What is a Farm?

    I've always laughed every time my grandchildren refer to our home as a farm. We have six ducks, 10 chickens, 2 pygora goats, three cats, twelve hives of bees, a decent amount of vegetable garden, a strawberry patch, several dozen berry bushes, and little more than a dozen fruit trees.  All of this is crammed into one acre, half of which is covered by big leaf maple trees. So I was a little surprised when I received an official letter from the US Department of Agriculture requesting that I participate in a survey.  As it turned out, the survey pertained to my beehives, stemming from the fact that I had actually sold a portion of the honey they had produced on our "farm".  I looked over the survey and saw that there was an online version so I thought I'd save the government some postage and opted to complete the internet version of the survey.   When I went to the USDA website I discovered that there were two surveys waiting for my attention.  One survey pertained to my beehives and the other survey pertained to my farm.  So maybe the grandkids are right and I really am a farmer after all.

    The first survey was very simple. How many beehives did I operate and in what states. How much honey did said beehives produce?  What categories of honey did I produce and what price did I receive for it.  It was pretty simple and only took a few minutes. Just for the record, all of my honey production qualified for the appellation of "specialty honey" as it was all varietal honey, either Blackberry honey or Japanese Knotweed honey, that could be sold at a premium price.

   Since the first survey was such a piece of cake, I decided to try the second one and see if we really did qualify to be called a farm.  This second survey was quite complex. I answered "no" to lots of questions about various agricultural activities. When all was said and done, I was fairly certain we didn't really qualify to call our home a farm.  While the grandkids may not like that news, I was personally kind of relieved. The USDA survey made farming seem pretty complex which I'm sure it is. I'm not sure I'm cut out for that level of complexity in my life at the present time. I think the bee store, my bee hives, and 21 grand children are sufficient complications for my life. A real farm seemed like a lot more than I want to take on.

Good times with John

John Wesley Tunnell

   Last week I took advantage of my new "semi-retired" status to stay home and babysit my grandson John while Linda went to the nutcracker ballet with Beth and the girls. I suspect we both had a better time hanging out at home than he would have had at the ballet. I also think we helped everyone else enjoy the ballet more by staying home. I have always gotten along well with John even when he was a baby. Now that he is three he is really good company.  He has an incredible sense of humor for one so young and always puts a smile on my face. One of the things John and I have in common is we both like hats.  I was able to adjust this ball cap down to his size and he wore it for hours. He really enjoys being outside regardless of the weather and likes to help out. In the photo below John is enthusiastically herding my ducks back into their pen.

John herds the ducks past the bee hives.

   

John performs guard duty on the ducks while I change their water

    I only had to change John's diaper once, which I thought was pretty good for a 5 or 6 hour stint of babysitting.   Everything went really well except for my efforts to persuade John to take a nap.  I parked on the couch in front of the TV with Thomas the Tank Engine.  I figured just getting him to lie down and be still for any significant period of time would result in a nap.  As it turns out he has more stamina than I thought.  Several times I thought he had fallen asleep as I didn't see him move for a while.  It was always close but no cigar.

John and Grandpa enjoying a little Thomas the Tank Engine.

Ten minutes of semi-dozing was the closest John got to a nap.

   I cannot relate to grandparents who don't enjoy their grandchildren. Are they too wrapped up in their own lives? Possibly they are terminally self-centered and are too busy to be bothered. Maybe they did a poor job raising their kids, who in turn ended up as lousy parents and produced obnoxious grandchildren. Whatever the cause, I think they are missing out on one of life's sweetest pleasures.  I'm so grateful that all of my children turned out to be very good parents. They really make me proud.

 

Learning to Play the Ukulele Update II

    I've finally managed to sing and play the Hawaiian War Chant simultaneously. Not that I'm doing a quality job on either task, but its a big accomplishment for me all the same. I'm still working on those tricky bar chords I need in order to play Pearly Shells.  I'm looking forward to spending Christmas with the Romeros so I can spread the ukulele madness to yet another branch of the family. Just for the record,  that is only one of many reasons I am looking forward to Christmas with the Romeros.

   While I'm on the subject of the Romeros I have to express gratitude that Lia is such a good blogger. Since they are currently living so far away on the east coast its hard to be as involved in their lives as we would like.  I love being brought up to date on all of the little things she mentions in her blog and its nice to see all the pictures of the kids and their home.  Three thousand miles of distance makes all of the little things seem much more important. Keep up the good work Lia!

    I went to the bee club Christmas party on Tuesday night.  I can't describe it as merely poorly attended as it didn't rise to that level.  There were only eight hardy souls in attendance.  Fortunately the pot luck still turned out well. We had several main courses, a salad, bread and dessert. We just didn't have any options within most of those categories.  I consider myself a serious die hard when it comes to beekeeping. After all, I have a daughter with the middle name "Bee". Poorly attended or not, I was glad I went and I had a good time. The gift exchange also went well.  The person who drew my hand knitted bee skep hat was quit happy with it and was proud to wear it home. I ended up with a salt and pepper shaker set in the form of a bee skep and a bear. It was very cute and even met with Linda's approval. She doesn't allow me to display a lot of my bee knick knacks at home. Many of them are relegated to the bee store where they don't have to be classy to be on display.  Now I am really disappointed in spell check. It was bad enough yesterday when it failed to recognize sticker as a verb. Now it doesn't like the word skep. It actually tried to change it to skip. I think the people who write those programs must not get out much.

Our new salt and pepper shaker

     In order to foster a proper Christmas spirit I broke down and purchased a couple of Christmas CDs.  The first one is entitled "Oy to the World" by the Klezmonauts. It consists of Christmas carols played by a Jewish Klezmer band.  Linda doesn't care for it, but it always makes me smile.  Linda actually liked my second choice, a CD entitled "Celtic Christmas".  It has lots of fiddle and harp Christmas music. Whats not to like?  One more reason to love the iPhone, portable Christmas music whereever I go.

 

 

Thanksgiving 2012

   I've been somewhat of a slacker on the blogging lately.  Since the blog is supposed to function as somewhat of a journal I probably should give some mention of Thanksgiving day with family. Rachel and Chet drove up from Oregon and we had the local Tunnells and Veatches, along with Margie and family. We had a total of 21 in attendance, ate way too much food and had a great time.  One of the highlights for me was spending several hours in the kitchen cooking with Rachel and Linda.  I also love the happy sounds of the grandkids playing nicely together (which they usually do).  Of course we would always love to have everybody here but it's tough to do. The logistics of a complete family gathering are pretty daunting these days. Somehow I failed to end up with a group picture for the blog, but I think its already been distributed pretty well on face book.

Lance learning the basics of leverage

Lance putting in one of the screws on the frame for his "car"

    I spent some quality time with Lance a few days after Thanksgiving.  He was in the mood to make something and decided he wanted to make a car.  Since we had no wheels available we did a little bit of a down payment. We started to build a frame for a car out of some treated lumber left over from the demolition of our old deck. The first task was to remove some nails from the boards we wanted to use.  It gave me the opportunity to demonstrate to Lance the proper use of leverage in pulling nails. Lance was really impressed with the little trick of using a scrap piece of board under the hammer or crow bar for leverage. He told me that he was going to teach that to his kid some day.  You have to love a kid that gets so much pleasure from building something.

Sawed, Stacked, and Stickered Big Leaf Maple Wood

     Happiness is a large pile of lumber drying at the bee store. I am the proud owner of half of this large stack of big leaf maple boards.  The wood was free. The trick was getting the rather large and heavy logs to a local friend with a sawmill.  Quentin supplied most of the labor and took advantage of our local missionaries to help him stack it.  Some of those boards are very heavy.  My major contributions were some cash to the sawyer, covering the bee store while Quentin did all of this, and providing a place for a large quantity of maple wood to dry. Stickering refers to the placement of the thin wood strips between all of the boards as they are stacked neatly. This helps ensure good air circulation so the boards can dry evenly.  Otherwise, the ends and uncovered surfaces would dry much faster than the rest of the wood and there would be lots of cracking and warping. If not properly stacked and stickered, much of this pile would end up as firewood.  Spell check keeps trying to tell me that sticker can't be used as a verb. Obviously the people who wrote that program don't know much about wood working.

Learning the Ukulele Update I

   I have finally managed to commit to memory the the first verse of the Hawaiian War Chant. I've also managed to pick up enough ukulele chords to play the song.  What I can't do yet is sing the song and play the ukulele at the same time.  However, I still have about 8 months before cousin camp to work out the bugs.  The other Hawaiian song I'm learning right now is Pearly Shells. I can play most of that song, but I still have three bar chords I need to master. The goal is to actually have somewhat of a Hawaiian repertoire by the time we do cousin camp.

   I enjoyed a day off today and spent a good part of the day raking leaves and spreading wet leaves and straw onto my garden beds. I was so pleased with the results of sheet composting this past year that I have sworn off roto-tillers.  I've never had such an easy time keeping up with the weeding as this past summer. I didn't have to spend all summer pulling up grass in my vegetable beds. Sheet composting involves a layer or two of heavy cardboard, covered with 3 inches or more of leaves, straw, spoiled hay, and other organic matter. Then I spread dolomite lime and or bone meal before I cover the whole thing with a few inches of well rotted horse manure. The nice thing is that I can do all of this soil prep during the fall and winter when I have more time available.  When spring rolls around all I have to do is rake the soil into raised rows and plant. The worms do a pretty good job moving the organic matter around and loosening the soil such that there is no need to roto-till. I do the raised rows so I'm not compacting the soil where the veggies are growing.

   I'm planning on progressing from "pseudo" to semi retired this coming year. If it works out well I will be working part time at the bee store and hopefully spending more time with grand children and  puttering in my garden. I hope to be able to work only one week per month except for the busy season at the bee store, namely March, April, and May.

   I baked two pies this afternoon, one apple and one heavenly hazelnut. (The recipe for Heavenly Hazelnut pie is included in my blog post dated 5/31/2010.)  Linda and I had been invited for dinner and Family Home Evening with my son's family in Monroe. We brought the pies for dessert.  My daughter-in-law fixed a wonderful dinner featuring a marmelade chicken dish that was so good that four year old Lucy dubbed it as dessert chicken.  The chicken was served with garlic mashed potatoes from the Julia Child cookbook. Two entire heads of garlic and a whole cube of butter made the potatoes much more that a mere side dish. Apparently the recipe contained a warning from Julia that if less than two heads of garlic were used it would be regretted. If the chicken hadn't be so yummy, the garlic potatoes could have qualified as the main attraction. We definitely experienced no regrets. After a lovely dinner we enjoyed a great family night with 6 year old Britton teaching the lesson. She told us the story of Daniel in the Lion's Den. A good time was had by all.

More Fun Times in Oregon

   Linda and I drove home from Oregon yesterday.  Its always a good feeling to be home, but we had a great time with grandchildren.  Shortly after our departure, Elise was complaining to our daughter Sarah that she wasn't as much fun as grandma and grandpa.  I guess that  means we can declare victory. Yet, I don't feel like we were particularly indulgent while Elise and Lilly were under our care. I hope we didn't spoil them so badly that we'll be fired as babysitters.

    During our stay in Forest Grove we also got to spend some quality time with Lance and Luna.  In the photos below they are modeling a Griffindor scarf my mother knitted for Lance. I guess Lance wore it two days straight after I delivered it. As soon as he took it off, Luna started wearing it. One of the reasons it is so rewarding to make something for a child is that they really seem to appreciate it so much.  It warms my heart every time I see one of the grandkids wearing something I helped make for them. When we first arrived in Oregon on Halloween Elise was wearing a sweater Grandma Cozy had knitted from yarn I had spun. As we stopped by to say good bye to the Arnett's, Luna was wearing Lance's Griffindor scarf and a tam hat I had knitted for her. The weather had turned cold enough that I knew she hadn't just put them on just to butter up her grandpa.

Luna wearing Lance's scarf

Lance modeling his Griffindor scarf

               As we were leaving Forest Grove we stopped by Jossy Farms near Hillsboro to pick up some hazelnuts.  They have a website at www.jossyfarms.com.  We bought two 25 pound bags of hazelnuts at $2.00 per pound. They run them through a cracker at no extra charge so we only have to sort them rather than crack them ourselves.  Its very fun to buy them straight from the grower in 25 pound bags. They had a nice little handout with instructions for storing and roasting hazelnuts, along with a few recipes and interesting facts.  My favorite interesting hazelnut fact was that 97 percent of the entire U.S. hazelnut crop is grown in western Oregon.  We have several hazelnut bushes/trees but the squirrels always get every last nut. They seem a lot more attentive to that fact of the hazelnuts being are ready to pick. I think I would have to either grow a lot more hazelnuts or implement a serious squirrel eradication program in order to harvest any hazelnuts for myself.

I can only imagine how much hazelnuts it would take to fill all of these boxes.

  

Halloween and Other Fun Times in Oregon

    Linda and I went south to visit the children and grandchildren living in the Portland area this past  week.  We arrived in time on Wednesday in order to accompany grandkids trick or treating. Since Elise and Hannah were dressed in bee costumes, I simply wore my beekeeper outfit. Fortunately I had washed it recently so my bee suit wasn't speckled with bee poo. The analogy was appropriate as I tried to keep track of them while they ran hither and thither gathering sugar.  Lilly went as a Raggety Ann "mini me" with her mother.  Chloe was Audrey Hepburn, Autumn was Hermione Granger, and Rachel simply borrowed a football jersey from a friend and called that a costume.  Rachel and Chet showed up with Lance and Luna before we finished so it ended up as a little family Halloween party.

   Thursday morning I went with Sarah to check out her chickens and to gather some apples from their friends' trees.  That evening Linda and I drove to Hillsboro and went out to eat with Rachel, Lance, and Luna at one of the local McMinnamin restaurants. It was a fun time.  I'm very grateful that I have Quentin as an employee who makes it possible for me to escape the bee store for family time.

    I took my sour dough starter with me and enlisted Autumn as my "Pancake Paduan". She made sour dough pancakes from scratch twice before I came home, the second time without any help from me at all.  If they have pancakes several times a week it should be pretty easy for her to take good care of the sour dough starter. I also spent Friday canning apple pie filling and apple sauce with the enthusiastic assistance of Chloe, Hannah, Elise, and Lilly.  The older two girls were attending the "Time Out for Girls" activity in Portland so did not participate in the canning. We ended up with seven quarts of apple sauce and 5 quarts of apple pie filling.

Hannah peeling and coring apples

Elise working Sarah's apple peeler 

   Saturday morning involved two soccer games, Chloe and Hannah being on  one team and Autumn on another. Fortunately they were at the same time and on adjacent fields so I could simply reverse the direction of the chairs as we were sitting watching one game and we were then watching the other game.  In spite of all of the flip flop spectating I managed to watch Chloe score a goal.  Both games ended up as 4-4 ties. I have to admit it was less fun to watch Autumn's team as Autumn was playing defense. Whenever she was really active it meant things weren't going well for her team. When her team was doing well, Autumn was standing in the middle of the field watching the action on the other end of the field in front of the other team's goal.

    Sadly, all good times have to end sooner or later, and I had to leave at about 1:00 in the afternoon on Saturday to drive home.  However, this trip home has a short turn-around as I'm going right back down Tuesday morning in order to help Linda babysit the younger Kanglings while Chris and Sarah go on a trip to Mexico without children.