Bad news: the suspected colony was dead. My next step will be to figure out why.

Good news: we harvested several quart jars of delicious honey and then set out the rest for the healthy colony to harvest. They stripped the frames clean in two days!

Monopolies on the primary mechanism to grow food (e.g. seeds) are really not good.

Despite the short-sighted hype about how Monsanto is saving the world, the truth is actually much much worse. Act now.

Compared to regular seasoned firewood, they are more of a hassle to store (can’t be outside – absorb too much moisture from air), take much longer to light (even with a good hot kindling fire started), and don’t smell particularly pleasant (at least not compared to our aged doug fir).

I read many wonderful blog posts extolling their features, but I won’t be buying any more for next winter.

Since our 12 Golden Comets do not have a heated/lighted coop (and still producing 8 eggs/day in this weather!), their feather growth is appropriate for a normal outdoor bird. With their two shelters, they can get out of the rain/snow/wind to stay dry, but they do just fine maintaining their own body temperature. Our four Araucanas stopped laying regularly months ago but are still big, strong healthy birds.

Greenhouse completed just in time!

Still need to find more salvaged shelves, but looks like we’ll be eating salad out of the greenhouse within a week or two.

First up was finishing up a lean-to style greenhouse so we can continue growing our own food throughout our dark winter.We started with digging in to lay a foundation and finished with adding water barrels to store emergency water and absorb heat during the day (to then release at night).

Side note on the water barrels: they also serve as a more long term economical (and environmental) solution for storing emergency drinking water. Several years ago we bought (lots) of 1 gallon plastic containers to keep on hand in case of emergencies. It’s a lot of plastic and cardboard that now, when it is time for me to cycle back in, I have to find other uses for. Oops. Since I don’t want to repeat this every few years for the rest of my life, the food-grade plastic rain barrels and a siphon are a much better long term solution.

It’s not only straightforward and easy to use, the diagrams and instructions are hip and enjoyable to read over with my kids. It’s not flexible enough (yet) to encompass special cases like cold frames, greenhouses, and grow lights into the sowing recommendation schedule, but it’s an excellent start.