Hello!

My goodness, I've been away from this space for longer than expected. I'm sure you all understand sometimes work and life just gets busy and there's not much time for anything else. My new job is going really well, but I am still working at my old job to help wind things up, so that is where much of my time and energy is focused right now. There is lots going on here on the homestead as well, so I thought I'd give you guys a quick update to show that we aren't just being lazy over here! ;)

We finished planting the vineyard! I say "we" but actually it was 99% David and 1% me. He worked really hard on this space, from cutting down trees and cleaning up the mess, to installing the support for the vines and finally getting them all planted. It took us several months from start to finish (check out more on that here) and we are both thrilled that the vines are in! PS - The blue tubes you see are grow tubes which act as a mini-greenhouse to get the vines growing.

The garden is coming along very well! We have so much planted, I can't even remember it all. Again, by "we" I mean mostly David haha. This year we went a bit crazy with starting tomato seeds that we saved from our tomatoes last year and had over 100 seedlings going under grow lights in the garage at one point. I ended up selling some plants to a coworker and we planted the majority of them in our garden. We didn't have enough space for them all in the garden beds, so many of them are in pots and other repurposed containers (like buckets).

Our main bee hive is doing incredibly well, but our split not so much. It's having a hard time getting up and going, and we are trying to figure out what's wrong and help it along as much as we can. But we are hopeful that we will be able to harvest a good amount of honey this year!

The animals are doing well and we actually gained a new guinea friend recently. One of our neighbor's guineas starting hanging around a couple weeks ago and now he won't leave. He's pretty entertaining, so we don't mind the extra company.

All the plants around the house are springing back to life and it is amazing to see the transformation. After the horrible winter, I just can't get enough of all the green out here!

I hope I can post again soon, but in the meantime, I just want to thank each of you who has checked in and sent sweet messages and emails to me letting me know I'm missed. It means so much that you would think of me and take time out of your day to say hello!

We have a busy weekend planned, but hopefully we can get some relaxation in to recharge before the new week starts. I hope we can get in at least a little hammock time :)

~Tammy

Bee Update

Our bees made it through the winter! Hooray! We were nervous since this was our first winter as beekeepers and we have heard that many beekeepers have losses over the winter. One main reason why the bees die is starvation, so we left all of last year's honey in the hive for the bees. Of course being their first year there wasn't a lot of excess honey, but we did keep it in the hive just to be safe. We also began feeding them with a sugar board over the last few weeks to make sure they have enough food until they can start foraging again.

We are also working on moving the hive back a little bit to sit on our new hive stand that will hold all of the future hives. In order to make sure the bees return to their hive, it is best to only move it several inches each day and take some time. This way they won't get confused and disoriented when returning from foraging during the day. Apparently they don't like change very much!

Making sure his veil is secure before moving the hive!

It's still a little bit too cold and windy to do a full inspection of the hive, but from the population we're seeing out flying each day, we're hopeful that the hive is strong. We even saw several bees bringing pollen back today. I'm so happy that the bees made it through this harsh winter!

~Tammy

Chai Coconut Ice Cream

I recently mentioned how I had ice cream on the brain, so to get my fix I made a batch of chai coconut ice cream from one of my favorite food blogs, Cookie + Kate. This recipe first caught my eye last year because the base is coconut milk, not dairy milk. I don't digest dairy very well, but I still love ice cream, so I just make my own with coconut milk since it's easier on my tummy.  

Kate's recipe calls for mixing spices with black tea, but since I already had chai tea bags in my pantry, I just used those so I didn't have to mess with all the spices. Honey is added to sweeten up the ice cream, another reason why I really like this recipe. I try to use natural sweeteners whenever I can and honey is a favorite. Hopefully this year we will be able to harvest some of our own honey from our bee hives to use in future batches of this ice cream!

The ice cream is perfectly delicious as is, but this time I decided to add some mini chocolate chips and walnuts on top and found that it was such a good combination. I like different textures in my food, so the chocolate chips and walnuts added a satisfying crunch to the luscious, smooth ice cream base.

Have you ever made your own ice cream?

~Tammy

Honey Sweetened Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

Since the start of the new year, David and I have been making a serious effort to be healthier. We indulged a little bit too much during the holidays, so now we are attempting to make up for that by getting active, drinking green juice, cutting out processed sugar, and making all of our meals at home.

We both love sweet treats so I still want to incorporate those into our diet, but make them a bit healthier. Recently I came across a recipe online from Recipe Girl for honey sweetened low fat banana chocolate chip muffins and I knew I had to try them out.

The recipe uses ingredients like applesauce, yogurt, whole wheat flour, and oat flour to lighten up the muffins and make them low fat. Each muffin only has 164 calories and 2.2g of fat, so I don't feel guilty after enjoying one of them.

I've already made these twice, and put some of my latest batch in the freezer to pull out and enjoy for a quick breakfast or snack. I love that the recipe uses honey because since we are expanding our apiary this year, hopefully we can use our own honey soon!

If you are looking for a healthier muffin that doesn't taste healthy and is still sweet and delicious, check out the recipe here.

~Tammy

Prepare Your Beehive For Winter In 4 Steps

Since bringing home our bees this past spring, we have really enjoyed getting to know more about bees and what it takes to keep the hive healthy and happy. We feel like we have learned a lot so far, but I know we haven't even scratched the surface of everything we need to know. Sometimes it feels daunting, but we are just educating ourselves as we go along and hoping for the best.

It is starting to get much colder here (with the exception of some warmer days this week) so we have begun to prepare our hive for the winter. During the colder months, the bees don't leave the hive at all. Instead, they all form a tight cluster around the queen to lock in the warmth and keep her alive. They do need honey to survive the winter, and one main reason for hives not making it through the winter is starvation. So it is essential that your bees have enough to eat and that you help them as much as you can to keep the hive warm and free from invading pests.

Here's how we prepared our hive for winter.

Step 1 - Remove any extra honey supers.

The honey that is harvested each year is taken from the honey super. If the bees fill up the upper and lower deeps with honey, typically that is enough to sustain the hive over the winter and anything in the super is surplus honey that is safe to take.

However, we have decided to leave all the honey in the super since this is our first winter with bees and we want to be sure they have as much honey as possible. We did remove one of the supers that did not have any honey in it to reduce the space that has to be kept warm within the hive and help out the bees a little bit.

Step 2 - Replace the entrance reducer and install a mouse guard.

During the summer we took the entrance reducer out to help with ventilation in the hive, but in the winter it needs to be replaced. It helps keep the hive warm and also prevents any intruders from entering the hive. We used a piece of hardware cloth we had lying around to create a mouse guard over the entrance. Apparently mice really like to invade hives during the winter!

We will probably reduce the entrance size down even further.

Step 3 - Create a windbreak.

We decide to stack some bales of straw around the hive to help insulate and serve as a windbreak. We left the entrance of the hive open of course, but placed the straw around the other three sides.

Step 4 - If there is not enough honey, feed your bees.

We were able to get into the hive for a quick inspection yesterday since it was really warm, and noticed that a lot of the honey in the super was already gone. Since there wasn't much left, we need to feed our bees. When it's not too cold, you can feed a sugar syrup to the bees. However, when the temperatures dip below freezing, it is advised to feed sugar candy or fondant because the sugar syrup might freeze.

Searching for honey.

In addition to these four steps, some beekeepers also medicate their hive to prevent mites and certain other diseases. We felt kind of overwhelmed with all the opinions out there on medicating, and have not treated our hive at all yet this year. This is one area we definitely need to research more.

Do you keep bees? Have you prepared your hives for winter yet?

~Tammy

PS - Don't forget - today is the first day in our Christmas Cookie Tag series! Head on over to Jackie's blog to see what she has to offer today.

Shared with Maple Hill Hop 

Year In Review

Tomorrow marks the two year anniversary of this little blog of ours (you can see our very first ever post here), so as we did last year this time, we thought it would be fun to look back on the past year and see what all we've accomplished. Sometimes it seems like we aren't moving fast enough toward our goals, but seeing a list of all we've achieved in the last year is very encouraging and keeps us excited to continue our journey to self-sufficiency. Here's what we've been up to this past year.

1) Expanded our flock of guineas when one of our hens went broody and hatched out her own keets.

2) Got our first big snow since moving to the country and learned about being prepared for winter storms.

3) Tried our hand at making maple syrup (part 1 and part 2) from our own maple trees.

4) Contributed to our first e-book, Farm to Table through the Year.

5) Developed an easy (and beautiful!) method for drying herbs from our garden.

6) Delved into the world of beekeeping when we brought home our first nuc colony.

7) Added to our flock with five new pullets.

8) Witnessed the magic firsthand of letting a broody hen hatch out her own chicks.

9) Rescued two tiny kittens (Gizmo and Emma) who just appeared in our chicken coop one day.

10) Successfully transplanted fig trees from my grandma's garden and harvested our first figs.

11) Had great luck with planting cucumbers for the first time.

12) Opened an Etsy shop to sell prints of photos taken on our homestead.

13) Grew sunflowers for the first time.

14) Built our own reclaimed wood farmhouse table.

15) Tried a new heirloom variety of tomatoes with great success.

We're really proud of all we've learned this past year and can't wait to see where the next year takes us. We hope you'll continue to follow along in our journey!

~Tammy and David

Bee Oasis

Look what we did yesterday!

We inherited this cute little pond from David's grandma and we worked hard yesterday to get it installed in the garden area behind our back porch. It was a little bare back there, so we thought this would add a nice touch to the yard and work double duty as a bee oasis!

When planning out the space, David had the idea to plant some flowers that the bees would like. He went to the store and saw some Russian sage that the bees were going crazy over, so he picked up some of that for our new backyard space.

We really didn't have a water source for the bees other than a bucket set up close to the hive, so this will also work as a great way for them to get water. The bees do need something to land on while drinking, so we will probably add some more plants like lily pads to make sure they stay safe while getting drinks.

I'm really happy with how it turned out and I think it makes such a nice addition to our yard. I love sitting on the porch swing listening to the water flow in the pond. It's so calming and soothing. Eventually we may get some fish for the pond as well; I'd love to see some colorful koi fish swimming around in there!

~Tammy

Pollen-Bound Hive?

Upon an inspection of the beehive a few weeks ago, we noticed there was very little brood and we couldn't find the queen. We were really worried that we may have killed her somehow (every first time beekeeper's worst nightmare). David was making arrangements to buy a new queen ASAP so our hive wouldn't be too affected by her absence, but before we jumped the gun we contacted a few experts for their opinions (thanks for all your help, Natalie!).  We decided first of all to conduct a very thorough search of each frame to make absolutely certain that we did not have a queen before buying a replacement.

And what do you know, we found her!

We were so relieved once we spotted the queen, but still worried about the lack of brood. During the summer when they are foraging nonstop, worker bees only tend to live about six weeks. They basically work themselves to death. If the queen hasn't laid any new eggs in a while, the hive population could drop drastically in a short period of time. So this led us to do more research on why our queen would not be laying up to her full potential, and we reached the conclusion that she may be pollen bound. Many of the frames were so packed with pollen (and also honey, but not as much as pollen) that it seemed the queen had nowhere to lay her eggs. David figured we should switch around some of the frames, moving some that were still somewhat empty over by where the queen was hanging out. By giving her some frames with space to lay eggs, we hoped she would ramp up production.

While I was at work yesterday, David opened the hive to take a quick peek and noticed a lot more brood. Success! We caught the problem fairly early on and were able to solve it with a little research and following our instincts. So far there has been such a steep learning curve to this whole beekeeping adventure (which I fully expected) but I'm glad we are learning so much about them. After all, if everything went perfectly, we wouldn't learn much, right? At least that's what I keep telling myself!

~Tammy

How We Homestead: Real Food

Welcome to the third installment of our new five-week series, How We Homestead. Each Wednesday I write a post about a different homesteading topic to shed more light on where we are on our path to self-sufficiency and what homesteading looks like for us.

If you read the first installment in this series, you may remember that the documentary Food, Inc. was the catalyst for us in getting started on our homesteading journey. Since seeing the film, we have been focused on providing real, whole foods for our family. For us, that means growing as much of our own food as possible. I am somewhat of a control freak, so it is right up my alley to have a hand in each step of the gardening process, from seed to harvest.

Row of cucumbers.


This is only our second year gardening out here, so we still are in the planning and organizing phase. Last year was sort of a test run, and we made lots of changes to the garden area this year. The biggest change was defining a large spot for the garden and building raised beds. We are still working on it, but we finally see an end in sight! We just have to add a little more mulch in between the beds (this way we don't have to worry about weeds) and finish the fence to keep all the critters away from our veggies.

Radishes popping up like crazy!

Our first strawberry!

In addition to our large vegetable garden, we also took up beekeeping this year and are eager to harvest our first batch of honey. In the meantime, I buy local raw honey from the head of the beekeeping club in our area. I love to use honey in place of white sugar whenever I can (especially in my homemade granola and ice cream) so we tend to go through quite a bit!

My first time holding a frame full of our bees. I finally did it!

One of our girls foraging on sedum blooms.

Earlier this year, we decided to try tapping our maple trees to make our own syrup. While we found that we didn't feel the process was worth it for the time and effort required, we are so glad that we tried and learned more about how syrup is made.

If you've been reading this blog for a while now, you know that we also have a flock of chickens and guineas to provide us with delicious farm fresh eggs. At first I was only concerned with keeping chickens for their eggs, but along the way I have learned how much fun they are and what great companion animals they can be. I just love my chickens and the gorgeous eggs they provide for my family!

Our ultimate goal is to be able to grow and preserve all the food that we eat here on our homestead. I realize that is a very lofty goal, and we are nowhere near it yet, but it is what we are working towards every day.

Four other awesome bloggers are participating in this series as well, so don't forget to check out their posts to read more about where they are in their homesteading journey. You can find them here -

Staci at Life At Cobble Hill Farm
Meg at Little Homestead
Daisy at Maple Hill 101
Amber at Making A Home

Thanks so much for reading and please do let me know if you have any questions or comments. I'd love to hear from you! Don't forget to check back next Wednesday for the fourth installment in the series where I will be focusing on what a typical day looks like for us out here on the homestead.

~Tammy

Shared with Home Sweet Home, How Does Your Garden Grow  

Hive Inspection

Over the weekend, we had a chance to open up our beehive again and we were very happy to see that things are progressing nicely! We observed a good pattern of healthy, capped brood and lots of multi-colored pollen. We weren't able to locate the queen, but the presence of capped brood is a good sign that she is laying and doing her job well. The bees had drawn out comb on seven of the ten frames, so it was already time to put on a second deep hive body to give them more room to expand.

After taking off the outer cover and hive top feeder, we saw there was quite a bit of burr comb on top of the frames, so David scraped the excess comb off using the hive tool so that he could get to the frames more easily. We are saving all of the bits of comb that we scrape off along the way so that we can melt it down to render the wax for all sorts of things like candles and lip balm!

The first time we opened up the hive the bees seemed more than a little agitated at our interruption. I was really scared to be honest, so I stayed back while David did all the work. This visit went much more smoothly, and I actually got up close and checked out the frames. I was the designated smoker while David pulled out each frame for us to examine. The bees were definitely more calm this time around, probably because they have had time to get used to their new environment and also because we used more smoke. All in all, we were pleased and felt really good after this inspection!

After everything was closed up, I had a chance to reflect on the visit to the hive and make an entry in our bee book.

We thought it would be a good idea to keep a bee journal and write down our observations from each visit to the hive. As beginning beekeepers, I think this will really help us to understand our hive more and it will serve us for years to come. It will be a great resource to look back on and help us plan for future years of beekeeping.

After this successful inspection, I can't wait to get into the hive again and take a closer look. Maybe I'll even do some of the heavy lifting next time around and let David be the smoker!

~Tammy

PS - My friend Cindy over at Old Time Farmhouse has featured our homestead today on this month's Farm Fresh Feature! I am was so excited to have this opportunity and I think the post turned out really well. I'd appreciate it if you would hop over to Cindy's blog and check it out. You can view the post by clicking here. Thanks so much for your support!

Shared with From The Farm Blog Hop 

The Bees Are Here!

After months of researching, planning, and waiting, we finally have bees on our property!

For the past few weeks, I have been in contact with our mentor, Greg, from the local beekeepers' club about picking up our nuc, and last night I got word that the queen had been introduced successfully and our hive was ready to go! We drove out to his place right away to pick up our nuc.

When we arrived, Greg was suiting up and getting the smoker ready. He went out behind his garage to retrieve our hive and bring it out to the car for us while we made small talk with another beekeeper who was there to pick up some bees as well. When Greg returned with our hive, we reminded him again that we were a little apprehensive about our hour long drive home with thousands of bees in the car with us, so he made sure to close off the entrance with a piece of paper towel. We were still a little worried about the bees escaping through the outer cover, so he rearranged it slightly to make sure they couldn't get out. But when doing so, a few bees did escape and we had to wait for them to exit the car. David went around to get into the driver's seat and noticed there was a bee stuck in his hair. He tried to calmly get it out, but the bee ended up stinging him right on the top of his head! I joked that at least he got his first sting out of the way already. He didn't see the humor at the time, but now I think he's coming around. At least we know he's not allergic!

After David had carefully moved the hive to the prepared spot behind the house, he made sure everything was secure and in place before removing the stopper in the entrance. As soon as the paper towel was gone, bees started pouring out of the tiny hole, eager to check out their new surroundings.

And with that, we decided to call it a night. It was getting dark, so we went inside to congratulate ourselves for a successful bee delivery and make some sugar water to feed them (we just boiled water and added sugar at a 1:1 ratio, stirring until the sugar dissolved, then let the mixture cool and it was ready to go).

This morning we woke up before the sun to suit up and get the bees fed. We moved quickly, but carefully, since it was chilly and drizzling (it's not ideal to mess with the hive under these circumstances, but we really needed to get the food in there for the bees). Luckily David got the smoker going really well straight away and we were able to get in and out with no stings and only a minimal disturbance to the hive.

It's so funny to think back to several years ago when I read The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd and fell in love with the book. It is one of my all-time favorites. Little did I know that I would be keeping bees myself one day. My favorite part of the book is when the main character describes her first lesson in tending to the bees from an experienced beekeeper -

“I hadn't been out to the hives before, so to start off she gave me a lesson in what she called 'bee yard etiquette.' She reminded me that the world was really one bee yard, and the same rules work fine in both places. Don't be afraid, as no life-loving bee wants to sting you. Still, don't be an idiot; wear long sleeves and pants. Don't swat. Don't even think about swatting. If you feel angry, whistle. Anger agitates while whistling melts a bee's temper. Act like you know what you're doing, even if you don't. Above all, send the bees love. Every little thing wants to be loved.”

For some reason, that passage really stuck with me throughout the years. Now I understand why. It's so humbling to look back and know that in some small way, I was being prepared for my future even though I didn't realize it at the time.

I'm so glad the bees are finally here and now we can jump head first into learning all there is about them. I hope you'll follow along with us on our beekeeping journey!

~Tammy

Shared with Down Home Blog Hop, Farmgirl Friday  

How To Get Started With Beekeeping

David has really been wanting to keep bees for a while now to help pollinate our garden and to provide us with delicious honey, and we decided this year to finally take the plunge and get started with beekeeping. We both didn't know much about beekeeping when we made this decision, but we have jumped headfirst into it and are ready to go! I am excited to share our experiences with you and hope we can help out anyone who is thinking of becoming a beekeeper through our own successes and mistakes.

I thought I would share what has been our process so far for getting started with beekeeping. We are total newbies and have no prior experience, so if you have any advice for us we'd love to hear it!
 
1) Get An Education
First of all, we read Beekeeping For Dummies to get a general education on all things bees. I would highly recommend the book because I feel like I have a good understanding of beekeeping now. Of course we are not experts, but I feel like after reading the book we have a solid foundation from which to start.

2) Order Your Hive
David did a lot of research on hives and we decided to order from Rossman Apiaries in Georgia. We chose the super deluxe beginners outfit which includes everything you need to get started. This hive came unassembled so David had to take a couple of weeks to put everything together. It is made out of cypress wood so it should be very durable, but we are going to paint the outside to protect the wood even more. Rossman was really great to work with and promptly answered several of our questions about the hive components after we received our order.

3) Connect With Other Beekeepers In Your Area
There is one prominent beekeeper in our area who sells his honey at all the farmers markets and the local health food store. We knew he would be a wonderful resource for us, so we contacted him via email to see if he had any advice on how to get started. He encouraged us to attend the area beekeeper's meeting last month, but we were unable to make it. Luckily, we were able to go to the meeting this month which took place last night and we learned so much! We met another beekeeper there who started keeping bees with his father when he was a teenager. He has many years of experience and at the present keeps over 900 hives! We were able to pick his brain for a while and learned so much in our conversation. I know our contacts will be an invaluable resource for us. Not only that, it is so fun to talk about bees with others who are equally as excited as we are! It seems that beekeepers love to talk about bees and are a very passionate bunch.

4) Decide How To Acquire Your Bees
There are several options for getting bees. Just starting out, you can order package bees online, but we've decided that we are most interested in obtaining a nucleus colony (called a "nuc"). With a nuc colony, you get several frames with the bees already in place, working away. To us it seems that this is a better option for first time beekeepers. The beekeeper we met last night with over 900 hives said that we could get a nuc from him next month. We will just bring him a box of six frames and he will insert four frames including the nuc into our box. He will monitor the colony for us for a couple of weeks to make sure the queen is laying and everything is running smoothly. Then we will pick up our new bees and bring them home!

It is thrilling to think that in just a few short weeks we will have bees taking up residence in our new hive. To be honest, I am a little bit scared but I'm hoping that will subside in time. I'm sure all new beekeepers feel at least somewhat nervous, right?! With any luck, the curiosity and excitement will overshadow any anxiety I have over beekeeping. I just have to get that first sting out of the way.

Do you keep bees? If not, are they on your wish list for your homestead?

~Tammy

Shared with Clever Chicks Blog Hop, Eco Kids Tuesday, Backyard Farming Connection Hop  

Disclaimer: By clicking on the link above to Beekeeping For Dummies and making a purchase, we will receive a small commission. Rossman Apiaries did not sponsor this post and we received no compensation for our endorsement.

Bee Tree

I first wrote about our plans to have the property logged back in February. Since then we have learned a lot and realized it's not nearly as simple of a process as we previously thought. We were just marking trees that we thought looked good and wanted to keep, but there is WAY more behind it!

A couple months ago I called our regional Missouri Department of Conservation office to get in touch with the resource forester in our area. He has been out to our property twice now, and most recently marked all our trees that we will get cut down (more on this in a future post!). He is such a smart guy, and pointed out lots of cool things to David about the types of trees we have out here. In particular, he found one very interesting thing on our property...

A bee tree!

We never noticed it before, but a colony of bees has set up shop in this old, hollowed out tree.

David has been talking about wanting bees for some time now, so he was pretty excited when they found this. We are going to talk to a local beekeeper tomorrow, but from what we understand, it is possible to move the colony from the tree to a different location. We can't harvest their honey as it is now, but if we move the colony to a beehive we can eventually collect the honey. I can't imagine anything better than having my own honey!

~Tammy