Backyard Farmgals

Chocolate... What more does a girl need when tragedy strikes?  Maybe a really REALLY good cup of tea, a good English movie, and a cat or dog curled up on your lap.  I know a chunk of my family would argue that nothing goes better with tragedy and chocolate than Diet Coke.  Since I don't drink soda more than the occasional root beer, I am sticking with plain and simple chocolate. My aunt died yesterday.  She was so young.  51.  I have so many memories of her.  She was my gorgeous, fun aunt.  My mom's sister. I was grabbing my kids knees and tickling them this morning, realizing that as I did it, she is the one who used to grab my knees and tickle.  I was the flower girl at her wedding that forgot to throw the flowers; she let me throw them on the way back down the isle (smile).  She taught me how to ski.  I remember skiing with her at Alta and every guy on the mountain was after her... in her jumpsuit.  It was the earl...

With all of this snow and cold temperatures I have been concerned about our bees.  This is our third year keeping bees, and we have not been successful through the winter.  Our first year, we got a swarm very late in the season, and they were not well established when winter hit.  The second year, the hive was blown over in a horrible wind storm with 103 mile-per-hour winds. This year, so far, so good.  We knocked on the side of the hive this morning and the bees buzzed back.  I am so hopeful. I wanted to share what we did to improve the chances of survival for our hive.  People say that you don't need to do anything for them in the winter, but with the luck we have had, we decided it was better to be safe than sorry.  We put three bales of straw around the hive with a gap between the bales and the hive to promote air flow.  We get so much snow at the farm (we usually have at least 3-feet before the winter is over), we thought it would be ...

It was 8ºF at the farm this morning.  I don't think that I need to tell you that is cold, certainly not as cold as other places, but it really can be a challenge to keep all the outside animals warm and healthy when the temperatures drop so low.  There are a few things that we do to help the animals stay toasty. 1.  SHELTER.  Make sure that your outside animals have a dry place for when the storms are raging.  This is huge.  If animals can stay dry, they stay so much warmer.  Our chickens have the barn of barns, the rabbits have their hutches, but the horse is not so lucky.  We are saving up to build him a barn (barns are expensive!), for now he has a temporary shelter.  We made him a large dry area by spanning his run with 2 x 4's and covering them with plywood and tarps.  He is able to stay out of the weather, and to make it all a little more cozy, he has a lean-to to bed down in and to protect him from the wind and weather. ...