News and blog
What's happening on the farm.
Posted 10/9/2009 3:24pm by Heather Redden.
Hello Again!
I don't usually get around to sending these out this often. I want to try to keep those of you that are farmers' market customers informed of our crazy schedule right now. I'm not going to be at the market tomorrow. Believe me, I miss it! Just not enough coming in at the moment to justify the drive I'm sorry to say.
I would like to report though that one of the tom turkeys got some sense last night! I went out to lock up the chickens after dark and only one turkey was on top of the coop. It made my heart skip a beat or three I must say. I'm forever worried that I'm going to go out and find that something has happened to one of my three remaining precious turkeys. I went inside the coop and sure enough the hen and a tom were inside out of the rain. The other tom insisted on staying on the roof in the rain all night. I guess he'll figure it out eventually.
I am very excited and happy to report that we have tamed the greenhouse and have planted the first bed of lettuce. More will soon follow. We hope to also plant spinach and baby bok choy. Hopefully, we will be able to offer these items along with our eggs all winter. Let's all keep our fingers crossed!
We are hoping for a little break in the rain here very soon. I need to do some housekeeping for the honeybees before winter. I would be ecstatic if I were to find that they actually put in some surplus goldenrod honey for me to harvest. It is important for me to get in to the hives and make sure each colony has enough stores to get through the winter. Usually, what I find is that some hives have enough stored to get through three winters and that there is usually always one or two that just didn't get it together enough and are short of stores. I will play Robin Hood and spread the wealth amongst all the hives. We also need to plant the garlic. Garlic needs to go into the ground before it freezes. We are getting down to the wire here but haven't been able to plant because of all the mud.
Enjoy the beautiful fall colors!
Sincerely,
Heather and Brandon Redden
www.naturesharborfarm.com
I don't usually get around to sending these out this often. I want to try to keep those of you that are farmers' market customers informed of our crazy schedule right now. I'm not going to be at the market tomorrow. Believe me, I miss it! Just not enough coming in at the moment to justify the drive I'm sorry to say.
I would like to report though that one of the tom turkeys got some sense last night! I went out to lock up the chickens after dark and only one turkey was on top of the coop. It made my heart skip a beat or three I must say. I'm forever worried that I'm going to go out and find that something has happened to one of my three remaining precious turkeys. I went inside the coop and sure enough the hen and a tom were inside out of the rain. The other tom insisted on staying on the roof in the rain all night. I guess he'll figure it out eventually.
I am very excited and happy to report that we have tamed the greenhouse and have planted the first bed of lettuce. More will soon follow. We hope to also plant spinach and baby bok choy. Hopefully, we will be able to offer these items along with our eggs all winter. Let's all keep our fingers crossed!
We are hoping for a little break in the rain here very soon. I need to do some housekeeping for the honeybees before winter. I would be ecstatic if I were to find that they actually put in some surplus goldenrod honey for me to harvest. It is important for me to get in to the hives and make sure each colony has enough stores to get through the winter. Usually, what I find is that some hives have enough stored to get through three winters and that there is usually always one or two that just didn't get it together enough and are short of stores. I will play Robin Hood and spread the wealth amongst all the hives. We also need to plant the garlic. Garlic needs to go into the ground before it freezes. We are getting down to the wire here but haven't been able to plant because of all the mud.
Enjoy the beautiful fall colors!
Sincerely,
Heather and Brandon Redden
www.naturesharborfarm.com
Posted 10/4/2009 10:47pm by Heather Redden.
Greetings Everyone!
Fall is here, yipee! This is our favorite season. It probably seems hard to believe that any farmer would like fall more than spring but it just speaks to us. So much so that we were married outside in the fall. We are coming up on 9 years together in a few more weeks. Fall is the beginning of another type of growing season for us. Brandon is in the process of cleaning out the greenhouse. He used it to start plants this spring and then it was left to it's own devices over the summer. The result was our own semi-tropical ecosystem consisting of volunteer tomato plants, weeds, and three goldenrod plants that were over 13 feet tall! That has to be some sort of record! Lots of little animals were living in there too. Brandon attempted to save all the praying mantises that he could find and also saved 5 mantis egg cases so we will have lots of baby praying mantises come next spring. The chickens figured out what was going on and started waiting by the door to see what Brandon was chasing out. Chickens are omnivores, not vegetarians, even though some egg companies would like you to think that they are somehow doing the hens a favor by feeding them a 100% vegetarian diet. One of the hens caught a large praying mantis and another one caught a baby milksnake. We weren't quick enough to save the mantis but we did save the milksnake.
Our three turkeys continue to entertain us at every turn. They are extremely curious and always want to see what we are doing if we are outside. They escort us to the car if we are leaving and come running when they here us pull in. Sorry guys but the hen is smarter than the two tom turkeys. All three turkeys roost on top of the chicken coop at night. However, if the weather is bad, the hen sleeps inside the coop. The toms don't have enough sense to get out of the rain!
I wrote the previous paragraph Friday night. Today the tom turkeys proved they do have some sense. I was in the house when the turkeys started making a noise I had never heard before. I didn't know what it meant but it definiteyly sounded upsetting. One of the toms was calling repeatedly and behaving oddly. I ran out the door just in time to see a hawk swooping in low over the backyard and heading for the young chickens' pasture. I was able to run out and scare the hawk before it made a kill. I know that chickens have a specific call for a predator in the sky and now I know that turkeys do also. Animals do talk and if you pay attention you can learn to decipher some of what they say.
We will be taking the last batch of chickens for processing the end of October and will have them at the last farmers' market of the season. We have learned a lot about raising chickens for meat this summer. A lot of the lessons have been very painful both emotionally and economically. I would still like to do them again next year but we will have to make some changes in order to make it work. The good thing we've learned is that there is just no comparison in taste between grocery store chicken and those raised on pasture. We will always raise chickens at least for ourselves from now on. The hard lessons we've learned are that we must seriously revamp our shelter and fencing system and that we will probably have to change the breed of chicken we are raising to make this economically feasible on a scale for selling to others. Don't worry though, we still refuse to raise frankenchickens and we won't ever compromise the health or well-being of the chickens we care for just to make a buck. Farming is all about making mistakes, learning from them, and moving forward.
We have been very surprised and pleased at how well the wheatgrass has been received by those of you with indoor cats. We will continue to grow it this winter in the greenhouse. We would also be willing to grow it in larger quantities for anyone who wants to make their own juice. Just let us know if that appeals to you.
One of the members of this list wanted to buy some eggs for incubating for a home school project. Please contact me because I have a couple of "working" roosters now if you are still interested. Also, a few of you expressed interest in stew hens. We will be taking a few to be processed. The number of these will be very limited. Contact me if you would like one.
Enjoy the beautiful fall season!
Heather and Brandon Redden
www.naturesharborfarm.com
Fall is here, yipee! This is our favorite season. It probably seems hard to believe that any farmer would like fall more than spring but it just speaks to us. So much so that we were married outside in the fall. We are coming up on 9 years together in a few more weeks. Fall is the beginning of another type of growing season for us. Brandon is in the process of cleaning out the greenhouse. He used it to start plants this spring and then it was left to it's own devices over the summer. The result was our own semi-tropical ecosystem consisting of volunteer tomato plants, weeds, and three goldenrod plants that were over 13 feet tall! That has to be some sort of record! Lots of little animals were living in there too. Brandon attempted to save all the praying mantises that he could find and also saved 5 mantis egg cases so we will have lots of baby praying mantises come next spring. The chickens figured out what was going on and started waiting by the door to see what Brandon was chasing out. Chickens are omnivores, not vegetarians, even though some egg companies would like you to think that they are somehow doing the hens a favor by feeding them a 100% vegetarian diet. One of the hens caught a large praying mantis and another one caught a baby milksnake. We weren't quick enough to save the mantis but we did save the milksnake.
Our three turkeys continue to entertain us at every turn. They are extremely curious and always want to see what we are doing if we are outside. They escort us to the car if we are leaving and come running when they here us pull in. Sorry guys but the hen is smarter than the two tom turkeys. All three turkeys roost on top of the chicken coop at night. However, if the weather is bad, the hen sleeps inside the coop. The toms don't have enough sense to get out of the rain!
I wrote the previous paragraph Friday night. Today the tom turkeys proved they do have some sense. I was in the house when the turkeys started making a noise I had never heard before. I didn't know what it meant but it definiteyly sounded upsetting. One of the toms was calling repeatedly and behaving oddly. I ran out the door just in time to see a hawk swooping in low over the backyard and heading for the young chickens' pasture. I was able to run out and scare the hawk before it made a kill. I know that chickens have a specific call for a predator in the sky and now I know that turkeys do also. Animals do talk and if you pay attention you can learn to decipher some of what they say.We will be taking the last batch of chickens for processing the end of October and will have them at the last farmers' market of the season. We have learned a lot about raising chickens for meat this summer. A lot of the lessons have been very painful both emotionally and economically. I would still like to do them again next year but we will have to make some changes in order to make it work. The good thing we've learned is that there is just no comparison in taste between grocery store chicken and those raised on pasture. We will always raise chickens at least for ourselves from now on. The hard lessons we've learned are that we must seriously revamp our shelter and fencing system and that we will probably have to change the breed of chicken we are raising to make this economically feasible on a scale for selling to others. Don't worry though, we still refuse to raise frankenchickens and we won't ever compromise the health or well-being of the chickens we care for just to make a buck. Farming is all about making mistakes, learning from them, and moving forward.
We have been very surprised and pleased at how well the wheatgrass has been received by those of you with indoor cats. We will continue to grow it this winter in the greenhouse. We would also be willing to grow it in larger quantities for anyone who wants to make their own juice. Just let us know if that appeals to you.
One of the members of this list wanted to buy some eggs for incubating for a home school project. Please contact me because I have a couple of "working" roosters now if you are still interested. Also, a few of you expressed interest in stew hens. We will be taking a few to be processed. The number of these will be very limited. Contact me if you would like one.
Enjoy the beautiful fall season!
Heather and Brandon Redden
www.naturesharborfarm.com
Posted 8/21/2009 8:54pm by Heather Redden.
Hello Everyone,
I've got a bit of bad news; I'm beat! I've decided that I need a market vacation and so I won't be at the farmers' market tomorrow. We've had a hard few days. We are doing battle with a night time predator that has been injuring and killing some of our chickens. This is one of the challenges that all livestock farmers face at some point and we have been shown a weak spot in our night time defenses that we must correct. Hopefully, there will be a fox, raccoon, or possum in the trap in the morning. It's a live trap. We always prefer to relocate the wildlife that decide to take advantage of the chickens. It's not the wild animals fault that we have placed such temptation in their path. Hopefully, I will be back next week with a spring in my step and a story or two to share.
Sincerely,
Heather Redden
www.naturesharborfarm.com
I've got a bit of bad news; I'm beat! I've decided that I need a market vacation and so I won't be at the farmers' market tomorrow. We've had a hard few days. We are doing battle with a night time predator that has been injuring and killing some of our chickens. This is one of the challenges that all livestock farmers face at some point and we have been shown a weak spot in our night time defenses that we must correct. Hopefully, there will be a fox, raccoon, or possum in the trap in the morning. It's a live trap. We always prefer to relocate the wildlife that decide to take advantage of the chickens. It's not the wild animals fault that we have placed such temptation in their path. Hopefully, I will be back next week with a spring in my step and a story or two to share.
Sincerely,
Heather Redden
www.naturesharborfarm.com
Posted 8/14/2009 11:55pm by Heather Redden.
Hello!
Wow, so much has been going on that I've just had trouble finding time to write! I probably won't be able to fit it all in here without writing a book. Summer is finally here! The weather has been odd this summer though I'm certainly not complaining. It hasn't caused too much trouble for us. Getting hit all at once by the heat has been a bit hard on the laying hens. They are doing fine but a lot of heat tends to cause them to lay less. Not good news for our devoted egg followers!
As some of you will have noticed at the market the last few weeks, we do have local honey available now. We decided to offer some cut comb honey and can't believe how popular that has been. We are almost out for the year already. I will definitely plan to harvest more comb honey next year. We have plenty of 8 oz bottles of honey so if you haven't gotten any yet there is still time. Local honey that has not been heated or filtered can be helpful for those with allergies and it tastes great. Local honey in some ways is almost like wine. Unlike what you get in the store which is blended honey from many locations, heated and filtered so that it all tastes the same, local honey has a unique character that changes from year to year depending on what is blooming. Each year's honey is a vintage that will never be repeated again.
Brandon has gotten the romaine lettuce growing again. The weather has made that a challenge. He has done many experiments and thinks that he has it figured out. We are looking forward to that. I miss salads!
The animals are always giving us a lot of joy and great stories but also some times of great sadness. I haven't ever said anything about our cats. They are constant fixtures in our lives and serve the dual purpose of keeping rodents under control and sitting on our laps and purring, both activities of great importance. Our beautiful little long haired lioness, Francis, died last week from unknown causes despite everything our vet and I could do for her. She will be greatly missed for while she was a fierce predator she was also the most lovable, tolerant cat towards our two small children. She would let Julia carry her in all sorts of crazy positions and let Ella chew on her ears and would purr for all of it and come back for more. We were blessed to have her in our lives and so sorry that she could only stay for 5 short years.
On a much more upbeat note, the remaining four turkeys are doing great(I'm knocking on wood so hard right now that my knuckles hurt)! One of them has decided that she is a chicken and has moved into the chicken coop to roost at night. The turkeys are very curious about everything and are constantly making us laugh. One of the toms even decided that it might be fun to play soccer and kicks our daughters' soccer ball around the front yard! Who knew turkeys were soccer fans? We finally have the sheep under control as well.
We've done a lot of trouble shooting on our electric fence, learned a whole lot, and both of us have accidentally tested it. Believe me, it's working great now! It even keeps in Fergus, our Icelandic wether. Fergus is the ultimate fence tester, a huge troublemaker, and the friendliest sheep I have ever met. By the way, he got out of this fence!
I hope to see many of you at the market tomorrow. Enjoy the rest of the summer since it seems to be flying by. Come early to the market for eggs since they always go super fast. If you like our hardneck garlic, it would be a good idea to stock up while we still have some. We are almost out for the season. We will be planting even more this fall than we did last year because it has been so well received. And as always, thanks for all your support.
Sincerely,
Heather and Brandon Redden
www.naturesharborfarm.com
Wow, so much has been going on that I've just had trouble finding time to write! I probably won't be able to fit it all in here without writing a book. Summer is finally here! The weather has been odd this summer though I'm certainly not complaining. It hasn't caused too much trouble for us. Getting hit all at once by the heat has been a bit hard on the laying hens. They are doing fine but a lot of heat tends to cause them to lay less. Not good news for our devoted egg followers!
As some of you will have noticed at the market the last few weeks, we do have local honey available now. We decided to offer some cut comb honey and can't believe how popular that has been. We are almost out for the year already. I will definitely plan to harvest more comb honey next year. We have plenty of 8 oz bottles of honey so if you haven't gotten any yet there is still time. Local honey that has not been heated or filtered can be helpful for those with allergies and it tastes great. Local honey in some ways is almost like wine. Unlike what you get in the store which is blended honey from many locations, heated and filtered so that it all tastes the same, local honey has a unique character that changes from year to year depending on what is blooming. Each year's honey is a vintage that will never be repeated again.
Brandon has gotten the romaine lettuce growing again. The weather has made that a challenge. He has done many experiments and thinks that he has it figured out. We are looking forward to that. I miss salads!
The animals are always giving us a lot of joy and great stories but also some times of great sadness. I haven't ever said anything about our cats. They are constant fixtures in our lives and serve the dual purpose of keeping rodents under control and sitting on our laps and purring, both activities of great importance. Our beautiful little long haired lioness, Francis, died last week from unknown causes despite everything our vet and I could do for her. She will be greatly missed for while she was a fierce predator she was also the most lovable, tolerant cat towards our two small children. She would let Julia carry her in all sorts of crazy positions and let Ella chew on her ears and would purr for all of it and come back for more. We were blessed to have her in our lives and so sorry that she could only stay for 5 short years.
On a much more upbeat note, the remaining four turkeys are doing great(I'm knocking on wood so hard right now that my knuckles hurt)! One of them has decided that she is a chicken and has moved into the chicken coop to roost at night. The turkeys are very curious about everything and are constantly making us laugh. One of the toms even decided that it might be fun to play soccer and kicks our daughters' soccer ball around the front yard! Who knew turkeys were soccer fans? We finally have the sheep under control as well.
We've done a lot of trouble shooting on our electric fence, learned a whole lot, and both of us have accidentally tested it. Believe me, it's working great now! It even keeps in Fergus, our Icelandic wether. Fergus is the ultimate fence tester, a huge troublemaker, and the friendliest sheep I have ever met. By the way, he got out of this fence!I hope to see many of you at the market tomorrow. Enjoy the rest of the summer since it seems to be flying by. Come early to the market for eggs since they always go super fast. If you like our hardneck garlic, it would be a good idea to stock up while we still have some. We are almost out for the season. We will be planting even more this fall than we did last year because it has been so well received. And as always, thanks for all your support.
Sincerely,
Heather and Brandon Redden
www.naturesharborfarm.com
Posted 7/17/2009 11:49pm by Heather Redden.
Greetings Everyone!
So, we have been ever so busy and I feel like I've been chasing my own tail for weeks now. Farming definitely has its ups and downs and I'm sure some of this will seem funny to us later but for now.....this newsletter might be titled, "How not to Farm for a Living" or perhaps, "If Only the Animals Didn't Think for Themselves."
Ah, where to begin? How about those busy little honey bees. An average sized honey bee hive this time of year contains a population of between 40,000-60,000 bees. So many little minds totally focused on bringing in as much food as they can from wherever they can find it. So two Mondays ago, I had a couple of hours time that I could harvest honey. I harvested 2 supers of honey. A super is the name for the wooden boxes that make up the hives. The frames that the bees build the wax comb in to store the honey hang in the supers. I didn't have time to extract and bottle the honey until Friday. I stacked the 2 supers in our garden cart, pulled it up by the house, and made sure that the top was secure so that the bees couldn't get inside. Unfortunately, I didn't realize that the bottom of the cart was not perfectly level. The bees found a little dip in the cart that allowed them to get inside the supers. Being the busy little bees that they are, by the time I went out Friday morning to get the honey for extraction, they had carried all 50 pounds back to their hives! So this evening I went back out to the bee yard and started to harvest again. I will have cut comb honey at the market tomorrow. This is honey still in the wax comb which means that this is honey in its most natural state. Next week I will also have bottled honey.
OK, so now let's talk turkey. Don't ever think that just because chickens and turkeys are both birds that there is any similarity in how you care for them. Brandon and I are really really good at raising chickens. W rarely ever lose a chick and we've raised hundreds. This spring we decided to raise 15 Bourbon Red turkeys. We knew turkeys were delicate after decades of confinement and a lack of breeding for survival skills but it's one thing to read about these things and another to experience it first hand. We are down to 4 turkeys out of 15. There are two toms and two hens. Our goal at this point is to try to get the survivors to adulthood so that they can raise their own offspring next year and hopefully we will build up a flock of tougher more natural turkeys. Please keep your fingers crossed!
On the wildlife side of things, our little ruby-throated hummingbird mother returned for the third year and built another nest in the oak tree in front of our house. She has already raised two babies this summer. The nest is so amazing. It is the size of a walnut and is made out of spider silk and covered with lichens to camouflage it. It is lined with dandelion and thistle down. It is like something you would imagine a fairy would build, not a bird. In the category of strange happenings, while we have lost all these turkeys we have also gained three ducklings. These very young ducklings appeared in our front yard June 28 with no sign of a mother. Thank goodness my family was visiting because ducklings are really fast! It took all of us to corral them. They are growing like weeds and have been a lot of fun to learn about.
I hope you are enjoying your summer and hope to see you tomorrow at the market.
Sincerely,
Heather and Brandon Redden
www.naturesharborfarm.com
So, we have been ever so busy and I feel like I've been chasing my own tail for weeks now. Farming definitely has its ups and downs and I'm sure some of this will seem funny to us later but for now.....this newsletter might be titled, "How not to Farm for a Living" or perhaps, "If Only the Animals Didn't Think for Themselves."
Ah, where to begin? How about those busy little honey bees. An average sized honey bee hive this time of year contains a population of between 40,000-60,000 bees. So many little minds totally focused on bringing in as much food as they can from wherever they can find it. So two Mondays ago, I had a couple of hours time that I could harvest honey. I harvested 2 supers of honey. A super is the name for the wooden boxes that make up the hives. The frames that the bees build the wax comb in to store the honey hang in the supers. I didn't have time to extract and bottle the honey until Friday. I stacked the 2 supers in our garden cart, pulled it up by the house, and made sure that the top was secure so that the bees couldn't get inside. Unfortunately, I didn't realize that the bottom of the cart was not perfectly level. The bees found a little dip in the cart that allowed them to get inside the supers. Being the busy little bees that they are, by the time I went out Friday morning to get the honey for extraction, they had carried all 50 pounds back to their hives! So this evening I went back out to the bee yard and started to harvest again. I will have cut comb honey at the market tomorrow. This is honey still in the wax comb which means that this is honey in its most natural state. Next week I will also have bottled honey.
OK, so now let's talk turkey. Don't ever think that just because chickens and turkeys are both birds that there is any similarity in how you care for them. Brandon and I are really really good at raising chickens. W rarely ever lose a chick and we've raised hundreds. This spring we decided to raise 15 Bourbon Red turkeys. We knew turkeys were delicate after decades of confinement and a lack of breeding for survival skills but it's one thing to read about these things and another to experience it first hand. We are down to 4 turkeys out of 15. There are two toms and two hens. Our goal at this point is to try to get the survivors to adulthood so that they can raise their own offspring next year and hopefully we will build up a flock of tougher more natural turkeys. Please keep your fingers crossed!
On the wildlife side of things, our little ruby-throated hummingbird mother returned for the third year and built another nest in the oak tree in front of our house. She has already raised two babies this summer. The nest is so amazing. It is the size of a walnut and is made out of spider silk and covered with lichens to camouflage it. It is lined with dandelion and thistle down. It is like something you would imagine a fairy would build, not a bird. In the category of strange happenings, while we have lost all these turkeys we have also gained three ducklings. These very young ducklings appeared in our front yard June 28 with no sign of a mother. Thank goodness my family was visiting because ducklings are really fast! It took all of us to corral them. They are growing like weeds and have been a lot of fun to learn about.
I hope you are enjoying your summer and hope to see you tomorrow at the market.
Sincerely,
Heather and Brandon Redden
www.naturesharborfarm.com
Posted 6/19/2009 11:47pm by Heather Redden.
Hello!
Boy can technology be aggravating! I had the newsletter all done and was doing a final spell check when my computer ate it so here I go again.
The hot weather has been hard on Brandon's lettuce production. He is having trouble convincing the seeds to germinate right now. All varieties of seeds have an optimal temperature range for germination and lettuce's range is on the cool side. I will have lettuce tomorrow at the market but that will be it for awhile. We will have a new product tomorrow though. Brandon has started to harvest the hardneck garlic. Most of it will be hung to dry on the porch but I will bring some of it tomorrow. At this stage, it is called green garlic because it still contains moisture. It smells and tastes great. You can use it just like dried garlic or roast whole cloves in the oven which is just scrumptious. We put whole cloves on our pizza tonight for dinner.
I have a lot of honey sitting on my bee hives right now. I am so excited since this will be my biggest honey crop yet. I was hoping to harvest it this week but it isn't ready yet. The bees have been so busy bringing in the nectar that they haven't put much effort towards drying it yet. Bees make honey by adding enzymes to the nectar and then fanning their wings to move air through the hive to evaporate the water out of the nectar. It isn't honey until it contains less than 18% water. At that point, the bees put a wax cap over the comb and it is ready for harvest. I checked earlier this week and almost none of it is capped. I'm not complaining though, farming teaches patience and it will be delicious when it is ready.
I hope to see you tomorrow at the market and check out my new blog on the website later this week where I hope to put up some of the other fun happenings on the farm that were going to be in this newsletter until the computer ate the first version. It's time for me to go to bed!
Thanks,
Heather and Brandon Redden
www.naturesharborfarm.com
Boy can technology be aggravating! I had the newsletter all done and was doing a final spell check when my computer ate it so here I go again.
The hot weather has been hard on Brandon's lettuce production. He is having trouble convincing the seeds to germinate right now. All varieties of seeds have an optimal temperature range for germination and lettuce's range is on the cool side. I will have lettuce tomorrow at the market but that will be it for awhile. We will have a new product tomorrow though. Brandon has started to harvest the hardneck garlic. Most of it will be hung to dry on the porch but I will bring some of it tomorrow. At this stage, it is called green garlic because it still contains moisture. It smells and tastes great. You can use it just like dried garlic or roast whole cloves in the oven which is just scrumptious. We put whole cloves on our pizza tonight for dinner.
I have a lot of honey sitting on my bee hives right now. I am so excited since this will be my biggest honey crop yet. I was hoping to harvest it this week but it isn't ready yet. The bees have been so busy bringing in the nectar that they haven't put much effort towards drying it yet. Bees make honey by adding enzymes to the nectar and then fanning their wings to move air through the hive to evaporate the water out of the nectar. It isn't honey until it contains less than 18% water. At that point, the bees put a wax cap over the comb and it is ready for harvest. I checked earlier this week and almost none of it is capped. I'm not complaining though, farming teaches patience and it will be delicious when it is ready.
I hope to see you tomorrow at the market and check out my new blog on the website later this week where I hope to put up some of the other fun happenings on the farm that were going to be in this newsletter until the computer ate the first version. It's time for me to go to bed!
Thanks,
Heather and Brandon Redden
www.naturesharborfarm.com
Posted 6/12/2009 9:41pm by Heather Redden.
Greetings Everyone!
It sure has been a busy time for us lately. I can't really figure out how to fit it all in. It seems that the animals have decided that they should make things even more exciting by misbehaving! Our three Icelandic sheep have been evicted from our farm. They decided that they needn't stay in our fences any longer. We were so excited to see that one of the little peach trees that we had planted two year ago had about 9 peaches on it. At least it did until the sheep decided to eat them! Then they got into the garden and ate the tops of the corn plants. The final straw though was when we found out they were leaving our property and visiting with the neighbors. Fortunately for them, they all have names and are the friendliest sheep we have so they are living at Brandon's dad's house where there is a much taller fence instead of meeting their other possible fate.
The honey bees have also been testy. The swarm Brandon caught a few weeks ago did decide to stay and is busy establishing it's new hive. One afternoon last week though the bees somehow all got their wires crossed and started robbing each other's hives. The foraging bees tell each other where a food source is by going into the hive and performing a dance. This dance gives the other foragers information on the distance, direction, and size of the food source. It is an amazing ability but does have certain limitations. If a food source is less than 300 feet from the hive, the directions can only say "food is nearby" which sometimes causes the bees to go into another hive and steal honey from them instead of going to the blackberry blossoms next to the hive. This robbing can set off a feeding frenzy and escalate to all out war between the hives. The only thing that a beekeeper can do is suit up and try to close off all but a small opening on each hive so that the guard bees in the hive have a better chance of defending the entrance from intruders. The only thing that stops robbing completely is night. The bees all go back to their own hives and by morning it is like nothing ever happened and they all go about their business again.
We will have a new product for the market on Saturday. The first batch of chickens are ready! These are red broilers which are a cross between the Cornish and New Hampshire Red. They have a body type more like the Cornish Rock cross used for commercial chicken production but grow more slowly and forage more on pasture. They have been raised without antibiotics or other medications and with access to fresh grass and all the bugs they could want. They are available whole or cut up. They range in weight from 2-3.5 lbs. The whole chickens are $4.25/lb and the cut up chickens are $5.00/lb. We had fried chicken on Tuesday and it was the best I've ever had!
Thanks to all of you who are so devoted to our free range eggs. We are going to have to expand our laying flock to keep up with demand. It takes awhile to raise a new hen and we are working to expand as quickly as we can without doing anything detrimental to the birds we already have. Please arrive at the market as early as you can on Saturday if you would like to get eggs.
Sincerely,
Heather and Brandon Redden
www.naturesharborfarm.com
It sure has been a busy time for us lately. I can't really figure out how to fit it all in. It seems that the animals have decided that they should make things even more exciting by misbehaving! Our three Icelandic sheep have been evicted from our farm. They decided that they needn't stay in our fences any longer. We were so excited to see that one of the little peach trees that we had planted two year ago had about 9 peaches on it. At least it did until the sheep decided to eat them! Then they got into the garden and ate the tops of the corn plants. The final straw though was when we found out they were leaving our property and visiting with the neighbors. Fortunately for them, they all have names and are the friendliest sheep we have so they are living at Brandon's dad's house where there is a much taller fence instead of meeting their other possible fate.
The honey bees have also been testy. The swarm Brandon caught a few weeks ago did decide to stay and is busy establishing it's new hive. One afternoon last week though the bees somehow all got their wires crossed and started robbing each other's hives. The foraging bees tell each other where a food source is by going into the hive and performing a dance. This dance gives the other foragers information on the distance, direction, and size of the food source. It is an amazing ability but does have certain limitations. If a food source is less than 300 feet from the hive, the directions can only say "food is nearby" which sometimes causes the bees to go into another hive and steal honey from them instead of going to the blackberry blossoms next to the hive. This robbing can set off a feeding frenzy and escalate to all out war between the hives. The only thing that a beekeeper can do is suit up and try to close off all but a small opening on each hive so that the guard bees in the hive have a better chance of defending the entrance from intruders. The only thing that stops robbing completely is night. The bees all go back to their own hives and by morning it is like nothing ever happened and they all go about their business again.
We will have a new product for the market on Saturday. The first batch of chickens are ready! These are red broilers which are a cross between the Cornish and New Hampshire Red. They have a body type more like the Cornish Rock cross used for commercial chicken production but grow more slowly and forage more on pasture. They have been raised without antibiotics or other medications and with access to fresh grass and all the bugs they could want. They are available whole or cut up. They range in weight from 2-3.5 lbs. The whole chickens are $4.25/lb and the cut up chickens are $5.00/lb. We had fried chicken on Tuesday and it was the best I've ever had!
Thanks to all of you who are so devoted to our free range eggs. We are going to have to expand our laying flock to keep up with demand. It takes awhile to raise a new hen and we are working to expand as quickly as we can without doing anything detrimental to the birds we already have. Please arrive at the market as early as you can on Saturday if you would like to get eggs.
Sincerely,
Heather and Brandon Redden
www.naturesharborfarm.com