Harvesting, honey, kidding

Mama and I are starting to reap the rewards of our – Mama’s mostly – constant care of the bushes and plants growing in our garden and yard. Though the bugs have chewed the leaves off many of the potato plants and the Brussel Sprout plants, even they are producing well enough to give is a harvest. But the blackberry plants have outdone themselves this season and Mama and are picking almost every day to keep up with the ripening berries. If we slack up on our efforts to harvest the fruit the birds and our chickens eat everything they can reach. Hopefully, today we will make some jelly with the berries we pick since we already have several quart bags full of the berries in the freezer and the bushes are loaded to the point of the branches drooping under the weight of the berries.

Sometime next week we will start picking blueberries. They are not as loaded are the blackberries, but we will get enough to put in some oatmeal or mix with yogurt for breakfast over a few mornings. The peaches are ripening but there is an issue with insects piercing the skin of the fruit causing the juice to leak out and cover those peaches that have been stabbed. We do not know if those peaches will be edible in a couple weeks when they fully ripen, but we will watch and hope for the best. I am loathe to spray anything on the tree or the fruit so we may not have a very good harvest this year. As with our vegetables in the garden, the bugs seem to be winning the battle we are waging against them on the front. Fortunately, they have left our squash and watermelons alone. We will be picking our first watermelon in a few days. Mama is extremely excited about that!

Also, on the animal side of things, four of the nine eggs we put in the incubator have hatched and those little ones will be added eventually to our flock. That makes eight all told that we have hatched from our own eggs, and we will probably incubate more over the summer. Mama is currently raising a brood of chicks, now six or seven weeks old, in the little coop so all newcomers will have to start out in the Banty House. Right now, the tiny chicks are in a tote in the sunroom because we need to give them extra heat to make it through the nights. The overnight temperatures are in the low seventies. That does not seem cold, but to the little ones with very little covering and no ability to produce sufficient body heat to stay warm in those temperatures, the heat lamp is required through the night hours. Thing of it as swimming in seventy-degree water. That is how the cooler air feels to their uninsulated bodies.

I will be re-inspecting the hives today. It will be interesting to see if the bees in one hive have produced any honey in the honey super I sat on their hive. I expect that they have but I have not verified that. In any event, they have enough honey in the upper box of their hive for Mama and I to get a few pints of honey by robbing their excess stores, but I have to wait until the honey is capped and ready to harvest. That is what I will find out today or tomorrow. The other two hives are in various stated of development and will not give us any honey this year. Perhaps next year. I am still hoping to catch a swarm or two this year but have not succeeded so far.

All of the female goats we set up to be bred are starting to show signs that that breeding was successful. Our older females are beginning to look like we will get triplets from this kidding. Our first-time mommies are developing more slowly, and Mama and I are hoping for singles from this breeding, however, our nannies have consistently given us twins for the most part with only one nanny birthing a singe kid. Time will tell, but we may be looking at increasing our herd by twelve to fourteen in late September or early October. Raising these goats has proved a good hobby for me and Mama. We can afford the feed – so far. We can easily handle the animals. They do not require much room, and we can manage the breeding program with the facilities we have onsite. They produce offspring in doubles and triples each year. Most importantly, they are fun animals to be around.

Mama and I are waiting to repopulate the farm with pigs until the weather cools somewhat. Right now, the hot days would not do well for piglets, and we are in no hurry. Though the pigs can eat most of the food scraps our home produces, they still need feed provided for them and we are not anxious to increase our feed bill at this time by adding two extra animals to tend to. That increased feed requirement will come as the kids start to need more than their mommy’s milk, but we are months away from that. Adding the pigs to the farm at that time will not seem like a separate increase to the feed we will need on hand.

Fun times on the farm.