Today's Harvest

Onions!


Gorgeous carrots




My first broccoli! And some skinny ass corn...but I'm just happy that I have corn. I know that a lot of people didn't get any to grow this year.

Quick Chicken Post

I caught Buffy (not her real name, no name set yet) here enjoying the sunshine the other day. Aaron goes, "Is she alright??".


Just enjoying the warmth and maybe getting some of those mites under control. You can see her clipped wing in this picture. We just cut the first 10 primary feathers on one side to keep her from being able to fly over any fences.

We just got home from Crater Lake, and that was an adventure. I hope to find time today to post about that. But it's back to work for now, building a chicken run, finishing the coop, weeding one garden, tilling up another for a fall garden, and harvesting honey. Phew, I am so ready for summer to be over sometimes, there is never any rest around here.

Hot Chickens

We've got ourselves some hot chickens over here. It's 100 right now and I can't imagine being covered in feathers or being sweat glandless, let alone both. They have lots of shade and lots of water, so they should be fine, but 4 days in a row of this seems stressful. I'm thinking about getting the ground wet so they can get some coolness from the evaporation, but haven't yet because it stresses them every time I go in the pen.

They are adjusting well, and in a few days they will have a big run as well, so lots of room to run and flap wings and hunt bugs. I have got them all to eat from my hand through the fence, but only one to eat from my hand while I was in the coop. We will wait to tame them some more when it cools down.

Introducing...

Our new hens:


From front to back (they don't have names yet). Our banty light brahma, silver laced wyandotte, ameraucana, and buff orpington. The banty is by far the underdog, and I'm not sure what we are going to do about her. She is also our most anxious chicken, she will pace the fence and tries to escape. The others are adjusting well, but I feel bad that she isn't happy yet. She's the smartest one, and she has feathers growing out of her toes!!

The ameraucana, she will lay blue eggs. She's much prettier from the side, her face isn't her strongest attribute. She is #3 in the pecking order.


The buff orpington. She is the biggest and is #1. She's also very mellow and not very smart.


We moved them to the side yard today so we could continue construction on the coop. No pictures until it's all done! Here is Aaron taking a construction break, talking softly to them. We are trying to tame them down a bit. I don't think moving them around and building things in the yard is helping. It should be done pretty soon though. Tonight we sealed everything up tight so they can let themselves out of the roost box in the morning, rather than locking them in and letting them out in the morning.


The breeder we got the wyandotte and the ameraucana from taught us this trick last night. You flip the chicken on their back and stroke their chest. It's kind of like grabbing a cat by the scruff of its neck. They relax and can't really move. She suggested we do this each night to get them used to being handled.


I love how their legs kick out. Aaron tried to drill his finger off, hence the blood.


We have one more chicken lined up, and Aaron really wants to get a 6th, but I don't feel like they will have enough room. I'm not sure what kind the 5th will be yet, I want to go and see them in person. This is the kind that we want if we do get a 6th:


The breeder won't have any for a few more months though. If the banty continues to not fit in, I will give her to a neighbor and get one of these. They are blue orpingtons, we both love how they look and because they are orpingtons, they are super mellow.

Coop In the Works

I'll just let you all think that this is what our coop is going to look like. It's a good thing I didn't see this before we started, I love it! Our's is coming along, however not as far along as it should be for our 10:00 am chicken pick up tomorrow morning. I'm going to wait to post photos until it is all the way done. It will definitely be after we have chickens. It is turning out pretty cute, even though it's not a Palais de Poulet!

It Comes in Threes

I have lots of things I need to post about, but just a quick one for now. Aaron's flip phone had been hanging by a thread for 6 months. Today he dropped it and it fell apart. Within the hour he went to turn on his computer and he got a blank screen with a big question mark and his hard drive was making a clicking noise. Dead. Just a little bit ago he went to plug in the new (to him) thermostat he just got to make a kegerator, and it exploded. He's not having the best day, but phew, I hope that's out his system.
My phone broke this morning too actually, but it is still at the hanging by a thread stage. I think we will be getting some new phones tomorrow.

Honey Party

We went to our first honey party two nights ago at our neighbor Dan's house. Here is his honey extractor. It's a giant centrifuge that holds 10 frames of honey at a time. The black wires wrapped around the tank warm the metal to make the honey more thin. There is a switch that controls two belts which move the frames around inside. This extractor was actually given to him for free!


The first step is to remove the caps from the frames. We used a hot knife that is specifically for this purpose.


For the capped honey that is below the surface of the side bars, this afro pick worked better.


The wax was all collected in this bin. The bottom of the bin had a small screen that allowed the honey to flow through it. He leaves the wax in the bin for about a week and by then lots more honey drains out into the bottom. The bottom has a valve so you can drain the honey out easily. I'm hoping to get some of this wax for batik. This picture was taken early in the night, but the end the bin was overflowing with wax and honey.


Once the frames have the caps removed they go into the centrifuge. When it is full the lid goes on and the machine is turned on.



Then a beautiful thing happens...You open the valve and honey pours out. More honey than you have ever seen in your entire life. We double filtered with sieves to take out the wax and bee parts, but the honey was too cold and this turned out to be our limiting factor. This was taking forever! Finally at 3:30 am Dan announced that we should all go in the house, find the biggest jars we could and fill them with unfiltered honey to take home.


So we scored all of this! 2 gallons to use and share.


It's gorgeous!


Thanks ladies! Can you believe one bee makes only 1/12 of a teaspoon of honey in her entire life? We harvested over 400 pounds!


So after the extraction, the frames are still very sticky and covered in honey. Some of the frames still had lots of honey left in them. How do you get the frames clean to store them for the winter? Let the bees do it!


I stopped by today to see the masses come. Apparently this was way down from earlier when the sun was shining on the boxes. You can see why we do this harvest at night...


We came home very, very sticky at 4:30 am. I was so tired I was going to forgo the shower. Then I found honey in my ear. And remembered someone had set an empty sticky box on my head earlier, and found some in my hair. Next year I think I'll wear rubber boots. 3 of us got stings on our feet from all of the bees crawling around. Tuesday was definitely rough, I was so tired at work I couldn't even function but I made it, went home for dinner and went straight to a CPR class that went until 9. I'm so glad we didn't have plans tonight! I made a nice garden dinner and we went for a hike. Tomorrow night, Bard in the Quad!