Back?

In a flash of temporary insanity, I decided to revamp the BeeStoic.ca site and start to use it more as a platform for some commentary. There seems to be lots to talk about in the world and all of it crazy.

One of the big things I have learned lately is that if you think you have a better way to do something you are probably wrong. Now this is not always the case. But in the areas of agriculture, sigh, I am beginning to see that it is an uphill battle to succeed. This year has been proof positive of that. 

My spring started off well with my bees making it through the winter very well. Then, things awoke and got hungry. Namely bears.  See the pictures below as to the evidence of a young hungry bear and what they can quickly do to a few unprotected hives.  

Anyway, that was July 4 of 2016. Two weeks earlier,  June 16, a hungry weasel attacked, killing all 60 of my chickens in one blood thirsty night.

What can be learned? Nature will kick you in the ass when you least expect it.  Or we can learn that, what can be taken, will be,  It is the natural law of things. If you have too much. It will be shared. 

Jut this morning I heard on the CBC that there is a surplus of funds in a pension account for the province of Ontario.  Guess what? Natural law states that it must be shared. Guess who gets to share it with the OPSEU members? Big Brother that's who.  Just like nature has the last word, there is no getting away from the Government.  They are counting the surplus there as theirs and are using it to write down the Province's deficit to the tune of 1.5 billion dollars. (source) What??? That does not even include the other 10 billion that the government has been claiming for the past dozen or so years.  Who owns the surplus?  

My stoic lesson for today.  If you have extra - be careful.  You never know who might be lurking out there to take a piece.  

More to come.  Bee Stoic.

Spring Cometh

Well, the weather here in southern Ontario has been extremely eratic this winter. We have had no snow and warm temperatures up until about January 1st. We have gone to -25 degrees Celsius, and -35 degrees Celsius with the wind chill. It has been a crazy winter!

Today is February 21st and while I was in the barn, I decided to check on my 3 hives. I removed some of the winter plastic wrap that I had on them and prayed for good results. I have been counting on the fact that the weather has not been all that cold that all the bees will have survived.

To my great pleasure all three currently look like they have good clusters and are doing well. The one  that had no black plastic wrap for the winter still had sugar sitting on the top board. The other two hives had black plastic wrap for the winter. These ones we're all out of sugar, leading me to believe that the black plastic wrap did have some effect, in that it gave them a greater degree of warmth. This allows the bees to move out of the cluster and up to the cover board and consume the sugar that I had placed there in the fall.

So I quickly ran into the house, grabbed a kilogram of sugar, ran back to the house and fed them. I will check in a few more days and see how they're doing. I am hopeful that this season will be much better than last year and that if I stay on top of them then they will make it through the tumultuous spring weather.

As always, remember to bee stoic!

Then... The wheels fell off

Sometimes life just wants to kick you around.

Hot muggy weather has descended here in Southern Ontario. Perfect weather to go get wood right? Well that's what I thought. Actually I was trying to best the heat and collect a little standing dead wood when the wheels fell off that idea.....literally.

You see I have very little to spend on new equipment for the farm. So I have an old Belarus 2 cylinder diesel tractor. No fancy bucket, no radio, no air conditioning, but it gets into tight areas and pulls a ton of stuff around the farm.

What can be learned? don't be lazy with maintenance. i honestly had no idea this could happen, but you have to be on the alert.

the life on a farm is never easy, never dull, but nothing is more rewarding

Podcast 1 - What the Hell is going on?

Link to podcast #1

Parabel - 6 blind men and the elephant.  If you do not have the correct information you make incorrect assumptions. Stoicism - stay calm and carry on.

1. Why I started this podcast
1. feel slightly isolated
2. I question my own sanity!
3. my friends and family members are sick of hearing from me
4. everything that I thought would happen….didn’t
5. my historical path to this point
1. 2007 CBC show about peak oil - my dad listening across the parking lot
2. 2008 fuel shock
3. Biofuels, Jack Spirko
4. Recession and recovery
5. Lost my way
6. Oh oh happening again
7. endless recession

2. Look around - is the world struggling under the burden that we have created?
3. Are we at peak everything?
1. Consumption - we have a e a society that is consuming more (at least in North America) than the world can keep up with - limits to growth
2. Environmental damage - remains to be seen but think about this logically; can we did up carbon, pump it into the air and not have an effect?  Tonnes a year a being elevated.  
3. Fourth Turning - society has reached a point where we have forgotten the challenges of the previous generations. This is a pattern that repeats, time and time again
4. Financial shenanigans - they are manipulating numbers, publications, markets
4. Why is no one freaking out? - Novel kids
5. What can you do?
1. Bee Stoic - you cannot change or challenge the people around you, let alone the world. Politics?
2. Prepare - do what you can to make sure that you are self sufficient
3. Find your areas of strength and work toward independence. Find the assets that you have and build them up.  Possibly start a business, plant trees, start a garden, learn a new real skill
6. The future - look for more detailed discussions on things that I am doing around the farm and with my life.

The bees runneth over

Well - we have completed a successful season. Our raw honey has been hand extracted, cold filtered and stored.  It was a great season for forage. The wet summer was a boon to a steady flow of nectar.  It did not all come at once but that was ok.

I still need to visit the hives more often as they split on me!  A couple of hives were so productive that they produced multiple queen cells and superseded themselves. Ah well. More work to be done on the methodology.

Hopefully the others have started a successful colony elsewhere and are actively preparing for the winter.

Remember ... winter is coming.

As always bee stoic.

Rupert Is Dead

What a shock. Rupert is dead. the cantankerous old Muscovy duck passed away yesterday. I found him on my way to the barn last night when doing chores. His girl friend might be relieved - Tuffy was hounded by him relentlessly. His daughter, Stubby, was actually being hounded by him as well. Maybe they conspired together and did in Rupert? Even my dog Dixie was acting a little strange when I got home from work yesterday. Did she get rid of him?

So lesson to be learned is that you never know when your time is up. Enjoy the ride. Who knows when the merry-go-round stops. Speaking of music DJ E-Z Rock also passed recently. He was best known for his song "It Takes Two".  Man that is a catchy tune.

I recently read a post by one of my favourite bloggers - Dave Pollard - (How to Save the World blog/website) on how he has decided to give up on trying to change the world when he was reflecting on Earth Day. It was quite interesting to see his comments. I believe he lives in an apartment in Vancouver or Victoria. He talks about enjoying things now and accepting that they cannot continue as they are. He strikes me as a "Prepper" but I am not sure how prepared he might be living in an apartment complex. It is the last place I want to be if things start to come apart.

Me? I am working hard to get everything going in my favour - planting trees. Building garden fertility. Developing food creation skills to support me as I come to retirement (10 years), repairing my cars myself so that I can take care of most repairs and save after tax dollars for other items. Purchasing durable goods that will be with me for my life. Teaching kids the way to freedom is food security and that oil will not be around forever.

This journey we are on is really quite fragile. Enjoy the day. Find beauty in simple things. Rest your head at on your pillow and think about all of the gifts you have, not the woes. It makes everything so much better.

Bee Stoic.

Some things just have to be shared!

Seventeen year old Joe Bush got a high school assignment to make a video 
reproduction. He chose history as a theme and tucked it all into two minutes.
Take pictures from the Internet, add the track Mind Heist by Zack Hemsey (from 
the movie Inception) and then you get something like this.
Hold on tight!

http://marcbrecy.perso.neuf.fr/history.html

Something is up in the Hives

Whoa - lesson from the hive. If the house is rocking don't bother knocking. I was on the way back from the sugar bush yesterday and I stopped to take a look at the hives. There were a couple of bees that were binging in pollen. This was an excellent sign. The problem was that there was a tremendous amount of activity around the one hive. It almost looked like a robbing situation. As I peered at the hive, a bee landed on my ear. Not unusual. I left it there. Then I heard the distinctive high pitched buzz. That is a sign that it is a little pissed at something. Next thing I knew Bamm. Stung. Hmm that's weird - whoa there is another, and another. Next thing I knew there were about 10 in my hair and around my head. You can really hear the anger in their buzzing. I had to get out of there and suffered about 3 stings.

Something is up. They do not usually act that way unless something is disturbing them.

I wonder if something is up in the Ukraine? Russia does not needlessly go around stirring up trouble unless something is up.  Just a thought. I wonder what is going on behind the scenes?

New Use for Bees!

I was working on my car and I had several bolts stuck. I tried many off the shelf products and then I tried something that I thought of while pondering the first wrench busting nut. Wax!  I read a post from long ago when I was trying to un-stick my truck winter rims to switch to summer rims. Heat the offensive bolt and then tough wax to it. As it cools it will draw the wax into the threads and hopefully allow you to break free. Guess what?.. It worked every time. It is now a new tool in my arsenal.

I visited the bees tonight on the way back from my sap buckets and they were starting to bring in pollen.  This is great news. It was 17 degrees today and there is a threat of a thunderstorm so the bees were a little tense. I got stung several times just watching the bees come and go.  They really do not like the weather. I also hope I have not got an aggressive queen in the hive.

Bye for now and remember to Bee Stoic.

What a Winter

Well I think I want to shoot the groundhog that predicted the long winter.  It has been brutal.  Maple syrup has finally started to flow. We are pulling off sap the next few days and the heat is building. Perfect day yesterday - Sunny and 10+ and last night was -2  and today is going to be sunny and +10 again. Looks like we are in for it this week. After this week we will be pretty much done. The only way to prolong it is to have a vacuum system set up.  That is for the future.

The snow is so deep I had to purchase an old snowmobile to get around. I must admit I really like the convenience of moving around the farm quickly and easily. It sure is handy in this weather. I hate the smoke smell and noise. I can't get over that.

I will update on the bees later. Poor results again - lost 2 already and a 3rd is on death's door.

Honey Galore!

Pulled off 24 lbs of honey the other day.  Still more in the capped stage to remove.  It was August 8.  Bottled up and ready to go. I had to buy two hives from Peter Mewitt and they are doing well. I had a setback with one and forgot to get a top inner cover on the hive and they built all sorts of comb on the bottom of the feeder. I had to pull it all out.

I need a new jacket and I want to build some storage for the empty supers and frames to keep the wax moths away.

Spring update

It is a beautiful day here in Trent Hills. The Bees have been out flying and the weather is going to be about 20 degrees Celsius. I lost 3 hives last winter. I think they were honey bound.

I planted several weeping willows from last year's cuttings today on Simon's birthday.

I have also planted clover in the horse fields, and around some of the other trees . I do hope it takes and starts to fix nitrogen in the soil.

I am also going to add lupins, clover, and comfrey around some of the maple tree seedlings and catalpa tree seedlings that I planted last fall. So far, they look good and the buds are beginning to open.

Too nice of a day to sit around making posts, I'm off to town and then plant in the afternoon away.

Progress and Some Setbacks

Well I am down to only 2 bee colonies.  That means I have lost 60%.  I have to really analyze what is going on.  Colonies too small? Queen swarms?  Too congested in hive?  Queen Excluder in incorrect position? Disease?  It is tough to make sense.  I will split the hives and try to rebuild this year and see.

Sawmill is here, but there is no time to work on the wood. I'm too busy with maple syrup - looks like this first week of April may be the last run.  Weather is really cold today -7 degrees and snow!.  It is supposed to warm up over the week. I hope to get out and do some milling some day soon. It will probably have to wait until the summer at this rate!

I have set up my sharpening business.  I purchased most equipment from Larry Davis of Davis Forestry Products.  He had the band saw sharpening business and the chain saw sharpening business and I added tool sharpening. Check out my new site:  www.seymoursharpening.com.  I am using a Tormek t7 professional wet sharpener for my tool sharpener.  It provides a fantastic, consistent edge to all tools with the assortment of jigs.  Lee Valley has an awesome selection of the jigs I need.  The system is fantastic at reproducing the angles required for each tool.

The Oregon Chain saw sharpener works better than expected. I sharpened my own and noticed how far off the regular angle I was.  It whipped through a log in no time after sharpening.

And lastly the Wood Mizer sharpener works very well.  I ran through a couple of bands yesterday and go everything all set to go.

Time will tell how this goes!!

Sawmill is On the Way

Well, there is an old saying: "You can't keep a good man down." I don't think I was down, but I was sort of casting about. Because the kids were away with the cousins and Rachel was at work, I took it upon myself to get a lot of stuff done around town as the sap was not flowing. A chance meeting seemed to cause a chain reaction that has reinvigorated my interest in getting back into business.  I bought a sawmill!.

I went to Davis Forestry Ltd. to purchase a cant hook.

source: http://www.state.sc.us/forest/edutools.htm

He did not have one available but he told me that for ground work a peavey is a a better tool.  Here is a peavey:

 source: http://www.firstgeartrucks.com/store/Peavy_Log_Roller_48.html

So, one thing led to another and what do you know? I bought the last Davis Sawmill available to the world!  It is pretty cool with a soft start design that reduces the workload for the saw and makes it easier to finish the lumber afterwards.  My mind is awash with the ideas I have for the farm based on the wood I have available.

I bought the ST22/10HP
 source: http://www.davisforestry.ca/new-equipment/sawmills/

It can handle logs up to 24", but Larry said the sweet spot is between 18 - 21"


At any rate I will be adding this service to the items I have for sale.  Stay tuned as I think the company will be called Seymour Sawmill Products or Seymour Forestry Products.

Logging!

Well, sap was not flowing today it was drab. I decided to give the Granberg Alsaka Chainsaw mill a go.  I was tackling an ash tree that I dropped last week.

The results are promising but it was very tiring work.  I started around 10:30.  It took a bit to get set up and rolling, but then it went well.

I think I should have started with a pine, spruce or cedar.  At any rate the log has been turned into

1. firewood slabs
2. a 6 3/4" by 6 1/2" by 10 foot long post 
3. 3 pieces of 1" by 8" by 10 foot long slabs.

I was all done and packed up, saws sharpened by 3:00.  That time also included a 1 hour lunch break as well.

Not bad, but my forearms are screaming right now!

3rd run

Beautiful day yesterday.  Started off a little dull and threatened rain.  Isaiah had a hockey game at 1:30 and so I did not start any sap. Looked around town and at the Flea Market for a cant hook.  Nothing available right now.

I brought in around 100L plus the 80 or so that I had collected yesterday and kept in reserve. So today Pat and Garth are bringing Olivia back and the boys are home and Rach is going to work.  I will start it early and run today.

Rocket stove was hot - around 500 degrees F but the horizontal feed tube was to time consuming to work with.  I will redesign one with a vertical feed today to finish off some sap.

Set up the router yesterday. The guy had it set up all incorrectly. Router bit stuck in the collet, plunge base locked into the cabinet - backwards. Anyway fixed it up and put some pieced through for my filter assembly.

2nd Maple Run

Late start today. Went over to Jeff's to see his setup. It burns much faster than mine.  His modifications are a grill and a lower air inlet.

I think I took off 100L today and started at about 11:00.  Still going now and it is 9:37. - Update: March 11 - that run produced 4.5L of syrup. There must have been more in it than I thought.

Rachel surprised me with a purchase of a router and some hockey pads, glove and trapper.  Router stand and pads were $250.  Great deal!

Isaiah and I had a great day in the woods.

First Maple Syrup of 2013

Well, almost done.  The new evaporator did work well.  It boiled off much more quickly with less wood than I anticipated.  I actually almost lost the batch as it was going to burn off, but I arrived in time and only a little was burned.

Door is wonky - it is not really needed but it is nice to close it when you leave the woods. Plastic extension melted into the metal so now I need to burn it out or dig it out and get a metal extension. Lastly, how do I pull off the almost finished sap without burning the pan?  It did not work out too well today, but I will improve it.

I am worried about the coons going into the pan overnight.  I think I am going to bring out an OSB lid when it cools.

I cut down what I think was a basswood near the site.  It came down perfectly. I chopped it up and brought some home with me.

Right now I am boiling off some of the nearly finished stuff at the house on the propane cajun cooker in the large aluminium pot.   200 litres was done from 9AM to 2PM - 6 hours. Finishing started at 3:00 on the propane with a full 10lb canister.  I think I am going to make a rocket heater tomorrow out of concrete blocks. It will save on fuel costs as I can use sprice, pine or branches to feed the rocket heater.

Update: produced 4.5L.  Screwed around a lot with filtering.  Very frustrating. Need to get a better filter.

Phew! Update and Maple Syrup.

March 8 - been a long time. This is the first day of March break.  Time is flying. Progression of my thinking
   ....PIGS!  No - not Portugal, Greece, Ireland, Spain - but real PIGS!  I want to get as far away from dependence as possible.  So Pigs do 4 things:

1. plow fields so that I can plant a food forest
2. give me meat
3. turn over compost quickly
4. possibly move me to a position to become a farm

Cows - ok but not as efficient - could be used to boost farm production and then make me a real far.  Purchase springers in spring, grass fed for summer - sell in the Fall.

Chickens - were attacked last fall by ?? Cameron was doen taking care and we lost several- dominant rooster and some hens. They also tried to get Rupert!  He survived.

Alaksan Chainsaw mill - from Lee Valley - yet to try but looking forward to snow going and getting at it to build sugar shack

Maple Syrup - took off a 2 day run of 180L from 53 taps in 49 minutes.  Hard work but fun. Moved my boiler to woods and just going to do dishes then off to start it up with wood for first time! Tractor is beating up my trailer.  I need to get a farm trailer and keep the red one for road.  My back got injured last week getting pallets.

Anyway - anxious to get going.  I notice the door is stuck in back room again and needs adjustment.  The frost is moving!

2013 Update

Well we made it past the 14 Baktun.  Happy New Baktun!

Updates:

• made rows in vege garden and filled the walkways with manure and shavings - interesting to see the results next summer.
• Left the garlic exposed - might be a problem.  Will cover with leaves and shavings
• Read Sep Holzers book on permaculture - am planning on having Rick K in to do some back hoe work.
• Bees - 1 hive dead - honey bound?  I had suspicions at the end of the summer as it was a little too quiet. The queen may have left as it is full of honey.  Top super is stuffed.
• 4 hives good - will split them in the spring
• Am planning to put up some empty boxes with pheromone or lemon oil in to see if I can catch a swarm or two
• Rachel bought Guinness and so I built an extension
• Raining and 11 degrees here today and it is January
• Yesterday it was 10 degrees and sunny so I checked in on the bees- some were flying.
• Plans to move the maple syrup operation to the forest so that I am closer to wood and the sap
• Bought chains for the tractor last week. $370 plus tax.  Work well.
• Am moving manure to the front orchard to start the process of building Sep's raised beds.
• Saw a Dew Worm under a pile of leaves yesterday.