January 1, 2011

This isn’t a good thing…

Yesterday and today the air temperatures warmed into the high 50’s and low 60’s, causing the bees to “break cluster”.

When the cold comes, the worker bees stop foraging and ball up around the queen to keep her warm through the winter. The cluster moves along the frames, eating the stores of honey through the winter. If they did not store enough honey through the season to get them through the winter until pollen and nectar are available again, they simply starve to death.

When its cold, the cluster isn’t very active, using little energy, and needing little food (honey). Yet, when the temperatures rise in the winter, some of the bees break cluster and begin moving around – they clean the hive of dead bees, take flight, etc. This all requires energy and that means the bees need to take up more food, using up stores faster, and increasing the chances that they run out of honey long before winter breaks.

That’s why this isn’t so good…

Today there were a few hundred bees out on my oldest hive. It’s the most I have seen outside a hive on a winter’s day since I started bee keeping three years ago.

From another perspective, I am happy to see that the bees are still alive, look healthy, and not too many dead ones were being cleaned from any of the hives.

But it’s only the first day of January and there are ten to twelve weeks until the winter turns to spring and pollen and nectar become available again. It’s a long way to go. The best thing would be if the weather stayed cold and they remain in cluster – the worst case is more days like this.

December 25, 2010

Christmas morning…

I’m up early with a headache that a few aspirin has not yet taken away. I should know better. I did a few glasses of wine last nite- we were having pizza between services and I had a craving, which is very odd as I don’t drink very often at all. But to say the least, I satisfied my craving and off we went to meeting.

I guess too, that the ‘lemon chello” I had earlier in the morning helped contribute to my headache. My assistant at work makes this with vodka – more vodka that lemon. And he brought it into work Christmas eve morning, and we shared toasts with our staff…and that was followed by some chicken meal that was soaked in a chile sauce – a staple tradition of Oaxaca. I am not sure what it was called, but it was good. Traditional Mexican cuisine is the best. Its handmade food, and you can taste the time and care that goes into it too. But, the lemon chello probably was the start of this morning’s pain…

When I got home, the horses were out in the pasture grazing, and when I walked over to the fence, Louie looked up and after a few more mouthfuls of grass, lumbered over to me, and offered his forehead for me to rub…then he went back to the spot he was working on. Good ‘ol Lou….doing the greet and eat.

Lately the chickens have been coming to greet me too – and that’s sorta surreal. The last few days, when I crawl through the fence, they have come from nowhere and everywhere and “run” towards me. They know I am going to feed them their afternoon snack. But its weird,,,,all these chickens coming at me full speed. They run very unbalanced, shifting their wings to balance, like how a tight wire walker uses that pole…I don’t know if I will ever get used to chickens coming at me…

This morning, a few minutes ago, I tore up pizza crust for them. I save all the crust that I don’t eat and give it to the chickens for a snack. Between the chickens, the goat, and the compost pile, we don’t waste too much around here. So, the girls and Bejay will have a bit of pizza for breakfast. Their favorite is left over spaghetti – they tug-of-war with the noodles – one chicken on each end til it snaps or one lets go. Chickens are cool. I feel bad for the ones that live in cages- its pretty sad, cause chickens have outgoing personalities and can’t ever be happy caged up. That sucks.

We went to two services yesterday – it more or less has become traditional for us over the years. We go to Catholic Mass in the afternoon, and then to Quaker meeting in the evening. They are very different ways to worship, but the message gets through the same…I like going to both. The Catholic service is filled with thousands of years of traditions and symbolism that in a way the mass itself is a history lesson in Christianity through the ages…and the Quaker is so simplistic its almost as if it’s a seedling that has yet to branch. It’s all good. But I have to tilt my favorite to the Quakers, because afterwards, we get to eat all the cookies that each person brings…and there are some great Quaker bakers…and ya know, that probably is part of my headache too – all that sugar! Oh well.

Not sure what I will do the rest of this Christmas day…spend time with my family, and then with the animals…maybe take the hippos out for grass in the front yard. I like a quiet Christmas. I’m more of a reflective type person, and in the world that we’ve inherited, its hard to find time for quiet, although every day I do my best to get out of the bombardment – I hide out in the stable, or take a walk, or something…even writing a ramble like this helps. Life just seems too noisy – so noisy that we cant hear it.

But anyhow, I want to thank everyone who reads this blog and follows it – I appreciate it a lot…and a thank you to those who support our farm and what we are trying to do with community agriculture…and thanks to all of you who come out and have buried their hands in the soil here helping out…I am lucky to have all of you in my life…

Merry Christmas!

December 15, 2010

A long journey and some postponed plans ended this afternoon as the last garlic clove was planted…

Esther, who is a shareholder, planned to start a garden in her backyard and had ordered garlic seed to plant, but somehow, the garlic was sent to a wrong address and had to be reordered. The second order didn’t ship till early November and was sent to her former address in the nation’s capital, where her brother lives. Esther’s brother then re-mailed it to Esther.

Then somewhere along the line, Esther decided that she’d like to donate it to our farm, and that it’d be fun if she, Karen (our volunteer and shareholder) and I could get together to plant it. It sounded pretty good, but it took us quite a while to get together as none of us has had much free time lately. Times that we thought we could get together for some reason fell through. At one point we thought that the only time that we would all be able to get together would be at night, and we thought we might plant using head lamps and flashlights to see our way, and share a bottle of wine to take the chill out of the starlit night. We couldn't seem to organize that either!

But finally today, it worked out that we could all get together and so at about 3:30 this afternoon, the garlic that had begun its journey in October made it into the ground, planted in a row next to the garlic I had planted earlier in the fall. We know it's a bit late to plant garlic, but nonetheless, I have a feeling that it will grow ok. After all, we are pretty good farmers!

December 12, 2010

I am having a ‘writer’s block’ these days… I do think of stuff but I cant seem to develop any of my ideas into sentences. Its not burnout, but more like a blankness. It’s like opening your eyes in the dark…

It will pass.

Meanwhile, I have been playing around with taking black and white pictures around the farm, some of which I am posting here…

November 29, 2010

It was Sunday morning….
There was frost in the garden and the moon tried to hide

November 23, 2010

I was supposed to give a message at tonight's Ecumenical Thanksgiving service - at least that's what I thought I was going to do until I got there and read the program. I had been given a whole 'nother part...doing a pasteurized responsal thing, where I say a line and then the flock says a line in response, neither of it our own - I am told what to say to them and they are told what to say back...I don't quite get the point of it all. Very different for me because Quakers don't do these types of things in worship.

I am pretty disappointed.

So it goes.

Anyhow, I will share my Thanksgiving message here with you...and you can respond anyway you want...

Thanksgiving is a day we give thanks to God for all that God has given us… God gave us this earth and all we grow and harvest. God gave us family and friends. God gave us His son…These are real gifts…

Thanks giving is also day that shows that we need each other – no less than the Indians and the Pilgrims found that they needed each other. Thanksgiving, like it was on that day long ago, is still about tolerance…accepting the differences in us all – physically and culturally.

An important theme of Quakerism is that “there is that of God in everyone”. Its not necessarily a belief or creed, but rather it is a practice of living – it’s a truth that guides us to be let go of our conditions and be peaceful to others. It is the truth that gives us the courage to put down our arms and take up service.

But this truth is hard to live. It’s not easy to always explore or celebrate differences. Many times we try to eliminate what is different. And I don’t mean to eliminate in a violent sort of way. Of course that happens, and it is happening now in many parts of our world. But I mean sometimes its by keeping our distance or turning our backs, or erecting borders around us. Many times we do it unconsciously.

To tolerate is to let go of fears. It is to learn. It is to listen. It is to accept…it is to invite someone into your world so to share it with…We know that none of these things are easy. Its hard. Just as you might do, I too struggle to be open to others.

But our ancestors, on Thanksgiving Day, were able to do that. That is why Thanksgiving is not about arrows and muskets….it is not about an Indian raid or a new world conquest. Its about peace. Its about sitting down with each other. Its about giving ourselves to others…

Diversity is a gift that God gave us and that we should be thankful for…

But without tolerance, we will never know this gift, and without tolerance, we will never know peace.

When it gets hard, we need try to remember, that “there is that of God in everyone”.


I hope everyone has a happy Thanksgiving!

November 9, 2010

It’s only a few days into the end of daylight savings time and I am already a bit whacked out. I hate these time changes.

Its bad enough that the earth needs to tilt back a bit to get away from the sun, causing the shorter days…but…moving the clock hands around only makes it worse.

This argument of an extra hour of sleep is, well, not coming from me! I went to bed Saturday at 9pm and my inner clock told me to wake up a little more than 7 hours later - like it has been doing for years and years. Seven, seven and a half hours of sleep is pretty much all my body wants, so I woke up at 3:30 am (formally 4:30 am) Sunday morning. So yeah, I got an extra hour – of dark!

Since I was “given” this extra hour, I took great advantage of it by flicking on the tv and watching a hundred channels worth of infomercials…what else can I do at 3:30am in the dark. And let’s face it, they only sell the good stuff to make my life easier and better at 3:30 in the morning! They can’t sell this stuff during the day cause then everyone would want it and if everyone had it then no one would need it.

My shake weights, real estate cash flow program, Magic Bullet blender, and a new leopard print Snuggie should be arriving in a few days. I was thinking of getting those special tablets that makes a “guy last longer” – well ya know, I do have an extra hour now, so I was thinkin’, why not? But I hesitated that last split second and didn’t get the phone number in time before a vacuum infomercial popped up.

Oh well…I guess I can rationalize that it's better at my age to use that extra hour to get in shape, sell real estate and get rich, and make salsa in less than ten seconds. I haven’t decided yet what to do with the Snuggie. Not that I’ve quite yet decided what to do with all the salsa that I am going to make either.

But now that I will have all these cash flow secrets to get rich by flipping incredibly valuable real estate with no money down, I will be able to retire by a pool, and not be too worried by the time change at all. Of course, by then I will have a huge house and will need that vacuum cleaner that even without the extra attachments doubles as a steam cleaner and button hole maker…