The new dog, Baxter!

Hey folks,

Hope some of you are still here it has been over 6 months since my last posting. I have missed many of your blog posts and hope to be here more often.

In mid July the new chickens started laying eggs. We usually get 3-5 eggs a day with our 5 new hens and a year old hen. Been enjoying the eggs very much. I learned the best way to make hard boiled eggs. Steam them for 15 minutes and then place them in ice water. Much easier to peel than boiling them.

The garden did great with lots of rain most of the summer. Cucumbers were in better numbers than I can recall ever. Tomatoes not so much the rain was more than they needed. Right now we have Swamp Sunflower, very tall asters, Japanese Anemones, hardy cyclamen and Miss Huff Lantana  in bloom in the garden. Today our Saffron Crocuses popped out of the ground!

The past few days I have pulled 6-7 wheelbarrows full of Japanese Bamboo Grass from the overgrown flower beds, the rain made it grow crazy. Good news is I beat letting it go to seed! Hoping to build a nice work shop and make a lovely new garden around it.

Back to what the posting is about our new dog Baxter. We think he's a a little over a year old. He's a terrier mix and wieghts 15 pounds. We adopted him after seeing him in a share on facebook that a good friend posted.

Baxter was found to need house training as he peed on the furniture the first night in the house. His training is coming along, as we are getting up in the middle of the night to let him out, no accidents yet! Our cat hates him as expected. Walking him he's a puller, got him a special harness for than and it is big help. He walks pretty well and will certainly improve. Around the house he's very active, chews on socks, chew toys are next on our list. Friday he gets his shots, next week he's getting fixed. We got him last Friday.

Here's Baxter with his new harness the lease pulls from two points, pretty cool. We bought it at the locally owned pet shop in Hillsborough on Nash Street.

 The first thing he did when I met him was to roll over to be petted just like this.

 OK office I give up arrest me.

 He jumps around so much getting any photos of him is a challenge!

Still got more bamboo grass to pull. Bunches of new plants Meg came home with. And we are planting lettuce, kale, mustard, spinach, Swiss chard and carrot seeds in the next few days. Also picked up 9 broccoli plants for the garden.

400 posting! Cold Frames Finally Planted

Folks,
Back to gardening finally! We both have been so busy and our bodies are getting older, it takes much more energy than it used to to work in the yard.

I raked the front drive way of leaves yesterday and picked up a recycled gas lawn mower and mowed in the back yard leaves. The battery operated mower I posted about in August of 2009 has died. A new battery would cost about $150 to replace, none of the reviews on replacing batteries were good, so I got a beautiful little recycled gas mower on Craigslist for $65 and it starts on the first pull. Today I went up on the roof and swept of an enormous amount of leaves onto the main deck. So most of the leaves here are under control!

On to the cold frames. I tilled up three spots, two for cold frames the other for onions and garlic. We will be covering the onions and garlic with wire so when we let out our chickens they will not be able to get into that bed. This was my first time using garlic we grew, as we had a great year for garlic in 2012!

 Meg did all the raking of the hills and spread organic fertilizer. She planted 2 kinds of kale, 2 kinds of salad mixed greens, 2 kinds of spinach and carrots. Covered it all with wheat straw to help retain the moisture after planting. We did not make a big deal about fancy seeds this year, especially carrots.

 Here is the new chicken yard. The chickens and small chicken house will be here by the end of this new week. That wood box in there is sand. I read that sand makes a good floor in a chicken house, it is very handy. Meg points out that compost able bedding is great in the garden...

Manny really helped a lot. He just wanted to know why we closed up the cold frames so he could not get inside them?

Here the cold frames are just before dark. It reached the mid 50s here today and most of the wildlife was hunkering down. I did manage to rescue a Red Eft, Notophthalmus viridescens
while rototilling. You know I'm a handyman by trade,  but gas powered devises are not my speciality at all. The tiller would not start, I thought OK bad gas. Turned the tiller upside down over a bucket and no gas came out, then figured out it was out of gas. Just filled it with gas and started it right up...
.
Finally filled up the suet feeders, Meg showed me an immature Yellow-bellied Sapsucker (first of the fall) waiting in a tree for them. Feels good to almost be ready for winter now... Now we need to plant the pansies I bought last weekend.

Garlic best crop ever!

On May 18th we harvested our garlic, usually one waits til June around here to harvest garlic. Our garlic was huge and falling over, time to harvester anyway. The last few times were grew garlic we ended up with little garlic that took a long time to clean when you cook with it, not my cup of tea. These garlic were purchased at the food co op (Weaver Street Market) last fall, the cloves were huge and Meg planted like 24 of them in two short rows.

Here is the garlic right after harvesting it. I'm a big guy and my hands are pretty large, this gives you an ideal how big they are.

Here is the garlic after the mud dried on them and Meg shook off the dirt. Those white bars are one inch apart. We have already cooked with some and it was pretty tasty! To think of all the gardeners who go to great lengths to find special garlic and we did this good from co op garlic! No this is not Elephant garlic.

These is the carrots we pulled up, maybe 4 pounds of them, we still have a patch of them in the ground. That is a 5 gallon bucket lid to give a sense of their size.. Steamed carrots have been on the menu and well as lots of carrots in salad. We have not pulled the salad greens, they are about finished as is spinach. We still have lots of Swiss Chard.

Newly planted in the garden are tomatoes, peppers, summer squash, dill, Thai basil, tomatillos and Armenian Yard-Long Cucumbers. First time planting Armenian Yard-Long Cucumbers they are tasty and huge as one might gather from the name, anyway I am excited about them.

Our flower gardens are lush right now! Best looking butterfly weed we have ever grown, the butterflies are enjoying it. Lots of spiderworts blooming the bees love them. Below is a Oriental Poppy (4-5 foot tall) from the farm where I have a bee hive down the street, These are the poppies I mentioned had 2-3 bees in each flower gathering pollen or nectar.

 

I spent an hour today in 85 degree heat checking the 5 bee hives here in the yard. The mother hive that swarmed weeks ago and had no brood in it, is full of eggs! The others except the top bar hive are doing well also. The top bar hive had no recent brood, just capped brood. I did see 3-4 swarm cells so they will make a new queen shortly, hopefully not swarm as  they have not grown very much in the 6 weeks I have had them. All the combs were covered in bees.

Yep this is yours truly with my top bar bees. That bar is not fully drawn out on one side. They got their first real inspection today.

Last bit of news, today we had a new male cat delivered. We'll either foster it or keep him. He is a year old and very people friendly, we'll see how he does with Valentine our girl cat. Not going to show you a photo yet, he is sort of like a Siamese cat crossed with an Orange Tabby. His ears are slightly orange and his tail is slightly orange and ringed. Thinking of calling him either Latte and Mel. Mel actually would be short for the scientific name for honey bees Apis mellifera or Mellow.

New Kenya Top Bar Hive!

I know some of you have been waiting to see the Kenya Top Bar Hive I built and Meg painted. Found plans on the internet and modified them to suit my needs. It was built mostly from scrap wood, the bars, roof, trim and legs. I bought the 1 x 12s spruce for the main box and joined them to become 1 x 14s, spent about $30 on that wood. The bottom screen and roof tin was scrap I had laying around. I'm a handyman, so I get lots of left overs and cut offs.

The legs are treated 2 x 4s. Normally one should not paint treated lumber until it has dried for 3-6 months, these 2 x 4s were about a year old, so painting them was not a problem. You can see under the back where you can insert a sticky board to do mite tests.

The landing board is cedar so it can remain unpainted and still hold up a long time outside. The sides are painted also, you'll just have to wait for another post to see them and the window I made to look inside. Funny thing about this hive is Meg has an antique bread box, looks just about like this hive in design and size. The package of Italian bees for this hive are coming this Saturday.

My last post was the bee cut out, my first as lead person. It was a blast, I stayed mostly calm and the bees did not get too upset. Anyway Yesterday I looked at the hives in the morning. Found the Kimberly swarm collected last Monday had absconded, only one bee was in the box. So we went from three beehives to four on Saturday and back to three hives on Sunday.

 Wait look up a swarm from the new feral bees 30 foot up in one of our oaks. I took this photo and the below video from our roof top. Meg found it as I was showering getting ready to be with Meg's family for Easter. Couldn't do anything that high up in the tree anyway. So I placed some honey comb in a swarm box on the woods deck and some comb in the new top bar hive before we left. The swarm trap was still 12 foot up a tree very close to my swarm. We returned 4 hours later and bees were coming and going in the swarm trap up in the tree. So I've got frames in the swarm box I'm letting them move in then I take them down after dark in a few days and place then in a dual nuk, back to 4 hives...

Meg and I crushed and strained feral honey last night, not bottled it yet we might have a gallon of it. Strong taste lets you know your eating honey that is for sure. Our first honey harvest, yeah! Now I have 2-3 pounds of old wax I'm going to melt in a solar melter and see if we get yellow wax or not.

Back to gardening. Meg's mother is moving Meg has been bringing home plants from her garden. Hostas, hellebores, daisies, daffodils, Lilies of the Valley and others. One hellebore was 3 foot across, still another one like it left there. It'll wilt out and reduce in size some what, still beautiful.

Swarm Cells

Just what no beekeeper wants to find in his beehives swarm cells. There were 5-6 of these on the bottom of the second box in my hive on Sunday.  I was giving my girls a powdered sugar treatment of varroa mites. I had to share with you this photos of  these 5 girls working on this swarm cell. Hoping they will stay put until Thursday, when we are doing a small split, by setting up a 5 frame nuk with a few frames of bees. The reason I'm doing a nuk is I want the rest of these bees to make lots of honey this spring. If they swarm half the bees will leave, then no honey this year.

I found this Pickerel Frog along the driveway on Sunday, it posed nicely and was in no hurry. When they call in the pond it sounds like squeaky leather on a saddle.

Meg pointed out to me, the dog swimming pool now has 2 kinds of eggs in it. The larger ones I'm certain are Spotted Salamander, the other are likely Upland Chorus Frogs. We have been hearing them a lot in the swimming pool.

Meg's school got a lot of small shrubs from the Agricultural Building next door. The whips have been in bags at the back door. Sunday she planted 29 - 3 gallon pots with  Swamp Dogwood, Elderberry, Crab apple and mulberry. We have no space here for any of these, I have no idea what she is going to do with them. Living in the woods on a slope, non of these would thrive here, too much shade and very dry. Any of these plants interest you, PLEASE come take some.

Sunday we planted the new hellebores and other plants. Also uncovered all the cold frames, weeded them and planted seeds, mustard, Simpson Lettuce, Bok Choy. The peas are 8-9 inches tall now, somebody nibbled one end of one trellis. The compost I bought at the landfill is already half gone.

March Garden & Stained Glass

Got a surprise yesterday morning. I was treating the bees with powered sugar for varrora mites and all the sudden the female Mallard duck landed in the pond in a big huff. She was having a small fit, but I could not watch because I was in the beehive. A little recent history on the Mallards. They have been dropping in on the pond for about 2 months. About 2 weeks ago the male would be seen most every day first thing in the morning. The female I assumed she had been killed or something. Meg thought perhaps she was nesting. Yesterdays appearance of her has us believing they are nesting, likely under the blackberry thicket at the ponds edge.

 'Painted Doubles' Winter Jewels Helleborus hybrid from Terra Nova

Here is one of those $8 locally purchased double hellebores I bought last fall. The first bloom was a bust, this one is wow..... I showed this to a friend who has a stunning hellebore garden and apologized for not getting her some of these at a steal for $8, her only double cost $25 years ago. I took some photos of her garden today, I hope to show them to you one of these days.

 Helleborus X 'Gold Finch'

The above photo was taken and posted a few weeks ago. I realized that this was not a hellebore baby I brought home. Instead it was purchased at Pine Knot Farms in 2010,  our first  bloom in the garden, I thought this plant had died off. Notice how yellow it is, the back side shows it even more. When I bought it, expected it to have small yellow blooms, not huge 4 inch blooms, needless to say I'm delighted.

On Sunday we are removing the cold frame covers, getting too warm so it is time. Below is a harvest from today. The English Breakfast radishes  and salad greens were planted in late January, this is our first harvest from them.  The carrots were planted in the fall, so yummy.  The spinach is also from last fall, yet the new spinach is just as big, but has not been harvested yet.

I'm hoping to take the trailer tomorrow and get rid of some construction debris and bring back a yard of compost for the garden. Just maybe I'll get the new hellebores and other plants planted on Sunday.

 OK, here it is our first stained glass projects! The upper one is Meg's, I was very impressed with her soldering on this. My project is below, not finished my soldering yet, the blue glass is cobalt blue, this photo does not show it very well. I have a lot to learn about shooting stained glass photos.

 My next stained glass project going to be a little harder, it has 155 pieces, it'll be pink ladies slippers and will be around 16" x 22". I bought some beautiful glass for the flowers and leaves, not yet decided on the background glass yet.

Speaking of bigger projects. Today I met with my designer/architect buddy and his client. Looks like I'll be starting on this pretty soon. The main posts are 8 x 8s, the post next to the oak tree, the roots have lifted the deck about 2-3 inches. We are going to tear this down and replace it , currently it is 12' x 28'. The new deck will be the same size with a roof built into it and another 12' x 28' deck under it, with a U shaped stairway down to the lower deck. We are looking into custom iron railing.  The underside of the deck will have a white ceiling and two ceiling fans.

Will you look at that grade, I'll be one tired puppy with bringing down all the material for this down that hillside. The 8 x 8s are going to be re purposed as steps in the landscape.

One last item. My neighbor down the hill from me informed me today that a local bee keeper has agreed to bring over 10 beehives to his place. He'll get to learn about the bees and get some honey in return. From the bee club meeting the other night we were told that our area could support around 15 hives + - to a yard. So all within 300 yards of each other, he'll have 10 hives, I'll soon have 2 hives and neighbor unknown last checked had 2 live hives and one dead hive. So this should make close to as many hives as the landscape will support. I am excited about him getting all those hives and working together with learning about bees.

Hellebore Double Cotton Candy

It has been almost like winter around here. Yesterday it never reached 50 degrees, last night we had a frost. Still no real winter to speak of, the pond froze over for a few days in December I think. 

Wanted to share a few newbies in the garden.

This is one of those cloned named double hellebores. I got it last fall for $8 a steal at a tiny home nursery! It is called Cotton Candy. Looks to have just one flower this year.

I showed another bloom on this Pine Knot Farms 'Southern Belles' Double Pink a couple of posts back. Looks like we'll get 5 blooms, wow!

 I showed you Camellia japonica 'R. L. Wheeler' from Duke Gardens a few weeks ago. We bought this to memorialize Grumpy. Whenwe got it we looked it up on the net and found a lot of very different flowers claiming to be this one. This is clearly a variegated bud in as big as a golf ball maybe bigger, huge. Look at the flower from Duke Gardens. In a few days we hope to see this open in the garden in a few days.

Here is Iris reticulata a full month ahead of schedule, more open everyday. In 2010 it opened March 06, these started opening on Friday.

The cold frames I pulled our mustard greens today and planted more Bok Choy and Musclun lettuce. The old musclun lettuce is about gone. We have all the new seeds I planted coming up, two kinds of beets, bok choy, musclun lettuce, radishes and spinach.

We are still going strong harvesting kale, chard, spinach, carrots and turnip greens.

Today the feeder had its first Northern Flicker to visit for the season. Only twice now I have seen House Finches which up til this year were common at our feeders. Pine Warbler is still a no show as well.

Friday night I heard a cat fight by the front door. Grumpy used to fearlessly chase away all strays that came by here. Valentine our female tuxedo has always been the hunter, not the property protector. Anyway I checked on the cat fight by opening the front door and heard Valentine come in calmly at the back pet door. Looked like she was not involved. Maybe 20 minutes later she is sleeping on top a chair in the living room in sight of the screened porch full glass door, I noticed what looked like a calico cat staring in the glass at her. You know all calico cats are female. Anyway I opened the door and the cat was scared to death, darting about inside the screened porch running into stuff, when she found the way out the screen nearly was pulled entirely out. Later in the night I heard another fight outside, Valentine was in the living room at the time.

New Top Feeder and garden frame

Finally I picked up a top feeder for the bee hive, it holds 2.5 gallons of syrup.As you can see I stained it the same green as our house.

Here are the first bees to discover it, took only a few minutes.

I went to the food co op in Hillsborough and came back to find we had rain while I was gone maybe a 1/4 inch. Doppler showed a tiny band pasting right over us just before I got home. No rain seen elsewhere so for once we got lucky. 30% chance today for rain.

Two hours later the bees found the feeder. I took the top off the hive without smoking them or wearing protective gear either. I felt somewhat comfortable without the gear a few bees did harass me, but no stings. See our pond it looks pretty empty, maybe 25 foot in diameter right now.

Here is the 'new' garden frame made out of recycled 2 x 6s I took from a 10 year old deck this spring. I also cut 8- 2 x 3s x 18 inches to screw onto the sides later and mount 4 - 1/2 inch PVC pipes to to make a taller hoop frame later. If the acorns start to drop it'll go on sooner.

 We'll be planting carrots, kale, lettuce and maybe radishes in there soon. I ordered some Rainbow Blend carrot seeds, Lacinato Kale seeds and Gourmet Mix Lettuce Seeds last night while looking for Armenian Yard-Long Cucumber Seeds which I ordered as well. I tasted the Armenian Yard-long cucumber yesterday(about 14 inches long and 3 inches wide) at the farmers market and just had to grow my own.

The tomato plant at top right above the frame is a Rainbow Tomato, only picked 2 big tomatoes from it so far, it was our worst performer in the tomato realm.

Here you can see Jubilee in the front left, nearly dying, it still has a few small orange tomatoes, did pretty well. The A frame in the center of the garden has a 12 foot tall Cherokee Purple, it is still flowering, did great this year. The cucumber trellis on the right has given us maybe 50 - 8 inch cucumbers this year, the best year we have had with cucumbers.

Tomatoes are about done, we picked maybe 40 pounds of them. I made spaghetti sauce in 3 huge batches and froze what we could not eat right away.

 Almost forgot we finally have Patty Pan Squash, these seeds are at least 2 years old. Just two squash as you can see above and below. Can't buy these tasty squash is the super market. Thank you bees for the pollinating job and giving us squash!

Vegatable Garden Planting

Sunday was beautiful! Around lunch Meg and I worked on the veggie garden. I had picked up a scoop of compost at the local landfill the day before so we were set.

My first chore of the day was to plant the two new hellebores. Meg and I stopped at Southern States Saturday and picked up a Helleborus x Ballardiae ' HGC Pink Frost' to go with the Helleborus x ericsmithii ‘HGC Silvermoon. After planting these two hellebores I added compost around most of the other hellebores in the woods garden. I also found hundreds of baby hellebores around most of the larger plants.

I cut back the spirea bushes in front of Meg's office window so she would have a better view of the new bird bath.  The spireas have not looked very good for a long time, hopefully pruning will bring them back. Not seen any birds at the new bird bath yet, the old one had a Song Sparrow in it today. We have a pond so water is pretty available here.

We worked the vegetable gardens beds and added a good bit of compost to each bed. Planted Arugula Purple & White Kohlrabi, Cosmic Purple Carrots, Tonda di Parigi Carrots (round carrots), Broad Fava Beans, Sugar Snap Peas, French Breakfast Radishes, Giant Red Mustard Greens, Mizuna Mustard Greens. Everything we planted except the Sugar Snap Peas is new to me!

Here is a garden map of what is planted out back so far. Click on it to enlarge. The garden is curved, it was easier to make the map without the curves. 

Now for the newly opened crocuses.

Crocus sieberi "Tricolor"

 I think this is Crocus 'Flower Record'

 Meg had just watered the garden, hence the puddle.

Above is Crocus vernus 'Jeanne d'Arc' we planted these last fall.

Great Backyard Bird Count

This morning I took 45 minutes after breakfast and did the Great Backyard Bird Count by walking around the house and yard looking and listening to the birds. It was barely jacket weather and partly cloudy, a good time to look for birds. The website did not say if you could count birds by calls, they always do on the many Christmas Bird Counts I have been one in the past.

Here is the list which the GBBC mistakenly listed us as Durham County, our Post Office is in Durham County yet we live in Orange County. I could not find a way to correct this county error. A good list of 25 species of birds were found during my 45 minutes counting. While working in the yard later I saw 2 Pine Siskins on a feeder, heard a Mourning Dove and Pileated Woodpecker. I was happy to see 2 Hairy Woodpeckers and 2 Golden-crowned Kinglets during the count

Canada Goose	1 heard calling
Turkey Vulture	2
Red-shouldered Hawk	1 heard calling
Red-bellied Woodpecker	4
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker	1
Downy Woodpecker	2
Hairy Woodpecker	2
Northern Flicker	1
American Crow	4
Carolina Chickadee	4
Tufted Titmouse	6
White-breasted Nuthatch	3
Brown Creeper	1
Carolina Wren	1
Golden-crowned Kinglet	2
Eastern Bluebird	1
Pine Warbler	1
Chipping Sparrow	1
Song Sparrow	1
White-throated Sparrow	35
Dark-eyed Junco	15
Northern Cardinal	8
Purple Finch	8
House Finch	1
American Goldfinch	20

We planted in the vegetable garden today, stay tuned (ok stop back then)for a report of what
was planted. Three new crocuses bloomed and I planted another new hellebore.

Gardening at Last!

Folks,

Finally I can get out in the garden! Between many snow covered weekends and cleaning up Meg's house to go on the market TOMORROW today will be the first day (well half day) to actually work in the garden.

We dug one giant hellebore, a trillium, and two asters from here place and I hope to plant them today. I need to get some good dirt to add to a new bed I want to build next to the house, that will have to come another day when I can go pick it up with my trailer and unload the trailer as we have not enough parking spots when the trailer is in the way.

March is tomorrow and I have not seen a butterfly yet (in the US) usually by the first of February I see some kind of butterfly. Meg saw a Cabbage White at school yesterday.  Usually by March 15th we see about 10 species of butterflies and 1-2 different dragonflies, doubt that is going to happen this year.

One other note I have a new software to play with! Thayer's "Birds of North America" Gold Edition DVD. I had used Thayer's birding software back around 1995 when it came on floppy discs. These DVDs cover everything you need to know about 957 species of birds found in North America including the calls, range maps and even quizzes. Tried the bird identifier with the Northern Mockingbird, gave it the info and sure enough it pointed to the Northern Mockingbird.

I'll give a more in-dept review later once I dig into what is inside. What I'm most interested in is the my quizzes section where I can create my own butterfly and dragonfly quizzes.

Garden Planting update Feb 19

Folks,

This morning it was 26 degrees and it is expected to be the same tomorrow and Sunday I think. The seedlings in the garden are covered in straw and surviving thus far. The seven day forecast does not really show any growing days, but we are hopeful. Meg drew me a map of what is planted currently. This map is of the garden plot along our pond, the open areas are not planted yet. To give prospective on this plot, it is approximately 40 ft long x 10 ft wide.

The arugula, kale and meslin mix planted on 1/24 is up and looking good, see a photo on our first posting.

All of our seeds came from a seed company that grows all it's own seeds Territorial Seed, the onions we bought locally at the farm and garden supply in Durham. Can't wait for more 70 degree days.