Bats as Housepets

It was a dark and snowy night. Recent snows had caused me to get into my kindling stores. One was a box of good hickory twigs in the fruit cellar. There was a tiny noise that I couldn't identify as I dumped the cardboard box of twigs into a tote, which I carried into the house.

All the pets were with me, watching a movie in front of the wood stove. A noise was heard from the bedroom. Pandemonium broke out when I saw what looked like a bird flying around. The dog barked and lunged at it. The cats eagerly waited for it to dive within claw's reach. When it lighted on the wall by the ceiling, I realized it was one of the Little Brown Bats. It had a surprisingly big wingspan for such a little creature. It swooped all over.

Quickly ushering the pets out and closing the doors, I called my wildlife expert. Lissa said to try and catch it in a blanket and get it back to the fruit cellar.

When I returned to the bedroom, it had stopped flying around. It was nowhere to be seen.

The dear Little Brown Bat was finally found, clinging to the backside of the drapes. When I'd shopped for material to make drapes, I wanted some beautiful damask, but couldn't afford it. Consoling myself, I decided that such elegant fabric would be too grand for my modest home. Then I laughed, realizing such a rationalization was merely sour drapes.

Now, I was glad the fabric was lightweight. I put on my boots, gloves, hat, coat and new bee veil, just in case it wanted to fly in my face. I gently bundled the bat in the drapes, taking the curtain rod with it. Shining a big flashlight in my other hand, I stepped out into the horizontal snow. As I made my way through a three-foot drift, I couldn't help but wonder if anyone else was thus occupied during what seemed to be a blizzard. The curtain rod dragged in the snow, but the vital contents were safe from the storm.

Back down in the fruit cellar, I opened the drapes and placed the bat back on the cardboard box it seemed to favor. I apologized for disturbing its hibernation. I had been sure the pair of them had left weeks ago.

Back in the house, I kept a sharp watch out for the other bat. I checked the tote of kindling, peered behind drapes and was on high alert for some time.

The next day, I took a small box full of soft fuzzy fabrics down for it. There was no sign of it, so I guessed that it was tucked into the rack of wood down there.

Although the house was warmer for the poor critter, I fear they really don't make ideal house pets.

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Bats and Beehives

The extra cold weather caused the Little Brown Bats in the fruit cellar to move south without leaving a forwarding address. Not even a postcard from them.

Meanwhile, the hive bodies are going together in the warm house. This will be a single beehive, with plenty of room upstairs and downstairs for a large colony of bees.

Although I wear ear protectors as I pound in nails, the cats and dog are napping nearby, oblivious of the noise. They are in whatever room I am in, due to my enormous personal magnetism.

At the beginning beekeepers' meeting I attended, Beekeeping for Dummies was recommended. Since it's been so long since I kept bees, I'm finding the information quite useful. My bee smoker has arrived and the bee suit, veil and gloves are on the way. One of  the veteran beekeepers said he usually was stung thirty times while working with the bees. I, on the other hand, am a woman and don't have to be so brave or foolhardy.

As soon as I complete the two shallow honey supers, the hive exteriors will be primed for painting. I'm already primed for the bee experience.

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Lazy Sun

Part of me knows that it's the earth that is at fault. But while I wait for it to wobble around toward the Sun, it's easy to blame our star.

It seems that the Sun is merely indolent at this time of year, getting up late and then never reaching its full potential. Not as bad in the Midwest as it was in Fairbanks, Alaska, where the sun rose languidly at ten and set at two.

Case in point: the ditch across the road, a spot where the Sun don't shine, as they say. There is still snow there, despite some days that have been in the fifties. Sorry about the dullness of the image, but it's my view out the front windows. It's like the ice cap on Mars or ice on the moon. There are plenty of those shady spots that are still full of icy snow. The back of my house, on the north side, is one big slab of slippery stuff.

This is the time of year that my steep hills are most hazardous.  I have ordered some crimpons, but due to the Polar Vortex, they are out of stock.

Speaking of the Polar Vortex, Lissa and I must protest this alarming naming of ordinary winter fare. It did get rather cold here in December. It was minus twenty-one degrees. We had some colder weather in the 'eighties, but no one thought to give them scary names. A few days ago, the weather warmed a bit, but now we are in another cold snap. I've named this one the Extreme Polar Bear Vortex. I believe it was intense enough to actually sweep polar bears down all the way into northern Minnesota.

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The Bee Adventure Begins

It's been many moons since I was a beekeeper; around three hundred, actually.

In early December, I suddenly decided to start over with bees, to benefit my apple trees. The start-up costs are like my hills: steep. Fortunately, I happened to pick a week when the shipping was free on the heavy wooden hive parts. Throwing caution to the winds, I jumped back into beekeeping.

Inspiring me was my sixteen-year-old granddaughter, Carolyn. She got a beekeeper scholarship a couple of years ago, which included tutoring and all the supplies.

For Christmas, she brought me this glorious pint of comb honey.

Thinking I was really ahead of the season, I contacted some beekeepers to the north last Friday. Gasp! The deadline for ordering bees was the following day. I left here at 11:45 and was still a little late for the 2 o'clock meeting.

At the meeting, I learned that ordering a nuc was really worth the extra money. There are two ways to go for bees. Three, if you count just putting a hive out and hoping some wild bees move in. That rarely happens. The package of bees is about 3 pounds of bees, which I don't believe the supplier weighs individually. They are in a screened cage with some sugar syrup to sustain them on their journey from a warmer spot. Included in the package is a queen in a tiny cage. I believe she has been carefully chaperoned by her duenna and prohibited from buzzing around with members of the Drones Club.

The nuc, short for nucleus, I think, consists of several frames of bees that are already busy making the colony. The queen has already made her mating flight and is laying eggs at quite a clip.

Earlier, I thought the nucs were sort of the sissy way to go, but it turns out the success rate for getting any honey this year is much better with the nuc, so that's what I ordered. It will arrive in April.


                                                              The Basswood

There is this wonderful, enormous basswood tree here on the way down to the river. In springtime, the blossoms are exquisitely fragrant. Bees come from miles around. Unfortunately, they make their basswood honey in some distant bee trees, the locations of which they refused to divulge to me.

Last year, I left word at a beekeeping organization to the south, inviting any of them to put a hive nearby. Receiving no response from those folks, I decided to get the honey for myself.

The first step is to assemble the hives and frames. My workshop is unheated, so I made a spot in the house for this fun project.

These are the hive body frame pieces.

This is one of two hive bodies.


So far, I've picked out several places to put the beehive, and no doubt will keep changing my mind daily until I finally do park it somewhere.





The location should have morning sun and afternoon shade, be close to the house for working with the bees, but not in the way of foot traffic.

My goal isn't to have more and more and more hives, nor is it to live off my honey sales. Foremost for me is to get to be a really good beekeeper. I love honey and I love the bees.

One hot summer day, I was in the parking lot of a grocery store, getting ready to get in my car. A bee landed on my thumb. I held it up by my face and said, "Hello, you must need to rest a bit." A person in the car next to mine rolled up their window, whether to protect themselves from the bee or me, I couldn't tell.

White Christmas

Although our Christmas plans were postponed by sleet and snow, when the grandkids did come up, we had a lovely mild day for sledding.

Carolyn came zipping down the big hill.

Carolyn and Molly ran off into the brush.

Jason whizzed by where I was pointing the camera without any idea of what was in the frame. The sun was too bright to see the screen.

The temperature in the forties made the snow melt, and I found it even slicker the next day, when it had refrozen in the night.

Grammie here doesn't have to have children to go sledding with her, but it is more fun.

Going All Out for Apples

                       In the spring of 2008, I planted two apple trees.

This one, a Criterion, bore its first small apples last Fall. The other one was damaged by the neighbor's cows when they got out. An old apple tree that was here has lovely blooms every spring but both trees need other varieties of nearby blossoms for the bees to pollinate them.

Last month, I planted another apple tree. I dug the hole before I ordered the tree, since that was the hard part, not to be left until the fall rains made it impossible. I brought in some lovely loamy soil, keeping it in the fruit cellar awaiting the arrival of the tree. Adding peat to the precious dirt at planting time, I shoveled the mix around the roots and watered it in with some fish fertilizer.

The tree is a Golden Delicious. If this isn't an exercise in optimism and patience, I don't know what is. Even though I once grew a very productive Golden Delicious apple tree, it's hard to imagine that this whip will ever amount to anything. Right away, I fenced it from stray cows. The location is better, too, being closer to the outside faucet. It's near the existing old apple tree, some variety of red apple, so they can visit and exchange pollen.

Earlier trees I planted suffered from inadequate pruning in their youth, but my daughter Isabelle is now my adviser on such things. She taught me to not leave the low branches, thinking they will increase their distance from the ground. They won't.

For the moment, the new tree is tucked into a snow blanket.

Every day, I look at this thing that would hardly be called a tree and envision it fully grown and laden with apples. While I await fruition of that dream, I've decided to do one more thing to ensure I have more apples than I know what to do with. I'm taking up beekeeping once more. The boxes of wooden hive parts have arrived. I'll be nailing them together in January. Yet another fun outdoor hobby!

No Hens a Laying

Betty, the only hen old enough to lay eggs, was apparently content to lay her eggs in a corner nest. She molted and stopped laying about the time the three pullets joined the flock. Getting a nest box up before spring was a rare instance of me anticipating a need early.

With the advent of cold weather, I'd turned my attention to cutting firewood, but a few nice days gave me the conditions I needed to complete the double nest box I'd started for the hens.

When I looked up the recommended dimensions online, I found that each nest box should be about a foot square. However, larger was better, on account of two hens wanting to lay in the same one at the same time. Some of the ones I looked at were made of plywood. Too flimsy, I thought.

There were all those 2 x 6's in a pile from when my old porch was dismantled. Perfect, I thought. Even the bottom of the box was made of 2 x 6's. Talk about overkill! I failied to notice that the assembled tiers were going to weigh 'way too much for anyone to pick up. Did I mention that the floor of the coop is not very sturdy? So, I had to come up with a way to mount the Hummer box without adding to the problem of the flimsy flooring.

Any fool would have abandoned the prototype and found some lighter lumber, but I'd already invested a lot of effort making the Big Box, so proceeded to get it mounted. Large brackets seemed to be the answer. I screwed them into the studs, then screwed the three layers of the box above them. Considering weight somewhat belatedly, I used a piece of metal for the top. It was a bear to cut.

 It may require some sort of perch for the hens to access it. I could install a hen lift.

Another carpentry lesson learned: figure the final weight of the project! Lucky I wasn't building a glider.

Adorable New Tenants

Stacking some wood on the rack in the fruit cellar, I noticed some dark stuff high in the far corner. It looked like maybe mice had made a nest upstairs in the workshop and it had worked through to the cellar. On closer inspection, I realized it was two tiny bats.

They are Little Brown Bats, only about three inches long, and they probably came to hibernate where the temperature doesn't get below freezing. A few days later, it was warmer, so I left the doors open for them to get out and gobble up some of the many insects that were flying around. When Lissa came up, I told her I had new critters. She was as delighted as I was with such a rare find.

Later, there was only one of them and it had moved to another wall. The other one may still be on the far wall, but they are so small they are easy to miss. Now I am tiptoeing around, trying not to disturb them. Lissa told me to stop taking pictures because the flash disturbs their sleep.

I put a remote temperature sensor down there, which shows that it stays in the mid-thirties, their perfect hibernation zone. I'm leaving the door open about an inch for them to get out. Lis did some research and found they squeeze through a small opening. Not as I thought, an aerial maneuver in the style of a Spitfire aircraft.

They aren't an endangered species, but they are threatened, so it is an honor to provide habitat for such helpful little mammals.

Digging for Treasure

A few of weeks ago, I dug up the sweet potatoes. Frost was forecast and there was a nip in the air.

This was one of the best tubers. My terra preta soil was great for them.

Even though I was trying to be careful, I managed to break the biggest ones in the process of getting them out of the ground. Most of them grew straight down and stuck fast in the clay soil at the bottom of the raised bed.

So, there was nothing for it but to can them in the pressure canner. In addition to these seven pints, I had plenty to eat right away. They are so beautiful, I'd put them on display, but light isn't good for them. There will be tours of the pantry for interested parties. Okay, I'll make everyone who comes here look at them.

Getting Ready for Spring

Did I mention that carpentry isn't my best skill? However, that doesn't stop me from building things.There were these 2 by 12 pieces of lumber left by the folks who lived here before, so I cut them for a cold frame. On the second tier, I had to use some 2 by 6's, too. The cistern provided a level place to work.

The wood had been lying out in all weather for years. Since I wasn't going to try and nail into what was probably nearly petrified wood, I drilled pilot holes and used deck screws. Having always been put off by the idea of cutting the top on the diagonal to slope toward the sun, I took the easy way out and decided to just tilt the thing in the ground. The two sections actually matched and the fine double-glazed window found in an outbuilding fit perfectly. It was a big surprise to me.

The next step was a bit of a disaster. I had a tube of expired Silicone caulk that was very hard to squeeze out of the gun. I pressed the rope caulk into the cracks, whereupon it stopped being hard and became a big sticky mess. Later, it looked a lot like wax. It gave me a big lesson on using material that expired in 2010.

Later, I asked Lissa to help me carry the heavy open boxes to the garden. She carried them easily by herself, declining my puny help. She even finished excavating the hole in the clay soil that I had started. She's such a dutiful and helpful daughter.

Even though we just came through another dry summer, hope springs eternal in this gardener's heart. Come spring, I'll start some plants in this contraption and try again. I may even get some horse manure from a herd of Palominos down the road and make it into a hotbed of seed-starting.