Keena sought my help in getting rid of wasps that were nesting near a door. I think I said something like "nah, they won't bother you." A few days later I walked up to that door and immediately got stung in the back of the neck. The next day I got stung on the side of the head and a few days later I was stung between my eyebrows.
Caleb recently harvested three gallons of honey from one of his older Italian colonies. It's some of the best honey I've ever tasted (there are no commercial growers around so these bees have not been exposed to any herbicides or pesticides). Pretty impressive for an "un-socialized" homeschooler.
In addition to a great meal, these guys could also be good pets, they act a little like puppies.
Girl power making apple cider. Trins and Liberty are working the grinder while Keena is working the press. This was at the home of some wonderful friends who have significantly more homesteading wisdom than us.
Here is a better pic of the press side. The cider pours out the bottom into the stainless steel milking bucket. Sammy's bugging Liberty because he probably needs a refill. It was delicious, no pasteurization necessary.
We recently helped our friends move into their nicely situated new farm, the sky seems bigger out there and the truck looks like it belonged in the country so I took a pic.
This is a new project. I'm dismantling this barn to reuse the materials for building a different structure.
The nice thing about homeschooling in a big family is that you can go back - waaay back and review things you may have missed.
This isn't some feral kid that just ran out of the wood line, it's just another thing that's different about living in the country. There is no HOA to keep you from running around "ne
ked," not even your mama can stop you.
Here is a better pic of the press side. The cider pours out the bottom into the stainless steel milking bucket. Sammy's bugging Liberty because he probably needs a refill. It was delicious, no pasteurization necessary.
We recently helped our friends move into their nicely situated new farm, the sky seems bigger out there and the truck looks like it belonged in the country so I took a pic.
This is a new project. I'm dismantling this barn to reuse the materials for building a different structure.
The nice thing about homeschooling in a big family is that you can go back - waaay back and review things you may have missed.
This isn't some feral kid that just ran out of the wood line, it's just another thing that's different about living in the country. There is no HOA to keep you from running around "ne ked," not even your mama can stop you.
Wow! Do ya'll ever have problems with moths in your colonies? This is probably a stupid question, but does the breed of hog effect their temperament, or are all hogs generally friendly? Keep the blog running! It's very interesting to read!
ReplyDeleteMin, thanks for the question. Yes, we have had problems with moths, we used to attack them with conventional methods but our perspective has now changed. If it is a strong hive, it will overcome the moths. If it is weak hive, it will die – which is good, we don’t want traits passed on to future hives that will produce weak hives. The problem is that when you become dependent on inputs, as with any living thing, any weakness in the offspring are hidden and passed on to future generations. You actually want genetically inferior offspring to die off which later give you animals that are hearty and require minimal time from you to maintain (conserving time is key if you want to be profitable). I know this isn't a great answer especially if you are maintaining only one or a few hives.
DeleteIn relation to pigs, unfortunately we don’t have enough experience to give you a good answer. For now we’ve realized that as piglets if the kids interact with them they will have much better dispositions latter – BUT, be very careful with big mature pigs especially around kids, they should never hold their hand out to them because they may bite it and they could take a finger off.