This hive of Bee's Wes caught a few weeks ago. They hatched out a new batch of workers 2 days ago.

We’ve been having fun with all the hives this year. This one has been a bonus for us, Wes was able to catch these buzzing buddies in one of our Spruce tress before he went to work a few weeks ago.

For those that aren’t savvy on bees here’s a little info. Once a Queen has filled a frame full of new worker brood  plus 3 queen cells (only 1 will survive. The first queen to hatch out kills the other 2 queen  cells.), and the workers put up the rest of the frames in honey they send several little warriors out in search of a new home. They do this ritual to allow space for the baby boom that will happen a few weeks after the Queen lays her eggs. Once the searchers have located a suitable home the hive swarms, not all the bees will go, but a large percentage will. Watching 10,000 plus bees take flight is an amazing sight. At first they will move to a branch, or side of a house, fence post some structure to regroup and wait for the right moment to fly away. Once on the move trying to keep up with the swarm via the ground is a task for a marathon runner, you don’t know where they’re headed and of course they take a direct air route. But if you can find them or they come to you all the better.

So a swarm of bees is bee expansion at it’s best. The trick of having bees is watching the hive and splitting it before they swarm. That way you can you can keep those bees and make room for the new one soon to hatch.

Now from what I understand hives will swarm from May through August, but you really don’t want them to after mid-July because you want them to have time to gather enough pollen to build up their honey reserves for the winter. A 30-40,000 hive will need 50 to 80lbs of honey to last the winter.

Last week Wes split his largest hive of bees, thanks to his wives intuition…. I woke up one morning thinking about the bees and that it was time to take a look and see how everything was progressing. So I shook my sleepy hubbie and said “Honey wake up it’s time to check the bees…. Come on cutie, bee time awaits…” So Wes doan’s his bee suit and he went and did bee chores and I did critter chores. The previous evening Wes had been preparing other supers and foundations just to be on the safe side so he was all set to do the big split. He figures he pulled 10-20,000 bees from that hive, and we slowly drove them over to Jenns house where the sheep are. Jenn has an amazing amount of flowers and flowering bushes, a bee haven if there ever was one. So 1 new hive that Wes split, and 1 new hive that flew into our laps. We did lose one hive because Wes believes a Phebe ate the queen, but the remaining bees would have incorporated into one of the other hives. So, all is not lost. We still have 4 hives.

This is the largest hive. We figure that there is now after the new hatch 50-60,000 bees in this hive!!!

Momma duck and her baby.

We’ve had many ducklings hatch, but few survive…. Another frustrating year of natural duck hatching. We’re looking forward to having more space once we buy a larger piece of land so we can have a better set up for Momma ducks and their babies. There are a few things we will do differently, 1. is not have a ramp. We inevitably have to catch the ducklings and pop them back into the duck house, Wes teaches them to go up the ramp…. But it’s still hair raising, and time consuming. 2. have removable fencing so once the ducks go broody and set on their nest we will put them in their own pen within the duck pen so than they won’t be bothered by horny guy ducks looking for an easy piece of tail…. Cuts down on Momma ducks stress level.

Incubated ducks so cute hangin with their freinds the layer chicks..

So we made a big decision about this years pigs. Perhaps you’ve noticed we haven’t been talking to much about them. The reason why is that we haven’t gotten them yet. Between the lack of time and money to get them we are now coming up to August pig free, and that isn’t good….

So I called Paul our pig guy yesterday and asked if he would raise them for us. I have no reservations about this because he raises them out doors on pasture, and feeds them the tastiest tidbits that side of Waterville. I know it won’t be the same as us raising them but pretty damb close. So feedback will be very important for this years pork so we know how you likes your pork.

Jack's giving a wink and a knod over his Mothers shoulder

The sweetness of Holly. Don't you want to go up and give her a kiss.

Our last two lambs for the year. Both young ladies and VERY cute. We're thrilled to have them in the flock.

So life on the farm is full and adventerous. We’re headed into August looking ahead to the September Shin-dig and hoping we’ll see you there if not sooner.

Look who decided to come for dinner

oops, maybe the woman with the camera doesn't want us in there...

Is it all clear???

Wait for me...I'm coming too....

Are you coming out of there? Or do need to come in a get you?

Hey lady, we're coming back later. Please fill the cat food dish... That's a big step....

As you can see we had company the other day. Spot, skunk Momma brought her FIVE babies with her! What absolute fun to watch! I love skunks they are just the neatest animals, so long as they don’t eat the chickens, ducks, or their eggs.

Spot was being very brazen bringing the kiddo’s over so early in the afternoon, but she knew were the food is and it felt like she wanted to introduce us to the next generation.

This cute little quacker hatched out yesterday afternoon.

Wes and I are keeping our fingers crossed that the duck ladies will hatch out many, many ducklings this season. It will help when duck processing comes around. We haven’t been getting large numbers of ducklings hatching from the incubator so all help is welcome.

This Momma is one of 4 setting on nests at the moment, plus Jack the roosters daughter is behind that box that the duckling is standing next to setting on her nest too. I’m hoping she will succeed since the other 2 chicken ladies have had no luck in hatching out some cute little chicks.

I’ll post an update on what’s been happening on the farm soon, but right now please fill out our customer survey…. THANKS Rose &  Wes

We moved four of the ladies with the 7 lambs over to the summer pasture. Wes and I built a slatted box on the bed of the Dodge truck, since she’s an older model there are post holders built in the bed of the truck, making it that much easier to turn her into a mobile trailer. Than we build a ramp for the girls to get up, fixed the electric charger, piled the new fence, feed and water buckets, battery, plus a few other escenicals into the car. Set up all that, and came back to separate the flock into two, not the easiest of tasks, but all went fine, we had one scary moment Hotlips little boy became stressed out and started asperating on possibly his rumen. Wes’s and mine hearts were in our throats for a few minutes but he settled down once we brought him back to the paddock. We waited to put him in the truck last.

The girls were funny sticking their heads out between the boards while we were loading, bellowing away. I’m sure the neighbors were wondering what was going on, but it didn’t last long. We were even able to catch Daisy, that is only the second time we’ve able to catch her (very willy that one) since she was born 3 going on 4 years ago. Holly and Jack were of little help always wanting attention, and generally getting in the way while ewe catching.

Than off down the road we went, the ladies seemed to enjoy the fresh breeze, no one was squashed or trampled. Our cruising speed was a fast 25mph. Once at Jenn’s we pulled up to the fence, opened the back and out they jumped. The looks on their faces told me that they were very happy with the new field accommodations. We left Bull with the young ladies for no other reason than we we’re both wet, and out of breath from moving four resistant ewes, and 7 plump lambs. They all settled in quickly and with great abandon started mowing the pasture.

The next task was to walk Holly and Jack over, but we were stalled because the truck decided it didn’t want to turn over, or it did want to turn over but there wasn’t enough electrical juice to turn her over. We tried a few things and then left her at Jenn’s. We’re hoping that we can have a favor returned from Joe who has a flatbed to bring the truck home so we can work on her. Other wise we shall see what happens.

We’ll walk the donkeys over in the next few days, until than as reported all is well on the field front.

This transition has hit me the hardest. Rationally I know that the girls are better over on a big gorgeous field. Emotionally this is the first time since we first got those four ladies in May 2009 that they have been away from us/me, and I don’t like it. September or October won’t get here soon enough so we can bring them home.

On the rest of the farm, we had 11 ducks hatch! 2 died, one from Momma Kitty eating him, and one wasn’t able to hold his head up. We believe he had a broken neck from the way he developed in his shell, so Wes dispatched him. One broiler chick died yesterday, but that will happen and we have been so fortunate that he was only the second in all 46 chicks. Buff girl is still setting on her clutch of eggs, we calculate that they will hatch May 23rd. I’ll be starting another batch of eggs today or Saturday to incubate.

We haven’t picked up the pigs yet, and are thankful at that since it is to cold for them outside. We would have had to put them in the duck house or chicken coop or in the kitchen…. None would have been ideal, least of all the kitchen!

The bees aren’t here yet either, I dought they will be arriving until it warms up, since they’ve been in Fla, for the spring.

Jack giving it his all

This morning I checked on the duck eggs and lo and behold there were 3 little duck-bill peeking out of their eggs! So a quick transfer from egg rocker to the floor of the incubator and now we wait and give the peepers some egg cracking space.

Spring so much going on I have a hard time sleeping, between the lambing, watching the pasture grow, taking a chance on when to put the flock out on pasture full-time, the arrival of broiler chicks, Buff girl went broody 2 weeks ago and is sitting on her clutch of chicken eggs, waiting for the 3 nukes of bees to arrive, Wes and I fixing the truck, garden stuff, piggy arrival and a few other things that doesn’t seem like a long list but you would be amazed how many details there is in all of it. I will say that this year doesn’t feel so go go go. I asked Wes if he felt overwhelmed or frustrated? He just shook his head and whispered no. Of course we won’t stay like this through out the growing season, but it’s such a new feeling not to be overwhelmed in the spring with all the births (animal, plant, bee, new farm customers, greatness). Neither one of us is taking this lovely feeling for granted.

Our little Sumo broiler chick out for a stroll

The broiler chicks are growing fast, and having a great time out on pasture. This year we changed the pasture program  from moving the chicken tractor every day so the babes could have some grass to using the tractor more as a coop and fencing the little sumos in and moving their food around the fenced pasture  so the poo build up isn’t so bad and as they have grown we move the yummies  further (15ft)  from the tractor so as they grow they will walk around a little more. I will say that these broilers are so different from the ones we had last year. They’re more active, we only had 1 die knocking on wood, they have been putting nice weight on, and they seem very happy and contented little birds. We feel very fortunate…
A reminder don’t forget to place your order for your pasture raised chicken. We’re selling at 2.35 a pound. A deal if there ever was one!

Cocoa, isn't he just gorgeous! We thought about selling him as a ram, but he was castrated along with the rest of the boys

This coming week isn’t getting here fast enough! We’re moving 2/3′s of the flock along with the donkeys over to the summer pasture at Jenns. You would be amazed how much these guys eat…. I feel like we’re  feeding a bunch of teenagers!!

At this moment we move them every 12hrs and that seems to work well, but I will deworm everyone for the plain fact that parasite infection is ramped for several reasons; wet weather, shorter grasses, moving more frequently over the same spots without a 21 day rest cycle (21 days kills larvae on the grasses). In all honesty if we had five acres that would be prime for the flock numbers this year, but since we don’t and Jenn does we’ll bring the ladies who have lambed over there and keep the young ladies who haven’t lambed here with us.

Daisy nursing Pippen, her little girl

Well I need to be on my way. We now have 2 ducklings out of their shells and many more on the way, so I need to go get everything ready. We need more shavings for the brooder, baby crumble for feed, and since this spring isn’t warming up start a fire to warm the seller. I’ll let you know how many hatch out in a few days.

Buttercup cleaning up the first lambs born. Twins! girl, boy

All told so far we have 7  lambs!!! 5 boys and 2 young ladies. Everyone is happy and healthy, and impatiently waiting to be on pasture full-time. Tuesday I castrated the boys with the assistance of a young neighbor who was just great. Jamie had been saying that if we needed any help just give a call…. And I didn’t want to wait for Wes than the babies would have been 3 plus wks old and Bosses 2 boys are big beautiful guys that wouldn’t have dealt with the castration as well as that aged. So I called Jamie and asked she said yes. It was the perfect day light breeze, not to hot, very few flies. All went well for the little guys. We did recapture Buttercups little guy to put more pressure on the incision to stop the blood dripping, but that didn’t take long and he’s fine as kind now.

Since Buttercup was the first ewe to lamb, Bosse felt the need to try to micro manage the cleaning process. Wes and I had to put ourselves between Bosse and Buttercup to allow for Momma space. Last year Bosse was the first to lamb, therefore she wasn’t micro managing the other ladies and we didn’t realize that Bosse really is that bossy….

Hotlips had these two cuties early in the morning. She likes a private birth...

Early April 19th these two were born. Both boys, one we needed to help along he wasn’t gaining weight and for that matter was losing ground. So I went and picked up some milk replacer and had him drinking in between nursing. Hotlips was completely incensed that I would question her mothering abilities, but that small push helped the little one to get more of what he needed and he’s doing much better now. I think his name will be runt, but it’s to early to say…

Jack!

Jack is the youngest of our two donkey’s. He’s 4 and full of piss and vinegar. I need to do some work with him so we don’t have any issues once he and Holly become companions and guard animals of the flock on the summer pasture.

Our neighbors are hating us right now, since Jack and holly bray when they’re impatient or feel it’s time for some quality time with us.

The lovely sweet Holly!

Holly is a honey. She’s an older lady. That doesn’t get ruffled over anything. I really enjoy her company, she get’s along with the sheep, and doesn’t go after the chickens either. Such a great lady!!!

I’ll post more soon.

So are we still going to keep doing our passion??? Why yes we are! I asked my honey not to long ago if he was happy getting into this farming adventure with me. His response was couldn’t imgine doing anything else, and wished he could be on the farm more and the job less. My honey…He’s so great!!!

April has been a interesting month so far. Lots of misfires, mishaps, and good times.

Have you read this yrs newsletter I had said we were striving to stay on course. Well we are….Except in regards to the duck hatching!!! If you remember our 1st batch weren’t fertilized, and this 2nd batch are fertile, but I dought whole heartily that they will hatch….What’s it called human error. Geeze what a bunch of  goof balls we are. I’m not going to go into to all the things that we did wrong, but the little quackers should be poking out of their shells today or within the next 2days, but I’m not going to hold my breath. So, on to a new bunch of eggs…AND we will stop being so impatient.

So if you were putting in a duck order for July we won’t have any ducklings available until August.

Thursday I went and picked up our first batch of broiler chicks….Yippy!!! We have been fortunate with these cuties all 46 are alive and peeping. We are using the trusty cellar brooder with them.  Momma Kitty is being a great nanny while using the paws off method, and I told Sassy that I would boot her butt if she touched the peeps.

We have found another pasture to use!!!! WHOOPIE!!!!! One of our down the road neighbors when she found out about the with drawl of  the 1st pasture she (Jenn) said not just once, not even twice, but 3 times said come and put your sheep on my pastures. I tell you it was quite a relief for many reasons, mainly because if a landholder says yes, and than reneges that opens the relationship to distrust, and Wes and I have no interest in working within those parameters. So now we don’t need to and we have a great friend and lady who really wants the sheep and donkeys on her land!!!! Makes us happy….

Last Friday I was the birth assistant or dula (?) for a friends birth. Everything went really great and Momma and little girl came through with flying colors.                                                                                  I arrived home around 10ish and kepted thinking about picking up the donkeys on Sat. But that didn’t happen the cargo van we rented had been upgraded to a moving van…No windows, no ventilation, no way!!! So Susan and I made arrangements for her to trailer them down this Friday. Boy that makes life alot easier, and I don’t have to worry any longer, and we’ll be getting the duo right before lambing so they’ll adjust to the little woollies.

Sunday Wes and I went and had lunch with some friends in Brooks at the local restaurant named Ralph’s. We highly recommend eating there!!! It was great…I can’t wait to return. Afterwords we helped move a cute little chicken coop through an obstacle course…. I wish I could have watched while moving this thing… I would have peed my pants laughing so hard!!! Than we took a walk on an old farm that is abandoned, and today we sent a letter to the family that owns it and are hoping we can start a dialog that will bring our land issue from lack to abundance. AND get us out of Morrill….

Granted that hasn’t slowed down the critter at all. The only animals that seemed concerned were the chickens, but they have full access to the shed during the day and use it well.

Saturday was full of adventure, the ducks were great fun to watch trying to plow through the 16 inches of blanket to get up to the willow tree. In the AM Wes and I went to Rural living days, a fund raiser for collage scholarships by the Waldo Co. Coop Extension. We both throughly enjoyed the lectures plus the food was great, local spinach, carrots, and beef!!! Once we were home Wes started evaporating the maple sap, and I worked on shoveling the path’s. A few minutes into our chores and Wes called me over to the duck house saying we had a visitor…. There was a turkey caught in the duck house! Said turkey went in for a bite to eat and than didn’t know how to get out. We opened the big door and out she flew, up over the tops of trees and away. Than this morning before I went to do chores I saw her wandering around the duck house looking for that magic door….

We have a few newer chickens we’ve added to the flock. Two Aracanas, one Buff, one New Hampshire red. They are older ladies, but still lay eggs so we’re happy to have them. They’ve been a real joy, with getting a few blue eggs every week. I’m so found of the color differences that when I ordered our next layer flock I have 10 Aracana coming too.

I went and spoke with Bruce down at Morrill General asking if we could sell our duck eggs through the store. Bruce is considering the idea, We’re keeping our fingers crossed it would be a great way to become better known within the Morrill community.

This week I’ll be headed up to Mercer to pick up our first batch of broilers. Since the weather is so wacky we’ll be fixing up the brooder in the basement for them and than the first hatching of ducklings will be April 13th ish. Wes and I were hoping to forgo the cellar brooder, but not until I think we have more land to build a brooder. Or once we can rebuild the shed, either way will take time, so cellar brooding will be the best choice for now.

There’s a bigger glitch that we need to deal with at the moment. The field we were going to rent is being turned over to the landowners kids, and they aren’t keen on leasing to us. I’m going to ask again, and keep working on them in hopes they will realize the benefits of us being there.

For people that don’t know, if you lease land for agricultural purposes you can have a reduction on the property taxes. You will be helping to carry on a way of life, plus think of the way a fallow piece of land will flourish with all that great black gold added to increase the organic matter.

If that doesn’t work I don’t know what we’ll do for land leasing, but we’ll find something.

I’m finding it difficult to not be frustrated with people that have farm land but don’t use it. I’m also very concerned that the landowners will turn a field into several house lots. I understand why people do it, $$$$, but it still breaks my heart.

Our other task is getting the donkeys from Ashland, I still haven’t found a trailer to use, but that will fall into place too.

We’ve had a good amount of people signing up for our CSA!!! Whoopy!!!! I’m still getting the word out and thinking of different ways to market to more of the population.

Other wise life is good.

The chickens on the other hand are laying nicely, yesterday we collected 11 EGGS!!! That makes us very happy, and our egg customers are also very happy!!

We’ve started doing egg deliveries into the Belfast area, and have picked up 4 more egg customers!!! So now we really need to buy some more mature layers so we  can keep every thing in balance…Supply and demand!!!

The sheep dealt with the time chance flawlessly…They have no qualms about being fed earlier in the morning. They get up with the birds.

Once May rolls around they’ll be on pasture rotation so they will eat when ever they want, but for now morning are their favorite time because of feeding time.

I said to Wes yesterday that I thought the pregnant ewes didn’t look so big this year, and I was worried we hadn’t fed enough. Wes’s response  was, you can’t tell how large they are because you spend so much time with them. They all are huge, table like!!! So we’re at count down mode for lambing, +/- 5wks! And in a month we’ll be going back up to Ashland and picking up our DONKEYS!!!!!

That’s right we had such great time hanging with the 2 cuties, and they are about a hand taller than the sheep. So after we work with them I think we will be able to transition them into the flock  easily, and because we’ll be getting them in the spring we can keep an eye on them before they go to the leased pasture down the road.

There names are Holly (Mom) and Jack (Son). Susan their old owner doesn’t know how old Holly is, but Jack is 4ish years old. He’s smaller than his Mom, but full of personality. Holly in more reserved, but warms to people after some time.

I don’t know if you can tell a donkeys age by their teeth. I bring this up because I would love to know if Holly is 8yo, or 16yo. Holly’s feet are not every good, and she’s not fond of having them worked on. That will be another piece of the pie that will get worked out, we might build her a ramp to stand on when she has her feet done that might help ( being so small the farrier who could be tall might accidently wrench Holly’s shoulder when hoof trimming.) All sorts of possibilities to contemplate for our newest charges.

Donkeys….

So you can do one of two things. Email through this blog or here is the correct address thefarmettafarm@gmail.com.

I apologize for the typo, I keep thinking 120 in print and all with the wrong email address….

And of course you can call too 322-8368