Farm Update

It has been a busy, busy summer here on Gael Glen Farm.  However, I cannot entirely blame my blog hiatus on that...I have been sick - nothing life threatening - quite the opposite, the best kind of sick (if that is even possible).  I am thrilled to announce that we are expecting another dependent here on the farm - due around the end of February 2015.  It is this little munchkin #2 that has been making me extremely ill for the past six weeks.  As noted by many a pregnant woman before, clearly "morning sickness" was named by a man because it happens all day long!

Baby #2 is laying on his/her back and has his/her legs crossed and
tucked up near his/her tummy.  This baby was very shy and did not
want his/her photo taken - it took forever for the (very patient)
ultrasound technician to get a photo.

In other very exciting news, Baby Liam - who is growing oh, so quickly into a toddler - has finally started to walk.  Finally.  At 14.5 months old.  We were beginning to think it was never going to happen.  Today he walked all by himself down to "Baaa!" at the sheep.  He literally stood in front of them and shrieked "Baa!  Baa!" over and over and over.  Much to his delight they obliged him by "Baa-ing" back enthusiastically.  He continued his journey by walking independently to the chicken coop to shriek at the hens.  He then walked to the pond at which point he was redirected.  It is time to fence around the pond.  That has moved up to the top of our To Do List.

Speaking of sheep, Alice and her lambs, Abbott and Violet, are doing fabulously.  Their vet appointment was a breeze.  Abbott weathered his minor surgery to become a wether like a trooper.  $450 dollars later I have vaccinated sheep and no possibility of incestuous pregnancies.  I recently sourced hay for the sheep to eat during the winter months and the farmer who will be supplying said hay thought it was hilarious that I had a vet come out for sheep.  "But they aren't worth anything!" he argued.  Fair point, I did spend more on the vet than I did buying the sheep, but now I know how to vaccinate livestock and I have happy, healthy pet sheep.  Worth every penny.

While I usually do not like to admit I am wrong (who does?!) - today there was no way around it.  I was very, very, very wrong.  My very wrong decision was made three weeks ago when I faced the very unappealing prospect of suiting up my very nauseous body in a hot, constricting bee suit and conducting hive inspections by lifting and moving 40+ lbs hive supers in 25+ degree weather.  The prospect was simply so awful - who wants to puke inside a bee suit? - that I decided to give the bees a short, unsupervised period (a bee vacation of sorts).  The hives were all doing great three weeks ago so I figured that the bees would simply keep up the status quo and continue to store away honey in their honey supers.  I was very, very wrong.

Apparently a few weeks of unsupervised bees makes for a ghastly mess.  Only one of our four hives behaved itself.  Two of them actually proceeded with unauthorized hive splits and established new colonies under the bottom boards of the original hives.  What a disaster!  It took me 2.5 hours this morning (thank goodness Liam had a very long nap) to sort out the mess.  Now, unfortunately I think we have five hives instead of four (it was not in our plan to expand our hives) and a (somewhat) compromised honey harvest.  I learned my lesson: unsupervised bee vacations are like letting a toddler feed themselves chef boyardee ravioli - very, very messy and time consuming to clean up.