Spring has Sprung

So the lilacs are running rampant, the tulips are almost all gone, the grass is too high and I've just ordered 25 pounds of sugar.

Last week three new packages of bees arrived (David met the truck on his way back from dropping off 150 or so packages to a winery on the North Fork of Long Island) and they got shaken out of their boxes into the hives. We drove the three hours up to Betterbee and bought all kinds of supplies (and some honey in the honeycomb) to keep them happy and healthy. It is wonderful to crouch off to the side and watch them going in and out of the hive entrance, carrying away the dead bees. It is amazing to see them come in for a landing with huge balls of yellow-orange pollen stuck to their legs. In a few days, we open the hives for the first time to make sure the queens are laying eggs, and that all is right in their worlds. That's why the 25 pounds of sugar -- we're mixing up sugar water for extra food to make sure they are getting enough to eat. We'll stop that in another week, or so, as they will be acclimated and able to find enough food on their own.

One of our hens has been very busy sitting on a nest, so we're getting many fewer eggs, but soon the peep-peep of little chicks should be filling the barn.

Speaking of pounds of supplies, Bessie II has arrived...well, half of Bessie II, which we shared with some neighbors. Bessie is the locally raised, grass-fed cow (actually it could have been a bull, in which case it would have been Ferdinand) which arrived on our doorstep, after she went off to the nice man who put her into little white packages to go into our freezer. So the next few months will be beef fest here at Bear Ramble Farm. Luckily, there are no bears rambling quite right we we are lately. Our poor friend, Wayne, lost two sheep and someone else lost a goat about five minutes from here. DEC caught and moved the 500 pounder! It's starting to feel like Mutual of Omaha's "Wild Kingdom."