A DAY IN PHOTOS - OUR VALENTINES DAY.
Greetings from New York City! Yep, Jesse and I hopped in the car yesterday and headed north. It was COMPLETELY spontaneous! I am writing this from Park Slope in Brooklyn, just having devoured my first authentic New York bagel. This is Jesse's old stomping ground, so I am excited to be here with him, meeting all his friends and learning about this part of his past. But more on that later.First, some photos of our Valentine's dinner. It was very simple and homemade. Jesse surprised me by making potato gnocchi, which is my favorite! I wanted to bake a Red Velvet cake, as I have never had one and it seemed appropriate for the holiday. I am highly allergic to red food coloring, so I used beets! We also each made gifts for each other, which was pretty sweet. What did you guys do for Valentines?- Hannah.
VALENTINE-ING.
I have been doing some serious crafting, sewing, and painting lately. Valentines Day is a wonderful excuse to pull out all the stops: hearts, sequins, glitter, the works. Since Jesse and I are trying to have a low-budget dinner at home this year, I have gone a bit overboard with the homemade decorations. A lot of what I have been working on is a surprise for our dinner, but this garland I made was so easy and so adorable I had to share. A great project for the upcoming holiday.I made my garland using different colors of construction paper, but you could just as easily use felt or fabric. Using the construction paper was the easiest and fastest...it probably took me about 15 minutes!
Cut out a one good heart. I just sketched one, but you could find a pattern and print it out or use some random heart-shaped object if you want it to be just so.
Use the pattern to trace out as many hearts as you like. I made two garlands, each about 5 feet long, with 15 hearts each.
Sew the hearts together into a long strip. Seriously. It is that easy!
Such a simple project. You could make the hearts into different shapes and colors to suit the occasion. But as for Valentines Day, I'd say this is pretty perfect.- Hannah.
SETTING UP SHOP.
When starting any business, there are going to be a fair number of things to be done before you can open the doors to the public. For a farmer that can mean plowing a garden (or cardboarding one, respectfully), building fences, fixing buildings or all manner of digging, hauling, heaving and pulling. With the warm, Spring weather quickly approaching, and hopes to offer a CSA this year, Hannah and I have been in somewhat of a dash to get ready for the season.We have multiple projects in the works, but the most pressing as of late has been the greenhouse. A greenhouse is not a necessity, but it definitely helps to get your garden going sooner. You can start seeds in small blocks of soil and let them mature until they are ready to transplant into the garden. I know farmers who don't use greenhouses at all, preferring rather to place the seeds directly in the soil in lieu of the young starts. However, they have to wait until the soil is warm and dry enough to do so which in turn pushes their season back later. Or there are gardeners who buy young plants from markets and place them straight into the soil. For our farm,we're interested in enjoying early crops from the garden, and if we want to start eating fresh food in May, we need to have seeds in the greenhouse in March. But first...we need a greenhouse!This morning we dressed warmly (including our slick new coveralls), gathered our tools and headed out to the farm for a little lesson in carpentry. By the end of the day we'd finished most of the frame - not bad for a couple of beginners on a cold, Kentucky afternoon!- Hannah.
BEE-ING PRODUCTIVE.
I am so happy! My day was full of BEES! (If you didn't already know this about me, I love bees. Like, really love them. Beekeeping is the reason I first became interested in farming.) Today started with me mailing off my deposit to ShadeTree Honey Farm for my nuc! ShadeTree is a wonderful, all-natural apiary in Mount Sterling, and a "nuc" is basically a few frames of bees and a queen. I will be picking up my bees in the spring and transplanting the frames into my own hive. I am so excited about this for many reasons....mainly because these bees will be relatively LOCAL, meaning they are already well acclimated to our farm. The fact that they are being transported in their own frames also means they will be somewhat established. This ensures for a relatively smooth transition to their new hive! Wooo!
And speaking of the hive, I started building mine! I worked today on the hive body, which is what I will transfer the nuc into. Once the bees fill up all the frames within the body, you add a "super" onto the top of the hive body. Jesse and I hope to drive sometime this week to Dadant in Frankfort to get the rest of the supplies I need, but I am pretty proud of my progress! It might be a little premature, but I am so anxious for my little bees to get here!
It was a lot of fun putting together the hive. One day I hope to LITERALLY build my own...cutting the wood myself, cutting down the trees to make the wood, growing the trees...you get the idea. But still, I am glad to have used the "some-assembly-required" rather than "pre-assembled" version. Even if it's only hammering a few nails, there is a sense of satisfaction at the end of the day in being able to say that I (sort of) built it myself. And while I was busy constructing, Jesse was being a Super Husband and cooking lunch. Bugtussle sausage burgers and sweet potato fries!
Now all I need is the super, the bees, and a nice coat of paint! It should preferably be a light color (to reflect light/heat), which is why most beehives are white. That's pretty boring if you ask me...any color suggestions? - Hannah.