Bee Check, finally

Talking Turkey
I so love my happy turkeys, and they just love everyone who visits, the big show-offs. The Toms are huge, suddenly. It’s hard to spot the two that we kept from last year, Randy and Dandy, because all the boys are almost identical at this point. The Midget White turkey standard says a mature male will dress out between 12 and 14 pounds, and last year they all fell right in that range, with only a few less than 13, and most right between. They also tasted

How I spend my vacation
The weather forecast is wonderful. I’m taking a week of vacation to help get ready for winter, and incidentally to be here for Lisa’s birthday on Thursday. Yesterday we got a rescue Great Pyrenees livestock guardian dog. Her name is Maggie and we love her. Apparently there are thousands of big white dogs in the south that need homes. Maggie’s problem is that she apparently was raised on a farm as a working dog. She had no

Leadersheep seemed like such a good idea
When Frank first started looking at a way to keep the brush down in our future orchard, he looked at goats, but I don’t really like goat’s milk cheese, but I do like sheep’s milk cheese. So then he found the breed Icelandic sheep, who have pretty fiber, nice milk, and yummy lamb. They also browse like goats do. What’s not to like? Then he found out that they have horns, which we like. They came in a variety of colors, which is fun. They are smart. Wow. Sheep that aren’t stupid? Un-improved sheep sounded awesome. Then he found out that they have a special subset of the breed called

One Down, Many to Go
Minx got into the garden last week, mowing the carrot tops and doing a serious number on the onions and leeks. Since I’m still recovering from a fairly nasty cold I finished the harvest rather than play with chainsaws or the sawmill. I also planted the garlic we picked up at Agway the other week. Aside from mulching the parsnips after the ground freezes, we’re done with the garden for the year. Unfortunately, this time Minx had eaten onion bulbs as well as

The Annual Race with Winter
The race with winter started in earnest this weekend. We had a hard frost Saturday and a real freeze warning last night. I’ve brought in a bushel and a half of tomatillos just this weekend, and I left another half bushel to freeze. I also did get two butternut squash from the potato patch. The frost two weeks ago really did get the volunteers in the potato patch to ripen. I brought in the corn, the last few peppers and the cilantro we just remembered as w