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Winter Bee Flight

Jacqueline Freeman — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 04:32:00 GMT

It's January 1st and we had a hard frost last night. The tree branches are all bare and it's cold, barely 40 degrees if that. Yet it's sunny out and the bees who live in the north wall of our house are busy flying in and out.

Our other bees that live in hives up in the field are quiet, conserving food and energy through the winter.

Normally in winter on a sunny warmish day the bees will make a "poop run" every few weeks. They make a quick short flight outside to defecate and then hurry right back inside. But these bees are out most every day. The heat from our wood-fired stove keeps the hive warm enough which allows them the energy to have a look around outside whenever the sun's out.

Winter is when the bees will look for and bring home sap from trees which they use to make propolis which is used as "bee glue" to seal up cracks in the hive and to keep it sanitary and healthy inside.

Chickens take a dirt bath

Jacqueline Freeman — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 02:12:00 GMT

I planted spring bulbs at the end of our walkway. I imagined how beautiful they will look in springtime, joyous irises in multi-colored bloom, the fragrant waft of scent carrying to the front door.

Surprise! Surprise! The next day I find these hens and a rooster smack dab in the middle of the new bed with different plans. My little landscapers decided to turn the rich soil into a dirt bath.

Dust baths are how chickens keep crawly things off their skin. They poof up their feathers all fluffy and then powder puff billows of dirt all over themselves. This is the chicken version of spa day.

I can't get upset about it. It's marvelously entertaining. Look at their little chicken faces. They love it so much they get all dreamy-faced while they're bathing. I guess I can plant my bulbs elsewhere.

For Breakfast: A pan full of Luck

Jacqueline Freeman — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 01:59:00 GMT

Joseph came in from the hen house with breakfast fixin's. He was so confident about what was in this egg that he cut TWO holes in the "Eggs in a Frame" he had in the pan (we've also heard this called "Toad in a Hole.")

We get these doubles fairly often, which I take to be a good sign. Either our hens are extra healthy and prolific egg layers, or we're just plain lucky. I'll go with all of the above.

Is your car unlocked?

Jacqueline Freeman — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 06:49:00 GMT

Is your car unlocked? When you get home you'll discover you have four squash, each as big as your head, under a towel on the back seat. I'm sorry. I had to hide them there. It was the only way for me to insist you take more than I already pressed on you when you arrived.

This is the GIGUNDO squash plant that volunteered in our compost pile two months ago.

And this is the 5-8 lb Italian heirloom squash we're getting about 8-10 a day of. I carry them back to the house in a wheelbarrow.

Now I want you to know, I'm not complaining. They are the sweetest, tenderest squash we've ever grown. We saute them with butter, eat them raw in salad, and Patti suggested we puree them and freeze them to use as a soup base all winter. All good ideas. I will probably come up with more because I think right now we've got about 150 more in some stage of development and more beautiful golden blossoms coming out all the time.

Why so many? Here are the culprits.

Easy to see the first bee on the bottom covered in pollen. Then there's the next bee deeper in, pollinating away. And way down under both of them, there's a third bee. Each of them wearing enough pollen to decorate six more squash blossoms with. Yes, they are doing their job, and lined up to do it with every squash blossom that opens its petals. And that's why we will probably harvest close to a half ton of squash this fall from ONE PLANT.

So come on over. Bring an appetite. I've got squash fritters frying up right now and I'm working on squash cookies. Or maybe a nice little squash gelato.

What? You can't find your car keys? I can't imagine where they might have gone. You search the kitchen while I dash out to the driveway to see if you dropped them there. Don't come out unless I yell that I found them, okay?

warmly, Jacqueline

Haying, Forever Young

Jacqueline Freeman — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 05:44:00 GMT

Finally the rain stopped long enough for everyone to get their hay cut, dried, baled and bucked into the truck so we could load it into the barn. Here's a video of the last run through the field, picking up stray bales.

Twin Fawns in Daisy Field

Jacqueline Freeman — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 05:44:00 GMT

Twin fawns in our upper field. They'd been sleeping between the compost beds when I startled them. Notice how well their spots blend them in with the daisies in the field.

Why Honey Bees Swarm

Jacqueline Freeman — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 01:11:00 GMT

It's spring, it's honeybee swarming time. This is when hives of bees seek to expand by splitting the original hive in half and making an entire new hive.

If you are one of the rare people who has seen a swarm, count your blessings. You're seeing a miracle of nature.

Swarms are nature's way of increasing hives. Bees create more hives by splitting and moving. When they have everything perfect in the hive -- plenty of brood eggs laid, pollen and honey stored in the comb, the hive neat and busy -- word goes out it's time to move on. Look at this lovely swarm in our upper field.

The departing hive leaves behind food, brood, nurse bees to care for the hatchlings and a few nascent queen eggs, one who will become the new queen of the hive.

About 70% of the hive, including the old queen, leaves in search of a new home. Before they depart, each bee fills her belly with a few days' worth of honey. Swarming bees are at their wooziest, nearly drunk with honey. An elder beekeeper once told me, “They're so full of honey they couldn't bend their fat little bellies to sting if they wanted to.”

True. I've scooped up swarmed bees in my bare hands with nary a cautionary buzz and placed them into a hive box. Once I got the queen inside, the rest of the bees marched in on their own and immediately began creating wax and building comb for tomorrow's nectar.

If you see a swarm clustered somewhere, leave them alone. Everything's fine. The scout bees are looking and the rest of the bees are simply waiting for them to return and tell them where the new home is. It may take a day or two, even three sometimes, but they'll move on soon as the scouts approve the new location.

Give them wide berth and don't bother them. They only have enough food to last a short while and it's important they don't waste their energy. If you're really lucky, you'll get to see them lift up in a cloud and fly off. When we find them, people like me bring wild swarms home and offer them a new hive which we then take care of organically -- no chemicals for our bees!

Given the rarity of bees these days, you may want to call your friends over to see the swarm before they leave. Who knows how much longer we'll be able to do that?

Little Bee Girl Waggle Dancing

Jacqueline Freeman — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 01:01:00 GMT

Have a look at this little honeybee doing her waggle dance for everyone. We took this when we were moving a swarm of bees into a new hive. About 15 minutes into the move, she was so pleased she had to share with everyone that something nearby was making her very happy.

Waggle dances are the way honeybees tell each other when something really good is happening, like flowers in full bloom or pollen galore. The angle and direction she does the dance tell the rest of the bees where to fly to join in. Kind of like giving an address. She's saying, "When you look at the sun, fly this angle away from it for this long, then look for the flowers."

Moving the Cows in January

Jacqueline Freeman — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 03:14:00 GMT

Miss Amelia and Harmony in the field

This is a video of us getting ready to move the cows from the east pasture up the road to the high field. Miss Amelia loves getting a carrot. Harmony checks Joseph's pockets for more. What sweet girls. Our neighbor Susan came down to pick up some eggs and took the video.

It's been rainy, no surprise since we're in the Pacific Northwest. Still, we have no complaints because we rarely get snow, which is fine with me. Since we moved our giant beef cows to our friend Vickie's pasture, our pastures are doing better. At least this winter we're not getting our boots pulled off when we walk through mud.

Evenings are quiet. We bring Missy into the barn, wipe her udder down and set the bucket under her to milk. When we're nearly done we let Harmony in for what's left and that's always a fun time. We love these girls.

Come on over here and see what classes we are teaching on the farm...

Fall Farm Photos

Jacqueline Freeman — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 06:04:00 GMT

I woke at dawn and nudged Joseph awake. Here's what the first hour of our day looked like.

The light coming in the bedroom window woke me up.

From the window we watched the light roll through the orchard ...

and then the sun began rising.

Joseph and I walked up to the field.

The mist still blanketed the garden.

Looking across to the south we could see the whole valley.

The cows waited for us to appear with bins of apples.

Miss Amelia always has a kiss for Joseph.

I watched Missy and Harmony eat apples while Max nosed in his bin ...

and then I went to feed the happy chickens.

The sunflowers glowed in the early morning sunshine ...

I saw an early rising honeybee gathering pollen from the flowers.

We walked down to the house as the sun tickled the cosmos ...

We stared out toward the barn as we poured milk, cooked eggs and slathered honey on our toast.

warmly,

Jacqueline & Joseph

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Porcu-puncture

Jacqueline Freeman — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 00:24:00 GMT

Let me start this tale about a porcupine and a cow by mentioning that we NEVER can go away when we're milking because I'm the one who milks Miss Amelia and you can't skip a day or the milk will fill her udder and that's uncomfortable as well as unhealthy. Unlike feeding a dog or parakeet, milking a cow is something most friends can't do easily. (If you can and you live nearby, I'd like us to become better friends.)

I was scheduled to teach a bee class at a farm festival in Oregon and we wanted to stay overnight so we taught our farm intern, Lane, to milk Missy and Joseph showed Andrew, our other farm intern, how to take care of anything else she'd need.

Off we went. Don't most tales about mishaps start with something like that? .... thinking we had everything handled, off we went.

The next day, 20 minutes before I was scheduled to teach my class, we got a call that Miss Amelia had a run-in with a porcupine.

When a cow is curious, she'll get quills in her nose, just like a dog who's been sniffing around. Miss Amelia, however, decided she just plain didn't like the look on the porcupine's face, so she tried to bump it with her head and horns to tell it to get out of her yard.

The porcupine took advantage of this situation to give her a PORCU-PUNCTURE treatment.

A quick call to our vet (on a Sunday) who suggested if we were handy with pliers, that's all he was going to do. But he said to do it soon as the quills would cause swelling and it would be harder the longer we waited. We were four hours away even if we left that minute so we asked our neighbor Brenda to step in and cover for us. Brenda did and here are photos of how that went.

Brenda brought her needle-nose pliers and removed 148 porcupine quills from Miss Amelia's forehead. Lane and Andrew, our farm interns, helped steady her.

Apparently the porcupine handled that situation well as we didn't find one anywhere out in the field. I'm going to guess Miss Amelia will rethink that idea next time she sees a porcupine waddling across the pasture. Live and let live.

Brenda, Lane and Andrew gave her a clay masque to draw out anything that might be itchy.

I think the quills did some acupuncture on her cranky point -- she's been sweet as can be ever since. The clay masque surely helped, I know she felt special. The only thing she didn't get was the little cucumber slices to go over her eyelids. We took her halter off and sent her out in the field with a bin full of cow treats (carrots, cabbage and beets) to take her mind off the whole thing.

Miss Amelia got the cow version of a spa treatment and I think she kinda liked it.

warmly,

Jacqueline & Joseph

Marching the Bees

Jacqueline Freeman — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 01:39:00 GMT

Joseph and I answer calls for swarms of bees. Swarming is what bees do to create a new hive. It's how they create another bee family.

A hive will swarm when everything in their hive is perfect -- plenty of honey, baby bee eggs laid, pollen ready to feed the larvae, and they've left a few new queens in eggs to hatch so there will be a bee-mama ready to start laying more bee eggs. The old hive leaves everything ready for the new hive to grow strong. Really, it's remarkably generous of them, isn't it?

When the hive swarms, about 2/3 of the bees and the old queen leave but before they do, each bee gorges herself on honey so she'll have enough food in her to last the few days it may take to find a new home. A bee in a swarm is full of honey (drunk on honey is what we call it) and very peaceful.

Swarming bees are very unlikely to sting anyone, they're at their very gentlest, because they

1) have no home to protect, and

2) are too drunk on honey to feel worried.

We've collected swarms by lifting clusters up with our bare hands. Sadly they are also at their most vulnerable and many get picked off by birds in air or are harmed by humans who think they are dangerous.

Here's what a swarm looks like hanging in a tree. They're patiently waiting for the scouts to find them a home.

Last year I saw a 12 year old boy on the side of a road spraying a swarm in a bush with poison to kill them. There was no reason for this. The bees were no danger to anyone where they were, off on the side of a field. If he'd left them alone, they would have moved on as soon as they found a new home. Instead he killed them, a terrible loss to us all.

When the swarm is ready they take off from the hive and find a tree or bush where they can hang in a cluster. As soon as they're settled the scout bees take off and look for a new home for them. Each time a scout returns to the swarm with a suggestion, she brings other scout bees with her to see what she thinks might make a fine new home. Good places are anywhere dry and protected, like in an old hollowed out tree or something that resembles that.

A swarm may sit in its temporary location for 20 minutes or they may be there for up to three days (though that's more unusual). In the meantime the scouts are busy looking until they do. Once the scouts decide on a good location, news of the new home spreads instantly -- the swarm lifts as one and flies to it.

If a hive doesn't find a new home within that time, they are in great danger because they are subject to weather, predators or scared humans finding them and killing them.

The more people who know what a swarm is doing -- and that a SWARM IS NOT INTERESTED IN HARMING ANYONE -- the better. The bees are, as most everyone knows, having a very difficult time right now and the salvation of the bees lies in saving these wild swarms so they can grow stronger.

If someone sees a swarm here's what to do:

1. Leave it alone. The scouts will find a home soon enough and likely within a few hours the whole swarm will be gone.

2. Call your neighbors to come see this ever-more-rare occurence. Some worry that in just a few years, bees may die off and there will be no more swarms.

3. If the swarm needs to be moved, call a local beekeeping group (look up the county extension service, they'll know who they are) and someone will come get them. I do this all the time in southwest Washington and the greater Portland Oregon area. (photo: Joseph helping catch the bees i'm taking off the branch.)

4. Please do NOT harm the bees. I tell people to stay ten feet away and just watch. Or stand further away and use binoculars. It's an amazing sight. If the hive is in any danger from people it's a good idea to cordon off the area until they move off to their new home.

5. Keep anyone who wants to bother the bees away from them. I've rescued bees that have been sprayed or dowsed with water which did nothing except make the bees susceptible to getting cold. There's just no reason for that.

I teach a bee class here at the farm called "Bees: The OTHER Way." When we get a swarm call, we bring our students along so they can learn how to move a swarm on their own. Once they know how, they can go get the next swarm for themselves, and while they do it, they bring along another student so the knowledge gets passed along.

We got a call the afternoon before last and loaded up our equipment.

When we got there we found a nice size swarm gently hanging from a cedar tree branch about 6' high. Easy! Joseph lifted up the box and I clipped a few short cedar branches the bees hung on. I placed each bee-laden branch in the box and nearly all of them settled right in.We put a lid on the top, opened the front door so they could go in and out, and then left until dusk. We leave them there until the sun sets for two reasons:

1. The little scouts who are out looking for a new home for the swarm all will have returned by then.

2. Everyone is inside and calmed down for a night's rest so they're easier to move.

We brought them home and left them (with their front door open for ventilation) on the greenhouse floor, snuggled up in their temporary box home. The next morning just after dawn, we setup a white tablecloth on the ground beneath the hive entrance so we could empty the box onto it and none of the bees would get lost in the tangled grass. We setup a wide walkway from the tablecloth up to the hive opening with a shingle and then gently dumped the bees out onto the cloth.

You'll never guess what they do next. They see the opening in the hive and they march right up the plank and into their new home. Honest to God, that's what they do. Wonder what that looks like? Click on the video ...

Come on over here and see what classes we're teaching on the farm...

Calf born with white heart on forehead

Jacqueline Freeman — Wed, 20 May 2009 21:11:00 GMT

Miss Amelia birthed her new calf Monday morning at dawn. A beautiful fawn colored heifer with a big white heart on her forehead who we're calling Harmony. Sweetheart she is.

Amelia is a brown swiss and jersey cross who gives delicious creamy milk. We bred her with a guernsey because we've heard guernseys have delightful personalities and also have high quality milk. The new calf will become a milk cow in a few years after we breed her for her first calf. That's how you start the milk cycle, the cow has a calf and the milk comes in.

The first few days we leave all the milk for the calf so she gets the immune system boost that come from drinking colostrum. Colostrum is only there for the first three days. We'll start milking on the fifth day.

On the second day we found the calf had somehow gotten under the wire and was outside the fence. Miss Amelia was standing guard on the other side, quite distressed.

Joseph and one of our farm interns, Chad, got on either side of the fence, picked up the 65 lb. calf and handed her over the fence, back to Amelia.

Joseph and I have spent many hours hanging out in the field with the new calf. The spring grass is coming in and growing a few inches a day. The swallows are courting in the air above the pasture and we watch their swift arcs and dives as evening comes on, then see the stars come out and pepper the sky. Love is in the air.

Spring around the Corner

Jacqueline Freeman — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 18:30:00 GMT

Today is sunny and warm and we have about 1200 daffodils all around the farm that are standing tall with blooms a day or two away from opening. The greenhouse is ALIVE with salad greens! Some are leftover from fall and going to flower and seed, others are ready for eating. Chard, orach, kale, parsley, brussel sprout and borage flowers, pea sprouts and five kinds of heirloom lettuce make their way into every salad we eat these days.

This is the time of year when we feel like we are nearly caught up and in another two weeks I'll wonder whatever possessed me to imagine something like that. For the past two weeks Joseph and our farm helper, Tom, have been banging nails and sawing wood. They've made two "last a hundred years" grape arbors, put a new roof on the stairs porch, cleaned up the barn, and are about to finish last year's tile project in the guest cottage.

We just finished grafting 103 heirloom apple trees onto rootstock. We sold half of them last fall to folks who attended our Heirloom Apple Tasting and kept the rest to plant here. The holes are dug and soon as I finish lunch we're going to get them in the ground. Our goal is to have 200 different kinds growing here in the next few years.

Back in central Massachusetts my dad built our family home on seven acres of apple orchard he bought from our elderly neighbors, botanists especially interested in apples. I grew up in an orchard where each apple tasted different than the one next to it and ever since have been enamored of apples. It's no surprise that I want to create our version of that magic place on our farm.

The apple trees are ready to bud out and the cherries and pears have a few blossoms already open. I checked on the bees and even though we have little bloom out, they are arriving back at the hive with pantaloons full of golden pollen which they found somewhere on the outskirts of the valley.

Our first dozen baby chicks hatched January 29th and are now fully feathered and chasing bugs in the grass. They've moved out of our mudroom into the broody coop. Next week they'll join the bigger ladies. The hens in our main flock who are at the bottom of the pecking order will, in a few short hours, ascend to midway up that ladder. Alas, the little ones will be the bottom gang but soon as they're full grown in a few months there'll be another shift and they rearrange themselves again.

Brenda, our neighbor who teaches the Backyard Chicken class, has a hundred chicks ready for our first annual Rent-A-Chick season. Many people buy their kids baby chicks for Easter but a week later they've lost interest and drop them off at the Humane Society. Sad because it doesn't teach the kids an appreciation of life, just that animals are entertainment. We're renting the chicks for a week or two at a time, over the next few months. This way people can tryout keeping them and see if it's something they might like to do on a longer basis, too. We even made it onto the 6 o'clock news!

Rent-A-Chicks

Brenda's got the little babies all ready to go home in a fully setup box with a warming light, feeder, waterer, roosting bench, bedding, food and two chirpy little chicks along with lessons in how to care for them. They get to keep them for a week. People start coming by today to get the first batch and we'll go right through summer. The folks who want to keep them will be invited to the "Backyard Chickens from A to Z" class where we can show them how to raise these ladies in a good way. Fresh eggs for breakfast!

Speaking of chickens, they're laying twice as many now that the days are longer. This week's abundance has turned into spinach and scallion quiche, vanilla and chocolate custard, omelets, deviled eggs and blackberry crepes from the berries we picked last fall. If you live on a farm, you don't go hungry.

Snow Where It Doesn't Usually Snow

Jacqueline Freeman — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 07:11:00 GMT

Bees snuggled safely inside their hive.

Living in southwest Washington we get hardly any snow. We had a snowstorm about 5-6 years ago and spent an afternoon sliding down our pasture hill on scraps of old cardboard, so when Joseph saw a toboggan for sale a few years ago, he snatched it right up in case we'd ever be visited again by snowflakes.

We originally come from New England where snow falls from October to April and though we don't miss blizzards one bit, when we had a few inches of a snowstorm all those years ago, we did wish we had a good sled on hand.

That toboggan sat unused for all those years until just before Christmas when an arctic wind visited and over a week's time dumped about ten inches on us. As you can see the farm looked peaceful and beautiful. What you don't see is how we ran around the day before the storm -- when it was still a balmy 54 degrees -- covering all our garden beds with row covers, tarps and cold frame boxes.

It got so cold last week that much of our winter garden gave up and decided to become mulching material for spring. Nonetheless some hardy plants survived: brussel sprouts, kale, red cabbage and the parsley that lives in the coldframe. Also everything underground did just fine, all the potatoes, sunchokes and even a few onions. It amazes me how some plants, even in freezing cold temperatures just say, "Brrr...," then shake the ice off their leaves in the next melt and continue growing. Isn't nature wonderful?

Our hens completely refused to set one bony foot on snow. They stayed inside the coop or wandered out under the roofed area to eat from their feeders but nary a chicken track appeared in the snow.

Joseph walking up to the chicken coop with Remy.

We've been keeping our cows in our neighbors' pasture just up the hill. Normally we milk our cow in an outside stanchion all winter. Hardy souls that we are, if it's raining we wear a rain hat. But our neighbor's barn has inside stanchions and I have to tell you, in the freezing cold snap, I sure was happy to be inside and milking. Not that it was warm by any means, but we at least were out of the wind and snow flurries.

When I milk our cow, no matter how cold the air is, if my fingers are on her warm udder and my head is resting on her furry side as she eats hay, I feel warm. Soon as I stop, even with long underwear on, the air immediately feels bone chillingly cold again.

Marcus and Shari had a grand time chasing each other all over creation in their first snow!

Normally we make the seven minute walk up to the barn with our hot water jugs twice each day to feed and milk. If it's a dark and rainy night, however, we're not above driving the car up to stay dry. But snow isn't the same as rain and who wants to drive uphill in snow and risk getting stuck?

Joseph finally had an opportunity to put that dusty toboggan to work. He suggested it would be a good way to carry our heavy hot water jugs up there so we bundled the bottles in a cloth bag and tied them on. Off we trundled with the toboggan dragging behind us. It was a lot easier to walk through the deep and icy snow with the toboggan carrying the heavy bottles.

But the best part was after we finished our cow care tasks and walked out of the barn into the fresh snow drifts. Joseph sat down in front so he could steer and with one milk jug under each arm I snuggled myself behind him. Speedily we sailed down the hill, coasted at a fair clip across the straightaway and then picked up speed as we yelled and hollered across our field, past the greenhouse and sledded down the path to home.

A few nights later the rain returned and overnight we went back to winter drizzle and green grass. Tomorrow's supposed to be 50-something and sunny so I'm thinking it will be a good day to get started on pruning the fruit trees. Hope you're staying warm this winter.

Jacqueilne & Joseph

Friendly Haven Rise Farm

www.FriendlyHaven.com

Venersborg, WA

The Art of Bee-ing

Jacqueline Freeman — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 02:49:00 GMT

Wherein I give a complete accounting of a day I made a series of bee mistakes and the little bees made sure I learned how not to screw up so badly again ...

Every summer at our county fair I put in a few hours at the bee house. We bee folk have our own little house set away from the rest of the fair. You have to walk a ways to find us but we always get a good crowd who come to see the bees.

The house is divided into two rooms: One has bee info, displays, blue ribbon honey and empty hives from different bee-ish beings. The other room is a wire enclosed 10x10 area with a live hive of bees flying about.

Every hour a volunteer goes over and gives a talk about bees while standing in the bee cage. Most volunteers wear the bee suit but because I want people to know how gentle bees are, I do my talk without protection. Inevitably someone asks how that is possible. I explain that bees have little desire to harm anyone, that they only sting when they fear they or the hive are about to be hurt. I also tell them I have only been stung three times in my life, each an accidental sting when a worker bee got tangled in my hair or clothing and, thinking she was trapped, stung me. No harm meant, just a scared little bee.

The first year I did the demos I noticed dozens of scout bees on the screen trying to get to the clover field across the street. It was early August and though they were only a whiff away from a field of nectar-filled blossoms, they couldn't get out to collect anything.

I felt their frustration so I walked down to the flower show and asked what flowers were being tossed that day. I came back with armloads of bouquets in jars which I put inside the cage. I immediately felt the bees relax. Bees need to be around flowers! After that every demo was delightful. Happy bees buzzing flower to flower, showing onlookers how we all get along.

The next year I worked the fair I got paired with an outspoken old guy who is my direct opposite politically. While the bee booth is not, in my opinion, the right place to spout one's pro-war opinions, that's what he spent his time doing. So I was a teensy bit on edge (understatement). I brought this up a few times but he was oblivious and went on blathering about his political views. (With no good intentions I made a small note to self: "Do not tell him his fly is unzipped," and stuck to that.)

True bee work requires a kind, loving heartspace. I love bees and this place of 'bee-ing' is totally natural to me. When I approach bees in this space, it becomes obvious how life-affirming, generous and fulfilling the bee community is.

When it was my turn to go into the bee cage for the demo, I was not in a heartspace, not even close. I opened up the airlock to the bee cage and WHAM! I got stung right on the top of my head.

I stepped back out of the airlock, untangled the little bee from my hair. I had already pumped a bit of snittiness into my system before I got stung and I was surprised at the adrenaline the sting evoked in me.

I shook it off, took a deep breath, walked back in. WHAM! again, stung on the very tip top of my head, on the exact same place, my crown chakra, the side of me that points to the heavens although I certainly did not have heavenly thoughts emanating from within.

I stepped out of the cage again and this time one bee came outside to have a talk with me. She assertively buzzed me and in no uncertain terms told me not to set foot in their home until I worked out my "stuff" and bettered my attitude.

Okay, I can take a hint.

Receiving not one but TWO stings in the exact same spot was not lost on me. I admit I had very little cosmic consciousness going on when I reached for the door to go inside the hive room. I was still re-playing, "I should have said ..." and quite focused on how wrong this guy was in every way.

Luckily my shift was nearly up. Proving I am not yet an enlightened being, I still had dialogue going around in my head as I drove home and I was none too pleased about getting stung twice. Once home I changed my clothes and decided it would be a good idea to visit with MY bees and calm everything down.

I walked barefoot through the field toward a hive and WHAM! I stepped on a little bee who stung me in the very center of my foot, on Kidney1 point (Bubbling Spring), the very first acupuncture point that forms in the fetus and the one that helps you ground, connect with the earth, the one that roots energy downward.

I sat down on the ground and scraped the stinger out, apologized to the honey bee for stepping on her (and felt terrible that I'd done that). I told her her gift wasn't in vain, that I'd sit right there and go over my day and let go of whatever crap I was carrying around that was making me bad bee company.

Three stings in one day doubled my entire life sting count at once. Getting stung on the very top and bottom of my body was none too subtle. I had throbbing focus points showing me precisely where my energy connects with the heavens and the earth.

So I sat there and apologized to everyone I'd labeled harshly, had miserly thoughts about, or offended (including my higher self) by being such a knucklehead. And when I felt I could be a better person I got up and went on with my day.

I did notice that as a result of having all that bee sting formic acid into me, I felt 'buzzed' and very aware of ALL of my body, like breathing through my skin instead of just my nose. Having a front row seat to an important lesson in selflessness taught by bees caught my attention and I flitted around in a buzzingly happy state for quite some time.

Little bees, bridging the union of heaven and earth.

warmly, Jacqueline

If you'd like to attend one of our bee classes and learn organic and biodynamic approaches to bees, visit our classes page:

Click Here -- Classes at Friendly Haven Rise Farm

Friendly Haven Rise Farm www.FriendlyHaven.com Venersborg, WA

Our December Garden

Jacqueline Freeman — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 23:59:00 GMT

Who would guess that on December 1 we have 30 different vegetables growing in our garden? That's the Pacific Northwest for you. True, it does drizzle a lot but the overcast skies keep the warm air down here where our pretty blue borage flowers are still blooming.

I was surprised myself at how much is still growing. I had our milk cow on a lead line, letting her wander around the gardens eating foot-tall green grass and everywhere I looked, I saw something edible. 30 vegetables and herbs, two kinds of apples in the trees, a few purple grapes still on vines, two edible blossoms and three flowers blooming.

Heirloom lettuces in the greenhouse, purple kale and parsley are outside where they like the chill.

Greenhouse tomatoes, outside spotted trout lettuce hunkered close down in the ground, big healthy rosemary that stays out all winter, burgundy red radicchio.

Spicy orach, white onions (look at those healthy roots!), a few sweet concord grapes still hanging off the shed roof where they're now bird food, and a little cauliflower from the patch.

Celery growing in two different beds, red cabbage heads that have been visited by slugs. Not to worry, we have enough for all.

Can you believe we still have blue borage flowers blooming? Just in case any bees make their way outside on a sunny day! Brussel sprouts will be ready soon, and a few small beets are still going.

These are the last of the basil plants in the greenhouse, spindly but hey, it's December! The next photo is our big project this week, covering our new bed with a layer of cow manure and then stacking deep piles of wet hay on top. By springtime this soil will be ready for healthy new plants. In the meantime our hens have had a fabulous time sorting through the wet hay to see how many worms they can find.

We've also got sunchokes, the sweet tuber that's kind of like a potato. As usual I overplanted this spring, and what I hadn't harvested last winter also regrows. If you miss one and leave it in the ground, five or more will grow from that one. We probably have 400 right now and I'm getting pretty good at serving them five different ways. I have to dig a few buckets full and bring them to our local food co-op and share the bounty.

Also found three rosebuds nearly ready to open, some winter apples that are FINALLY ready but since we have so many apples already stored in our garage, I'll leave those for the birds to peck at all winter.

This is winter gardening. I admit there's not much that looks lush right now, but it's all still growing and we can go outside and pick a fresh salad every day.

We regularly go out and dig potatoes through the winter. This year I planted a half dozen kinds including some that are red, some white and some blue potatoes. I got these from Ronniger's Potato Farm in Colorado. If you want to plant something EASY, get some. You can order a catalog from them and immerse yourself in the incredible variety of heirloom and unusual potatoes. Fresh potatoes taste nothing like store potatoes. And you can grow them in a garbage can or even a stack of old tires filled with hay or dirt. Really, they aren't fussy.

Ronniger's Potato Catalog

The first settlers out here often planted potatoes as soon as they arrived. The potatoes loosened up the soil as they grew and in springtime the settlers had their first crop ready AND they didn't have to do as much work to fluff up the soil to get the rest of the garden in. You really ought to try them.

Spend Time at the Farm with us

Jacqueline Freeman — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 22:42:00 GMT

Ever thought visiting us at the farm might be a good idea? This year we thought we'd invite a few friendly, interesting people to spend time with us on our biodynamic farm.

When we first wrote this, the harvest had just been brought in, the gardens put to bed for the winter and the fruit, meat and vegetables preserved, dried, canned and frozen for the coming seasons. A rare time of quiet.

Each time of year has its special qualities. New gardens and births come in spring, summer when all is lush, fall with the generous harvests, and winter's quiet time of reflection.

We decided it would be a fun idea to share our roomy farmhouse, our joy and our knowledge with good people showing them what we do here: Farm skills like milking a cow, tending chickens, making cider, learning about bees, and cooking up great meals made with healthy, organic ingredients.

Often we bake pies. We may pick greens or dig potatoes and sunchokes from the garden for dinner. You can meet our cow, Miss Amelia, collect eggs, make eggnog and cheese, take a hike to the waterfall. Bring a favorite game for evening if you like.

If you stay for a few days you may learn about bees, honey skin care or help bake some rustic tarts. Chop firewood if you feel so inclined. We're always open to talent nights, too. Bring a poem to read, art to show, song to sing, dance for/with us or just watch and applaud. And if you want to sleep in and lounge about, feel free to do that. Help out with our daily farm chores and learn all kinds of interesting things about our animals and the gardens. Or just lie down in the field and describe the clouds.

Sound like fun? We have room for up to eight people at a time. No pets (we have PLENTY of animals). This is family style so expect to make your own bed and help with dishes. Our intent is that this time be relaxing for all and full of laughter.

Cost is $125 per person for the overnight. We ask that you pay half when you reserve your spot and then pay the other half when you're here.

See more of our farm at http://www.FriendlyHaven.com (lots of pictures).

Our experience tells us we get along best with easy-going people who are interested in good health and have a well developed sense of humor. If you're like that and wish you had a farm to go home to, pop us over an email and we can talk.

warmly,
Jacqueline & Joseph Freeman
Friendly Haven Rise Farm

New Calf at the Farm!

Jacqueline Freeman — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 23:20:00 GMT

Remember when Miss Amelia had her calf, Possum, last January and we hung around for 35 hours waiting to see the birth and be there in case she needed ... hmm... moral support? cheering?

Same thing happened this time. We had Delilah on baby-watch all week, visiting her in the pasture a few times each day to see how she was progressing. Finally Saturday morning Joseph said, "Nah, she's not coming due any time soon. I say she's still a week away."

How do they do that? Sure enough, we showed up to water them a few hours later and Delilah was standing over a still wet baby boy.

Today we took our five cow herd up the road to the east pasture for winter. We gather together a group of friends, no matter if they're cow-savvy or not. We post someone at each driveway and orchard along the way with the task to wave arms and shoo cows back onto the road if they shuffle off. But shuffling never happens. The cows get excited about the road trip the minute their hooves hit the pavement and it always turns into a herd of galloping bovines racing to crest the hill before we catch up. They always get there first. Luckily they remember where the gate is and by the time we arrive, panting heavily and doubled over from laughing, they're already inside munching green grass.

This should be the last move until spring. They'll get this last bit of rich green grass and then frost will hit and they go on hay for winter. Our herd will get smaller in a month as Maurice is nearly big enough to butcher. We may take Possum then, too. We're still debating that. We're thinking of finishing up with the beef cows and just having dairy cows which would be simpler. Hay has gotten so expensive that taking cows through winter is a real expenditure and sometimes it doesn't pencil out to keep them going.

We had a very good hay season this summer and managed to put away 180 bales but that's not enough to take us through winter. Because of the huge spikes in oil, production costs went way up. Bales here are $7-8, up from $6 last year and $4 the year before. Our cows can run through quite a few bales in a week. if you're buying beef, be aware of this. We feed our cows only grass and hay, nearly all of it from our land. That makes them what's called "grass fed."

Commercial grain and corn growers put fertilizer on their fields and costs for that have skyrocketed, boosting prices for feedlot owners who raise grain fed cows. Since we don't do that, that's one cost we've avoided being caught by.

In case you didn't know, grass fed beef is significantly more tasty and better for you and the cow than grain fed beef. Grass is what cows have always eaten. Their digestive systems are designed to process grass and hay, not grain. Commercial operations feed grain because you can put weight on a cow a lot faster and raise more in less space. Problem is that grain gives cows indigestion which makes them less healthy, needing more antibiotics and medicines, some of which stay in the meat. The indigestion they get causes flatulence ripe with methane. In plain language, their poop stinks.

Grass fed beef doesn't have that. On our farm you can walk right up to a pile of manure and you'll notice there's hardly any smell to it. We spread the manure on our fields and it helps keep the pastures lush. Our grass fed cows don't need medicine to keep them functional. They eat what nature intended and they do just fine. The compromise we make is that grass-fed beef doesn't grow as quickly but they are significantly more healthy overall.

Next time you buy beef, try some that's grass fed. Way more flavorful, less fatty and more tender. If you slow cook it like we do -- put it in the crockpot on low in the morning with some veggies and dinner's ready by evening -- it cuts with a fork. Knowing what organic, grass fed beef tastes like, we can't order beef in a restaurant anymore.

Our chickens are out in the garden cleaning up frost damaged, limp lettuce and mushy, green tomatoes and happy as can be. Nothing a chicken likes better than finally being allowed into the garden!

These cooler days mean we dress warmer and I get to wear my insulated farm boots which I love. Joseph bought some early last winter and liked them so much I got a pair for Christmas. Warm, dry feet on a cold, wet morning is a real joy.

A full moon came up over the field as Joseph and I closed the hens into the coop last night. Everything's turning: Bronzed yellow and scarlet orange leaves, newly sweet apples, fragrant purple grapes ready for pressing. We're fully into cider-making season. If you come by, we'll pour you a cup of sweet fall ambrosia.

Outhouses and Antique Apples

Jacqueline Freeman — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 05:31:30 GMT

If you live anywhere near us in southwest Washington, come on over to our heirloom apple tasting event on Saturday, Oct. 18th. We're going to have TWO HUNDRED different kinds of apples to taste.

Here's a look at the event if you didn't get a chance to see it when we did this with summer apples in August. (Our friend Lisa Fenderson made this video and she did a great job on it.)

Lisa's video of Apple Day

Our farm is east of Battle Ground in the sleepy village of Venersborg in the Cascade foothills. We have three commercial buildings in our town: a tiny general store, the two room church and the one-room schoolhouse that's on the national & Washington Historic Registers. The 1912 schoolhouse is the oldest continuously operating community building in Washington. For the past two years I've been president of the local community club. Once I didn't show up for a meeting and -- surprise-surprise -- I got a phone call telling me I was the new prez. That's how it works here.

The median age of our members is, I'd guess, about 78. I think there are three of us who are under 60. I may be exaggerating a little but not much. (In case any of our members are reading this, of course there's not a one of them who looks her age. Country living can be either marvelously kind or sunburntly unforgiving and she's been kind to our group.)

This little building is heated with a hundred year old giant woodstove and we use outhouses when nature calls. Which brings me to why I'm writing this.

These ladies are getting on in years and the outhouse is a problem for many of them. You'd know what I mean if you, as I have, handed an 83 year old lady a flashlight so she could take her walker and trundle up the path in the woods in the rain in February to use the loo. Quite a few of them say they can't come to the meetings anymore because they can't easily use the outhouse. Or, worse, they don't drink anything for half the day before they come so they won't have to use the outhouse which certainly isn't healthy.

They've wanted a bathroom in the building since probably before I was born. I am determined this year to get a bathroom (small sink, low flow flush toilet, that's it) put in.

Over the past ten years these ladies have raised a few hundred dollars each year raffling off handmade quilts and afghans, hosting baked goods auctions, running a tiny annual yard sale, ice cream socials and craft days. That money took care of upkeep on the little building and the rest went into savings.

They let boy scouts, the cemetery commission and local people have meetings and get-togethers here for no charge, although many folks do make a small donation. The money raised was enough to get the permits, perc pits dug and a simple septic system designed. At this rate they need to do this for another dozen years and I wonder how many of them will be around then.

Right now we have donations of materials and labor from local folks to build the bathroom. We need about $6000 more to pay the septic installer and a few other bills and we should be able to get the job finished. Up until now all our events have been local but with the apple event, we're reaching outside of town for support.

On Saturday Oct. 18 from 11-4 our farm is co-hosting an heirloom apple tasting at the schoolhouse to raise funds toward the bathroom. We'll have 200 different kinds of apples to taste, luscious pies to eat, unsprayed apples to buy. Choose which apples sing to your taste buds and we'll make trees of those types to plant in your yard. The generous folks from the Home Orchard Society will be on hand to help identify apples and, hopefully, to find some rare ones among what gets brought in. Last year we learned one of our old farm trees was so rare it was thought to be extinct and now is rediscovered!

First I want to invite you to come out to the schoolhouse for our apple event. Bring friends. Eat pie. Munch on red-fleshed apples or purple skinned ones or apples that taste like pineapple. We'll have kinds you can't even imagine.

Below left, Kandil Sinap. Right, Duchess of Oldenburg (from the 1600s)

On left, the red-fleshed Russian Crab (a BIG apple). Right, the sweet Swedish Make.

While the ladies have volunteered to help out, I think the energy required may plumb tucker them out so I'm also putting out a call for some helpers.

Admission is $5, kids are $3 (under 6 free) and volunteers can eat as many apples as they like. I'm not going to let the ladies price the cookies this time though. At our tag sale in September they each baked a few dozen cookies and then priced them a quarter each because they were so concerned that someone might not be able to afford one. I would have charged a dollar for the whompin' handful of still warm made-from-scratch brownie and given a free one to anyone who looked quarter-challenged and hungry. I keep reminding them that this is a fundraiser and it's okay to charge a few dollars for a slice of homebaked apple pie like the one our neighbors Scott and Brenda (and son Kyle) are making here ...

or the pies our sweet farmgirl helpers from Dee Creek made.

If you want to help slice and handout apples you're welcome to pitch in. You'll learn all kinds of things about heirloom apples, or you can slice pie, pour cider, sell buckets of fresh apples or take tree orders. It all helps. If you want to volunteer, give us a call 360-687-8384.

If you'd like to munch 200 apples and contribute a few dollars to the town's flush fund, we're glad to have you! The schoolhouse is located at

24317 N.E. 209th St. in Battle Ground, WA, a pleasant country drive about a half hour north of Portland, OR.

Visit our farm's website -- read more stories and see pictures!

warmly,

Jacqueline & Joseph

Friendly Haven Rise Farm

"Where Spirit and Nature Meet"