Kathy Summers
Fall, Poultry and Happy Thanksgiving –
So far here in Northeast Ohio Fall has not been very dramatic. We’re still having warm days and even the nights are not very cool. The leaves are slow to turn colors – it’s early October as I write this.
There is a legend here involving the Woolly (yes, two l’s) Bear Caterpillars and predicting Winter. If the Woolly Bear is mostly brown/copper it will be a mild Winter and if mostly black – look out. Well about two weeks ago my son, Matt found the first Woolly of the year and it was completely black. So I guess we better get ready.
We’ve had a pretty good goldenrod flow and the asters are very abundant this year. Hopefully we’ll get a super or two of nice Fall honey to share with friends and family.
The poultry situation on Spieth Road has been a bit disturbing. For over a month we did not have one single egg. We had to buy eggs at the store – first time in probably five or six years at least. There are 14 chickens and four ducks. Last night when I went to close them in there was finally one egg in one of the nesting boxes. We’ve had slow spells when they were molting and when the days start to get shorter, but nothing this dramatic.
We have two or three hens from our original bunch which means they’re eight years old. The second group are about four years old and the youngest ones are two. The four ducks are about two years old. And we still have our little crippled hen. She’s in the two year old group. She’s a bit smaller than the others and because of her splayed leg she sleeps on the top of the nesting boxes. She can’t wrap her foot around a perch. There’s no way to know if she lays any eggs. But nobody picks on her and she seems happy.
We’re still having difficulty with the delivery of your magazines. We apologize for that even though it’s really out of our control. We’re still sorry that it’s happening. We know and we so appreciate how much your Bee Culture means to you. You are so important to us.
The folks who print our magazine are wonderful and are in the same situation that so many businesses are in right now. They simply don’t have enough people that want to work. So please be patient and hopefully things will soon get back to whatever our ‘new normal’ is.
I’d say 90% of the places we visit here in our area have help wanted signs up. Whether it’s retail, food service, medical, outside help, truck drivers – no one seems to have enough help.
So we’ll keep doing our best to get each issue to the printer on time and hope that things get better for them.
There are some things you can do to make it easier when it comes to your subscriptions. Please read your label – it will tell you how many issues you have left. We try to get renewal letters sent out in a timely manner, but for the reasons mentioned above we don’t always get that done. So look at your label!
If you are renewing online please make sure that you actually type www.beeculture.com in that search line – make sure you’re putting the .com. What happens often is folks just put in Bee Culture and do a search and you can end up on an agency site that looks remarkably like Bee Culture, but isn’t. When you subscribe that way we don’t see your money or subscription right away. We have to wait for them to send it to us. You also can’t put in any kind of promo code to get the discounts that we offer. Whew! It’s a lot but it’s the world we live in.
The holidays are fast approaching. Can you believe it? Thanksgiving has always been a favorite at our house. Last year was so hard because we just didn’t have everyone with us. I hope this year will be wonderful for all of us, that you will have all of your loved ones around you and it will be peaceful and joyful. I hope you have a houseful if that is your heart’s desire. It certainly is mine and I’m so looking forward to it.
Winter is coming. Time to get ready. It’s been approaching 80°F here this week. So whatever Winter looks like for you – be ready, enjoy, and look forward to Spring.
Happy Thanksgiving to all of you.
Kathy Summers
