Howdy y'all!
Since I last blogged a lot has happened... My donated bee hive was delivered to me at school from Kelley Bee Co.! I have assembled the hive and painted it sky blue. The classic hive color is white but really you can use any light color and white is too boring for the Hawken Farm. My hive is almost ready for the bees arrival early next week. At some point I need to dissolve 2.5 lbs. of sugar in 3 pints of water for their syrup. The coop is OFFICIALLY done with the construction of the HawkNet and Gate. The chickens are loving it and love it even more when we let them out to scratch the compost and get their worm fix. Nate has recently proved himself as a miraculous carpenter. In about a full day he made a beautiful Trellis/Bench/Garden Entrance Gate. Im am also happy to announce that with that creation we could finally utilize the neat-o H-A-W-K-E-N F-A-R-M letters that Allie artistically made out of woodshop scraps and painted red. We found that the red contrasts nicely with the natural look of the treated wood, so we're not going to paint the entrance. Wanna here something nasty? Allie and Stu were driving to Home Depot to get supplies when the crossed paths with a giant road-killed raccoon near Wilson Mills and Som. They had their five gallon bucket so they pulled over and shoveled it in. So let me explain. We figured that if we had roadkill to attract flies, they would lay their eggs in the bucket and then the fly larva would fall out of the holes we would drill in the bottom and be eaten by the chickens. Yum! a good source of nutrition. But when they got back and opened up the bucket the raccoon JUMPED OUT! Just Kidding haha but the roadkill was too big so we discarded it. Today we went on a sheet field trip the CWRU Squire Farm off of Som on Fairmount. We had a blast and learned a lot. Afterwards we went to Burgers 2 Beers which serves local, grass-fed beef only. I had the breakfast burger. A burger with corned beef and a fried egg, drizzled with Hollondaise. WOW! Looking ahead we'll be spreading wood chips and planting in the garden. I also can't wait to install my bees.
Your enthusiasm coupled with the descriptions in your posts is leaving me increasingly excited to return to Hawken to see the farm. I'm impressed with the sheer amount of work that's been going into this transformation between the new critters and the construction, but even more so I'm impressed with the bees. I'll have my fingers crossed that nobody is stung! Hopefully there will be an equally dedicated crew to take over all the hard work you guys have put in and keep this farm growing :)
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