Hay Day 2009

Friday night, after work, we decided to drive to the Gorge power station at Newhalem. There is a waterfall behind the powerhouse (reached by a sturdy new footbridge) called Ladder Creek Falls that is supposed to be backlit by colored lights after dark, and also a really strange rock garden full of water features. Unfortunately the lights weren't operating when we got there, and the garden is being rehabbed. It was still fun to poke around the tiny company town and the interpretive "Trail of the Cedars" as night fell.

Here's one of the old water features, not running, but still funky. Some kind of miniature waterwheel/mill that looks like a gnome hut.

In the background is a remnant of an old cedar tree with a cave-like area in the stump. The hanging moss & vine maples lended a spooky feel to our walk. The trail has all kinds of interpretive signs, but sadly describes a much wetter forest than is the case today.

Right beside the highway through Newhalem is this impressively restored locomotive engine. It was used in the 20's to bring supplies and workers up from the Skagit Valley during construction of the dam & power station. Newhalem is one of the country's last true company towns, with a lot of history and fun things to do and learn, including a boat ride up Ross Lake, tour of Diablo dam & chicken dinner!

Saturday was all about getting our hay in for the year. This place is only a few miles from us and the owners took advantage of the lovely weather to make hay. Here it is, freshly mowed and drying in the sun.

The big tractor-looking thing to the left is the mower, and the green and orange machinery that looks a bit like mechanical spiders are hay tedders. They are attatched to a tractor, and spin through the downed hay, turning and fluffing it to get it thoroughly dry before baling.

And all the nice little bales in the field, as we headed in to pick them up.

The trailer can take 25 bales with ease, more if we stacked it crazy-high. Since we really liked the quality of this hay, we decided to get 95 bales, which meant 4 trips. Each bale was around 50lbs. so after the first couple trips, the sun felt hotter and the bales felt heavier.....

But we persevered, knowing a few hours work would mean good food for cows & pony until next season. Here we are, toasting the hay castle we built in the garage. We still might pick up more hay later in the season, but this is like money in the bank as far as livestock are concerned.

Another weekend chore was a hive check. They still aren't ready for the honey super, but you can see the queen busily inspecting new cells to lay eggs in.

A well-earned dinner...chicken grilled over applewood, with Stew hopefully hovering in the background.

And below is a movie of the busy busy hive. Even with Mark yiping and a neighbor's car in the background, you can still hear the buzz of all those bees coming & going.

Presenting her majesty, the Queen!

The bees are already so protective of their hive that when we went to refill their food Thursday night, we both got stung. No more skipping the veil & smoke!
Most of these cells are filled with babies, and being capped off. Some of the perimeter cells have honey & pollen in them.

And here she is - the queen! She looked really active and healthy and was in one of the outer frames, hopefully getting ready to lay more eggs.

We added another deep hive body so they can stock up enough honey to see them through the winter. The shallower box on top is where the food goes right now, and later this summer it will hopefully be filled with honey that we get to harvest. You can also see our most important tool, the smoker, on the ground to the left.

As usual, Magnus shows how classy he is. No shame.

And a little home movie of the hive, doing their thing on a Saturday afternoon...

What's buzzing at Seven Trees?

We just ordered our bees from the Bees Neez Apiary - 3 lbs of workers and 1 queen! They won't be ready to pick up until April, so we have plenty of time to get the gear ready and read up on the magical little insects.

Here's a photo of English garden hives, borrowed from a beautiful website called Honeybees-by-the-Sea. This style of hive has slightly different insides than a regular set-up, but the biggest difference is the pretty copper roof.

While reading up on one of our favorite topics, Customs and Folklore of Rural England (by Margaret Baker), I came upon some interesting beliefs about "the family bees". In both England and North America, bees were considered part of the household. They were without fail told of family happenings, and when one of the household married, white ribbons were tied around the hives as the wedding news was "told" to the bees. It was also claimed that bees might choose to attend the wedding on the bride's bouquet. But more important than wedding news, bees must be told of deaths in the family, or the bees themselves would die. One anecdote from an old Worcestershire family involved the family nurse going out to tap the straw skeps with the housekey, saying: "Your master's dead but don't you go, your mistress will be a good mistress to you". The bees would then hum to show approval of the new owner.

Bees were also given pieces of the funeral cake, and a bit of every food and drink served at the funeral feast. This being done, the bees would return to work again. In some areas the bees were even formally invited to the funeral. Check out Songs of the Ridings for an old Yorkshire song called Telling the Bees.

Here's a rather smallish picture of a print by J.P. Davis called Telling the Bees. You can see the woman is draping the hives with black crepe funeral cloth, as in the poem by John Greenleaf Whittier.

There will bee lots more updates as we start assembling what we need to house and care for our first hive. And more on bee folklore as well. It seems our ancestors not only depended on these little critters for their main source of sweetness, and wax for candles, but they respected them as vital members of the family with their own body of knowledge and customs to be observed.