It’s summertime and the living is…a long December. The Counting Crows are right! Wow, it’s been a while since summertime and a very long December. Where have you been? Oh wait, really, where have I been? It’s been since April 2017 and nary a word to you! I pretty much fell off the proverbial face of the earth. Please forgive me as I promise to fill you in completely on what we have been doing since we last spoke. It includes some duck news, some bee news, a little garden digs (get it??) and maybe even a little human news!
Ducks and Guinea Hens
When I began this post in June 2017 (gasp…that is a really long time ago!), we had 5 ducks. We moved the ducks down to the pond right at the end of May of 2017. We built a house that looks like a small chicken coop, including nesting boxes just in case they wanted to lay eggs. We had no idea if these kids were male or female, but it’s better to be prepared! We put a bucket of food in the house for them while they were contained in their enclosure and have kept it there ever since. We wanted to make sure they got used to the house and learned their safe place. If they are in the enclosure, animals can’t get in and can’t corner them. Safety first! We built all of the components and then put them on the RT and took them to the pond and constructed it while down there. Easy peasy. We then enclosed an area around the house and into the water with fencing to keep animals from getting into the enclosure from the water side.
After about two weeks, we opened an area in the fencing in the water to let them out to the big world of the pond beyond! They took to it like, well, you know…ducks to water. They stretched their legs and swam around liked they owned the place. We checked on them a few days later and they were happy swimming all around in and out of the enclosure. The best part? They were still alive!!! Yay! Since we have coyote, bobcat, fox and raccoons, that’s a big deal. I am pretty sure we have three Aylsesbury and two Mallard ducks. These duckies are now full on ducks. But, not to worry, we had 8 more coming. That’s right…we had 8 one-day old ducklings coming in the next couple of weeks, so duckling cuteness overload resumed! Along with the new ducklings, we got to watch some Guinea Hen cuteness. This was another of our experiments for the summertime.
Well, it is now January 2019. We got the new ducklings, they grew up and we put them down to the pond with the others and everyone got along swimmingly! The Guinea Hens were delivered and they grew up and we put them in their enclosure we built down in the orchard. Let me tell you something: Guineas are dumb birds. No other way to say it. Just plain dumb. We lost 5 in one night-dead. Racoons just reached in and either pulled them out to eat or just ripped their poor little heads off when they stuck them out of the enclosure! They did everything they could to get out of the enclosure (which some did) and then did everything they could to get back in (which we helped them do). We moved the remaining 4 into the chicken run with the chickens until they were a little bigger (and couldn’t get out of the enclosure). Once they were full grown, we released them back into the orchard, hoping they would just hang out and eat bugs and roost in the trees as they are supposed to. Well, they found their way back to the chicken runs and just ran around and stayed right next to the runs unless the dogs ran up on them and then they flew into the trees. Eventually, one by one they disappeared, leaving lots of feathers behind. So, the Guinea Hen experiment of 2017 was an epic failure, to say the least!
As for the ducks, we have 2 left. That’s it. It’s been heartbreaking! From a big snapping turtle (yes, they will eat ducks) to dogs (not mine) to other predators and possibly one who flew away, we have 2 white ducks remaining. Up until November, we had 3 ducks and at least one was laying eggs. But not in the house in the nesting boxes. On the road outside of the house. Because that makes more sense. Oh, here’s some fun-ness: they know who we are!! We have been training them since we have had them to come get food when we whistle. So, when we found them on the road about a mile from the pond (I have no clue why they decided to go on a little off property adventure), the Hubs whistled to them to come and follow him back to the pond-and they did! They followed him down the road, up the driveway and back down to the pond-a good mile they waddled their little butts. I must say the waddle journey was pretty stinking cute. We think the one that could fly, did just that and flew on to bigger waters. But really, who knows?
Bees
Last June, the bees were buzzing right along! The new hives were thriving, the old hives were thriving and we got a good amount of honey! The Flowhive worked ok, we got a pretty decent harvest from it. Our yellow clover we planted the year before went gangbusters (alas it did not come back this year). After a wonderful harvest, we ended up with one hive that came through winter. It did so well that it swarmed this past Spring. The good news is that it swarmed right into the empty horizontal hive that we moved from the pond up to the garage! So, I just took those frames and put them in a regular hive and moved it to the orchard. The not so good thing is that this meant we had two hives that were half the size they should be going into Spring. They were slow to grow and we didn’t get any honey from them and as of now, we have the original half of the swarm left. We got two new nucs and a new package this year.
Unfortunately for us and just about everyone in Tennessee, the weather was horrible last Spring. Cold, hot, cold, hot. Rain. Rain. Rain. We got our new bees late, the weather was terrible and that makes for a not so nice honey season. So, if you see honey prices going up, you now know why. Nobody had a good season! On the first harvest in the summer, we got enough honey just for us. Not a single drop extra. The hives did well all season, until they didn’t. When I checked in the first part of November, we had lost two hives at the pond- no dead bees, just no bees. They left a whole box of honey, so we got more honey and will have enough to get us through the next year if we decide to not get more bees for the Spring. I would rather have the bees than the honey, to be honest. I am almost positive we are down to 2 hives now, and probably only one. But time will tell.
Chickens
We got new chickens! The winter came with snow and it was beautiful as always. The New Year came and went and then in February 2018, chick cuteness abounded with our Rhode Island White chicks! Since the best way to tell the chickens apart is to have two different kinds which have different coloring, what better way than to go to the extreme! These ladies are completely white with beautiful red combs and so pretty! Of course they went through their awkward adolescent period where they just were not so cute. Really, not cute. Kinda alien-ish looking, really. We did things a bit differently since it was cold when we got them this year. When they needed more room, we moved the chicken tractor into the garage and moved them into their spacious new digs. It worked great! So much easier than the cardboard box contraption we used previously and a lot cleaner. We were able to put big girl feeders and waterers in there with them pretty early so they got used to them.
In May, the new girls moved in with the Golden Girls! All went well and nobody died. Yet. Since May, we’ve had five chickens die under mysterious circumstances that we believe might include a weasel-two Black Austrolorpes and three Rhode Island Whites. Weasels, apparently, are one of the vampires of the mammal world. They go in, suck the chicken dry of blood and leave. We also had two Whites attacked by a hawk or a raccoon and we lost both after some very bad injuries. We attempted to set the broken wing on one and it worked, but ultimately she still died. Sheesh. Between the Guinea hens, the ducks and the chickens and the bees, it’s been a brutal time for our animal/insect friends on the Homestead.
They new ladies began laying at the end of June 2018 and have been laying great ever since! They are supposed to be great winter layers and so far, they have not disappointed. The older ladies are starting to molt (I never said they were smart) which means as they lose their feathers, they slow down laying. Why do they slow their laying? Good question, thanks for asking! They slow their laying because they spend all of their energy growing back their feathers rather than pooping out breakfast for me!
Garden
Overall, the garden, last year and this year has been, quite simply, awesome. We have gotten all the usual suspects that we get (lettuce, spinach, asparagus, radish, beets, Swiss chard, tomatoes, zucchini, squash, peppers). We also got carrots, corn, cucumbers and sweet potatoes. I’ve been cooking, freezing, canning, relishing and pickling up a storm over here. Let’s just say my produce bill has significantly decreased! We planted a late fall crop of carrots, beets, radish and broccoli and were not disappointed! Yumminess in my mouth!
We were able to get some cow poo for the garden this year from a neighbor and it has been great for the soil. Unfortunately, since it is as fresh as it gets, it also comes with all the things the cows ate. They eat a lot of grass and a lot of weeds (no, not weed….weeds….with an “s”). That means a lot of grass and weeds have had a party in the garden which necessitates a lot of weeding. A lot. Lesson learned I think, as I am not a fan of that much weeding.
Miscellaneous
I learned to make Elderberry syrup this year. It’s supposed to be great for your immune system, so I tried it. Very easy and a lot less expensive than buying it. I also got an Insta Pot. Have used it a couple of times and it was good. I still haven’t attempted any pressure canning. I almost missed the strawberries for my strawberry/rhubarb jam. But I didn’t, so I have replenished the stock in the pantry along with a big batch of zucchini relish. I did an Olympic distance triathlon and am very sure I will never do another one. Oh and I got shingles. Yes, shingles. The week before my triathlon. I did an Olympic distance triathlon with shingles. It sucked. Having the shingles while doing it sucked, too. 
So, my friends, that is our year plus in review. Welcome back! I am going to try really hard to get back to giving monthly updates and fun tidbits of info, but if you really want to see what’s happening quite a bit more often, check us out of Facebook:
Until next time….happy New Year!