It’s been a busy few weeks on the homestead as summer kicks into full gear. So far, we’ve been getting plenty of rain with no sign of a drought.
The Garden
Things are growing like crazy. We’ve already harvested so many cucumbers we are feeding some to the chickens rather than turning them all into pickles. The chickens love them at least as much as they did the zucchini. We’ve also been eating other herbs from the garden, but most of the vegetables have yet to product fruit. There is a large green pepper, but my wife prefers to harvest it after it turns red.
The tomato plant looks great, but has only one small fruit. It is a cherry tomato, so there won’t be big fruit, but we’d expect more than one! The green beans are doing OK, but it will be August before they produce a significant amount of beans.
Wild Bounty
One sunflower just had its first bloom turn yellow. This plant is taller than I am and will have at least eight blossoms. What’s funny is that it is a “volunteer” that grew from the seed a flower head dropped last year. This volunteer is doing better than the ones we planted. Several other sunflowers grew about 60 feet from where we expected them. Why? Because of the landslide. Many plants slid down the hill. Some grew right where they ended up, others grew from seeds where the contractor dumped the dirt. Just goes to show you nature’s resilience.
The blackberries, which are wild and not cultivated by us, are still in the red and green stage. I expect it will be a week or ten days before we can harvest any of them. They are smaller and tarter than the store-bought berries, but if you get them after a few days of sun, they taste wonderful. We often freeze them so my wife can enjoy them in oatmeal during the winter.
Everything green is growing by leaps and bounds, even the wildflower sand weeds. As a beekeeper, I consider flowering weeds to be bee food and let them grow.
The Bees
We still have ten beehives and ten queen bees, but we have been in a bit of a dearth, which means the flowers are not producing much nectar. Even though I have seen the bees on white clover, I have taken to feeding sugar water to the weaker hives to help them build up their strength and draw out frames of wax. When the late summer honey flow starts, I will pull the feed and add some supers. With good timing and some luck, these hives will produce at least a box (30 pounds) of honey.
When we got back from vacation, we had a stint of sunny weather, so I painted more than 25 pieces of bee equipment. It took half a gallon of white exterior paint. I have also made at least 60 frames with more to come. This means I now have sufficient hive bodies to add three hives and enough supers to give them each two or three. I don’t expect I will need that many this year, but I will be ready for growth next year.
My advice to beekeepers is to always have more equipment than you think you need because if you do your job right, you will find you need it. The hardest thing about having extra equipment is finding a place to store it when when not in use. I am storing much of it under my deck. Most be equipment is wooden, which means it is flammable, so this is not ideal location if we have a fall wildfire season.
Both the hives I tested for mites came up with zero. I take it to mean my prior mite treatments have been effective. I need to test at my other bee yard to see how it is doing.
The Chickens
We are down to 17 chickens after the death of the hen I called “Scruffy the Zombie Chicken” because of her raggedy look. Scruffy must have been at the bottom of the pecking order. Not only was she frequently mounted by the rooster, who pulled out more than a few feathers, but the other hens picked on her. Or should I say pecked at her, because she was pecked to death by her sisters. It is a bird-eat-bird world with no mercy in the chicken coop.
We are getting 12 or 13 eggs a day, which isn’t bad, but it is not the 17 we used to get. The girls are slowing down, and I have to consider when to get new chicks. Two years ago, we go them in August and that worked well. August seems too soon, but I haven’t made up my mind yet.
I cleaned out their coop yesterday, dumping wheelbarrow loads of poop-impregnated bedding in the compost pile. This time of year, it is less messy than in the winter, mostly because the longer daylight hours mean the chickens are in the coop far less than they are in the winter.
Gutter Downspouts
Our gutters have been over flowing, and I feared they were clogged. That was not the case. However, the black plastic corrugated pipe that carried the water away from the downspout was insufficient to handle the run off from some the very heavy rains we have been getting. My neighbor and I dug it up and then replaced the single corrugated pipe that carried the runoff from three gutters with three separate pipes. The added pipes will give plenty of room for the water to flow away. The single pipe was often overwhelmed, which led to water backing up and overflowing the gutters.
When we dug up the pipe, which ran under the driveway, we were surprised to find it ran through a culvert. I can only assume this was to keep the pipe from getting crushed when a vehicle drove over the driveway. We re-used the culvert.
With any luck, this repair will last at least a decade.
Firewood
A cherry tree fell down and was blocking the road, so we harvested it for firewood. Once I started cutting into the trunk, the reason it fell became obvious. Partway up the tree was a large scar which had rotted and the resulting hole became infested with ants. This weakened the tree until it fell in a storm with heavy wind. My guess is another tree had fallen against it some years before and caused the damage.
I also had another load of firewood delivered. Friends two miles away told my wife they had gotten their first load of firewood. My wife kind of laughed. “Does Pete have all his wood already?” the neighbor asked. Oh yeah. I think we are on our sixth load and will get one more for safety. I burn them in the order received, so this current load will not go into the stove until March, giving it nine months to season.
You don’t have to be a prepper to see the wisdom of getting your firewood early and filling your fuel tank before winter hits. In our case, the firewood has time to season, which makes it easier to burn, plus it produces more heat with less creosote. In the case of propane and heating oil, they are often less expensive in the summer when demand is low.
That reminds me, we haven’t had the chimney sweep come out yet. I’ll have to schedule that. Chimney fires are the biggest cause of house fires in this area.
Gasoline Storage
I have not yet completed the gasoline storage bunker. I tend to work on a project in spurts. The last spurt got derailed by the rain and then delayed by beekeeping.
A couple of weeks ago, I took two five-gallon cans of our post-Helene gasoline, labeled 12/24, and poured them into my truck’s gas tank. Then I refilled them and dated them 6/25. I’ll do it again with two more cans this month, and then another two the month after. Our oldest gas will then be from March. This process is how I rotate our gas to keep it fresh.
Having to replace the dead battery on our riding mower reminded me I should test the generator. I rolled the generator out of the garage and ran it for 15 minutes, just to keep it in good shape. It started right away and ran just fine. I topped off the fuel tank, which was surprisingly low.
If you have a generator, you should test it at least once a quarter. Monthly would be even better. That’s a good practice for any small gasoline engine because it keeps the carb from gumming up. Do it even if you use gas with no ethanol in it.
Solar Power
Our solar power system continues to perform well. In June, we used 990 kilowatt hours (kWh) and produced 1180. This surplus of 190 means our bill should be negative again. This compared to using 720 kWh in May and making 970. You will note our surplus was higher in May (250 hours). I attribute this to more frequent use of the air conditioner in June.
Since our power is “free,” we are keeping the upstairs thermostat set at 76 degrees, which is cooler than we have done in years past. The basement has remained even cooler, hovering between 70 and 72 degrees. I’m not complaining, but it is warmer down there in the winter when the wood stove is roaring.
In July 2024, our first full month with the system, we produced 1065 kWh. This July is off to a sunny start, so I hope we will produce even more this year.
I generally set the solar power system’s batteries to a maximum discharge of 50 percent and bump it up to 80 or even 90 percent if we are expecting a storm. This is to reserve plenty of power in case we have a lengthy power outage. Since we finally had some rain-free days, I set the battery to 20 percent, although it never drained quite that low. I consider this “exercising” the battery. Our LiFePo batteries are not supposed to have memories, but leaving them charged 100 percent all the time is not a good idea.
Why do we need solar power? Because in the past 11 months, we have had 60 outages totaling more than 500 hours.
Going, Going, Gone
The so-called Big Beautiful Bill the president signed into law on July 4 will eliminate the 30 percent tax credit for solar power systems. If you have an interest in anything from a solar generator to a whole-house system, better get cracking or you will miss the savings. Electric vehicles and super-efficient appliances are also losing their credits.
The residential tax credit will only apply to systems installed and commissioned by Dec. 31, 2025. Commercial systems and solar power systems you lease will qualify for the tax credit until the end of 2026, but my advice is to never lease your solar power system.
The repercussions of eliminating this benefit, which has incentivized roof-top solar power production at the individual homeowner level for decades, will be painful for the solar-power industry. Installation companies have already been declaring bankruptcy because of changes in net metering agreements and other changes made at the state level. This bill will likely drive more of them out of business.
I would not be surprised to see the credit reinstated if the Democrats regain power in the future.
Halfway Done
With Labor Day just seven weeks away, we are approaching the midpoint of summer. I hope yours has been productive and you have had an opportunity to take at least a few days off.
