Littlest Beekeeper

Meet the littlest beekeeper.  She's great.  The last two inspections, farmer girl and her superhero daddy have worked together.  Is this a good idea?  Oh yes.  Here's why:

First of all, we wouldn't do this if we thought she was in any real danger of getting bad stings.  She's not.  When the bees are stressed, which they have been off and on over the year that we've had them, they get defensive and a bit more prone to stinging.  But she's equipped and ready.  And if they seem a bit testy, she simply steps back.  No one has suffered a sting since I took one to the face last fall handing equipment to Husbandman over the fence with no gear on.

Secondly, Husbandman can do the inspection alone, but he doesn't like to.  Its good to have another set of eyes, or even squishing fingers when we see wax moth larvae or hive beetles.  I don't feel comfortable being out with him by the hives with the boys napping and our 5 yr old watching a movie with instructions to run out and get us if she needs us.  It's incovenient to stop every few minutes to run in and check on them, battling the 4-leggeds at each gate coming and going, making sure my clothes and veil are free of bees before going into the house, etc.  So, with me passing off my veil to my "miny-me", I get to stay where I can keep instant tabs of potential emergencies and Husbandman gets his 2nd set of eyes and fingers.

And boy does she have eyes.  Sharp ones.  She's still learning bees, but once she knows what she's looking for, my guess is she'll spot the queen every time.  She's way better than me.  I quickly glance at the frame for problems and impatiently ask if I can take a break to check on the kids again.

And finally, there's something about bees and bonding.  There's a daddy who treasures his little girl.  And there's a little girl who adores her daddy.  And working the bees is their special activity that they get to do together.  Almost like the bees are working their propolis, fusing their hearts together.

Picking Up Speed

The title of this post is not referring to any new drug use, though I'm sure that would be momentarily helpful.  No, instead I'm seeing our fall whizzing toward us at break-neck speed and I'm scrambling to be ready when in slams into my hot summer pace.

Not that summer has been lazy.  Just still working on summer stuff, that's all.

Sometime in July and August (see, I told you I was behind), I finished picking the last of our grapes.  Got about 10 gallons this year.  I fired up the canner to make jelly, but instead of creating a sauna inside, Husbandman set me up reeeeaaaallll nice.  And you have to read the rest of the post in a true southern drawl to get the full effect.

We recently acqured a large 2-burner gas stove, mainly for this very pupose but also for any pesky hurricanes that take out our power for any length of time.  This burner easily held my water bath canner and my pot of grape jelly.  I also did watermelon rind jelly since everything was fired up and crankin'.  And I had a nice shadey spot to work while still keeping an eye on the rugrats in the pool or swing set.  Everyone was happy... until a wet bottom found its way onto my Countryside magazine while I was up stirring the brew.  Anyway, about half my grape jelly turned out just fine.  The other half and the watermelon stuff didn't set so at some point I'll reopen those jars and try again.  More pectin, more sugar, more cooking and stirring.  One day I'll learn how to get it right the first time around.

I registered farmer girl and "Thumper" for the county fair last week.  Now we get to figure out the proper positioning and handling of a rabbit, not to mention getting her tattooed. (The bunny, not the girl).  A friend suggested waltzing into our local tattoo parlor, "Bad Azz Tattoo" with our fur ball and suggested a nice barb wire tat around the bicep.  Tempting... but we're obligated to letters and numbers in the left ear.  Later today, we're moving Thumper and Dumplin (because farm boy 1 won't be left out) into the porch for easier access for practicing.  And I also get to make matching outfits for the girl and her bunny.  Not really sure how, or why I'm happy about that, or even what possessed me to think of entering her into that contest, but I did.  And ya know, the smile on her face will be worth it, I'm sure.  The girl, not the bunny.  Not sure the bunny will be too thrilled on the notion.

We slaughtered our first ducks on Saturday.  We're having a rough go.  We started with 10 around Easter.  One died we think from internal injuries suffered at the paw of Angel.  Another turned sick-looking a while later and died.  Another just a couple weeks ago started limping and went quite lame.  He was one we slaughtered and by Saturday he was down to nothing.  He must have been starving for a week and a half, unable to walk enough to eat and drink.  Another had a large cyst/tumor thing on its face.  We culled them both and one is due for the oven momentarily.  The other (the skinny one) will be made into soup on a fine autumn day.  And now, yet another is acting lame.   We now have 1 good male, 4 females and a lame male.  Good for breeding stock which is what we wanted, but I'm nervous whatever has happened already will end up happening to our last remaining drake.  Unless its male competition that's doing it.

Nina is unwittingly enjoying her last meal.  I called a friend on a whim to see if he was interested in swapping a sheep for some beef.  He is, but wants it in meat form, minus the hoof.  So, sweet Nina is leaving us.  I haven't broken it to the girl child yet, but I don't think it will be a huge issue.  She's more keen on Daisy now anyway because Daisy is smaller.  She's never taken slaughtering real hard.  My mom was over while we killed the ducks and she expected a traumatic reaction from her granddaughter.  To her surprise, farm girl very bluntly and calmly explained the whole process to her and ended with, "And that's yummy MEAT!"  Yes, she's our sweet little carnivore.

We have re-acquired Doby.  You may remember Helen's baby... who had a baby... and we sold to some friends to get them started in dairying?  Well, they've decided farm-livin' is not exactly the life for them.  At least not with a triple digit heat index that go on for months at a time.  So we have her back and we're happy.  She's so sweet.  The farm girl is learning to milk on her (she's the only one who doesn't protest).  We initially only wanted 3 total dairy goats, but we're going to run with it.  4 isn't too different.  Especially since we decided to only keep Zuma and Valentino for breeding sheep.

We put Dulci in with Copper a week or so ago since its about time for her heats to start.  And sure enough, she got him all riled up. (Don't forget that southern drawl).  She escaped on Saturday while we were gone.  We put her in with the rest of the ladies until we could fix the fence.  Sunday Husbandman could tell she was in heat and Copper was just beside himself.  So we put her back in despite the fact that the fence wasn't shored up.  Sunday night she was out again and we put her in with the ladies.  Monday morning Copper was out... and he had circumcized himself in his escapades.  We put them both together and immediately went to fence fixing... at 7:30am.  At this Husbandman remarked that "we watch more goat sex before breakfast than most people see in a lifetime."  And yes, bloody and injured though it be, Copper took his one and only job very seriously and did it thoroughly job right before our very eyes.  The kids were inside watching a dinosaur documentary just in case you were concerned for their innocense.  He's calmed significantly today, but I have not ventured close enough to get a full accounting of his injury.  The bleeding has stopped and he's acting normal so I'll probably just let him be.  I mean, I do know the injury was, um, flushed.

And since I may not get blogging again for another month, let me comment on the state of our bee hives.  We suspect that both of our hives swarmed and that we checked one hive at just the wrong time and caused the new queen to fly off in fear.  So we put a frame of eggs (we think) and larvae from the other hive into the queenless hive.  And next week is the moment of truth.  Hopefully they're doing their thing.
I've got radishes, squash, and mustard greens ready to go in the ground.  The jelly melon is finally producing... like mad.  Picked our first one today just to determine how to know when its ripe.  We've got a busy week lined up with not a stitch of gardening in it so next week will have to border on insanity. 

Especially since the kiddie pool bit it this weekend.  That marks the official end of summer.

A Day of Firsts

I'm exhausted.  But what a great day.

Some friends came over to help us with a hive inspection (we were also moving the entire hive stand set-up).  In one hive, we had a considerable amount of honey in the super.  For reference sake, we have 8-frame hive boxes.  We have 2 deep boxes and 1 shallow super per hive.  In this one hive, as I said, the honey was calling us.  Also, the bees had drawn the comb rather helter-skelter.  We're not sure why.  They're bottom boxes look great.  But we decided to harvest honey for the first time from 4 shallow frames of honey and replace them with 4 empty frames. 

Each of us took a sting.  Our friend got his very first sting right on the nose (his veil fell against his face).  Husbandman took one to the hand (no gloves) and I had one crawl up my pant leg and get me on the leg just as I was walking away with their honey.  But other than that, and given that none of us really knew what we were doing too well, I'd say it went rather well.

Then came the fun part.  In the future, we'll likely use a honey extractor so we don't have to destroy the comb, but this round given the state of the comb, we just cut it right out of the frames.  We put it all into our big stainless steel milking pot.  And I got to squeeze.

After I got it all squeezed out, we set a jar in a bowl and our milk funnel into the jar.  We set a piece of cheese cloth into the funnel and filtered the honey.

 The chunks of wax we'll melt in the sun and filter through cheese cloth.  Maybe mix it with some goat milk for soap???

 From those 4 frames, we ended up with just shy of a gallon of honey.  Its a bit thin, but experts say to set the capped frames in a dehumidified room for a few days before extracting.  Bees can't bring the water content down in Florida humidity.  We skipped this step.  We're fine with runny-ish honey.  In China, it was water thin... but then again, it really is precious little more than water at their own doing.

Our next adventure of the day dealt with this new toy... a Nutrimill grain mill!  I've been wanting an electric grain mill for years.  I finally got to order one and it arrived late this week.  I already had some wheat berries given that I used to occasionally pull out the hand-crank mill and let Husbandman crank it shirtless for my own amusement, but it really didn't produce fine enough flour for nice breads.  But today, Husbandman stayed fully clothed, the kids ran to a bedroom and shut the door against the noise and I listened to the hum of nutrition bursting from tiny little grains.

 A couple hours later (and a bit of our own honey in the recipe), I had these beauties.  It tastes good.  I'm a bit of a novice to the various types of wheat and all the recipes so I have lots of reading to do, but I'm sure the nice folks at Bread Beckers will be happy to supply me with all my knowledge and material needs.

Here are the boys, licking the dregs of honey from a bowl lid with a slice of freshly baked bread in hand.  Though the meal was light on veggies, I thought bread, honey and fresh goat milk made for a mighty fine supper.  They thought so too.

Flash Farming

Husbandman and I may not be known to let grass grow under our feet, but we do usually do things rather methodically, calculated, planned, over-planned and almost always over-researched.

But this year seems to be different.  Without meaning to, it seems as though we're blitzkrieging on new enterprises.

So Mona spontaneously got bred.  And we spontaneously brought home Brownie, another rabbit for breeding, when some friends offered her to us.  This leaves us with 2 filled rabbit hutches, neither with a nest box, neither with enough room for the mother and her 6-week old weened young and no suitable pen for said young.  With Mona due in just over a week, I have ordered three 20"x26"x6" wash basins for nest boxes (because I don't have time to build something).  It gives us about 7 weeks to build a pen large enough for the weened young.  We intended to breed Brownie pretty soon, but that may be put on hold for a bit now. (whew!)

Then Doby kidded last night.  I wasn't expecting her to kid until May or June, but a couple days ago I realized her time was immanent.  I was quite nervous for her as she's just over a year old and still rather small.  That she was bred to a dwarf goat eased my mind only slightly.  But my worries were for naught.  She birthed about midnight last night without a peep.  I knew what happened only by Angel making some odd confusing noises and figured she was baffled by the "miraculous" appearance of a new charge.  She stood vigilantly by them the entire night though.  So now, in the midst of everything else, I'm milking a new goat 4 times a day.  She's not great on the stand yet.  More nervous than interested in food.  To narrow through the hips to make udder access easy.  Just all around, not that fun right now.  I'm also not sure how long we'll be without milk in the next year as the 3 present milkers dry off and we appropriately space their lactations now that the buck's "services" can be planned and prevented.

A couple days ago, the people we bought our bee hives from came by to give us a tutorial and check on the hives.  Turns out they've gone gangbusters in there and are already busting out of the original boxes.  We need to add a box to each hive pronto... meaning we need to build them first!  So tomorrow morning, Husbandman will ferociously build, tomorrow afternoon I will ferociously paint and Saturday we will quietly and calmly install.

A few days ago friends asked if we wanted some new chicks.  We did the math and decided,yes we could use some fresh layers to see us through the lean time this winter when daylight and molting could bring us to less than a half dozen a week.  So now we need to figure out which pen will be our brooder and then hold our growing birds... which means no pen is available to even buy some time with the young bunnies.

Then today, I popped on Craig's list (hoping to see a rabbit hutch for sale to save us the time and energy to build one) and found muscovy ducklings for sale locally.  I've never seen muscovy ducklings for sale!  Hatcheries require a huge order and a pretty penny each.  I asked the people selling if this was something they would likely keep on hand.  No such luck.  They're only available a couple times a year from hatcheries and they grabbed these on a whim.  So, this means we're probably going to be bringing home muscovies again rather soon.  We'll brood them in the dog crate until their ready for the old turkey pen outside in the pasture.  And one of those rabbit nest boxes I ordered will probably wind up a duck bath.

And those same friends that gave us Brownie, and asked if we wanted to order chicks with them also asked if we wanted a really nice Suffolk ewe.  Apparently this ewe has been shown at the county fair and has had 2 sets of twins in her 4 years of life.  Her present owners just want a good home for her.  So, we're now considering bringing on a new ewe that would have more likelihood of twinning and slaughtering both Nina and Daisy (knife to the heart twice!!!) this fall.  We don't want to overwinter 3 breeding ewes.  Should we take this ewe, we'd keep her and Esperanza for breeding (and of course Valentino too).

So guess what we're doing this weekend.

The Buzz

We worked our new hives for the first time last Saturday.  All in all, it went very well.  No one got stung despite us not getting the smoker to really work properly until the very end.  Honey bees get such a bad rap... they're just not at all aggressive.  A person's much more likely to get injured by a dog, but no one flips over Fido moving in.

I digress.  Anyway, as I was saying, it all went well.  We're still VERY new to this so we didn't quite know all the various things to look for.  Every day when I'm in the pasture filling water buckets, I peak at the hives.  I don't open them, just stand to the side and watch for a decent amount of activity.  They're always buzzing and busy.  I also look for an abnormal amount of dead bees on the ground.  Thankfully I haven't seen any of that.

 Here's Husbandman suited up using the hive tool to separate frames so they can be pulled and inspected individually.

I wish I could get a good picture of bees with pollen on their legs.  Its so neat to see the perfect way God designed their little bodies to do big things!

 A pulled frame.  We were looking to make sure we saw all stages of bees and honey: eggs, larvae, young brood, pollen, nectar, capped honey, etc.

When we purchased our bees, we bought two 5-frame nuks of bees and put them each in 8-frame boxes.  So some frames are filled and covered in bees while some of the outer frames are still rather vacant.

Husbandman closing up after finishing the task.

So, because people ARE going to wonder about safety, let me share the facts.

Africanized bees are aggressive and those bees are gradually crawling up the state of Florida.  It is estimated that by 2015, 1 in every 6 homes will have a colony of Africanized bees on their property.  Keeping nice, docile honey bees around will actually PREVENT Africanized bees from deciding your home is a good place for them.  An established hive is already going after their food source.  When a swarm is looking for a place to land, they will be less likely to go where bees are already inhabiting. 

Honey bees only sting when they're feeling like the hive is being threatened.  And they give plenty of warning.  A few dive bombs to the head will let anyone know that they're getting too close.

We have opted for minimal gear.  We have 1 proper veil (which I was wearing) and both of us opted for no gloves.  Gloves make for clumsy fingers that can squish bees when handling frames.  Many experts don't even wear veils when their working their hives.  I read about a man who complained about his horribly aggressive hives as he bumbled around in a complete head-to-toe bee suit.  Another expert went to inspect these "aggressive" hives wearing normal light colored clothes and a baseball cap.  Turns out the bees weren't aggressive at all.  The man in the suit just wasn't being careful and then never bothered to clean his suit between uses.  Being clumsy and careless makes them defensive.  Once they sting (or try to sting) they leave a pheromone on you telling the others that you're dangerous and should be stung.  This man only needed to go into his bee yard in his pheromone drenched suit and every sentry on guard would be after him.  Careful, slow movements make for calm, happy bees.

And a word about "swarms".  The word "swarm" brings fear to many people, but in actuality, swarms are nothing more than a great big breeding fest.  A new queen is made and she leaves the original hive with a line of drones (who are nothing more than breeding machines) and they find a new place to settle.  During a swarm the bees are more docile than ever.  A person can literally pick up that pulsing, buzzing ball of bees and simply drop them in a box and never get stung.  I've heard several people say they have put their bare hand into the center of a swarm ball and pulled it back out without ever being stung. 

The kids have all been introduced to the hives.  Since they reside in the pasture, which the kids are too short to get in to without adult assistance, there is no risk of them stumbling upon them or getting more curious than is safe.  Even still, they'd get a sting or 2 and would quickly be running crying to mommy and no other stings would be necessary.  The goats and sheep have learned to not bother them, so why shouldn't kids?  As for allergies, I doubt we will have an issue with them.  There's now a suspicion of a link between extreme allergies an excessive vaccinations.  Given our vaccination record, I'm doubtful there will be an allergy or one very severe.

We will possibly not get any honey this year.  We want to create the best base for them which means allowing them to build their own comb (for at least the bottom box) and allowing them to keep plenty of honey for themselves.  We'll let each hive fill up 2 deep 8-frame boxes before adding a honey super.  If we get honey before winter, great.  If not, there's always next year.

Write the Vision

And the LORD answered me and said: "Write the vision and make it plain upon tablets, that he may run that readeth it.  Habakkuk 2:2

And so I write out our plans for our little homestead.

For 2011 (with approximate completion time):  will strike through when completed.

1) Fence in the pasture common area (February)
2) Install inhabited beehives (March)
3) Plant several blackberry bushes and one more grape vine (April)
4)  Install new shaded herb bed (April)
5) Build fly/maggot traps for chicken feed (May) Husbandman drew the line at farming flies.
6) The Bachelor Pad- a separate fenced area to house our goat buck (May)
7) Build pens and fill them with meat rabbits for breeding (June)
8)Add removable plywood walls on the barn (as opposed to the present billboard tarp walls)- (December)
9) Install hay storage area over pump house (whenever) Decided that wasn't such a good idea... they'd maul us at each feeding.
For years beyond:

1) Add another partition to the pasture, one each year of 2012 and 2013, including separating and burning felled branches in each paddock.
2) Develop a grain patch to grow some of our own goat or chicken grain. (2014?)
3) Install a geothermal AC/heater (2012?) Removed from to-do list.  Not cost effective.
4) Clear to southern property line (2012)
5) Install a southern "fence" and plant blackberries and grapes along it. (2013) May be rethought with plans for a tree house.
6) Add muscovy ducks and/or turkeys (2012)
7) Clear area for garden expansion, expanding about 10-15' each year beginning in 2013.

Mad Dash Blog Post

Forgive me.  I don't have time for this but am doing it anyways as I'm WAY behind in my record-keeping.

 I finally completed my mushroom logs.  I got shiitaki soaked dowels from Fungi Perfecti online, drilled holes in a log completely covering the entire log, pounded the dowels in and sealed them with beeswax.  I melted the beeswax in an old coffee pot/dispenser that I found.  One of those you'd use at a party or office.  It heated the wax perfectly.  I used a paintbrush to dab over the plugs.  I had enough for 1 large log and the beginning of another.  I'll use the coffe pot/beeswax combo again to make dipped candles for Christmas presents.  Perfect size and shape.  May even use the dispenser feature to make some molded candles too.

And husbandman and a friend added the roof to our barn.  The closed off section contains our pump.  The area under the roof doubles our current "barn" space.  We intend for the sides to be removable so its nice and open for hot weather and cozy and snug in the winter.  So far we're dithering between using plywood or a billboard tarp that we'd merely roll up come spring.  We're going to try the billboard tarp first and see if it will work.

And none too soon.  This is our old "barn".  It served us well as a makeshift shelter until we knew what we really wanted.  The next phase of improvement is to add a common area to the pasture, which will include the barn and main gate, that the animals can access no matter which paddock their opened to.  Fencing is never finished.

In other news, we managed to slaughter all our turkeys.  We roasted one on Sunday (Thanksgiving was a bit different this year) and while it tasted good, I don't think I'm the best judge.  I'm very used to our own chickens so frankly I'd have been sadly disappointed if it didn't taste as it did.

We learned lots at the purple cow festival and the county fair... another post for another day.  Suffice to say we've decided to go ahead with honey bees and just be totally and completely dependent on our dog to keep any roaming bears at bay.  I'm also going to start a shaded herb garden.  And we'll begin design and construction on some small-child-friendly rabbit pens sometime next year.  Lots in store for us.  Lots to keep us busy.

Now on to the rest of life.

Goings On

1) A big event is on the horizon!  Sunday, October 10th there will be an alternative energy expo as the Marine Discovery Center in New Smyrna Beach.  But its not limited to alternative energy only but anything that will help us on the path toward a more sustainable existence.  And another cool aspect is that the businesses represented are all LOCAL!  If you have or know of a business you'd like to see there, let me know and I can connect you with the organizers.  Anything from bat boxes to builders to landscapers.  Very low vendor fee.  Great opportunities for everyone! 

See you at the Marine Discovery Center, 162 N. Causeway, New Smyrna Beach from 11am to 3pm.

2) Bringing back home, last Sunday, late afternoon, we were all outside.  The family was playing on the swingset, sheep were grazing nearby, turkeys running in the pasture... and the dog went on red alert.  A casual attempt to try to figure out what she was jumpy about sent us into a panic.  I (with my less than perfect vision) thought it was a BIG black wild pig running up our neighbors driveway.  We went running with the kids to the house, Husbandman grabbed the sheep, I herded up the turkeys and wondered if I should grab Dobie, our small, not quite yearling goat.  I called everyone on the street with kids, guts or amo.  Husbandman went out to check over the area with a, um, .22.  He didn't see anything then but the more we got talking about what we saw, its shape, the way it moved and its sheer size, we determined it was more likely a bear, its brown face tricking my near-sighted eyes into looking like tusks.

I started researching and the more I learned the more it must have been a bear.  To sum it up, black bears don't attack people, even little people, unless provoked.  They will eat chickens, turkeys and even small goats and sheep and come back night after night.  The dog may be enough of a deterent that it could pass by and not even come on the property.  But just to be safe, we've decided to hold off another year on starting honey bees just to make sure this cub kicked from the nest isn't making its home near us.  The smell of honey is strong and luring.  We could easily protect the hives  but not everything else that a hungry bear would find delectable!

3) So instead of honey we're thinking of rabbits.  What started out as a conversation of getting the little farm girl her own animal/s to care for, show at the county fair, pet and play with, ended up being a full-fledged rabbit operation.  The more we read, the more we wondered why we're raising chickens.  Now I'm not ready to give up on poultry all together.  We'll always raise egg-layers, but it would be nice if we could, between the turkeys and the rabbits, replace the meat bird operation.  Turkeys and rabbits are all things we plan to breed here where chickens... just not going to do a rooster again.  More thinking and planning to do.  We won't be doing anything until well after Husbandman's exam next month.  And the new barn needs to be finished first.  And we're thinking of creating a "bachelor pad" or breeding pen mostly because Copper has been jumping on Helen since the moment that baby came out.  A farmer's work is never done.

so much... too much

we learned so much at the purple cow fest... too much because i want to implement it all NOW. Some of what we learned was gleened from the seminars while other info was simply from talking to people who were there. Sometimes its easy to feel like you're the only one on the planet, or at least in the county, who's actually trying to do the homestead thing. Then you get connected and learn there are people everywhere doing all kinds of things. So, for those of you who think we're nuts, we're at least not alone! Crazy hippies are EVERYWHERE!

Beekeeping very doable. and if you're a neighbor, don't worry. you won't even know they are there other than your fruit and flowers will produce like never before. honeybees aren't at all agressive. you want to get your hives in the spring. a man north of gainesville sells the bottom box complete with a hive for $150. to harvest honey, you need a "super", which is a box that sits on top of that which sells for $15 and each frame for $1. You can start off immediately with only 1 hive, but the master beekeeper highly encouraged to start with two so that if you have a problem with one you can repopulate with the other. It hedges your bets of not having to start all over. It sounds like its really not difficult to manage a couple hives. Its the huge industrial honey factories that are having major problems because they don't spend the time with each individual hive. For a small homestead, very doable. While doing an initial gulp at the start-up cost ($300 in bees and hives, about $50 in supers, $50-100 for a hat and veil (made of metal netting... a must), $20 in lumber for the stand and about $10 in harvesting supplies), and that's to do it the cheep, redneck way, I also calculated the potential income: a hive will produce about 15 gallons of honey a year, that's 30 gallons of fabulous honey. If we use 5 gallons a year, 25 gallons are left to be sold. Asking $30 per gallon (a very reasonable price), that's $750. The cost of starting would be offset in the first year should all go well. But even still, I think March is a bit too soon to start. We'll probably wait until March of 2011 to make the jump... but that seems SOOOO far away!

Square Foot Gardening: After expanding our garden and putting in lots of time and effort to have it ready this fall, we've decided to immediately put in a "square foot bed". It will be a 4' by 4' raised bed. The reason is that I can direct seed things that aren't transplanting well and not worry about them being overtaken by weeds or eaten by ants. While others are already eating lettuce, I have yet to have any transplanted. Our Thanksgiving salad should be completely homegrown, yet I have no lettuce, no carrots, and far too few tomatoes. Square foot gardening should be a solution to most of that though not before Thursday! I don't regret expanding our inground garden as it will be great to host a multitude of vining cucurbits, and summer veggies, but I think a box or two of raised beds will be a great addition as well.

Goat Care: Learned the reason we aren't getting much for milk from our goats is that they have always freshened in the spring. Milking through the summer means the majority of water they drink goes to keeping them cool and not producing milk. Much better for Florida goats to freshen in the fall and milk all winter and spring. Also learned to not give a dewormer just because its time to give a dewormer. Parasites LOVE Florida because there's never enough cold to kill them off. Thus the subsequent generations quickly adapt to dewormers given regularly. We should alternate dewormers and only give them when the underside of the skin around the eye socket becomes white.

composting my lazy man's composting (no water, no turning) is doing nothing. i have to make composting part of my weekly regime. we also learned about vermicomposting (w/ worms). we'll probably get that going after the Christmas chaos is over.

butterfly gardening yes, we're (or should i say I) are putting in our first ever ornamental garden. i want cut flowers to bring in the house and the farmer girl loves butterflies. my husband is happy to go along w/ it, but the pointlessness of it baffles him. i'll probably add some pretty peppers to the bed just to keep it somewhat edible. Stokes asters, gaillardia, firebush, and passionvine are just a few that were mentioned that we'll add to our little bit of beautiful in the yard. I intend to start that this spring.

Sheep I guess I should start with the announcement that I haven't been defeated, animal wise. I'm going to keep going. but adding sheep to the mix right now is still a bit more than I think I'm ready for. Maybe come spring? We'll see. Once again, March seems too close. Maybe we'll get the county fair cast off's next year. We've been reading about them more recently and have gotten quite excited about these little creatures. Keeping them and the goats bred I think will be our biggest problem to figure out as rams and buck goats don't get along. Sounds like each place can only handle one head male. We're really liking Copper, but golly he stinks! And goats are easier to get bred than sheep (as in there's a goat on every corner practically!). We'll maybe start off with a trio or maybe just a duo, milk the ewes, eat the lambs and keep going until the ewe is too old then we'll raise up another ewe, get a new ram and start a new cycle. Just rambling thoughts, maybe call them wistful dreams, that need to be fine-tuned to fit our specific situation.

We neglected to take in the backyard chicken seminar. Our chickens are doing great so we chewed the fat with a pig farmer (no pun intended) instead. The kids did fabulous. The girl very much enjoyed dancing to the live bluegrass band. I told my husband we need to have enough kids to have a full bluegrass band in our home. Maybe a certain grandfather would enjoy giving banjo lessons. (hint hint) :->