Just so you know, my brother Eric is hanging in there. He is not doing well, but most people with Glioblastoma brain tumors don’t do well. I went and visited again after I made something like 20 cases of food for my Great-Grand-Nephew, he is disabled and my Sister-in-law has two to do total care for, she is one strong lady. Anyway Moe has a hard time swallowing and has to eat fine purées, so I spent some time cooking up low salt, low sugar, puréed food, canned it in my pressure canner and took it and visited a few days. I wish I lived closer, so that I could help Sheila more often and see my brother Eric more. Eric and Moe are both immune compromised though, and since then...well, they declared a Pandemic on Covid-19. I think my husband and I may have gotten it, but we didn’t get tested or anything, we both were sick for a few weeks and the cough lasted more like a month. I haven’t gone to see my brother since then.
With my husband home, I have been able to do more with the garden this year. I have done a lot of freezing and canning and I am not done yet. I actually made Ketchup this year and canning more tomato sauce and pickles than ever. My corn did fairly well this year and I tried asparagus beans which are still growing, but I have been pulling up the wilted and dead plants and need to till and get some new stuff planted. It is hot though, and it is hard for me to stay out long. I need to finish pulling weeds today and get back to work out there. I always need to do more than there are hours in the day to do it! My kitchen is a disaster too, buckets of eggs and canning paraphernalia, jars, pressure cooker and pans are everywhere, along with bins of things waiting for processing. I really need to go pick my Elderberries if the birds didn’t eat them all...and pears, and apples. I need to do a run-through of my orchard period.
I have a bunch of chicks I am raising right now too. One of my 8 foot brooders is full, my two porch brooders and I have three in the house too. Yesterday one of my turkey hens hatched 3 poults out and we need to keep an eye out for more babies. She was not happy when we took them away either. Once she finishes hatching, we may move her to a private coop and let her raise them...I haven’t decided yet. There is danger in letting her raise them as we do have large chicken snakes that get into the coops. I have not done a total head count of chicks, but I will estimate about 40 older chicks and about 50 less than two weeks old. I am about to clean my incubators and set more eggs too, my flock has been reduced more by predators this year...and my chickens are getting to old to produce near as many eggs. I have a lot of hens that go broody, and I let them sit on eggs for two weeks, then took all of them away and candled them. I put all of the ones that looked viable in the incubators, that is where some of the chicks came from. I got chicks locally too, but quite a few died and I still haven’t figured out why, but I am speculating the heat. After loosing a lot, we noticed when looking at trail camera footage temperatures got up to 111/112 degrees, I had the chicks on my covered back porch and had fans going, I have thermometers out there but never saw over 95 degrees. That is why I now have three brooders of chicks in my house too, I can control their environment a bit better. I think I have lost five so far, any that hatched and got stuck on their back for no telling how long seemed to die, I don’t get up in the middle of the night to check my incubators though. I did start checking more often during the day. There is a greater risk when you take eggs broody hens have been sitting on, they don’t all hatch at once. I have given the eggs 2 weeks to hatch, none hatched yesterday...so today I am cleaning out the incubators and starting a new batch. By the time these hatch, the oldest chicks which are 9 weeks old now can go to a grow out coop on the yard. My current house chicks can go out to the porch brooder or the ones in the yard depending on the temperatures.
Oh yeah! I got bees! We have been wanting bees for awhile. I bought a hive for my husband’s birthday a couple of years ago. A neighbor (well sort of) keeps bees and asked if I wanted a swarm, we had to put the hive together quickly but we have had them about five weeks or so now. We couldn’t see a queen but they did stay in the hive and built comb and were hoping they would create a Queen. No such luck...but, Steven brought me some capped brood and then I aquired a wild Queen from a swarm. The existing bees seemed to take to her quickly, and in a few days we will see if she has been laying eggs. I have to try and get there numbers up, if they don’t increase in numbers they may not make it through the winter...it is late in the year to get started, but I can feed them through the winter if needed and insulate the hive if I need to. My husband is excited too. He cleared trees up on the shooting range and we got fencing put up with a string of electric fencing on top to keep critters from climbing over it. We haven’t moved the hive up there yet, but after we get some more work done and make sure the hive will survive we have enough .room for at least five hives fenced. It will take time to get several hives established, but I am hopeful...and the bonus will be honey...and my orchard and garden will have plenty of pollinators!
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