Farm report

Winter on the "farm" is a little slower than summertime, but there's still lots of activity out there. The chickens are laying well. We're getting 4-5 eggs a day from our seven hens. I think I may not have announced to the internet the tragic end of the eighth chicken. Poor Charlie Shortino disappeared a while back during a day out in the yard. We assume she was taken by a predator of some sort but we had nothing but a pile of feathers as evidence. Right after the incident we confined the girls to coop. But lately they have been getting some supervised outings so they can explore the snow and peck at the bits of grass that are peeking through.


Walter is still an excellent chicken catcher, but mittens make the whole thing a bit more difficult. Don't worry. This awkward hug was quick and Love was not harmed.

Our more mysterious creatures, the bees, seem to be doing well. We don't check on them often, assuming they are taking care of themselves. Today was warm enough to take a peek and this is what we found:

Ramona is full of bees! According to what we've read, (Ok, what Kristin has read. I'm lazy.) the queen starts laying again in January to build up the hive. Looks like Queen Ramona has been doing a great job of that. That big dark spot is all bees.

In comparison, here's our weaker hive, Beezus:

We only saw one live bee, but the hive was still humming. There's definitely activity in there, but we may not know how much until we inspect the hive in spring.
The seed catalogs have arrived and garden plans are in the works. We are all looking forward to the snow melting and spring to come.