Late spring excitement

Its late spring and the weather is cool. The moon is just rising over the farm.

The hunter is on the prowl for any lurking predator.

When out of nowhere the mommy hen let out a call. The babies ran for cover.

A local chicken hawk comes swooping in for a baby snack. Trying hard to catch one of the babies, they scurry around trying to escape when...
Sugar comes to the rescue, mouth open and hunger in her eyes. She trys to catch up to the chicken hawk, but alas the hawk escapes barely, fleeing from the certain jaws of death of a vigilant Sugar the guard dog.

Sorry no pictures of the hawk as it happened very fast and i didn't have the camera ready. But Sugar instantly identified the the target when i hollered to get it. She went straight for the hawk and not the chickens.
Today she gets a big atagirl.  :)

This dramatisation brought to you by life on the farm, happens regular. Ain't life grand

babies

The babies are 1 week old now and doing fine. As you can see they are growing like weeds. Soon the sounds of teenage chicks will be heard all around the year.

They grow up so fast!  :)

spring babies

So, ... how many chicks can you fit in a box?

 Well, 25 of course

and here is a small sampling of them

And here we are practiceing are drinking skills

We need lots more practice!

In case you haven't figured out. The baby chicks have arrived by post today happy and noisy.  Tonight they will get transferred to the mommy hens to start there new lives. Isn't spring grand?

I said   Isn't spring grand!!

Balls are Sheep too

Well, we have embarked on a new training mission. Teaching Sugar to play with a ball and maybe one day herd it around the yard.

The big ball herding is a newish sport from Germany and involve the dog moving the balls one at a time into a goal. All the videos make it look like fun so we are going the try this out.

So far, she has started to push the ball a small distance. theres a whole list of things to learn so this will take some time, especially with her attention span being a little short.

Stay tuned for more ball herding!

Just Things

Well the new year is here and some things are happening on the farm.

First theres a new hot spot so I can get faster internet access. Woohoo! I have a virgin mobile hot spot and it seems to be working good. It's not blazing but it's better then dialup by 25 times or so. I can do upgrades and all.

The bees have had a hard winter. 1 hive is gone, I was worried about it all thru the fall, as it was struggling and then last week I checked it and no bees. This happens but it's annoying. The other hives are doing well so maybe there will be a nice bucket of honey this spring.

I've also decided to reconfigure the farm. The dirt farming with organic principles is not working. So, i will convert the fields to grapes vines and some fruit trees, and add a green house when I can. I will put in some raised beds to contain the soil and so bypass the loss of nutrients the I struggle with now in the sand.

All big stuff but I need to adapt to the realities of farming in the sand.

I took these pics late at night about 11 pm. This is called bearding and is quite common on warm days and nights. It means the hives are healthy and full of bees.

This is the healthiest hive I have. the top box is empty and the bees hang out in it. I didn't get a picture of it this morning but I under-supered this hive so the bees can start making comb. Later this fall I will split it.

I lost a small hive to wax moths this morning also. Very upsetting, it was the Russian hive and it never really took off. I think it had several problems that they didn't recover from.

1. the package arrived in may well after the flow here in Florida.

2. all natural comb so they had a lot of building to do.

3. I feed them honey but maybe should have added sugar water also. the honey was in comb.

So, I learned a few things, feed more and less room may have fixed the problem.

I have a nuc that I split out earlier so I put it in the dead hive. The few bees left in it were smoked and added back in, they should do ok with the strength of the nuc, it was a full 5 frames of bees and brood so they should finish cleaning up the hive and do ok from there.

Not the best of days but things happen and around here things happen continuously!

Well, its been a long time since I did any updates, so I thought I would get to it.

Sugar has come a long way from a chicken catcher to a decent watch dog. She watches the chickens closely, maybe a little to close sometimes, but mostly watches. She likes to sit in the morning and watch for squirrels, which she will terrorize if they set foot on her ground. She has settled down some, minds fairly well and has even learned to play in the water some. A long road for us from rescued to chicken protector. She hates the crows, if a crow comes near she stalks them and rushes in for the kill, misses them but tries so hard. Yep a long road but well worth it.

This is one of the mommies, we have had several this spring, but she has taken them outside for the day. Sugar likes the babies way more then the mommy likes, but so far no chicken nuggets for her.

Here some of the chickens are getting a drink, its been hot here so they group up around the water.
The bee yard is expanding. I now have a hive of Russians, they seem to get on well with the Italians. several hives have gotten hot this year. They boil out when you open the top, it can be startling the first time you experience it.
More chickens, here the Americana rooster and a hen are walking around.

I'll post more later.

new hope

Well I found a new dog today at the humane soc. Her name is Sugar, she's 3 years old and was abandoned and found 2 months later in an apartment. The vet says she's a 3 year old puppy, o joy, but the high energy can be fund to watch except she wants to catch the chickens. I may have to rename her Sugar the sanguineator. Other then that she's the spitting image of Ginger. We will see how it goes but looks like a lot of training. O happy day

A Hard Loss

I just wanted to let everyone know, the Mighty Ginger has fallen.

I rescued her from the pound when she was about 3 and had her for 5 years or so, and while she didnt do much, she was always there and happy to see me.

I will miss you my old friend.

The years end

This was an interesting picture to get. It seems that for all her liking the lime light, she didn't want me to catch her sporting antlers. But it the time of year when all deers that can, grow horns. So ...

From Grumpy and the Dogdeer, Mary Christmas and Happy New Year

Baby Adventures

It seems the babies are flying better then ever. As you can see there is one on the eves of the coop, when I went to get the pictures there were three of them sitting up on top. They seem to enjoy stretching there wings.

Bad Buzzzzz

O this is bad, this is wax moth damage. As you can see they have eaten wax and made tunnels.


This hive was very weak. It went queen less for several weeks and had few bees and no brood. I added a queen and some extra bees but it seems it was not enough to hold off the pest. I will sanitize this hive and frames ad reuse in the spring.

On a happier note, some of the white rocks are laying, I think, here's a pic of one of them, she posed nicely for the camera.

Always something to do

The babies are growing bigger everyday, as you can see. They are now eating about 5 lbs of feed a day for the 25 of them. They have discovered that they like pumpkin, while the adults seem to not eat it, they babies devour it. Yellow squash and zucenni is also high on there list of favorites.

I've recently added some new concrete pads for the bee hives. I didn't like the leaning block foundations so i poured some larger pads. 1 pad will hold the block for 1 hive so it will be more level then before and more stable. The bees get lost if you move the hive a Short distance like this so I move it a foot or so every 2 days. This way they can find there way home and soon the hives will be on new foundations.

the big buzz

Well hello again, It's been a while. The bee story continues. About a month again I sold some frames to a friend to expand some hives and noticed 1 hive was looking a bit weak. I moved it to a smaller box and waited a week to see what was going on. That's the small hive on the right.

After a week i opened it up and looked it over real good and could see no queen. Without a queen the hive will die, bit i did notice some larva, so i decided to wait and see if the larva were capped as brood or drones.

After another week i opened it up and saw all capped drone brood. Bummer! While i was in up to my elbows I opened up the other weak hive, no queen, BUMMER! Time to order some queens if I could find any.

The queens arrived on a Thursday afternoon so i watered them and left them on the kitchen counter for the night. The next morning I suited up and jumped in with both feet for a major queen replacement project. The small white hive went with no problems so i tackled the big hive. Second on the left with the maroon hive on top. I added a queen to that hive and moved some frames around to the small maroon hive. I added the queen in there and i was done. Now to wait.

Today I opened the hives to see what progress i was making. the small hive has accepted the queen and got her released from the shipping crate. So far so good. The maroon hive was looking good also, queen was out and everyone was happy. very good. The third hive the big one has also released there queen and all are happy. Woohoo 3 for 3, this is very good.

In case your wandering why the hives are stacked up like they are, the maroon hive was the weakest and by placing it on top of another hive, the workers will keep both hives working and healthy. So now i need to keep them all alive throw the winter so maybe i can get some honey this next spring, isn't this so much fun?

Fall activities

So, things are going slow this fall. Almost no eggs thanks to the girls going on a feather strike. As you can see this girls has given up her feathers for the cause and is slowly growing them back. Of course everyone should know this is a molt and when they molt almost no eggs are produced. Good thing I don't eat eggs everyday!

I started the experimental fall garden, you can see the beans and corn comeing up. I also have some pumpkin and cabbage and broculli and carrots. Potatos soon to get started. I don't know if any crop will be made but I planted anyway. I worry most about the pumpkin as i don't think it will take much of a cold snap. We shall see.

To help compinsate for the molt, the girls get an extra snack in the afternoon. This is corn supplied by some friends and the are hoovering it up. You can also see the size of the babies, they are the white ones that came this spring. They should be laying soon and the egg count will go up, i hope!

all new again

This little guy is a few days old and was hatched by the same mommy that raised all the post office babies. Another new chickens fun fun.

A garden update: everything drowned. We had 28 inches of rain in 5 weeks and the garden did not like it. Even the peach trees died, they couldn't handle that much rain. So, I'm preparing to start over for the fall.

On a side note: it rained bees today. It seems, one hive swarmed and settled in a small pine tree. I hit the pine tree with the tractor, completely by accident, and bees rained from the sky. For a few minuets is was exciting. I tried to get them out of the tree by hitting the branch they were on, no go. I cut the limb off, it pivoted on the last piece of bark and the entire swarm hit me in the side, woohoo. they moved then to another tree. this time with a friends help, i got the ladder under the swarm and set the hive body on the top. Then I pulled the limb over the box and shook the bees into the box. I left it there for a while to see if i had the queen or if they would move again. It seems after a few hours they were content to stay in the box and I moved it to the row of hives. That makes 4 hives now, fun fun fun.

Growing chicklets

Well, Sorry I haven't sent any updates in a while, it's been crazy. First, we had 18 inches of rain in a week and a half. There was so much water standing around that the chickens were building stilts. You would think a bird that can fly would have better balance but those chickens trying to walk on stilts was a sight. Also, not to be outdone but the chickens ingenuity, the squirrels built some canoes to get from tree to tree. what next eh. As you can see the chicklets are getting bigger. They go all over now. We had several incidents in the last 2 weeks and 2 adult hens were lost. One broke her neck and the other was a predator. A hawk got one of the chicklets also. the next day we heard a commotion and checked and the sharp shined hawk had a chicklet pinned on the ground. I ran hollering and Ginger went running and barking at the hawk and he decided that it was better to leave then face an angry Ginger. He flew up on a branch to see if we would go away. After a bit he decided we were not going any where he flew off and Ginger promptly went roaring and barking after it. I didn't know she could run that fast but she wanted a piece of that hawk.The bees are doing fine as well. They didn't like all the ran and rented movies all week. I don't know were they got the dvd player but they had a party in the hive 24/7. After it dried up for a day they were back to work gathering nectar and pollen. I tried to get a picture of the pollen laden bees but they all arrived before I got the camera. When you see them landing tail heavy they are loaded with nectar, the hungry ones fly more level.

Buuzzzz about the farm

The bee hive arrived today, how very exciting. They were a little irritated when they arrived and were untaped, yes, the openings were duck taped shut for transit, and upon release they were buzzing about.As you can see they have settled down some and were out looking for food already. I added some clay under the hive because this area is a little wet when we get a lot of rain.
And not to be upstaged, big mommie had the babies out most of the day. Here if you look in the brush on the right you can see some of the chicklets napping while mommie looks for food.

All in all a very exciting day. Woo Hoo

everything new

OK big update today and some of the pics may be hard to see but I will explain whats in them. This one is the melon patch, you can see the melons on the left, there's also some potato's and okra in there. The okra is just now coming up.

This is the corn patch, I will soon plant some beans in with the corn to help provide nitrogen.

This is the potato and cabbage patch. The potato's are just breaking the ground on the right so you cant see em. The stuff in the middle is cabbage and broccoli and on the left is onions and carrots.

And last but not least is the amazing mommie. When everyone else wanted nothing to do with the Babbie's, she stepped in and said. I can watch em all! So, she's not the mommie of 23 Babbie's and very proud of it also. Amazing!

babies,babies, more babies

The babies arrived this morning at the post office. I got them home and let em out in a box for the day, so they can eat and drink some before the big mommie test tonight. Well after dark I will put some under the one hen sitting and hope the helper mommie will take to the rest. Tomorrow will be a trying day watching them to see if it all works out alright.

I haven't heard from the bee guy yet today, they had some problems that needed dealing with so I hope he calls soon so the bee's can be added to the mix. Ain't farmin fun!