Saturday, March 24, 2012

Beds and Buzz

Last weekend we got the raised beds together and filled. Below are pictures in action. Thusfar we have in starts of: onions, shallots, garlic, potatoes, broccoli, and cauliflower.  We can put the Kale seeds in now, just haven't gotten to it yet.  :) We will have to wait until April (last frost) to put the rest of the seeds in.



This weekend was a big weekend for me in terms of beekeeping. I got my first up close and personal experience with several hives, as well as made up sugar syrup for spring feeding.  Also, I found out that I will be getting 2-3 hives in April, in addition to the ones located in the community that I am responsible for checking on.  The most amazing thing was the smell. Somehow, the books all failed to mention the fact that the hives have the most wonderful and distinctive smell. Who knew?!  Even the dead one that we dissected/cleaned still had an aroma to it.  It's like a floral, sweet flowery-buttery smell. 

Cleaning out the dead hive was a lot of hard (even  gross) labor. Lot of lifting, scraping out wax/propolis, found lots of crawly things living in the dead hive (even mold started to take it over).  However, was really interesting.  This is a hobby I can really see myself enjoying. 


Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Beekeeping start

This weekend the beekeeping apprentices to start our training- I am excited!  It is just to cover intro stuff (gear),  and we are doing a dissection of a hive that died over the winter.  What an incredible learning experience!  It is still undecided if our property has been chosen to be a 'hive host' this season. I'll post a follow up after the weekend!

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Chicken Sounds

One of the things I enjoy the most is lounging outside with the girls while they free range.  They are so funny to watch. I love the sounds they make when they are content and foraging (a soft clucking sound).  One of the funnier sounds, is when I am in the house (especially the side the is close to the back yard), I can hear the trumpeting of a girl who just laid an egg. This is when they are at their loudest, they announce to the world that they laid an egg (who wouldn't be excited about that?!). It's a very distinctive noise.  I'll try to capture it on video to share with everyone!

Monday, March 5, 2012

Buzz and Beds

Exciting week this week.  I got official word that I have a beekeeping apprenticeship starting in the Spring! Yahoo!  I'm excited that I get supervised for my foray into my beekeeping. More details on that as they occur.  For now, I'm studying up to refresh myself, as well as getting my bee toolbox together for site visits (hive tool, frame lifter,  bee brush, smoker & fuel, antihistamine tabs/topicals, epi-pen, etc). I'm not sure how many hives I'll be assigned to check on, I will be meeting with the owner of the company this week.

This weekend we built our raised garden beds.  Next weekend we will be getting and mixing up a large batch of the substrate. We are using the "Square Foot Gardening" Method, so will be using "Mel's special mix" (a mix of compost, vermiculite, and peat).  The weekend of the 17th is the Tilth's Spring plant sale, where we will be purchasing our plants. We didn't want to start with seeds for our first foray into gardening - started plants seems more assured.