Would this not make a lovely painting?
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Last Day of January 2018
Can you believe it’s the last day of January?? I spent the morning do normal indoor chores like, sweeping and mopping the floors, making the bed, two loads of laundry and other minor jobs after having breakfast with the Mister! I got pork tenderloin out of the freezer for dinner and then saw that the temperature had risen to 40* and no wind. OUTSIDE I GO!!!
We’re still in for some cold weather and hopefully some snow because our pastures, yard, hayfields, just the earth in general needs a good soak before spring really appears! I knew I had some pruning to do on some fruit trees but the grapes needed it worst than the others.
A tangled mess of four vines that have been planted two years and I’m expecting big things from this year.
In order to get those beautiful grapes they need to be pruned each year. Grapes grown on new stems each year!
This end of the arbor holds grapes that we started from an old vine on the farm. They are blue, not real big but so sweet. The vines usually provide a lot of grapes!
I use some wonderful little hand pruners on all of the small vines, trees and my rose bushes. It’s very important to sterilize them and I use just plain old rubbing alcohol. It took about an hour but they’re all trimmed and now we wait! While waiting we pray for no late frosts to kill them.
Hubby thinks I scalped them but from past experience I know I’ll have more grapes and if Mother Nature cooperates they’ll be bigger grapes.
They’re thinned of their old bearing branches and the only thing left to do is tighten the arbor lines that we made from plastic covered clothes line. It tends to stretch each year but is easy to tighten.
After I finished pruning the grapes I went around the garden and trimmed suckers and water sprouts off the green gage, peach, pear and blue plums. The big job will be trimming the apple trees which seem to get less attention each year but I’m going to get what I can from the ground and hope for some help with the higher branches.
I am so ready to start growing something!!!
The Beauty of Butterflies
My butterfly bush was an especially beautiful treat today! Very few blooms at the moment but the butterflies stayed on it all day.
The sedum was found with sweet nectar as well!
Everything blooming was covered with a honeybee preparing for winter!
Hornets_The Good, The Bad, The Ugly
Cooler weather is good and upon us and we’ve actually had a fire in the woodstove several nights to take out the chill and dampness. Fall has crept in on us with the trees changing color and the shadows falling on the ground remind me of Halloween. Pumpkins everywhere we go and bales of straw. Scarecrows sitting in every nook and cranny!
With fall come the acts of nature that we overlook until you almost walk into it! By this I mean, bee nests and I walked right under this one several times before actually seeing it!
I walk along this path several times a week as do the heifers when going to water.
Can you see anything hanging from the tree? My first encounter was in July and I walked through that path about six times one looking for little chicks in distress because they couldn’t find their mom. I never saw a thing while walking but that afternoon I was in the laundry room folding clothes and looked out the window and there hung a hornet’s nest the size of a volleyball!
It’s now about 18 to 20 inches long and about 15 inches thick!!!
We didn’t want to destroy them because as long as you leave them alone hornets are good! They catch thousands of houseflies!! That’s the GOOD!
The BAD is if I had walked into their nest and made them mad!! I would have been stung several times before realizing what was happening! The UGLY is those insects are black, big and build onto that nest all summer. It’s huge now!
During the day the hornets are flying in and out of it and there are guard hornets marching all over it to protect the hive.
When I walked under it in July it was about seven feet off the ground. Now it’s so heavy and hangs about three feet off the ground.
I’ve found a new path around it so I don’t disturb them!
Along with the hornets we’re seeing lots of bumblebee’s which have a nest in the ground in my rose garden. The rose garden is a mess now because I can’t get in it to weed. The yellow jackets and sand hornets are all over the apples in the orchards but we haven’t found their nests yet. All of the bees make great pollinators but they do have an ugly and mean side!!!
Spring peepers
Have you ever heard of petoots or spring peepers? It’s those noisy little beings we hear every spring when it starts to get warm! I love hearing them but I’ve never seen them or ventured out to see what they looked like. I’ve always assumed they were little tiny frogs. This year I found out!!!
I went with hubby one morning to feed the cattle and in our back field we have a small pond that’s never gone dry (yet)! As we drove by the pond we could see the pond just wiggling with life and the noise was deafening. We went to the back-end of the field and dropped off the hay to roll off the hills to the cattle and then drove back to the pond. I had my camera with me and finally got pictures of hundreds of the little noise-makers and they weren’t a bit afraid as I took their picture! You can click on the photos to enlarge and see what I’m talking about.
Petoots of every size!
Usually where there’s one, there’s two!
The noise was deafening and hubby says when he spring turkey hunts you can’t hear the turkey for the frogs!
This isn’t a very big pond but the entire pond was covered with the little buggers! So, my friends, spring petoots, means mating season for frogs!!!
Now all I have to do is find out why we don’t hear the whippoorwill anymore!! I love listening to them as much as the petoots and grouse drumming in the spring!
It’s just about time . . .
This little fat guy came to visit in 2015 and we had almost thirty that year. I had five or six feeders out and had to fill them twice a day.
April 15th is my deadline for putting out the hummingbird feeders. Last year I was late getting them out and didn’t have near as many. This year I’ve got the jump on them I hope by putting out two feeders on the front porch this morning. I’m early but they might be too!!
First feeder out and ready!
I’ll start with two feeders and always in bright red. That seems to be their favorite color and I plan to have red and purple flowers all over the porch and yard this year. I’ll be watching out for the first fuchsia plant to hand on the porch too. Their vibrant colors really attract them.
Last year the few hummers that I had loved the butterfly bush, geraniums, bleeding hearts and the columbine.
That beak looks deadly, doesn’t it?
We have the ruby-throated hummingbirds here at the farm.
We think they’re stunning birds!
This was last years batch and I think the most we had at any given time was 10-12 and that was toward the end of the season.
Get those feeders out this weekend and let us know how many you have and when you first sighted them!
Here’s my recipe for the feeders, all natural: 1 cup sugar to 4 cups of water. I mix it up in a pitcher and put it in the microwave for 6 1/2 minutes to sterilize it and keep it from fermenting. I let it cool to touch and then pour in the feeders.
Feed the Birds From the Garden
One of 27 of my hens that heads straight for the bird feeders as soon as the hen-house door is opened.
Part of the bird feeding station.
I love feeding the wild birds in our back yard during the winter. There’s just so many species that flock to the feeders all during the day including my chickens!
I have 10 feeders in the back yard and the wild birds depend on me during the winter months when they can’t find seeds and other food. I use black oil sunflowers that we raise in our garden, wild bird feed from our local farm supply store, and saved grease from my kitchen which I save in foil pans and stick in the freezer all year round. We also dry any leftover sweet corn from the garden. I pick it, shuck it and air dry it in our grainery and then place in mesh bags which are stored in lidded trash cans until feeding time. I put the corn on a squirrel feeder and the birds and squirrels love it. We had such an abundance of corn leftover after freezing for ourselves and sharing with our family, friends and neighbors. I hate waste and the birds love it and so do my rabbits.
Sweet corn dried from the garden and now feeds the birds and squirrels. They love it!
Another feeder in the back yard.
The wild birds scratch it out on the ground which the ground feeders love and so do the chickens! The bucket holds walnuts that I gathered in the fall, dried and de-hulled for the squirrels. The bluejay like them too. The metal feeder, box feeder w/gallon jar and the gourd feeder are all handmade. At the back-end of the station is another handmade feeder with four sections which the wrens prefer over the others.
The collection of birds grows with each year:
The Beauty of our National Bird
The pictures say it all!
We watched him and took the pictures from our front porch. These were taken over a month ago but we saw it and a younger one that hadn’t matured with the white feathering last week. We also had a golden eagle here most of the winter.
Walking through a wildflower garden
Fall is here and so are the fall wildflowers. Here’s a few I took photos of just along the driveway from the house to the mailbox.
Wild touch-me-nots, blue mini daisies and more.
I love these but don’t know what they’re called and they remind me of liatris, I think??
They’re not bluebells but the bloom is somewhat shaped like them.
Shaped much like black-eyed susan but different.
Goldenrod, gorgeous but sure does mess with my nose.
These aren’t as blue as they normally are and our neighbor has a field full of them. When the sun hits the field in mid-afternoon the entire field looks blue.
Chicory is popping up everywhere.
These little orange jewels bloom and then have a pod that when touched pops open. The driveway is full of the huge plants this summer/fall.
Tons and tons of bloom and full of teeny tiny bumblebees.
Queen Anne’s lace is huge this year and maybe due to all the rain we received spring and summer.
Goldenrod at it’s most beautiful.
I don’t know what this is but most of it is white with yellow centers like a daisy but much smaller and abundance of bloom. I’ve also found the same plant but blue with orange centers.
Once the weather cools a little and I can get out in the sun there will be an abundance of wildflower and nature photo ops.
Enjoy the summer as long as you can because that cold weather is just around the corner. How do I know?? My hummingbirds have left! 😦
Heat
Winter 2014 warmth stockpile to be completed.
On Sunday morning we took off to the woods and started cutting for the 2014-15 heating season. We found two oak trees that had been dead from the gypsy moth invasion three years ago and put more than a ton of weight on the farm truck. Here’s a view of the visit with nature.
We were there for about one and half hours and Hubby sawed the trees up and loaded the heavy pieces which were way to heavy for me and then I loaded the lighter stuff and enjoyed being in the woods.
I enjoy anything that involves us being outdoors together and I love the smell of fresh cut firewood. One of the trees was blown to the ground and heavier than the other because it soaked up the last rain. The other tree was still standing but the bark had fallen off. This will keep us nice and toasty next winter. All we have to do now is split the big stuff and put it in the woodhouse.
Merkels or morels
Spring is definitely merkel hunting time.
What in the world?????
Morels are a type of mushrooms which can be found growing all over the world in a wide variety of habitats every spring. They are among the most prized of the edible mushrooms because they have a rich and complex flavor that goes well with almost any food. They also have a very distinctive appearance which makes them readily identifiable, assuming they can be found at all, since they’re notorious for being very elusive.
Like all mushrooms, the morel is only the fruiting body of a larger organism. Most mushrooms form a massive web of fibers underground called the mycelium. This web of fibers can be quite large, and when it decides to reproduce it sends up mushrooms, which release spores from the parent fungus. Mushrooms are quite appealing to humans because they are often fleshy and flavorful. Scientists have not determined why mushrooms fruit when they do, but mushrooms are usually linked with rain and heavy moisture. In the case of morels, spectacular growth patterns are also linked with forest fires.
We love to search for these delicasies every spring and this spring is no different. When Mother Nature cooperates we feel like we located the “mother load”!!
During spring gobbler season every year, hubby and his friends make a day of searching for these tasty morsels in their secret honey hole. As in years past, they did very well and these shots will prove harvest:
92 morels cleaned, halved and ready for the skillet!
Some are golden, some are brown and some are white.
It’s a beauty!
Draining all of the water off so they’ll last longer!
There is absolutely nothing better than country fried merkels, baked beans and macaroni salad for supper!! Wish you were here to enjoy them with us 😉
Our hummers are back!!!!
You know it’s spring when the hummingbirds return. For several years now I try to get at least one hummingbird feeder on the porch by April 15th. I was a few days late this year and didn’t get mine put out until Sunday the 20th and boy was I ever glad. Our first arrival was yesterday afternoon when we were sitting on the front porch enjoying the warm afternoon.
Hummingbird feeder.
First I sterilize my feeders. Then I make their feed which is four parts water to 1 part sugar. I mix this together and boil for six minutes. Let cool and fill the feeders. This mixture will fill two of my feeders.
After preparing the feeders, hang them where you want to get a good view of these little angels in action. We usually have 4-6 feeders on our front porch out of the sun so the syrup doesn’t spoil as quickly. If your syrup seems to have strings of film in it after several days it’s time to change the syrup. I usually start out with two feeders to begin with and as the population grows I add more feeders.
One of the first arrivals.
Last year in June, I believe, we had about thirty at one time. I had four feeders on both sides of the porch and we were refilling them almost daily. We love watching them. Here’s a view of last years group:
Feeding time at the Caldwells!
I try to grow as many of their favorite flowers as possible every year and add perennials to my garden that they love as well. Most of these flowers also attract the graceful hummingbird moth as well.
Hummingbird Moth
Yoohoo, spring, where are you?
Our little neck of the woods has been filled with major low temps for the last six weeks with minor warm ups and like everyone else I am SOOOOOOO ready for spring. Yes, this is another post about the weather and knowing we can’t do anything about but gripe I think we are all doing that quite well!!
We were just hit with our first major snowfall which started around 2:30 on Wednesday evening causing me to leave work early so I wouldn’t be stuck out on the roads with my family worried to death. NO I’m not stupid enough to wait for the roads to get treacherous before heading home. I have a wonderful job and supervisors that allow me to head out early since I live about 25 minutes from home which is very much in the country. We had plenty of warning about the incoming storm and prepared well in advance. By the time I pulled into our driveway the roads were getting white and the mountain in front of our house and the one behind our house could not be seen.
Just got home!
This is what it looked like about an hour after I arrived home.
Hubby had worked most of the day before feeding the animals heavy and cutting some extra firewood for the main stove and the one in the kitchen. It’s a good thing he covered it as soon as he unloaded it. We had prepared for the electricity to go out as well and had five gallon buckets full of water for the bathroom, pitchers full for drinking and cooking and gallon jugs full for the animals and washing dishes. Thankfully the power only went out twice and it was during the night and only long enough to have to reset the clocks. Here’s a pictorial of how the storm grew as the night went on:
Almost a white-out!
Bird and squirrel feeders are full.
Birds are feeding heavily. They know it’s going to get bad.
Ground covered good with about 2 inches.
Snow accumulation just after dark.
Still piling up and it’s pouring huge dry flakes.
Hubby cleared a path so Sassy could get out to relieve herself and it’s filling in.
Here’s what we woke up to yesterday morning:
My car disappeared during the night.
Hope the roof can bear the weight and there’s another roof above it just as full. When it slides off we’ll know the sturdiness of our addition.
21* and holding. Wind is starting to get up.
We’ve muddled through with no major crisis and hubby has to start over this morning cleaning out the drifts to all the animals to feed. I’m keeping the fires going and cooking. Today is a good day for a pot of homemade venison/vegetable soup!!
2013 Honey Harvest
Hubby is checking the supers for production and they’re just not quite capped over but he pulled the ones that were full and replaced them with fresh frames.
Smoking the hive a little to calm the bees so he can check this hive. It’s never been real productive but swarmed a lot. This year he added a brood box and an extra super and they working their little hearts out. They swarmed one this year about three weeks ago and instead of leaving the farm they went into one of the hives that died last winter. I guess when they were robbing the old honey out of it they figured it’s a nice new place to bring a new queen.
He loads the supplies on the ATV and moves closer to the hives to work. It works well and has room to work without bringing the bees back to the garage.
This is the smoker he uses. It’s old but still does the job. I save all the worn out jeans and he tears them into strips, uses his lighter to set it on fire and stuffs it in the smoker and pumps the bellows to get it going good.
This fine, soft bristled brush is used to gently sweep the bees off the frames after removing from the hive. Sometimes the bees are persistent about hanging on but soon leave for the hive.
Last years honey!
Now you’ll see how he prepares the frames for replacing in the supers. The bees could make their own starter comb but this way it’s set in straight and they work from that foundation to make the smooth honey he cuts from the frame.
Tapping in the small strip that holds the comb straight.
Gently placing new comb in the frames.
Bee super frames
He took honey out of the supers a couple weeks ago and then took some more this week. Most of the flowering they use this time of year makes darker honey. We like the lighter, sweeter honey so he takes off what we want to use and sale now before they add the dark nectar to the frames. We have mostly quarts right now of honey with comb and a few pints of strained honey. I’m still cleaning up wax all over the kitchen. We sell the quart with comb for $9.00 and the quart strained for $14.00. The pints with comb are $7.00 and the pint strained is $9.50. We lost five hives last winter and honey is in short supply and we had to raise the price this year to restock the frames and comb. The supplies are so expensive but the end result is awesome!!
Honeybee nectar
Heavenly honey w/comb
11 quarts of honey w/comb, seven quarts strained honey and four pints of stained honey.
Golden nectar fall 2013
Groundhogs are taking over!
He’s on the alert to danger!
This summer we have been overrun with groundhogs. Normally, these varmints are out in the hayfields or the woods but this summer we’ve got then building their houses under every building on the farm and that’s a lot og groundhogs. Hubby believes that there’s really not that many more than usual. He thinks we just see them easier because they have moved out ot the fields and woods due to coyote pressure. We even had on build a home under and between the apple house and the cellar which has a small garage attached to it. This year I laid my onions on a board in the dirt floor of the garage to dry some before hanging them. The first batch did well and we got them hung but the second batch which was mostly white onions were eaten by the creature and hubby found out before they eat the whole batch.
This is the two pieces of thin plywood that I dry the onions on in the garage.
This is the hole he dug out in the garage for his home.
Youngster living under the barn.
Then there were two babies under the barn. We finally saw four kits from that litter.
Alert at all times.
Time to nap in the sun!
They’re destructive little creatures and will eat up a garden in a heartbeat!
Butterfly Saturday
Sucking up the nectar
Gorgeous
Smaller than a hummingbird
Swallowtail
Butterflies enjoying the butterfly bush
Smaller butterfly, brown, white and yellow.
Dainty moth
Hummingbird moth
We have a new visitor to the farm. Not only do we have about 30 hummingbirds this year but we have a hummingbird moth. I love these little creatures as much as the hummingbirds.
Working the bloom just like the hummingbirds
Dainty moth
Camouflaged in the bloom
Smaller than a hummingbird
Gorgeous
Sucking up the nectar
Hummingbird moth
Photo page
There’s lots of new beauty on my photo page. Click the button on my homepage and see some new nature shots.
Raining again
I left work this morning with it raining again. The weatherman says there a possibility of flash flooding again. We still have less than half of our hay put up but already have almost as much hay as we did last year rolled. I keep telling my kids that if we have as much snow this coming winter as we had rain this summer that we should all be preparing for lots of quiet time at home by the wood stove and possibly without electricity. I think I’m going to prepare both of them an emergency weather kit for their homes just in case. It’ll be up to them to fill the food cabinets and prepare for some kind of heat. Here’s the rain guage as of last Sunday:
7 1/2 inches as of July 28, 2013
I know it’s hard to read but we’re just 1/10th of an inch from 7 1/2 inches for July. We got 6 1/2 in June and 5 1/2 in May. Rained expected today, all day should put us up to the 8 inch mark and more rain expected the first day of August. What will we get if hurricanes come up the coast in September and October like they normally do? Do I sound like a “worry-wart”?? The sunshine sure did feel good Monday and Tuesday. Keep those umbrellas handy!!
I’m so pleased with my flowers this year.
Hay harvest slow but moving along
I wanted to share some photos my daughter took last week while helping her Dad harvest some more hay! I think they’re beautiful!
Jippy decided to take a nap!!
Everyone was enjoying the day on the farm!
It was such a beautiful day to be on the farm!
Hummingbirds
We started out with six hummingbirds in mid-April and then it got cold and up until two weeks ago we only had one. I kept the fresh nectar out for him and finally we have five which I hope will multiply soon.
Normally I have five to seven feeders on the front porch by now but they’re only using the two and I’m refilling the feeders about twice a week.
I love these little guys and could watch them for hours. I make sure they have plenty of their favorite flowers in the yard as well.
They’ve been very busy this weekend and I’ve heard their courting rituals several times today. The dipping dance they do is quite something.
They’re quite territorial at the moment and they whizzed right in front of my face and caused Sassy to change positions on the porch for fear of getting “hummed”!!
Frost and the fruit & nut crop
Apple blossoms
Apple bloom full
Bluberries bushes
Blueberry bloom
Grapevines blooming
Pawpaw bloom
Pawpaw trees blooming
Leaves coming out on the pecan trees
Everything was either coming out with bloom or full of bloom and we had two nights of frost around the 15th of May. The English walnut and pecan were burnt bad. Some of the apples, peach, cherries and pears were blooming really full and got the frost but we may still have a little fruit. Last night we had frost but not heavy and it didn’t hurt the tomatoes but hubby expects it again tonight.
Peace of driving to work
On my way into work this morning was much cooler than the last few days but the beauty I saw was so peaceful. Try to imagine this without pictures.
- Fields of orchard grass waving in the wind and looking like waves of green water.
- A sky so blue that you think you’ve never seen that blue before.
- Small, scattered, wispy, white clouds trying so hard to invade the blue sky.
- Full grown brown rabbits sitting along the road enjoying the warmth of the sun.
- Flocks of barn swallows flitting together overhead like aircraft gracing the skies in formation doing their intricate stunts
- A huge United States of America flag gently waving in the wind.
- Gorgeous orange poppies in flower beds bending gracefully try to touch one another.
- A long legged doe gently grooming her fawn while trying to hide in the tall orchard grass.
- Green leaves fluttering like butterflies in the tops of the trees.
- Quiet country road with no traffic but me until I come to the main roads.
Country life is so precious, peaceful and quiet!!
The honeybees
Like several farmers we’ve spoken to, our honeybees didn’t fair well this winter. We had eight hives and lost all but two.
Bee house and time to check the hives spring 2013.
One of the two hives is very active and the maple tree pollen is heavy this year. The other hive has never been real strong and swarms itself to death every spring. We are going to try a couple of changes this year, one of which, is bringing in a new queen.
The first hive is weak but alive and the third hive is strong and working hard.
Time will tell but we have to work fast since the orchards are full of apple buds and will blossom full in the next week to 10 days.
The bees are cleaning house much like I do in the spring. This is one the hives that didn’t make it during the winter.
Hubby has cleaned up all the hives that didn’t make it and have them ready to try to catch some swarms a little later. The hives that made it will now have two chambers for raising brood and when the right bloom pops out in the forest fresh supers will be placed on each hive for honey making.
We have so many honey customers that depend on us each year to provide the liquid gold that is a big commodity these days. I’ve been asked to place it in our local artisan center but it doesn’t last long enough to get it there. Now, we sit back and wait and pray that we will be blessed with lots of the sweet nectar.
2012 Gold
Beautiful quart jars of honey and honeycomb straight from the hives.
