Runamuk Acres Conservation Farm
Soil-first farming, building health from the ground up!
It’s that time of year again–no, I’m not talking about the holidays–it’s time to start thinking about Bee-School! This year is the 3rd annual Bee-School offered by the Somerset Beekeepers, hosted by the University of Maine’s Somerset County Cooperative Extension. I’m excited to be able to teach this course yet again. Last year we had…
Yesterday the Ames crew were prepping the site for the cement pad to be laid. The ground was smoothed out and leveled, and while we were there they began laying a woven wire mesh inside the framework–it will serve as reinforcement for the cement. Keith and I decided that this was not the time to…
The word came early this morning that our new trailer had arrived at the Ames Mobile Home Center in Canaan, and the Ames’ crew were bound for our farm-site with equipment and machinery. Barely able to contain ourselves we drove out to meet them. When we arrived we were greeted by the sight of heavy…
I’d never heard of Kirk Webster until earlier this summer when I was talking shop with a friend, who is also a beekeeper. He happened to bring up the notion of ordering some of Kirk’s Queens for the purpose of installing hygienic genes into his colonies to help in the fight against varroa–which made perfect…
It was painful to visit the farm after we were forced to move into town. And easier to avoid it, even though the old trailer sat there, rotting away, and needing to be cleared out. The mess nagged at my conscience, but still we left it. It remained a scourge upon the land, a hideous…
At the Maine State Beekeepers’ annual convention, Deborah Delaney took the floor for a second time that day to present a talk that was entitled: “Honey Pricing & Marketing Risk Management Education for Honey Producers”. Deborah told the crowd about yet another aspect of her research which involves scientifically identifying how to improve marketing of…
I love the assortment of people who are drawn to beekeeping. Young and old, eccentric and conservative, financially solvent–and bootstrappers like me–those who make do with less. People from all over the state come together for the annual Maine State Beekeepers’ conference to join together in the spirit of learning; to bask in the feeling…
At the start of the year I’d deemed 2013 the “Year of the House”. I do that…give a theme to each year, and a word to live by. I pick a handful of very specific goals for the year–not a resolution, but–improvements of my person or my life, goals that I want to accomplish, and…
For many beekeepers–in this part of Maine at least–this year’s season was a bit of a struggle. A spell of hot sweltering days meant that flowers were not producing adequate nectar supplies, which was then followed by a period of rainy days that kept bees cooped up inside their hives, eating honey stores. I know…
We lived there once before…did I ever mention that? The site of the Runamuk farm of tomorrow. My blog was known then as The Scientific Homeschool, and I was raising babies in the woods without plumbing. I put together the “Chronological History of the World Unit-Studies for Secular Homeschoolers” (yeah-say that 3 times fast!) –so…