Mama’s event, a lot of little things, harvesting more honey

Early Saturday morning I got Mama set up at the square in Chico. We were there in the company of a pretty large group of other vendors also setting up for the day. Neither me nor Mama had huge expectations for the day since there were several other similar events in many of the localities near us, so the competition for buyers to travel to little Chico was going to be fierce. That turned out not to be an issue. Mama did better at that venue than she has done setting up anywhere in the past. She was very excited about the sales she had made as well as the numerous contacts collected from those who had bought from her. She will be at another event this Saturday for which she has much higher expectations. Supposedly the clientele for the coming venue is a little bit more well off than the Chico shoppers. Time will tell how that plays out, but her efforts Saturday paid off well enough to truly encourage Mama.

I am not sure if Grandma’s presence at her booth helped or not, but Grandma spent the entire day with her. It was a very long day out for Grandma and seemed to wear her out thoroughly, so she spent the entire day in bed yesterday. I know Grandma enjoyed the day of catching the attention of total strangers and slowing them down for a minute or two while she regaled them with some words of wisdom or a humorous comment – at least, humorous in her way of thinking.

Many times, I miss Grandma’s humor, so she has to tell me what she said was supposed to be funny. But, yesterday, Mama enjoyed Grandma’s company and the moments of actual help with manning the booth. They were ready to come home about 3:30, so Victoria and I went to Chico to take down the shelter and load up tables and wares. Grandma was ready to get home even thought it took her several stops to leave the area as she said her goodbyes to those who she had met that day.

Saturday, I got almost 18,000 steps. I got a lot of little things done – from cleaning up in the garage to adding a timed light switch for the duck area, to relocating the quail, to harvesting honey and moving some panels Norman had placed at the fence beside the tractor into the garden shed. It was a good day. Most of the chores I finished were not overly important, but they were all useful items to cross off my list. The ducks, Mama had learned, needed about sixteen hours of light to make an egg. Since our days are significantly shorter that that, we have to supplement the light to encourage egg development. The quail were relocated to a larger cage in a larger area within the coop, albeit a darker area. I did not finish getting their light hooked up, so we are leaving the coop exterior entry door open for now. Since that door is normally closed, the chickens are enjoying the extra area to explore.

I have held off working in the hives for a while now, but I used Saturday afternoon to make a thorough inspection. I added beetle traps to both boxes in each of the two hives and I did a frame-by-frame inspection of each hive box to gauge the amount of honey the bees had produced over the summer. What I found in one of the two hives were eight frames of honey, each weighing about twelve pounds. I harvested three frames from that hive, leaving those bees five frames of honey as food for the coming winter.

In the second hive, I found six- and one-half frames of honey. I harvested only one of those frames in order to leave those bees sufficient winter stores. Mama and I have enough for ourselves with a little extra so I did not want to take everything. Some beekeepers take all the honey and feed the bees through the winter with substitute foods, as I could have, but I did not want to rob the hives this year. Maybe next year when we try to sell the honey I will take more of their stores, but we did not need it so I left it for the bees.

Just those four frames of honey weigh about fifty pounds. We will collect the honey from those frames this evening. I waited until this evening so that Joseph Echeverria will be able to observe the process. He expressed a lot of interest to Mama and his mother to see how that part of the harvest is done. Mama and I try to take every opportunity we have to teach anyone interested in what little we know. I do not know how much we will get from the frames, but it will be a good bit. Additionally, Mama wants to collect some comb from the frames as well as spinning out the honey. That will be a first and I am not entirely certain how to do that, but we will muddle through somehow.

I will be teaching a class tomorrow and at a Men’s Retreat in Rosebud, AR Thursday through Saturday. I am looking forward to the retreat; far much more than Mama who will be on her own with the feeding chores for those days. It is always better when we are able to share those responsibilities, but she does not begrudge me the break.

At least, I do not think so.