Summer Honey Harvest over!

It has been a busy week.  Sue Neal was gone to an Advance Kentucky meeting for two days, I took the mower back to get fixed, tractor was repaired, Sue Neal had a 36 hour virus of some sort (may have been food poisoning) on return home.  But, yesterday, we extracted the honey which was a lot of work but fun.

On Friday, I went to all our hives and pulled off full supers.  I could have gotten more frames off but left the frames that were not completely capped and supers that only had a few frames full.  I might go back a take some more off in September or October.  Below ... Franklin and Gaye decapping ... looks like Frank is giving some instruction!  NOT!

We had several helpers for honey harvest this year.  Our good friends Franklin and Gaye were great at decapping as was their son Paul.  John and Claire helped a bunch.  Sue made a recovery from her virus to fix some great food and help with decapping,  her cousin Jeff came by for awhile and decapped a couple of frames.

We all had lunch a Granny's ... LOTS of food.  The day was full of work but mostly, good conversation.  It reminded me of the days in the tobacco stripping shed or garden work.  We finished up about 4:00 with between 30-35 gallons of rather dark but good tasting honey (bees must have gathered a lot of tulip poplar nectar).  Even though we currently have 18 hives, two are new, five are from splits, one is from a swarm ... and the two I got from the Mennonites have not done well ...  best hives were an Italian hive (bees from Kelly's) from our Big Maple yard and the two of the Texas (both Buckfast hives) bees ... one from the goatfield yard and one from the top field yard.

Extracting problems was mostly the fact that the extractor could only take six frames at a time ... I should have gotten a second extractor since I had so much help decapping.  Everything else went well.

It was a fun day ... clean up continues today!

Hot day in Holland and Oleg Cassini

John and Claire came over to bring some furniture to store in our basement.  We are planning to take honey off on Friday and Saturday.

I forgot to mention that on my trip to Ohio and in conversation with Maynard (WWII veteren, my Sunday School teacher and relative (his mother and my grandfather Roberts were sister and brother) - whose house I was in a lot when I was young ... a dairy farmer) we talked about his days in the cavalry in 1942.  He has told me that he roomed with Dan Dailey (movie star from the early 1950 - ) but he mentioned this time that in his unit was Oleg Cassini ... famous designer and primary designer for Jacqueline Kennedy.  It is so strange that a farm boy from Ohio ended up in the cavalry with so many famous Americans.  Maynard ended up at Fort Huachuca in Arizona (guarding the Mexican border - some things don't change!)  and was in the final review of the cavalry when it disbanded as we entered WWII.  He then was in charge of building temporary bridges in Europe during the war.  Later returned to the farm and missed only a couple of days milking in the next 25 years.

"In 1942, Mr. Cassini became an American citizen and decided, along with the actor Victor Mature, to join the Coast Guard as an enlisted man, even though he saw himself more as a dashing cavalry officer, having become an expert horse rider in his own right. With the help of his well-connected second wife, Gene Tierney, he extricated himself from the Coast Guard and transferred to the Army cavalry. He soon earned his lieutenant's bars, but was dismayed to learn that the Army was phasing out horses."  New York Times 

	Oleg Cassini with Grace Kelly in 1954. Mr. Cassini designed clothes for her, and they were briefly engaged.

Extractor ready to go ...

Still preparing to harvest our honey.  Today I put a stand on our extractor and built a wood frame to bolt it to and make it more sturdy.  I was going to start tomorrow but the mechanics from John Deere are coming to fix our tractor and I am suppose to be interviewed (along with some players and a parent) by WBKO for the Hometown Hero segment about our softball team.  So tomorrow is probably out ... now looking for Wednesday or later.

Went to Bowling Green today to get our mower and brought it home.  Mowed one time around the yard before the deck would not engage.  So, loaded it up and took it back to Bowling Green.  A total waste of a half a day ... I believe there is a short in the clutch ... I hope they can fix it this time.

Spent the last part of the day watering our flower beds and weeding.  While watering the garden two quail came over to an irrigation ditch for a drink.  Leaving borders around the fields have increased our rabbit and quail populations.

Stopped by Granny's a couple of times today.  She is making some progress with her walking.

Sunday ... start of school fast approaching ...

I returned Friday afternoon from a trip to see Rachel and Kyle in Illinois and my Dad and sister in Ohio.  They were all fine.  I got to see some old friends in Ohio and that was good.  My Sunday school teacher from when I was young, a WWII veteran, farmer and several more.  I really don't think about all the people I know there when I live here and only really miss talking to them when I visit.

Saturday I plowed up a few acres for buckwheat.  I was surprised my JD2030 could actually pull a three bottom plow in this kind of ground (rocks!).  It looked okay ... not as good as my grandfather and father could do but, it has been nearly 30 years since I did any serious plowing.  Disked this ground and planted one field before my tractor broke.  That repair will have to wait until next week.

Today I will be getting things ready to extract honey ... maybe will take honey off on Tuesday.  It is suppose to be cooler next week.

School is just around the corner ... I have bus training on August 2nd.

Fall flowering plants are just beginning to bloom ... especially ironweed.  I know our bees could use some nectar!

Road Trip ... and a little time on the Prairie ...

Visiting our oldest daughter and her husband in Champaign, IL.  I was able to leave Sunday early and get to Champaign just after lunch.  We went out to eat and later visited her community organic garden plot.  Her Mammaw would be proud!

Today I went out to the Museum of the Grand Prairie at Mahomet, IL.  

http://www.museumofthegrandprairie.org/

A great little museum ... lots of great machinery from the late 1800's and a great exhibit about Abraham Lincoln while he lived and worked as an attorney near Champaign.  Ate lunch with Rachel and Kyle.  Toured the southern part of the county and Homer Lake after lunch.  Later, Rachel and I took a walk on the restored prairie preserve.  Lots of flowers ... especially coneflowers, black-eyed susans, bluestems and much more.

Old beekeeping equipment in the museum ...

A replica of a blacksmith shop ...  I liked all the horseshoes ... much like a shoe store!

A couple of pictures from the restored prairie ...

Hives all checked and preparing to plant buckwheat ...

This morning I sprayed Roundup on some small fields where I plan to plant buckwheat.  These plots will go to legumes next Spring.  I hate to spray but do not have the equipment to mechanically wear out the perennials and fescue we have here.  Should be ready to disk and plant in about a week.

Finished checking hives this afternoon ... we are at 18.  I lost a hive over the last three weeks ... a hive where I replaced the queen earlier and last check had a couple of supers of honey.  It was completely robbed of honey by other hives ... probably a total of almost 100 lbs moved out ... one bee at a time!  I disassembled the hive and stored it away.

Late today finished planting my very late garden under the watchful eye of a deer.

Pictures below is of one of the many creatures I have found around a hive.  The second picture of bees outside the hive today when it was hot.  They are organized in some way ...  several strong hives had bees cooling outside today.

Ragweed problem and a pileated woodpecker alarm clock!

I planted a field of clover early this Spring and got a good stand except I also got a good stand of common ragweed (seed laying dormant for years probably).  After our last rain, I noticed the ragweed was about twice as tall as the clover so, yesterday I set my bush-hog to just clear the tops of the clover and bush-hogged the field.  We will see how that works.  In that field yesterday, I saw four grown turkey, a mother quail with several half grown quail and several deer.  

My school schedule came in the mail yesterday and for the first time in years, I will not have fourth block planning.  I don't know how I will get things ready during softball season ... getting the bus and everything together to leave promptly after school is probably out now.  It will be more difficult.  On the bright side, I have second block planning which will allow me to get more school work done at school (although second block misses a lot for Josten's and etc.)

Squash and sunflowers I have planted in our garden are up.

I saw in the Bowling Green paper where one of the WKU assistants resigned yesterday and will be coming to Allen County as an assistant coach.  Since Franklin Simpson got the former WKU head coach as an assistant for their team, I would call that even.

This morning early, three pileated woodpeckers were playing tag in the hickory trees behind the house or it could have been a flight lesson for some young woodpeckers.  They were making lots of noise (of course) ... they ARE the crows of woodpeckers (noise factor) and nearly the same size!

Not my picture ...  www.nashvillezoo.org/ piciformes/picidae.htm

A good rain and mints are still blooming ... with picts!

Yesterday, we had a good rain ... actually two rains, which is better because there was little runoff ... maybe a little less than an inch total and good for our corn in the bottoms.  My Grandmother Roberts use to call them million dollar rains in July and August because of the corn and soybeans.  I remember worrying about the weather when I was young ... too much rain or too little.  Cooled everything off ... the clover is still blooming which is good for bees.

Got up this morning and picked about a gallon of blackberries for one of Granny's friends then bush-hogged until after lunch.  Left patches of Hoary Mountain Mint, maypop/passionflower, dogbane and common milkweed.  I also noticed some sourwoods blooming in the woods close to where I was bush-hogging on Aunt Nell's farm.  We have had rain regularly so far this year and everything is still green.  I am about finished with bush-hogging until late fall.  I want to plant some buckwheat for the bees to load up honey for the winter.

Going to check some hives when I finish here.

Some wildflowers ... it must be the time of year for mints ... two below.  I am going to try and get some seed later.  The first picture is hoary mountain mint which I have seen in several remote fields.  This mint has silver / whitish leave at the top of 4' plants.

Pycnanthemum incanum (L.) Michx.

Hoary mountain mint, Silverleaf mountain mint

Lamiaceae (Mint Family)

The next to pictures is of what I think is hairy wood mint.  It is not very tall ... pictures were taken in our long field before I picked blackberries this morning.

Hairy Wood Mint
Blephilia hirsuta
Mint family (Labiaceae)

The Queen Anne's Lace / Wild Carrot growing in Granny's flower bed.  Daucus carota

Also ... field bindweed is blooming ...  one with a bumblebee hard at work!   These plants are in the field across from Granny's house ... an invasive from Europe/Asia and a perennial.   Convolvulus arvensis 

Beekeepers meeting tonight ...

The Allen County Beekeepers Meeting was tonight at 7:00 ... about 60 people in attendance.  I have been told that the Allen County Beekeepers groups is the largest club in Kentucky ... certainly due to the efforts of several passionate beekeepers.  I on the other hand remain a high novice in this group.

Tonight's topic was harvesting honey by Randolph Richards.  Lots of break-down by the crowd and interesting/useful comments.  Several beekeepers have tested their honey and it was below 17.5% moisture which means that it is good to harvest and will not ferment.  About 18.5% is the tipping point.  It was my first meeting to attend since winter when softball began.  I am looking forward to the future and full participation in the club. Our bee school is scheduled for February 4, 2012 at the high school.

Today I bush-hogged until 1:00 PM and then went to Bowling Green to run some errands,  It was really hot here today with a high around 96. I am still leaving large borders around the fields for wildlife.

Sunday I went to Sunday school and did not have the lead the song service or play the piano ...

Sunday evening I planted about a third of our garden ... squash, gourds, pumpkins, sunflowers, green beans, some flowers ... too late for many items but it will keep the weeds off of it.  Probably will end up a deer buffet.

Rachel sent me an article about milkweeds (looks like the butterfly in the picture is on a goldenrod plant).  This year I have mowed around about a dozen patches of common milkweed and several more of butterfly weeds (also a milkweed) in an effort to help the monarchs.  Each year I leave these patches they get bigger and provide many pollinators will flowers and of course Monarch caterpillars with a food source.  Her article from the New York Times is below and the theme is that mega-agriculture continues to be a problem in nature.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/12/science/12butterfly.html?hpw

Saturday, mowing and tree frogs

This morning went up to check on Granny pretty early ... Uncle Glenn showed up on his way to town and we had a good conversation.  It is not the same without Uncle Burl though ...

Mowed the yard (push mower) at the house across from Granny ... I am going to have to do something with this house ... it is over 120 years old and just a lot to fix ...

Sue Neal and I mowed our yard after I went to town for gas.  Our riding lawn mower broke down again so I had to push mow a little less than half of our yard. I will be sore tomorrow!

The last few nights I have been listening to the tree frogs (they are in abundance I guess because of the moist spring and summer).  As they are chirping, they become synchronized for a while at about the rate of 120 chirps per minute (probably dependent on temperature) ... hundreds of them!!!  These synchronized periods last for a few seconds before falling apart and then about 20-30 seconds later synchronizes again.  After looking around on the internet, there is a sync theory which I will have to look into.  I have thought all along there is a rhythm or sync obvious in nature.  Something to study later.

Today, I took picts of a wooly mullein plant (Verbascum thapsus) in the field beside where I was mowing.  It has very hairy leaves and has lots of nicknames ... Indian tobacco and cowboy toilet paper ... it is an invasive from Europe.  I don't see it in fields often and since it is invasive, does not get spared.  It is a biennial ... a rosette the first year and bolts the second year ... this one was about 5 feet tall.

Verbascum thapsus 

Rain this evening and a mason wasp ...

Everyday I get off to a good start then have a mid-day sink before recovering in the afternoon.

Today while working on the computer there was a wasp exploring the window nearest to where I was working.  I have only seen it a couple of times ... a mason wasp (Monobia quadridens) seemed to checking around the window for a cavity to explore.  Interesting niche ... works as a pollinator and as a predator of moth larva.  They are black with a white ring at the beginning of their abdomen ... I could not get a picture of it ... so had to go to google images and the Oklahoma University biosurvey, website as caption.  They are beautiful but, both the males and females can sting.

biosurvey.ou.edu

I did finally get the garage cleaned and lots of items moved to our barn.  This evening we got about a half inch rain ... corn is tasseling in the bottom so the moisture is welcome anytime.

Going to tackle the garden next for a late garden ... probably to feed the deer.

More blackberries and the garage!

Sue Neal and I picked blackberries yesterday morning again.  There are tons of the them on our 3 acre blackberry plot.  The Vernons are coming over to pick this morning if they are not rained out.  Sue Neal make blackberry jelly and a cobbler afterwards.  Blackberry cobbler and vanilla ice cream is about as good as it gets.

The berry set is huge in our patch and I am attributing it to the bees we keep.  They were pretty busy there when blooming!

Yesterday I wrestled with the garage.  It has not been cleaned in a while and since I have the Elantra running again and out of the garage it was time.  I hope to finish today.  The bright side is I found a lot of things I forgot I had or I thought was lost.

I got our scores back from last Spring's AP Bio test.  Most of the people I thought would pass did and most of the people I knew would make a one did.  It is difficult to squeeze that course into a single semester and last year we missed a lot of school because of snow and interruptions (jostens and et al).  Even with that, some students dug in and did well on the test.  The biggest problem behind time restraints and the massive content load is that students are just not serious enough to prepare for an AP Exam ... Learning the content and how it connects is a serious commitment.  It is not about the 4.0 and handing in assignments, it is about understanding and application which is a level above where most of our students operate ...

The new AP Bio curriculum in 2013 will cut back the content load but understanding how concepts are connected and application will still be a big part of the course.

More blackberries!

Professional blackberry pickers ... or not!

Spent most of the day working on our flower beds, watering and mulching.  It was pretty hot to be mulching and not much shade.  This evening, Sue Neal, one of her close friends from her school days and I went berry picking.  Lots of berries and many more to ripen.  It was fun and some good conversation while picking!  Their picture is above.

I am going down to take a picture of the yarrow near our house.

It is nice to finally be in a summer vacation routine ... scheduled a scrimmage game with Owensboro Cath today and scheduled a regular season game with TN state champion Beech HS ... they have everyone back and a good freshman class.  2012 season is underway.

rr

Blackberries are ready! ... and picts!

July the 4th!  Lots of working on our flower beds today before showers this morning.  After the rain stopped ... picked some blackberries, they are just now coming in.  Sue Neal made a cobbler with some of them.  Went back in the evening and picked some more for Sue's friend Carol Ann.

Also checked some beehives today and everything seems to be progressing well.  I think we will have between 12-20 medium supers for harvest in late July or early August.  While out looking at hives took a couple of pictures of passionflower / Maypop (Passiflora incarnata).  They are everywhere I bush-hog.  One of the picts has one of our bees checking it out!  This vine later has a few hollow fruit about the size of a tennis ball that supposedly is edible and will make a pop when stepped on ...

Stopped by Granny's several times today.  She seems to be doing a little better.

Some wildflowers spared from the bush-hog!

Tonight was Sue Neal's 40th year class reunion.  I think it is more fun to go as a guest of the event.  You get to eat and talk a lot to the other non-classmates ... there were lots of good stories especially from the old Pointers (Scottsville alums).

I saw the following wildflower while bush-hogging the field behind Granny's house ... went down and took this picture this morning ... lots of honeybees working the about 1/4 acre patch I did not bush-hog.  I believe it is Slender Mountain Mint (Pycnanthemum tenuifolium - mint family and perennial). They were beautiful ... will try and take a picture of the flowers close up tomorrow with my microscope.

I posted a picture of a flower I have been seeing while bush-hogging ...  large circular patches of the flower below which I now know is the American Germander (Teucrium canadense - mint family - a perennial with rhizomes, hence the large circular patches.  Thanks Steve for the ID.