How deep it goes

Ahhh that sweet sweet voice of Anne Wilson, Nancy's tender picking -- there is a reason why this song has been stuck in my head for a few days...

The well guys came with a really really, no really, BIG truck with a super giant drill, and the guy dangled his keys around a bit and said "h-yup, right here".  He estimated we would find water at about 20 meters (60 feet or so). At 100 euros per meter, the quote was for 2grand, and that was OK...


And along comes Drilling Day...20 meters, still pulling up gravel, not even reached bedrock yet...30 meters...the guys have to go back to get more pipes...40 meters...the guys have to get bigger pipes because the gravel keeps caving...50 meters...and finally bedrock.  How much bedrock before we hit the water table?

Not much farther now, says the well guy, for sure for sure.  60 meters...70 meters...80 meters...No water and we quit for the day.

So here we are, 4 times over budget and seriously worried -- what do you do?  Keep going, keep spending for each meter?  How do you stop when so much has already been invested?  But what if there is no water?  What if we don't reach it until 200 or 250 or even 300 meters?  We started talking to folks with wells, and everyone had a horror story -- "oh, my sisters well was 330 meters deep (that's 1000feet -- just the energy to pump the water up from that depth is heart stopping!)".  "My uncle had one that went to 220".  "oh, at my cottage it went to 250"...EEEPS!!

Well, not much to do at this point, so the next day we just kept drilling and drilling.  And HURRAY! We finally hit deep water reservoir at 120 meters -- about 360 feet.  It has a good strong flow too, more than 1400 litres an hour, which is OK, and provides some pressure to get the water up with less energy than I feared.

Still, though -- 6 times what we expected to pay.  If we had any idea it would be that expensive NO WAY would we have dug a well at the little farm -- the running spring is enough, and we could just use that to fill a tank for the few times we will spend the night there.  But hey, now its done, so if ever we do want to live there, or have someone else live there, it will be ready!

So, I've done the calculations -- we use water at the little farm mostly to irrigate the vegetable garden, since we aren't living there, and that takes about 600-1000 litres every other day when its not raining.  At 1 euro per bottle, we could water the garden with Evian for a couple of months for the same price!

Swarm, Swarm, Super Swarm

Having bees is an extraordinary thing.  Novels, poetry, music has been written about it, and with good reason -- it is a beauty, alien and strange, dangerous and scary, essential and productive, intelligent and powerful. Pure nature, and so beyond our power and control that it is impossible to contemplate them without enormous respect, a respect that spills over into a respect for all living things.  

Beekeeping teaches a fundamental truth: nature ought not be forced.  The role of the beekeeper is to provide an environment for the bees where they want to stay and do their business. There is a partnership between bee and beekeeper, the beekeeper coaxes and manipulates and teases the circumstances so that bees do what comes naturally in the context of what the beekeeper wants -- its like farming Aikido -- the Zen of Bees.  Provide the ideal circumstances for nature to take place, and it will.  And that goes for all types of farming, with bees its just more immediate and more obvious.

So anyway, our bees are cool.  Did I say that already?

On Saturday Gab and Davide were taking care of Davide's bees down in Sabbio, when they found a swarm -- When a bee colony gets too numerous, they allow another queen to mature, and then half the colony flies away with the new queen to create a new nest, thus a swarm.  They caught the swarm and stored it in a box waiting for a new hive, then came up to our farm to do some checks on our bees. they found ANOTHER swarm!

When bees swarm, they are actually incredibly docile. Without a nest, the bees protect their queen with their bodies, so the mass of bees you see hanging from the trees is just that -- a mass of bees, one on top of the other -- there are no structural elements in that lump, no wax or other branches, just bees.  And they let you touch them.  It is the most incredible feeling -- they vibrate like crazy, its like putting your hand just over a live electrical wire, it almost itches.  To catch the swarm, you actually reach out and pull the mass of bees into a special box.  Many of them will, of course, fly away.  But if you get the queen into the box, then eventually all the other bees will find her and settle into the box themselves.  Takes a few hours of confused bees flying all over, but eventually they settle into their new home.
Video of Gab catching the swarm

So Gab caught the new swarm, and then checked out the original hives.  Sure enough, one was quite weak because it had been divided for the swarm.  That means no honey from that hive or the new one for this year. Rather than lose the honey production, he made Super Swarm.  Not a scary attack of the killer bees sky dark with insects super swarm...in this case a super swarm is a means of re-uniting the separated colony, and making one strong colony from two weak ones.

video of the swarm flying around looking for the queen in the box:

The new swarm is put in the "super", which is the top section of the hive where they make the honey.  The Queen is kept out of the super (the doors that connect them are too small for the queen to pass), so the honey there is free of larvae and other debris of bee life, and is just pure honey.  So, the new swarm is put in the super with 4 sheets of newspaper covering the doors between the super and the hive.  This way, for the first few days, no bee passes from one to the other.  During those days, they get used to each other's smell and proximity, and they chew through the paper.  By the time they are through the paper, they are thinking of each other as family again, and will mingle happily...all except for the queen in the super.  And only one of the two queens can survive.   We'll cross that bridge when we come to it, whether we separate her from the bees and take her off, or whether we let the bees take care of it and choose which one survives, we'll have to see.  Gab has been asking beekeepers on the forums what is the best approach.

And so by the end of the week, we should have a single strong honey producing family rather than two weak ones.

In the process of maintaining the hives, we also scraped down our first little bits of honey. O.M.G.  I have never tasted honey so delicious.  No, really.  I was totally surprised because we always buy local honey from the die hard beekeepers, so I didn't really expect a quality difference. But holy smokes, was there ever.  Maybe its because they are feeding all on wildflowers and we have ALOT of acacia in flower at the moment, or maybe its just because its MINE and the difference is all my head.  But no matter the reason, our honey super duper ROCKS.

HATCHED!!

A couple of weeks ago, the chickens were all moved up to the new chicken house in Provaglio, except for...two hens went broody and stayed behind in Salo sitting on their eggs.  They were sitting together in the same nest on 3 giant goose eggs (from a neighbour) and one teensy tiny egg from the dwarf chicken "Chinesina".  Then we bought 4 new leghorn hens and 4 turkeys (mmmm...thanksgiving!) that went straight up to the little farm and started making themselves comfortable.  Lots of new poultry to keep us entertained!  Then Gab went to the champion breeder of Valdarno chickens and bought 40 eggs, and all they went into the incubator.  And just 3 weeks later...

WE HAVE CHICKS!!! AND THEY ARE SOOOOOO CUTE!!!

On friday, all the eggs in the incubator started hatching! On saturday, the geese and one dwarf chicken egg under the broody hen hatched!  How exciting!!! In spite of a power outage on the incubator for a few hours, we still got about 50% hatch rate, which is great for the first time!  22 little chicks and They are Soooooo Cute!  Here is a video of the valdarno chicks just hours old (under their heat lamp now)... 

And here is a video of the two geese that hatched (the third didn't make it) and Chinesina's little survivor egg...he is just absolutely adorable. Nina's called him "nemo" 'cause he's the lone survivor of a predator attack that took his mom...he's got special dispensation, and won't be destined for the pot any time soon!

The bees arrived too!  5 hives and millions of bees -- Gab kitted up in the beekeepers suit and took 5 colonies of bees and transplanted them from styrofoam boxes into their actual hives, and MAN were they pissed!  But the beekeepers suit worked, and he didn't get a single sting!

But there's bad news too -- within a couple of days, the new turkeys all showed signs of illness.  (I have never seen an uglier creature than a turkey...even the babies are hideous...still, endearing in their grotesquerie)  The stinking nasty brutish industrial battery raising stinking (did i say that already?) farmer sold us sick turkeys.  By the rules of the farmer's market where we bought them, they all should be vaccinated.  Humph, yeah right.  Same stinker sold a "couple", meaning cock and hen, of purebred dwarf chickens to Sabrina...she got them home, and they were a very modern "couple"...two cocks.  Double Humph!  Within two weeks, two of the turkeys were dead, but the other two miraculously survived.  The vet was tres impressed, and now we have 2 quite rugged immune turkeys!

About the same time as the turkeys were dying, we forgot to close the broody house here in salo one night and a weasel got in and killed one of the broody hens.  Nina woke to the ruckus and came to wake us up, and we ran outside and scared him away before he could get them both and the eggs too. We lost the Chinesina, but saved her wee little eggie.

And then, while all this is happening, where is the damn cat?  She up and disappeared. After a week we started to worry it was more than spring wanderings.  Signs up all over the village, but our Calli has disappeared...maybe she's found a nice quiet family that feeds her tuna once a day and is living it large...i hope so!

But back on a good note, we had our first party!  Gramma and Grampa are here from Canada, and we had a picnic on easter monday up at the farm, and it was the best party ever!  Gab built a barbecue out of old pallets and some roofing tiles...who needs to spend hundreds of bucks on a barbecue, humph, not us!  Loads of people came, and we all had a beautiful day, loads of food and a great easter egg hunt.