Fall in the South

Fall in the South is a beautiful thing. The cooler temperatures are like a breath of fresh air and the trees get all dressed up for the big event before shutting down for Winter. The sunrise this morning was one of those Clemson sunrises with the purples and oranges. The kids have been begging for a fire in the fireplace but Mamma has put the quiesce on that so far. She wants it to be really cold before we get the fire going. Get outside during this beautiful time of the year. Jack frost will be here before you know it!

Honey Harvest Day!

Well, today was an exciting day here on the farm. This picture is of my son enjoying some fresh honey from our hives. We don't get honey from our bees every year, mostly due to my lackadaisical bee management style, but this year was a good one for us. We got two supers full of honey. The white box in the left of the photo is a super. The super holds nine frames and the bees build their honeycomb inside each frame and then fill them up. Sometimes. Some years there isn't enough rain or there is too much rain, or the bees swarm (their natural method of propagating the species) and for whatever reason they can only produce enough honey for the hive to survive the winter and none for the beekeeper. Usually you will get about two and a half gallons of honey from a super and true to form we got five gallons from our two. That sounds like a bunch of honey but when you have a family of six and you use it to cook with, on pancakes, and for the topping of choice for the cathead biscuits, it is about a years worth. And you only "take off" the honey once a year so this is it until next summer.

There was a time when you would take off honey twice a year, once in the spring and again in the fall, but the fall honey was almost exclusively from cotton and there hasn't been much cotton grown around here in a while.

The man in the background is not me, it is my Daddy. He is wielding an electrically heated knife that cuts the wax capping off of each frame of honey so it can be extracted. After the cappings are removed, each frame is placed inside the extractor which spins around and the honey drains out the bottom where it is double filtered to remove big wax particles.

My Daddy is the one that got me into beekeeping. He's the kind of guy that thinks if he's doing something everybody should be doing it so when he started keeping bees, he thought we all should. And I enjoy beekeeping, but I just don't have the time to devote to it like I should, so my bees are "free range" bees you might say. They pretty much make it on their own, or not.

So it was a great day spending most of the day with my son and my Daddy in his "honey house" doing alot of "quality control" and replenishing the honey stores for the coming year. I also got to see my Mamma for a few minutes who sent me home with cases of canned goods! Double bonus!!! I should write a whole blog entry about her kitchen sometime! I think I'll remember today for a long time.

Farm visitor

I had an early morning encounter with a visitor over the weekend. I went outside about daylight to let the dogs out and there stood a large Coyote about 100 feet away right at the pear trees at the end of the garden. He (or she) looked at me...I looked at him(her) and it took off for the woods. We have heard them howling before but I have never seen one up this close before. I know that they know that we have chickens now... not a good thing. Our chickens are semi-free range in that they get out of the coop and wander around but only in a fenced area, so hopefully that will be sufficient to keep them safe.

The other concern is that when you have Coyotes you DO NOT have deer or turkey. And with Deer season rapidly approaching I hope the Coyotes will move on out of here.

Puppies hit the one month mark.

Koko's puppies are one month old and doing well. They all have their eyes open and are walking well. We even get a little bark now and then. They are definitely getting more energetic and playful as well. We are starting to wean them with some puppy food and milk "mush" that they love.

In other "farm news" the baby chicks are growing fine as well as are the three new steers. With the almost daily rain it has been hard to keep up with grass cutting and bush hogging but this weekend is supposed to be sunny so maybe we can get caught up a little.

And then there were three.

From the shyest cow comes the shyest calf. Petunia had her calf on Sunday the 17th and he is very shy. The other two were very friendly the first couple of days but not this one. He has been running from us since he was born. All three are boys and all three have been "steered" We had planned to put any females back into the herd but none of the three are female so at this point it looks like one will go in the freezer and the other two will go to the sale. I've got to do some research about when is the best time to do all that. All three had their calves without any trouble or assistance. They all get an A+ for birthing ease.

New Calf Number Two!

Our second calf was born early this morning. It's not often I get to "steer" a bull before going to the office, but that was the case this morning. It was the first one I had ever done by myself so I was a little nervous about doing it but it seemed to go well. So we now have two male calves and Petunia looks to be ready to have her calf at any time.

As a side note, a female is a heifer until she gives birth and then she is referred to as a cow. We now have two cows and one heifer...at least for another day or so. A male is a bull until he is castrated and then he is a steer. Both of our newborns are now steers.

One of our steers will eventually end up in the freezer and all others will go to the sale. First generation females will go back into the herd. I would like to have 10-12 cows at some point. That is about all our pasture will support. My brother was telling me over the weekend that Angus are know for birthing ease and that has sure been our experience so far. My plan is to stay with Angus for the cows and use our Hereford bull.

Our first calf ever!

Our first calf ever to be born here on the 2811 was born early this morning. Sweet Pea is the momma and both seem to be doing fine. I just had a conversation yesterday with a friend who raises cattle and he said how much trouble heifers can be with their first calf so it is truly a blessing to just wake up and see a beautiful baby calf standing there next to its Mother. It is a boy so now I have to figure out this "steering" procedure!