Bright and early I went out to check how the animals had all done through the heavy snows Friday night. The snow was almost up to my knees and kept falling in small, gentle flakes. The morning was beautiful. The air had that sweet, clear feeling that only happens after a big snowfall. I was so glad I […]
Spent the afternoon getting my little barnyard all tucked up and cozy before the big Blizzard ’16 strikes. First on my list: preventing cold drafts. Birds can stand cold temperatures in their massive feather coats, but not so much a chilling breeze or condensation. With that in mind, I put up a whole bunch of weatherstripping […]
I’ve wanted a greenhouse for the longest time. One of the things I miss most about gardening in California is the ability to grow nearly all year long, and especially grow things that need warmer climates like olives and oranges. As I write this it’s well into the heaviest snow of the year and even daytime temperatures haven’t […]
I spent this last weekend preparing to make my second hugelkultur bed. Last year, after the torrential rains drowned all my plants again, I decided that having raised beds was a must. I didn’t want to go that route because of the lack of flexibility in terms of garden layout, but last year was so disappointing. The […]
Time to fill the candy boards (and finally bust out that 25-pound Costco sack of sugar I bought for this months and months ago). Because there’s some controversy over whether serving the bees cooked sugar is chemically good for them, I chose instead to use a tip from Rusty over at HoneyBeeSuite.com. I filled these […]
I spent this weekend making quilts for my beehives… Quilt boards, that is! Quilt boards are basically very very shallow supers that are filled with clean organic matter like dry leaves or wood chips. They’re sandwiched between the top of the bee cluster and the bottom of the metal cover. The quilt board’s purpose is to catch […]