Lavender and figs

Fig jam

We had planned to take it easy last night, but the fig tree had other ideas!   We arrived home shortly after 4:00 p.m. after driving through a thunderstorm only to find our sub-division bone dry and a fig tree weighed down with beautiful, ripe figs.  We picked 15 pounds of figs in about 20 minutes, and our restful evening turned into making jam until 9:30 p.m..  I quickly loaded the dishwasher with jars to sterilize, and got to chopping and stirring.   Hubby measured the sugar and we loaded everything into the new 18 quart pot.  It is only logical that it takes a whole lot longer to bring that much jam to a boil than my normal 2 - 3 pounds of figs, but it turned out well in the end.  Well, it turned it okay -- I underestimated the number of jars I needed, so we have plastic containers of jam in the fridge for our consumption.   We ran out of jam by Christmas last year; I don't think that will be a problem this year.    I am going to attempt fig jelly with the next batch, which will probably be tomorrow. My mom wouldn't have been able to eat the jam with all the seeds, so I want to experiment with some seed-free varieties.

Nuc with lid feeders and robbing screen

While I was finishing up the jam, hubby installed a robbing screen on the front of the new Nuc with the found queen and topped off the Mason-jar lid feeders.  As we are in a dearth, we don't have fresh brood in other hives to strengthen this hive, and they don't currently have enough bees to defend against being robbed by bees from other hives.  We like lid feeders and top feeders because we can be certain we are feeding our bees and not every bee in a three mile radius.  Bringing in "guest" bees invites robbing when feeder buckets become empty and the guests start looking around for free snacks around them.

Planted cuttings

We had a busy weekend at the farm.  Hubby improved and adjusted the leveling of the RV, and I planted cuttings and seedlings.   I had no idea that I had 16 lavender cuttings and only two rosemary plants until I started digging holes.   I know I had more rosemary when I gave a tray to one of my fellow teachers, so I must have lost some the week the sprinklers didn't work well at the house.   I stopped counting mint plants as I placed them around the RV.   Their roots will help with our erosion problem and their strong scent is supposed to deter snakes!   I also had some Columbine seedlings that were doing amazingly well in the heat of summer and some Echinacea seedlings that don't seem to have grown at all in the past two months.  

In addition, we planted four gardenia cuttings, five butterfly bush cuttings, and seven Goldenraintrees.  Our Goldenraintree at home is close to blooming, and it is a rich nectar source for bees, which is why we want plenty at the farm even though they can be invasive in the South.  (Seed germination rates are lower in cooler regions.)

This afternoon we need to go pick up some woodware (hive bodies etc.) we purchased from a retired beekeeper and then go to both outyards to refill feeders, add a super to one hive, and check on a queen in another hive.  We'd marked one hive as a deadout when we were trying to finish inspections right before dark one evening, but found a handful of bees and a queen still alive in the robbed-out and wax-moth infested mess the next day.   We pulled some brood and nectar from our strongest hive in that yard to help get that hive going again, but the queen flew off in the transfer.   (I actually caught her in my hands, but then she flew off again when I opened my hands to see what I'd caught.)   We hope she made her way back home and is enjoying the top feeder.   With hives in four locations, we really needed a better way of tracking inspections and our apiary to-do list.   We tried a few apps, and Hivetool Mobile is working well for us as data syncs across devices, so hubby and I both have access to records.   Inspections go a lot quicker when one of us checks frames and the other updates Hivetool.   Hivetool also allows us to move a hive from one location to another while retaining history.  Apiary Book is another good app, but data is limited to one device -- it would work very well for an apiary in which only one person is entering data.   In between everything else, I need to number hive bottom boards to make tracking new hives easier as we assemble them.  Our quick growth has led to us being less organized about things like that than we would like, so we're eating that elephant on bite at a time!   Of course I've added a second elephant and am trying to write an apiary centered inventory program using Visual Basic in my spare time! 

I've joked about needing to go back to work so that I don't have to work so hard, but I'm loving every minute of it.   On the other hand, my students did very well on the IB exam and I am excited about teaching a new crew in a few weeks.  Concentrating on non-education activities this summer has revived my love of teaching, and we'll start heading into a quieter garden and hive time soon.   Our home-on-wheels is set up for relaxing get-aways throughout the school year.   Life is good!

Daylillies galore!

We were so excited to fill the bed of the truck with daylillies that I split last fall, a couple of magnolia seedlings, and six golden raintrees that were all jammed into one pot.   However, after  digging the fifth hole in the packed Georgia clay, "How exciting" turned to "What were you thinking?"   I dug a couple more holes by hand while waiting for hubby to return from Tractor Supply and then had him use the auger to turn the soil for the remaining plants.   I guess I could have used the tractor myself, but I haven't been on it since November and I've never used the auger, so I wasn't comfortable experimenting without supervision and the encouragement that hubby and BIL always provide.

I ended up planting over 40 plants, some of which you can see here, and all were doing well on Wednesday when I last saw them.  I'm sitting here typing at 2:00 a.m. hoping that the storm that woke me up hasn't washed them all down to the creek!

Hubby installed fence pickets and H-braces on Wednesday while I shopped and then wandered around the woods looking for cedar and dogwood trees to save.  Some had been knocked over during the tree thinning while others were covered in vines.  Now, I love Carolina Jessamine, but I love dogwoods more.  Then there are the spiny vines that not even their own mother could love -- they just have to go regardless of what they are!   They've been tangling themselves around my feet, snagging my boot laces, and scratching me for long enough and I've declared all-out war on them.

So here we are, almost at the end of the week with few things from our list completed, but still so much accomplished.  We now have kitchen cabinets where the table in the RV used to be with a newly-polyurethaned counter-top/shelf on top of them.  (Finally we have somewhere to store food and miscellaneous kitchen stuff.) 

Yesterday was hubby's bee-check day, and I stuck around BIL's farm, hung out with the dog and graded essays.  Back in South Carolina, our new bees and our old hives are thriving, and our trees from Arbor Day are sprouting leaves.    Of course, with the memory of the 40+ plants planted this week, I don't even want to think about the 43 trees from Arbor Day, the 25+ golden raintree seedlings, or the 15 magnolia seedlings that will all have to be dug in this fall -- at least not until the memory of just how hard the soil is here fades a little!

32 Goldenraintree seedlings....

Harvesting and planting Goldenraintree seedlings worked far better than I thought, and the seedlings have thrived in the greenhouse.  Some are now 6 inches tall, while others just sprouted within the past few days.  As I didn't anticipate so many of the seeds germinating, I put 2 - 3 seeds in each 1" by 1" compartment and ended up with zero to three seedlings in each tiny space.  I was reluctant to disturb them at this time of year, but roots were already shooting out of the bottom of the pots and leaves were competing for light.  I was really worried about the bare roots below the pot and the thin layer of soil between the roots and the environment as we do not yet know how the greenhouse will perform when temperatures really drop, so I decided to transplant them into bigger pots.

I thought my husband was a little crazy when he ordered flower pots in bulk at the end of summer, but I have now filled every 1 gallon pot! (Well, I still have one, 1-gallon pot, but it doesn't count because it's full of spider webs and therefore unusable until hubby evicts any squatters.)  I first used all the smaller pots I had lying around for my treelings, and the last few seedlings are sharing a pot with two neighbors.    If they all survive, we will have 32 beautiful trees to plant on our land. 

The bag of garden soil I used was dry on top, but a smelly, swampy mess on the bottom.  I ended up pouring the bottom third into two large planters to dry out.   When I was potting day-lilies a few weeks ago, I read that adding hydrogen peroxide to water or even rinsing the root ball with the solution can prevent root rot and fungal infections.  As all of the daylilly transplants are doing well, I watered the seedlings with a weak solution to eliminate any problems that the questionable soil might carry.  While skimming the article linked above, I also learned that oxygen is released directly into the soil as the hydrogen peroxide breaks down, which encourages healthy root growth.   

Everything is thriving in the greenhouse and the lowest temperatures are staying about 5 degrees above the overnight outdoor temperature.   We have a light plugged into a Thermocube that is supposed to automatically turn on when temperatures fall below 35 degrees, but has not yet turned on even when the thermometer recorded a low temperature of 33.8.  I re-positioned the cube yesterday to a location where cold air enters around the power cord, but where it is also not placed where it will get watered along with the plants.   If we don't see it turn on before our next trip to the land, I'll use a timer to just run the light every night.  A 60 watt bulb in a reflector kept the greenhouse at 45 degrees on a recent 32 degree night, and I don't think we'll have to worry about any 90 degree nights for a while, so that might be the safer solution.  Still.... I want to find out if the thermocube will kick in, especially as I recommended it to my brother-in-law as a way to keep temperatures above freezing in his well house.  Maybe I'll put some ice cubes in a zip lock bag and see if I can get it to turn on that way.....

After a trip to the greenhouse in my pyjamas and winter coat, the bad news is that a bag of ice is not working.   More tests are required before I write-off the Thermocube as it received great reviews on Amazon, but I will hook up a timer until my doubts have been allayed.    The good news is that my transplanted seedlings are doing well. 

Adding "farmer" to my resume.

There's a progression to my career path that for now ends with farmer: electronics technician, computer programmer, English teacher, and tree farmer.  It's an odd mixture, but it represents my personality and my eclectic range of interests and abilities.  I do so love the logic and the beauty of math and science, but I also love the beauty of a well-written sentence.

Still, who would have thought I would ever become a tree farmer?  Or know so much about bees?  Or wear snake boots?  But, as of Wednesday, we own 20 acres of pine trees, so we are officially farmers!   We'll still be teachers for at least 10 more years, but we will be able to recharge our mental batteries by working in our woods on long weekends.    Spending time in nature has always helped us get back to enjoying teaching when the demands of teaching start to obscure the rewards.

Wednesday itself was not a stress-free day!  We've bought and sold enough homes to anticipate surprises at closing, and this time was no exception.  Those surprises were followed by learning that the utility company we were told to contact doesn't actually own the power lines that run along our property.  Their lines end a mile away, which makes connecting to their supply an expensive prospect at $4 a foot!  We're meeting with an engineer from the company that does own the power lines next week and hope to be able to get electricity for less than $20,000!   On to the septic system permit -- after much back and forth and $450, we finally have a permit for our second choice of locations at which to build our cabin.  We don't know why the septic permit guy didn't give us specs for our first choice, especially as the soils engineer typed his report with analysis of both sites.   That's going to necessitate another round of phone calls and probably more money.  We've been researching composting toilets as an alternative, but as this will be our retirement home we have to consider our ability to empty the compost when we're in our 70s and beyond.

The good side of Wednesday was spending time on the land, walking down to the creek, and investigating a natural spring that may become a series of shallow ponds with mini water falls on its way downhill.  Now that we own the land, I feel that I am allowed to snap off dead branches and vines to make my path through the woods a little easier!  As I now also own the brambles, I can threaten them with retaliation when they stick their thorns in me.

Back in the city, I can look at my 30 pots of day-lilies, my rosemary cuttings, my Goldenraintree seedlings, and all my magnolia seeds hibernating in the crisper drawer of the refrigerator in the garage as they apparently need that in order to germinate.  I'm already mentally planting the trees they will (hopefully) produce.  So, while my husband plans building foundations and septic systems, I plan gardens and avenues of pretty trees.  I envision a grove of Goldenraintrees -- our own little Lothlorien nestled among the pines.