Up Close And Personal With Wildlife

If you recall the other day I mentioned in my latest post that a bear came into the yard and trashed some of our reserve hives.  Well, he came back this morning!   I first took a photo through the porch window, then quietly opened the back door and went out into the yard.   I took a couple other photos of the bear.  I wanted to get closer, but was afraid of scaring him off!  I guess 100 feet away was close enough anyway.  Based on the one photo of the bear standing over a fence post, we estimate that he stood about 6 1/2 feet tall.  And he probably weighed close to 450 lbs.   He was a HUGE bear!  I think it's kind of neat to be able to see wildlife this close.  When you live in the woods like we do, you have to expect to see all kinds of animals.  But - we will definitely have to find another spot to store our reserve hives.  We do have a very powerful electric fence on the new beehives, and the bear must know this because he never went anywhere close to the new hives.   After I got my photos, Harold scared the bear off with a couple of gun shots in the air.  The bear went into the woods and came around the other side of the house and down the road.   I could have gotten a great picture of him in the front yard, but my camera batteries died!  Grrrr...

My first picture taken through the porch window.

I managed to get the bear to look at me!

By now the bear was getting nervous about me being there and stood up to act defensively.  The post he is standing behind is a little over 5 feet tall, so this bear must be about 6 1/2 feet tall.

All this bear business makes for an exciting start to the day!

Animal Wars

Some days it's a real battle with animals around here!  We woke up this morning to see that our favorite cat, Smokey, had a face full of porcupine quills!  Oh no!  These weren't the real big ones, but smaller inch and a half size.  He must have found a baby porcupine somewhere and tangled with it.   Poor thing had them in his nose, mouth, and under his chin.  I wrapped him in a thick blanket, put on heavy leather gloves, gripped him with a 'death grip' by the nape, and Harold began pulling them out with pliers.   Of course Smokey would have none of this and it was a real battle.  I think dogs are much more patient about this than cats are!  We got down to the last one on his nose when he went totally berserk and worked his way out of everything, put a few new scratches in my arm and ran off to sulk.   We found him behind a hay bale in his cat house with a bloody face.    I tried to comfort him and pet his paws and he went for that OK because I think he was so scared.   Tonight we may try to get that last one out.   If we don't, according to the internet quills will work their way out but sometimes not in a good way.  Smokey comes to me now again, but I don't dare try the procedure until much later.  The last quill is only sticking out by 1/8 of an inch, so it will be a trick to get that one!  The scratches he gave me this morning are still bleeding when I move my arm.

After all this, Harold and I decided to start planting corn.  Things were going well until the other 14 farm cats decided it was time to inspect our business.   Have you ever tried to plant seeds with 14 curious cats running, jumping, digging, and chasing all around you?  We took a short break and that's when Harold discovered the extra beehives that we have reserved honey in, were scattered all over.   Bears!  During the night they must have decided to see if the unused hives had anything good in them to eat.   The bears  destroyed 5 hives worth of reserved honey-filled frames that we had planned to use for this year's bees.    And they tore things up pretty good.   The bears were most likely after bee larva, but they will take honey if larva isn't there.  We will either have to move those empty hives somewhere else, or put an electric fence on them, too.   I'm sure the bears will be back tonight for more honey.

While Harold decided to fix his truck, I started planting tomatoes.  Pretty soon bees were after me!  They were angry!!  One bit me on the side of the head.   I told Harold that the bees were very angry about something to come after me like that.   Sure enough, upon inspection he found out that ANTS were getting into another hive and eating the bees' honey and the sugar syrup we put out for them!   Yesterday we had a problem with ants in one of the hives, too.   We can't use ant poison because that would kill our bees.   So an alternative is to put used motor oil in cups (like a Cool Whip container) and set the hive on blocks inside the containers of oil.    The ants will not cross the oil to get up into the hive, and the bees don't bother the oil.    The ants that are in the hive already  are stung and taken out by the bees.  Harold did that yesterday and it solved the ant problem.  Today he has to do the same thing for the other two hives.   We have never had such a problem with ants before, so we don't know what's going on here.

Yesterday when Harold first tried to inspect what the bee problem was, he got stung badly  at least a half dozen times in the eye.   Today his eye is swollen and red and he looks like a prize fighter who lost the fight!

As if things weren't enough for today, when I went back to planting tomatoes one of my cats decided to come over and barf up his dinner right in front of me where I wanted to plant a tomato plant!  I tell you - some days the battle against animal life is something else!!  Living in the country can sometimes be real exciting!

Edited to add:  We got the last porcupine quill out of Smokey's nose tonight!  He didn't fight us too bad this time.  I think he knew we were trying to help him.   Afterwards I petted him, fed him, and gave him some warm milk.   He is happy now, and hopefully will not tangle with any more porcupines!

Bee Talk

Today we went to Clearbrook Minnesota to pick up 3 hives of bees.  We have to start all over again with our bees because all of our hives died over the winter.  The fellow who usually takes our bees to California for the winter did not do so this year for various reasons.   We tried to winter them over but did not succeed.   Sometimes that happens.   Sometimes it is good to start all over fresh.   We could only afford 3 new hives, so that's what we will start with.   Harold built some new hive boxes for winter time use that are 3 inches thick all around and will be able to accommodate a heater and extra foam insulation underneath.   When cold weather comes this fall, we will transfer our bees to those thick boxes and heat them in the back yard this winter.   We will no longer rely on others to take our bees elsewhere for the winter, and our bees will not be going to California anymore.   After all, if Canadians can winter over their bees, then surely Minnesotans should be able to do so!  We will see if our new winter hive design will work or not.   Having only 3 hives will set us back a lot regarding honey production, but we can hope for a really good bee year, take what honey we get - and then it's only up from there!  Later when one of the hives is really strong we can split the hive into two boxes, or catch a swarm and take it to another bee yard at our friend Joe's place.   This is our 9th year for doing bees.  We hate the thought of having to start from scratch again, but it just can't be helped.  We have learned a lot in 9 years, and we can always hope for a really good year!
     Here are some photos that I took this morning.  These bees came from Beaumont Texas, on the eastern part of the state.

One of the bee workers prepares a hive box we brought to fill up with a nuc full of bees. 

 A full frame of bees going from the nuc box on the left to our hive box on the right.  He is checking to see that there is a queen on the frame.

Two other workers prepare our other two hives.

A closer look.  This bee seller brought up about 300 hives from Texas.

Our three new hives ready for the long ride home to Honey B Farm!  The lids are screwed on tight for the ride and air spaces are nailed with screening.

Harold (in the blue jeans) talks shop with the other beekeepers.

When we got home, we opened up the entrances so the Texas girls could get out and start getting used to the place!

Harold opens up the entrances on another hive.

We put the hives on blocks and kept the entrance holes fairly small for now.

Then Harold put on good covers and took off the temporary covers.   One is finished, two more to go.

Within 20 minutes, the bees were already working!  They already did their orientation flights, and started gathering food from the dandelions!  You can see two bees working in this photo.

Lots of bee food here!  The Nanking cherries are blossoming, and there are tons of dandelions around. 

Plenty of bee food .  Beekeepers don't kill  dandelions!  This is good bee food.  I should be mowing the grass, but I will hold off for a day or so until the bees work over the plants.  At this time of the year, wild plum is in bloom, as well as forest wildflowers.  Our Texas girls will have plenty to do for a long time now.   What a feast for them!

And so another year of beekeeping begins...................we hope for a great summer, warm sunny weather, lots of wildflowers and natural bee food, AND as good a honey crop as we can get with 3 hives.

Very Depressing

Yesterday we got a lot of snow!  Yes, snow......
This is all very depressing.  The overnight lows have been around 22 degrees, and I've had to heat my greenhouse so that my plants don't die in there.  No way we can get into the garden or do yard work.  The long range forecast says these low temperatures will continue for at least another 10 days.  Where is spring?  How come the rest of the nation is enjoying spring and we aren't?  Big sigh.............can someone remind me again why we live in Minnesota?  Oh yeah - I forgot - it's because of the "quality of life".   Yep, lots of good quality out there today!

This is what my back yard looks like this morning.  Three inches of snow.

My driveway.   I guess it needs shoveling again?

Growing Nicely on Earth Day - With A Little Help

Today is Earth Day and we are working with earth!  I spent a lot of time transplanting plants into larger pots, moving plants around, and working in the greenhouse.  Harold spent time filling up "craters" left in the yard when he moved snow this winter with his tractor.   It has not been really warm lately.  I put things in the greenhouse at the end of March (almost 2 months earlier than in regular gardens up here), hoping that I would get a head start on things.  But we've had some really cool nights and my greenhouse isn't heated by anything other than a small portable heater (which I hate to use unless I have to because of the electric costs).    Some plants are really doing well, like spinach and garlic and lettuce.  But other plants not so well.   It takes a lot of trial and error to really know how to grow things in a greenhouse, and I'm still learning!
     The other day I went to visit a friend who is a master gardener and has two huge high tunnel greenhouses, and used to have a professional retail greenhouse for 30 years.  In fact when I first moved up to these parts, I bought plants and seeds and trees from her greenhouse business.   Of course all of HER plants were doing extremely well and were huge.  She is almost ready to harvest cauliflower!  She has raspberries 4 feet high!  She has romaine lettuce that they have already been eating!  She got things started in her greenhouse on March 1.  So I asked some questions to see what I needed to do. 
     They have built up several platforms for plants that can be covered with plastic all around, and have a heater underneath.  Harold and I thought:  Yes!  We can do this!  So Harold built a nice platform for my greenhouse out of a recycled pallet and some scrap lumber.  We had some old plastic sheeting to re-use, too.   And so here is what we came up with:

Our platform for getting a head start on plants in the greenhouse.  On cool nights, we can either put down the plastic draping all around, and/or use the heater underneath.   The large area underneath for heating will diffuse the heat and won't be too harsh for the plants, as heat rises.  If we don't need to heat, but the evening will be possibly frosty (but not in the lower 20's for temps), the plastic should be enough to protect.   The plants get plenty of sunlight and air, too.  I can fit 8 trays of plants on top, and also some on the bottom (if I use really low heat).  These plants will be hardy and healthy when it's time to put them outside in the regular garden.

 Here is a closer look:

I have one side of the greenhouse planted up with bok choy, carrots, snow peas, lettuce varieties, and spinach.  The garlic is doing very well, as you can see in this photo.

I put up some fencing for the snow peas to be supported on:

Here's a photo of Harold after he finished filling in some of those craters:

Good job Harold!  You made these craters, now you can fix them!

As you can see in the above photo, the grass is green, but the trees have not leafed out yet.  I had a picture of our apple tree buds a couple blog articles ago, and the apple tree is coming along nicely:

There is so much to learn about growing things!  Growing plants in a greenhouse takes a special technique because of the high humidity and temperatures.  Even on  a semi-cloudy day, the temperature can be 90 to 100 degrees in there.  I am constantly adjusting the sides up or down, and watering sometimes several times a day.   This is my third year for growing things in my little greenhouse, and I'm still learning.   For example, I wanted to put some gladiolus bulbs in there.   I read up on the internet about how to grow glads in the greenhouse.  But the article warned that thrips might have wintered over in bulbs dug up from last fall, and they will cause big problems in the greenhouse because of the high humidity.   Thrips are hard to get rid of, they say.    Oops!  Glad I didn't just put them in, or I might have had a bug problem!   The Univ of Minnesota Extension Service said to control thrips in wintered over bulbs, by putting them in a closed paper bag with some moth ball crystals for a few weeks.  So I did that.   I'll try a few of these bulbs in there to see what they do.   The rest will go back outside.   But I know that professional growers plant and grow many beautiful flowers in greenhouses.  A person has to know what to do though.
   On this Earth Day I want to remind everyone to recycle, reuse, and conserve!   Re-purpose things if you can, don't go out and just buy new.  Don't make multiple trips to town, when errands can be bundled.  I like to hang clothes outside to dry and I'm glad I am in a position to do that.  (I know that many people in the city cannot do this)   There are lots of little things we can all do to preserve this beautiful earth for our children.  There is a lot of waste these days, especially in packaging of products.   Those hard to open plastic wrappers that toys and tools come in, is especially annoying!  I try to buy things that are not wrapped up in multiple layers of plastic.   We should try to take our own shopping bags to the store, not just have everything bagged up in those plastic bags.   I remember as a child, grocery stores would save boxes and 'bag' your groceries in those!
     The Lord made us stewards of this beautiful earth, and it's our duty to take good care of it!

Early April on the Farm

There isn't a whole lot happening here on Honey B Farm right now, but I went around the place today taking photos of what things are like at this time.  Today we are finishing up the last of the maple syrup making.   To our dismay, it has not been a good year for maple syrup.   The weather has just been too warm!   The night temperatures have barely hit the freezing mark, and the daytime temperatures are very warm.  The sap has not been running well.   Some years are like that.  We take what the Lord gives to us, and this year we have only made about 3 finished gallons of syrup.  That translates into about 24 pints.   That's hardly enough to sell, so this year our maple supply is just for us and for gifts to family and friends.   Here are some photos of today's sap gathering and maple syrup making.  The past couple evenings have not even hit the freezing mark, and today and tomorrow the temps are almost 70.  This will truly be the last for sap, as now the trees are in danger of budding out, and "buddy" sap is awful for making maple syrup - makes a bitter, bad tasting syrup.

Harold drives our Lo-Boy tractor around the woodland paths to gather the sap.

Harold pours a bucket of sap into the barrel.

The top of the barrel has a filter so that we pour clean sap into the barrel.

The bags aren't very full of sap at this time of the year. 

A view of the evaporator.  There are 7 sections, and each section has a small hole where the sap runs from one section to another.   Harold made this evaporator himself several years ago.

The inside of the stove has fire brick all around

The back of the stove has sand and fire brick to keep in the heat.

Harold tears up birch bark, which makes a really good fire starter.

Within 20 minutes he has a good boil going!  You can't see it in this photo, but there are 5 sections boiling!

The 2017 maple camp.  It takes patience and a lot of time and wood to boil up the sap.  You keep adding sap as it boils, add more wood to the fire, skim off foam, and just wait for the near-syrup to bring into the house for finishing.

We have two small lakes on our property.   One lake we call Two Squaw Lake.   Here are a couple photos of it.  This pond iced out early this year about 4 days ago.

The front part of the lake is a shallow bog.

The back part of the lake is deeper and supports much wildlife and birds, especially trumpeter swans and ducks and loons.

In the woods now, there are signs of wildflowers beginning to grow.  Here are tiny bloodroot flowers making an early appearance:

All over the woods there are these small bloodroot plants growing.  They are usually the first wildflowers to bloom.  Spring is here!

Besides cutting wood for maple syrup making, Harold has been getting an early start on next year's wood pile.   Easier to cut firewood now before the mosquitoes and ticks and thick woodland growth gets going.

A good start on next year's firewood!

Everywhere the fruit trees are beginning to bud out.  There's hope for a good fruit crop!

Apple tree buds.   We didn't kill off our tree after last spring's fiasco with frozen water!  We will have apples again!

The Nanking cherry bushes are in full bud mode also.   The mice chewed the bottom bark a little, but I think the bushes will survive and give us fruit.  That is, IF we can keep the birds from eating all our cherries!  Nanking cherries make an excellent jelly.

And now for some photos of our farm cats today!

A turned over bin makes a good place for a cat to contemplate life!  I always wonder what cats think about when they just sit there!?

This is Fluffy, the only summer kitten that survived the winter.  Perhaps her long hair saved her.  Unfortunately long hair cats do not do well out here on the farm, as their hair mats easily.  I am constantly brushing Fluffy.   As a result, she usually runs when she sees me coming with the brush!

This is Smokey Joe.  He was an early kitten from last year.  And very wild.  He ran away from home, and I found him down the road after several days.  I tried to catch him with heavy gloves and a cage, but he would have none of that.  After many huge struggles, I gave up and decided he would have to live on his own - eagle bait, for sure.   A couple weeks later he came home and would have nothing to do with me for months.  By the end of the summer, though, I managed to tame him down, and now he is a constant companion!  Always wants to be held, always by my side.  I cannot go anywhere around here without Smokey following me.  What a long way he has come!   From "wild kitty" to being a constant buddy. 

 I have started to plant things in the greenhouse.   As an experiment to see how early I can get tomatoes and veggies to grow, I put a few tomato plants, leeks, herbs, lettuce, spinach and radishes in the greenhouse.   This is almost 2 months earlier than regular gardening out in the big gardens.   So far so good.   I spent many an enjoyable afternoon cleaning out the greenhouse.   The garlic I planted last fall is up and growing nicely, too!

Just beginning to grow things in the greenhouse.   So far I have managed to keep  temperatures of 50 to 70 degrees in there, so my early tomatoes should do OK. 

The garlic planted last fall has wintered over nicely and is up and growing!

And that's about the sum of things as of April 8 here on the farm!   Sometimes it seems like nothing is going on, but the cycle of life continues.   Spring is here and we are starting to be busy with gardening and chores.  Everything is coming alive again!   The birds are back, the cats have survived the winter, the trees are starting to bud and flowers are starting to bloom.   Life is good.   Nothing spectacular - but sometimes the simple life is best....................

Maple Syrup Season 2017 begins!

Up here in the northwoods of Minnesota, maple syrup time has arrived!  Yesterday and today we tapped about 100 trees, and will probably tap another batch of trees tomorrow afternoon.   Making maple syrup is a big deal up here.   Many folks in the area boil up sap from their backyard trees, and everyone has their own ways of doing things.   For weeks before the sap runs, neighbors are talking about what to do different this year, how to improve the process, and arguing about the "best way" to do everything.   We have all spent time in the winter preparing sap bags and cleaning equipment and gathering canning jars.  Now the time is here..............
     Maple syrupping takes a physical toll on a person.   It's a lot of work!  Every year Harold and I say things like:  "We're getting too old for this."  Or "This will probably be the last year we do this".  Or "Boy, are we out of shape!"  But then, next year we forget about all this and do it again!  We know we are in for a couple of busy weeks of hauling sap, boiling sap, cutting wood, feeding the fire under the evaporator, filtering syrup, heating it, testing it, tasting it until we are sick of it, and finally bottling the finished product.   Folks visit each other and present a jar of this year's finished product, and everyone takes turns shaking the jar a couple of quick sideways shakes to see "if there are 3 bubbles in the syrup" - a good indication of a fine syrup made the right way and with the right thickness.   And of course we all have to taste each other's finished syrup and compare!
    Vermont has nothing on us up here in northern Minnesota!  We, too, can make a very tasty and fine maple syrup.   Making our own maple syrup means we can always have plenty to cook with and plenty for the year without spending an arm and a leg for it.   AND it comes right from our very own woods and we are proud that we made it ourselves!   Just buying a bottle of it at the store doesn't give you the same sense of satisfaction.   So, in spite of the work involved, here we go again!

We start by drilling a hole in a maple tree using a 13/64 drill bit.   Harold used to use a hand driller for this process, but a DeWalt drill is much easier for old folks like us!

The finished hole begins to ooze sap immediately.

A stainless steel tap is pounded into the drilled hole.

A sap bag is hung through the tap and a 3 inch hex head screw is driven into the tree just above the tap and bag to hold the bag in place securely through a grommet.

At this time of year, the path through the sugarbush is quite muddy and wet with puddles of water everywhere.   At least we aren't slogging through 2 feet of snow like we did about 7 or 8 years ago!

You can see 4 bags hung in this photo.   We tap trees on both sides of paths through our woods to make it easier to collect and easier to haul.

Our farm cats always tag along with us!  They think it's great fun to follow us in the woods and explore new areas - so many trees to climb!  So many logs to explore!  So many new scents to enjoy!  We had 10 of them follow us around this afternoon.

One of our tomcats, Smokey, watches Harold and inspects every newly tapped tree!  He has to know everything that goes on!

Here is one of the bags on a tree we tapped yesterday.   It already has about 2 gallons of sap collected in the bag.

We spent time this afternoon scrubbing out the bulk tank that we use to store the collected sap.   After cleaning the inside spotless, we tarped the tank to keep it clean.

We have a start on wood needed for the evaporator, but we will need a LOT more than this!   In between boiling sap, Harold will be cutting more wood and splitting it for the stove.

So this is what we need to do just to get started!  Tomorrow we will collect sap from the 100 bags, and on Monday we will get up early and boil sap all day long and feed the fire.   By evening, we should have "near syrup", which will be finished in the house to 218 degrees and filtered through a wool filter, and then allowed to sit overnight to settle out some more before canning it up the next day.    This process will be repeated over and over for probably the next couple weeks.    That is, IF it freezes at night and is above freezing during the day.    If the night time temperatures don't go to freezing, the sap will not run the next day, and we get a break from the process.   We collect sap until we either get tired of doing this, or until the trees bud out, whichever comes first!  (Usually we've had enough of this after about 10 days!)  We make anywhere from 10-20 finished gallons of syrup, and it takes about 40 gallons of sap (sometimes a lot more, varies from year to year) to make one gallon of finished syrup.