Solstice was two days ago. That day we got one chicken egg. Yesterday two.

Today five.

(The blue one and the white one are duck eggs.)

So anyway, I didn’t get them any honey supers, and then one day I noticed that one of the hives was totally covered in dead bees, and I don’t know why. The other one was humming along, then suddenly wasn’t: there were basically no bees around it. I figure they swarmed because I didn’t get them enough space. It’s super common for them to swarm. I observed a swarm at someone else’s hive this summer. It was really cool. She was able to get them down from the tree and use it to start a new hive.

So then I had two dead hives, and I felt sad and guilty.

Then either the bees that were left after the swarm rebuilt, or a new colony moved in to the empty house, because there were bees on that one again! Very exciting. But I still didn’t get them a honey super, because I just didn’t have time. So I was left with an already-dead hive, and one that I was figuring wouldn’t last the winter.

Today I went out to the greenhouse to see if my pepper plants were still kicking (they were, and there is tons of fruit still ripening, which is pretty exciting), and as I was examining them I heard the unmistakable buzzing of a whole lot of pissed-off honeybees. I went to see, and found the hive knocked over and frames all over the ground, but quite a lot of bees still living. I have no idea how long they had been there; it can’t have been long, because we’ve had several days in a row where the daytime high temp didn’t get above 40, and I think that would kill them if they were that exposed. Fortunately today is significantly milder, and not raining. I should’ve taken a picture, but I was too busy frantically trying to get the smoker going, find some gloves, and try to get them put back together before dark.

I was pleasantly surprised by how much honey there was. No idea if it’s enough to get them through the winter, though. But given this latest drama, I don’t know if they’ll survive, anyway. There are a lot of ways for a beehive to die! The exposure might’ve killed all the larvae and eggs, even though it didn’t kill the adults. The queen might’ve been crushed or otherwise killed. I don’t know if they’ll be able to get the hive up to temp for tonight. Probably 1/3 of the still-living bees were all over the ground when I left them; I don’t know if they’ll get back home even though they’re very close to it. (They don’t move much when it’s below 55°.) When I put it back together I didn’t get the frames in the right order, which is important because they cluster together at the center of the box and eat what’s there. (In bee class they told me that if there are frames with honey just one frame over, they’ll still starve to death rather than go get it. I suppose it is related to temperature.) I tried to keep the honey ones in the center, but who knows if I did it right?

I’m simultaneously thrilled that they have survived this long, and totally discouraged by all the ways that they still might die because of this latest mishap. I am interested to notice, however, that I am gaining confidence in handling them, and also that I am still totally fascinated by them and a little bit in love with them. Go, little bees, go!

You should read the whole article so you learn the reasoning, but the takeaways that affect your shopping habits are:

• When you buy seedlings, look at the bottom of the container. If roots are poking out, it’s a no-go. This pertains particularly to annual vegetables. Perennials don’t like being root bound either, but the outcomes are not as extreme.
• In addition to long roots, also look for tell-tale signs of maturity in a vegetable, like flowers or fruits. Tomato plants already bearing tiny tomatoes are not a good thing. Cukes that are flowering are not a good thing.
• Look for the smallest, youngest seedlings you can find. Teeny tiny is good. The more leafed out they are, the longer their roots will be.
• If you’re raising plants from seeds, don’t let the seedlings sit around too long. Get them into the ground when they open their first true leaves. If you can’t plant for some reason, transplant them to deeper containers.

I am extra bad at the last point. I often don’t get stuff into the ground even close to on time. It’s a thing I’m working on …

So, some critter or another figured out this is a great place to get a meal at night, apparently.

Saddest, though, is the fact that no one comes in to eat cat food anymore. There is a cat door into the laundry room, and a dish of cat food in there, and it hasn’t been touched in weeks now. Little H.P. Lovecat has had a tumultuous relationship with us: she started out pretty wild, then got used to us, then got used to the dogs, then became almost a housecat, then decided she belonged to Ruby dog. Then a dog we were sitting chased her up a tree. The next morning she came in her kitty door and tried to come into the house (from the laundry room) to rub about my ankles as usual, and I closed the door and showed her through the glass that the visiting dog was inside. H.P. looked at me, and looked at the visiting dog (who had chased her up a tree), and went out the cat door, and I never saw her in the house again. (I still feel guilty about that.) She was around for a while, and would come hang out with me while I milked, but eventually she stopped speaking to me completely. I think it was when Fry, the new kid, moved in; he barked at her. I am afraid that Ruby forgot that she loved H.P., and that she also barked at her. In any case, she was still coming in to eat, even though she wasn’t speaking to us or really letting herself be seen much.

H.P. and Ruby, before they were BFFs.

But now she’s not. I’m leaving the kibble just in case. My brain is simultaneously containing two true stories: one, she’s obviously dead, because that’s what happens to cats on Bainbridge Island, and what we always expected to happen to her; two, she’s obviously given up on us and moved in with another kind family down the street, and is living it up. They are both true. (Not originally intended as a Schrödinger’s cat reference, but hey, it works, I guess.)

More details are here.

This batch is nice-looking birds! You will not be sad …

This is the last batch of chickens this year, but if you want to be notified of our turkey orders for this November, and chickens for the future, please sign up on our mailing list for poultry notification and other news. The mailing list always gets first dibs.

And they are GROWING! Currently you can mostly tell because they are larger in comparison to their ears.

Watch for the owl — the owl is the star.

Also I’m jealous of her wax coat.

We’ve tried several ways to break them of being broody in the past, but this spring I heard from some other chickeny friends about an effective way to do it: buy some chicks at the feed store, and sneak them in under your chicken. She thinks she’s hatched her (nonexistent) eggs that she’s been setting, and she moves on with her life as a proud new mama. I don’t know why this didn’t occur to us before! So we bought six chicks, three Rhode Island Reds and three Delawares, and we put two under each of the three broody hens.

Sure enough, next morning, each hen was proudly clucking on top of her tiny fluffy babies. Within a few days, each mama had led her tiny brood down from the nest boxes and out to learn about the world of the coop; a few days after that, the mamas had taken the babies out into the world a little bit outside of the coop door. The mamas widened the radius gradually as the babies grew, until the littles had learned all about scratching, pecking, perching, and generally roaming about the yard and then coming to bed in the coop at night.

Well, one of those mamas gave her little baby a bit too much confidence. One of those little Rhode Island Reds was really good at being a chicken until suddenly one day she decided she didn’t want to come to bed anymore. The first night we were worried — this was back when we could count how many chickens we had — so we left the coop open for as long as we could stand, then it got really dark and late and we thought we should protect the flock at the expense of one dumb chick. But Little Red Hen showed up again the next morning, all confused because everyone was inside and she was outside. And she has done the same thing every night since then. Two RIRs go to bed, and in the morning, three are scuffling around the edges of the coop — two inside, and one outside.

We can’t figure out where Little Red Hen goes to sleep. We thought she must be behind some electric fence, because she kept being not dead, so we looked in the goat pen and goat barn, but she wasn’t there. She’s not in the greenhouse, and she’s not in the old abandoned chicken tractor, or in the compost pile, and she’s not on top of the chicken coop. She might be in the grape arbor, but when it occurred to me, it was after dark, and I didn’t want to disturb her and cause her not to have a cozy place to be, on the off chance that she was snugged up in there and safe for bedtime.

It’s been at least a month now: we have a coop full of chickens, and one Little Red Hen who sleeps somewhere else safe. Every morning she is back out there taunting the other hens who are foolish enough to go sleep in their nice protective coop and don’t get to use their precious early morning hours hunting bugs and/or harassing the goat milker.

Good job, LRH. Long may you … hide somewhere else overnight? Good job!