I am BUZZING with exciting news....the bees have arrived at the farm!!  After picking them up in Penn Yan on May 13, I installed them at 11pm via headlights.  Giddy nervousness found me fiddling with the smoker and dropping everythhing I touched.  Nonetheless, they settled into their pink boxes and got to work.  They've been at our farm for a month and I've already observed that one is definitely much stronger than the other two, natural variability. Thoughts of CCD (colony collapse disorder) lurk in the back of my head when I think about colony health.  This beekeeper wonders what the pathology of the phenomenon will show.  Their arrival coincided with the apple and dogwood bloom in our field, thankfully I only fed them for a few days.  They're on autopilot now, plenty of food for them at their new home.  I wear my veil for kicks.  I am so happy to have them grace our fields and hope that they live a prosperous life here!!  I've made contact with a couple other beekeepers who have welcomed me with open arms into the brotherhood.  I've always loved insects, and it's cool to husband these beauties at a time when they need more friends.  Plant a bee garden!!

   Farming and gardening for others finds me covering quite a bit of territory these days.  This gives me a chance to observe farming life across a five county area.  It's great rolling home tired at sunset, seeing farmers squeaking the last little bit out of the day.  I don't mind being late for appointments when I'm delayed by a farmer moving his plow to the next field.  It's great living in an area that hasn't forced out the farms for houses...yet.  NY has been working on keeping family farms solvent and this makes me so glad to be here.  I just attended a meeting describing the NY Farm Viability Institute and how it is working on helping groups of farmers innovate and create.  I was the newest farmer there, and found everyone to be excited about our venture.  Apparently there are very few vegetable farmers in Madison County, which bodes well for us.

   Foals, calves, and lambs make me yearn for the days when we will have more livestock.  The winters are brutal out on Muttonhill, so it will be a few years till we're ready for them.  We would love to have a menagerie.  I would really like to farm with mules: plowing, pulling gear, sleigh rides, leisure riding.  My great-uncle Sonny was a mule lover and instilled that love in me.  I only wish that he was still around to  watch the seed he planted in me.  His presence is at the farm already in the form of two pairs of horseshoes that he gave me... who is ready to play?

                                                                  

 

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