My view from the milk stool this morning is on fear. I realized that I live my life in fear. Not a good place! I started doing the work for the first week in the class I’ll be taking at Prescott yesterday. As soon as I got into it, I realized, yes, this is where I need to be. Food is so very important to me.
The act of raising food is a journey. I don’t realize just how much I’m involved in it until I sit down and think about it. So much is done on auto pilot.
I caught a small swarm of bees last weekend. A swarm of bees this time of year is not ideal because they don’t have stores built up and this time of year, you need to feed them because there’s little nectar flow. I made up a batch of 1:1 sugar water and bee tea and gave it to them. That swarm is going to town! I sure hope the queen that they came with is not a virgin and she’s already laying. Time will tell.
The swarm I caught in May is simply not thriving. It’s queen didn’t survive. I added a queen a while back, but the colony never took off. I’m on the fence about what to do. Last weekend, my mentor swapped them into a five frame nuc (small hive). I’m feeding them too, but they aren’t taking much. They’ve picked up a little, but I honestly don’t think that hive is going to make it.
My mentor may come and get the queen or we may add her to another hive. We’ll see. I truly don’t want to open up my other hives and pull out frames of eggs, etc. to give to this hive. I truly believe survival of the fittest is the way to go with bees. I’ll give them some support, but I’ll only go so far. I almost didn’t hive that swarm.
The goats are starting to wind down in their milk production – as they normally do this time of year. Of course, now I have people coming out of the woodwork wanting milk. I’ve decided that next year, if anyone wants to get milk, they have to commit to weekly pickup and they have to pay a week in advance. If they don’t come that week, they lose their money. I wish I had a dollar for every person who assured me they’d come every week who don’t.
Food is just not important to most and I understand that. Food is too easy to get. I don’t think that’s always going to be the case. We saw a glimmer of that during the pandemic.
It’s all a mindset. It helps with Wally retired. This year, he picked and I preserved I don’t know how many pounds of figs. I’m so proud of that. In previous years, we ate them off the tree, but that was it. I’ve still got peach salsa to make and I’m going to make a small batch of bread and butter pickles. That all gives me so much satisfaction.
I appreciate the comments some of you have posted.
Until later …
