New Normal?

 September 13, 2020

Two days ago we remembered September 11, when our world was attacked by terrorists. That led to fear and panic by many, heroic acts by others and eventually and to limits in Airplane flights that we have all come to accept as normal.

Six months ago Covid started shutting down parts of our world. There has been much fear and panic by many, heroic acts by others and reopening with restrictions. Some we may have to accept as the new normal.

Today for the first time in about 6 months I was able to attend church in our normal meeting house. Wearing masks coming in, hand sanitizing, sitting in alternating pews, not being allowed to visit with others, being asked not to sing but just to read along... I find myself grateful to be able to worship but wishing for the "how, where, or what they may" part of worship. The music and singing is one of my favorite parts of worship. Getting to know others is also highly enjoyable. I found myself looking around the room and finding several new faces that I am not allowed to introduce myself to and don't know how I will get to know them. If this is the new "normal" how much harder it must be on them if there are a few I don't know, there must be a room full of people they do not know.  No, we don' t have to know others in the room to worship God, but since we are all brothers and sisters, it is easier to support one another and be supported by those we know.

Up until now I have accepted the restrictions believing in the back of my mind that these might be more permanent than I like but not being too bothered by them. Today it felt a little like a terrorist attack. For the safety of others I will still comply but I will look harder for ways to reach out and make connections with others.

 September 6, 2020

Yesterday we made the hard decision to rob from a weaker hive to give our stronger hive a better chance to survive the winter. I would have liked to find the queen of the weaker hive and sacrifice only her to combine the whole weaker hive in, but we are inexperienced and could not find her. The weaker hive only had 10 frames and that is just not enough to make it through winter. The stronger hive had about 16-18 frames. That is closer, but possible still not enough. I hope that by robbing and sacrificing one we can keep one alive through winter, then either split off a nuc from it, or buy a nuc to get a second hive going.

We will check on them in a couple weeks. I would still love the chance to save more of the weaker hive. We will see if I still have time to work with them, or if I have waited too long.

I have read books for years on bees. Watched Youtube videos. Read websites, but actually doing it is different. Especially when I have gone a non-traditional route by doing horizontal hives. Langstroth deep frames, but the hives only have room for 30 frames. The hope and plan to leave about 20+ frames each winter for them, and hope to harvest a few others in future years. This year my biggest goal is just to get at least one hive through the winter. If I can do that then I hope to build at least one more hive, maybe two then be able to have three running and a have a back up in case I need to run splits in the spring. 

I have to admit I am tempted to see if I can harvest one frame of honey this year, since I am sacrificing a hive anyway. I will have to see how the hive really looks in a couple weeks to see if I can manipulate the frames to move the yucky old ones to the back to pull off in the spring and if I have enough left for the bees to work with and keep them alive and fed all winter....

I am debating feeding some fondant just in case for the winter, but I really thing they have enough in the strong hive to be ok, and the weak one I doomed when I robbed from it.

 August 27, 2020

Wow, Summer is almost over. My sweetheart has gone back to teacher meetings. Our college child has returned to classes. Our younger children start again next week.

Summer sort of started back in March when schools closed for Covid. There was still online school but by the end of May we had done some of our summer tasks done, like filling the wood shed. 

We have worked the Census this summer. Thankfully my sweethearts job alternated with mine so one of us was able to be home most the time. A few times our teenager was thrilled for the chance to earn money care giving for her younger sister. 

We still have a dead tree we took down that needs chopped up. I still hope to prep a new strawberry bed for next year, and turn over the old bed and prep it for other planting next year.

We were able to buy straw this year. It is great to have plenty for the chickens.

Our chicken buying adventure was just that, but we are happy with the 4 new hens and look forward to eggs from them. We also like our new rooster. Our Friends are going to keep one rooster and eat the others. We hope to get some Black Australorps and ISA Brown chicks next year, because they are really just our favorite hen type,  to add to our flock.  Hopefully we will have a good winter with the ladies and start strong in the Spring.  

I am grateful for the eggs we have been able to store for winter, not as much as we hoped for but glad for all we can do.

Tomatoes are starting to ripen so I am hopefully that we might get to can a few this year before it freezes.

We have been drying sunflowers and hope to do more, then we can feed the seeds to the chickens this winter.

I know many are struggling, I pray for them, but we have been very blessed this year.

August 14, 2020

Honeycomb

The bees were actively building comb where I did not want it so I took it away from them. There are traces of uncured honey in it so my daughters are thrilled for a little taste.

I love the clean light comb. I think it is so pretty.

I am glad the bees are actively building.

 

August 9th 

4, 5, 6

We are pretty sure someone messed up and mislabeled  our chicks, or is terrible at sexing chicks.

We think at least two, possible three, of our CouCou Marans were Roosters, we gave them to a friend. I am pretty sure two more of the same breed as "Rooster" are also Roosters. The Sickle shaped, colorful tail feathers are almost as telling as a Crow. UGH.

The good news is that it means we will get rid of enough to be able to do ISA Brown and Black Australorp chicks in the spring. Two breeds we have come to really like. the ISA's are super friendly and the Australorps are pretty and good Mama hens.

In the mean time we will hope Rooster and Kylo don't hurt each other and are content with their four hens each...

September 5,

7, 8????

Seriously 7 Roosters from a 1 in 10 chance. Sadly the last two were some of our favorite colored ones. 

Someone on Craigslist said they had a similar problem this year.  A Friend took all the extra roosters for us and is going to keep one for them, one for a neighbor, and likely eat the rest.  We found someone with  4 one year old hens on Craigslist, we plan to pick them up Monday so then we would have 10 hens for our 2 roosters. We were worried with only 6 hens out there and 2 roosters they would fight too much and I would get hurt. The new hens are suppose to be golden sexlinks, basically look like our ISA Brown that we really like. Hopefully they will integrate well.

I was thinking today, for people with just pets the number of chickens that have come and gone here in the past 2 years it must be crazy. It is more than we expected, some were beyond our control, but some were just part of our learning process and some are part of the nature of chickens.

We have enjoyed the ride

And CouCou Makes Three

July 12, 2020

This morning my daughter and I went to let the chickens out of the coop.  We heard Kylo our Rooster Crowing, then heard Rooster the chick we got as a baby do his crow, then saw him as he came out of the coop crow again. Then we heard a crow from inside the coop. Most the chickens were out so we started looking to see who was missing. "Crow" the darker black chicken came out, another crow from the coop told us it wasn't here, a "Pigeon" came out, another crow in the coop... The only one missing was a CouCou Maran. Yikes we have three Roosters. I guess the good thing is it is a CouCou Maran which if we had to pick one to get rid of it would be one of them. We are going to have to pin down which one it is, verify, the re-home or have it butchered for someones dinner. Three Roosters is at least one too many, especially since we are now down to 12 hens. Yikes!

July 26, 2020

I started wondering if I was wrong but this past week my sweetheart heard the crow of our third rooster. Today my youngest and I heard it again. We will need to separate off that one and find it a new home or give it to someone who wants to cook it up.

Sure Sign

June 27, 2020

Today I took some of our strawberries that bugs or other animals had tasted before we got to them, out to the chickens. Kylo our Rooster was intermittently crowing, when I got closer I heard an unmistakable echo. My husband described it as a teenage boy with his voice changing. Yep, the one we called rooster. He's a rooster! After several crows I went to tell our children. Sadly Rooster was done by then and they will have to wait to hear the evidence. It is actually nice to have a back up rooster and we are glad that he is coming in young and hopes he accepts Kylo's dominance so that they don't fight too much. We don't want either one to be hurt. We hope with 13 hens there are enough to meet both their needs.

The past few nights my husband has noted 1-3 of the young hens joining Kylo on the top bars in the coop. The rest of the young ones stay with Rooster down low. It will be interesting to watch the dynamics as time goes on.