It's cold enough to freeze your Winnebago!

It is freezing out.  We clocked in at a solid minus ten degrees Celsius this morning.  Down from seven degrees Celsius yesterday afternoon.  While we do not own a Winnebago, it was cold enough to freeze my glasses, shattering the frames.

So sad.  I am so blind without them.

The duck pond was frozen solid.  No swimming today.

I hope it warms up a bit sooner rather than later. 

On a very happy note, I finished mulching today!  Thanks to the help of my work horse of a dad, we did three mulch runs.  Mulching went three times faster with his assistance - three days of work in one!  In total, I spread twelve yards of mulch on my gardens (six trailer loads).  It was quite the effort but they should be good for a few years now.  A job well done!

Putting the Bees to Bed

As a cold front approaches the Ottawa area, it is time to put the bees to bed for the winter.  

Here is me in our bee yard.

This is the before photo.

 To get a hive ready for winter the first step is to add the Bee Cosy.

The boys call this the bees' "winter coat".  I then remove the feeder pail from on top of the inner cover.  This pail contains sugar syrup (2 parts sugar to 1 part water).  The bees eat this syrup in the fall when there are no natural food sources left.

I also prop the hive up at the back so that it is tilted slightly forward.  This allows any condensation to flow to the front of the hive and out the entrance instead of dripping down the center of the hive onto the cluster of bees.  I add a sheet of Styrofoam between the inner and outer cover for insulation.  Lastly, I hammer in a nail above the entrance.  This stops the Bee Cosy from blocking the entrance.  This facilitates air circulation and allows the bees to get in and out of the hive freely.

The bees do not love me hammering on their hive. 
A bunch came out the front entrance to see what was going on.

The after photo: a fully winterized hive.

My winterized bee yard.

Our final tally going into winter is three strong hives and one weak hive.  We also have two deep supers with full honey frames from two of our hives that did not survive the fall.  We will use these frames to feed the over-wintered hives in the spring before the dandelions bloom.

All the extra bee equipment we need to store for the winter.

There is nothing to do now but scrape down my extra equipment, wash my very dirty bee suit, and hope for the best.  Happy hibernating honey bees!

Field Dressing and Mulch More

Seamus and I got an unexpected break from yard work this morning thanks to a call from Ian saying he had hunted his first deer.  We headed out to the forest to help him field dress the deer and bring it home to hang.

Out in Ian's hunting spot, I had fun testing out his tree stand.  Seamus would have climbed up too if we had let him.  He threw a tantrum when we said he was too small.

Seamus "helped" by sitting strapped into the stroller facing away from us cleaning the deer.  We sang him nursery rhymes while we worked and he played with an old turkey feather he found in the forest.  He was an excellent sport about the whole thing.

With this task now finished and my trailer relieved of deer transportation duty, I look forward to another mulch filled afternoon.

It's All Coming Up Rainbows, Daffodils and...Mulch?

Today began with the discovery of a huge rainbow in our entrance way.  The boys were entranced.  There is nothing more magical then a rainbow, even if it is caused by your own fish tank.

The knowledge that winter is just around the corner, in combination with our love of a good deal, resulted in us purchasing some 350 daffodil bulbs this past weekend.  The emergence of daffodils signal the end of what is usually a very long winter.  They are a welcome sign each spring.  

Knowing how eagerly I await them, I always intend to plant more daffodil bulbs each autumn.  However, I am often foiled by my own forgetfulness. By fall I usually cannot remember where the daffodils had popped up in the spring.  At the suggestion of my mom, this past spring I got smart and took photos of my gardens.  This way I knew exactly which spots would benefit from a few extra bulbs.  I cannot wait to see all these new blooms come springtime!

Seamus and I finished the day by starting our mulching adventures.  Ian found us the best deal on garden mulch: $20 for a trailer full.  I picked up our first load this afternoon and Seamus and I spread it out on one of my flower beds.  This is the first of what I suspect will be many, many loads of mulch.  I hope my back holds out - all this shoveling is quite a change for a body used to sitting at a computer all day writing a dissertation!  I must admit though, I much prefer to be outside.  

Here we go!

Almost there! Phew!

Stay tuned for more mulching escapades in the coming days.

An Asparagus Timber

On this cold and rainy Monday, Seamus and I opted for an easy farm chore.  We clipped back our asparagus bushes.  Like any two year old, Seamus prefers chores that do not take too long and have very obvious results.  Who are we kidding?  I do too!

We snipped the enormous yellow bushes.

Halfway done.

We were surprised to find a bunch of raspberry canes hiding underneath.

An easy chore for a chilly Monday.  As the colder weather rolls in, the time for garden clean up has almost come to a end.  I must hurry and get those daffodil bulbs in the ground!

Jack Frost Left His Calling Card

Last night we had our first heavy frost.  This afternoon we witnessed our first few snowflakes.
Winter is on its way.  Seeing as there is little we can do to stop it, we might as well enjoy its beauty.

Liam was entranced by the glittery frost on the leaves and fence posts in the early morning sun.  He and I took a few pictures while doing our morning chores.

It is nice to appreciate the little things like the crunch of frosty grass under your farm boots.

Scooped the Poo Sludge out of your Eavestroughs Lately?

I have the best parents on the planet.  Not everyone's dad would climb onto the roof of their house to finish pressure washing the siding that is too high to reach on a ladder. It was driving me crazy to leave part of the house dirty.

Yes, that's my dad pressure washing my house.
Turns out I get my love of pressure washing from him.

Not everyone's mom would weed their garden while babysitting their toddler.

Mom and Seamus helping me with yard work.

My parents did both of these things freeing me up to learn how to clean out my eavestroughs.

True or false?  Eavestroughs stay clean as long as there are no big trees over the house.

Unequivocally false.  While there were no leaves in sight, it turns out that my eavestroughts were full of up to a half inch of a disgusting sludge of bird poo and shingle sand.  As I learned today, this occasionally needs to be scooped out.  We have never done this the entire time we have been living here.

The bird poop-shingle sand combo.

My sludgy eavestrough.

 Luckily my handy Dad saved the day once again.  He created a poop scoop out of an old Dory bubble bath container that worked like magic!

My full sludge bucket and handy Dory scoop.

Is collecting a whole pail full of poop sludge a victory?  Debatable.  At least I can sleep at night knowing my house has clean eavestroughs.  Funny how I slept just fine before I knew that they were dirty.  Oh, life will never be the same again.