It's Almost Time

As we inch toward August, pulling honey from our six hives has been on the calendar, but we just haven't gotten the job done.  We'll try to get the honey pulled this weekend, but let's see how it goes.  Over near the purple hull pea patch, I planted a row of zinnias for the beauty, but also for the bees.  Zinnias are the easiest thing to grow.  In fact, they may grow easier than weeds!  As I look at the multi-colored blooms of the zinnias, I see that they are not disappointing to attract the honeybees.

Honestly, I used to not plant any flowers at all, choosing to grow things that we can eat.  I still do that, but I may have softened up regarding planting flowers.  I'm going to save all the seeds from the zinnias and plant a whole bunch of them next year as they produce both nectar and pollen that honeybees are attracted to.

I'm going to show you two of the six boxes of bees that we have.  As summertime temperatures mount, bees congregate on the outside of the bee boxes.  It's all about the heat.  Fewer bees inside the box means lower temperature inside the hive.  Just look at all the bees outside the box:

This photo just zooms in a little closer so that you can see the number of bees we're talking about:

Same thing on this hive.  You'll note that on the bottom there are two deep boxes.  This is where the brood is.  I have a queen excluder to keep the queen within the two deep boxes.  On top of the queen excluder are three honey supers.

In the next few days when we pull honey, we'll go through every single frame in the honey supers and pull out capped honey.  From this capped honey we'll extract our spring honey.  We'll show you the entire process once we get going.

A Sound in the Night

Monday night was a typical night.  After supper, we sat down, as has been our latest routine, in watching an episode or two of Gunsmoke.  We began at the very beginning of the series when John Wayne introduced James Arness playing US Marshal Matt Dillon.  We were watching Matt and Miss Kitty and Doc and Chester when all of a sudden, we heard a loud shaking sound.

Tricia and I looked at one another.  It sounded as if someone was trying to come into the house through one of the doors.  It was scary.  I ran and got my pistol and began a quick search to see what was going on.  Tricia turned on all the floodlights outside.  We couldn't find the source of the noise.  Unsettled, I went to bed with my pistol on the bedside table.

The sun rose the next morning, and we went out and fed the animals and milked the goats and cow.  We fed the chickens and opened the nesting boxes and came inside to have coffee and read the Bible before starting our day and going off to work.  We were still puzzled about the night's mysterious noise.  That is, until I looked outside the front porch.

Mystery solved!  Overnight, even though the weather was still and quiet, a rotten center of an oak tree limb had given way and the large limb fell all the way to the ground.  It was this noise that gave us a scare the night before and not some nighttime bandit.  When it hit the ground, it shook the house!

I was grateful on one account that there was no villain lurking around "Dodge City," but on the other hand I was looking at a lot more than a large limb on the ground.  I was looking at a lot of work!

The limb had fallen from quite a ways up in the tree.  Gravity had taken her down to the ground quickly.

As I looked at the task ahead, I made an inventory of what I'd need.  Basically, I'd need my chainsaw.  It's a Greenworks 80 volt 18 inch chainsaw.  I would've never thought a battery-powered chainsaw was up to the job, but this little tool has proven itself time and again.  I brought the saw and some bar and chain oil and began limbing the tree out, hauling the tree tops out to the pasture for the goats and cows to make quick work of.

It was slow going at first, but if you keep at the job with persistence, you start seeing the fruits of your labors.

A little later on and the fallen tree limb had transformed itself into firewood for a 2027 winter day.

With the job complete and out of the way, we watched Gunsmoke tonight without any interruption!

They Say That Breaking Up is Hard to Do

Tonight we'll show you the evening routine.  All throughout the day LuLu and Betsy spend quality time together.  Betsy will drink her fill of rich, Jersey milk and then she'll go nap in the shade somewhere, shaking her ears to chase off pesky flies.  LuLu keeps a close eye on her girl as she grazes in the pasture.  As the sun begins baking down and the heat rises to around 96 degrees, the cows find shade under the live oak trees and rest.  They'll nap, conserving energy.  Lots of times, if the moon is bright, they find it is comfortable to graze at night.  

At around 8 pm, Tricia and I go out to the barn and open the gate.  It's time for the overnight separation.  You see, daytime milk is 100% for Betsy.  However, LuLu's nighttime milk is all ours.  We run LuLu and Betsy into the barn.  LuLu is greeted with a bucket of sweet feed and alfalfa in the trough.  This encourages her to get into the habit of coming in the barn.  We turn the fan on and Tricia waits with LuLu as she eats her supper.

Betsy is run into a stall on the side of the milking stalls to keep her separated from her momma.  They'll moo and fuss and carry-on, but they'll get to get back together in the morning after milking time.

Here's an overview of the separation operation.  I'm in the goat milking stall on the south side of the barn.  When LuLu is finished eating, we'll go ahead and run her out of the barn.  She can go chase down her supper with some water or do whatever she'd like.  We leave the gate to the barnyard open so that she can come at any time of the night and touch noses with Betsy through the gate.  We just don't want Betsy getting her milk.  We have to be considerate neighbors as we do have next door neighbors and sometimes the momma cow will bellow for her calf and it is so loud it could wake the neighborhood!

Elsie, our heifer, comes to check out what's going on.  There is nothing she'd like more than to get a bucket of sweet feed and alfalfa.  She's a pig.  The thing is, we have a little rule: While grass is growing in the pasture, the only way you'll get feed is if you give us a calf and are in milk.  Elsie, you are on the clock.

Tomorrow morning we'll milk LuLu out and then put her and Betsy back together.  Betsy will be so happy to get her share of the milk.

Little Frisky Betsy

It's around 8 pm Sunday evening and we're about to go separate Betsy from her Momma, LuLu. First, we let Betsy drink as much milk as she wants. She needs to fill her little belly, because overnight she'll be in the stall, while LuLu is out in the pasture. At 6 am we'll go out to milk LuLu. This will be our milk. Then we'll put them together and LuLu will have the opportunity to drink her momma's milk all day long. Then we'll do the same thing every single afternoon.  This is how we share the milk with the calf and both parties are happy!

So far you've only seen still shots of little Betsy, but tonight I have a home movie for you.  Click the red arrow below to see Betsy in all her glory.

Getting into A Good Routine

Life contains routines.  Since we are limited by a finite amount of time, it becomes important to become efficient in what you do.  It is true in a work setting, in personal projects, and even things on the farm.  We were already milking two goats twice a day.  Adding in milking LuLu once a day, as we share the milk with Betsy, her calf, and that's a lot of additional time to daily chores.

We milk LuLu in the late afternoon.  So far she hasn't gotten into the routine of coming to the barn to be milked.  But she will.  Right now we have to call her and walk way out into the pasture to get her and walk her to the barn.  Betsy will follow her on some days.  Most days, she's spirited and will run around and go exactly where you don't want her to go.  She hasn't figured out the concept of walking through an open gate yet!  It normally takes two people to get them both in the barn.  You may ask, why even bring Betsy into the barn at milking time?  It's important to have Betsy beside LuLu in the barn as LuLu will get nervous if her calf isn't beside her.  Furthermore, she won't drop her milk for us. 

In the past several afternoons, we haven't had to walk quite as far out in the pasture and Betsy has become more of a willing participant.  They're gonna get it.  It's a function of showing them that there is a reward for them doing what we want them to do.

The second routine is milking.  Even though a cow has been milked before, they have to get back into practice.  First thing, in the photo below, you see Betsy positioned by LuLu's head.  That way it comforts LuLu.  She's not worried about her calf.  She's a good momma.

Once we have LuLu in the milking stall and Betsy in place, we hobble one of LuLu's back legs.  This keeps her from kicking.  We pour the feed in the trough and start milking.  To hand-milk, it generally takes about 20 minutes.  This presents a problem, because LuLu is impatient.  If she finishes her supper, she backs up in the milking stall, making it hard to finish milking.

Over the past several evenings, LuLu has settled into a groove and stands still when she finishes eating.  It has to feel good and relieving to have her udders emptied from all the pressure of a full bag.  Routines are a part of life and as we go, we fine-tune the processes to see if we can make things better, more efficient and timely.  Some things we try and it doesn't work.  In that case, we revert back to the old routine.  But we're always looking for a better way.

I know you may be thinking that a better way would be to purchase a milking machine rather than milking by hand.  That day may come as we're getting older, but what we find is that any time you save by milking mechanically, you gobble up that time saved on the back-end in sterilizing the equipment.  For now, we'll stay with hand milking.

Talking About Hives - But Not Beehives

I awoke Sunday morning to a rash on my inner thighs.  Weird!  Itching like crazy.  By late afternoon, the rash had advanced to previously unoccupied territory like an invading army coming to bring its wrath and destruction upon unsuspecting people.  

When I tell you I was at my wit's end, I'm not exaggerating.  I took a box of Benadryl, popping another tablet as soon as the 6 hours was up.  It made me sleep a lot, but didn't really do anything for the rash.  I took numerous hot baths with epsom salt and baking soda.  This actually calmed things down momentarily.  When I got out, well, it was on again.  Maybe at some point this will get better?

I thought to myself, "It will be better on Monday."  It did not get better on Monday.  It had worsened, encroaching to my private parts.  I felt like I was on fire.  On Tuesday, I expected a respite from my enraged skin.  Alas, it did not happen.  The rash was literally from the top of my head to the soles of my feet!  My lips had swollen.  I began to think that this must be the like the pestilence that the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse brings in the end times.

On Tuesday afternoon, my wife made an appointment with Telehealth.  You connect with the hospital portal via computer and a Nurse Practitioner listens to you, looks at your condition and assesses the situation.  She was able to see my "rash" and said, "That's hives.  It's your body reacting to something you ingested.  A food.  A spice."  I began to rack my brain.  What kind of torture did I bring upon myself?

You know what?  We have guesses, but I still don't know what it was that caused it.  That means this could all happen again if I eat the culprit again!  In the meantime, the NP told me to go to the pharmacy and get some Zyrtec and Pepcid and begin taking that (filling in with Benadryl, if needed).  She also prescribed me some Prednisone, a steroid.  I've begun taking all the meds and fortunately, I'm finding some relief, but at the end of the dosage, it starts coming back!  How long can this last???

Hives!  I'll stick with the beehives instead.

Random Topics on a Monday

First, an update on Mom.  Some of you have asked about her and have been praying for her and we so appreciate it.  Mom was released from the hospital and sent home.  She continues to regain strength.  The UTI had gotten into her bloodstream and really did a number on her.  After two weeks of antibiotics, it has cleared up.  The bleed in her stomach that was repaired is holding.  Mom's hemoglobin counts are rising and holding steady.  She'll be getting physical therapy to help her get back to where she was.  Praise God from Whom all blessings flow!  Thank you for your prayers.

Just to the south of our purple hull pea patch, right next to the honeybees, I planted some zinnias.  The bees seem to like them and they're pretty.  Tricia has been picking the blooms and making fresh flower arrangements for the house.  They look nice.  In all it's about a 30 foot row of zinnias, and when they are done, we'll save the seeds from the dried flowers so that we can beautify the garden next year.

While many plants in the vegetable garden are waving the white flag, several crops are really coming into their own - like okra.  Okra has a big beautiful flower as well:

We're picking okra daily, now.  They grow so fast that if you skip a day, many of the okra pods get tough and woody and must be thrown out.  We're eating a bunch of them, though, making oven fried okra, curried okra, okra stewed down with onions and tomatoes.  I'll have to check our inventory in the pantry of pickled okra.  We may have to build back the quantity of pickled okra in the pantry.

Oh, and while we are talking about jars in the pantry, our salsa inventory was running a little low, so Tricia made up a batch of salsa with our homegrown onions, tomatoes, and jalapeno peppers.

It rained six inches today at the house, making it impossible to get anything done outside.  Maybe tomorrow will be a better day?