equinox

"As autumn returns to earth's northern hemisphere,
and day and night are briefly,
but perfectly,
balanced at the equinox,
may we remember anew how fragile life is ----
human life, surely,
but also the lives of all other creatures,
trees and plants,
waters and winds.

May we make wise choices in how and what we harvest,
may earth's weather turn kinder,
may there be enough food for all creatures,
may the diminishing light in our daytime skies
be met by an increasing compassion and tolerance
in our hearts."-   Kathleen Jenks, Autumn Lore

Tomato Envy???

I have been a little envious of my friends & coworkers who live down in sunny Sacramento. They have been bringing tomatoes in to work for over a month. As for me, I think 2011 is going to go on record as the worst tomato year ever in El Dorado county. We had lots of rain & cold weather well in to the last week of June. Not great tomato conditions. I did eventually get some planted and have some success. This last weekend I finally had enough ripe at one time to do something with them other than just eating them :)

I took the very full bowl to the sink in the milking shed for an initial washing before I brought them inside. They looked so pretty I just had to take a picture....

Sitting on the milk stand dripping.

tray one ready to go in the oven

That one bowl filled two large cookie sheets

The finished product; which were then bagged up & frozen. 

One of my favorite quick & easy dinners is pasta with roasted tomatoes & my home made feta cheese. So it is nice to have plenty of feta in the fridge & plenty of roasted tomatoes in the freezer. Hopefully there will be enough ripe tomatoes next weekend to get some sauce and/or whole tomatoes canned, too.

I must say, however, that I am not real happy with the varieties I planted this year. Next year I will go back to the ones I fell in love with last year. I did not repeat them this year because between kidding season & the  crazy weather this year, I did not get seeds planted & had to rely on the varieties available at the local nursery. Good but not great. 

Longest Day of the Year.....

I am not sure which is worse, kids born in the cold & snow or kids born in the 100 degree heat. Not the timing I had planned for Miss Heidi goat, she was supposed to be kidding back in April, but she had other plans. She also had other plans about papa....

So here is what happened.  When I thought she had been bred to Only 1 back in November, I put all the bucks back in the same pen with the girls. Everyone had been bred & I knew who was bred to whom. I put them all back together because at that point no one was in milk & just because it is easier to take care of everyone in one pen. So when Heidi went way past her due date, I knew I was going to be playing a game of "who's your daddy".....

Well Heidi finally kidded today with one big boy. What a pudge!  Clearly Chief is the papa; he looks just like his other kids from this year. The good news is it looks like he is polled. YAY! So if he looks as handsome as his papa, I will be keeping him for breeding next year....now I just have to pick a name :)

Penny's Girl

sorry for being so slow with posts but spring is busy around here :) Penny kidded 4.17.11 with one girl.

The new girls at Slate Creek

I picked up two fat & happy nucs on Monday 4.11.11. I was planning to check on them after they had been here a week, but got a little worried on Sunday because there was so much activity outside one of the hives. I was afraid they were either being robbed or (heaven forbid) swarming. So i suited up to check on them & here is what I found.

This is the one i was worried about, but I guess it was just a traffic jam at the front door. 

I popped the entrance reducer in quick when i thought they were being robbed. I removed it when I realized they were just warm & happy girls enjoying a sunny day with lots of flowers in bloom; most of them have pollen.

You can see the 5 frames that made up the nuc versus the 5 plastic frames I had. The good news is they are moving onto the new frames & drawing comb.

Newly drawn comb

Capped brood cells & right next to that pollen being packed in to empty cells.

There are some drone cells on this frame, and again you can see pollen.

Close up of the drone cells, and I do believe that is one of the boys in the lower left corner. Larger body & big eyes.

This is a frame I pulled out of the second hive. A little more disturbing because those three large cells are supersedure cells. Which means the bees were trying to replace the queen for one reason or another. Not a good sign.

Same frame flipped upside down. You can see the cells are empty which means three new queens hatched out. Hopefully one of them survived!! Also note, pretty much no capped brood on this frame :(

See the little larvae!!! Aren't they cute!!

The second hive was really "pissy". I actually got stung through my gloves (actually my Dad's gloves I inherited. I inherited his veil, too. Most girls are excited about inheriting their Mom's veil :)). I have not been stung by a bee in about 15 years, so it was probably good to be reminded its not so bad.

Because they were extra agitated, I did not pull all the frames to check for brood & signs of a happy monarch. I put the hive back together & left them alone. But having no queen can make them grumpy. 

 I think, based on the fact that this was one of the last pics i took, that this frame came out of the hive with the empty queen cells. But I am not certain. If it did, then I think there must be a queen? or maybe not....eggs take 3 days to develop in to a larva, then larva take 6 days to develop into pupa (which is when the get "capped"). When i took the pictures, it had been 6 days since i brought the nucs home....hmm...well, I am going to check both hives again this weekend to see how they are doing. But so far so good!!

ok, this picture I actually took on Friday. This bee appears to have deformed wing virus. Not totally unexpected; I think it is pretty much ubiquitous, along with the varroa mites that help spread it.  But since both have been associated with colony collapse disorder, I will be monitoring closely.

Sunday morning surprise

Rheba gave me a good surprise last Sunday. I woke up to a new buck kid in the pen.   Sorry, I did not get any "new born" pics of him. These were taken when he was a week old.

Dahlia

For those of you who contacted me regarding Dahlia being removed from my website, thank you for the emails. Part of the reason I have not posted in several weeks is because I was not sure what to say & whether or not I should talk about it here. Let's just suffice it to say that being a hobby farmer is not always fun. After a long 2 weeks or so of trying to help her along, I lost Dahlia & her two very premature buck kids. They were as lovely as Lily. It was very sad, but i did everything I could & there was just no saving them.  We buried her and her two beautiful boys under the weeping deodar cedar tree. I planted Dahlia bulbs over her grave.

We will miss her sweet face & gentle kisses & calming presence in the herd. We are very grateful for her lovely daughters Daisy & Lily and look forward to seeing what the next generation will bring.

there is a bridge under there somewhere....

we have had a LOT of rain & its not over yet.....

Tina's Giant buck

What a contrast!! Tina kidded today with one big boy. She really is not much bigger than Clementine ( I will have to measure them soon just to compare). It is truly shocking to see the 2 kids side by side. I had to weigh him just to contrast. He weighed 6.6 lbs!!! Tina & Clementine are both doing well today.

Clementine's Tiny Girl

Clementine kidded today with one tiny but very healthy little girl. She weighs only 2.9 pounds but she is up jumping around already, and eating well, so she is off to a good start.

Clementine is doing OK. But with such a small kid I thought there might be a second one in there.   I "bumped" her belly & felt no signs of any more kids, but has not passed her placenta yet, so we will be keeping a close eye on her for the next 24 hours. She is eating well & chewing her cud. I have been milking her about every 2 hours to encourage uterine contractions. Hope she passes it soon. These things always make me nervous......

My sister thinks I should call her Amelia because of her airplane ears :)

Look at those tiny hooves!

Eating very well!!

Full and happy

Clarice

Ok, so I finally settled on a name for the spotted doeling. Everyone who saw her thinks she should be named Bambi. But i have to remind them that Bambi was a Buck!!! So no. And Bambi's girlfriend was Faline.....sorry, not naming a lovely little doe Faline.  Then I thought of Rudolph's girlfriend Clarice. I thought it was a good name despite the possible association folks might have with Silence of the Lambs.....so i had to find a picture of Clarice. I was very sad when i realized she is not actually spotted....just had a spotted bow in her hair. But i think she is a Clarice anyway. So for those of you who have forgotten, here is Clarice:

And here is my Clarice. I had the herd out for a browse walk & the kids discovered the pile of wood waiting to go on the next burn pile (we had taken down & cut up an old storage shed). They decided it was great fun & since I had my Droid in my back pocket I shot some video...they were just too dang cute. The doe talking in the background is Daisy. The rest of the herd had already moved on & left her & the kids behind, so she kind of panicked when she thought she had been left behind.....the kids could not care less...they just kept playing. Sorry it is sideways. I cant figure out how to rotate a video clip. 

one big girl!!

Rosie kidded today with one big girl. She is just lovely! Wish I could keep her, but alas, I can not keep them all. Rosie did great. She was pushing hard. I saw two feet & then a nose, also. So I pulled the feet forward and then this girl shot out like a rocket on the next push. Nice job Rosie!! I have video of part of her labor if anyone wants to see it....not sure if I should post it here but I can upload it & send you the link if you want to see a goat in labor :) I just thought it might be educational for someone who has not been through this yet.

Here she is.....