What a Difference a Month Makes! The garden is in full swing- we’ve been eating kale, lettuce, summer squash, and peppers for weeks! The tomato plants are heavy with green tomatoes that should be starting to turn color any day now. And just yesterday I spotted a tiny little broccoli crown forming- which is late… but […]
Raising Chickens & Honey Bees Together
Do chickens and honey bees get along? Can you raise them close together? The short answer is, well… yes. I remember last spring when we received our first-ever batch of baby chicks and a couple boxes of bees all in less than a month’s time. I wondered and hoped that I wouldn’t find a band […]
Homestead Monthly: June 2015
Turkey Hatching Fail Our egg-hatching track record is dismal. We made our first attempt to incubate eggs: 11 turkey and 1 duck. It turns out that turkey eggs are notoriously hard to hatch and the babies are very fragile during the first couple weeks of their life. I had never seen anything actively hatch before, […]
The Homestead Monthly: April
Baby Ducks on the Way Fingers crossed! Lady Duck is sitting on a big ol’ nest full of eggs, expected to hatch in the middle of May. I collected ducks eggs for a little over a week and then put them all in the duck nest, hoping that one of the ducks would get the […]
The Homestead Monthly: February & March
Quinn, Quinny, Quinny-Winny We’ve had our dog for a good 4 months now, and he has no shortage of nicknames! He loves going for walks around our 19 acres with Karl on his super-long leash. He pounces in the snow and in the tufts of grass, nose down and hunting the whole time, having the time of his life […]
Extreme Home Makeover: Beehive Edition!
Wondering how to repair and paint old, used bee equipment? This is for you! One thing at the top of our spring to-do list was a beehive overhaul. My dad raised bees when I was young, so we were lucky to inherit a lot of his old equipment, including some hive boxes that needed a […]
Do You Eat Honey? A Message From the Bees…
You’ve heard “busy as a bee;” you’ve probably even said it! But do you know how busy that really is? We will be first time bee-owners in just a few short weeks. I helped my dad raise bees when I was younger, but this is the first time I will be the head-beekeeper. The queen bee, if […]
What a Girl Learned From Her Honeybees
I grew up with honey bees. My dad raised several hives for many years and I remember “helping” with just about everything I could. I had a special spot in the yard, my “bee spot,” where I could safely stand and watch from a distance while dad was in his bee suit tending the hives. As […]