Sheep in the Kitchen

When I went out to make bread for breakfast on Wednesday, I noticed the sheep, pen-free since Monday afternoon, were all oddly clustered around the door of the barn. They're usually more people averse than that.

Imagine my disgust to find that they had nudged aside the lid to my bulk buckets of rice and oatmeal and were gorging on the grains. Gross! The oats especially appeared quite moist on the surface. I'm hoping it doesn't create an ideal environment for mold, thus spoiling the lot.

While I'm frustrated by the expense and the ick, everyone I've told just laughs. And there is something unusual about sheep in the kitchen. But still!

In happier news for me, it was finally the day to check my bees! I have been holding myself back, so I was ready. The first frame I pulled, on the outside of the Daffodil hive, the entire wax and honey fell off as I was pulling it out. I think I was as gentle as I thought I could be: either they had built up too much for the amount of connection, or they weren't doing the best job. (The frame right next to it had some lovely comb filled with pollen ... on the bottom of the frame. I had to scrape it off.) Other than that, Daffodil looked like it was thriving.

The Damaris hive, with the upper level added from Celestial, looked pretty good. The Celestial bees hadn't built up much, but since they were excluded by a paper barrier for the week, it makes sense that they didn't have much to work with. The queen hadn't laid any eggs in the upper level, but I removed the paper, and noticed her beautiful laying pattern on several full frames below.

And then the moment of truth. The Celadon hive, apparently queenless, with a frame of brood added from Damaris: would they have started a new queen cell? Or gone another week closer to annihilation?

I pulled out the the frame I'd inserted, nearly empty of hatched brood. No queen cells. But the next frame had capped worker brood. And so did the next. Apparently, I had had a queen the whole time, she had just been slow to get laying. (And now I get to wonder if I accidentally killed her, if the frame I inserted with another hive's bees balled the queen. Phil said, "Why even think about that? Do you just have to have something to worry about?" Maybe.)

Phil spent much of the day unloading his massive boards from the trailer into their current resting place. He had hoped to return the trailer, too, but there was a lot of wood, and he had to cut stickers (the little pieces of wood that keep the boards apart), so it took a while.

I have been rejoicing and rejoicing. My gingko seeds, wrapped in moist paper towel in a plastic bag, had a sprout on Wednesday. No more, but one is encouraging!

I wondered, too, if it would be better to remove the pawpaw seeds from their soil blocks and put them in moist paper towels. When I pulled 21 seeds out of blocks, I found two with tiny sprouts, and a few more that were cracked a bit and ready to emerge. How exciting!

The 1000 teeny goji seeds have been gradually sprouting lately. I plant 25 or 50 a day, which is a great pace. Rather than making 1000 blocks, then putting 1000 seeds into place and having half not grow, I can put them in place once they are growing. It's revolutionary for me.

The Siberian pea shrub seeds rotted under their moist plastic covering. Too much heat, I think: they cooked.

The goumi may have still been viable, except something came in the night and cracked each seed and ate the innards, leaving only a husk. No sprouts from digested partial seeds. (And I hope that mouse-or-other gets caught by the cat soon.)

I ordered some new Siberian pea shrub and goumi seeds, and will try the paper towel method, hoping for better success.

Today I pinched all but one sprout off the 265 grafts. Most have two or three grafted sprouts (meaning I could have had similar success with smaller rootstocks), but leaving two or three to grow would weaken the tree down the road.

So I pinched off all but one (usually the top, which was generally the most vigorous looking).

Two or three must not have been grafted onto first year wood, as they have little apple blossoms! I pinched those, too.

There are a few that have not leafed out yet, but when I scraped their skin a bit, they all showed green cambium: they have the potential to grow, if they're not actively growing now.

On one of the rootstocks, I found a grasshopper, so freshly emerged from its former skin that it remained stationary long enough for me to run and get the camera and take a photo. I've not seen that before: so beautiful.

Also, with good appearance, Jadon.

It's been a good couple of days.