On Saturday, my sister and I attended a short course beekeeping class offered twice a year by UF/IFAS. We had missed the spring class by a week or so, but found the fall (such as it is) date early enough and got ourselves registered. I was a bit concerned about the class going forward, as the registration form indicated if less than 20 people registered, the class would be cancelled. That worry was for naught, as by my count there were almost 30 people in attendance, split evenly between men and women. There were several people from the Northeast Florida Honeybee Association in attendance as well: all older men, all incredibly friendly, and all hilarious.
We’ve discussed having bees on the ranch several times over the years, and now we’re ready to move forward. The class itself covered various aspects of keeping bees, from hive structure to honeybee activity, splitting hives, and diseases and pests. Most of the things under discussion were things I already knew from prior research, but it was great to be able to hear from real, live beekeepers instead of reading about things in a book or from the web.
The Clay County IFAS office keeps bees on the fairgrounds, and has a honey house on the property as well. It was there that they had set a demonstration hive with open, paned sides back in April during the fair, and the bees were still there, still alive, and we had a chance to see the activity – and spot the (unmarked) queen.
After a full day of class, we’re more ready than even to get some bees around here. I’m hoping it will improve some of the plant-related issues we’ve been having, particularly with things like melons and squashes, and of course there is the potential for honey to be robbed from the hive. We were excited enough to consider adding bees now, but it appears that almost everyone has no bees for sale during the fall. Waiting until spring seems to be the only option, but that will allow us to get all the equipment we need and have it on hand for the big day when that day arrives.
Every year in this area, we have at least one fire. This past summer was no different, but this time around there were multiple fires and one about two miles away.
For the past few days, we’ve had smoke drifting in and hanging around from a fire on the Florida/Georgia border – and naturally, all the tropical storms/hurricane activity has bypassed us and it, and still it burns. Since there has been virtually no wind here at all, the smoke lingers well into the afternoon, making work outside challenging. But work needs to be done regardless of this, and yesterday was yet another highly productive day: various irrigation lines repaired and extended, mulch delivered and started to be spread, and the rear garden now receiving the same treatment as the front, with the fence partially pulled, plastic laid, and the fence reconfigured. Still much more to be done, but that is always the case on the ranch.
One of the additions we made this spring to the ranch was berries. I’d never really considered small fruits before, beyond the wild blackberries that grow all around the property, but while I was wandering around the garden center one day, there they were. At first, we had picked up two, but went back for four more. All went into the front garden area and then we waited.
Well worth the wait, I must say. This was just one of many harvest rounds – the smaller harvests didn’t actually make it into the house at all, between my mother and my nephew. Although I can no longer eat blueberries that way, they are still spectacular in muffins, pancakes, and my shakes.
Yesterday, we had some additional labor on the ranch. Today, we did not – not much of a surprise, as the sheer physicality of much of what we do is not something that most people enjoy or can do, even if there is money involved. That’s fine: never underestimate girl power in the realm of Getting Things Done. Today we finished laying down the rest of the plastic around the front garden, reset the fence (and I added three more gates while we did this), started trenching for the edging around that, did finish the edging around the herb garden, weeded, hauled trash out, mowed, watered, cleaned up all the detritus and tools from our work, and generally worked from sunrise, took a break during the high temp hours, and continued until sunset. The moon rose as we put up the last of the tools.
It reminded me quite a bit of this.
Why? Because the females of the hive are the worker bees. That’s how it turned out for us today.
Speaking of bees, my sister and I will be taking a beekeeping course this Saturday, as I want to get things in motion to have bees next spring. I don’t each much honey straight off – I don’t drink tea any longer, and honey alone is a bit too acidic for my mouth – but I do a lot of cooking with honey, and other members of the family use honey on a regular basis, so I thought it would be cool to add that to the list of things we produce (or gather, as it may be) on the homestead. We would get the added benefit of having pollinators on the ranch so as not to have to rely so much on the incidental pollinators we get around here.
Butternut squash soup tonight for dinner, with onions and garlic right from the ranch. It will be just as good tomorrow for breakfast before diving back into the work that never ends.
A little help in the garden is always a good thing. Sometimes, though, you need helpers who can dig and pull and mow and do other things besides eat bugs and hang out on the bean trellis. Not that such hanging out is not helpful in and of itself: when we first moved in to the property, it was like living in a house on the beach. All the topsoil had been scraped off and sold, there was no sod or attempt to do anything with the white sandy stuff that was left, but at least they left some of the scrub/water oaks. There were also no critters: no lizards, frogs, dragonflies, spiders, squirrels, snakes, nothing.
To combat this poor ecosystem, the past four years have seen a ton of work go into making the place less like a desert and more like a homestead. Granted, it will be a long, long time before the ground is rehabilitated and amended enough to plant things directly in the ground on a wide basis – hence all the raised beds around here – but if there is one thing gardening on any scale will teach, it is patience. Today, we have all sorts of critters on the grounds, and found a great (albeit sad) result of all the work that went into making the homestead…homey: a giant orb weaver spider had a dragonfly hung up in her web on the side of the house. And the little guy above, along with a lot of extended family members, hangs out waiting for the next snack.
But as I said, there are times when you need bigger help than this. We decided to redo a few things around the place. The first step was to dig out a four foot circle around both almond trees, about two inches deep, and replace that clay with compost and topsoil, with a layer of a pasture grass mix, alfalfa, and buckwheat. That’s a lot of soil to move (twice). It was a necessary task, though, as nothing is taking hold in the clay around the trees, and without anything in the surrounding area, the trees will not be very productive. Enter James, the grandson of a friend of the family, who wanted and needed to work at something while he attends night school and waits for his temporary IT contract to renew. I was assisting with the digout, but rapidly found after several minutes of banging away on the hard clay that a) that motion was traveling right into my face and making all that dental work from yesterday ache like hell and b) that said motion also made that same dental work start bleeding. So, he dug, I seeded the circles, and we both spread the compost and topsoil. A fair division of labor.
In the meantime, my mom was working along the fence in the front garden, and we joined her in that effort after completing the great dirt haulout. We had decided to revamp the garden areas a bit, because it looked a little unkempt with the grass growing up around the edges of the fence. The plan was to pull up the fence, roll back the edge of the plastic that had been put down as a base to solarize the grass we’d previously got going after moving in (when this garden was still in the back), and mow along the line. With that done, we started laying another line of plastic to extend slightly beyond where the fence will be, so we can mulch and edge that area to make it more presentable. The fence is up, the mowing is done, and half of the plastic is laid in place. That’s where we stopped for the day, after just over four hours of backbreaking work.
Tomorrow, we will pick up where we left off, although I’m hoping to get a bit of the refencing started this evening. The biggest concern I have is the stake hammering triggering another round of bleeding. When you don’t have a lot of spit, it’s difficult to keep your mouth clear. When the front garden is complete, we’ll do the same thing in the back garden. That should be a bit easier than the front, and even if it isn’t easier, it will be shorter work: there are only three sides to redo, as the fourth side butts up against the pool fence.
There are other projects we’ll be having James help with, as well: the house trim needs to be touched up, and I’m hoping to repaint the barn this fall (about three and a half years in the Florida sun takes a toll), among other things. My sister will be lending a hand, too. It’s our own microeconomy here on the ranch.
Work funnies: today, compliments from several of the handful of clients who have contacted us for something: “You’re great, I’m never leaving!”, “Your support is awesome.”, and so on. That makes up for the occasional person who thinks they need to be a complete ass for no particular reason.
Last October – after recovering quite a bit from having a chunk of lung removed during the summer – my sister and I planted out 35 pounds of garlic. This July, I pulled up two of the type we had put in.
This is the Lorz Italian variety. It’s a milder garlic, one we use more for roasting. We won’t be planting this one again this season, as we really do prefer the stronger garlics.
This is the Inchelium Red garlic, one we like quite a bit. It’s a stronger garlic, and around here, that’s what we like.
The third variety, Chesnok Red, is also a strong garlic with a bite, and that one was pulled in late August. It’s currently curing in the garage, awaiting processing.
The other two, though, are cleaned and in storage.
Why yes, we do go through a lot of garlic around here. Tonight’s use was in a batch of guacamole whipped up for taco night. Unfortunately, yours truly was at the dentist for three and a half hours for two crown preps and was unable to partake in dinner. Ow.
Work funnies: one guy saying he was going to “rethink his relationship” with us, because the application he installed once upon a time and apparently hasn’t updated at any point has a component that doesn’t like one of the usual and routine updates run for security reasons. After over seven years with us. Interesting method of dealing with it, instead of simply taking care of your site maintenance, something with which we could certainly assist. Another guy insisting that the server where his site is located is down constantly, when a review of the firewall shows he’s locked himself out via login failures to a password protected area. Under his own site. Aren’t you glad you don’t work in tech?
Spring was fleeting. Summer was long, and hot, and humid, and sweaty, and buggy. And vulture-y.
This guy was sitting quite calmly on top of one of the compost piles during one of the hottest days in the season. I suspect he was waiting for me to keel over from heat exhaustion, but I outlasted him.
More stuff to come about the summer season. There was a lot of weeding, lots of pickling, and the tragedy of tomatoes.
Banner day around here today in “real” work, as well: this morning, someone telling us to fix a problem at their ISP. This evening, someone calling us incompetent – on facebook, no less, where naturally we can’t respond – and accusing us in a ticket of “deceiving” him because we didn’t read his mind about using a nonstandard mail format. Nice bookends to the day. Fortunately, not all of our clients are like that.
This is a tomato variety called Stupice, started from seed on Jan 28, transplanted to the garden on March 5, first fruit April 4.
There are about 65 of this type of plant out there, some of which are already fruiting, which is about on track with its 56-60 day cycle from transplant. The next varieties we’ll be looking toward fruit (and which are already transplanted) are Glacier, Amish Paste, and an experimental variety sent to me courtesy of Shumway, seeded Feb 10, and transplanted on March 16. The next transplants to go in will be the Cherokee Purples, seeded on Mar 5, but already outgrowing their flat.
On Saturday, my sister and I attended a short course beekeeping class offered twice a year by UF/IFAS. We had missed the spring class by a week or so, but found the fall (such as it is) date early enough and got ourselves registered. I was a bit concerned about the class going forward, as the registration form indicated if less than 20 people registered, the class would be cancelled. That worry was for naught, as by my count there were almost 30 people in attendance, split evenly between men and women. There were several people from the Northeast Florida Honeybee Association in attendance as well: all older men, all incredibly friendly, and all hilarious.
