Two Insect Homes

Phil and I went to pull soil samples today. In past years, I've dug down six inches with a spade in about five spots per sample. It is hot, hard work, trying to get an accurate cross section of soil. Add to that a bowl to mix the samples, the bags and sharpie for holding and marking samples, and the spade itself: it has been a juggling act.

This year: so much better. We have a soil probe now, with lines marked at 6". Better still, the massive rains made the soils quite damp. Rather than chopping through pottery (as it felt when I attempted soil sampling a few weeks back), the probe sank easily into the soil, except where blocked by a pebble. Best of all: Phil did the probing, and I held the bowl, bag, and sharpie. That made soil collecting easy!

We still have spots of extreme clay. But there is crumbly soil, too, and the color is no longer shocking orange, but is mellowing, darkening a bit.

In the apple orchard, we went to the bald-faced hornet nest, grown larger than a basketball, and, apparently, deserted. Phil prodded it (after being fairly sure it was empty), and, finding no one home, he began to smash it. The hives from the hornet stings must have been on his mind.

I rescued some bits of the paper hive, made from chewed wood. The hornets built several thin, smooth layers for insulation and protection around the edges. The variegated grays: subtle and beautiful.

Their brood nest, I was interested to see, had the same six-sided hexagonal pattern as the honeybees.

But while the honeybee hexagonals are horizontal in the hive, the hornets built their hexagonals vertically, and stacked them in the hive.

The last casualty of the honeybee comb enchanted the boys and I. Completely emptied of babies and honey, it lay at the bottom of the hive's second level, so incredibly constructed. The center bottom has a triangular section of slightly larger comb, where the male drones were placed. The worker comb surrounding it is the same shape, but smaller.

The pattern repeated on the far side: small worker comb on the edges, and larger drone comb in the center.

The bees do not chew wood to make paper; they excrete wax cells out of their abdomens, up to eight per day if conditions are perfect.

And it takes almost a million wax cells to make one deep frame.

A full size hive will have twenty deep frames, and twenty super frames. The industry of the little honey bees boggles the mind.

Just About Seven Inches

I crashed about 10:30 last night. Since the boys had all napped in the car, they were all still awake when I went to bed. We had finished reading All Sail Set, about the clipper ship Flying Cloud. In it, the sailors would finish their watch, only to be summoned on deck again to change the sails, should the weather turn fierce.

As I fell asleep, Jadon the witty suddenly called, "All hands on deck! Shorten sail!" I happily fell all the way to sleep, and barely remembered that call until this morning.

Phil had a hard time going to sleep last night. While I slept peacefully, he was concerned about the incredible deluge that commenced about 10:30pm. By the time he went to bed at 1am, we had had about 4 inches fall.

When he woke up to more rain, he said, "I sure hope the sawmill didn't float away." Since we did have Hog Creek crest the banks once, that wasn't an idle threat.

So I was very thankful to find that, though there was surface water flowing next to and around the mill, Phil had sited the mill very well, and it was still level and safe.

Walking back up the hill, I saw some beautiful new asparagus spears growing, and oh, was I tempted to break one off! I resisted, for today.

And our amazing weeds have apparently reached critical height: they were well drooped.

Phil headed off to do laundry, but he brought the full water gauge to show us before he left.

The boys and I stayed cooped up all day. After our time in the car yesterday, the energy level has been elevated all day. Phew!

Before night fell, we had 6.7 inches, including yesterday's rain during our drive. And it still sprinkles, and periodically comes down even now.

Meet Yer Eats!

We were blessed all over today. Farms around Charlottesville open their doors on Labor Day, for visitors to come and see what is growing locally.

Of the nineteen farms, we selected four that we most wanted to see, piled the boys and lunch in the car, and were on our way by 9:30.

More than half of the next eight hours were spent in the car. And we spent an hour in the middle running errands in Charlottesville, so Phil won't have to make another trip to the city during the week. But all worked so beautifully: the farm I was most interested in, Poindexter Farm, was deserted when we arrived, and, since we were the only visitors for the next half hour, Tom the owner talked berries with us, specifically and helpfully. He was so gracious!

He has about 200 blueberry bushes, and he's been doing blackberries, but he made some good observations. Blackberries and raspberries in high tunnels can work. Otherwise, they are pest magnets, while the blueberries avoid the pests; blackberries are hard to hold over for harvest, whereas with blueberries, you can pick them on Monday, get them in cold storage, and then sell still-beautiful fruit on Saturday. (He said that cold storage got a little tight. A week or two he had to put them in the freezer, then unplug and plug it in, as needed to keep the temperature just above freezing. Very creative use of storage space!)

So, financially, blackberries might be a bust. Blueberries can offer a nice harvest for about a month, with plenty of demand. Ideal blackberry planting medium: scrape the top six inches of a pine forest and use that as raised beds.

Hmm. We do have some pine forest that we want to turn to pasture....

Tom also has asparagus, and I was stunned to see that his plants were just about a solid bed. Our spacing is incredibly too far apart, which might explain why it's felt like a neverending battle to keep it weeded. His looked like he had 750 plants in a fairly small block, well mulched with straw, and then left alone until late fall, when he'll cut it all down.

The next farm was a zoo, so we didn't stay there very long. Isaiah was thrilled to pet their donkey.

And aesthetically, this farm was magnificent. An herb and flower farm, as well as small market garden, it was a visual delight. But maybe that made it even more overwhelming. As we drove in, Phil said, "This farm has a house!" which made me laugh because I had just been thinking that myself! A house! What a novel thought. So to have house, greenhouse, well manicured gardens, flowers, absence of weeds: it was like being in an unattainable world.

We did admire their portable sink, though. Built on skids, it simply connected to a hose, and then channeled the water behind the sink. Brilliant!

The next farm was Phil's favorite. Appalachia Star Farm is a market garden, and the farm manager and apprentice were planting out when we arrived. Phil was delighted with their storage shed/little market, with a simply shed roof, and walls made from rough sawn trees, with the "waste" first cuts used as battens. "I could build this so easily!"

We also admired their chicken tractors, which they run in the lanes between beds.

Phil liked that they had weeds and grass everywhere they didn't have beds. They had some stunningly beautiful crops, and some were like ours: a sign on their onions said, "These are onions, not scallions; they're just small!" And their garlic looked like our garlic; their potatoes like our potatoes.

They did the Florida weave to stake their tomatoes, and their plants looked absolutely gorgeous. "That's our third planting," said the farm manager. Ah! To have good looking tomatoes in September, plant in June or July. Staggered plantings: something I didn't even attempt. No wonder their basil all looked fresh and small.

They also had plastic all over. Install drip tape, then cover with black or white plastic. Slash plastic with trowel, insert transplant (grown in soil block in greenhouse). For many rows, they then covered the rows with landscape cloth: prevent pests, minimize disease, gain a week of growth on either side of the normal season. It was good to see that they could cover one row or four rows with the landscape fabric. And not everything was covered.

Phil came away saying, "We shouldn't rule out market gardening all together. If we expand more slowly, we could probably do that."

And finally, we went to the wonderful Vintage Virginia Apples, home to 250 varieties of apples. Charlotte Shelton, my casual acquaintance and, I hope, friend, gave an hour presentation and tasting on vintage apples. The boys sat through that, and eagerly sampled the ten or so varieties. And though they didn't listen carefully enough to tell me where apples originated (Kazakhstan), they were quiet and well behaved.

If you're looking for a stunningly delicious apple to add to your garden, I'd recommend Rubinette. That was a sweet apple!

And though we could see storm clouds most of the day, we did not get wet, but returned home to find over half an inch of water in the rain gauge, and a lovely puddle under the trampoline.

Phil now plans to trench that out soon.

So much thanks to the farms who opened their hearts and homes to us this day. Maybe some day we will be on the farm tour, too, and will have much to share with our community. Some day.

Sunday Bits

I have always taken my day of rest on Sunday, from midnight to midnight. I would do my college work up until midnight, and then be done for 24 hours. Today, I sometimes am working for pay until right up to the deadline, and then take a welcome break.

I have found lately, though, that by Sunday evening, I wanted to talk through the schedule and tasks at hand for the next week. But planning can be work, so we would wait, and then it would be Monday afternoon regularly before we were all settled on what to accomplish. So we're trying something new now, the Jewish way from sundown Saturday to sundown Sunday. We'll see how that works. It is certainly a great blessing to have a day to relax a bit.

As soon as he could, Jadon went out to finish his roller coaster K'Nex. It could be that the cattle trailer is so out of level, but whatever the cause, the motor would just not work very well, though all pieces were properly in place. He managed his disappointment well: I'm guessing the thrill was in the construction, primarily.

Isaiah said, "I guess that's why we shouldn't buy things from China."

And I continue to feed my bees. They aren't eating one to two quarts of honey water any more, closer to half that. I have been monitoring the bottom of the hive, checking regularly for mites. And I haven't seen any, and haven't seen any. I know that they can be a real problem for hives, but felt like maybe I had dodged that bullet.

But after another Google search to see what they look like, I suddenly saw them. My Celadon hive has about twice the recommended load, and the Celestial hive is right at the limit for treatment. Happily, I know what to do for varroa mites, since my last class.

When I'm tempted to feel disappointed in my lack of beekeeping ability, I have a nice thought from one of the ladies on the Sonlight forums: "If you can't do more, then you are doing enough. If you can't manage what you are doing, then maybe it is too much."

And with the bees, I do what I can with what I know, and hope it will be enough.

We Unpack Old Friends

Since disappointing Friday was a biodynamic "blocked out" day (meaning, it wasn't good for fruit, flower, leaves, or roots: a day better to stay home), and Saturday was more of the same, Phil and I decided to work on our living space, rather than something in nature.

For two years, Phil has had no access to one of his filing cabinets, and since the second filled, he has been gradually drowning in an ever growing flood of papers. The flood of papers has gradually covered all surfaces, until he had a limited walkway to his desk, and a limited patch on his desk in which to work.

We had inexplicably put a dresser full of random toys, art supplies, and puzzles next to his desk. Although it was fairly easy to access, we didn't use those toys much. Some have gone into deep storage, some have gone in the trash, and some will go off the farm. Then we removed the now-empty dresser, emptied the office of many banker boxes and the man-cave recliner (buried these many months past), and moved the filing cabinet out into the open.

This allowed Phil to sweep and mop his floor, too.

Even better, from my perspective: by consolidating various boxes of Playmobil and Lego, and by removing rarely worn "fancy" shoes from a shelf in the bedroom, I opened up about eight linear feet of shelf space! I can fit many books in eight linear feet! With the office trailer opened up, I took advantage of moving several boxes of well-beloved books out of storage.

The story of our life here sometimes seems like a search for more bookshelves. We have Calvin and Hobbes in the bathroom, next to the sheets.

And now we have just about all of the six Sonlight Cores we've already done out on display. This is a great relief, because invariably, as I've tried to make room for our books, I will pack up a box of books that seem to get less play, only to have a son ask for a now missing book.

I actually got teary, seeing some old friends again. Even without time to sit and read these treasures, I was happy to have a more full expression of myself there on display, where I could look at them at will.

The boys, too, had a happy day. Phil found his box of old GI Joes. They vaguely remembered those little action figures, and, about once a month, ask if we could get them out. I feel a bit inundated with plastic toys with many pieces, between Duplos, Legos, and Playmobil in 224 square feet (not that they play with all at once, but even storing those various toys can be tricky), but they were so happy to have that new box, I could hardly begrudge them their pleasure.

And Jadon found an unopened box of K'Nex, from one or two Christmases ago. Since it makes a 5'3" roller coaster, I had never let him open it (see previous paragraph). But he came up with the idea to build the toy in the cattle trailer, and worked the 1300 piece construction set diligently until bath time, even bringing out a headlamp when the sun went down.

So it was a great day, a much welcome break.

For the record: bath time is quite necessary on the farm. Sometimes the little boys like to wash only half, so they can compare legs or arms to see which is more clean. The difference can be quite stark.

Perpetual Petty Irritations

Phil has had quite the irritating week. He had a tire blow on the garden cart while he was bringing chickens down for processing a couple days ago. Yesterday he spent a frustrating day trying to track down payment information for various random, irritating bills we have due, as well as taking a needed trip to Charlottesville to drop off a paper at the county building. (Had we remembered to mail it ten days ago, we could have saved ourselves the gas money and Phil's time.)

Today topped all, though. He moved the sheep from the stone fruit orchard back to the pomes, and found that, in their final day yesterday, they had torn loose several wires in the electric line and done something with the grounding rod. So he fixed that. Then he and Jadon caught the lamb that got loose.

After breakfast, he went down to do some maintenance on the chipper. After a year of sitting, the motor didn't turn over at all. Bummer.

Next, he went out to change the oil in the tractor. It is good to maintain equipment. He had finished spraying out the tank of the damaged sprayer, so the oil was nice and hot as he went to change it. And the special oil catchment container wouldn't hold the oil. He had forgotten to take the plug out.

So he reached his hand into the extremely hot liquid and loosened the plug. Fine.

He wanted the oil to drip dry for a time, so he cleaned some filters or something, then poured the eight new quarts of oil in.

Only to find that, by allowing the oil to drip dry, he had broken his train of concentration and had not replaced the stopper for the new oil. Six of the eight quarts or so were now soaking into the earth, and he had to make a trip to Scottsville for new.

I can reasonably well handle breakage. It seems to me like we have more than normal, but I figure that that's part of life. But waste: that is sickening to me, horrifying. Like finding dried tomatoes yellow with mold, or lacto-fermented tomatillos gone alcoholic. Or like six quarts of new oil, now soaking the earth. I hate that.

After his trip to town, Phil did get the tractor back in working order. He headed down slope and milled some more lumber.

After dinner, he came in and said, "I'm done for the day."

"What broke now?"

"The chainsaw. I was cutting down a tree, and one of the bolts must have flung off, because the chain suddenly came loose. It didn't get me, so that's good, but the chainsaw is done until I get another bolt."

So I'm glad that we are all safe. I'm very thankful the chainsaw isn't entirely broken forever.

But I have glimpses sometimes of deep bitterness coming out of me. Walking to the motor home, wondering why nothing we have tried works. Wishing at times for a little free time for myself, more than the two hours I sometimes have on Sunday night, just to read books for me. Thinking of the ways I am not pouring into my children as much as I wish I could.

And yet, the boys are out dancing around a pallet bonfire with their father. That's not a bad Friday night entertainment. The older two boys sat and talked to me all through dinner making yesterday, about drones and queens and the butterfly effect. That's not a bad education.

I spend a bit of time writing, in hopes that some day I can look back and see progress, and laugh and cry about how hard it used to be, because we'll be over the hard part.

May it be so.

My Friend the Drone

My bees are doing so well, with their tightened hive and honey feeding. The Celadon hive ate one cup of honey water today, and the Celestial hive at three cups!

Phil called me early this morning: "Look at your bees forage!" He had noticed some tall weeds, grown up along the trailer, and thought, "I should really cut those down." And then noticed that they were covered with honeybees, earnestly stuffing pollen into their saddlebags. Maybe we'll leave those weeds for now: the honeybees can use all the food they can get!

I headed down for the second time, and found a drone underneath the hive, probably snacking on the bits of dropped pollen. This is the season when the drones are forced out of the hive, so I took this one. Drones, without stingers, are perfectly harmless, and I learned on Saturday that they alone of all bees can go between hives with impunity. Because they have no weapons, the guard bees do not guard against drones, but allow any and all to enter.

My little drone buzzed in my closed hand, tickling me a bit. I came to Abraham and mentioned that I had a bee in my hands that wouldn't sting me. "Because it's dead?" asked Abraham. And then he guessed correctly: "Because it's a drone!"

Isaiah soon grew sick of holding the little insect, and so he made a special house for him out of a folded piece of paper and about 100 stapes.

When dinner was done, I held my little drone. He licked the residual lemon juice off my finger, and gripped tightly, exhausted, however I chose to hold him. Such a beautiful little creature: fuzzy on the thorax, shiny and striped on the abdomen, iridescent wings, sensitive antennae, bulbous bug eyes.

I like that even the bees offer a bit that can be handled and admired, a bit of the colony intended only to be the eyes and ears of the hive, the sense organs, gentle.