Just a bit of warning about this post…it contains strong language. If you aren’t into deep thoughts (no, not the Jack Handy kind) or a little philosophizing or just a little yogi, Deepak Chopra kind of post, stop reading now. If you are or don’t know if you are because you don’t know what I mean or if you don’t know or care who Deepak Chopra is, keep reading!
It is officially fall and that means change. Leaves change, the weather changes, the moon changes, the kind of food we cook and eat changes, clothes change, activities change, how much we care about losing weight and how good we look in a bathing suit changes, the garden changes, the bees change, the chickens change. The skies can show us so much and the moon is so spectacular with its ability to affect pretty much everything. The moon can bring about so much change in such a short time; think tides, moods, behaviors, etc. and although there was a Super Blood Moon last Sunday night I just couldn’t see the beauty of it. No, I mean I literally couldn’t see it, because of the clouds. I could go a little out there right now and tell you that I “saw” it with my Third Eye despite the cloud cover, but that didn’t happen either. Be that as it may, if you believe that the moon, stars or any other part of nature could possibly affect us, as humans, take note: Lunar Eclipses are said to bring about endings to certain things in preparation for new beginnings! What does that mean? CHANGE. Have you noticed a theme here? Not yet? Stay with me then. I am sure you are thinking that I have officially gone off the deep end or that I have literally fallen off my rocker! Just hear me out; hopefully by the end of this post you will have a really warm and fuzzy feeling about fall and maybe, even life itself.
Fall is one of those seasons where things change pretty substantially in preparation for a rebirth with or without a super, duper cool big fat red moon (that I didn’t get to see). I am a firm believer that change is not inherently bad or good. Change is change and change is necessary and leads to amazing things (good or bad depending really on your perspective). Change can get us out of our comfort zone to get us into, onto or around some groovy things. Change can be and usually is, hard, just ask trees. Change comes whether we want it or not and how it affects is all in how we embrace it, or not. Mother Nature has a way of making change so beautiful, if you know where to look. In my humble opinion, there are two times a year that change is the most noticeable and the most beautiful…two changes of season that really sock it to us (in a good way). The change from summer to fall and the change from winter to spring. The other changes of season are a little more subtle and you almost don’t notice them until you are smack dab in the middle of that next season. But going from the crazy hot and humid summer to the cool, crisp fall and from the cold, dreary winter to the sweet song of spring seems to happen all of a sudden. All of a sudden it goes from hotter than the blazing fires of hell to the leaves are turning and it’s 70 degrees out or all of a sudden it goes from subzero blizzard to the birds have started to sing and the first blooms are peeking out Bam! it is almost like a switch was turned off (or on depending on your perspective and the time of year). Admit it, going from cool, sometimes cold rainy late fall into cold dreary winter and from sweet spring into warmer summer, just kind of happens while you are hunkered down inside your blanket. You don’t realize it until you are outside and the cold rain of fall, has become the snow and blistering cold of winter or until the warm wet windy spring has become a warmer, hopefully somewhat wet summer that is now blazing hot.
Fall, like spring, is a big change all around for everything and everyone. I have said this in previous posts and I will say it again, as it is worth repeating: I love the heat and long luscious days of summer. However, in fall, the mountains are clearer and the air is cooler and crisper with the welcomed loss of humidity (unless it is raining as it has been the last 4 days as I write this, but at least the windows are open). The sunsets are somehow more brilliant and intense. The moon is bigger and brighter as long as it’s not covered in clouds (which it wasn’t last night and was beautiful). I welcome the light jacket or sweater in the morning and evenings. I love having the A/C off and the windows open. The food in fall is just a little richer. The clear skies of fall just call out for football and festivals and cool mornings with hot coffee outside on the porch. Everything, hopefully including us, is not only changing, but transforming into something different…something that will lead us to our newness and betterness in spring (sure, I just made up a word but it really sounds so fun)! I believe fall leads us to rest, become a little more introspective, to reflect and it gives us the time and opportunity to prepare ourselves for what we can and will become once spring arrives and we emerge from our cocoon. Everything around us will take this opportunity to emerge better and usually a bit different in the spring, so why shouldn’t we? The leaves here in East Tennessee are beginning their color change and it is wonderful! I really think that leaves changing and showing off their brilliant colors is a pretty spiritual thing. I have never been to New England but I hear the leaves changing up there is pretty spectacular. If it is anything like what we have here in East Tennessee, they are as blessed as we are! Colors abound and reflect and shine. It is really something to see. That would explain the gazillion tourists that come here in the fall. I think I would sincerely miss it if I moved somewhere that didn’t have it. For those of you who live somewhere that you don’t get to see the changes of the leaves in person, you are missing out! I will put some pictures up later in the season so you can be jealous.
Ok, enough of the new age, touchy feely talk…let’s get to the nitty gritty of the post…what is happening on the homestead! What changes around here? Lots. Every. Single. Day.
First, the garden. It has definitely taken on a new, changed look. As the Hubs said this weekend, the garden sure does look lonely! The garden has given us a wonderful bounty this year, but soon, it will be time for us to let it rest and change its composition again. The Hubs harvested all of the sweet potatoes this weekend and boy do we have sweet potatoes! Big ones, medium ones, little ones…you name it, we got it! This was our first year with these and hopefully, after they cure, they will be all we hope they will be. I learned, with the harvest, that you don’t wash them first picked and you can’t eat them when first picked. They have to “cure” for about 7-10 days in a hotish environment (80-85 or so with about 80-90% humidity). For us, this means in the upstairs attic in the detached garage. It’s plenty hot and humid up there for sure! After this, they need to hang out for another couple of weeks. Why? It allows the sweet taters to get all sweet! It heals any cuts and triggers sugar-producing enzymes which makes a sweet potato just that, sweet. So, like the kale, I will be learning lots of recipes for sweet potatoes! I am guessing casseroles, soups, baked, roasted. I will probably find a way to put them in muffins, too. Maybe. With this harvest, the garden certainly lost some weight! What we have left is peppers, butternut squash, eggplant and newly planted broccoli. We have planted a fall crop of broccoli and will be putting in some lettuce and spinach seeds along with some garlic (once it stops raining). Somehow, we missed the starter lettuce and swiss chard plants this year, but hopefully we will get the seeds in and they will grow quickly before the first frost. The eggplant is doing well and we are still getting butternut squash (lots of butternut squash) and peppers (lots of peppers). Before we know it, it will be time to till everything in again and start preparing the soil for Spring! In its dormant state, the garden will rest and prepare itself for the sowing in spring. Did I mention we have lots of peppers and butternut squash and sweet potatoes?
Next, the chickens. Let’s just say the chickens sure do take change and transformation seriously. Now that we have some hens that are about 18 months old, they are starting their annual molt. This time last year, we had no hens that were old enough for “the change”, so we were able to keep on keeping on when it came to eggs. What does this annual molt mean for us and the chickens? It means you have pitiful looking hens and chicken runs that look like there was a huge feather pillow fight! That’s right, they shed their feathers so that new, healthier ones can grow in. They are literally going through “the change”. They are transforming themselves into healthier hens! Unfortunately for us, this means that these hens stop laying during their molt. So we lose 11 layers. Thankfully we have 17 younger hens that aren’t of molting age (i.e., they won’t go through “the change” this year). Just in case you were wondering (and I know you were), their molt can last up to about three months if it turns out to be a “hard molt”. It’s ok, they won’t freeze over the winter. Promise. It looks like we won’t have quite a hard molt this year as we can see some new feathers growing already. Just to help them along, we have added high protein food for them to eat rather than the regular layer food. Essentially, they don’t lay eggs because it takes protein to form and lay eggs and it takes protein to grow feathers. So, if you don’t give them additional protein they don’t have enough to do both jobs, so the least important one doesn’t get done. The protein content in the feathers is also why you will sometimes see them eat the feathers off the ground, since those feathers are a source of protein. That being said, the younger ones are having sympathy pains and aren’t laying as well at the moment. We went from 17-22 eggs a day to 3-5 in the early stages of this molt which started about 3 weeks ago. Yikes! I was seriously concerned that I might not have enough eggs for the first time in a year! I was wondering if I would have to break down and buy them FROM THE GROCERY STORE! Well, not really because we know someone who has about 100 chickens and would have been able to get me through, but, wow, can you imagine? How many is enough? Enough is enough is enough. Don’t ask me to actually come up with a number because I can’t. I just know it when I see it. Kind of like the Supreme Court and pornography. But I digress…while I find sympathy pains a much better and more fun explanation, technically speaking, the younger girls aren’t laying as well due to the fact that the days are shorter now. They need (you know this already, but I will just remind you) 12-14 hours of sunlight each day to lay well. A hen’s body begins forming an egg soon after she lays the previous egg and it takes 25-26 hours for that egg to fully form, so the longer there is light (the longer they are up and awake) the better chance to get more eggs. How do you handle that you wonder? Well, we turn on the lights and wake them up at 0500, soldier! If you have read my previous posts about the coop and runs, you know that we have a battery-powered light in the house and one in the run! Don’t feel sorry for them…remember, the early bird lays more eggs! And I get eggs through winter. It has worked so far, as today we got 8 eggs! A vast improvement!
Now the bees. What is their change? Now is the time that things are winding down a bit for the ladies and the colonies themselves change and their focus changes. This time of year, the ladies are focusing on getting plenty of stores to eat through winter, they are focusing on having a healthy number of bees stay in the hive to go through winter and they are more focused inside. They are getting the colony ready to survive the winter. The queen will stop laying in late fall and early winter since there is no food available outside the hive and the food stores are limited inside the hive and the workers don’t have time to take care of new eggs/larvae/pupae since they are busy insulating the hive. At this point as well, all the boys (Drones) get kicked out of the hive and will basically starve to death. Remember, the sole function of the Drone is to mate with a queen out in the wild (not their own mother). So the only thing they do inside the hive is eat. Too little food to go around if they aren’t contributing to the ongoings of the hive! The remaining workers will create what is called a “cluster” in the brood boxes and will stay there, in the cluster, all winter long. The bees will cluster themselves around the brood that was lastly laid and the queen. The bees will feed on the honey stores which gives them energy. They use this energy to shiver which produces heat. They need to shiver and produce enough heat to keep the hive between 93-95 degrees. The bees will loosen or tighten the cluster depending on how cold it gets. The colder it is, the tighter the cluster. If it gets too cold for too long and they can’t move out of the cluster because there aren’t enough bees in it, they can starve because they can’t move the cluster to any food source even if the honey is “right there”. It is good to have a strong number of bees so the cluster is strong and big enough to allow some movement even during the coldest of temperatures. If the temperature warms enough, the outer bees will move out and loosen the cluster to get air flow and the entire cluster can move to a new source of honey within the hive. The cluster will move up for honey stores, so it’s not a bad thing to have more than one box of honey stores for them. Also, if there are enough bees but aren’t enough stores of food, they will starve because they can’t leave to go get food. It’s a delicate balance to make sure they are parasite free, there are enough stores, enough bees and everyone is happy. You add to it that we are coming out of a “dearth” which is when there is little to no nectar flow it makes it hard for them to get ready. So, I am feeding them sugar syrup to help them build stores and get the queen back laying before she stops for good (she slows down during the dearth) so she can have an ample number of bees in there with her over winter. The worker bee will live a bit longer once hatched this time of year. She will live around 3 months or a little longer depending on the winter season rather than the 6 weeks in summer. The honey bee is one of the only types bee/wasp that doesn’t hibernate in winter or where just the queen survives. This is why come spring, there are already bees in there getting the hive ready to expand. I have high hopes that my girls will survive the winter and will explode into a thriving and beautifully large healthy colony come spring (and one I can hopefully keep from swarming)!
These bee pictures were taken a bit earlier this year (I know because right now I am feeding them in top feeders which you don’t put at the entrance like in these pictures). But they look about the same now with a little less activity up front, but still bringing in pollen!
Fall is all about change. Nature changes everyday to prepare for new beginnings. So open those windows, go to a football game, break out that jacket, and even have something with “pumpkin spice” in it. Enjoy this season of rest and reflection and go hug someone. Did I also mention that fall also means a legitimate excuse to start seasonally decorating, at least in my mind and everyone’s mind on Pintrest? And did I mention how excited I am about this? I always have so many plans for decorating and while most of them never happen, I love to at least put up my fall wreath and a little fireplace foliage! Work with me, people.
If you really think about it (or google it) you will find that there are an amazing number of songs about change. Good change, bad change, change in your pocket going jinga linga ling. Embrace and flow with change in all its glory. You might even like it. And maybe, just maybe, a change would do you good.