We did end up purchasing a tractor (Bobcat CT2025) and for the first time last Saturday I tried it by gathering soil with the front loader to create beds for our flower plugs from Farmer Baileys. We settled on a 25 horsepower tractor with an open cabin. We did look at enclosed cabins with 50 horsepower but for now we feel more comfortable with a smaller tractor and where we have better visibility all around. I've heard of way to many tractor accidents this past year.
We did plant a couple hundreds of flower plugs approximately two weeks ago and I was a bit disheartened to find out this past Saturday that the deer did eat some of our plants. So now our planting has come to a huge halt and I’ve been knee-deep in research trying to find cost effective deer fencing. Fencing is not cheap. I’ve looked at soooooo many options from google searches, to YouTube videos, to Alibaba. My head is spinning. Deer can jump 7 feet of fence and even 8 feet. I also looked at a couple of cheap DIY deer fencing ideas but I wanted an option to also keep the small critters away. Yesterday morning we finalized our purchase and settled on 7’ welded wire mesh (2"x2" squares) from Deerbusters with 12’ wooden square posts from https://www.menards.com/main/home.html. Quick tip! I always search Google to find possible coupons individual businesses may be offering and often times I have had success. In this instance, I found a coupon for Deerbusters for 5% off. Score! We will be driving the 12' posts down into the ground by 3 feet. We will then add the 7 footer wire mesh and add additional monofilament tension wire to run up top about one foot apart.
What else has been new? We have started beekeeping and purchased two families of bees. Last Sunday, I introduced a box of bees to their new hive and I must say that evening all I saw when I went to bed was buzzing bees. The whole bee process can be a bit traumatic but I see that it takes time getting used to. Today I opened the hives for the first time after one week. I made sure to have my smoker on hand. After opening the first hive, I noticed that the bees were drawing out comb. If you didn't know, honey bees make wax on their bodies. There's actually a gland that produces flakes of wax. That wax is used to build the comb within a beehive. This process of using the beeswax to make comb is actually called drawing out comb. I also tried to spot the queen but had no success. I used a method I found on YouTube: a quick 5 second eye sweep on each side of the frame multiple times. I quickly closed the box and opened up the second hive. Those bees also were busy drawing out comb but there was a bit of a problem. The queen was never released from her queen cage. The queen cage is a small plastic container with queen candy blocking its entrance so the queen bee can't get out. Once the cage is placed in the hive, the bees are to eat through the candy to set her free. In this instance, after one week, she was still in her cage. Well, I saw that there was a cap I could pry open with a sharp object. I quickly opened it and placed the cage back into the hive and closed it promptly. I didn't want her to fly away. In a couple of days I will check to see if she is doing ok.
This next month is going to be super packed and busy as we need to prepare our flowerbeds, plant all our fruit trees, plant our flower plugs, plant all our dahlia tubers, install a fence, transfer our chickens to the Michigan property, monitor our bees and figure out our current irrigation system on the farm. We have a meeting this coming Wednesday with our irrigation company Trickle Eez. They know our irrigation system like the back of their hand and we need them to explain the entire system to us. We don't even know how to turn it on!
Of course, the list can go on and on, but by the help of others, and of course, the will of God, we hope to accomplish these tasks. May is a huge month for us. My goal is to fully enjoy the farm and have it take care of itself to some extent. Till next time…