More Snow, but I got a new Deere

Spring is right around the corner...right? You'd never know it when we keep getting SNOW.
What's the deal with all the snow this year.

But I'm getting geared up for this season - do your best Price Is Right imitation - "IT'S A NEW JOHN DEERE GARDEN TRACTOR!"


Still Snowing and the New Deere from ron upshaw on Vimeo.

At least it's new to me. A couple around the corner (now I know it's 1.8 miles because I rode the
Deere on the road...) had an amazing garage sale last weekend. They were moving to Florida and selling all their stuff amazingly cheap. I picked up this Garden Tractor that retails for $4200, with 200 hours on it for $800. Not bad. And he threw in a trailer.

As soon as the weather gets a bit nicer, I'm going to see if it's got enough juice to mow the horse pasture that I had to do with a brush hog last year.

I'm pretty pumped about this deal. Should last me for a long time!

Rookie Mistake - Double Fail...

Seems like I've been having a LOT of failures on the farm this year. But as the top of the blog says, I am a city boy trying to figure all this stuff out. This one is a double Fail.

A while back I attempted to make Cherry Wine from the massive amount of cherries in the orchard. (You can follow along with all the Cherry Wine posts by typing 'cherry' into the search box on the top of the blog - it only searches this blog...)

Well, that resulted in some really tart, undrinkable wine. I couldn't bring myself to just throw away my first batch of wine - so I bought a Mother of Vinegar and tried to make Cherry Wine Vinegar. So I'm sure you can see where this is going:


Vinegar Fail! from ron upshaw on Vimeo.

So I just delayed my FAIL a few months. But hopefully I learned something this year and will be able to adjust and make a better wine next year.

See you next time~

I Lost My Bees...

Yep, this is what I found last weekend when I went out to start feeding the girls:

Are the bees still alive? from ron upshaw on Vimeo.

I waited a few days and looked inside. NO BEES. So I took the top feeder off and heard the sound all bee keepers dread - silence. Not one buzzzzzz.

Dead Bees from ron upshaw on Vimeo.

So I took the entire hive down to Trees N' Bees in Auburn to ask the experts what went wrong. Their opinion what that the hive tried to supersede, or make a new Queen. That means one of the following bad things happened:

1) The original Queen left the hive and a swarm followed her. That would mean at least half of the bees would be gone in a swarm leaving a very weak hive for the winter.

2) I accidentally killed the Queen when we took the honey last year. The Hive would then try to make a new Queen, but it might have turned cold by then - weak hive - cold - dead.

3) The Hive 'decided' to produce a new Queen because she was weak or not laying enough eggs. When that happens, usually they make a bunch of Queen cells. When the new Queens hatch - they fight each other for the hive, so Queens then die or leave/swarm - weak hive - cold - dead.

But the silver lining is that there didn't seem to be any diseases in the hive, and I've contacted several other Pacific Northwest beekeepers and they have lost their hives this winter too. It was a very cold one for NW standards.

So this weekend I bought about $500 worth of new gear, ordered two new packages of bees, and set out to paint and repair everything... oh and I had some visitors:


Painting the bee hives from ron upshaw on Vimeo.

So now I need to get my apiary ready for a new hive by April, and we'll see if I do better this year.

See you next time

Destroying Stuff Is Fun

If there's one thing that gets a guy going, it's destroying something. Ask any fan of Office Space about the printer scene.

We had this really ugly overhang coming off the side of the barn and it was time for it to go. We also wanted to pull out some old fencing that wasn't doing any good.

I started off using some hand tools, and quickly moved to the tractor. By the way, I really thought that when I pulled out the first support in the middle that the whole thing would fall in. I didn't expect to have to pull out so many of the footings. I sped up the video for times sake...


Demo of Barn Overhang from ron upshaw on Vimeo.

Now comes the removal process...

See You Next Time

Cowboy Up...

We shot some video last week of my latest riding lesson. I'm trying to learn how to canter. Here you go.


Ron Riding from ron upshaw on Vimeo.

I don't think I'll be winning competitions any time soon, but at least I'm more comfortable in the saddle.

See You Next Time~

Ice is slippery, and other obvious things...

Where do I even start on this one?

Because there was a giant wind storm forecast for our area, we took the horses to the Cowgirl's trainer's barn. It is totally enclosed, and warmer than what we have here.

Then it snowed and snowed, and snowed some more, and we couldn't get the horses back on the slick roads. About a week or so later, it was finally clear enough to bring back the ponies. We got them unloaded ok, then this happened...


Good times.

Snow weighs 15 lbs per cubic foot....

That fun factoid plus the numerous news reports of collapsing structures led me to climb on top of our horse shelter with 10 inches of snow on it. Smart.


Snow On The Horsestalls 1 from R. Upshaw on Vimeo.


Snow On The Horsestalls 2 from R. Upshaw on Vimeo.


Snow On The Horsestalls 3 from R. Upshaw on Vimeo.


Snow On The Horsestalls 4 from R. Upshaw on Vimeo.


Snow On The Horsestalls 5 from R. Upshaw on Vimeo.


Snow On The Horsestalls 6 from R. Upshaw on Vimeo.


Snow On The Horsestalls 7 from R. Upshaw on Vimeo.

I'm typing this from the future, and I'm glad to report that the horse shelter did not collapse! Nice.

See You Next Time ~

Gerty gets her stitches out...

So we are suppose to wait 10 days before Gerty's stitches can come out. To keep her from gnawing at the leg she had to wear one of those cone heads.

Gerty healing up from R. Upshaw on Vimeo.

Finally it's been 10 days, and it's time to take out Gerty's stitches. I was tired of putting the cone head on her, so I can only imagine how tired of it the dog was...



We still have to keep her "as still as possible" for another 20 days. Then at the one month point - she can take 5 minute walks on the leash.

It's been pretty tedious, but hopefully Gerty will be running around like normal by Springtime.

See you next time...

Dead Bees... In The Snow

Not that there's anything wrong with that. It's normal for the hive to contract in size through the winter. It will go from a peak of 60 - 80,000 bees in the Summer to about 10-15,000 bees in the dead of Winter.

I tried doing this a few weeks ago and my battery died on me. So here's some video of the hive in snow.


Snow Beehive Dec 23, 2008 (a) from ron upshaw on Vimeo.

There's been a LOT of snow here this year. Or maybe I should rephrase that. We usually get some snow, but then within a day or two, it warms up enough that it turns back to rain and melts it all away. This year, it's been at freezing temps for about 2 weeks now with no end in sight.


Snow Beehive Dec 23, 2008 (b) from ron upshaw on Vimeo.


Snow Beehive Dec 23, 2008 (c) from R. Upshaw on Vimeo.


Snow Beehive Dec 23, 2008 (d) from R. Upshaw on Vimeo.


Snow Beehive Dec 23, 2008 (e) from R. Upshaw on Vimeo.


Snow Beehive Dec 23, 2008 (f) from R. Upshaw on Vimeo.

See You Next Time~

Gerty the Dog in for ACL Surgery...

So our dog Gerty blew out her ACL in her back knee a few weeks ago. We've been trying to get her in for surgery for a while now, but this winter snow storm has put a damper on getting it done.

I spoke with Dr. Paul last night and we were all set to go this morning. Little did I know we were going to get about 8" of snow over night.

It took me and the Cowgirl about 45 minutes to dig me out of the driveway this morning, but I finally got on the road and on my way to the surgery.


GERT-SURGERY 01 from ron upshaw on Vimeo.


GERT-SURGERY 02 from ron upshaw on Vimeo.


GERT-SURGERY 06 from ron upshaw on Vimeo.


GERT-SURGERY 04 from ron upshaw on Vimeo.


GERT-SURGERY 05 from ron upshaw on Vimeo.


GERT-SURGERY 07 from ron upshaw on Vimeo.


GERT-SURGERY 08 from ron upshaw on Vimeo.


GERT-SURGERY 09 from ron upshaw on Vimeo.


GERT-SURGERY 10 from ron upshaw on Vimeo.


GERT-SURGERY 11 from ron upshaw on Vimeo.

Now we've got several months of rehab,and the Gert should be back to her old self.
She's asleep next to me on the couch as I type this...

See You Next Time~