New bees and honey for allergies...

Beekeeping

We finally got our new bees on May 7th.  The boys and I headed up to Coeur d'Alene on April 23rd to get the bees (1 1/2 hour drive one way) to find out that they were not there.  It has been such a cold and wet spring that they could not "shake" the bees out of their hives like they had planned.  So, Mark and I went back up on May 7 to get them.  Here is a video of me putting the bees into the hive...I am going to apologize that you have to watch me shaking my big, fat butt to get the bees in the hive...I really need to find a better angle to place the camera...

Got the bees in the hive and I released the queen a couple of days later...

I went back into the hive the next week and got the queen cage out.  I also checked the bars of comb and one of them had broken so I took it out.  I had to throw the comb away but I could see eggs in there so that is good and bad news.  At least I know the queen is laying (good news) but I had to throw out some of the brood (bad news).  

Honey for allergies...

I have read much about the benefits of raw honey and that it can be used to help with seasonal allergies.  I have read to take a teaspoon of honey starting a month before allergy season.  Mark has trouble every spring with allergies so we started giving him honey on toast a couple of months ago.  This is May 21st and things are finally starting to bloom (I think I already mentioned the cold, wet spring we have had).  The past couple of days he has been having some issues so we have started giving him the allergy medicine.  Honey has not been scientifically proven to do away with allergies but it seems to have helped him a little bit.  Also, there are just lots of great benefits to raw honey.  Here is a nice little article about it:  The benefits of raw honey

  

April is Autism Awareness month...

Wetzel home

I know that this post is coming out in May but I have something important to say and just did not feel that I was ready to talk about it until now...

In mid-March, Mark and I were out for a walk and he attacked me.  We go for 2 mile walks every weekend, on both Saturday and Sunday.  This was a Sunday.  I knew something was "off" from the previous Thursday evening.  He started to "roar" toward Joshua.  I don't know of a different way to describe it.  He just goes "ARGHHHH" really loud over and over and he would get closer and closer to Joshua.  We would step in and ask him to go to his room to calm down.  He did this on Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings.  Let me make it clear that I have never heard Mark make these aggressive noises before.  This was happening at the end of Spring Break week.  I think Mark gets bored when there is no school.  That is one reason I try to keep him busy with going for walks.  He just loves to be outside and we had been cooped up in the house all winter.  We all seemed to have a lot of cabin fever this past year.  It was a long winter.

Joshua was with us on our walk when we started.  Mark started this roaring noise and so I asked Joshua to just go back home.  Joshua decided to stop walking with us and stay to play around in the Paradise Creek.  Mark and I kept walking along Paradise Creek on our way to Mountain View park.  We were not even halfway there and he started asking for "cheese balls".  This is not uncommon.  Requesting food is one of the most rewarding conversations for Mark because he can get food to eat. I reminded him that we would have to go back home to get cheese balls.  He got more insistent and loud.  I asked him if he wanted to go back home to get cheese balls.  He turned around.  Then, he turned to me and hit me on the chest (he hits with an open palm because he does not know to make a fist).  This was weird.  Mark has never hit me before!  He started roaring again.  I kept encouraging him to take a deep breath and keep walking so we can get home for cheese balls.  We probably got another 100 yards but we were still 1/2 mile from our home and he started to grab me.  He was trying to grab my arm and bite me.  I kept telling him to "stop" and "hands down".  But he kept coming after me and he was just filled with rage!  I kept my hands up to defend myself and pushed him away on his chest.  After about a minute of him actively attacking me, I realized that he was NOT going to stop.  He would come at my about 3 times and then take about a 2 second break and then come at me again.  So, when he stopped I was able to pull my phone out of my pocket.  Then, during a second break, I was able to dial 911.  Finally, when the next 2 second break came, I just yelled into the phone that I was being attacked and I was at the corner of D Street and Eisenhower.  That is pretty much all I could say and then I had to continue to defend myself.  Mark weighs about 100 pounds more than me so it was all I could do to keep up on my two feet and defend myself.  He kept grabbing and pinching my triceps as he was trying to grab my arm to bite me.  He had so much rage that I knew if I let him bite me, he could have taken a chunk out of my arm.  He was roaring at me the whole time this was happening.  One of the neighbors came out to see what was going on.  He happened to be a bus driver at the school and recognized Mark from taking the "special" kids out into the community.  He came up and tried to get Mark off me.  Of course, Mark then starting to attack him.  I just yelled to not let Mark bit him.  It seemed like an eternity but it was only about 5 minutes before the police showed up.  Then, Mark sat down in the rocks and started just throwing rocks.  Once Mark calmed down, two officers walked us home the rest of the way.  We also had our dog, Coal, with us this whole time.

I am so grateful for the bus driver to come and intervene.  There were lots of other people that saw Mark was attacking me but did nothing (it was a beautiful afternoon up to this point and lots of other people were also out for walks).  

Do me a favor and if you see someone being attacked, at least call 911.  I'm not asking you to be a hero and risk getting hurt by intervening, just pick up the phone and dial...

Once we got home, Mark calmed down but later that evening he did it again.  Luckily, this time we were at home and we could seek shelter in a locked bathroom.  I called 911 again and he was escorted via police car down to the Emergency Room.  Then, we waited for like 2 hours to see a doctor to get some medication to help him calm down.  He started to get amped up at one point and the police put him in handcuffs (in front of his body, not behind his back).  Let me tell you, that is just heartbreaking to see your child in handcuffs.    

The last time Mark showed any aggression was over 5 years ago.  He was due for a medication change and this appears to be a similar situation.  

Even getting a hold of the psychiatrist was a difficult endeavor.  First, the psychiatrist is only available on Monday and Tuesday.  I called first thing on Monday but they were sick (there are 2 of them that we see, a husband and wife team).  I called again on Tuesday and said that I needed some medication to help Mark calm down.  The nurse on duty was able to help me out.  I waited and called back the next Monday (we still needed to set up an official appointment with the psychiatrist).  They were still sick and now the nurse did not work there anymore!  I could go on and on...finding good health care is a challenge and I do not want to go down that rabbit hole here...

We are still keeping our "emergency calming" medication handy but the good news is that Mark's roaring behavior has decreased immensely.  Since daylight savings time and a little bit of warmer weather has occurred, he has been able to get outside much more.  He just LOVES to be outside.  He will stay out there for hours.  I have known this about Mark for a long time and it is one reason that I really want to do this farm journey with him.  It will be a great way to get him outside each and every day, even in poor weather.  I just feel that it is really good for him to be outside!

I have to tell you a funny story about one new medication that we tried (after we finally got to meet with the psychiatrist).  It is called Depakote and is used to help control seizures (Mark does not have seizures), bipolar and migraines.  So, we were told to give it to him in the evening and that it might help him to sleep.  (We also have trouble with Mark not sleeping...)  The first evening, I gave him the medication at 7:30PM.  Then, starting at 8:00PM Mark yelled "monkey" at the top of his lungs for 3 hours!  Then next night, it was the word "hello" for 3 hours.  Needless to say, we discontinued this medication right away.  Of course, this story was not funny when you are listening to someone yell monkey for 3 hours as we were trying to sleep.

There you have it.  Your dose of Autism Awareness for this year.  It is a complex disability and we continue to learn more every day.  I love Mark and do not blame him in any way for what happened.  Today, he is going with me up to Coeur d'Alene and we are going to go swimming at the Kroc center.  Then, we are picking up our bees and heading back home and I am really looking forward to having some one-on-one time with him and doing something he loves (swimming!).  

Thanks for listening...

Mark and Joshua on one of our winter walks along Paradise Creek.

Financial Fitness for Farmers

Here is some information and resources that I gathered at the Financial Fitness for Farmers class that I attended March 11th.  Each of us were given a copy of this book:

Fearless Farm Finances.
This book will help you understand basic financial management for your farm. Includes instructions, tips and tools–plus real-life examples from successful farmers and sample data from fictitious farmer “Otto B. Organic.”

Financial Fitness for Farmers

This presentation was presented by Kathleen Painter.  She is an Extension Educator in Boundary County, Idaho.  She has a PhD in agricultural economics.  Here are the topics we discussed:

Balance Sheet - summarizes the financial condition of your farm at one point in time

Here is an example of a Balance Sheet

Income Statement - summarizes the revenue and expenses for a given accounting period

Enterprise Budgeting - the best way to determine profitability of a specific crop or livestock operation is to develop an enterprise budget. An enterprise budget is an estimate of the costs and economic returns (profit) for a particular crop or livestock enterprise.

Cash Flow Budgeting - a summary of the projected cash inflows and outflows for a business over a given period of time.

A "Statement" is history and a "Budget" is a projection into the future.

There are a lot of nice resources, tools and templates available at the Maine Small Business Development Center website.  Click on picture above to visit their Tools and Templates webpage.

One of the resources listed in our book is The Carrot Project.  I checked out their website and they have some webinars that cover using Quickbooks and Basic Accounting for Farmers:

Click to watch Part 1 of the Basic Accounting for Farmers.  

Julia Shank Food Consulting website has a nice list of short videos that explain all the accounting terms that I noted above.  For example, click HERE to view a short video on cash vs. accrual accounting.

Having good finances can help you make decisions on how to make your farm more productive.  

Star garnets and fruit tree pruning

Idaho is the Gem State

Here is some information about star garnets from www.gemselect.com:

Star garnet is an unusual form of garnet...Star garnets are so rare that to date they have only been found in two places in the world; in the state of Idaho in the USA and in India. The garnet varieties that occasionally exhibit asterism (aka "stars") are almandine and a mixture of almandine and pyrope garnet.

Star garnet gemstones are usually opaque and deep brownish-red or reddish-black. Like all star gems, the star effect is caused by inclusions of rutile. In order to display the star effect, the rutile needles must have the correct alignment to reflect light in a pattern forming a mult-rayed star.

Most star garnets display a 4-rayed star, but 6-rayed stars are sometimes seen. Some gemstone dealers claim that only the Idaho star garnets ever display a 6-rayed star, but this claim is difficult to verify since specimens with 6-rayed stars are very rare.

The people of Idaho are so proud of their star garnet deposits that star garnet has been declared the state gemstone. Star garnets are mined in Northern Idaho in a region that is northeast of Moscow and southeast of Coeur d'Alene.

The star effect in most star garnet gemstones is subtle and requires the correct lighting to be seen clearly. The best lighting is direct sunlight. However, a light source such as a narrow beam halogen spotlight or small flashlight will also work. The star is best seen by standing directly above the stone and looking straight down.

Each summer, our family goes out to look for star garnets.  It is important to know that not all garnets have stars.  Emerald Creek is only an hour and fifteen minute drive from Moscow.  I have about a dozen star garnets but have never had any made into jewelry.  Some day I will...

Anyway, after 5 years of collecting garnets, I decided to try and put them into a rock tumbler to make them look nicer.  The rough stones are not so pretty.  There are 4 steps to tumbling.  You start with a course grit and then the grit gets smaller and then there are 2 polishing steps at the end.  It takes weeks.  The first step takes 2 weeks alone. 

Here are the rough rocks...

  After the first tumbling...

After the second tumbling...

After first polishing...

After final polishing...

The final garnets are much nicer looking than the original rocks.  I am still looking for a nice way to display them.

If you are interested in going to get your own star garnets, click HERE to get information on when and where to go and how to get a permit.

Fruit Trees

A couple of weeks ago, I attended a stone fruit tree pruning workshop at Palouse Clearwater Environmental Institute.  It was sponsored by the Moscow Tree Commission and Moscow Parks and Recreation.  We were given a handout and talked about "heading back" to stimulate bud growth and "thinning" where an entire branch is removed back to the main stem.  We were also given a list of rules for pruning and helpful tools and then we headed out to the Rabbit Hills Orchard to do some hands on work.  The Rabbit Hills Orchard contains over 40 different plum trees!

One of the most interesting things I learned was about the age of the wood that will flower.  For example, peach fruit flowers only on 1 year old wood.  Plums fruit on 2 year old wood.  So, you would not want to take all the 2 year old wood out of a plum tree or you would not have any fruit!

Honey!!!

Beekeeping

As I had reported a few weeks ago, the bees did not make it through the winter.  The big question was "Should we take the honey?"  I really struggled with this decision.  I tried to read about what to do, I make phone calls, and asked on top bar forums and got mixed answers (no surprise there...).  I went into the hive and started cleaning things out.

I could tell that the bees were not located close enough to the honey.  That is probably one reason they did not make it.  Live and learn...

The good news is that there is lots of nice brood comb all ready for the new bees.  Once I got in there, I decided that we would take the honey and feed the bees with sugar water to get the new bees started. I kinda figured that the last bees started with absolutely nothing and they were quite prolific.  At least the new bees will not be starting from scratch.  Making beeswax for the comb is labor intensive for the bees and now they have at least 10 bars of brood comb to get them going so they can immediately start concentrating on stashing honey.

In addition, we might be moving the hive soon (hint, hint) and it would be easier to move an empty hive than one full of 30 pounds of honey.  

Here I am getting started with collecting the honey.  When you have a top bar hive, you have to collect the honey by crushing the honeycomb and then straining out the honey.  I am using the yellow buckets on the left for this.  The top is lined with a cloth strainer and it has holes in the bottom to allow the honey to flow through into the bottom bucket.

Here I have separated the bars.  All the bars on the right are being saved for brood comb for the new bees.  The bars on the left will be harvested for honey.

Here is some comb that I melted down to save for beeswax.

Here is the inside of the top bucket.  I used a potato masher to crush up the comb to release the honey.

 We let the honey drain for a week.  Then, put it into jars.

Here is the crushed comb that I melted down for beeswax.  I knew there was going to be a little more honey left in the comb but I ended up getting 3 more pints of honey out of the wax!  

Here is some of the honey we collected.  We got well over a gallon of honey!

Last weekend, Mark and I went to the arboretum at the University of Idaho for a walk.  This heath was blooming and we saw some bees there!

Sustainable Farm Law 101

The past couple of weeks, I attended 2 workshops that were sponsored by Rural Roots.

Rural Roots mission is to support and enhance sustainable agriculture and local food systems in the Inland NW and beyond.  The first presentation was about Sustainable Farm Law 101.  I will be discussing this one today.  The second presentation was about Farm Finances.  I will talk about the Farm Finances presentation in a future blog...

Farm Law

The Sustainable Farm Law presentation was presented by Farm Commons.  

 

Farm Commons believes strong, resilient, sustainable farm businesses are built on a solid legal foundation.  Farm Commons has a good amount of free training's on their website.  Just click on the "Tutorial" tab.

Our first point of discussion was Entities.  The focus of the discussion was on the differences between a sole proprietorship, a limited liability company (LLC) and a corporation.  There is a nice tutorial called "The What, Why and How of Choosing and Organizing a Business Entity for the Farm" on the Farm Commons website.  

Next point of discussion was Land Matters and leasing versus buying farm land.  We discussed what to look for in a lease and to make sure to know any zoning regulations that might limit what you can do on the property.  There is a tutorial about lease issues called "Farmland Leases Built to Last: Content and Legal Context".

Sales and indemnification was the next topic.  This included discussions of selling wholesale versus direct sales and doing a Community Support Agriculture (CSA) model.  Most importantly is negotiating the sales agreement.  Sales Contracts for Farm Produce: Why and How is a tutorial with this information.  

Next topic was workers.  This included discussion of interns, volunteers, employees and contractors.  Another tutorial addresses this issue:  Making Employment Law Work For Your Farm.  Employment law is probably the single most complex legal concern for farmers so it's important to get it right.

Food Safety was the next topic.  Food Safety Liability And Regulations For The Farm is a tutorial that addresses these concerns.  Each state has different regulations about food safety so it is important to know what regulations are for your area.

Lastly, we talked about agritourism.  Having on farm events is a great way to promote your farm but there are lots of legakl issues to consider.  Hosting Safe, Legally Secure Farm Events provides some direction about how to legally host a safe event.  

Another underlying message of the day was the importance of having appropriate insurance to protect your farm.  Insurance for the Farm: Policies and Principles to Efficiently Manage Risk covers common insurance options and how to navigate them to find the right policy for your farm. 

So, if you took the time to watch all these tutorials, you would pretty much have all the information that I got that day.  Each tutorial is about 1 hour 30 minutes long. 

Sunflower seed order!

In the Field

Well, obviously, I am not in the field yet but getting ready for it.  I placed my sunflower seed order today.  I will still be growing at Meadowlark Heritage Farms this summer.  I have 6 - 100 foot rows there.  I am going to only plant single stem varieties this year and I am going to try and grow 3 rows of flowers in each larger row.  So, I am really packing them in because I want to see how "dense" I can plant and still get a good harvest.  I will be planting all direct seed into the soil this year.  Last year, I tried some transplants but I did not see enough of a difference to justify the transplanting (it was a little bit extra work...).

I went to the Johnny Seed website to place my order and found that there have been several new varieties out this year.  So, here are the "new" ones that I am trying this year:

Sunrich Lime - New!  Bright, lemon-yellow petals surround a lime-green disk.

Sunrich Limoncello - New!  Lemon-yellow petals with a ray of bright yellow at the center. The bicolor petals give the blooms an enhanced three-dimensional appearance.

ProCut Plum - Exciting new addition to the ProCut series.  Muted plum-to-cream bicolor blooms combine well with soft or vivid colors.

ProCut Red - It took years of breeding efforts to produce this impressive red ProCut sunflower. Early blooms are produced on long, strong, single stems. 

Sunbright Supreme - Blooms more quickly than Sunbright under short days.  More rounded petals and shorter, more rigid stems with reduced lower leaves make this an excellent variety for bouquet work.

ProCut Peach - Peach-colored petals with a dark disc.

I had no idea there were so many new sunflowers being introduced so this was a pleasant surprise.  I am most excited about the red.  In the past, the only red available was a branching variety which is not so great for cut flowers.  I am also planting 7 other varieties that I have planted in the past that are reliable producers.  I am so excited to be introducing some new sunflowers again this year!