Surrendering to the Road

The road dust is thick again, with huge combines and grain trucks roaring by. The dust is not good for my lungs, so I avoid it. Perhaps a sign borrowed from a boat marina would help: LEAVE NO WAKE.

My front border has suffered from neglect on account of the dust. My house is too close to the road. So, I made a decision to stop trying to have annuals there. This has only taken me years to figure out. It suddenly dawned on me that having a pretty show of flowers for the passers-by was ridiculous. For one thing, everyone zooms past so fast that all they see is a blur, or my backside as I work the soil.

 I shall now confine my efforts for my eyes only.  The weedy hill out back will be my new area of interest/challenge.

At the moment, however, there are bunches of wildflowers there that the bees are working. Shrub-like White Heath Asters have taken over spots not already choked by English Plantain and foxtails. Usually, I avoid yanking out flowers in bloom. They don't like it and I feel bad. However, the surrounding fields are crammed with them. I believe the cows don't eat them, preferring to just smell their lovely fragrance and admire the tiny daisy-like flowers.

Now that cooler weather has finally arrived, I can fling myself headlong into transforming the hill into a blooming showplace. That's how we gardeners always start out, with plans that are a tad beyond grandiose.

As I've mentioned, the soil is lovely on that hillside. That's why it's choked with weeds. No need to dwell on that.

To this end, I have ordered a bulb planting auger for my drill. Here are quantities of daffodils that I dug up recently because they needed to be divided. There are some daylilies that I want to transplant in the manner of White Flower Farm's expensive Daffodils and Daylilies collection.

My plan is to also transplant as many of the robust plants as possible. Here are the sage I mentioned earlier. They have lovely blue flowers in springtime and shade out weeds that try and grow under them. Bees and hummingbirds love them. Parts have sometimes died out in a really cold winter, minus twenty degrees, but they have always rebounded.

Best for me to begin with Square Inch Gardening. Today, I started at the end closest to the back of the house and began the slow crawl forward.

Getting the roots out required several things, like the shovel, claw and kneelie. Another was the lawn chair and jar of iced tea with basswood honey.

The beauty of this bed is it gets morning and late afternoon shade. Heading in a northerly direction, I came upon the Lost Iris Planting. The weeds have infiltrated it and the irises will all have to be dug up. That four-foot wedge of dirt was about two hours' worth of digging and sorting. Soon, I'll be able to work the soil with the Mantis and proceed with the Grand Plan, hopefully before the fall rains start.

The Door Opens on a Wider World

At first, the chicks were afraid to come out when I propped open their door. Chickens are not renowned for their bravery.

Waiting to see how big a zucchini would get, I decided that this was it. I split it open and the chicks came out to get it. Lots of weeds have grown up in the run since there were any chickens using it. It was over the babies' heads and must have seemed like a jungle to them.

As long as I was sitting on my half cinder block watching them, they stayed out. Every few minutes, they would look up to check that I was still there. It was like when I had toddlers; the eye contact was reassuring to them.

They scurried back into the coop when I left to go inside. I had to order a camp stool from Amazon.

A Short Rant About Honey Prices

Checking honey prices in the supermarket, I was astonished to find the dark honey labeled "raw" and sold at premium prices. Dark honey is at the bottom of the scale for great honey, right next to road oil.

Here's the deal with honey. Honey is graded by color. The lighter the color, the more value. Any honey from a local beekeeper is no doubt "organic" and not pressure filtered. Raw just means it hasn't been heated. In a small operation, there's no need to not let gravity cause the honey to drip through the mesh strainer. "Raw" sounds unfinished to me.

Not only that, she goes on, but I really can't believe that honey labeled raw and organic and from Brazil is really all those things. What it is is dark and medicinal-looking.

Doing some calculations of what my honey is worth, according to the various jars and bears, I get a range of a minimum of $11 for the quart jar, up to $16.50 for organic and raw. If I were to part with any of the specialty honey, the basswood, I would expect to get $20 for a quart jar, for the premium light color and unique flavor. Anyone who had tasted basswood honey (and could afford it) would be happy to get it.

I used my new spiffy digital kitchen scale and discovered that a quart jar holds not three pounds, but two pounds and twelve ounces of honey. So my calculations were based on that.

One other factor, in addition to all the expense of equipment, is the glass jars, which cost almost a dollar each. From all the above, it is apparent that I intend to sell some honey but don't want to haggle with those who want the price to be cheaper than Walmart.

These jars, filled yesterday, are all the same batch of light, exquisite honey. The ones near the window just have more light shining through them. Beekeepers frequently use the flat-sided glass honey jars to make the honey look one grade lighter. Those jars are lovely but even more expensive than the canning jars.

Fine honey is like fine wine, expensive.

More Honey

Despite the oppressive heat and humidity, it is once again time to bring in some more honey. I always wear duds under the bee suit, not because I am afraid of the bees, but because I think I might do something clumsy and have the entire hive swarming about me. So, I'm pretty warm before I even leave the AC. If the temperature is even above eighty-five outside, all my pores are working overtime to cool me off. When I wring out my headband, there is an appreciable amount of salt water. Okay, it's pure sweat.

There were three supers on the hive. Instead of filling the frames completely on one super before moving up to the next, as I've instructed them many times, the bees have filled and capped the center frames of each super and then gone up and filled the middle frames of the next super. Lots of frames have uncapped honey. The bees are like me with my knitting projects; many things started at once. That's how we are.

I'm finally learning how to use the empty super box to unload some of the heavy frames and save my back. Brushing the bees off the capped frames, I load them into the cart and cover them. I leave the the bees to get out through the bee escape. After a few trips, I'll have sorted the frames that still have honey that is uncapped, and leave that super on for the winter. As I've mentioned, it's not a commercial enterprise.

The smoker, like a barbecue, seems to be at its best when I'm finished with it and driving the cart back to the house. Pine needles are the best fuel. I always add some dried sage. It smells great. I have rather a lot of sage growing in the front border. From time to time, I cut some and hang it to dry in the workshop.

The hive is tipping. I'll need some help to level it soon. There is an extra bee suit and veil that my granddaughter Carolyn isn't using. She was a beekeeper as a teen. Now she and her husband Karl  are going to college in Georgia.

Some of the honey from 2014 has granulated in the jars. It's a normal thing. There is a fun moment when I take the lid off and the honey rushes out. I hastily pour off some of the honey, put the jar in hot water in the crock pot and warm it up to liquefy it. Like all honey projects, it's messy, sticky and very tasty.

By the Armful

The chicks learned to fly to a breathtaking altitude of two feet. The Reds can now reach the perches.

Ellie and Nellie flew up to my arm, ignoring warnings from the flock that I was not to be trusted. Sitting on a half cinder block limits the amount of time I can accommodate their comfort. As a chair, it's woefully inadequate.

I shall have to tame down the others. Meanwhile, I have a bracelet that makes me laugh.

Welcome to Fort Flocks

Arriving in the pet carrier, the six chicks are now running around in the coop. They are a challenge to photograph, they move so quickly.



They worked as a team to bite the few weeds peeking through the opening left by the extension cord. The coop is constructed of metal siding, with a metal door. Hence, Fort Flocks. Nothing bigger than a half inch can get in, but I still worry about them.

Ellie and Nellie come up to my hand and let me pet them and pick them up. The others are far too busy scratching excitedly in hopes of finding some tiny treasures they can gobble up. The Rhode Island Reds streak across the straw as I sit on a cinder block watching their antics.

At night, they burrow into the fresh straw near the hanging heat lamp, oblivious of the hysterical yipping outside. The coyotes are out carrying on under the full moon. .

Ready to Fly

They are only two weeks old, but mostly feathered out and ready to fly their temporary home in the cardboard box.  Were it not for the old fan screens on top, they'd be all over the workshop.

This is Nellie and on the dowel perch is the other Barred Rock, Ellie. They are the tamest, with the Americana, Besty, the most skittish.

It means stretching a long extension cord down to the coop and hanging the heat lamp there for nights.

The coop is all cleaned out. They will have so much room there they may be bewildered. I'll have to keep them company for a little while. They can't go out into the run until they get so big that they can't hop through the chain link fence.

I'd forgotten how much healthful exercise is provided by chickens in the coop down the hill. Now, it's made even more beneficial by a quantity of mole hills that make it a lot like trudging up that hill through snow.