Doing the Rain Dance

Do you know the Rain Dance? Two steps forward, one step back. Except for the parts where it is one step forward, two steps back.

This weird spring weather is making it hard to accomplish anything and is actually undoing many of our accomplishments:  Our heavy clay soil is too wet to weed or plant in - and weeds are having a hey day.  This morning, the strong winds had blown 6 panels off the greenhouse, which knocked over the electric fence, which allowed the cows in to trample the soft ground where grass was finally just beginning to grow.  The sudden hot humid temps of the weekend caused the cement floors and newly laid tile to puddle up with condensation, so wet we could not seal or grout the newly laid tile in the commercial kitchen. Today is suddenly extraordinarily cold, and I hear we have frost warnings tonight so our tomatoes, eggplants and basil will have to be covered.  But yesterday evening ended with a lovely double rainbow-- hopefully a promise of better weather to come.

We (especially Rog)  worked so hard on the commercial kitchen all weekend, but I will focus on non-kitchen projects this post.
There is an unsightly mound of dirt and brush in the woods as a byproduct of the  septic system installation, so I am slowly transforming it into a 30-foot long fairy garden. It is still sparse, but should look magical when the ground covers, wildflowers and ferns start growing.

Gnomes and fairies and thrift store treasures are tucked in.

Unearthed a sweet, grumpy toad while digging by the barn. I relocated him to the pollinator garden, which seemed safer with all the construction going on at the barn.

Yellow magnolia has another blossom.  It is a giant flower for such a tiny tree.

I found this darling garden bicycle sculpture at a thrift store - perfect for  my cow-riding-a-bike sculpture plan for Petal Fest!  I hope I can find time to do this!

Yesterday, Chris and his assistant Ruth delivered the new green wall structure for the aquaponic system.  We have set it up temporarily inside the barn using hydroponic nutrients until we can hook it up to the pond (a good thing since it might frost tonight!) There are eight towers, which we have planted with  everbearing strawberries, nasturtiums and basil. I hope to purchase a second tower later this summer and we will use them to grow all winter in the heated greenhouse.

Ruth setting a tower of strawberries into the frame.

The plants are facing the window, of course, so I took a shot from outside, looking in at the towers. Right now they are seedlings, but  in a few weeks it will create a dense green wall. The frame is on a base with wheels so we can move it fairly easily.

Chris also delivered 15 pounds of tilapia for the pond, approximately 60  small fish.

The tilapia seem to be settling in well and getting along with the goldfish and koi.  However, for tilapia the water has to be above 45 degrees and the temperature outside  has plummeted today.  This morning, the water temperature was down to 50 degrees, so we covered the pond with a pool blanket to help hold the  heat in. There should be enough thermal mass to retain the heat for another day until it warms up again.

Since the garden is so soggy and plumbers are working in the kitchen, WWOOFers Mae and Kelly were assigned chicken-coop cleaning this morning. (It is the kind of physical labor that will warm you up on a cold, windy day.)  They figured out how to outwit the guardian of the coop, Lucy the Goose, and now the chickens can enjoy clean, fresh bedding.

Fingers crossed for the weather to give us a break so we can make some decent headway!

Honey Harvest Day!

Today my bee mentor Tom came over and we harvested the honey. I am sure I could have done this myself, but I knew I had a problem with one of my Warrre hives and wanted his expertise to help me figure out how to deal with it.  Plus, I always learn so much working bees with Tom.
While we were firing up the smoker and donning our suits, we noticed a huge toad hopping across the patio.  (This is my best toad impression.)

We tackled the Langstroth hive first.  I  am pretty sure this hive swarmed early in the summer, although I didn't see it happen. But the population looked robust and the supers were full of capped honey.

The new trick I learned this time was  to use a leaf blower to blow the bees out of the frames.  tom had also constructed a turntable on an old  hive box,so it was easy to set the super on  the turntable (I refuse to call it a lazy Susan) and swivel it around while blowing bees off toward the hive.  Once the bees were blown out, I quickly carried the  supers into the summer kitchen so the bees wouldn't come back to them. We took two nice supers off this hive.I should have added more early in the summer; I would have had more honey and the bees would have had more room and might not have swarmed.

Next we dealt with the Warre hives.  I  chose Warre hives because they are smaller (much easier to handle when full of honey and bees), aesthetically pleasing with their tall  narrow proportions and peaked roofs, and they allow the bees to build their comb more like they would in the wild. The more common Langstroth hives are filled with precision frames that the bees must build upon in a manner to make it easier for the beekeepers.  The Warre hives just have a set of bars across the top of each box that the bees build upon in the way they prefer, but they are not so convenient for the beekeepers to handle or extract.

It is pretty much impossible to remove a layer from the Warre hive without a bit of damage to the the comb - you can see the shiny liquid honey seeping out of the breaks.  This comb was beautifully constructed.

The problem with my second Warre hive was that I had a total brain drain when I assembled the hive way back early last summer when I added boxes for honey. I am still not sure  how this happened, but I inserted a box with no top bars into the stack. Besides giving the bees a structure to build upon, the bars limit how tall they can build the comb - they have to reserve a bee-height space between each layer so they have room to move and work.  Without the bars, my bees built a 2-story layer of comb, and the only way to dismantle it was to break it.  The comb was constructed in lovely,  straight layers even at the bottom.

The Warre hive on the left was my problem hive, and will only be able to have two boxes to get through the winter, while the other Warre hive  has an extra box of honey-filled comb to help them get through the winter.  There is also a chance that I lost the queen if she was in the third box.  If I am lucky and the queen is still in the short hive, I might use it as an experiment. I am thinking  about moving it into the high tunnel late this fall where it won't be so cold.  I will also have to feed this hive because I took so much of the honey reserves.

Despite my laissez-faire beekeeping style, I was quite pleased with the honey haul.  Tom estimates we  will have  upwards of 90 pounds of honey.  Stay tuned for the  Honey extraction story, coming soon!
Thank you to Cadence, who took all the photos--it was so nice to not have my camera not be all sticky at the end of a bee session! 

Salamander Art

The tiger salamander I found under the  duck pool a few weeks ago inspired me to create a large, colorful salamander painting.  I am going to try putting it into an ornate gold frame, just for the fun juxtaposition of unassuming-but-beautiful amphibian with extravagant gilt frame.

Wrapping Up Summer

It is hard to accept that summer is officially over!
Days are going fast and furiously lately and it's hard to keep up with the blogposts. Here's a brief wrap-up of a few of the things going on lately...like harvesting the garden.  Look at the size of those tomatoes and peas!!
: )

The Swiss chard is still lovely - and there are lots of beans to be picked.

Bethany blanched and froze trays of beans, then vacuum packed them for the deep freeze.
We also have gorgeous tomatoes just starting to ripen-the tomato deluge is about to begin.

I found a great pasta maker at a thrift store-perhaps somebody's never-unpacked wedding gift - and Bethany has been putting it to good use.

This week she made plain, garlic, and basil fettuccine to sell at the Farmers Market tomorrow.  It may be the first and last time she makes pasta for market--it was extremely time-consuming (but our taste-test pasta supper was delicious!)

We are struggling to get our share of  milk from LaFonda. She is still producing but LindyHop, her calf, has grown so big he drinks it as fast as her udder replenishes.  Now, instead of milking on a regular schedule we milk whenever we need some and a quarter of her udder looks full. Then we distract Lindy with a treat and milk a half gallon or so for our use. Lindy is old enough to be weaned, but I appreciate the flexibility of not having to milk if we decide to go somewhere.

Both calves have grown extremely tame and friendly.  I snapped this tonight as they watched the neighbors' Holsteins across the road file up the hill to be milked. You can really see now how much bigger Lindyhop is than Jitterbug - and he is three weeks younger than her!

Cocoa and Nutmeg are their usual happy selves --even happier now that  it isn't so doggone hot and humid.   Cocoa is famous for helping herself to  freshly-laid eggs as a little between-meal snack, but last week she had an unfortunate egg incident.   I heard a sound like  a firecracker exploding, and then  there was an unbearable stench...she had found an old rotten egg lost somewhere in the barn and it exploded while she was carrying it. Eeewwww!  Maybe that will make our darn egg-sucking dog reconsider next time!

Our neighbor and friend Brigitte has launched French Crepes and Galettes night at the Douglas Saloon & Social Club, just down the road, on Thursdays. It is a small town bar that you would never expect to serve gourmet food, but after getting some rave newspaper reviews, they have been swamped with crepes customers and she asked me to help by hosting last night.  Brigitte and her daughter made crepes to serve 60 in this very tiny kitchen at the bar! By the end of the evening we ran out of crepes and even had to turn a few people away.  It is exciting to have great food, made from local ingredients, served next door.

Yesterday, we got our first load of new hay for the winter - the barn smells so wonderful now! Brendan and Bethany had moved the remaining old hay aside so it can be used up first, and I printed out my blog-friend Katiegirls's hay-stacking strategy as a guide for storing the new hay. It is now stacked extra securely and neatly. We will need several more loads yet to get our cows through the winter.

This week had its share of annoying issues to resolve, including a broken dishwasher (that was just repaired two weeks ago) and a nylon rope that somehow got run over by the mower (by me, I cannot tell a lie) sucked in and bound tightly around the blade. We can't fix the dishwasher electronics ourselves, but handy-dandy Rog was able to repair the lawn mower. It involved dismantling the mower assembly, muscles,  sweat  and grime.   I  am so lucky to  have such a talented and patient spouse.

I'll close with a photo of one of the three handsome toads that lives on our patio and comes out after dark every evening. When I pick them up they make sweet, chirping-purring sounds that make me smile; it reminds me of being a kid, catching toads under the yard light on summer nights. 

Salamander Sighting

When I dumped out the duck pool to refill it this afternoon I was delighted to discover a tiger salamander underneath it! He is medium-sized, about 8 inches long. I scooped him up and put him in a bowl for a brief photo session before letting him go in a safer place away from the poultry.

It has been a wonderful year for amphibians, probably thanks to the deluge of rain earlier this summer. The prairie is absolutely hopping with frogs and we have three darling toads living in various corners of our patio.  I am happy to see so many amphibians--it must be a sign of a healthy ecosystem.

Plus, I love the sweet smiling face that salamanders have.

First Toad of 2011

When I was  replacing the bricks from around the access to our septic system, I unearthed this  toad, nestled under a brick. Poor  fellow, he had to endure being carried around in my hand for half an hour while I searched for  my camera, which I had forgotten I had tucked on a ledge in the barn. After he was immortalized him in a photo, I placed him next to the bricks so he could dig underneath again if  he desired. I made sure no chickens saw  him -- last summer, I learned the heartbreaking way that chickens like to devour toads as much as they like mice.

What's Going On

We are currently involved in art shows and music gigs and a burgeoning garden--life is a bit too busy to blog regulary these days. But here is a brief synopsis of a few things going on lately at Squash Blossom Farm:

We had a couple of delightful couch surfers stay with us last week. Sujai and Kristi were traveling from Californina to New York before Sujai moves to France to start a little farm on land her mother owns. Both women are professional chefs--and made us a wonderful breakfast before they resumed their cross-country road trip. Our chickens provided the eggs and our garden the herbs.
After slaughtering a dozen or so chickens ourselves, we took the next 40 to a poultry processor. We delivered chickens to Utica (about 3 mile east)at 7 a,m. and picked them up, finished, at 4 p.m., bagged, USDA inspected, weighed on a certified scale and labeled. Yeah, we agreed it is worth the cost. Most of the chickens the processor gets are the white, slow-moving, fast-growing Cornish Rock breed. When the owner saw our lively, colorful heritage breed roosters he said "These chickens are so beautiful! Are you sure you want to kill them?" I answered yes, we have 150 more at home (that's way too many roosters!) but I admit I had tears in my eyes. I have to remember that they lived a longer-than-usual and very idyllic life for a chicken.
When we got home, the younger batch of roosters had moved into the previously older rooster territory and were acting much more cocky.
Cadence's fancy corn crop was seriously diminished by our free-range chickens, but the plants that did survive are now tasseling. This is the Oaxacan Green corn.
Ed Hayes, a tree specialist, climbed up the huge silver maple growing in the middle of the old silo foundation. This is the tree that lost a huge branch in a big windstorm which landed precariously on our barn roof and had to be removed with a crane. Because the tree is now a bit lopsided after removing the limb,the arborist recommended bracing the remaining branch so if it comes down in a wind, damage will be mitigated. Ed shimmied up the tree and attached a 9,000 lb. test rope between branches. It's a lot higher up than it looks!
Almost every morning I have to power-wash the patio because that is where the geese prefer to sleep at night and geese, well, they are so messy! In my daily power washing I have discovered that a nice big toad is living on the patio in the corner by the steps. I suspect he ventures out at night to feast on insects attracted by the yard light. On another note, today Cadence found a huge garter snake in the veggie garden - about 3 feet long and two inches in diameter. I appreciate that the snake is probably keeping the rabbits at bay, but I am glad to know he is there so I am not startled when I meet him in the tomatoes.

Meander Salamander

This afternoon when I opened the door there was a salamander waiting at the steps! I don't know for sure what possessed him to cross the great expanse of patio pavers to the steps, but I suspected he was looking for a good place to hunker down for the winter.

About 15 years ago when Sara was in 2nd grade, a boy in her class found a big tiger salamander and brought it to school in a bucket. Sara convinced him to give it to her and brought it home . She named it Sally and we kept her in a terrarium all winter, then let her go the next summer. We were all very fond of Sally.

I really wanted to take this salamander in for the winter. I decided if I found a nice terrarium at a thrift store for not very much money, it was destined to be. I put him in a large bucket with garden soil in the bottom while I went to town to do my errands. At Savers I found the perfect terrarium for $ 7! I also found a funky shallow, green dish for a little pool.

When I stopped at the library for resources about keeping a pet salamander there was precious little information on the topic, but both books stated that tiger salamanders adapt well to captivity and enjoy being hand-fed.

I've decided to keep his terrarium (or, more properly, "vivarium") on my desk so I can monitor whether he seems to be settling in or I need to let him go. I'm calling him "Meander." He's pretty small, about 7 inches from head to tip of tail and perhaps an inch in diameter at his thickest part. He's got that goofy salmander grin.

Just now I looked up the symbolism of the salamander. Some of the salamander's symbolic attributes include Vision, Energy, Growth, Renewal, Transition, Awareness and Resourcefulness -- an auspicious animal for starting a farm!

Garden Toad

The main thing this farm is lacking is flower gardens. This morning I couldn't resist purchasing some nice and reasonably-priced fall-blooming perennials at Kmart: foxglove, asters, veronica, lavender and gaillardia.
Tonight I planted the flowers in a ring around the birdbath. That meant digging up the sod in the very hard, dry ground. I added a bit of well-aged horse manure from behind the loafing shed to enrich the planting area, watered it well, and spread a layer of cedar mulch.
During the process, I unearthed a little toad that had apparently been snuggled under the bricks. He was almost black, the color of the soil, and if he hadn't hopped into the grass I might not have seen him. Sorry to excavate your home, toad. I hope you find it improved with the flowers.

One thing is becoming obvious about flower gardens on the farm --the yard is so huge that to make any impact it is going to require a much larger scale planting than the cottage-garden approach I am used to! This little birdbath garden is laughably tiny.