The Bee's Knees Farm

06/04/2023

Hi Folks,
Mike is moving the bees to the comfrey patch. Please let me know if you get any winged windsheild casualties. He will move them back from the road more if there are. Thanks!

09/16/2022

08/23/2022

Pullet eggs are in! Sale $4/doz at the farmstand.

Great new batch of hens Ive spoiled with good scratch-n-peck grower feed and icelandic kelp meal. Looking forward to eggs through tbe winter with these lovelies!

08/23/2022

A double, double yolker. Seriously, what are the odds?

Ive started mixing in a little Icelandic kelp meal with the chicken's usual fare, and Ive started getting a double yolker about once a week. Yall let me know if any of my faithful egg customers are getting them too!

08/20/2022

Winter honey. Beautiful, cloudy, slightly drier and thicker than spring/summer honey. Scrumptuous. Raw. Local. From the Bee's Knees Farm, Mike Duncan beekeeper. Come and get it while it lasts!

07/31/2022

Ok. There is an ORCHID in my managed-like-a-meadow sward!!
This is Hooded Ladies' Tresses spiranthes romanzoffiana possibly var. porrifolia or Western Ladies' Tresses. Native and "uncommon." Porrifolia is "imperiled" in Washington. They are called ladies trellises because the pattern of their flowers looks braided like hair. They are pollinated by bees tongues and after pollination their flowers close up and wilt.
I noticed it last night when I was putting away the Sheep. There was a juvenile grasshopper on it and it was dark. I really don't know how I noticed it. Maybe my flashlight flashed it but I was on my belly in a second trying to figure out what the heck.
This particular Orchid is known for its long periods of dormancy underground. I'm guessing it has emerged this year because we actually have had a lot of rain and it tends to like wet.
I am human. I am learning to be a better human. I am so glad to have the company of one more of All My Relations.

07/19/2022

Raspberries are in! $4 a pint, yowzahs!
We grow Caroline Raspberries, which are top-of-the-chart for antioxidants. Nutritous. Delicious.

07/08/2022

Also, Blue Eyed Grass, a native miniature iris, and Bladder Campion, a variety of pink have graced this land with their presence! (Plant nerding here).

07/08/2022

This year I am managing the farm sward as if it were a meadow in order to boost biodiversity/life on the farm. This basically means only mowing once a year to stop the larger perennial plants from moving in. Its been such a joy to watch it unfold. Ive been seeing more snakes than usual. I saw a skink for the first time here. There has been an abundance of white crowned sparrows and small wrens bustling around in the tall grass (eating seeds?). There are big yellow and black Swallowtail butterflies all around. And the bees buzz...even though there are honeybees on the farm, most of the pollinators are other kinds of bees, too many to name.
I was having some aphid/ant trouble in the currants and fruit trees, and then the birds just ate them. Wow, thanks!

05/08/2022

Must be doing something right, I found this HUGE Blond Morrel while w**d whacking the garden! Very tasty in clam chowder.

04/25/2022

This year's fleece from Sugar girl. Icelandic wool. We were able to "roo" this fleece, pull it right off, instead of shearing. I learned both Icelandic and Shetland sheep can be rooed. It was so much faster than hand shears! Fleeces will be donated to a local indigo dyer/spinner/weaver.

04/24/2022

Icelandic lambs for sale. Three weathers and one ewe. Papa has papers and is direct from Iceland. Lambs are Zephyr (b 3/29, wether), Daphne (b 3/29, ewe), Cosmo (b 4/9, wether), Junior (b 4/9, wether). Ready at two mo. Prices negotiable, lets talk!

04/04/2022

Sugar had a little ram about an hour ago. I got a video of his first nurse, but cant figure how to post. I looked up at the Clear Blue Sky and thought what a lovely day to have a little lamb. Then of course it started pouring. Everyone is huddled in the new sheep-shed I built with a cosy little heat lamp and I'm feeling like a good sheep mama. Thank you Mahan Log & Lumber for the slab wood ends.

04/03/2022

The hardest part of lambing is deciding which pictures to share. Gosh. Here are a few for starters. Mocha had two lambs Thursday easy as pie. They are full blood Icelandic sheep so have a lovely warm wool coat when they are born.

03/16/2022

The wave of spring chicks begins! (Along with a flurry of racoon-proof chick tractor construction. Thank the Goddess for hardware cloth.)