Some Blessings To Cheer Me

A couple years ago my husband Harold bought me a tea rose bush for an Easter present.  It has taken a while to get going, and I haven't done much to care for the poor plant other than water it and do some occasional weeding.  One year, the mice almost ate the plant during the harsh winter.  We also never mulched it this winter.  But this year - oh my!  The tea rose bush has just burst into colorful roses!  There are almost 20 beautiful rose blossoms on the plant!  It has also doubled in size.  I picked a nice little branch and put it in a bud vase on my kitchen window sill to enjoy.   It smells wonderful and certainly cheers me up just to look at it.

A lovely bunch of tea roses in the kitchen

We are also beginning to harvest many fresh veggies from the garden and greenhouse.  Today as a vegetable for our lunch, we will have fresh carrots and snow peas.

Fresh veggies for our lunch today!

And here is my favorite way to prepare carrots and snow peas - a wonderful combination!  Here at Honey B Farm, we certainly have plenty of honey to cook with!

HONEY GLAZED SNOW PEAS AND CARROTS

2 c. sliced carrots 

1/2 lb snow peas, trimmed of stem ends

3 T. butter 

1/2 tsp. cornstarch

2 T. honey

Bring a large saucepan of salted water to a boil.   Add carrots and cook until tender crisp, 10-12 min.   Add snow peas and cook a few minutes more until tender crisp.  Drain and set aside.  Melt butter in the same pan and stir in the cornstarch.  Stir in the honey.  Return veggies to the pan and heat and stir until glazed and hot.    Wonderful!!  

Note:  this recipe does not work very well with frozen veggies - use fresh. 

Next week we should have new potatoes from the garden, and also raspberries!  I have tried for many years to get a good raspberry patch going.  It seems like either the bugs or the bears eat all the fruit.  But this year the raspberries seem to be especially abundant!  I am hoping nothing destroys them between now and next week because I DO love fresh raspberries!  I have fond memories of my sister and I picking raspberries with my grandfather at his place in northern Indiana.   My sister and I still love to pick and eat raspberries!

During these difficult and sometimes depressing times we are currently living in, it is so nice to have fresh flowers and vegetables and fruit to enjoy.   It is the little things in life that can add so much joy!

A Most Unusual Bee Swarm!

A couple days ago one of our largest hives swarmed into a tree behind the beeyard.   The swarm was way up high in the tree and we couldn't get to it.  Harold used a rifle to shoot the branch down and was hoping the bees would go into a swarm box he had ready.  The bees did not go there, but instead went into a branch even higher up the tree.  Today the swarm was still there, so Harold shot the branch down again with a rifle.  This time the bees went back into the original hive. 
     Later this afternoon, the swarm decided to go out of the hive and gather on a small cherry tree sapling in front of the beeyard!  Now we could catch them!  These bees really wanted to go someplace new!  We managed to gather the bees, and take them to a friend's farm about 10 miles away.   Now they should be happy because they feel they have truly swarmed into a "new place".  Whenever we gather a swarm we take them to our friend Joe's farm.   They live there until honey harvest time.    In exchange for allowing us to bring swarms to his place, we give Joe all the honey he wants.
     Here is the process this afternoon in photos.  We were glad not to lose the hive because at $170 a hive we sure don't want to lose it! 

This is the swarm covering the small cherry sapling.   Almost looks like a brown cactus, doesn't it?

Harold set a swarm gathering box on a bucket and aimed the entrance hole near the swarm in the hopes they would explore it and go in.  Yes - it worked!

Harold watched as they slowly went into the swarm box.

Harold used a bee brush to clear the entrance hole occasionally so that it wouldn't get too clogged with bees trying to get in.

Almost all of the swarm is in the swarm box now!

Almost done!  Just about a cup or so of bees left!

Over at Joe's farm Harold uses pliers to lift the frame of bees into a new hive box.

Harold accidentally dropped the pliers into the swarm box, so he just lifted the frames of bees with his bare hands!

There were some loose bees in the swarm box and Harold just shook them into the new hive.

He set a hive cover over the frames.  We also put a feeder in there with some sugar solution to help them get started in their new home. 

The new hive is complete.  A few straggler bees are making their way into their new home.

Back at our place, the cherry tree is empty now of bees!   Success at catching this swarm after 3 days!!

We will check on the bees at Joe's place at least once a week.  They should do fine there, and now they will feel that they have totally swarmed and found a new place.   Why bees swarm is a mystery.   It's just what bees do.
There's an old saying about swarms that goes like this:

A swarm in May is worth a load of hay
A swarm in June is worth a silver spoon
A swarm in July isn't worth a fly

At least we are back to having 10 hives now at our place, plus this one at Joe's!
Never a dull moment here on Honey B Farm!
    

Oh! Those (blankety blank) Deer!!

It's been a real war with deer this garden season.  We put up electric fencing, and it is powerful.  But somehow the deer manage to either climb through or jump over the fencing and they have eaten about 50 or 60 cabbages so far!   That translates to over $120 worth of  income lost to the deer just in cabbages alone.  Plus they also ate two cherry trees, some green beans, pepper plants and eggplants.   They have also snipped off branches of our apple trees.   I simply cannot tolerate the loss of revenue from the deer!  It truly is hard to foil deer, as they have hollow hairs and don't feel electric fencing too much unless they either sniff it with their nose and get zapped, or really get a good dose of the wires.   They are also excellent jumpers, so fencing has to be high.  

It's not like they are starving - we have acres of woodland filled with plants and small twigs for them to eat.  The deer hunters in the neighborhood have planted "deer plots" of corn and soybeans for them to eat.  So why do they pick on my gardens?  I didn't seem to have this problem last year, but a couple years ago they were sort of pesty.  At that time I was able to foil them with CD's hanging on wires.  As the CD's spin they catch the sun and moonlight and yard lighting and shine like strobe lights.  They look like big flashing eyeballs to the deer and that seemed to scare them away.   Putting on CD's to the fencing is a chore to maintain, as they fall off or twist off, or wear out and need to be replaced.  Sometimes the ties get so tangled in the wind they wrap around the wire and are useless.   But this year I am trying them again!    I can also put foil strips on the hot wire and when the deer come to investigate the foil, they may get zapped. 

I can start some new cabbage plants, as they are only 50 day variety.  The kraut cabbages are 100 days, but I should be able to plant some in the greenhouse, as this late variety can take a little frost and I can harvest things in the greenhouse until mid November.   It's just a shame that I have already lost hundreds of dollars of income due to the deer's appetite!
Harold put barbed wire fencing about 6 feet up, plus several layers of hot wire between the top and bottom.  If the deer try to jump over the fence, I truly hope they "split some hide" (oh - did I say that?  Yes!  This is war!)  I will also staple white grocery bags to posts in the garden, which sometimes scare them away.  If dogs weren't such a bother and expense to keep, I would get a nice big dog to chase deer away.    But high vet bills is something I can't afford right now.   Sometimes my cats chase deer away, especially my cat Fluffy who absolutely hates deer in the yard, but cats are good mousers, not really good deer chasers.   Most of the time the deer think my cats are just playing and they chase the cats back!

This is all so very discouraging!  I work so hard, only to have my garden produce destroyed by stupid deer.   It is especially challenging since we are out in the woods.   We shall see who wins.    This fall I hope the deer hunters wipe out a goodly number of deer because it seems like we are being overrun with them.  Dare I say I hope they shoot every last one of them?  Well, maybe not - but they do need to thin out the herd quite a bit.

I have tied CD's about every 10 feet all around both gardens.   They twist and turn and shine and reflect moonlight and yard lighting to look like giant strobe lights.   It used to scare the deer until they figured out these things wouldn't hurt them.   I haven't used these for a few years, so I hope the new batch of deer either don't know what these are, or forgot about them.

The top wire of the electric fencing is sharp barbed wire.  Hopefully when the deer try to jump over the fence they will snag their hide on this. 

The top barbed wire line is about 6 or so feet high.   Deer can probably jump that high, but the posts don't come any higher!

On a positive note, I DO have some lovely flowers this year, and we have a lot of gooseberries growing.   I hope the birds will not eat all the gooseberries because they make a wonderful jelly. 

Lots of gooseberries growing on the four bushes that I have.   When the gooseberries turn pink, they are sweet and ready to eat just as they are, or juiced up into jelly.

Some of the lovely petunias I have this year.  I started all of these plants from seed from last year.  They also smell wonderful!

These yellow petunias are called Butter and Eggs.  They are a pale yellow with white edges and dark yellow centers.   So pretty!

My favorite petunias are these double ruffled types.  The blooms are huge - about 4 inches across and have a wonderful aroma.