Buzzzy Bees

This year we had an excellent honey flow! In the early spring, our healthiest hive swarmed. So now we have four bee hives! Our healthiest hive produced so much honey this year, it was unbelievable. Although, i will admit, this is the first year we started to take honey from the hives. We finally even bought a honey extractor! It’s only small and hand cranked, but I’ll tell you what, it works wonderfully! I extracted at least 150 pounds of honey this year, probably more. Also this year i packaged our yummy honey for sale! I sterilized my jars, painted labels, strained and filled the jars. Unfortunately we didn’t have much luck selling our honey. Luckily my sister is a great salesperson! She’s been selling our honey like crazy! So all in all it was pretty much a team effort! Although… I think that I’m going to find a way to have labels made. I think they would look a lot more stunning! Well i have all winter to work on that. The only bad thing to mention about this year’s bees, there was no fall honey flow…. for anyone in the south eastern New England area. We were told to expect the worst for our hives, not to expect them to survive the winter. So with dread we called our bee guy over to inspect the hives, much to his disgust our hives were not only alive but thriving! Our bees are doing far better than his! In the newest hive, there was at least 100 pounds of honey! We could have taken it and the bees still would have had more than enough to last the winter! What a relief that was… I was sad at the thought of my bees starving this winter. They’ve been winterized… and come mid January we’re going to pop them open again and put some fondant inside just in case they’ve eaten all their honey store! I’m so happy that everything turned out well and that our bees are in great form! I’ve grown rather attached to them. I’d hate for them to fall to the mystery bee disease. We need our honey bees!

Cat Pen

Late this summer, my parents, my husband and I built our kitties their very own pen adjacent to the house with a tunnel leading indoors.  I was actually surprised how quickly it went up.  It was mainly built by my husband and my combined efforts.  I would like to announce… it is FANTASTIC not to have a litter box in the house.  It took about 2 weeks before it was completely enclosed.  Over all it took about a month to complete, including cat tunnel, fixing any holes my kitten was so kind to discover and creating a kitty bathroom area which, still has to be emptied, but not quite so often.  I also would like to say that i had no hand in the beautiful door.  It was all my mother’s creation!  This project turned out to be such a great idea.  My husband and I hope to build one at our own home, only… include a doggy door as well.

Cookie Adventures

As it is Christmas time and have yet to actually BEGIN a farming adventure….  I will however embark on my yearly cookie extravaganza.  I have absolutely no idea when i first started this, but it seems like forever.  I find that every year my cookie portfolio expands just a little more.  This year i have begun to master candies such as peanut brittle, toffee and candied lemon zest.  This year my sister is helping me with my cookie madness… I wonder how that will go.  I’m still in the midst of drafting a list of what to make.  I aim to start the third week in December.