Scenes from the gaden

Beehives

Tomato plants: 06/16

Tomato plants: 07/25

Brandywine pink tomato ripening

Stella cherry trees waiting to be planted

Firewood

This may not be the most glamorous post, nor a topic we want to think about during the summer months, but it is part of our story that we wanted to share...

When we purchased our house, it came with a wood stove but so far we have only used it sporadically, mostly as a back-up when the power goes out. Like many other Mainers, we primarily heat our house with oil. After a bit of discussion last winter, we decided that since we were already working towards having less dependency on corporate farming, it would also make sense to take steps to lessen our dependency on oil and utilize our wood stove much more. We realized that part of our goal toward living a more self-sufficient life has become providing our own heating source during the long winter months. Even though it was early January and winter had already settled in, we wanted to put our plan into action as soon as possible. We carried in some firewood, loaded up the old Dutchwest wood stove, and attempted to open the damper. A loud clanking sound came from inside the stove and just like that, we discovered that it was broken! After starting to price out replacement parts and realizing that those only were going to cost in excess of $800, we decided it would be a smarter investment to purchase a new wood stove rather than pay to repair the potentially 15-year-old one. Of course this started yet another discussion about what kind of stove we should choose and where we should buy one! Ultimately, we ended up picking the Jotul Castine and decided to purchase it from Embers Stove & Fireplace Shop.

Since our home sits in the middle of nearly two acres of land and is surrounded by trees on all sides, it makes sense for us to begin selectively harvesting them for firewood. This is also helping us work towards our future gardening plans because as we drop trees we are opening up more space for the sun to get through in different parts of our yard. We don't intend to get all of our firewood from our own land and just recently purchased a cord of unseasoned wood from Whitehouse Logging and Firewood .

The winter months are not always our favorite time of the year, but this new endeavor has us looking forward to when we turn this pile of logs into fuel for our home...

Stay-cation on the Homestead

It has been very busy the last few weeks here on The Hicks Homestead between taking care of the bees and preparing the gardens.  We took a vacation from our day jobs the week of Memorial Day and the weather has been fairly cooperative as far as getting our outside chores done.  Charlotte even got to try out her new sprinkler while we got some of our outside work done.  The bees have been multiplying and on sunny days we can hear a dull buzz in the yard all day long.  Josh got up close and personal to get some shots of the bees in action!

One part of being a beekeeper is protecting the colonies from disease and infestations.  Josh applied our first treatment to the bees in the form of a grease patty.

Completed grease patty on wax paper

The grease patty is made of 1/4 cup of Crisco and as much white sugar as the Crisco can take. This patty is one of the weapons we use to combat tracheal mites. The bees will eat the sugar and the crisco over time and this causes all the bees to smell like grease. This confuses the tracheal mites who are searching for the bees by smell and without a host they will die. We (and by we, that means Josh!) will continue applying new grease patties as the older one is eaten away.

We have also been getting our new raised beds built and transferring seedlings to the great outdoors. Once the dust settles, we'll adding another post about all the happenings in the garden. Stay tuned!

Repotting

Over Mother's Day weekend, Josh capitalized on the break in rainy weather. On Saturday, he planted our first round of Golden Beets and Red Chancery Carrots. We are planning on doing multiple plantings of both of these varieties. If all goes well, we will have enough carrots and beets to store for use throughout the winter months.

Mother's Day found us repotting our latest batch of seedlings in preparation for their move to our raised beds. This probably should have been completed a few days earlier but with the weather being so nice after quite a rainy spell, we spent most of our time off from work outside. After the dirt (and newspaper!) settled, we ended up with 12 Butternut Squash, 4 Boston Marrow Squash, 16 Straight Eight Cucumbers, 4 White Cucumbers, 12 Zucchini, 12 Summer Squash, and 12 Sunflowers. We had 10 Jiffy pots laying around the house so we used those up first but I handmade the 62 remaining pots using our PotMaker tool.  We are planning on storing and using more Zucchini than our other crops (I will perfect my zucchini bread this year!) so we will be doing another batch of 12 Zucchini in order to increase our output. Stay tuned!

Chickens

The chickens have become a very important part of our self-sufficiency goal. We have been selling a portion of our eggs and so far have been able to cover our operating expenses each month. We are averaging about 3-4 dozen eggs per week from our six hens. In June, we will be adding to our flock with the addition of six Barred Rock hens.

Here are some pictures of our girls causing trouble


hunting for some food

soaking up the sun

Steph's First Mini Book Review

Since I have been working in libraries in one capacity or another for just about half my lifetime now (how did that happen?!), I am quick to utilize all the wonderful resources that I have at my fingertips before shelling out one penny for anything like that!  I have hoped to include as a part of our blog some of the books that we find useful throughout the journey.  The first one that I have had the time to open and look at, even though it is probably not the first one we will utilize, is Root Cellaring: Natural Cold Storage of Fruits & Vegetables by Mike & Nancy Bubel.  It's another rainy day and even though the skies are brightening, I was in the mood to finally crack this interlibrary loan book open so I could return it to the lending library by its due date!  We definitely have extra space in our basement (once I do a bit of organizing, that is!) so trying to create a space dedicated to food storage makes complete sense and would be a huge stride in the direction of our self-sufficiency goal.  In between requests from Charlotte and other household chores, I am getting the feeling that this is definitely a project that Josh and I can undertake and actually take at our own pace.  The authors not only introduce you to many different options for food storage, they suggest the type of crops that would make sense to grow for this purpose.  Chapter 15 was dedicated to "The Basement Cellar" and seems like it will come in the most handy for our particular situation.  The text is easy to read and there are helpful diagrams throughout.  I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in raising these type of crops and using natural storage to enjoy your harvest all year long!

A New Queen

We have experienced our first bee casualty! On Friday afternoon I inspected both hives to ensure that the queens were laying eggs and that everyone was working correctly. I have been nervous because one of the hives has shown much more activity on the outside with workers coming and going.

However, when I opened up what I thought was the weaker hive and pulled a frame out I saw something that made my afternoon....larva in the bottom of cells! This confirmed that the queen was out and laying eggs in the hive to increase it's size. I immediately pulled out each frame and located her walking around on an inner frame. After locating her I put that hive back together and went on to the other hive which has been showing so much more activity.

I opened up this hive with a bit more air of confidence (this one has had bees swarming everywhere), pulled my first frame, and saw capped honey/pollen being stored. This meant they were foraging and storing food but no larva were present on this frame. My first thought was "no biggee, the queen will just be on the next frame". I pulled the next frame out and saw more capped honey and pollen being stored. This process continued for all 10 frames until I recognized that sick feeling in the pit of my stomach...The queen was dead...

I immediately called Rick Cooper at Bees-N-ME and after talking with him decided to secure his last queen for purchase. Saturday morning I picked up the new queen and brought her home.


New Queen with worker attendants

Introducing a new queen can be tricky, and to help improve the odds that she will be accepted I sprayed down each frame of bees with the sugar water solution mixed with vanilla extract. This masks any scent from the old queen and helps create a smooth succession. Now the waiting game begins again.....


Bees feeding on 1:1 sugar water solution