It's Summer!

Summertime may just have arrived in the North Woods.

Although we'd never bet the farm on the accuracy of this thermometer (it's made of slate which probably absorbs the heat, right?), looks like it's registering right at 90 degrees at mid day. It's on the south side of the house, but is in dappled sunshine because of a very large birch tree that provides some shade on that side of the house most of the day.

The thermometer that is on the north side of our house where it gets absolutely no sunshine at any time (and we're fairly sure is very accurate in its readings), read 80.2 degrees at the same time.

We've got a friend camping on the property for the weekend and when he came home last night about 9:30, we invited him in for some kombucha and conversation. It was chilly enough in the house at that time that Roy made a small fire in the wood stove so we could enjoy the flames and warmth while we chatted. At chore time this morning, it was still cool enough for a sweatshirt. Then about 8 a.m., a wind started blowing and brought this very warm weather right to us.

You just never know what you're going to get up here. But I'm not worried about my newly planted bean seeds rotting in the ground today.

A Good Drenching

Even though I've been grumping and groaning about our frequent rain showers, we haven't had any precipitation that was enough to give the ground a good soaking for quite a while. That was until last night.

At dusk, we opened up the covers of the cold frames protecting the cucs, tomatoes and peppers in the garden. It wasn't particularly warm (only in the 50s) but I wanted those crops to benefit from the predicted rain which always seems so much more beneficial than water from a hose.

Before bed we had some thunder, lightning and drizzle on and off. Then as we were falling asleep, steady rolling thunder, the kind that feels low, heavy and makes the house vibrate, moved into the area and shortly thereafter, it started to pour. Really pour.

Tossing and turning in bed and listening most of the night to the winds and rain pummeling everything, I was afraid this morning we would find the wind had grabbed hold of the upright covers on the cold frames, ripped them off their hinges and tossed them into the next county.

I was thrilled (and more than a little surprised) that all stayed in place as you can see by this picture taken from Roy's upstairs office window early this morning. Yeah, I know, it sure doesn't look like much is growing yet in the garden (plants are still too small to show up) but doesn't the lovely, soaking rain make everything look satiated and content?

Now it really is too wet for me to go out and work in the garden today. Somehow I think I'll find something(s) to occupy my time.

Sure, 'nuf . . . almost as soon as I had written the above paragraph, Roy stuck his head in the back door and asked if I'd come help stack some wood he'd just finished cutting. We're a long way from two full wood sheds of cut and split wood, but little by little, we're getting the job done.

Just Us Chickens

This silly saying has been in my family for as many years as I can remember. Whenever anybody walks into the house and yells, "Anybody home?", you always call back, "Just us chickens!" (What the heck does that mean?)

After being cooped up (pun intended) all winter in their chicken house and attached solarium, our chickens seem happy as could be to be allowed out every day in the big, fenced poultry yard. Rain or shine, they'll be out. The fencing includes a small pond and although I can't say the chickens enjoy the pond as much as the ducks and geese do, they do wander down there to look for yummy worms and bugs along the water line and will even occasionally take a drink.

They're in a big enough area that they have lots of green grass at all times along with shade trees to snuggle under for an afternoon nap. There's even a pile of black dirt where they love to go for dust baths.

If predators of the flying kind (we have a lot of hawks at certain times of the year) appear, they quickly run for cover in the little patch of dense woods or can duck into the chicken house which has the door open all day, mainly for ventilation.

Each night all the poultry is closed into their respective enclosures to keep them safe from predators including night-hunting owls. Although the electric fencing of the whole area seems to do a fairly good job of keeping most four-footed varmints out, occasionally we have seen evidence of something getting through.

We have a covered stainless steel pail that I keep by the side of the sink in the kitchen and all "chicken scraps" go into it to be fed to the poultry each day. Usually it contains some pretty good stuff and lots of feathered bodies come running when they hear the side door open and know the pail of goodies is coming out.

Even though they have access to the pond for water, Roy always rinses out and refills their water pans a couple of times each day. (He's a good chicken farmer.)

There's something very relaxing about taking the time to stop and watch a yard full of chickens (ducks and geese, too, of course). Talk about knowing how to live in the moment. They've got that down pat. But then, these feathered friends on our homestead have a fairly cushy existence . . . and I think they know it.

How Be Our Bees

When we first moved up here in the mid 70s, the weather was different than it has been for the past fifteen or so years. Then we had longer, colder winters. We had successfully kept honey bees in Illinois and had every intention of continuing to do so in Minnesota. Although we did everything we could in our attempt to keep bees for several years, they never made it through the winter. As much as we missed the bees and having our own honey, we went on a long hiatus from beekeeping.

Then about six years ago, we felt it was time to get back into honey production. We seemed to be in a milder, less severe period of winters and, no doubt about it, we really, really missed having the bees for many reasons. Happily, our re-entry into the beekeeping world went well and we once again had ample stores of honey for our own use and for sharing with friends. Plus we noticed that most plants, including vegetables in our garden, were thriving because of the bees' pollination.

We went into last winter with five hives of honey bees. Two hives were very strong; three were not quite as heavily populated but in good shape. Then came a winter that made us remember vividly those that we'd experienced back in the 70s. Very cold. Very gray. Very long. Too much prolonged cold and virtually no warm, sunny days in which the bees could get out to make their vital cleansing flights. To top that off, spring didn't arrive in northeastern Minnesota this year. It was just a continuation of close to winter temps but minus the snow.

When the head beekeeper (that would be Roy) checked the hives in March, he found the bees in the two strongest hives had eaten all the honey we'd left for them except that which was farthest away from the clusters of bees which had obviously huddled together in a last ditch effort to stay warm enough to maintain life. Bee excrement was plastered all over the front of the hives and all the bees were dead. In the other three hives, he discovered much the same situation except for one very small cluster of bees that had somehow managed to hang on. He moved frames of honey close to the cluster and left the hives feeling less than hopeful.

We've had a bumper crop of dandelions this spring, but the weather has remained very, very cool. Many times you could have seen both of us walking slowly through the carpet of golden dandelion blossoms (and anything else we could find blooming) hoping to see busy bees working the flowers. Sadly, we've seen very little activity.

As of this past weekend, Roy reports the surviving hive is still struggling to make it. It has a low population and although the queen looks good, she's laying only a small number of eggs because there just aren't that many bees available to take care of much brood. If the hive makes it, it will be a long, slow process of building back up.

When we took the top cover off our remaining hive this morning, this is what we saw. If the hive were strong and healthy, the frames would be covered with bees.

We're not alone in our sad bee predicament. Nearly all the beekeepers in our area and over the border into Canada suffered the same losses.

So how be our bees? Well, not so pretty good right now. But we've all done some brainstorming (including Canadian beekeeping friends) and come up with some ideas to try for next winter just in case it's a repeat of the one just past. Roy's been pouring over the bee books each night and feels there's still hope for beekeeping in The Tundra. Where there's a will, there's a way. We're not giving up on those amazing, fascinating, honey-making machines.

It Takes A Gaggle . . .

If it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a gaggle of geese to raise a gosling.

We've had two female geese sitting on a clutch of eggs for about a month now. Three days ago, this little yellow guy hatched. Two days ago, the gray and yellow one made his appearance along with another one that we think got stepped on and sadly didn't survive.

It's really difficult to get pictures of the little fuzz balls because all of the geese, both males and females, seem to have a vested interest in shielding them from big humans with cameras.

These little guys are traveling all over the large fenced in poultry yard (zipping along like wind-up toys . . . how can their little legs handle all the mileage?) grazing and drinking water right with the big geese. When they move from spot to spot, the adults seem to put them in the center, forming a protective circle around them.

We still have this mama goose sitting on the remaining eggs. When I took this picture, I thought I could hear muffled peeps coming from beneath her. Wishful thinking, or will we get more babies yet?

Sunday Is A Day Of Rest, Right?

Yesterday was one of those days . . . one of those days that left me so tired I couldn't keep my eyes open past nine o'clock. But I wouldn't have traded it for any other one. No complaints because I'm doing what I want to be doing and I'm never bored. Life is good, as they say.

First thing in the morning, Roy and I split some honkin' big pieces of wood he had already cut into stove sized lengths. Got it all stacked in the wood shed.

I'm still working at getting started plants out into the garden soil where they desperately want to be. I plant, then cover them with whatever I can: cold frames, hot caps, plastic milk jugs, anything to protect them from the wind and cold temps. Today the squash and pumpkins go out. I don't have as many of them started inside as I might like, but it's too late to plant seeds outside so I'll have to make do with the few started plants.

So yesterday I had "must dos" I was working on in the garden. As per usual, we had rain showers on and off all day. Roy was trying to cut the lawn but the rain would make the grass just wet enough that he had to stop and wait for it to dry out several times. I think it took him three stop-and-go attempts but he finally finished it after dinner.

Besides lawn mowing, dear husband changed the oil in the wood splitter and Toyota Tercel. He had to warm up the car before draining the oil so was preparing to take it for a short run. I said I'd go along if I could make a quick stop at the hardware store in town. Off we went, mailed some paid bills, put a deposit in the Credit Union, quick stop at the hardware store and then got the heck out of Dodge. Town was full of tourists and made us so, so grateful we're not involved in the restaurant business anymore. We happily scurried back home again.

I worked in the garden all the time that I could for the rest of the day. At one point, I sat down in the (damp) dirt and said aloud, "Why am I working so hard? I could be reading in the hammock.”

Except I couldn't have been reading in the hammock because of the intermittent rain and the two sets of drop-in visitors we had during the day. Knowing of the possibility of those visitors, I had made an apple pie early in the morning.

Here it's cooling on a shelf on the back porch by an open screened window. (Glad no hungry black bear meandered by.) Remember last fall (having a surplus of pie apples), I made a bunch of apple pie fillings for the freezer? Well, I apparently was a little over zealous (blog entry Peeling, Paring and Slicing, October 14, 2008), because I still have several of those bags of frozen filling in my freezer. But, hey, I shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth, because one of the bags came in mighty handy yesterday morning. Last week I made eighteen pie crust balls and froze them. This was something I learned to do when we had the restaurant. I could make a big batch of pie crust dough when I had the time, freeze it in individual crust portions, then defrost as many as I needed for a day's baking. So night before last, I pulled the frozen apple filling and two balls of frozen crust out of the freezer which made making the pie yesterday a snap. Soooo much faster than starting with the whole apples and having to make the crusts from scratch.

But here we are at the start of a new day after a long, sound sleep last night. The sun is shining (for the moment at least) and we have the day to do what we want. Me? I want to grab a quilt, pillow and book and read in the hammock.

Heck, who am I fooling? I really want to go plant squash and pumpkins, thin the beets, replant a few spots where the Swiss chard didn't come up, succession plant some more scallions and radishes, get the lemon cucumbers planted under a cold frame and . . . I wonder if the soil is warm enough yet to put the beans in?