Mushrooms

I promised pictures of my mushrooms when they looked better, so here they are. How do you like Ginormushroom?

New Kittens

As the title says, we have new kittens. I have three cats, and they all were expecting roughly the same time. The kittens on the left belong to the mama cat in the middle. I haven't found where my third cat has her nest. And now names for the faces: I haven't named the kittens yet, but the striped cat's name is Stripey Dude - Dude for short. Yes, I know. We thought she was a boy when I brought her home. The black one's name is Patience. We named her that because she doesn't have any.

A Friend for Belle

Since Belle jumped the fence to be with other cows, my mother figured she was lonely. So she got Daddy to buy another cow as a companion. Her name is Bonnie. The companion, that is. She is a black Jersey. Obviously, she is not the one on the left.

A Few Things You Never Want To Seriously Ask Yourself

"Is that a bee crawling in my underwear?"
"I was sure there were four deadly poisonous snakes in this cage. Why are there only three now?"
"Why is there a rapidly grown shadow around me?"

I have only asked the first one, but I thought the others were humorous. Unless you were serious. Then you're in trouble.

Tornadoes, Thunder and Lightening

We've been having some really interesting weather here lately. By really interesting, I mean there have been times where I feared for my life. Not for long, though. It takes a lot to keep me down.
For the past ten days, we have had thunderstorms, rain, lightening, tornado watches, tornado warnings, actual tornadoes, flooding, high winds, and beef stroganoff. I'm beginning to think that beef stroganoff is a natural disaster. Just saying.
However, that is all over and I am enjoying the sunshine. Perhaps I will finally be able to put in the rest of the garden. It's hard to concentrate on digging deep enough when the wind is threatening to blow you to the next county.

Belle

The prodigal has returned! Or, rather, was brought back, but that kinda ruins the story, don't you think? Anyway, this is our cow. Today is the first day I have actually set eyes on her. I wish she'd stop looking at me like that. I'm sure I didn't do it, whatever 'it' is.

The Queen is dead. Long Live the Queen!

Well, I have some sad news. The queen in one of my Russian hives is dead. Or gone shopping. Or went out for a stroll and got eaten. I don't know. All I know is that she isn't there anymore, and that hive is dead. I combined the rest of the bees into the other Russian hive I have. It's not doing great, either, but it's certainly doing better than the dead one. The first picture on the left is the bees that were still in the dead hive. All. Of. Them. The next picture is the other Russian hive that absorbed them. The white dot on the far right of the frame is the queen. (We had her marked.) The third picture is of my Italian bees. They are doing very well. I wonder if they are trying to spite their Russian neighbors.

Cookies

Every woman, be she 11 or 111, should be able to bake at least one kind of sweet treat from scratch. The baking is so that, if her father or brother or significant other is displeased with her, she can appease him with hot, fresh baked goodies. It should be from scratch because, as just about everyone knows, you never have cookie dough or cake mix when you need it. And scratch is cheaper. Now, I have not made my family angry with me, but it was a sad, rainy day today, so I thought I would cheer them up and make oatmeal cookies. They are very happy now. Maybe I can ask for a Ferrari? Let me know if you want the recipe. It is very easy

Sugar Syrup

White cane sugar, when dissolved in water and made into a syrup, is a golden yellow. Isn't that interesting?

Some of my weird growing stuff

Here are some pictures of the weird plants I am growing. The first is one of the Earthboxes that Daddy is growing his pineapples in. (I'm not in charge of them - I just think they look neat.) The next picture is of my dill seedlings. They have really started taking off. The last is of my mushroom box. That's the weirdest of this little collection. Yes, I know it doesn't look like much right now, but I'll post another picture as soon as the mushrooms start fruiting. Mushrooms are weirdly fascinating.

Burr Comb

As you know, I released my queens this past Tuesday. My bees had already started making burr comb (loose, 'freestyle' comb, rather than comb built on the frames I provided) to fill up the space left between frames. Here are some pictures. As an interesting aside, the two bigger pieces of comb were made by the two Russian hives. The two smaller were made by my two Italian hives. Should I read anything into this?

Accepted!

Yay! My older brother, Sean, is studying to be a gunsmith. Yesterday he had his FFL interview and passed. He should be getting his license in thirty days or so. Hooray! I am so happy for him. In case you didn't realize it, this is his picture. He shaved his beard since I took it, but he looks pretty much the same.

Releasing the Queen

Well, I did it. I finally released the queens in my hives. I planned on doing it Monday, but we had such a hard rain that I decided not open up the hives. I don't want my bees catching cold.

Here are some pictures of me, my bees, and my hives. Pretty cool, huh?

Bee sugar and the GMO question

I mentioned yesterday that I still needed to get sugar to feed my bees. The tricky thing is that I can't just go to the store and pick up any ol' sugar. It has to be cane sugar. Here's my reasoning: Sugar is made from either cane or sugar beets. Sugar beets are one of the crops that have widespread genetic modification (GMO). A large number of people are sensitive to GMO, and have various weird reactions. Insects and animals can have weird reactions, just the same as people. Do I want to give a potentially reaction-inducing substance to approximately 6,000 bugs that nearly all have stingers and the temperment to use them? I think not. So, I will get cane sugar. Cane is not GMO.

Bees and boxes

I will be raising bees this year (and hopefully next year and the year after that) so I have been working on my hive boxes. I finished the bottom brood boxes last night. Almost everything is ready for when I bring my bees home Saturday. I just need to get some sugar so that I can feed them until they get on their feet.

Plant Fair and Mayhem

What I neglected to mention in my last post was that I am the Plant Fair chairwoman. I'm in charge of making sure that we have enough vendors from the local nurseries, that parking is clearly marked, that the visitors will be greeted when they come, that they will have access to the food stand, that we have enough port-a-potties - I could continue, but you probably get the idea by now. To be more accurate, I am in charge of making sure that all those things are tended to by the folks who volunteered for them. I'm supposed to be the Chief-Honcho-in-charge-of-nagging, but I don't nag very well. So I just smile and listen very carefully and wonder what on earth I was thinking when I signed up for this job. It's a good way to learn about the group quickly, I must admit. I am a proponent of the sink-or-swim method of teaching - as long as it's nothing important or life threatening, like catering for 500 people. Or deep sea diving.

Plant Fair

In an effort to learn more about gardening and horticulture, I took a course this last fall through the Hardin County Extension Agency. I am now a Master Gardener. That sounds really big, but all it means is that I have had a little training and if I don't know the answer to a question, I know where to look to find out. That being said, the Hardin County Master Gardeners hold a plant fair every year. It is a fun, exhausting time to find all sorts of neat plants for very little money. The MG Plant Wagon is always a smorgasbord of plants that the Master Gardeners have donated, and they usually go for $1-$3. Like I said, great times.

Hello, everyone. I'm baaaack!

After a not-so-brief hiatus into the world of, well, practically everything except farming, I am back. We moved from Enterprise, Alabama to Sonora, Kentucky in April 2010 and have spent the year getting everything back to how it was - or, rather, how we want it to be. For those of you who don't know, we have a farm of twelve acres in central Kentucky. On those twelve acres we have a spring, fruit orchard, barn, and log house. Pictures will be posted as soon as I find my USB cable. As far as livestock goes, we have four turkeys of various breeds, approximately twenty chickens, three cats, and one Jersey cow who is no longer with us. When I say no longer with us, I mean that the dratted cow jumped the fence as soon as she stepped off the cattle truck and saw there was a fence, and is now hobnobbing with the neighbors' black Angus herd. Her name is Belle. But don't worry. We will get her back.