I'm back. After a long hiatus, I have returned to blogging on my gardening/peak oil/end of the world blog. quick update: I have grafted several types of apple varieties onto my rootstock and my Macintosh Apple house. A teacher at Kent, has been kind enough to allow me to take some cuttings from her apple trees. I have selected a St. Lawrence variety and grafted it onto the Macintosh near the northeast corner of the house. Down the field past the compost pile, I have also grafted Golden Delicious and further down Red Delicious. I did the grafts last week around March 7. I also did pruning of the Macintosh and I sealed all the new cuts with wax from a toilet seal. This is a tip I picked up on a YouTube video that I had watched earlier in the year.
In my bee yard, the two hives that I created with the new queens from Tibor Szabo, have done well and made it through the winter until March 1. I took some frames of pollen and honey from the hive that I purchased from dancing bee apiary's and transferred them into these hives. the nuke that I purchased from Dancing Bee Apiaries year died quite early in the fall of this year. It was quite curious, but they seemed to have starved even though they had 4 full boxes full of honey below them. They were clustered near the top. My theory is that they got spaced out during the mild spells and then got into a corner and a cold snap happened, they all died while looking for honey. I am hoping that this will give them enough food to get them through to the first pollen and nectar flows. I noticed today while I was working on the extension of the little barn that several bees were out trying to gather any sort of sustenance from the sawdust that I've created in my work.
I let the ducks out the other day for the first time this winter. They seemed reluctant to get going so I had to shoo them out of our force them to move. I guess I have not updated this blog in a long time as we also have a horse named Nellie and two Muscovy ducks named Rupert and Mrs. Tuft Tuft. They are luxuriating in this beautiful March weather today. It is about 13° very sunny and quite pleasant.
I also visited my old friend Lou by Biano and got several cuttings of Concord grapes as well as a French variety that he could not remember the name. I purchased a heating mat and had been heating cuttings out in the shed trying to get them to callus over and begin to root. I've also placed some on the southern wall brick wall of a house near the outdoor water spout. I am hopeful that many of them will take. Lou mentioned that it may take the ones they're planted in the earth the whole spring before they start to sprout off. We shall see. The ones that I'm attempting to callus in the pots, I am hoping will root and get going a little quicker. I also have other varieties of plants and their that were supposed to be a part of the spring plant sale for my grade 8 class I'm waiting to see if that is actually going to be a goal whether lap I will have to cancel due to lack of interest.
On the economic front, I'm becoming more pessimistic as to the future of our systems. Too many indicators are showing that our economy is running out of energy for the number of people that we have. Oil is now firmly above $100 a barrel, Greece is going into default and they just managed to renegotiate some of their bonds. The rule of law is failing to to be applied in the MF global scandal in the United States. Barack Obama has been an absolute failure as a president. So what is going on right now is very hard to make sense of, but all of it appears to be quite negative. I am hopeful that by preparing my family for being more independent we will be much better off.
On that front, Rachel has got a new job down at the base in Trenton, training military personnel. There's been a very hard three weeks for her to start what she is doing extremely well and I am very proud of her. She works so hard here at the house, making sure that everything is as it was before she started working. She is an absolute wonder, an amazing person, and a beauty to boot! I am trying really hard to make sure that we are able to weather the economic problems that I see coming in a way that'll at least be somewhat comfortable.getting this job has been a real godsend to us at this point in time. Financially it was getting harder and harder to make ends meet. This is making me feel very positive about the future.
Talk to you later, and remember, BEE STOIC!
Talk soon.
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