that happens is a swelling at the end of an onion... stalk? leaf? with a thin white membrane covering it.

The membrane splits open to reveal baby onions inside. Pretty cool!

Another shot of topsets just opening up. All of these photos were taken May 5th so the onions are a good six weeks further along than this now. I'll see if I can't get a few more pics soon and post about their progress.

If anyone knows about when I should divide and replant my older onions, I'd like to hear from you. I figured I'd wait until the tops died down... but by the time they did it was COLD and the ground was frozen. They're hardy! Mine overwintered without any extra mulching, though I did lose a few. The lowest temps last winter were probably about -8F.

Cherry Picking

noreply@blogger.com (Leslie) — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 21:57:00 +0000

Here's Louie with a haircut, supervising the cherry picking preparation. He's completely shaved except for a mop of hair on his head and a fu manchu beard. Well, technically, a fu manchu is a mustache but I couldn't find out what the beard part is called.

We used to use rickety ladders but now we use the tractor.

We let the kids climb in the loader, then we lift them up and they pick their little hearts out. Rolf is getting in on the action. My husband says we should have named him Visa, because he's EVERYWHERE we want to be.

We have three cherry trees here. This year two were absolutely LOADED and the third had practically nothing on it. Same type, same location. We picked 6 pints our first picking and there will be lots more as they ripen over the next few days... as long as we get to them before the birds and chipmunks!

Nests

noreply@blogger.com (Leslie) — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 21:26:00 +0000

What's that in the canopy of the tractor??

It's a bird nest, and it's been there since Spring 2007. This is its second year and I swear I think it's grown, so I think it got used again this Spring. I don't know how a bird can get into that nest, or how it likes having its home moved around. Spring is a busy time for a tractor.

This is a bit of my garden, one of the beds I haven't yet yanked the weeds out of and planted. I *should* have cleaned up last fall but I didn't and this is the result. Yuck! But look what's tucked into the cattle panel by the T-post (I use cattle panels as a trellis for my peas, cukes, and tomatoes).

It's a newly hatched baby house sparrow, with three eggs still to hatch. Needless to say, this garden bed will stay weedy a while longer - or at least this section will!

A cropped version of the above pic, that I didn't scale down. You can click on it to see a larger version. The little bird's leg is clearly showing and its head is in the shade. Before I ran to get the camera it was sitting up with its tiny mouth wide open, waiting for mama to bring it some food.

Kittens at Six Weeks

noreply@blogger.com (Leslie) — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 21:40:00 +0000

Meccie (MEK-ee) had kittens about six weeks ago. They're fluffy, cute and BUSY! This morning they were all together in a chair in the pantry. They were being extra cute, but a pantry does not make an attractive background so I've tried to edit out some of the noise in these pics.

We think we might call the black one Rorschach, Rory for short. The gray and dark multi-colored ones are both girls, but they haven't revealed their names to us yet. They are playing coy. That's Meccie with her back to me in the lefthand portion of the photo. She's playing coy, too.

Dad's Garage

noreply@blogger.com (Leslie) — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 21:23:00 +0000

Yay! I can upload images again. Let's hope this time it stays fixed.

This is the garage my Dad built with wood he sawed himself on his sawmill. He still plans to put doors in the big openings but it works just fine like it is. This particular opening is actually used more for walk-in access; the drive-in access is from the right as we're viewing the garage now.

Here's where you drive in. Plenty of room for a pickup and a tractor.

The garage is framed with large timbers and then 1-bys are put on the outside. Kind of like a board-and-batten structure without the battens.

This is a closeup of the support beam on the right-hand side of the previous picture. Dad charred the post to prevent insect damage. He also doesn't let the wood walls go all the way to the ground; the bottom portion of the wall is tin roofing. This prevents rot and insect damage by keeping the wood dry and away from the dirt.

He made window flashing above his windows.

Inside view of the windows. They lock closed with a piece of wood that turns, and they open only so far, thanks to a bit of string.

My Dad is an unbelievably clever "can-do" type of guy.

Visit with Dad

noreply@blogger.com (Leslie) — Fri, 23 May 2008 20:58:00 +0000

Yay! I can post photographs again! Thanks, Blogger!

I visited my Dad in Tennessee last week. This was the view I woke up to each morning (click to view larger version). I remember when I was a little girl and my grandparents owned this property. Nobody lived on it but I'd go with my grandfather to check on the cattle and I'd skip flat stones on the pond. The pond developed a sinkhole a year or two ago, but after significant effort involving (I think) boulders, bags of cement, and bentonite, it's beginning to hold water again.

My Dad keeps a small herd of Angus cattle. Last year, due to the drought, he sold off all but four cows and a juvenile female. This spring all four cows calved. I love seeing the calves frolic. It's amazing how playful and energetic they are when young, and how slow and complacent they become when they're mature.

Whenever I'm at my Dad's, I end up taking lots of photographs of "the view". Here the cattle are heading to the pond with "the view" in the background.

We had some good adventures while I was there. I look forward to posting about them next week.

Grrr :(

noreply@blogger.com (Leslie) — Tue, 20 May 2008 21:08:00 +0000

Went to Tennessee to visit my Dad. Came home with pics and stories. Blogger is not letting me upload pics.

Dag nabbit.

Baby Chicks!

noreply@blogger.com (Leslie) — Mon, 12 May 2008 16:03:00 +0000

Well it is certainly Spring here at Palazzo Rospo. Last Thursday we had kittens and today we have chicks. I find it SO exciting.

For the first time in the two years we've been keeping chickens, we had a hen go broody. For a couple of nights in a row, when I locked up the chickens at night, she was in the nest box (plastic cat litter-box, the kind with a lid) rather than on the roost. In the morning, though, she'd get up and run grab some food along with the rest of her flock. Then on about the third day she didn't run grab food. She sat in that nest box and for three weeks I NEVER saw her leave it.

This morning when I went to give the chickens their food and fresh water, there was a dead chick on the floor of the chicken coop. I expect it had hatched and gotten out of the nest box but been unable to get back in, so it got chilled and died.

I put the nest box, with hen and eggs in it, in the brooder box I made for brooding incubated chicks. I put a nice thick fluffy layer of wood chips down and built a little ramp of wood chips going up to the nest box entrance so if any chicks do get out, hopefully they'll be able to get back in.

I also put the chick waterer and feeder in the brooder box, and turned on the heat lamp in the corner opposite the nest box. This way the chicks have something to eat and drink (though they'll be okay for about three days with no food or water), and if they can't get in the nest box or don't want to, they can hang out under the heat lamp. That's the way I raise my incubated chicks and they do great.

I don't know how many chicks have hatched. I counted seven (plus the dead one) but they're all hanging out in the nest box. I don't even know how many eggs she was sitting on. She's doing a great job. I can't wait to see them all running around being busy little chick babies. The hen growled at me when I took these pictures. I'd never heard a hen growl before.

Kittens!

noreply@blogger.com (Leslie) — Fri, 09 May 2008 13:44:00 +0000

Meccie (pronounced MEK-ee) had kittens yesterday! She was VERY agitated yesterday morning. She attacked the dog, stayed underfoot everywhere we went, and was generally acting very weird.

She sat in my lap or my husband's lap until about 2:00 p.m. Around 11:30 or 12:00 you could see she was having contractions. She panted a lot and her ears got really hot.

Her first kitten, the gray one in the bottom left corner, was born about 2:00 p.m. and the black (and orange and white?) one was born about 4:00 p.m. Here she is cleaning up the black (and orange and white?) one. You'll be able to see them better if you click to view a larger image - but even so it's not the greatest photo. Too much black, too much wiggling, too much busy Meccie to see the kittens very well.

By the time we went to bed she'd only had the two, but we could tell there was at least one more kitten in there.

This morning there were three kittens. The last one born looks like it's solid black, just like Meccie.

Here's the black one, less than 24 hours old.

Installing Packaged Bees

noreply@blogger.com (Leslie) — Wed, 07 May 2008 13:42:00 +0000

When we decided to get bees, all I knew about them was that they lived in those square wooden box bee hive things. I didn't know how to get the bees in there though. Do they like the white boxes and move in on their own? Do you have to catch them in the wild? As it turns out, you can buy packaged bees complete with a queen. They generally come in 3 pound packages, in a wooden box with screened sides.

If your packaged bees are not hanging happily in a cluster as in the photograph, mix 1 part sugar to 1 part water and use a clean paint brush or pastry brush to brush the sugar water on the screen. Don't worry about getting some on the bees, they'll clean it off of themselves and each other. Keep painting until they begin to lose interest. When their bellies are full they'll calm down and cluster together.

Just leave them in the box and wait until late afternoon or early evening to install them. This way, as darkness falls, the bees are inclined to settle into the hive rather than run off exploring. In the morning, they'll make orientation flights and figure out where their new home is located and how to get back to it.

Use a screwdriver to pry the lid off of the packaged bees.

Beneath the lid you'll see two metal circles. The small one is attached to the queen's cage. The large one is a can that has sugar water in it and tiny holes on the bottom that allow the bees to eat in their journey to your home. Most bees are raised in warm climates such as Georgia, the Carolinas, or California. They sometimes travel a long way by truck before reaching their final destination.

You'll want to don your beekeeper's veil and possibly some gloves before you go any further. Pull the queen's cage out, using your hands or the screwdriver. Bees will start crawling out of the package; don't let that rattle you.

The queen's cage is a little piece of wood with an indented area for the queen and her attendants. The indented area in the cage shown is made of three circular areas drilled into, but not through, the piece of wood. There is a screen to provide ventilation and to keep the queen separated from the new hive until they've become accustomed to her pheromones. If you introduce a strange queen to a hive of bees, they may kill her. So you let them get to know one another over the period of a few days.

One end of the queen's cage has a fairly large "candy" filling and the other end is blocked with a very small cork. In the picture, the candy is white and fills the entire circular area on the left-hand side of the queen's cage. Remove the metal piece from the candy end, and hang the queen's cage in your bee hive between two frames. My hive currently has a deep box on the bottom and a shallow super; I placed the cage on top of the frames in the deep and removed a frame from the super to make space for the queen's cage.

Over the next few days, the bees will eat into the candy, eventually freeing the queen. By the time she makes her grand exit, the hive will be accustomed to her and they'll all get along swimmingly. I'll check the queen's cage in a few days and if she hasn't gotten out I'll remove the cork from the non-candy end of the cage. Once the queen is out, I'll remove the cage from the hive and replace the frame I removed from the shallow super.

Now remove the can of sugar water. The bees will begin exiting the package. Just move slowly and deliberately. Honeybees are curious, not aggressive; they generally don't sting unless they feel they're threatened.

Many folks say you can just set the package of bees, opening down, on the frames. They will exit the package and enter the hive in search of the queen. I did this, and balanced the hive's outer cover over the package to prevent dew from getting into the hive, on the bees, and chilling them.

When I went back after dark to remove the package and close up the hive, there were still a lot of bees in the package, so I resorted to the more common method of shaking the bees out of the package. You don't shake the package back and forth like you'd shake a ketchup bottle; rather, you raise it aloft and bring it down rapidly and stop with a good hard jerk, which causes the bees to fall out in a big clump. Two or three of these strong shakes and most of the bees were out of the package and in the hive.

I put the shallow super, the inner cover, and the outer cover in place and left the package near the hive entrance so the few remaining bees could make their way out of the package and into the hive.

I have another hive waiting on a package of bees that won't arrive for a couple of days. Like the hive I'm working with, the waiting one has drawn comb with some honey and pollen in it. I put an old towel over the entrance of the waiting hive, to prevent this new batch of bees from going next door and robbing it.

Early the next morning I went out to check on my bee hive. Most of the bees had left the package but a few remained motionless in small clusters; the overnight low was 41F.

There was lots of activity at the hive entrance, as bees took orientation flights and got ready for life in their new digs.

I went out again at noon when the temperatures were in the 70s and happily my "dead" bees had all thawed out and exited the package. While I probably won't harvest any honey for my own consumption until next year, I'll enjoy greater production from my garden, berry bushes, and fruit trees. I'll also get the enjoyment of watching these fascinating insects go about their daily activities.

Egg Incubator

noreply@blogger.com (Leslie) — Mon, 05 May 2008 15:36:00 +0000

I had the flu or something that knocked me totally on my butt for about two weeks. I've been playing catch-up (frighteningly behind on seed starting, garden prep, and transplanting!). I'm still not 100% but I'm good enough.

Last month, in April, I received some hatching eggs I'd ordered. I ordered 20 and they sent 24, probably in case of cracked eggs or duds. In fact, one egg was cracked slightly despite the eggs being VERY well packed in sawdust, egg cartons, and then newspaper.

I have a little incubator made out of styrofoam like one of those inexpensive coolers. When we got it, I got the egg turner, too, because I KNOW I'll forget whether or not I turned the eggs, or have a couple of evenings in a row when I'm not home due to bee club meetings or something like that.

The egg turner is six rails with soft plastic "cups" that look like upside-down tables. They rock ever so slowly from one side to the other, about four times a day. This mimics the hen turning the eggs in the nest so that the chick develops well inside the egg.

The incubator came with a hygrometer, which measures the humidity. I didn't realize until I took this photo how filthy my little hygrometer is. It came with the incubator. If the humidity is in the shaded area, everything is good. When the humidity drops, I pour a little bit of water in the bottom of the incubator (it has a plastic liner with a little trough where I can put the water - impossible to photograph though, as it's all white).

The incubator also came with a thermometer. Eggs like to stay at about 99.5F and this thermometer has a nice extra-wide marking at 99.5. The thermometer rests on a bent piece of metal so that it's elevated about egg-height off the floor of the incubator.

Here are the eggs after being placed in the incubator, in the egg turner, big end up. The big end goes up because that's where the air pocket is. The chick's head will develop in the big end. The eggs have a "B" on them that's not really visible in the small picture but they show up if you click to view the large picture. Anyway, the "B" is where the seller marked them. They are Buckeye chicken eggs and he raises several types of chickens.

This is the incubator when it's closed. It has a couple of little windows to look into. It has two red plastic air vent plugs. In the photo, one is still in place and one has been removed. You can see the ventilation hole near where the power cord comes out of the top of the incubator. When the eggs start hatching, you increase the humidity and remove the second plug.

Unfortunately, not ONE of my eggs hatched! I candled them (get in a dark room and hold a flashlight to the back of the egg) and most of them never even started developing. A few developed but none of them hatched. I used this incubator successfully last spring, so I figure it's bad eggs.

I've been told that if the Post Office X-rays eggs, most of them won't develop at all, as if they hadn't been fertilized. Those that do develop will probably develop poorly. So it's possible my eggs were X-rayed.

It's also possible the seller has a rooster with fertility problems, and/or he sent me eggs that were very old or had gotten chilled. Because he was so careful with the packaging, though, I tend to think X-rays might be the problem.

So, I've given up on Buckeye chickens (again) and I'm saving some of my own Speckled Sussex eggs to hatch out. I'm down to five hens, thanks to foxes and hawks. I have three roosters so I need to butcher a couple but, well, it's so easy to just put that off.

Starting Seeds

noreply@blogger.com (Leslie) — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 14:47:00 +0000

It's seed-starting season. Well, it has been for a while! I took these photos in late March.

This is the third season I've started my own plants indoors. Before this, I used to buy seedlings at the hardware store or a landscape/garden center. I don't know why I was ever intimidated by the idea of starting my own seeds, now that I've done it a couple of times.

I start by putting little seed cup things in a tray. Then I fill the cups with seed starter mix (not potting soil). I've learned I have to press the mix down in there, not leave it loose and fluffy. I used to take a spoon and fill each little cup. Now I just dump a bunch of mix on the middle of the tray and cups, and spread it out with my hands. I poke it down firmly with my fingers, dump some more, spread, poke... until all the little seed cups are full.

Some seeds (especially teeny tiny herb seeds) need to lie barely beneath the surface, or even on top of the surface. Other seeds, such as broccoli or peppers, need to be buried about 1/4". I use a high quality ball point pen to make my holes. The high quality ball point pen (this one from a hotel) is a key part of my seed starting equipment.

After I make all my holes, I drop two seeds in each hole. I get my seeds from Seed Savers Exchange and Southern Exposure Seed Exchange and they have an unbelievably good germination rate. If my seeds are older, or from the hardware store, I plant three or even four per hole.

After the seeds are in, I press the starting mix over them, or press them into the surface if they're tiny seeds that need to lie on the surface. Then I take out one little six- or nine-pack of the cups and put water into the tray. I don't ever water on top of the cups; I always water from beneath.

I'll let the starting mix dry out quite a bit before watering again, but I try not to let it get so dry the seedlings wilt. The first year I tended to over-water and almost loved my seedlings to a soggy death; now I'm better at ignoring them and they like it that way.

Because I keep my sprouting seeds under clear domes, I can't put little markers in to remind me what I planted where - the markers are too tall. And there's NO WAY I can trust my memory! So I make myself a little map on a spare sheet of paper. I write down what I planted and the date. For this task I use my high-quality ball point pen. Writing down the date helps me to not panic when I think something isn't sprouting quickly enough. I can look at the date and realize it's only been three days since I planted those seeds :)

Now we just wait...

Wind + Snow + Bees = Mess

noreply@blogger.com (Leslie) — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 12:38:00 +0000

At the beginning of the month, we had strong (STRONG) winds and bad weather. On the 11th I went to check on the bee hives and found them blown down, scattered, with snow in them. Lots of dead bees.

The frames in the center of the hives, where the bees had been, still had a few bee bodies in the comb and the bee bodies had molded and the mold had spread. The thought of cutting all that sticky mess out of the frames, cleaning the frames, putting in new foundation... it was REALLY depressing. Knowing I'd not done my part to protect my gals from disaster was even MORE depressing.

I took a couple of the moldiest frames to my beekeeper meeting and they said just to leave all that mess in there, that a new package of bees would clean up the mold and dead bee bodies in no time. Plus, they'd have the benefit of already drawn comb and some stored food.

The mold won't make the new bees sick?

No.

WOW!

So, at the advice of my beekeeper group, I've put the hives in a shed, on their side. This allows air to circulate and lets the frames and comb dry out. It also deters mice and wax moths from moving in, because they like dark hidey-holes. They don't like the frames on their side like this where light can come through.

I have two packages of bees ordered, they'll probably arrive in mid-April. We're going to build a metal stand for the hives and secure the hives to the stand with a ratchet strap. I had BIG rocks on top (as big as I can lift) but they still blew over.

We may move the location of the hives too. Problem is, we're in a valley with steep hills on either side. I can have morning sun (and lots of wind during storms) or I can have protection from the worst winds (and no sunlight until very late in the morning). Still pondering this one. I might have a beekeeper friend come over and give me his advice.

Mmmm, Fresh Potatoes

noreply@blogger.com (Leslie) — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 17:44:00 +0000

I scanned this lovely full page advertisement from my current National Geographic. I probably violated half a dozen copyright laws by doing so. Isn't that an idyllic scene, everyone out in the lovely air, gently hand picking potatoes and placing them lovingly in wooden baskets?

Except potatoes don't grow on bushes, or even exactly on the vines. And you don't harvest them when the plants are blooming. You wait until the plants die down and then dig up the tubers out of the dirt.

This ad makes me nuts. It doesn't bother my husband at all. I think I have a problem. I may need professional help.

It just makes me crazy. No wonder kids are confused about where their food comes from. Even potato chip ad execs don't know where potatoes come from.

Burrow Digging

noreply@blogger.com (Leslie) — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 15:56:00 +0000

It was raining the morning I took these pictures. Despite the warmer temperatures (high 40's, creeping to 60), there are still pockets of ice and snow on the ground. So I was surprised to see one of the does digging like a crazy thing under a feeder hutch. That's her and her new burrow in the photo above; she's being camera-shy. Even though it's just the beginnings of a new burrow, she's moved LOTS of dirt in the early hours. Last night there was no activity at all under the feeder hutch.

Maybe she wasn't shy. Maybe she just suddenly realized how HUNGRY she was after all that work. Look at those muddy little feet.

The weird thing about her digging is that she just kindled a week ago, in a burrow under the feeder hutch. That little hole to the right is where the new kits are. I'm not sure if she is digging a better entrance or what. I'll just keep on watching and learning. I really enjoy pondering the rabbits and their behaviors.