Left Out in the Cold (by Choice)

My chickens are usually really good about heading inside the coop when it gets dark.  I never have to chase them in.  However, this morning when I went back to let them out, there were already two chickens frolicking in the chicken run. 

The rogue chickens hiding behind the apple tree.  I can still see you!

The only explanation is that these two birds went rogue last night and hid outside to avoid bed time.  Goodness, it sounds like I am talking about the boys!  The two avian rascals are the chicks our broody hen raised this summer.

Mama hen and her three chicks in August.

I will be careful to take a better look around the yard tonight before shutting the birds in.  Not only is there a risk of foxes and raccoons for hens that brave the night, but it is cold!  It went down to minus seven degrees Celsius last night. It will be much safer and toastier inside the coop.  Silly chickens.

A Last Hurrah...for Now.

With a household of sick kiddos - Liam has a doctor's appointment at 2pm for an ear ache - we are a bit of a mess.  At least the boys sleep more when they are ill.

Despite the frozen ground, this morning I tackled our rhubarb patches during nap time.  These patches were newly planted this year as replacements for our old rhubarb patch that suffered from root rot.  I raked up some leaves and weeded as best I could.  Hopefully, something comes back in the spring.  Rhubarb is supposed to be resilient, isn't it?

I also figured that there is no time like the present to tackle my last flower garden - the pond garden.  You never know when something else will come up that inhibits me from gardening duty.  I better do it now, while I still can!

Ugh.

I trimmed and weeded and....voila!

A bit better.

In the middle of my garden work, I received a dreaded bing-bong on my phone as my final dissertation comments landed in my inbox.  That signals the end of my farm-cation.  For now.  Back to the computer and the brain work instead of the yard work.  Sigh.

Some Love for Charlie P.

Our miniature donkey Charlie P. is a very special personality on the farm. 

 Seamus adores her and she is the lucky recipient of his hugs and cuddles.

There is nothing cuter than a toddler who loves his donkey.

A Hive Body Scrape Down

Ian is extraordinarily helpful in keeping my bee equipment in tip top shape.  I do most of the hands on work with the bees.  Ian helps me keep everything clean, organized, and properly stored.  This weekend he washed out all our feeder pails in preparation for storage.

He also used a hive tool to scrape down all the supers, frames, and inner covers I brought in from the bee yard on Thursday.  The beeswax and propolis (bee glue) is much easier to scrape off when it is cold - it just flakes off.  In hot weather it is all sticky and gooey.

Before

During

After. All clean.

Now everything is ready to be stored for winter.

All I have left to do is wash my bee suit.  A job for another day.

A Tidy Fish Habitat

With the boys on holiday with Grandma and Grandpa at the cottage, it was time for Ian and I to get some of the less kid-friendly chores out of the way.  In comparison to skinning the deer and taking her to the butcher (one of Ian's jobs for today), cleaning the fish tank might seem like a good chore to do with kids.  It is not.  Allowing them to help usually results in water all over both the kitchen and living room floors and fish suffering from PTSD.

First I scooped all the goldfish out of the tank.  They each got their own temporary residence in a mixing bowl.  Without boys terrorizing them by sticking their fingers in the bowls, this was a relatively peaceful relocation.

I then emptied out two-thirds of the water, cleaned lots of fish poop out of the gravel, and scraped algae off the inside of the tank walls.  I cleaned out the filter with an old toothbrush.

I refilled the tank with fresh, clean water - half hard water from our well and half reverse osmosis water.  I added some liquid aquarium plant minerals and a new branch decoration.  We still need to replace the fluorescent light with a new one - the hardware store was out of stock.  So far so good.  The tank looks much improved and the fish seem happy with their tidy habitat.

All clean.  Good as new.

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!