The Birds and the Bees

Snow Day

2012-01-21T12:43:00.000-07:00

I'm happy to report that I am much more optimistic about the bees this morning than I was in my last post (two steps forward and one step back). I've confirmed that both colonies are still alive and despite the lost lid incident, appear to be doing okay.

Last week I attended a beginning beekeeping class put on by a veteran beekeeper in Missoula. The chance to talk to somebody who had lots of experience was really great. I left feeling good about what I needed to do and how to do it.

Since the last post I have added the wind break on the west side and reduced the entrance to the smallest size (about 1/2" x 3/8"). I also placed some small pieces of wood between the inner and outer lids, so that there is a gap for ventilation but not so much space that they are losing a lot of heat. Finally I placed slate rocks on the tops of hive to be sure I don't have another lid blow off.

With that I felt good that I had prepared the bees for bad weather, and taken good precautions for proper ventilation. Some beekeepers like to wrap their hives or add insulated lids. The advice I learned in "Bee School" was that these actions will close up the hive too much and you will not have adequate airflow to prevent disease. The beekeeping instructor who has kept bees in Montana for 17 years and as many as 200 hives at a time, suggested only making certain the bees have plenty to eat, good air flow, and mostly leaving them be (pun intended!). Messing with the bees in the winter will cause them to burn more energy and consume more food when they don't need to. So after making sure they were still alive, fed and vented, the bees were all set for the long winter.

Just in time it turns out, because not long after that it started snowing and didn't stop for days. The chickens, like the bees have plenty to eat and are more than happy to stay inside where it's warm and dry.

After lots of shoveling and a failed attempt at clearing the drive with a 4 wheeler, we had to call for help. Luckily a friendly neighbor with a backhoe was more than happy to come dig us out. Now I know what I want for Christmas next year! ;-)

That's my kinda snow shovel!

Hope your are all doing well and having fun.

Until next time, thanks for stoping by.

Two steps forward and one step back

2012-01-11T22:12:00.001-07:00

The week has been a little bumpy around here, just when things seemed to be going really well we've had some unfortunate set backs.
In the coop, our hens have been doing great. Since the winter has been mild thus far, they are super active and are getting lots of sunny winter afternoons foraging in the dormant garden. We are gathering a dozen eggs a day regularly and have developed a great group of friends and neighbors who gladly purchase or trade for our eggs every week. The egg money has been covering the cost of feed and things seemed to be just grand.
In the hives, things seemed to be going well also. Both of the colonies are still alive despite my lack of knowledge and the many opportunities to fail. The bees have been making use of the sugar I provided (blog post: mid-december part-2: emergency feeding) and and appear to be wintering well.

Then came the setbacks. We were hit with a nasty wind storm one night which blew the top off one of the bee hives. In hindsight, it's obvious that I should have had rocks on the lids, and I had also mentioned building a windbreak which had not gotten done. I was at work when Whit called to tell me the hive was open, so more than likely it was that way most of the night and all the morning. Bees cluster to keep the queen 92 degrees f. and death from exposure is very common in cold climates like ours. That's why experienced beekeepers never open their hives when it's below 50 f. (the temp when bees can no longer fly). That night it was in the teens and it was in the low 30's when I got home. The other major concern in the winter is moisture. High humidity in a hive is a bad thing and can lead to a bacterial disease called Nosema. When a hive gets Nosema the likely hood is the hive will die without an aggressive treatment with chemicals. So needless to say, the cold wet condition I found my hive in that day was very concerning. I rushed to put the lid back on, and fashioned a lamp in the hive for the afternoon to try and warm/dry things a bit. When I removed the lamp that evening, there were bees were moving about, but there were also many dead bodies scattered on the top of the frames. Since then I've seen bees moving about by peeking in the cracks but have not had a good day to look in and check on them. From what I've read, a shock like that is not always a death blow, but certainly didn't help anything. Of course now there are rocks on the lids and a straw bale wind break in place... learning is hard sometimes.

As I was still kicking my self over the hive incident, Whit came home one afternoon and found a dead hen. One of our araucanas we called "Grousie" (because she looked like a ruffed grouse as a chick) was laying dead on the coop floor. We looked her over but could not find any marks or anything out of place at all. The coop and run had not been broken into and there was no blood. She looked for all the world like she was laying on the floor asleep. After a sad good bye, we started looking into why this could have happened. There are actually a number of ways a chicken can die unexpectedly from heart attack to calcium over douse. Since we believe little Grousie was a new layer and her vent appeared swollen, Whitney suspects an impaction of the oviduct, a birthing complication you could say. Chicken reproduction is really fascinating, check out this great blog: http://eggcartonlabels.blogspot.com/ how hens makes eggs if your interested. This is our best guess, but for now the death remains an un-solved mystery.

Grousie is the furthest rear hen in the above photo, we'll miss her around the coop.

We remain positive of course, speed bumps like these are all apart of the journey.

I hope my next post brings better news. Until next time.

Happy New Year's!

2011-12-30T18:56:00.000-07:00

Happy 2012!

Our biggest news around here is the addition of a new-to-us truck!

1999(.5) F250 7.3l diesel 6 speed Lariat 4x4

I've been wanting a truck like this for a very long time, and as luck would have it we found one for a very reasonable price over Christmas. The mileage was low and the truck in good condition so we made the decision to bring it home. I am super excited about it, and pleased it averaged over 19 mpg on the trip back even with 75 concrete building blocks in the back that we got free, more raised beds! (That's why the back looks a little low).

Here is my other exciting news. The other day, on a pretty warm afternoon I took a chance and peeked in the bee hives to see if the bees were making use of the I sugar I gave them (Post: mid-december part 2 emergency feeding). The larger colony was active but did not seem to be using the sugar. That made we wonder if they were snubbing my attempts to help them. I have read that if the conditions are not right, the bees will take the sugar out of the hive and dump it in a house cleaning effort. Then I opened the smaller colony.

Pictured is the smaller colony, eating the sugar. This made we very happy because it showed they are making use of the sugar and are very active. I am convinced without this help they would be starving now. I am hoping that the larger colony is still using their honey stores and will use the sugar when they need it.

Also, I signed up for a beekeeping course at the Life Long Learning Center in Missoula this January, so I'm looking forward to that. This is my first attempt at any organized beekeeping education, so I'll keep you posted on the good stuff I pick up.

That's all my news. Hope everybody has a great New Years and the coming year is even better than the last!

Mid December - Part 2: Emergency feeding

2011-12-18T19:40:00.000-07:00

As promised, here is my mid December update on the honey bees.

Like I mentioned in the last post: Mid December part 1, I was looking into my options for feeding the bees to keep them from starving. Both of our colonies came from swarms this summer ( Blog post: A Bee Adventure ) one being vacuumed out of the ceiling and the other captured from a neighbor's fence post. Which meant we had very little time for them to build up their honey stores for this winter. Since then I have fed them sugar syrup to help them get this far, but now that it's winter the time for syrup has passed. I learned about two emergency feeding options: sugar cakes and dry sugar. I was leaning towards the dry sugar option because it sounded easier and I liked the notion that the sugar would help absorb the condensation in the hive. So armed with my 25# bag of sugar, some newspaper and hive tools I headed out today to check the hives.

What I found was that both hives are alive but in need of help. This (above) is the stronger of the two colonies, what you are looking at is the top of the ball of bees that makes up the colony in the frames of comb. The weather on this day was cloudy, about 30 degrees F. and calm. The bees were active but not flying.

Honey bees can't survive long when exposed to the direct cold so I tried to work quickly. I removed the old syrup feeders since they aren't able to make use of them any more (the bees can't move far enough away from the colony to get at it). I also took off the upper deep boxes and replaced them with medium boxes. It would have been even better to use shallow boxes, but I don't have any. Then I placed newspaper over the frames and piled on the sugar.

This is what it looked like after I piled on as much sugar as I could without it dumping over the edges. Like I mentioned, the moisture in the hive will get absorbed by the sugar creating a large cake that the bees can eat for months. The idea is that the sugar is close enough to the colony that the bees can get at it without getting too cold.

That's my hope anyway, because opening the hive is stressful on the bees so I don't plan on opening them again for quite a while. While I was scooping the sugar in, one bee took the opportunity for a "cleansing flight". She flew up in the air to pee/poop and returned to the hive. I was reminded of the amazing ability of the honey bee to hold their waste for months at a time.

This is what our hives look like now. The bees are living totally in the bottom brood boxes, the medium boxes on top are there only to make room for the sugar (we painted the boxes with left over paint from the chicken coop, but I kind of like the color scheme). The entrance reducers have been on in the middle position for a while now. I may have reduced them to the smallest opening today, but the reducers were swelled by moisture and frozen firmly in place. The only other winter prep I have been considering is a wind break, but haven't gotten to it. Luckily we've had a mild winter and no big wind storms so far.

I read in one of my bee books that the first step to successful beekeeping is keeping the bees. So with that in mind, I am doing my best to not be a bee looser. I just hope my best is enough.

I'll leave you with a view of the lower Clark Fork Valley and Plains, that I took today while hiking with our dogs. This was after I accidentally spooked a herd of Bighorn Sheep. Some days I am in awe of the beauty surrounding us.

Merry Christmas and Happy new Year!

Mid December- Part 1: An Egg update

2011-12-17T23:22:00.000-07:00

So what's going on around here the week before Christmas?

After adjusting to the newness of snow, the chickens are doing really well and enjoy getting out in the yard every chance they get. One of us goes out every morning around sun-up to check the girls and open the coop, and by that time they are very ready to be up and about. The cold doesn't seem to bother them a bit, only the really windy days keep them cooped up. We've opened up the chicken run to the garden and they really like pecking and scratching around and in the garden beds.

The coop is a much calmer place since we removed the two other roosters, these days it's downright pleasant. The hens are laying about a dozen eggs a day thanks to the heat lamp which keeps them warm and lighted despite the cold short days. Some people say that the hens need a break in the winter, but we've yet to read a good reason for that and ours seem to be doing fine. We did notice that there were very few hens using the upper boxes, so we added a perch to give them a place to climb in. That seems to have fixed the problem for the most part.

We collect eggs once or twice a day, often reaching under the hens to get them. The hens are generally agreeable to this, although at times one will let you know she's not happy with a sharp peck.

Selling the eggs is going very well too. Thank you very much to everybody that has bought eggs from us! Lately we've been able to buy chicken feed and scratch using the egg money which was a goal of ours.

As near as I can tell, the honey bees are wintering well also. I check them every few days by putting my ear to the box and giving it a quick tap. The bees buzz in response and then go back to their business. What is their business? Keeping the queen warm! The colony forms a tight ball and everybody works together to make heat. The ball moves gradually as the bees consume honey for energy and cycle from the inside to the outside of the ball. Both colonies have access to sugar syrup, but the consumption has gone way down since the fall. Since it's hard for the bees to move far this time of year, I need to switch from the syrup to sugar cakes or dry sugar feeding for the winter. I need to check on them, but hesitate to open the hives because exposure to the cold can kill them. In a well established hive there is enough honey that you don't need to feed, but mine are not that well prepared since we got a late start.

Feeding sugar cakes involves making hard sugar rich patties and placing them in the hive, while feeding dry sugar can be done by placing newspaper on the frames and pouring a few pounds of sugar on newspaper. The humidity in the hive will cause the sugar to harden and form a cake.

I found a very good beekeeping blog with lots of pictures and how to's at http://mudsongs.org/. These guys keep a very neat blog devoted to beekeeping in St. John's, Newfoundland. I am encouraged by reading about their success in a climate worse than mine. Last year they made and fed sugar cakes and I may need to do the same. Mudsongs.org/making-candy-cakes.

Also, http://www.beesource.com/ has a good (lengthy) USDA text explanation of winter feeding at http://www.beesource.com/resources/usda/supplemental-feeding-of-honey-bee-colonies/

I'll keep you posted on my bee's progress and what I decide to do about feeding.

Update: Mid December - Part 2: Emergency feeding

Until then, Happy Holidays to everybody, Merry Christmas, keep warm and stay safe.

Thanksgiving and early December

2011-12-11T10:06:00.001-07:00

This year for Thanksgiving we traveled to California to visit my family at my childhood home, the GHJ Tree Farm . It was wonderful seeing everybody and spending time together.

The weather was fantastic and we had a blast playing outside.

While we were there, it was fun to help sell trees with my Dad. His is a choose and cut operation where families come and pick a tree to cut and take home. For many of the costomers this is a long standing tradition they love. I grew up on the tree farm and that experience is probably where my interest in Forestry stems from. These trees are planted and cared for for years all with the purpose of someday being chosen to light up someone's holiday.

Back here in Plains we have a few traditions of our own. We're lucky enough to live in a place where you can choose and cut a Christmas tree off of public land with a permit. Removing trees of this size from areas that are actively regenerating improves the conditions for the rest of the trees in the stand. This year's tree is a beauty!

Whitney really enjoys sewing and quilting in the winter and recently completed this baby blanket.

She made this for some friends of ours who are expecting their first baby soon.

What would December be with out football? This year the UM Grizzlies are again in the FCS playoffs and doing very well. Maybe it's a championship year? Whit made this sign and did manage to get on ESPN, but only for an instant.

Hope everybody out there is having a good December. Until next time, Kyle and Whitney.

Filling the Freezer

2011-12-04T09:50:00.001-07:00

Whitney and I don't take butchering lightly. It is an important part of the fall, securing the meat that we'll use for the next year, and beyond. Very little gets given away and only to people who appreciate what goes into preparing it.
Why do we Hunt? the plain and simple reason is for meat. Yes, there are many other reasons too, like: recreation, commrodery, exploring new areas and excercise, but you can do all that with out killing animals. Likewise, you can eat meat your whole life and never kill anything personally(this is a subject for a whole different conversation). To me, a true hunter places just as much importance on the meat as he does the trophy. That said, I enjoy a large rack as much as the next guy, but never at the expense of the meat.
For that reason, we clean our meat to a point some people find ridiculous. Many guys I know claim to be able to process 5 or more deer in a day. It takes us a full day to process one animal. However, many people I know also claim venison is gamey, tough and a struggle to eat. In comparison many people we have served venison had no idea it wasn't store bought beef until they were told. We also aim to get every ounce of meat we can from the animals we kill, honoring the animal's sacrafice as much as possible.
Clean meat starts with a clean shot. It continues through dressing and caring for the animal in the field and proper handling at home. We always strive to kill on the first shot, although at times it takes more. In her four animals to date, Whitney has yet to shoot any more than once, always hitting a vital spot. I can't claim this impressive achievement myself, but most of mine fall to one shot, and I have yet to loose a wounded animal. I don't write this as a boast, simply to point out that good stalking before the shot, and followup after are a part of hunting that should never be down-played. A long range or unsure shot that wounds an animal is far less impressive than a long sneek ending in a good shot and clean kill.
All of our game gets hung for seven to ten days, allowing the meat to pass completely through rigor mortis and begin to age slightly. I have skinned animals "hot" before aging and "cold" after the aging. The only real difference I have found is that skinning hot is much easier. It does dry more meat than cold skinning, but use of a game bag to cover the carcass can help keep in the moisture.
The pictures below are from a recent weekend of butchering. We had our good friends Mac and Alyssa over, the Montana State Bobcat Vs. University of Montana Griz rivalry game on the tube, and two bucks to keep us busy. The following is our style of butchering. It is not the only way and I can't say it is the best way, just our way.

Mule deer hind quarter

The first thing I did was go out to the barn and separate the front quarters from the hanging carcass. We start with the fronts, then the backstraps (loins), neck and ribs and end with the hind quarters. The pieces were brought in and cleaned completely of hair. Next the dark dried out meat was trimmed off and the muscle groups separated from the bone. Venison fat is not enjoyable to eat, it taints the flavor of the meat and ruins the cut. All fat, tendon and sinew gets trimmed completely.

cutting trimmed meat into usable pieces

Once the muscle is totally cleaned, it gets cut and sorted into various products. We aren't big on roasts, so we don't wrap any. We have found that it is much more enjoyable to pull packages from the freezer that are 100% ready to go, so nothing gets wrapped until it's totally ready. As our friend Alyssa pointed out, we tend to do the work upfront, while some people put off the final trimming until it's time to cook. That's just a personal preference.

the sort top to bottom: meat to grind, jerky strips, steaks.

One product we really enjoy eating is venison jerky. This year I applied for and filled an extra tag, just so that we'd have extra meat to devote to things like jerky and sausage. Otherwise we would have been using steak or stew meat for jerky. In this photo you can see how we sort the meat: bits to grind all the way down to good steaks (stew chunks aren't pictured). In the middle are strips that we'll dry into jerky. These are cut with the grain of the meat as opposed to steaks and stew chunks that are cut across the grain.

Once the meat is cut and sorted, it's time to wrap. This usually falls to Whit, while I keep cutting. First the meat is arranged on plastic wrap, in groups of like cuts one to two pounds at a time. The plastic is wrapped up and all the air is pushed out.

Then, the package is placed on freezer paper and wrapped again. This double wrapping has never failed us, even with meat staying in the freezer for more that two years at time. However, you should aim to use the meat within a year.

Finally, the date and cut is written on the package. We also name our deer and write it on the package. This sounds odd at first maybe, but it is a simple way to remember what deer it was and recall the hunt.

At the end of the day, the packages were loaded into the freezer and the jerky strips were loaded into the dehydrator. The meat for grinding was stockpiled in tubs and frozen, waiting for a day this winter when we'll make burger and sausages (future blog post?).
The Griz beat the Cats soundly, making it a good day all around. Thanks very much to Mac for help with the cutting and taking these great pictures.
KJ

Snowbirds and Blue Eggs

2011-11-22T21:35:00.001-07:00

These past couple of weeks came as a surprise to the chickens, as this has been their first taste of winter. With daytime highs only in the mid teens and a healthy 6" of snow on the ground the girls turned quickly in to coop potatoes. It wasn't until the weather warmed up some and I shoveled a bare spot in the run that they would venture out. The weather has been a learning process for us too, as the shortened daylight and cold weather meant less eggs and frozen water. We overcame these obstacles by adding a heat lamp to the coop and a heated stand for the water. Now we are back up to 10 or 11 eggs a day, and have recently celebrated the first of our Araucana eggs!

These are the smaller multi colored hens that have been the slowest to develop. They are special because each has a unique coloring and they lay eggs that can vary between blue and green.

Besides trying to keep the chickens from freezing, we have been very busy butchering the two mule deer and one whitetail that we got this year. More on that coming later.

Until then we hope everybody has a happy, warm and safe Thanksgiving!

Kyle and Whit.

Hunt 2011

2011-11-12T18:27:00.001-07:00

It's been a great hunting season!

Early on in the season, we enjoyed a really fun camping trip with friends, and I took some rides looking for elk. While these outings didn't turn up any game, they were both very worthwhile hunting trips. Hunting is about a lot more than bagging a trophy. A big part of the experience is spending time with great people in the places that we love. This season we were really excited to have Whitney's Dad here for a couple of weekends.

We've had a great time with Gary revisiting some old favorite hunting places and trying out some new ones. We took long hikes, at times not seeing anything. Other times we saw many deer, and even a herd of cow elk. One day Gary and I saw nothing but some mountain lion and really large wolf tracks.

Eventually, Whitney and I were both successful filling our buck tags, each taking nice mule deer. We got to share the experience with Gary which made it even more enjoyable. We've both shot deer with larger racks in years past, but we are meat hunters first and foremost, and these will be good eating. These two deer will keep us well fed for the next year, I'm really looking forward to the tenderloins! We'll let them hang for a week and then the work starts. Until then we still have some time left to look for elk, and I'm looking forward to hunting with a good buddy next weekend.

No matter what the outcome, when you spend time in the hills with great people it's a great season!

3 Roosters is 2 too many

2011-11-08T20:54:00.000-07:00

Today was a sad day for our flock. Two of our "girls" had to move on.
For a while now we've had a couple larger chickens that we were watching, hoping they'd be hens. Because there was supposed to be two breeds of black and white chickens, our hope was that one breed was significantly larger than the other, and that we only had two of that large breed. It seemed reasonable. Also, while the Colonel has been crowing and acting quite rooster like for months, these other big birds were rather docile. But sadly, recently these other two have shown their true rooster natures. They grew combs and spurs and began harassing the hens. This apparently caused Colonel to harass the hens with renewed vigor. All of a sudden the chicken yard was getting pretty out of hand, and some of the hens were getting pecked to the point of bleeding. This can become a real problem because chickens are very attracted to red and blood can cause chickens to peck one another to death.
So as a solution first we thought maybe somebody local would like a 4H rooster. Youngsters often show roosters at the fair and we know a few families that do, but they were not interested. Next we hoped somebody may just like to have a rooster, but that turned out to be a long shot also. Finally it became clear that our two barred rock roosters were enough of a problem, they were leaving one way or another. While this was going on, we had also heard about the recent trend of using chicken feathers for earrings and decorating girl's hair. Chicken feathers are quite valuable it turns out, and one of our local hair stylists has gotten in to feather dyeing. Whitney and her are good friends, and they will use these feathers to try some different earrings and things.
I asked around and found a friend that was interested in having the meat, in exchange for skinning the birds. The usable part of the skin is called the saddle, and extends from the back of the head to the top of the vent (Google it if your not sure what a chicken's vent is). He has a lot of experience with this because at one time he raised chickens for meat and feathers, although at that time the feathers were for fly fishing flies. This option worked well for us since we weren't prepared to butcher and skin our roosters, but didn't want to see the birds wasted. The meat for a clean saddle was a fair trade.
So, tonight I went and learned how to dispatch a chicken. This didn't turn out to be nearly as traumatic as you may imagine. None of the chopping block and cleaver and headless chickens running around that I was imagining. A simple, quiet slit with a small kitchen knife while holding the rooster upside down was all it took. A few seconds later and they were done.
Sad as it is, that turned out to be the best option. The meat will be used, the feathers will be used, the hens can take a break and we don't have to feed extra mouths. Sometimes it's not fun but as animal owners we had an obligation to do the right thing for the hens. Also if we are going to take these chickens seriously at all, we can't feed extra birds for no reason.
On a lighter note, the hens are producing 6 - 8 eggs a day now. And as it is now honest to gosh winter (19 degrees the other day) we've put a heat light in the coop to keep the water from freezing. This should help with our egg production to, as we should be closer to a dozen a day and right now demand is exceeding supply!
Thanks for reading. KJ

The first $2.50

2011-10-26T20:41:00.000-06:00

This was truly a big day. We've sold our first dozen eggs!

We're now gathering six eggs a day, and every other day or so a new hen starts. By next week we should be up to a dozen a day. So, for the first time we've sold eggs. One of Whitney's coworkers bought the lucky dozen, for the sum of $2.50.

The egg money jar

Why $2.50? We're not trying to get rich here, but the chickens didn't need to be a money sink either. We believe there is a economic side of hobby farming, it should be able to provide and support it's self. Not buying eggs will save us money, but chicken feed ain't free! From the beginning our idea for the chickens was that they should pay for their own feed. $2.50 is the going price locally and should pay for feed and and fresh bedding every few months.
And so just like that, after months of planning and waiting, we are in the egg business!

Feeding the Bees

2011-10-25T21:05:00.000-06:00

I am now buying sugar 50 LBS at a time. Turns out I had no idea how much bees could eat!

It makes sense really, but like most folks I suspect, I had never really thought about it. A colony will have over 10'000 individuals and often many times that. Some are young and some are old, but they are all working and when there is no nectar or pollen to collect they need sustenance. In an established colony that would be the honey stores, but since my bees are newly established, they need assistance. When you're feeding bees, you feed them sugar in water either in a 1:1 or 2:1 ratio (cups of sugar to cups of water). While the days are warm, you can feed the 1:1 syrup, but as the temps drop you switch to the real juice, 2:1. The bees smell the syrup and go to it, craving the sugar like every other critter in nature.

I got these feeders from our bee keeping supply place, and filled them up last weekend. The feeders fit down in the hive, taking the place of one frame. They have little grooves in the sides for the bees to cling to, but on the advice of a bee keeping friend, I put window screen in there to help them climb up.

The feeders each hold about 2 quarts of syrup, that's 8 cups sugar and water each for a 1:1 syrup or 16 cups sugar for a 2:1. To make a batch for both hives, I use 4 quarts water and 32 cups sugar.

Now came the surprise. I checked the hives tonight, and the stronger one had already drained their feeder. That less than four days! It's a good sign really, besides the sugar bill, because it means that they may have a better chance of surviving the winter. As I've said in other posts, the syrup will help them create wax and store honey.

I've also begun to notice quite a difference in the strength of the colonies. The one we vacuumed out of the eaves is very much stronger than the swarm we collected off the fence post. It's common for bee keepers to have strong hives and weaker ones and we certainly do. It is fitting with what I've heard several times, swarms can be awfully hard to establish. They leave a colony with an older qween and generally die if they are not captured. I'm not holding my breath, but we are ever hopeful. If we can get these colonies through the hard times a head, they should be ready to rock and roll come springtime. Until then, we may be buying a lot of sugar!

Goodbye, Garden

2011-10-16T21:34:00.000-06:00

After months of starting, sowing, watering and weeding, the harvest seems short lived. Many of these plants were started as seeds in April , so although we were lucky this year to have a long summer, it was still sad to say goodbye to the garden this week.

A couple weeks ago there was a light freeze forecasted so we had covered the plants with plastic. A plant can do just fine as long as the water drops on the leaves don't freeze, so putting clear plastic over the plants can extend your season quite a bit. But with more freezing nights forecasted it was time to take stock, harvest the good and toss the bad.

As we picked the last of the tomatoes, zucc's, cucc's and squash, all the plants and weeds were piled into the chicken run. This made the chore of cleaning the garden a whole lot more enjoyable because with every load of plants that we gave the chickens, there were some very happy hens and excited chicken noises.

This has turned out to be one of my favorite things about this chickens. I love that all of our spoiled fruit and vegis now go to the chickens. It takes all the guilt out of not eating that last zuccinni since it'll go to a good cause. In fact several of our friends have been donating thier zucc's to us this week for the chicken feed.

After Whitney pulled all the plants, I turned the beds. Later this week, we'll mulch over each and "put them to bed" for the winter. By doing all this now, we'll have clean, well tilled beds all ready to go next spring

Another trick we've learned about gardening here is using season extenders, like these "water walls". The platic tubes are filled with water and the whole thing placed around the plant. This is how you start tomates and peppers early enough to allow them to mature, otherwise they'd never make it. This time we decided to try leaving them on the Jalapeno's for a while this fall to see how they'd do.

One more trick we've learned is to go ahead and pick the yellow and some green tomatoes at the end of the season. As you use the red ones, the others wil ripen and be ready in a week or so. This will be more than enough for another round of salsa, or maybe some whole canned toms. So even though it is sad to say goodbye, we'll have memories of the garden through the winter.

"World's Greatest" Bee Farm

2011-10-08T09:42:00.001-06:00

Check out the Brushy Mountain Bee Farm for a neat video on the "World's Greatest" Bee Farm. There is also some good information on the importance of honey bees in our world today.

This morning I am worried about my bees. Last time I checked on them they did not have nearly as much honey put up as I was hopping for. After some reading I think I understand why. In the honey bee world, the younger bees stay in the hive and do "house jobs" while the older bees go out and forage. Some of the house jobs are caring for the brood and building wax for honeycomb. In order to build wax the bees eat honey, and lots of it. So the older bees are foraging and storing honey, but since the hives were heavy with new frames (frames without wax) the younger bees were eating it to create wax. A chicken and the egg sort of thing, they need honey to make wax and wax to make honey. So now we are headed into winter and I don't think my bees will have enough honey to survive. The answer is to start regular feeding. I ordered a feeder for each this week, and will now be feeding them sugar syrup to help them survive and make honey. I can also medicate through feeding, and I'll be reading more on this to learn what I need to be doing there. In the mean time, I'll keep my fingers crossed and hope my girls are though enough to make it.

On the brighter side, we hit a landmark yesterday: two eggs in one day! This (small) event is significant because it means now we have two hens laying! Pretty exciting stuff around here :-)
KJ

Jamming and Canning

2011-10-07T21:43:00.000-06:00

It still amazes me that some plums, given to us by a friend can become jam that we'll use for the next year!

It is of course no magic. People have been preserving food for thousands of years. From drying and salting to canning, pickling and freezing, food preservation has always been one of humans primary objectives. I guess what amazes me most is how simple it is to preserve food. Sure, it takes a little time and a few specialized tools, but it really is not hard, and can even be fun. But really the best part is the enjoyment of pulling out a jar of something you've put up and sharing it with friends or family months later. That is the true joy of preserving.

On this day we were making jam from plums from a friend. The recipes are easily found online and after you get the hang of the water bath, canning is pretty simple.

After the plums are pitted and sliced, they get boiled with sugar. Next the jars are filled hot and placed in the water bath. About 30 minutes later, you pull them and they seal as they cool with a nice little pop. Whitney loves to hear the pop!

And just like that, we've got plenty of plum jam for the next year! Simply Amazing.

The First Egg!

2011-09-25T21:56:00.001-06:00

Today was a big day!

While Whitney was busy canning salsa and plum preserves in the kitchen, one of the hens was hard at work in the chicken coop. I was outside at the time splitting wood and started hearing the tell tale noises coming from the coop. I got Whitney and we went out to investigate. What we found out there was pretty amazing. One hen, a little barred rock, was sitting in a nesting box. Her beak was open and she looked more than a little upset. She was clucking loudly, but even louder was the rooster, pacing and squwacking in front of her. Ridiculous as it sounds, it really looked like a nervous father waiting for a birth! This show went on for quite a while, so after a time we went back to what we were doing and left the chickens in peace.

After a while things got quiet and we went to take a look. At last there it was! Our flock's first egg!

It's pretty small, and may not be good to eat, but it's an egg and our first. Whitney figured it out and the chickens are 18 weeks old now. Seems amazing that just about 4.5 months ago these little fuzz balls showed up in the mail, and now we have laying hens (well, one at least). We're pretty dang excited.

So much so in fact we decided to open a bottle of Mead (honey wine) to celebrate the occasion. If you've never tried Mead, I highly recommend it. Mead is a very old drink that is made primarily of honey water and yeast. The website says that mead predates grape wine by one thousand years! This bottle came from a Montana mead maker and features Montana honey. Check out http://hiddenlegendwinery.com/

And there they are, the happy chicken farmer and not quite as happy hen. Soon all the other hens will follow along and have eggs, but for us this hen will always be special.

That's all for now, I hope you all had a wonderful day. KJ

Feeding the Bees, and Making Salsa with Help in the Garden

2011-09-25T10:50:00.001-06:00

The first of our pumpkins and squash.

With the first day of Fall this week, it's time to harvest and start thinking about the coming cooler weather. I've been reading a lot about honey bees these days, and I learned it was time to check the honey in the hives. Bees make honey for food to survive the winter, but if they have enough, we can harvest some for ourselves.

The other day, we opened up the hives to check on the girls and see what was going on in there. While we did get to see one of the queens, mainly what we found was a not a lot of honey. It looks like they have been focusing on increasing thier populations and so have not packed away much food stores. This is a problem since they will need the honey for the winter, so I now have to feed the bees.

Generally from the frost until the bloom, I'll be feeding the bees a syrup of sugar water so they can make honey and survive the winter. Old honey works well too though. I had some old honey comb sitting in a bowl from when we vacumed the bees out of the house, so I decided to feed them that in the mean time. The bees went nuts for the honey, as you can see, and had all that old comb cleaned up in a few hours. Now the comb is clean wax that I can melt down for another project.

Salsa Time! Whitney's tomatoes, peppers and onions all did pretty well this year. While this is only some of the harvest, this bunch will be enough to make several gallons of salsa that we'll can and use throughout the year.

Our garden did well this year, but we did add some Jalapeno peppers and cilantro that were grown locally.

Since canning cooks the salsa, this first jar of fresh salsa went to a Griz game party and was a real hit (though, sadly the Griz lost). The rest of it will get canned and put away to be enjoyed later.

While we were at work in the kitchen, the chickens were also at work in the garden. My corn as you can see didn't amount to much, the potato bed is turned under, and the peas and herbs in the far bed are dead or gone to seed. So, we decided to give that part of the garden to the chickens for a while. I put temporary fencing up to keep them where we wanted them, and then turned them loose. The hens were in heaven and clucking happily as they explored this new area. They especially liked getting into the pea trellises and over grown cilantro and basil.

That's all for now. KJ

Pickling Beets and Waiting For Eggs

2011-09-18T11:16:00.005-06:00

To our surprise, our hens who are now four months old, have yet to start laying. Some of our friends who got their chickens at the same time as us have already been getting eggs but we have not. So in the mean time were just waiting on eggs, a blessing in disguise I bet, because soon there will be a flow of eggs we'll have to deal with ready or not.

That's not to say that the hens aren't working, most evenings they are out in the yard foraging for grasshoppers and other goodies and our sociable rooster Colonel Sanders is never far away when we are outside.

One of this weekend's jobs was pickling beets. These beauties are Detroit Kings and Wonder Talls. Whitney planted them after the last frost and by planting in two rounds we got two harvests. This is the last of them, about 16 LBS. So while the UM Grizzlies took on the E. Washington Eagles, we set about harvesting and washing beets.

To many it seems just the mention of the word Beet is enough to induce an upturned nose and ideas of bad flavors, but these people I'd say have never tried home made pickled beets. One of the most picky people I know (Bailey) tried them this summer and after a sniff and a doubtful look, deemed them quite good!

After the initial washing and trimming, the beets are boiled skinned and sliced.

The pickling solution is boiled while you are preparing the beets, then the beets are packed into jars and the solution poured in. The jars are placed in a hot water bath and boiled. After about 30 min. the jars come out and are set on the counter. As they cool, the jars seal and complete the canning process.

I just love the color, and knowing we have beets for a year!

About this time the Griz were beating the Eagles, a nice topper to the day and no small feat: the E. W. Eagles were the FCS National Champions last year!

After all that it was time to eat something, so we turned to the zucc's and carrots we had also picked, and added some new potatoes from the spud box.

These got chopped and roasted in the oven and together with some antelope dogs from the freezer made a delicious home grown meal.

Sadly, that was about the end of our antelope. I'll miss enjoying the sweet, tender meat and remembering our hunting trips to get them. In the end it is a good thing really because they were nearly two years old, and meat shouldn't be kept any longer than that. And, now I get to plan our next trip to Antelope Country!!

That's all for now.

The Potato Farmer

2011-08-23T19:49:00.005-06:00

This year Whitney tried growing potatoes for the first time. She looked into it and chose two varieties: Yukon Gold and Norland Red. She got the seed potatos from our local feed store in May. Whitney cut the potatoes into cubes with a few eyes in each cube and she planted while we were still getting frost.

We learned that it is time to harvest when the tops die back, so tonight she decided to dig up the reds.

We're very happy with what we found and are glad to say the first potato harvest was a big success!

This is only part of the reds and the Yukons looked great too. We'll have to finish digging them soon. Now we need to learn how to best store them so that we can enjoy them as long as possible. Too bad, the potato tops are toxic for chickens so these greens did not get tossed into the run.

We're also getting very nice tomatoes, carrots, cucumbers, beets and zucc's. The harvest season is upon us!
The cuc's and beets will get pickeled, and the tomatoes will go into salsa or get eaten fresh. The zucc's we like to grill, and make great chicken feed when they get too big. The carrots will stay fresh in the ground well into winter if mulched over.

The Colonel is turning out to be very social, and is our constant companion in the backyard. He is never far away, always ready for a hand out.

Of course one of the best things about growing a garden is sharing the bounty. This basket went to the neighbor to thank her for watching the place this weekend.
KJ

Hopper Hunters, Brood Boxes and River Rafters

2011-08-14T17:17:00.005-06:00

Sitting in the backyard on a quiet Sunday afternoon. The chickens have taken a break from the heat to nap in the shade of the willow. Soon their lives will change as they will start laying within a few weeks, but for now they are our hopper hunters. Combating the destructive insects that eat our garden plants and fruit trees, the chickens run about chasing down the hoppers and snapping them up in a gulp. The young rooster we call Colonel Sanders crows occasionally, still trying out this new found talent. He seems to be calling to the rooster next door who answers with a confident crowing of his own.

Earlier today we added a new hive box to each of the bee hives, so they are now each two boxes high. The first (bottom) box will house the brood and the newly hatched bees as they build the colony. The second box will be critical for food storage as the bees have to store enough honey to make it through the winter. Now is the honey making season and they are frantically gathering nectar to build their stores. As our northern winter wears on, I will check the hive to make sure they are fairing well. When the stored honey starts to dwindle, I will feed the bees syrup to help them along. Winter starvation is a common way to loose your bees. If I am successful and the bees survive the winter, next summer we will add supers to each hive, so the bees will fill them with honey for us to harvest.

In the photo above you can see the brown capped brood cells, from which the next generations of workers will hatch. You can also see teh white capped honey cells, food stored for winter.

August is also time for one of our favorite summer pastimes, floating the river. The spring runoff lasted so long this year that we've only recently gotten out in the raft, but the wait was worth it. Here are a few shots of a float trip we took while my Dad was here, his first time down the Clark Fork.

Cheers!

Becoming Bee Keepers

2011-08-08T17:12:00.006-06:00

We've now headed down the road of amateur Bee Keeping. As you know, this summer a swarm of honey bees invaded our house and set up shop in our ceiling. I built a bee vac and removed the bees, with the hope of establishing them in a hive. Despite my very clumsy handling of the bees, they accepted the new hive and have continued to thrive.

A few days after our first colony capturing adventure, we got a call about a honey bee swarm near a friend's house. Apparently we were now considered experienced in capturing bees (news travels fast in a small town). So after a little debate, we were headed out to capture a swarm for the second time. This swarm was on a fence post so there was no need for the bee vac. All we had to do was get the majority of the swarm in a box (queen included) and then wait for the workers to find her. It actually worked, and that night we were headed home with a bee swarm in a box. The only trouble was that we had no more hives, so Whitney ran over to the nearest bee supply place an hour away and got us outfitted with everything we needed for our new bee keeping endeavour.

As luck would have it, we had an experienced bee keeper coming to visit us. My Dad has been keeping bees for many years on his farm, and was more than happy to help us get started. Dad helped us put together our new hive boxes and was full of good advice about bees.

We got the new swarm established and with Dad's help have been able to keep them happy.

In this photo (above) my Dad shows Whitney how to move frames into a new hive box and inspect the frames.

While he was here, Dad showed us how to check the bees and tell the difference from brood comb and honey comb. He also helped us figure out what equipment and supplies we needed, and put together a plan to help the bees survive the winter. We even got to see one of our queens while he was were, a real thrill to new bee keepers.

As of this post, we have two hives with healthy colonies busily building brood and storing honey for the coming winter. Our plan will be to help them get strong this year, and hope for honey about a year from now.

Dad and I standing by our two busy hives enjoying the evening.

Bedtime for the ladies.

2011-07-23T21:58:00.002-06:00

The hens are appreciating the roost Kyle and I built last weekend. Sleeping on the ground was so undignified :) You will also notice how much they have grown, they are just about half grown.

We got the Queen! (and chicken update)

2011-07-23T12:42:00.004-06:00

We got the queen!!
I went out to the hive this morning to check the bees and remove the cardboard box. My Dad and bee advisor had suggested that I go ahead and check on them to make sure they were adjusting well to the hive. When I lifted the cardboard box off the hive, I was happy to see bees working in the frames and I noticed that the old comb seemed to be abandoned. The next job was to open up the cardboard box and dump out any remaining bees into the hive. When I opened the card board box I was totally blown away by the bees, for the second time this week. They had nearly filled the box with new comb! There was a complete functioning hive in the cardboard box. After my initial surprise, I turned the box over and dumped comb bees and all into the hive. The bees got some what upset by this, so now I am just hoping they don't pickup and leave because of my messing with them. But right now I am just so happy that we got the queen and she's taken to the new location! Here are some long over due pictures of the chickens and garden. This beauty of a Buff Orpington is one we call Colonel Sanders. We're pretty certain that he's a rooster, but he's super friendly and had quite the personality.

Here is last night's harvest. The garden is in full production and we are enjoying the bounty every day. Part of the fun is giving all the scraps to the chickens. They go nuts for lettuce leaves and beet tops. Also in the bowl not seen are sugar snap peas. Mmm!

Some times in the evenings we open up to coop and let the chickens roam the backyard. They like to nap in the shade on the east side of the coop out of the hot afternoon sun, and so does Rosco.

Under the willow is another favorite scratching and foraging place. And the post pile makes a great place for the hens to nap.

Here again is the Colonel, our friendliest chicken by far. The flock is now nine weeks old and doing very well. Although we lost one to un supervised dogs, the rest seem very happy and healthy. Whitney is expecting our first eggs in about three weeks. I can't wait for that, but it really is a lot of fun feeding them scraps and watching them become chickens. One of our favorite ways to relax now is to sit in the shade with the chickens in the evening.

A Bee Adventure

2011-07-21T20:24:00.007-06:00

Last weekend we noticed there were honey bees moving into our porch ceiling. I had wanted a hive (at some point) and so at first was pretty excited. Then I learned this was potentially very bad. After doing some reading it became clear we needed to act quickly before the bees established themselves. We tried to find help from other beekeepers but everyone was busy, so we were on our own. The time for action had come.

I borrowed some equipment and made ready to remove the bees. The plan was to smoke the bees, open up the ceiling and relocate the bees to a box. From the box, I hoped to establish the bees in a hive in the back yard. I prepared by building a bee vac, donning the suit, and lighting the smoker.

As I opened up the eave, I smoked the bees so that they were not worried about me and were busy trying to save the honey. When I finally got the eave opened up, I was amazed by what I found.

It was now time for the Bee Vac. This is a simple device which uses a shop vac to suck up bees, but does not kill them. This was key since the idea was to relocate them to a hive in the back yard. My bee vac consisted of: a cardboard box with a small shop vac on one side and a hose on the other. Inside the box was a wire screen to keep the bees in the box, and not let them go into the vacuum. The box was duck taped up to make it more or less air tight.

As I vacuumed, I was also collecting the comb and putting it in a bucket. The comb needed to be saved and put into the bee hive so that the bees would know that was home. Most of the comb was white and empty, but some of it had honey. When the bees are filling the comb with honey it means they are established, and reproducing.

One of the tips I read about the bee vac was not to apply too much suction or you would kill them all. So, I was not able to suck up every bee, but tried to get the majority of the colony. The key was to get the queen. Without the queen there is no colony. So I did my best to get all the bees and comb, and then we headed out to the destination bee box.

I removed the center four frames and put the comb from the house into the box. Next I took the cardboard box and cut a hole in the bottom and placed it on top of the bee box. Then I tied it down, to secure it from the wind.

The idea is that the bees will find their way out of the cardboard box and into the bee box. There they will find the comb, decide that's home and then carry on with their business.

We are still waiting to see what the out come of all this will be because there are four possible out comes. I'll list them from best to worst. 1) The queen is in the box, decides she likes it and I have a bee hive in the back yard. (honey!!) 2) The queen is in the box, decides that it sucks and moves out. 3) The queen died in the move and the workers will wander around until they die in a few days. 4) the queen is still in the house and will rebuild her colony in a harder to access place (very bad).

It's too early to tell, but I am very hopeful we'll have a hive in the yard. When I checked today there seemed to be good orderly bee business taking place out there. However there are still quite a few bees buzzing around the porch. Truthfully I'd take any outcome but number four. More on this later when we know more.

PS. Sorry for the lack of chicken posts, but the girls are doing well and growing a lot. They are very chicken like now and nearly egg laying age. They have a large run, and have had access to the entire backyard on more than one occasion. On a sad note, we are morning the first loss: a barred rock hen died last night, and Sheridan lost our trust.

Week One

2011-06-01T21:20:00.003-06:00

After a week with the little ones we noticed how different they are now. They have developed wings and tails and they are standing taller. Also now they have started dust bathing and scratching like crazy. They are starting to roost on things, but they're balance isn't that good. Once in a while they flap hard and jump and almost fly but not really. Whitney says they're also getting used to her more, and don't seem as afraid when she visits.
Here's a photo to compare. Above is day one, below is day seven.

Construction Part 1

2011-05-30T21:46:00.003-06:00

After talking about chickens for a very long time, we finally agreed to invest the time and money into a coop. Since we had wanted a greenhouse too, we decided to do it all at once this spring. On Easter weekend Whitney's parents came over and helped us with the building. I really enjoyed learning a lot about building from Gary, and we all spent some good time togther.

We had asked around for people getting rid of stuff, so were able to find free windows, shingles, tar paper, a door and some of the lumber. This really helped us keep some of the cost down.

We built the 8' x 8' coop floor and walls on the cement driveway and then moved them into place after leveling the spot. The coop was build like a mini house, complete with insulation and electrical. We also framed in a chicken door and a special hatch for cleaning out the manure. We were pretty proud of the poop chute! This was supposed to be a quick project, but turned into the better part of a week. The next part was figuring out the greenhouse...

New Friends

2011-05-27T22:59:00.002-06:00

After the first few days, we are glad to say everybody is alive and well. The chicks are starting to show some early developments. They run now, out of the blue. One minute they will be asleep standing or squatting on the floor and the next they are running across the brooder. Then they'll stop and go along pecking and peeping like nothing happened. Also they've starting preening and stretching a lot, and they love to scratch. Small things of course, but fun to witness.
Today, Whitney stopped by the feed store and heard from the owner that she had some chicks who needed a home. It turns out the other box at the post office was bound for Plains also. The chicks arrived only the person who had ordered them decided he didn't want them afterall. The feed store lady was in a tight spot, trying to find homes for these chicks. Whitney went to work calling around and was able to place many of the chicks with her chicken loving friends. Some of them needed to be brooded, so another 5 came to our place. These chicks were Barred Plymouth Rocks and Road Island Reds. We already had a bunch of Barred Rocks, but had not ordered Road Island Reds. The funny thing was that these red chicks look identicle to our mystery chicks. So now we know we got some reds along with others in our order. Some chicks were given to a friend already, and some are remaining here to be brooded. Tonight there are 28 chicks in the coop, so far so good!

First Introductions

2011-05-27T22:22:00.004-06:00

This week our chicks arrived from the hatchery. They pecked their way out of a shell, were sexed and sorted, then placed in a box and mailed to us. Since a chick is hatched with no need for food or water in the first 48 hours, this really wasn't that stressfull, but is still amazing. We got the call at 9pm thursday that the chicks were in Missoula and we could come get them from the post office if we wanted. Or we could wait and they would arrive in Plains the following morning. The post office man was nice and said ours looked good, but the other box he had recieved didn't look so good, he thought some had died. He also said that he'd find something to put over them to keep the wind off. Chicks have to be kept above 95 degrees for the first week and in light of our recent cool wet weather Whitney decided that a run to Missoula was in order. She had planned and waited too long to have her chicks die on a post office loading dock. So as I went to bed in preparation for another 0530 work day Whitney headed to rescue the chicks. She found them at the post office safe and sound and brought the peeping box home to the brooder ready with heat lamps, making it home around midnight - thirty. I got up as she was headed to bed, exhausted but satisfied that all the chicks were safe and healthy. We had ordered 25, but the hatchery sent 29. Maybe because it's late in the chick season, or maybe because some do die often, but in this case all survived. Whitney spent the first day with them introducing them to the water and food and making certain that the temperature stayed constant. At the end of the first day she decided all four of the varieties she ordered were there, plus a few mystery chicks.

Blog comes back to life!

2011-05-22T22:10:00.002-06:00

Kyle and I have decided to get back into our blog after a year break, oops! Since the last post we have expanded our garden, built a greenhouse and a chicken coop. The 25 baby chicks will arrive in 3 days and I am terrified! 25 little lives in my hands is making me feel not near prepared enough. Because the chickens and garden have already taken up such a huge chunk of our lives, we are going to dedicate the blog to our food raising endeavors! I hope that our garden updates and stories of chick antics are interesting enough. I look forward to reporting on baby chicks soon!

Yard Work

2010-05-07T17:22:00.002-06:00

Yard work is the word of the hour.
With the nice weather, Whit and I have been going full tilt on the yard and garden projects. Hopefully soon I can upload some images of the things we've been up to, but for now here's a shot Whit took of me last weekend. She said when I started snoring she just had to take a picture. In my defence, this was after I had unloaded two trailer loads of compost by hand!

Take care and have fun!
Kyle

Spring Time!

2010-03-26T19:35:00.007-06:00

A few pictures from this spring:

I finished mounting Whit's buck from last fall.

I am pleased with how it turned out, and am glad to have a lasting tribute to her first buck.

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Whitney and I planting fruit trees in our back yard.

We added a McIntosh apple and Wenatchee apricot to our small orchard.

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Whitney has her garden started, here are the seedlings under grow lights in the house.

These are some of the starts soon after they first popped up.

Its really fun watching the plants develop, and knowing soon they will be in the garden.

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One recent morning, Whitney surprised me with aebleskivers!

Thanks to the Arneson's for this wonderful cast iron aebleskiver pan.
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Here Whitney shows off our new blue-stained pine bar.

We found this at a local craftsmen shop, and loved it.
It was built with beetle killed pine,felled and milled here in Plains.

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That's enough for now. Hope everybody is well and happy out there.

Take care and stay in touch! KJ

Late Winter

2010-02-22T18:43:00.004-07:00

Hi Everybody!

Here are a few shots of how Whitney and I have been spending our late winter.

I've had a great time riding my mare since this winter has been so mild.
Here she is on a recent Saturday with Mt Baldy in the background.

The dogs and I go to the field often setting up projects for the coming year.

Rosco takes a quick nap while I work.

The dogs take a break by Whitney Creek, Thompson River country.

While she was laid off Whitney stayed busy with quilting projects. This is a Double Wedding Ring, known as one of the hardest patterns to attempt.

Thats all for now... KJ

Merry Christmas!

2009-12-25T14:50:00.003-07:00

Here's wishing every one a bright and happy holiday. Cheers!

Tree "hunting" with the Sisk's when they were here.

Our traditional Swedish Santas

A holiday essential, homemade fudge and cookies.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2009-11-25T10:22:00.003-07:00

Happy Thanksgiving!

This year we are greatful to be getting a visit from Whitney's parents once again. We're looking forward to a long weekend full of good food and family. I have so many things to be thankful for, not to mention a successful hunting season and the Grizzlies unbeaten regular season. Here's hoping for a similiar outcome from the playoffs! I found this picture of Whit's family with us at a playoff game last year.

Hopefully everybody out there is enjoying the season, in good health and happy.
Take care and stay in touch.
KJ
P.S. Go Griz!

My Veterans Day Bull

2009-11-13T11:47:00.002-07:00

This fall I was fortunate enough to harvest my first elk. To make it even sweeter, I got this nice 6x6 on Veterans Day. I had spent several days hunting this area, always getting near elk but they always out smarted me. Finally my luck turned and I was able to make good on the opportunity. It took us one long night and half the next day to pack out, but it was worth it. My thanks to Whitney and my good friend Doug for helping pack it out. Catch me for a beer some time and I'll tell you the rest of the story!

Take care and Go Griz!

Whitney's First Buck

2009-11-03T19:09:00.004-07:00

Whitney's First Buck!

Whitney bagged her first buck this fall, a beautiful mule deer 4 by 4. Whitney did a great job hunting this buck and made a very good single shot. We are both very greatful for this successful hunt and I am looking forward to the rest of the hunting season.

I hope you are all well and happy, and of course, Go Griz!

Kyle

Antelope Country

2009-10-21T21:00:00.006-06:00

Whitney and I took our second trip to antelope country this year, here are a few pictures from our adventure.

This picture shows some of the area we were hunting. Anyone who says central Montana is flat has never hiked it!

This is a bunch of antelope we watched quite a bit. There was some very nice bucks in that herd, but of course they never came anywhere near the property we could hunt.

After a lot of hiking, we found a bunch that we could hunt. We managed to belly crawl within 130 yards, and each made a goot shot. This is the view from where the shot was taken looking at me standing where the animals are.

Whit's first animal wasn't the big buck she was hoping for, but she made a good clean shot and can certainly be proud to have filled her antelope tag.

The dogs were very excited to come with us to retrieve the game, wearing orange of course!

I loaded both critters on the game cart, and we made our way back to the truck, about 1.5 miles.
It was a great trip, and fun to see some country new to us. Now both of these animals are cut and wrapped in the freezer, and we are looking forward to the general season opener on sunday!

That's all for now - Kyle

Summer photos

2009-09-20T18:08:00.010-06:00

Wow, it's hard to believe its almost fall already. With the cottonwoods turning yellow and the threat of a freeze tonight, I decided it would be fun to upload some photos from our summer.

In June, after the whirlwind of wedding activities was done with, we took a trip to our favorite moutain lake to fish and relax.

In July, Whitney and I celebrated one year in our new place, and had a wonderful crop of cherries!

I thought it was wonderful anyway, Whitney thought it was a terrible lot of work. Either way, we got several gallons put up for pies this winter. One thing we really love is putting up fruit to have in the freezer for later on. We also put up several gallons of apples off our trees in the backyard.

Another thing that happened, I adopted a mare. This pretty little critter was needing a home and while Whitney and I didn't need a horse, and certainly weren't looking for one, eventually I decided to take her on.

"Tess" as we've come to call her, is a 5 or 6 year old Arabian x quarter horse with plenty of attitude. She's showing good progress since I've taken her on, but there's a lot of work yet to come.

Of course one of our summer projects is filling the wood shed. Being that we heat mostly with wood, it's a good feeling to have plenty on hand since we're expecting a long winter.

One of my most time consuming projects of the late summer has been log oiling the house.

It took 20 gallons to cover the whole place with two coats, but I'm glad to say the job is done! I hope that it will last several years before I have to do that again.

This year we tried an actual garden. Whit actually started many of the plants from seed, and it's been a lot of fun watching them grow and mature.

Today we are enjoying corn, tomatoes, zucchinis, cucumbers, green onions, lettuce, yellow onions, carrots and strawberries from our garden!

Looking back it really was a great summer! With any luck we have a few weeks of warm weather left, but how can I help being excited for Grizzly football, hunting season and fall?

I hope everyone out there is doing good, and I look forward to hearing from all of you.

Until next time... Kyle

Wedding Week

2009-06-02T07:37:00.003-06:00

The wedding week is upon us! It's been so long in coming and yet I still can't quite believe it's actually here. Our first guest arrived last night, Whitney's Aunt Cricket from Phoenix. Today more Sisk's arrive and tomorrow the first of the Johnson's will be in town. It's so exciting for everybody to be congregating in town for our special day, Whitney and I feel very honored.
Our first event will be the luau themed shower/ party thursday night. Alyssa headed up puting this together and we are very thankful, it would not have happened without her. It is going to be a blast and yes I do have a grass skirt and coconut top!
After that, friday morning bright and early we'll head off to Missoula to start setting up the wedding site. This will be even more fun because on Friday I get to see my niece Nia who turned one just two weeks ago! On Friday afternoon we'll have a practice ceremony and then for the family and bridal party, it's off to the rehersal dinner.
Saturday morning we're off to the fort for any remaining preperations. The band will be setting up and we'll be putting the flowers together. Then we go take wedding pictures with the bridal party, before heading back for the ceremony. Then saturday at 5 the big event will actually happen! Although some may argue that the main event will acually be the reception after the ceremony!
We are certainly looking forward to that, a party with all our favorite friends and family, what could be better? By the way, the band told me that they'd play as long as people kept dancing, even if that lasted until sunup, so be prepared!
So after all that, whenever everybody returns to life, we're planning a family gathering at the fort one more time to open gifts and say goodbyes.
It's going to be one amazing week, I just hope it doesn't go by too fast.
KJ

Spring Projects

2009-05-10T20:35:00.007-06:00

Ever since the weather has turned nice, every chance we get Whitney and I are outside working on projects around the house. We've really enjoyed getting the yard into shape and getting the place cleaned up after the long winter. I'm excited about the cherry blossoms, the apples are almost there too. I hope we get a good fruit crop like we did last year.
With less than a month to go before the wedding, we can't wait to see everybody in Missoula!

May!

2009-04-29T21:12:00.003-06:00

It's almost May! With our wedding just over a month away, we are really feeling the excitement and anticipation. We are working out the final details now, and trying to make sure we haven't forgotten anything. More and more people are RSVP'ing and thanks so much to everybody who has visited our gift registries. To anybody who has not sent the RSVP back, I should warn you that the stamps we included will be short of postage by 2 cents in May. Sorry I don't have more to post, I can't wait to see you all really soon.
Kyle

Jeeps in the Family

2009-01-23T16:03:00.003-07:00

Apparently bouncing around in flat fender jeeps has been in the family for a while!

This is a picture of my grandparents in their military surplus jeep soon after WWII. I can remember my grandfather telling us how there were thousands and thousands all lined up ready for sale. I think he paid around $250 for this one.

My brother also has a flat fender, bought a couple years before mine. This was the one that introduced us to the fun of jeeps, and many wild adventures.

There is also a Willys truck in the family, and my Uncle had a canary yellow CJ-7 for a time before swapping for a beautiful Jeepster convertible.

I guess when you get down to it, Jeeps are a family tradition!

The Jeep gets a new home.

2009-01-19T09:28:00.005-07:00

Last November my Dad came out to visit and brought a load of my old stuff (Whitney says junk) from his place. The single best thing he brought was my 1943 Ford GPW, Military Jeep. Some folks may not know (or care to know) that during the second World War, Willys could not produce enough jeeps to meet the need. So Ford produced jeeps on the Willys design and stamped their parts with a script F. The story goes that Ford didn't want anybody mistaking his jeeps for a Willys.
My Dad helped me buy this jeep when I was 15 turning 16. That summer the jeep needed a new motor and transmission rebuilt, and I had a broken leg. We were a good match. Since then the jeep and I have gone on many adventures and even served as my daily driver for the better part of a year while I was working at the LB Ranch. My Brother and our buddies went on many wild camp outs and jeep trips; Just get us all together and the stories will start: "Remember that one time in Cleer Creek"...
The jeep and I had been separated since I left home, but thanks to Dad we are together again. Now I look forward to cleaning "her" up and getting jeeping again!
Hope you like these shots of the day we moved the jeep in to our home.
KJ

Winter Day Photo Post

2009-01-10T15:36:00.020-07:00

Throw another log on the fire, pull on your slippers, grab some hot coco and I'll show you a few pictures of me and Whit and what we've been up to this past fall.

As a graduation gift for Whitney last year, her Uncle Larry gave her a 12' fishing boat!
These next few pictures are from a fishing weekend at one of our favorite local lakes.

Whitney and I also really enjoyed the hunting season this year. We had a great time getting out and exploring some new spots in both Western and Central MT.

These photos are from opening morning this fall.

The other thing we did a lot of this fall was go to several Griz Games!

These pictures are from the Thanksgiving Holiday when Whitey's family joined us for a game.

The Griz had a great season and went all the way to the National Championship!

Well, that's all for now. I hope you enjoyed the pictures!

Kyle and Whitney (and Sheridan and Rosco)

GRIZ BABY!

2008-12-31T08:04:00.003-07:00

This post is dedicated to the cutest little Griz Baby in the world, my Niece Nia!
Happy New Years to everybody and especially Nia who is celebrating her very first New Years!
Thanks to April for the great picture!

December 2008

2008-12-26T23:06:00.003-07:00

Sitting here in Madras for Christmas I'm finally taking the time to update this. Kyle and I were able to spend Christmas with my great aunt, uncle, cousins, parents and sister. It was nice to have this holiday here in the house that I grew up in as it may be the last one here. My dad was offered a job in Ashland, OR over 72 other applicants. He and mom have decided it was time to move on and retire somewhere else. They are looking forward to the challenge of a new job and living in a bigger town. He starts in early january as Ashland School District's new maintenence supervisor (facilities manager). Mom will continue to work here until they sell the house, which may be a challenge with the economy the way it is. So, after 13 years they are saying goodbye to Madras. We are excited for them, though it will make our drive 4+ hours longer.

Meanwhile, I'm busy at work and looking at applying for a permanent silviculture position with the forest service in Plains when I get back this week. Kyle and I will head back in to the office on monday. Dale and Lauren are meeting us tomorrow in Madras and will be driving back to Montana with us for a visit. We are really looking forward to showing them the house and Plains. Wish we had another week of vacation! :)

Happy Holidays!

Wedding Plans

2008-09-19T16:56:00.002-06:00

We have wedding gift registries! We chose three places to register: Bed, Bath and Beyond, Sears, and Cabela's. So far we have begun the BBB, and Sears registries, but not the Cabela's yet. They are by no means completed and will likely change some in the months to come.
Other than that, I don't have much to report. The autumn weather is great, and we are both looking forward to this hunting season. I hope everybody out there is doing well, and we look forward to hearing from you.
Kyle

Summer Update

2008-08-08T21:35:00.002-06:00

Wow, Its been a really long time since we updated this page! Sorry about that...
A lot has happened so far this summer. "Our renters" finally got out at the end of June, and we moved into the house over the Fourth of July. Thanks very much to Kathy, Gary and Bailey for the help. Since then we've been working on getting the place up and running, and getting our selves organized in the space. Part of that was getting the internet connection up, which is why the page was so over due. We've also been working on gathering firewood and huckleberries in the hills around Plains. As my sister April put it, we are like squirrels gathering for the winter. The fire season for us has been very slow. A very big change from last year, and a mixed blessing as it has been nice to have free time for moving in. Also we've gone floating several times. Floating the Clark Fork River is a main past time here, lots of fun.
We are looking forward to a seeing George later this summer, and anyone else who would like to visit!
I guess that's all for now, hope your all doing well. Kyle and Whit

Weekend Update & House Pictures

2008-05-25T20:18:00.007-06:00

The biggest thing to report is the birth of our baby niece Nia! We are very excited and very happy for April and Joe, the pround parents.

It was also great to see so much of Whit's family and mine, as well as my good buddy Nels and his girlfriend in Sacramento. It's always fun to take time to visit good friends and family, no matter how long the drive.

After our week long road trip to CA we both had to hit the ground running. Whit's job at the Forest Service looks to be very busy, with lots of overtime already. Things are also picking up for me as the nice weather dries out the muddy hills. I am trying to hold on to the last few weeks of spring though, as summer fire season will be here very shortly, I'm sure.

Today we visited our new house (only the second time we've been there). It was great to see everything again, and notice all the little things we missed the first time. The big news for this

week is that "they" upped our closing date to June 12th. If all goes as planned the current renters will be out and we'll be in by the begining of July. Its hard to go see it and then leave and go back to my current rental, but soon we can begin moving.

We are both very excited to be moved in and show off the new diggs, so everybody will have to come visit!

Take care, KJ

Whitney Graduates!

2008-05-09T23:46:00.002-06:00

This weekend Whitney is Graduating from UM!
Not only did she complete her degree in four years (a difficult task) but she also is graduating with high honors, and was the only Forest Resources Management senior recognized by the president of the University in a special ceremony today. Whitney's family is in town to support her this weekend, and we are all very proud.
Next on the list after graduation? Moving out of Missoula!
KJ

2nd Street

2008-05-07T14:42:00.003-06:00

I have news!
Whitney and I have a house under contract! We still have a long ways to go in the buying process but, with luck we will be moving into the new place in mid to late July. Stay tuned for pictures and updates in the future.

A day in the life…

2008-04-06T17:32:00.011-06:00

Tuesday was the first day I have taken both dogs to work with me. Sheridan rides along frequently, but up until now I have not considered it safe to bring Rosco to work. I decided to give it a try and am glad to say he did very well. On the way to the job site, both dogs dozed in the back seat, but Rosco was a little too excited to sleep completely.

We got there and the dogs came along while I worked. They both had a great time playing in the snow, and got completely covered by snow before we were done.

I hiked them quite a ways out and when we headed back Rosco was having trouble keeping up so I carried him most of the way back to the truck. Sheridan helped me do a few more things while we were there and once I finished up my work both dogs settled in for the ride home.

On the way back near Lonepine MT, we spotted a flock of swans coming to land on the Little Bitterroot River.

Until next time, Kyle

Mid March

2008-03-24T21:02:00.003-06:00

Whitney enjoys sewing and quilting and has been working on this "Old Maid's Puzzle". This quilt when finished will be king size, the largest she has made yet. Whit guesses she has spent over 100 hours cutting, arranging and sewing the blocks together. To a guy it seems funny to take a big bolt of fabric, cut it all up into little bits, and stitch it all back together again, but she likes it!
The other day I thought to spread the quilt top on the carpet to take a picture. Once I got it spread out, the dogs decided to help the project by running over to lay on it. I decided to take the picture anyway because they do enjoy helping!
Happy Spring - Kyle

Rosco finds the tennis ball

2008-02-26T11:57:00.006-07:00

The other day at lunchtime I was playing with the tennis ball with Sheridan in the back yard. This may not sound that exciting, but it’s a great way to exercise both dogs at once since Sheridan chases the ball and Rosco chases Sheridan. We have done this a lot in the past few weeks, and after a little while of this Rosco got brave enough to steal the tennis ball! He held it up proudly and was charging around with it. Before Rosco joined us, when any other dog came near a Sheridan toy, you could bet on a fight breaking out. But to my surprise Sheridan did not attack him; she merely watched him (looking amused, I thought) and waited for me to return to the game. I was really impressed at his gumption to steal the ball, and her ability to let him play with it. Now the game has a second layer as every so often Rosco gets the ball and streaks off across the yard with it!

Later that night I was sitting on the floor with the dogs, and Sheridan was playing with the Quail toy. This is another situation where a fight would have been expected. She has always been super protective of her toys and would not permit any other dogs near them. On this night, as Rosco watched her rolling around and chewing a wing he slowly got closer and closer until he finally grabbed hold of the other wing and started backing up like a crab. It was a stand off, with the quail suspended by the wings. I was laughing too hard to do much, but I did manage to get a poor quality picture of the event. Again I was very impressed by his spirit to grab the toy while she was chewing it, and by her for not biting his face off!

I’m not sure what this all proves, but it sure is fun watching them learning to live together. KJ

Two Weeks

2008-02-21T21:20:00.004-07:00

Tonight is our two week aniversery with Rosco! He continues to enhance our lives with many fun times and challanges too. Walks twice or three times a day, pee breaks at 2 and 5 every morning, and constantly keeping us on our toes are just a few things going on around here. Sheridan seems to be taking it well and Rosco follows her everywhere, like a little brother does. He has a very strong play drive contantly galloping off to find new things. On that note I am impressed at how fast he is already. Rosco also loves to chew on rawhides and recently found one of Sheridan's old deer legs in the back yard to keep him busy. That's all for now, KJ

Rosco and Sheridan

2008-02-12T11:39:00.001-07:00

Kyle took a couple good pictures of the little guy and Sheridan, so here they are!

He only sleeps like this during the day though. Night time he is ready to play! But he is getting better and last night he only woke up once! Which is a big step and one that Kyle and I appreciate.

Rosco the Shetland Sheepdog ('Sheltie')

2008-02-08T09:53:00.000-07:00

Though Kyle and I have discussed getting a puppy in the future, neither one of us planned on bringing one home last night. I am sitting here typing this blog with one hand because little Rosco is napping on the other. I wonder why he is so sleepy? Possibly because he kept us up all night whining and howling (its like I bought a wolf)! I knew it was going to be rough though, and its worth it to have his companionship and playfulness.

I found this little puppy at a local pet store on tuesday and fell in love. I hung out there for the next two days until Kyle could come meet him and his little sister. Neither of us have ever bought a puppy from a store, let alone bought a puppy. I looked into his breeder who actually owns very few dogs, and the pet store workers all own pets through her. It is a small family run business and her puppies are all very healthy and happy.

Rosco is a 10 week old Shetland Sheepdog; meant for herding like another dog we know and love. I have had my heart set on a husky since I can remember but this little guy changed that idea pretty quickly. His breed is very loyal, good with children, energetic, and smart! Sheridan was here to meet the little guy and she seemed excited for a pal! She doesn't realize how big she is in comparison. Her idea of playing still consists of running him over! I think they will get along excellently and he will be a great addition to the family.

My camera is on the fritz but pictures will be posted shortly!

91st Forester's Ball

2008-02-03T14:12:00.000-07:00

This weekend our main activity was the 91st. Forester's Ball.
For any that don't know, the Ball is a UM forestry students tradition dating back to 1914. It is the second oldest tradition on UM campus, behind the Grizzly football team. The ball is a two night fund raising event, that provides scholarships to the forestry students.
Whitney has been busy with putting this together for months, serving as a member of the committee. Her sister Bailey flew in from Az. on thursday night to see the event and help with all the last minute jobs. I got into town on Friday having attended a foresty conference in Coeur d' Alene, Id. for a couple of days.
As the ball got under way on Friday night, we were very surprised to find Whitney's parents Gary and Kathy there! They had been hearing about this event for a long time from Whitney and decided to make a surprise trip out to attend. It was really great to see them, and they enjoyed seeing what all the fuss is about. Kathy, Gary and Bailey attended both nights and headed home to Or. and Az. this morning.
As for me, I enjoyed particiating in the Can Can dance once more, and had a great time both nights. It is a great time to see other forestry alumni and catch up with folks I don't see often.
That's all for now - KJ

Heritage Hall

2008-01-27T15:08:00.000-07:00

The Heritage Hall at Fort Missoula. http://www.nrhc.org/

We first found out about this beautiful building when we attended my friends Court and Sarah's reception last year. The extensive lawns, and large wooden dance floor really impressed us and we decided this would make a great place for our big day.

First Post

2008-01-27T14:32:00.000-07:00

Welcome!

This is the first posting of our blog. Whit and I decided to create this blog as a place to post thoughts pictures and updates, on our lives in western Montana and our engagement together.

Our first bit of news is that we have decided on a date and location for the big day! Our wedding will be on the 6th of June, 2009 at the Heritage Hall at Fort Missoula, here in Missoula, MT.