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Wood was the first crop we took from the farm, and continues to be an important component of our economy and our lives.  When we bought the land in the late 70’s it was entirely covered in woods.  Most of the trees were about 50 years old, but there were many younger trees and a few really old ones.  In those early years we lived in Fairfax and visited the land nearly every weekend, and took home a pickup truck load of wood after each visit.  We used some ourselves and sold the rest in our neighborhood.  By the time we built our house and moved here, in 1985, we had cleared about 7 of our 23 acres.  Those 7 acres are where we planted our first Christmas trees.

When the rush of Christmas is over, and Sally and I are alone again, we walk the woods to identify the trees to be harvested for firewood.  We mark the dead and dying trees, and those competing with more desirable trees.  There is only so much sky for the trees to occupy as they grow, and some must be taken out so others can thrive.  We take this decision-making seriously. And either one of us is free to remove the marking tape if we just can’t bear to see a particular tree come down.

It us up to me to do the cutting.  I love this work, and consider the time I spend in the woods each winter to be a highlight of the year.  The air is cold, the light is beautiful and the work is absorbing.  There is an art to felling a tree just right, and each one presents its own challenges.  Getting the tree to fall safely and without damaging others is of paramount importance.  Once the tree is down I cut it up into fireplace length billets, load them on my tractor cart and take them to the splitter. Once split I stack the wood either for our use or to be sold in the Fall.   Son-in-law Richard Day and I bought a hydraulic splitter about 4 years ago, and it does a fine job, but I miss the satisfaction of hand splitting, as I did it for so many years.  One of the casualties of age.

Our wood stove sits in the center of our house and is its focal point in winter. It provides all the heat we need, and takes about four cords of wood to do the job.  Coming in from the cold outdoors we stand close to soak in the heat, retreating slowly as we warm up. Each morning the ashes are emptied and the first of the day’s wood is brought in.  On a cold day we easily burn 100 lbs of wood, but many days require only a few logs.  And we burn all kinds of wood, depending on the weather.  Oak is for the seriously cold nights.  Poplar is burned when the weather is milder, and pine, maple and other species are used for daytime heat.  In the warmer months we will often have fires at our large fieldstone fire pit as we watch the sun go down and the stars come out.  The fire seems to encourage slow and thoughtful conversation, and provides a restful focus.

The woods soothe our souls.  We walk them at all seasons of the year.  In the heat of summer the paths through the woods are always cooler and darkly inviting.  In the winter the woods are open and intricately lit. These walks, and the rituals of selecting the trees, felling and sawing and splitting are all part of the fabric of our lives.  We are lucky indeed to live among trees.

Chickens are as close to the perfect animal that I think there is. It is good to eat, lays wonderful eggs, eats weeds, bugs and kitchen scraps, and produces excellent manure. Everybody should have chickens. But there is a huge social stereotype working against chickens. Even out here in the country the newer neighborhoods permit dogs, cats and horses but prohibit chickens. Maybe that is a carryover from the depiction of poverty-stricken folks back in the 1930’s who lived in shacks but always had chickens. Instead of being stigmatized for this association the chicken should be honored…it was virtually the only animal these destitute people could manage to keep, and it helped to sustain them through some pretty hard times.

We started keeping chickens back in Fairfax City in the 1960’s. I’m sure there was an Ordinance against this, but we didn’t ask and no one ever complained for the 25 years that we lived there. We did not have a rooster, though, since not everyone in the area wanted to be awakened at dawn.

At the moment we have 15 hens here at the farm, and no roosters. I keep the hens in until mid-afternoon so they will lay their eggs in the nesting boxes. I let them out to roam around later, and they love to eat the green weeds, bugs, and sometimes the plants growing in the garden. But the damage is slight, and it is such fun to watch them feasting and running free. Late in the evening all the hens come back to the coop and jump up onto their roosts for the night, and I close the door behind them. The number of hens tends to vary since Mr. Fox and Mr. Raccoon occasionally take one home for dinner.

We need a rooster to complete the menagerie. The hens can get along perfectly well without him, and he eats a lot and produces nothing, but he is still great to have around. Each rooster has his own particular crowing music, and it is fun to hear our rooster shouting out and then listening for responses from other roosters in the neighborhood. He also crows when the hens are threatened…that sound from the chicken coop in the middle of the night is bad news. It is when the chickens are out on the grounds that the rooster best shows his repertoire of skills. He scouts for food, and when he finds something good he will cluck in a certain way and any hens nearby will come to the feast. He steps out of the way and lets the hens eat first. Once in a while he will use that call to attract a hen when his purpose is romantic, but the hens don’t seem to mind. In the evening when it is time to go back to the coop the rooster will not go to sleep until all the hens are in. He will go in and out looking for his girls, and also clucks to them in a certain way and eventually all assemble in safety. I will get a new rooster soon.

So, dear reader, throw off the yoke of conformity to old stereotypes and get yourself at least two hens. You will like them and your kids will love them. If you recycle you will have two living recyclers living right in your yard. Their eggs will be rich and tasty, and if the wolf ever shows up at your door you can eat them.

Notes From Oak Shade Farm – Honey Bees

The theme for this series of notes on our farm is how the various things we do here integrate into our economy and lives. Our bees are certainly a part of this economy, but it seems almost a sacrilege to think of them just in economic terms. Bees are fascinating, and in the real sense of the word they are awesome. Let me tell you about my bee life.

I got my first 3 hives in 1970, which I tucked away at the back of our half-acre lot in Fairfax City. Since moving to Rixeyville I have had as many as 16 colonies going at one time, and now try to keep just 4 strong colonies. The practical imperative for the beekeeper is to build up the strength of the colony so that it is in prime condition to harvest nectar when available and thus optimize the production of honey. But before talking about such practical matters I want to describe some of the awesomeness of bees.

On April 20th this year a swarm emerged from one of my hives. Swarming happens in the Spring when the old queen leaves the hive with all of the flying, or foraging, bees to found a new colony. Left behind are all the house bees who have not yet begun to forage, a new queen, plus eggs, larvae, stored pollen and honey. When the swarming bees emerge they fly up into the sky in a vortex perhaps 50 feet wide and 100 feet high. I watched as this swirling mass of bees moved out from the hive and slowly migrated across the field. Within minutes they began to congregate on a branch in a cedar tree, perhaps 50 feet above the ground. Somewhere near the center was the queen, and her scent acted like a magnet to draw all the flying bees to her. Soon there was a large brown mass of bees hanging from the branch. From this clustered swarm a few scout bees flew out to search for a new home for the bees. The next day I was working in the garden when I heard a loud buzzing…the swarm was getting ready to migrate to their new home. Again the vortex of bees formed and began moving at a slow walking pace into the woods. I walked beneath and within the vortex for about 200 yards, nearly to the edge of our property, wondering where they were going to end up. Much to my delight they settled into the ancient oak tree near our old cabin, where they must have found a cavity high up in a huge branch. The feeling of walking with the bees was thrilling, but what is awe-inspiring is how they know how to do what they did. What combination of signals told the bees that it was time to leave the old hive? How was the instinct to cluster together encoded? How were scout bees identified, and how was the information that they brought back communicated to the rest of the cluster? How was the decision made as to which new site to fly to? None of the bees engaged in these complex activities had ever done these things before. To me that is awesome.

I visit the bees perhaps 10 times a year. In the Spring I check to see if they are preparing to swarm, so I can take steps to prevent it if possible. I take the honey off in early July. Mite medication is applied in July after the honey is taken, and in the Fall I make sure they have enough stores to get them through the Winter. During the winter I check to see that they have not run out of honey, and feed them sugar-water supplement if they need it.

Each visit starts with a few puffs of cool smoke, from smoldering pine needles, which calms the bees by overwhelming the pheromone signals of alarm. The bee boxes each contain 10 wooden frames on which the wax combs are suspended, and by carefully removing the outside frames I can work toward the center where the brood area is. If I’m lucky I may see the queen there. She is a bit longer than the worker females and has a more slender tail compared to the large drones. But usually she is invisible in the mass of bees on the comb. I check to be sure that eggs and larvae are present, which tell me that the queen is alive and well, and that honey and bee bread (pollen mixed with honey) are stored near the brood area. When the honey flow is going on…from early May to late June in this area…I check to be sure there is sufficient room for the bees to store their treasure, and I add boxes to the hive if they need more space. I always put on at least 7 honey boxes…called supers…to be sure that the bees have enough space to store a big crop, and then I leave them alone to do their work.

The big day of the year comes in early July, when I take off the honey. The bees have been working for the last 6 weeks to bring in the crop, and I have no idea how things are going. Opening each hive is a moment of truth. Will the top box be heavy with honey, or disappointingly light? If the top box is empty maybe the next will be full, and if not that one perhaps the one beneath? Two years ago I had one colony that filled 7 boxes, from which I took nearly 150 lbs of honey, but the average yield is about 75 lbs per hive. Using a leaf blower I blow as many bees as possible off the honey combs while I am still at the hives, then I carry the boxes up to the barn where I shake any remaining bees off each frame before bringing them inside for extraction.

The extractor is basically a large centrifuge. I use an electric knife to slice away the thin wax covering over the honey comb, and place the frames in the extractor. The honey is spun out, first from one side of the comb and then from the other, and runs down the inside of the extractor. I collect it in a pan and then pour it through a clean piece of stocking to filter out the bits of wax, and the occasional bee, and then bottle it. In a good year I will get about 250 lbs of honey from my 4 hives.

Nearly every visit to the bees is an absorbing experience. Keeping the bees as quiet as possible, making the observations and manipulations that need to be made, and anticipating the sting that occasionally comes, are very focusing. Time melts away.

Bees need as many friends as possible these days, as the mites destroy wild colonies. There are many excellent women beekeepers, and teenagers can do it as well. A beehive needs very little space. The bees are usually gentle and easy to handle. And the experience and the honey are well worth the effort made to keep bees. Are you ready to give it a try?