NEEDING MORE FIBER.
Sunday was the Kentucky Sheep and Fiber Festival in Lexington equipped with the awe-inspiring finals for the sheepdog competition. After going, needless to say, we've determined how we're spending our retirement––me with my whistle, sheep and border collie, Hannah spinning the wool and felting. Ok, hopefully we wont have to wait until retirement, but this event in Lexington definitely left us inspired to add a little fiber to our farming.- Jesse.
CHICKENSTEAD.
Another epic scrap project is complete, taking the form of the all new (from all old) Rough Draft Farmstead Chickenstead. We utilized scrap barn wood for the walls, an old cabinet for nest boxes, millions of spare screws and nails, some chicken wire we had leftover and all sorts of random odds and ends we collected from around the farm to piece this thing together! All in all it cost us about about $12, and that was for the paint. Will it last?! That remains to be seen, but we feel pretty good about the stability thus far. All we have left to do now is find a few feathered inhabitants...(Coop pictured without the finished roof, so imagine it looking just a little cooler. As if it could look any cooler.)- Jesse.
BEE READY.
All this spring blooming and warm weather forced us to finally get the beehives completely ready for the arrival of our two little colonies! I am so anxious for them to get here! We (Jesse) finished constructing the supers and frames and then I painted all the outsides of the boxes, to weatherproof them. We ended up selecting a very light, sun-reflecting shade of yellow that is not unlike the color of honey (*thanks, Kathy, for the suggestion!*) I am rereading a lot of my bee books lately and it has me falling in love all over again, remembering this early passion of mine and why I even started farming in the first place. The beautiful relationship between the farmer and the earth, and what happens when we are good husbands to nature. We can't wait to watch these bees, to learn from them and hopefully help them along enough for us (and our shareholders!) to enjoy a bit of their sweet honey by the year's end.- Hannah.
RAISED BEDS AND DOG PARKS.
This week has been a quiet one, minus the many sleepless nights as we try to train little Wendell. Before the crazy storms yesterday, we had amazing spring weather, and Jesse started building a raised bed for my mom to start a garden. We took several trips to the dog park, in an effort to socialize the puppy as early as possible. This consistently translated to Wendell ignoring all other dogs, chasing every human, hiding under the table, and sleeping. Oh well. The tornado put a halt on our plan to finalize our farm situation, but we are heading out this morning to have a meeting and figure some stuff out. So stay tuned! And in the meantime, here are some pictures of Jesse constructing and 5209093 pictures of Wendell being cute.- Hannah.
