A Bit of a Confession . . .

Right now I would consider our farm to still be in the set up phase.  We are still trying to figure out what type of balance we want with the livestock - kinds as well as numbers, and we have a bit of set up to do for them as well. (Especially as we bring in new animals like the sheep and hopefully meat birds this summer.)

We are also brainstorming other enterprises we can have on our land.  I'm really going to try to do a bit more with establishing fruit, berries and vegetables this year.

A peek inside the hive on our farm.

One thing that I would like to do as well is keep honey bees.  We are letting a friend keep a hive out here right now, and I really enjoy them.  They are great pollinators - which is especially beneficial if I do produce.  They are also just fun to watch and are intriguing.

Here is my confession though.  (Sometimes I feel I confess too many of my oddities on my blog.  It doesn't bother me with people I don't know - just those of you I do!  Oh well.  I am who I am!)  I have a tremendous aversion to squishing things and to parts of dead things.  It might be in part to having dead maggot filled birds and insect body parts deposited on me when I was growing up (brothers - gotta love them!), or it might be in part to the time when I told my great aunt that she could have some of my chickens for stew hens. I just wanted to pick which ones since I had named the colored ones and turned them to pets and didn't care about the white ones as much. After I got home from school, however, the white hens were running around and the heads were missing from my pet chickens.  AND I had to walk past the pile of my pet chicken heads daily to feed my rabbit until we got heavy rains and the flooding washed them away.  (Lesson to be had - don't let sensitive little girls make pets out of farm animals.)  Or, my aversion to squishing things and dead things could just be one of my oddities that was bound to happen no matter what.

Regardless, when you keep bees you will squish bees. I don't really mind being around when it happens.  I just don't want to be the one to do it.  So for now, bee keeping is something I'd love to do but don't know if I ever will.

So what's the point of this whole confession?  Well, it has gotten really warm here lately, for February, and the wolf spiders are coming out in droves in our house.  It usually happens in the spring and fall I've noticed.  Unfortunately, my aversion to squishing things applies to spiders too.  I just can't bring myself to crunch them or goo them on my floor.  I don't mind if someone else does, but my stomach just can't do it.

I really don't want them continuing to creep around, however, no matter how "good" they are to have around for insect control.  So what do I do?  Well, if they are on the wall, I vacuum them, but when I do I wonder if they just crawl back out.  (Yup, I think too much sometimes too. Okay, a lot of times.)  So when they are on the floor I do what any brave farm wife would do.  I put a canning jar over them and wait until my husband comes home so he can squish them. 

A wolf spider caught this morning.

So today, I would like to dedicate this post to my sweet husband who puts up with all of my strange quirks.  I love you, Ethan!  Happy Valentine's Day!

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