Each bee senses that her one obligation is to give the smallest motion of her flight muscles to the collective work of keeping the queen and the colony’s honey stores warm. The whole hive knows they will survive only if they shiver together

Some of them in the shivering cluster will die of old age… hatched on the cusp of winter they may live six months. They will know only the dark hive, the press of their sisters’ bodies. They will never fly, never fall into a flower. They give their lives to shivering together in the dark…a music beyond our hearing, sustaining a future for the community.

-Gayle Boss, “All Creation Waits”

Bee Update

We began the winter with 11 hives and are down at least to 10. I kick myself over this lost one, because it was preventable; had I screwed down the entrance reducers, the mice would not have got in. Useful knowledge was gained, however: our dog can indeed catch mice, and possums eat mice and dead bees (but leave the hives alone). The 2 younger girls have convinced me that possums are cute, but I hold that is only true if they have their thick winter coat and if you only view them from the front. I think it best to avoid posting rodent photos here and in general. You’re welcome.

There have been a few bee sightings, when they’ve come out to take cleansing flights and remove their dead. On Christmas Eve, we could hear a couple of the colonies buzzing from inside their hives, so loudly that they were audible from several feet away. This is right and proper, in accordance with bee folklore; they are to hum loudly at Christmas in praise to the newborn King. We chalked their hives on Epiphany, with prayers for their health (as described in this post from last year).

We’re hoping to peek into hives this weekend, to check for life and food stores, now that we have exited the polar vortex and the temperatures of False Spring are predicted. Today is sunny with blue skies and fluffy white clouds, and if I stand very still, there is palpable warmth on my face. It feels like a promise.

Yet again, I have missed the blog's birthday. It turned 4 years old in January. Thank you to everyone who has stuck with it since the beginning and to all who have joined us along the way. Suffice to say that the best people have landed here.

Happy birthday, too, to a most steadfast reader, my brother-in-law. Here are some of the lilies he’s bred and gifted to us:

God willing, and my motivation holding, the next update won’t wait 3 months. In the meantime… How are you wintering this year? Have you started seeds yet? Planning what to grow or perusing seed catalogues? Southern hemisphere friends, how are your plants faring?

Happy Quinquagesima to all who celebrate! (The last Sunday before Lent)

-Erin, in Michigan

…three months since you looked at me. So sang this Substack to me, to the tune of the 1998 Barenaked Ladies’ song “One Week,” in a piteous yet successful attempt to use the pop culture of a quarter century ago to grab my attention. When last a post was published, we stood on the doorstep of August, breathing toxic air and beginning the harvest. In the ensuing months, there has indeed been harvest: some skimpy (squash, potatoes, peppers), some middling (peaches, tomatoes, grapes), and one explosively abundant (elderberries). The total beehive count reached an even dozen, which is a darn sight more than the one colony that lived through last winter. That original queen absconded, but her many daughters rule in her stead.

The smoky air finally dissipated sometime in September, but not until it reached new heights on the AQI scale. The first frost held off until late October, so we enjoyed a longer growing season than usual. We are currently watching the first snowfall coat every twig and leafy frond (and fronded leaf?). The snow is a couple weeks early this year, rather rudely cutting short the trees’ exuberant color exhibition. Five months from now, we’ll be imagining that we’ll never again want to see another snowflake, yet despite having said that in April, here we are, once again marveling at the beauty of the frosted scene outside the window. The seasonal ebb and flow, and here in a northern climate with four distinct seasons, that circular current pushes us along through the agricultural year, as it has done for centuries.

Yet, though it be November, I am not driving my herd of pigs to forage for nuts in the forest. There’s just no time these days, you know? Modern life has given, but it also has taken away. So then, what has been happening at The Suburb Farm? Let’s do a photo dump to illustrate.

In our life outside the gardens and apiaries, we got through marching band season, the first half of the semester at three different schools, extra work (Phillip) and workplace changes (Erin), and most recently had a very good Hallowtide, with trick or treating, cemetery visit, soul cakes, and a soaring performance of Faure’s Requiem in D minor at the cathedral for All Souls’ Day. You can read about my fondness for this triduum liturgical celebration here from 2023 and here from 2022.

Next post I’ll show more of our harvest preservation and share recipes, because I owe you all some. Thanks for your patience between posts!

How’s your fall/ autumn been? What was your best harvest this year? When was the first frost where you live? What are your thoughts on Daylight Savings, or as I think of it, The Coming of the Dark?

—Erin, in Michigan

During the entire season, the Sun arose each morning as though in a cloud of smoke, red and rayless, shedding little light or warmth and setting at night as behind a thick cloud of vapor, leaving hardly a trace of its having passed over the face of the Earth. 
--Unknown English vicar, 1816

What would happen if the Sun should become tired of illuminating this gloomy planet?
–North American Review, 1816

The Year Without a Summer

Not To be dramatic, I am woozy, with aching head and affected lungs, from the haze of particulate that comes to us from the Canadian wildfires. The temperature is finally mild, but going outside carries health risks. The garden is technically in sun, but the light quality is dimmed and eerie. The Air Quality Index here is in the red “unhealthy” category.

The earthquake in Kamchatka 2 days ago, with the resultant tsunami warnings, have me in a disaster state of mind. I just finished reading Jane and the Year Without a Summer, a murder mystery entwined with historical events and biographical elements from Jane Austen’s life. It’s part of a series, but can be read as a stand-alone story. It takes place in the spring of 1816, during which the climate in England and many other countries is going through a volcanic winter. There was a string of volcanic eruptions beginning in 1812, and ending in April 1815 with Mount Tambora in Indonesia. Tambora’s eruption remains the largest in recorded history. It buried a city of 10,000 occupants, making their language extinct and the ruins of their princedom still largely unreachable under depths of pumice and ash. The Tamborese who perished had been known for their skills in farming and beekeeping, in addition to being fierce warriors.

The sulfuric ash and other particulates from Mt. Tambora spread across the globe via the jet stream and upward into the stratosphere, where they blocked the sun’s light and reflected back its warmth before it could reach the earth. The effects on climate & crops lasted for well over a year, and influenced world events with far longer impact. The eastern U.S., Canada, most of western Europe, and large areas of Asia saw snow, frost, and chill temperatures throughout the summer of 1816. The harvest that year was minimal, the price of grain exorbitant; shipping lanes were frozen over. Famine and bread riots were the unsurprising result, coming on the heals of the Napoleonic Wars in Europe. The failure of farms in New England contributed to the westward movement of settlers. The slowed arrival of monsoons to China and India contributed to drought and a cholera epidemic.

Researchers have used paintings from this period to understand the changes in climate, in an interesting pairing of science and art. Landscapes of the years corresponding to the volcanic eruptions show an increased use of red oil paints for the skies, as well as generally cloudier views. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein was written whilst the author was stuck inside during an unseasonably dark and rainy June holiday in Switzerland. Had she been able to bask in the bright sun on the shores of Lake Geneva, a whole literary genre might’ve had to wait to be born.

On the Bright Side

Here are some photos to accentuate the positive.

So while I’m just as frustrated with the smoky air as I was when I wrote about it here, I am grateful that the AQI goes down a bit after the sun sets. And that I’m not living in the shadow of an active volcano in 1815.

How are you on this doorstep of August? Feel free to sound off in the comments about your own experiences with wildfires, air pollution, earthquakes & other natural disasters. Had you heard of the year without summer before?

— Erin, in Michigan

References

https://www.almanac.com/year-without-summer-mount-tambora-volcanic-eruption

https://www.forbes5.pitt.edu/article/romantic-year-without-summer#endnt1

https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/how-mount-tambora-and-other-volcanic-eruptions-inspired-artistic

https://www.science.smith.edu/climatelit/the-eruption-of-mount-tambora-1815-1818/

https://theconversation.com/largest-volcanic-eruption-in-human-history-changed-the-19th-century-as-much-as-napoleon-25098

https://pastglobalchanges.org/publications/pages-magazines/pages-magazine/7175

The bees have been greedy for the spotlight here of late, so let’s lead off with the plants this time around.

Then the Fruits

Poor returns in the mini orchard this year, but we will have pears and peaches. The grapes appear to have been saved from a fungal blight, but manually removing Japanese beetles from the grape leaves continues to take up many hours. There are a few blueberries and many raspberries. I harvested a single cherry; the rest shriveled on the branches. The apple tree is looking sickly, and the paw paws healthy but not yet mature enough to fruit. Strawberry season passed quickly, the bulk of the harvest picked through a free U-pick organized by our youngest for the neighbor kids.

Fauna

The variety of animals making their debut appearance this summer has been pretty thrilling. Twilight in the backyard is marked by fireflies’ blinking glow and frogs’ gravelly crescendo. The blossoms draw native bees, bumbles, monarchs & other butterflies; the dragonflies come by to feast on insects. There are fledglings and bunnies to whisk out of reach of the dog. For our chicken fix, we visit my sister.

Bees

We’re down to 4 hives at home for now. We took 5 to my sister’s, where they are set up in a sunny glade bordered by trees. Another hive went to new beekeepers up the road.

Oh, and Garlic

We are now garlic farmers. Excepting perhaps the coming potato harvest, this is the largest crop we’ve ever had. I gave up on trying to braid them aesthetically.

How was your July? What are you growing, harvesting, preserving, or eating? What wildlife do you see where you live?

—Erin, in Michigan

This is our first year of having bees survive the Winter, and thus our first experience with Spring beekeeping. Instead of starting over with a nuc (“nuke,” a small box with a queen and a few frames of bees) in May, as we’d done the past few years, we already had a sizable colony whose queen started laying in March. It was fascinating to watch all the early tree pollen come in with the foragers. Thankfully, we didn’t need to supplement their diet for long, as the nectar flow was plentiful by early May. We had the joy of watching our honeybees, along with bumbles and little native bees, landing on the perennial blooms (mostly “weeds”) that pop up all over the yard in early Spring.

It’s also been our first year of needing to manage bees through the beginning of swarm season. Our little starter hives of previous years weren’t ready to swarm until July. We split the hive in late April this year, and again in early May (as described here in the last post). You’ve likely heard of “chicken math.” This is a tale of bee math. Let’s just say we’ve learned many beekeeping lessons this Spring!

Despite all looking well on a hive check 3 days prior, we spent the 2nd Saturday in May retrieving our swarming bees from the neighbors’ tree. The good news: our neighbors are super cool (notified us, helped reach the swarm), we had a successful swarm capture, and no stings or falls from the ladder. The bad news: what we thought was a single swarm was actually 2 on branches next to each other (our over-wintered queen plus a smaller “virgin swarm” with a small unmated queen), so we inadvertently left 2 queens to fight to the death in 1 swarm box. OG won, and set to work in her new home. Total= 4 hives

The next day, which happened to be Mother’s Day here in the U.S., after ruminating for 24 hours on our swarm experience, we decided to recheck the hives, this time with the full understanding that our bees were in escape mode. We found so very many queen cells and some already-born new queens. I did cull the queen cells, but I couldn’t bring myself to dispatch those beautiful baby queens, who resembled their golden mother. Which is how Phillip ended up hurriedly assembling hive boxes and dividing resources between them for their new majesties, which was maybe the best Mother’s Day gift ever. Readers, we had 7 hives by that evening.

Two weeks later, Memorial Day weekend, hive checks revealed 5 of 7 with sure signs of a queen. We figured the boxes were already set up, with bees in want of queens, so we transferred eggs from other hives with which the queen-less 2 could make their own monarchs. They do this by feeding large amounts of royal jelly to select larvae, sans the added honey & pollen that are fed to most bee larvae. Royal jelly, excreted by worker bees, stimulates ovary development in the queen-to-be, and is responsible for her larger size and longer life span.

The following weekend, there were queens or capped queen cells in all 7 hives. The bad news: OG queen had swarmed again, not to be sighted or retrieved this time. Sometimes bees have just decided to swarm, and they can’t be stopped. It’s part of their reproductive cycle, and they’ve been doing it for millennia. The queen, slimmed down for flight, takes off with roughly half the population, their bellies full of honey for the trip (which makes it difficult for them to flex their bodies to sting, making most swarms quite docile), and they take off in search of a new house. The colony members who stay behind make new queens, who will fight for their right to rule by dispatching their royal sisters with a sting, whether they’ve been born yet or not. The current problem with this ancient cycle is that the swarm’s chance of finding a new home that is suitable & safe, much less nearby, is very low indeed. At least 75% of swarms now will perish, whether from starvation, exposure to inclement weather, or chemical sprays & other methods of extermination at the hands of humans.

On to mid-June. Whilst checking off the hives as being in various stages of queen-rightness, we arrived at a hive with frenetic behavior: much flying, gathering in groups all around the fenced apiary…yes, wise readers, preparing to swarm. Phillip miraculously located the one virgin queen in the center of a gathering swarm, hastily assembled a hive box, and “swarmed” them into a new home. I watched as a newly born 2nd queen dispatched her sister in the cell next to hers, and was paraded away by her new subjects in a seeming wave of triumph. Lesson learned: Find all the queen cells and squish most of them; otherwise, there will be multiple virgin swarms and less duels to the death for the throne of a very small colony. New hive count=9

As of the recent Solstice, 8 of the 9 hives had a queen, 7 of which had returned from their mating flights and were laying eggs. Leaving one hive, rather out-of-sorts and understandably cranky, without a queen. We gave them a frame of eggs from a hive who could spare them, and watched in wonder as the colony changed in seconds; suddenly attendant to the “nursery,” organizing in a new formation to tend the next generation of bees, and all calming in the process. It will be a few weeks until they have a laying queen, depending on success at multiple stages. The oldest workers in this hive won’t live to see their new queen, but they perform their part steadily, having seen the one who can ensure the continuation of their colony. It’s almost biblical.

Soon, after ensuring that each hive has a productive queen and enough workers, we’ll be transporting most of the hives to other locations; rural properties of family and friends with more space. We’ll still manage the hives, which means a new adventure. Wish us well as we make the rounds, bee gear bouncing around in the back seat.

I’ll update you all on the plants next time. In the meanwhile, I’ll post photos from the gardens and mini-orchard over on the Chat. Stop by and contribute your own garden photos! Or bee photos, or photos of bees on blooms…

How’s your June so far? What are you growing? Have you seen a swarm of bees before? And for the beekeepers, do you have tips on swarm prevention?

—Erin, in Michigan

Well, hopefully! Our one hive that survived to spring was doing so well, with pollen- and nectar-gathering, as well as population expansion, that they were showing signs of swarming. Swarming happens when a colony feels it is outgrowing its current location (or often for other reasons that only the bees know). The bees will then make preparations to leave behind half the hive with new queens in process, and the reigning queen will take off with the other half.

By splitting the colony ourselves, we attempt to trick the bees into thinking that half of them swarmed already. They’re suddenly in a new hive, and have to re-orient themselves directionally and with pheromones. The nerve-wracking anxiety excitement happens over the next few weeks, as we see whether a new queen is born, whether she will survive her mating flight, then hope she finds her way back to the hive and successfully starts laying eggs.

On a warm, sunny afternoon in late April, we did a hive split. It seemed successful, in that we averted a swarm and both colonies seemed pleased with their hive boxes. A few days ago, Phillip checked on the queen-less hive and saw multiple queen cells but also signs of preparing to swarm. A bit cheeky and overconfident of the bees, honestly. So he split that hive, in the hope now that there will be 2 new queen-right hives soon.

Still Dreaming of an Orchard

Now that is home for growing season, the fruit trees stand a much better chance of a good fruit harvest. He’s pre-treated them against fungal infection, composted around them, pruned, placed companion plants around them, and trellised where necessary. The goal is to have a lovely mini-orchard in the backyard, one that provides solace and sustenance, a “bee-loud glade.”

I learned a fascinating new fact from our kids, that magnolias are basically pre-historic; directly descended from and still very similar to the very first flowers on Earth. They are older than bees by some 35 million years (!) so they evolved to be pollinated by beetles instead. Beetles are not exactly graceful, so the magnolia had to develop thick petals to withstand the beetles’ chewing. Magnolia flowers close at night, in order to trap the beetles; this way, when the flower opens at morning, the beetle will scurry to a different flower and cross-pollinate. 1

Farewell, Papa Francisco

Technically, yes, Pope Francis died in April, but it’s a long mourning period. Since the conclave won’t begin until mid-week, May will continue to be full of papal news. I’ve shed a lot of tears the past 2 weeks. I know he was not beloved by everyone, but it’s a big Church, one that can encompass the Latin Mass and synods that recognize Amazonian native cultures, with their respective Vatican proponents, and still survive for millennia.

His papacy began during a time when his main messages helped to guide my own life decisions, including the switch from a chemically-maintained lawn to environmentally-friendly gardens, and a job change to a clinic that predominantly serves those living below the poverty line. His letter on the environment, Laudato Si', was to my mind timely and compassionate (“Protect the Earth, Dignify Humanity”). It is worth reading for anyone interested in environmental stewardship & human rights, as it is addressed to “All people of goodwill,” not just Catholics. Amidst all the encyclical’s theological explanations of our place in creation, the most memorable part to me is a short anecdote about St. Francis, regarding his reported insistence that every monastery garden have a section left untamed, for wild plants to grow. That’s some good gardening advice!

More Bloom-y Photos

How is your garden doing? Head on over to the Chat and post photos of your plants. I’ve opened the Chat so any subscribers can start a thread now. I would love for it to become a place where we can share about our plants & get advice from fellow gardeners, throughout the year.

I hope your May is off to a good start. What is growing, blooming, ready for harvest where you are? Have you witnessed a swarm of bees? Did the death of a public figure ever affect you? Do you have any interesting facts to share about pollinators or plants? Share in the comments.

—Erin, in Michigan

We had our April snow and sleet, as expected. There was enough rain to flood the garden, which was ameliorated with buckets, hefted by the 2 family members who were in Japan this time last year. (Not their punishment! It just worked out that way.)

The bees have survived the sudden switches in weather, and are bringing in admirable amounts of pollen. So we never did have to provide pollen patties for them, though we are providing sugar water to supplement what nectar they bring in. Current local forage for honeybees includes tree pollen, purple dead nettle, creeping myrtle/ periwinkle, bittercress, and the first dandelions. Please let the “weeds” in your yard bloom. The bumblebees arrived earlier this week, and I spotted a tiny native bee in the garden today.

We have seen the queen, and she is magnificent! The afternoons have been warm enough for a full hive check: so much brood, a very large colony of healthy bees, and a bit of honey left. We added a honey super to the top of the hive box. By adding another level to their home, we try to let them know that they have plenty of room, so there’s no need to swarm in search of better digs.

We are currently observing Holy Week, leading up to Easter. It begins with Palm Sunday and ends with the Triduum, which consists of Holy/ Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday/ Easter Vigil. This year, the date for Easter aligns for the Western and Eastern Rites of the Church, which is not always the case. I love the ancient, solemn traditions of these last days before Easter: the chants and antiphons, leaving in silence Thursday night after the Eucharistic procession; the litany of prayers for all humanity on Good Friday, the keeping of stillness from noon to 3 pm in remembrance of the hours of the crucifixion; the Vigil that begins in darkness on Saturday night, then candles gradually lit from the fire outside, building to the crescendo of light and song at the retelling of the Resurrection.

Whilst you may celebrate Easter with different traditions, observe other holidays in accordance with your faith tradition, or mark the day as a way to welcome the new season with family and friends, my wish for all of you is that this weekend will bring a ray of light through whatever clouds have been hovering over you. We have dark clouds, too, but Easter bolsters our hope.

The recipes are usually below the paywall, but not today! Below you’ll find my recipe for hot cross buns, developed over the past several years. This version was declared the best ever by everyone in the family, and we hope you’ll enjoy. They are a traditional treat for Good Friday, but they’re delicious anytime. I’ll spare you their history for now, but suffice to say they likely originated in the 14th century, in England or Ireland. This version is flavored with spices popular in that time period.

You can access the printable recipe at this link or right here:

What blooms have come up in your neck of the woods? Have you seen pollinators? Which weedy flowers do you enjoy, or at least tolerate? For those in the Southern Hemisphere, what blooms will you miss the most? Do you have traditional dishes that you make this time of year, in line with your own beliefs and culture? Please share in the comments.

—Erin, in Michigan

Typically honey is harvested in autumn, taking only the excess and leaving the bees enough for their winter sustenance. First-year bee colonies are spared the harvest, as they’re more likely to need all the honey they’ve amassed. Having been keepers of first-year bees a few times over, we have not yet had the toil and delight of an autumn honey harvest. The honey we gather in spring comes from the untouched stores of bee colonies that perished over the winter. So from the 4 hives that didn’t survive this past winter, we gathered frames with still-capped honey, and processed it in the kitchen. This is what that looked like:

Not all the honey was useable; some was damaged by moisture. So we scraped off the comb around the capped honey, then spun the frames through the extractor to remove the water and bits of junk comb. The edible honey was then uncapped and put in the (washed) extractor, spun, then strained through cheesecloth. After pouring the remaining raw honey into jars, we were left with a rather untidy kitchen, but also with enough delicious honey to share.

Out in the yard, there are signs of spring:

And the hive that successfully over-wintered is in full gear on every warm day. They’re bringing in pollen and using the sugar water we provide to supplement their honey stores until there’s a real nectar flow.

Phillip did a hive check on a particularly warm day recently. The queen had clearly been busy, and he saw brood in all different stages.

The first little blooms are here, and as always when they appear after a long winter, they seem pretty magical.

So here in the Northern Hemisphere, we’ve arrived at spring. And although there is still frost to scrape off the car in the morning and the need to turn on the furnace at night, the light increases. The bees can tell.

What signs of the changing season are you seeing where you live?

—Erin, in Michigan

All Nature seems at work. Slugs leave their lair—

The bees are stirring—birds are on the wing—

And Winter slumbering in the open air,

Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring!

— Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1825

Coleridge wrote “Work without Hope,” the poem from which this excerpt was taken, in late February, when he was in his early 50’s. So chances are good that he knew a false spring when he saw it. Same, Mr. Coleridge, same.

We are having a very grand false spring here. The 10-day forecast promises 50-60℉ (10-15℃) days and above-freezing nights. The garden smells strongly of garlic. And mud. We’ll plant cold-hardy peas by St. Patrick’s Day (March 17). I ordered seed potatoes, which should arrive soon for planting. We must resist the urge to start seeds indoors for another couple weeks. The warm-weather crops won’t be safe to transplant outside until the end of May/ early June, and I’ve often caused them to be leggy and weak from starting them too early indoors. gave the fruit trees a heavy pruning and will apply organic fungicide (copper or neem oil, since the pollinators won’t be hanging about the mini orchard yet).

The area critters have been out and about, with a bit of springtime strut through the yard; squirrels, rabbits, possum, and yes, skunk. (You can read about our dog’s 2024 encounters with the latter two here.) There may be a badger, which would be a first. Our neighbor saw an animal whose description possibly matches, and our youngest showed me the map of their range, which does include our area. I shall update you on any future sightings. Some type of nuthatch has been hopping around just outside the front window, eating the seeds from the flowers we left in the raised bed there through the winter.

But most exciting of all is the emergence of bees! Of the 5 colonies that entered winter, there is one that has survived. Which is sad, but yet…this is our first success at over-wintering a hive! Well, a qualified success, as they still need to make it through more snow and other false springs until True Spring, when there are blossoms. We’ve restarted supplemental feeding with sugar water and will soon give them pollen patties, for protein. This will help them feed their brood that will become their spring foragers.

We’ve done post-mortems on 3 of the remaining 4 hives so far, and harvested the honey they left. The causes of death appear to have been 1) fast cold snap that caught a large colony huddled at an outer wall 2) small colony with loss of our OG queen from last spring 3) varroa mites in our newest colony. We can’t know for sure that those were the reasons for their collapse, but each has its lessons for next winter. Sadly, there are reports from all over the U.S. about massive colony loss this winter, which will of course have a negative effect on this season’s crops.

This just in:

We dismantled the 4th failed hive; they had very little honey left and had apparently dealt with condensation mildewing some of the comb. Very sad, and another lesson learned. The Hive that Lived, however, are already taking foraging flights and coming back with pollen. Their legs are covered in little pollen pants of light yellow (maple) and golden (willow trees). There are little young bees doing orientation flights, so the queen must have been laying a bit. They’re so freaking amazing! And the first robin of the season landed on the garden fence this evening…yet I cannot give in to the false belief that winter may be truly over. It is not. There will be April snow and May frost.

Happy False Spring to those who celebrate!

—Erin, in Michigan

February has brought much snow, which means our dog has been living his best life.

February’s weather has gone something like this: A brief thaw, just enough for green leaves to peep through on Imbolc/ St. Brigid’s Day (Feb. 1) and Candlemas/ Groundhog Day (Feb. 2). Bitter cold the 2nd week, freezing all water that dared to drip; also a goodly amount of snow. Mid-month was for large lovely snowflakes and deep snow, but only after a half-hearted winter storm. Then more and more snow, but also sub-zero temperatures. This week there has been some rain, and much of the snow has melted. We begin and end the month with a thaw.

My favorite photo above is the birds’ nest (which I hadn’t previously noticed in the apple tree) with the very strange & fluffy “egg.”

This is the curbside view of our house, with holly bushes and fir tree.

Bee Update

Of the 5 hives that went into the winter, 4 were holding strong until this last cold snap. Now there is only 1 with irrefutable signs of life. I still have some hope for 2 others, but Phillips thinks they’ve succumbed to the bitter freeze. Despite the thaw, it has not reached a high enough temperature to open the hives, even to just check food stores. Opening a hive when it’s below at least 50℉ would risk upsetting the colony’s carefully-maintained temperature, as well as stressing out potential early brood.

Ok, not a pretty picture, but it is a good demonstration of a live vs. likely dead hive. The brown & yellow hive, with all the dead bees in front of it, is the LIVE one. During this past week’s thaw, their undertaker bees were busy removing their dead. When I put my ear to their hive wall today, I was rewarded with the sound of a loud, buzzing hum. If this colony makes it to Spring, I will be shouting all over the internet about their marvelous hive box, a new design from Australia. And I won’t care a fig that it looks like a 2-story beer cooler.

Government Caves

Limestone caves have been in the news this month, courtesy of a certain billionaire whose name slant-rhymes with Xenon (Xe on the periodic table; a tasteless gas). The caves in question are in Pennsylvania, and have housed paperwork for the federal government since the 1960’s. In the underground caverns of this converted mine shaft, 700 federal employees continue to use a paper filing system whose capacity is determined by the mine shaft’s elevator.1 Something to do with the square root of the diameter of a manila envelope multiplied by the weight in milligrams of a regulation cardboard box, divided by the volume of ink in 1 of those pens that get chained to a clipboard, equals the number of retirees for that fiscal quarter. Being Luddite-adjacent, I do mourn the coming loss of such an inefficient but romantic way of doing work. Anyway, you’d think that working in a labyrinth of limestone file rooms would look something like this:

And this is what they do look like:

So I was reminded of an article that had brought to my attention a few years back, about other limestone government caves, but in Missouri, and filled with cheese. More than a billion pounds of blocks of processed cheese.

Government subsidies in the 1970’s encouraged overproduction on dairy farms, as the government became a guarantor of any unsold dairy products. This in itself was a heavy-handed over-correction for dairy shortages and inflationary grocery prices. How best to store milk long-term? Cheese. Not surprisingly, the excess cheese quickly took up space, and would still become moldy. Enter the Reagan administration’s “government cheese” initiative: melt down the cheeses, add preservatives, form them into standardized loaves, and distribute them through schools, welfare programs, and food pantries.2

There is still a cheese surplus, billions of pounds of it, because we’re still funding dairy overproduction. So all that extra cheese is being kept in underground “caves,” which are mainly repurposed mines, at a controlled temperature, waiting for…what? I don’t mind our country saving up cheese for societal apocalypse survival, but the excess milk being produced is used in less conscionable ways, like being dumped into “dairy lagoons” that contribute significantly to greenhouse gas emissions.3

A Cheesy Recipe

Paid subscribers get access to a monthly seasonal recipe, developed & perfected in our family’s kitchen. This month’s recipe is courtesy of our eldest daughter, and is cozy comfort food for winter evenings. No government cheese loaf required.

Read more

The Suburb Farm newsletter was born Jan 5, 2022. The first post was about potatoes, the only comments were from IRL friends (thank you, love you), and the marketing strategy was texting and emailing the link to his contacts. Actually, marketing is largely unchanged, so it would be much appreciated if you could:

Share The Suburb Farm

The second post was born of panic. I was confronted by the challenge of having started a gardening blog in January. I went outside in search of inspiration and saw only gray skies and snow. So, I wrote about the grayness and included garden photos.

That February, I included writing about odd traditions (Groundhog’s Day) and liturgical holidays (Candlemas, also February 2), because it was still winter and those are topics of interest to me. Most subsequent posts have given more than a nod to folklore, historical agrarian life, and the interlacing of seasonal rhythms and religious cycles of feasts & fasts. It was never a plan to add those topics; they just spilled into the writing from the rather large area they occupy in my brain. (Sometimes I wish they would scoot over to make room for organizational skills & improved short term memory, but so it is.)

In November 2022, I was invited to swap guest posts with a (sadly) now-retired just today reactivated Substack, Brunette Gardens. Lisa Brunette was one of the first writers to reach out on this platform. Writing about a mix of topics has meant getting to meet talented writers from different corners of this platform, and their mutual encouragement has buoyed me through patches of self-doubt and writer’s block.

There isn’t a predictable publishing interval yet (see lack of organizational skills), but I hope to remedy that this year. Summer of 2023, I managed a good run of weekly posts. Summer of 2024 yielded none. The most popular posts are those that have been included in Signs + Seasons, a curated newsletter focused on the liturgical year. The second most popular are the photo essays.

As of this posting, The Suburb Farm has over 300 subscribers! Thank you! I so appreciate the readers who’ve been here since the early days, as well as the newer subscribers who’ve managed to find us in a rising sea of blogs.

Photos

Some images from around the farm the past 3 weeks:

Prognostication approaches

This weekend brings the momentous day on which we in the U.S. learn our seasonal fate: an early Spring or 6 more weeks of Winter? If I were to hazard a guess, I would raise my cry for Spring’s early arrival, but that’s just today’s warm temperatures talking. It’s 45 F (7 C), there are bees flying in and out of the hive that gets the most direct sunlight, and there’s the dripping sound of melting snow to indicate a proper January thaw. The Old Farmer’s Almanac1 tells me it will be cold here until late April, though, and my phone’s weather app has the chance of snow at 60% this weekend. This weekend also brings St. Brigid’s Day/ Imbolc on February 1st, the half-way point between the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox. The hours of daylight are lengthening.

Have you seen early signs of season change where you live? Are you starting seeds yet? And friends in the southern hemisphere, what are you growing and harvesting these days?

May the groundhog choose wisely.

—Erin, in Michigan

As promised, paid subscribers can access this month’s recipe below: Decadent Winter Sweet Potato Bread.

I enjoy testing, adjusting, & reworking recipes for baked goods. This recipe was the result of a counter full of sweet potatoes and repurposing leftovers.

Don’t worry, I won’t make you read through the legend of Great-Great-Aunt Gertrude, who brought this recipe to her new homeland on torn scraps of paper sewn into her petticoat seams, thereby thwarting both her greedy baker/ landlord back home across the ocean and the Ellis Island official who would surely have stolen it for his sister’s cookbook manuscript. Nor will I make you scroll past the origin story and detailed description of each ingredient, even though I think you’d enjoy knowing that the first record of sweet potato cultivation was in Peru over 2 1/2 millennia ago, that they are related to the morning glory vine, and that we can thank George Washington Carver for their elevation to popular Thanksgiving side dish. Thankfully, though, I am no food blogger, and I don’t have an Aunt Gertrude, so we’ll get straight to the recipe.

Decadent Winter Sweet Potato Bread/ Muffins

Ingredients

Sweet potato mixture

2-3 medium-sized sweet potatoes (enough to make 2 cups when mashed)

½ cup salted butter

½ cup milk (or half & half for extra decadence)

¼ teaspoon black pepper

Additions to make batter

1 cup sugar

¾ cup packed light brown sugar

3 eggs

1 cup sunflower oil

1 ¾ cups flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 ½ teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

¼ teaspoon nutmeg

¼ teaspoon allspice

¼ teaspoon cardamom

¼ teaspoon ground ginger

Prepare mashed sweet potatoes:

Poke holes in the potato skins with a fork.

Bake the potatoes for about an hour at 400 degrees. The skin should be puffing up by the time you remove them.

Cool enough to remove the skins without burning yourself.

Melt butter & milk on stovetop in a pot on medium heat.

Cut potatoes into cubes, add them to the stove pot, and mash well.

Once the mixture has a smooth texture, add pepper.

Mix together in 1 large bowl:

2 cups mashed sweet potato mixture

All other ingredients to make batter

Pour

Into greased loaf pan (8.5 x 4.5 or 1.5 Qt), with or without parchment paper

Or into muffin tin(s), greased or with cupcake liners

Sprinkle extra brown sugar on top before baking

Bake

At 350 degrees for 80-90 minutes (bread) or 20 minutes (muffins)

Eat warm, preferably with butter.

Link to printable recipe

💕

It’s a question that seems to make the rounds every year: What sense does it make to start a new calendar year on this date? When the weather in the Northern Hemisphere, in which our calendar was born, is cold and lacking sunlight? A staid bookend to our revelries, of whichever faith or cultural traditions we maintain through December? The sudden turn toward asceticism seems misplaced; a strict insistence on dieting and exercise, self-discipline and lofty goals, in radical opposition to the feasting and leisure of the holiday season through which we have just passed. It presumes a preceding period of gluttony and extravagance, of sloth and hedonism, that must be taken to task by an imposition of Spartan habits, a sharp return to minimalism, and the resultant birth of a new self. Yet it’s not a new question of our age, borne of our desire to hibernate on the couch, forgoing exercise.

Our placement of the new year at January 1st is from the Roman Empire, but in the northern lands conquered by Rome, the common people continued to mark the new year at either the Winter Solstice/Yule/Christmas or the Spring Equinox, with some agrarian communities still reckoning the new year at the harvest in September. A sermon by the Anglo-Saxon abbot Ælfric of Eynsham (c. 955–c. 1025) bemoans the naming of January 1st as “Year’s Day,” since it lacked spiritual significance. For him, its basis in custom wasn’t a good enough reason. I think many of us nowadays would agree with him on that point. I tend to think the Spring Equinox makes more sense as New Year’s Day, which puts me in good company with the early Medievals, who recognized March 21st as the anniversary of the birth of time itself, of the day on which the sun and moon first appeared. In fact, from the late Medieval period until 1752, England recognized March 25 as the start of each new year.1

Here we go a-wassailing

Regardless of which date was fixed as New Year’s, agricultural field work often began in January, with an assessment of the land and winter ploughing. Plough Monday followed January 6, Epiphany (the feast of the 3 Kings or Magi who visited the infant Jesus), also known as Twelfth Night for it’s position marking the end of the 12 days of Christmas. Twelfth Night was often the wildest party of the season, after which the laborers returned to their regular work (although they still marked the Christmas season until Candlemas on February 2). Plough Monday appears to have been celebrated from the 15th century until the Reformation, though it persisted after that in the form of a monetary collection by farm laborers for maintenance of agricultural tools. It involved blessings of fields and ploughs, and a last grand feast for the working people.2 In that respect, perhaps our leap from the celebrations of December to the austere resolutions of January are not so very different.

Plough Monday customs appear to be remnants of a more ancient ritual, likely a Christianized Pagan tradition, named in an 11th century manuscript as the Æcerbot (“field remedy”). The rituals were complex and took all day to complete. One of the exhortations to the earth was the Old English Wes þu hál or Be hale/ Be thou well. A century later, the phrase was used in toasting someone’s health, typically with ale or warm spiced wine, and from there was shortened to Wassail. By the 16th century, people were wassailing their orchards, offering cider and bread to the dormant winter trees, with songs and requests for good fruit that year. The carol Here we come a-wassailing was not written until the mid-19th century, though it referred back to older customs of door-to-door holiday merry-making.3

The history of wassailing is more murky than I knew, however. The linear leap from field blessing to communal drink to orchard rite to synonym for rowdy caroling is not supported by primary sources. Food historian and author Brigitte Webster, in a Zoom call hosted by Hearthstone Fables (please go and subscribe), noted that the first written reference to orchard wassailing was an Elizabethan era court document, which lodged a complaint of unruly boys in the plaintiff’s apple orchard. We also learned from her that the traditional meat served at Twelfth Night changed over the years from venison to turkey, when that bird from the Americas became a common import via Spain. Apparently they never really liked the taste of peacock anyway.4 Turkey has been our family’s go-to for January feasting, but only because it goes on sale after Christmas.

Sugar and Spices and Sweets, Oh My!

Which brings us to the history of holiday sweets. The oldest-known treats in northern lands for the winter solstice, and thence for Christmas, were crunchy spiced biscuits from Persia, brought by way of 8th century spice routes. These biscuits kept well in the cold, which meant that hosts needn’t serve stale food to guests over the long Yuletide/ Christmas season. The 1st true “Christmas cookie” is claimed by the bakers’ guild in Nuremberg, Germany: Lebkuchen, developed in the 13th century using spices from the East. From this proceeded other iterations of gingerbread. Dutch settlers brought koeptje to the New World, along with the tradition of leaving these cookies for St. Nicholas. Icing evolved from a thin glaze in the 17th century to thick piping in the 20th. Cookie cutters, like so many other Christmas trappings, came to the U.S. from Germany in the late Victorian period.5 I don’t think there’s been a Christmas when we didn’t have homemade lebkuchen in my family, but I had no idea its history was so illustrious; a cookie birthed at a crossroad of medieval spice routes.

Candy canes likely started in 1670, as sugar sticks bent like a shepherd’s crook, to keep the children quiet during holiday church services. They were solid white until 1900, when someone in the U.S. added the red stripes. Their manufacture became mechanized in 1921, and peppermint did not become the main flavor until 1950.6

The history of sugar plums, and one man’s struggle to make them at home, is worth a watch here, or at least bookmarking for next December:

Photos from our Christmastide

The plan to get our bees through winter is multifaceted, and some aspects are based in folklore. So we’ve made sure to wish them well on holidays; holly sprigs at Christmas and chalked hives for Epiphany, and of course I talk to them. The chalk blessing is the same we use to bless the doorframes of the house: 20+C+M+B+25, which initials represent the apocryphal names of the Magi (Caspar, Melchior, Balthazar) as well as Christus mansionem benedicat (may Christ bless the house).

Happy New Year!

I hope you had a pleasant holiday season, and that 2025 brings you good times and plenty! What is your favorite holiday dessert? Do you make New Year’s resolutions? If you could pick a different date for the new year, when would it be? Have you been harvesting anything, or just gazing dreamy-eyed at seed catalogues? In any case, Be thou well!

—Erin, in Michigan

As promised in the most recent post, we’ll move on from the history of Christmas cards to explore carols. A “carol” was a song with accompanying dance. We use the term now to refer specifically to songs for Christmas, especially the more traditional ones, but I can’t think of any that have their own dance beyond The Nutcracker ballet.

Songs, Hymns, and Carols through History

Have you ever wondered what the first Christmas song was? In the running is this hymn (you can also find it on YouTube in Arabic):

There is also this hymn from the 4th century, for which we only have the lyrics, written by St. Hilary of Poitier, but which modern composers have set to music:

Another 4th century contender, from the poet Prudentius, living in an area of the Roman Empire that is now Spain, is Corde Natus ex Parentis. (If those all seem too contemporary for you, go back another 2500 years & listen to the Epic of Gilgamesh; not Christmas of course, but really amazing.)

From here on, it’s Euro-centric; they’re the tunes I’m most familiar with. The next Christmas songs in the historical record are from the Medieval period, influenced by St. Francis of Assisi’s 13th century Nativity plays, the elaborations of traveling minstrels, and the wassailing traditions of Anglo-Saxon settlements pre-Norman conquest. Among those still known from the Middle Ages are The Friendly Beasts (12th century, France), Good King Wenceslaus (13th century, Finland), and Good Christian Men, Rejoice (14th century, Germany).

At least two popular songs from this period have their roots in the Medieval Mystery Plays, pageants based on Biblical and apocryphal religious stories, that were staged by local parishioners for holy days, and attended by peasants and kings alike. The songs are Cherry Tree Carol (15th century) and Coventry Carol (16th century). The former is a ballad that imagines Joseph’s jealousy, exposed on the road to Bethlehem, and the child Jesus informing Mary of his future execution. It is one of the few Christmas carols that remained popular in the Appalachians, among the descendants of the Scotch-Irish who settled there. The latter is an achingly sad retelling of the Massacre of the Innocents, whose feast day in the Roman Catholic tradition is December 28; all the baby boys whose death was ordered by Herod in order to wipe out any future rival for his throne.

The early modern period brought us O Tannenbaum (16th century, Germany), Greensleeves (16th century, whose melody was later used for What Child is This? in 1871), and Huron Carol (composed by a French Jesuit in 1642, in the Wyandot/ Wendat language, for the native peoples of what is now Ontario). Some gems from the 18th century: Joy to the World (1719), Adeste Fidelis (1751), God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen (1760), and The Twelve Days of Christmas (1780). I was today years old when I found out that it is not God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen. Apparently the gentlemen in the song are not yet merry; it is only the shifting of the comma’s placement that would make them so.

The 19th century, specifically the Victorian era, brought us all the other greatest hits of the Christmas hymnal. Queen Victoria’s husband, Prince Albert, brought the Christmas traditions of his native Germany to his wife’s country, and the couple made Christmas look so fabulous that it even caught on as The Most Festive Holiday in the Puritan-founded United States. I find it sweet that some of the most enduring hymns from this era were composed by church ministers for their local children’s Christmas pageants: Silent Night (1818, Austria), We Three Kings (1857, U.S.), and O Little Town of Bethlehem (1868, U.S.).

Other 19th century Christmas songs with interesting trivia: I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day (1872) was based on an 1863 Longfellow poem. Jingle Bells/ originally One Horse Open Sleigh (1857) was actually written for Thanksgiving and was the first song to be heard from space in 1965.

The turn of the 20th century brought more published compilations of Christmas tunes, though they mainly contained older hymns. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer was a book published in 1939 as a marketing campaign for Montgomery Ward department store, and wasn’t recorded until 1949, when Gene Autry sang it at his wife’s insistence. Mid-century hits still on regular rotation in 2024 include White Christmas (1942, Irving Berlin), Silver Bells (1950, Bing Crosby & Carol Richards), Blue Christmas (1948, but the 1964 Elvis version is better known), and Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree (1958, Brenda Lee).

We’ll just leap over the last half of the 20th century, since most readers have personal memories to fill in the gaps. I’ll just say that the most unexpected Christmas album of the 21st century so far might be A Heavy Metal Christmas (2012, Sir Christopher Lee, recorded at age 90). Saruman could rock.

Solstice

With the first day of Northern Hemisphere Winter almost here (December 21), you may want to check out the long-range weather forecast courtesy of The Old Farmer’s Almanac: https://www.almanac.com/winter-extended-forecast-farmers-almanac

When 4 p.m. brings dusk, the long evenings call for looking back at summer photos:

Holiday Offer

In addition to lowering the base price of a paid subscription to better fit the current economic landscape, we’re offering 40% off for the next 12 months. That’s $3/month or $24/year for those who upgrade their subscription. From now until December 31, you can click on the link here to take advantage of the discount. As a free subscriber, you’ll still be able to read posts, comment, chat, all the things. We’ll be adding printable seasonal recipes as a thank you to paid subscribers, beginning in January, as well as extended posts. We’re grateful for all of you who continue to read, follow, and encourage us here at The Suburb Farm.

Do you have a favorite Christmas carol, or other holiday song? What songs do you play while you prepare for festivities this time of year? However you celebrate, here’s wishing you peace and light this holiday season! Next time, the history of holiday sweets…

—Erin, in Michigan

References for this post:

https://wmmr.com/listicle/classic-christmas-songs-100-years-old/

https://wmmr.com/listicle/15-unconventional-christmas-albums/

https://northernwilds.com/christmas-carols-from-medieval-to-modern-day/#:~:text=Scholars%20credit%20the%20world's%20oldest,the%20Father%20Love%20Begotten%E2%80%9D).

https://www.oldest.org/religion/christmas-songs/

https://donnahatch.com/christmas-carols-origins-good-king-wenceslas/

https://www.appalachianhistory.net/2018/12/cherry-tree-carol-abridged.html

https://jeanyeewong.blogspot.com/2012/06/cherry-tree-carol_12.html

This is not a how-to guide with helpful tips on getting everything done, with downloadable Advent calendars whose doors open to reveal a time-saving task each day (December 15: Make cookie dough & freeze it. This way your family won’t eat all the cookies today & you’ll maybe remember it in time for Easter.) There are talented people who create lovely resources to help you prepare for the holidays, and chances are I have given them my money over the years, to mixed results on my end. If you are in search of organization and timeliness, look elsewhere. You do not want life hacks from someone who wraps all the gifts in the wee hours of Christmas morning. (Not a humble brag. Those hours are full of self-reproach and lots of Irish coffee.) Let’s just say I’m more of a dreamer than a doer for these big holidays.

While I have not been decorating the house nor putting up the Christmas tree as yet, I have been going down rabbit holes on the history of some of our most beloved Christmas traditions. If you enjoy esoteric facts to throw into conversation at your next family get-together, and have the strength to suffer the ensuing eyerolls, then you’re in the right place. I got your back, friends.

Christmas Cards

If you know us in non-internet life, and have not received a Christmas card from us since 2015 (probably?), rest assured that you are still on a list somewhere. I think Christmas cards are a lovely tradition, one I kept up quite faithfully for years in fact. I’m thrilled to receive holiday cards in the mail, and admire those of you who send them. I’m the first to bemoan the lost art of letter writing, in between scrolling Instagram and neglecting to answer e-mail.

Why are Christmas cards a tradition in the first place? They began as a less time-consuming way to send Season’s Greetings than the handwritten annual Christmas letter, which itself had exploded in popularity with the creation of postal stamps. The idea has been attributed to Sir Henry Cole, who in 1843 ordered 1000 cards from a London printer. (Am I the only one who thinks it was perhaps Dame Cole who came up with the idea? She who was developing carpal tunnel by writing all those letters?) Demonstrating the universal truth that people will always find something to criticize, the illustration was attacked for encouraging underage drinking (I guess they missed the background images of charity). Other than that, the public loved the idea, and Christmas cards became the new tradition (to the great relief of Mrs. Cole).

The Christmas card didn’t take off in the U.S. until 1875, and started with a minimalist approach: a bright painting of a flower and the words “Merry Christmas.” Mass production of cards didn’t start here until 1915, when they took their recognizable form as 4 x 6 inch folded cards with envelopes. The same business, run by the 3 Hall brothers, started printing gift wrap 2 years later.1 The company was eventually renamed “Hallmark.” Over the years, Hallmark held competitions for card designs and contracted with well-known public figures to create artwork. Within these illustrious ranks were Norman Rockwell (1948-57), Jacqueline Kennedy (1962, which quickly sold out), and Salvador Dalí (1947-60).2 Guess whose were the most controversial?

Only a few of his designs were pulled from shelves in response to consumer outcry. Dalí’s artwork went on to grace American mailboxes and mantelpieces with such delights as Christmas Tree of Butterflies (1959).3 None of his designs are sacrilegious, despite the pearl-clutching; Dalí was a convert to Catholicism and brought his own style to a sea of sentimentality in the card aisle. Make Christianity weird again, I say.

Santa Lucia Day

St. Lucy’s feast day is December 13, which was the date of the winter solstice under the Julian calendar. I wrote more about it here. We’re nearing the darkest day of the year, but then the light will return. Here are this year’s photos:

Bee Sighting

A few days after our first snowfall, there was a warm, windless Sunday thaw with direct sunlight on the hives. It was near 50℉ and there were bees flying out from 4 of the 5 hives (and I heard buzzing in the 5th). They didn’t fly far, just enough to do their cleansing flights. Bees won’t poop inside the hive, and they rarely leave their huddle during the cold months, so a warm day is a literal relief for them. They also take the opportunity on those days to remove their dead. So a bunch of dead bees outside a hive after a thaw is a positive sign of life within. As the sun dropped low, the bees returned to the safety of the hives, to their winter cluster near the honey stores.

The whole hive knows they will survive only if they shiver together. Some of them in the shivering cluster will die of old age. Had they hatched in the flowering season, their labor for the hive’s survival—harvesting nectar and pollen from as many as two thousand flowers a day—would have killed them in four weeks or less… But hatched on the cusp of winter they may live six months. They will know only the dark hive, the press of their sisters’ bodies. They will never fly, never fall into a flower.

—Gayle Boss, All Creation Waits: The Advent Mystery of New Beginnings4

Next time: the history of Christmas carols & holiday candies🤓

How does mid-December find you? Are you decorating or preparing food for the holidays? Do you send Christmas cards? If you’re planning to send out 1,000 like the Coles, might I suggest a social media post instead? And happy 249th birthday to Miss Jane Austen on December 16th!

—Erin, in Michigan

I was planning to finish up a post started a couple weeks ago, on the U.K. farm protests. But we woke this morning to automated calls and email pings declaring a snow day for local schools, and I find myself writing from the inside of a snow globe. Yesterday’s heavy gray skies, that made the dog think it was evening all day (and thus time for his dinner…all day), have been replaced with bright sunlight. So I’m shelving that rather impassioned post for a later date (or maybe never, as often happens), since the powdery mounds of white outside the windows seem to call for an equally fluffy post. We’ve had flying flakes and ice nibs pelting our faces here and there since last week, but last night brought the first Real Snow of the season, the kind that needs boots, a shovel, and dreamy photographs.

The food dehydrator & garden tools have finally departed for storage, and the beekeeping equipment cleaned & packed away. The bees are in their winter huddles; there’s nothing more we can do for them than make sure their hives are weighted down against the wind. I had to disturb one of the smaller colonies last week, in order to replenish their food stores. They were not appreciative of my diligence in waiting for a “warm” sunny afternoon to do so. I can say this with confidence because of the force with which they left their huddle to fly up at my face and the determination with which I was afterward chased across the garden. I don’t blame them one bit.

Late November means Thanksgiving here in the U.S. We enjoyed a long holiday weekend through which we feasted well. Thanksgiving dinner was hosted by my parents, with everyone contributing to the food. It was a relatively small gathering, only 22 people, but included some lovely humans that we met for the first time. A university student from Pakistan joined us, and it was the only opportunity he’d had so far here to spend time with children and older people. There were enough leftovers to send with people and to continue eating for days. The bounty is overwhelming.

Thanksgiving week always brings my birthday. Every year! I’m 50 now. Probably time to shop for a barbette, or even a wimple? See last year’s birthday post for fashion advice. Speaking of shopping, the womenfolk in our family have a tradition of shopping local thrift stores the Saturday after Thanksgiving, and this year I scored a trench coat, 4 sweaters, and a lovely set of soup mugs for a grand total of $39.22.

Autumn’s End

December is here…

…And it’s a year in which Advent calendars match up with actual Advent dates, at least in the western churches; if you have one of the many Advent calendars that start on December 1st as a countdown to Christmas, despite the 1st Sunday of Advent being a moveable date. Either way, enjoy the chocolates! Tomorrow is St. Nicholas Day (Dec. 6) and next Friday is St. Lucy’s Day (Dec. 13); You can read about how we celebrate these 2 holidays here.

I hope your December is off to a good start, with feasting, family, and festivities. Or a cozy blanket and warm cup of tea as you look out at the snow. Do you celebrate Thanksgiving, and if so, do you have a favorite dish?

—Erin, in Michigan

Other than Canada (Ontario at that, which is basically just Michigan’s cooler cousin), I hadn’t left the U.S. in 25 years, since our honeymoon to Mexico. So when had the opportunity to travel again for work, this time to Argentina, I decided to go along and call it our 25th wedding anniversary trip. Thus October ended in a grand week-long adventure to Buenos Aires and back. The kids stayed home and managed just fine.

It’s springtime there, in the very far South, with weather approximate to May in the Midwest, including people emerging from winter in combinations of puffy coats and shorts. The rain cleared for our last couple days there, and the sight of blossoms and green leaves against blue sky was all the more beautiful after longing for the sun to shine. I got to experience new pollen allergens.

Buenos Aires is an amazing city, with distinctive & walkable neighborhoods, friendly people, a vibrant arts scene, and a cafe on every corner. They honor the hobbit meal plan there, clearly believe in butter & pastries, and expect patrons to linger over their meals. At night, the main streets are full of couples, multigenerational families including elderly in wheelchairs & children in arms, and groups of young adults not on cell phones. We were on a budget-conscious type of splurge trip, which meant walking, people watching, visiting free museums & churches, and just happening upon an international street festival.

We joined throngs of people treading cobblestone streets for the weekly San Telmo outdoor bazaar, which stretches more than 10 city blocks and draws tens of thousands of visitors every Sunday. I was accustomed enough by then to the unique Argentinian Spanish to start a chat (at the language level of a child) with a vendor & a passionately opinionated 80-year-old woman about the friction between gentrified shops and independent artisans over the continued size & existence of the fair. We saw amazing graffiti, gardens overflowing on terraces & rooftops, and discovered where all the pigeons have gone. There was also visible misery and abject poverty, seen in whole families living on the street and children begging at tourist sites. I know this occurs in the U.S. as well, but living in rural-burbia, we’re sheltered from the tragic scale of homelessness in the large metropolitan areas. Our charity is mainly local, and most people we meet in our community are within 2 degrees of separation.

It took around 24 hours from initial airport arrival to final landing each way, including a couple layovers and customs processing (much more organized & civil on the Argentine end, I must say). I don’t like to fly, but I used my coping skills, which included reading this fascinating book about a year in the life of a beekeeper, and I made it there and back again with no panic attacks and only one episode of dissolving into tears on the trip home. It’s a win.

Missing the Bees

The trees back home had saved a few leftovers for us, but we had missed the feast of color provided during our absence. Some bright yellow leaves on the pawpaw sapling, lingering red coals from the blaze of the burning bush, and everywhere else the scattered orange and brown of a 1970’s floral sofa. After greeting kids and dog, we hurried out back to check on the hives, which apparently won someone a bet. We do love our bees and there’s no shame in that!

We are going into the colder months with 5(!) queenright hives. We were still putting out sugar syrup for them in the warm afternoons, but I think we’re well and truly done with that now that there’s been more than one hard frost. The past couple days have had a different chill to the air. Rather than clumps of bees hanging out on their porches, basking in the few hours of direct sunlight, I’ve been met by a single guard bee at the entrance who ducks quickly back inside after noting my presence.

It was thrilling to travel such a long distance, to sample life in another country, to admire its culture, to navigate a city of 16 million people, and to fly from Spring back to Autumn in 24 hours. Whether due to crystalizing introversion, the continuing aftershocks of 2020, the responsibilities of this present stage of life, or the depth of the roots we’ve planted in this small suburb of a small city, I was and am very glad to be back home. I was looking out at a city full of nightlife, amazed and grateful, but wishing I were curled up on the scuffed-up second-hand sofa in our living room, with the dog at on my feet and a mug of tea in hand.

Turns out my favorite place to escape is the garden in my backyard. And that in addition to the kids, we really miss the bees when we’re away. I can live with that; there are worse things to be than a homebody. Though I can only speak for myself; our son will likely move away after graduation, and Phillip will be thrilled to go wherever on the globe his employer sends him. There are other places I would love to visit someday, but this northern climate asks me to spend the current season bringing out the blankets & sweaters, turning on the kettle & the crockpot, and preparing home & hive for the winter.

Have you travelled to the opposite hemisphere? Do you consider yourself more of a homebody or an adventurer? If you’re in the Southern Hemisphere, what is in bloom & growing where you are? If in the North, have you had frost or even snow yet? If you could pick any place to travel, and money were no object, where would you go?

—Erin, in Michigan

Last week’s Aurora Borealis was phenomenal! We stood in the backyard and craned our necks to watch the show. Did you see them where you live? Had you seen them before?

Between Earth and Sky

At Ground Level

There’s been light frost on the ground a few mornings so far, but nothing severe yet. Just cold enough to bring in the last of the tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, and beans, and to collect seeds for next year.

The queen yellow jacket in the grid above was uncovered while was digging near the blueberries. She was big and scary-looking but sluggish. Pretty sure she was confused at being dug up from her hibernation spot, beneath the mulch and soil. Unlike their honeybee cousins, who winter in a cozy ball with their colony, wasp queens are solitary during the cold months. They will emerge in early Spring, construct a nest, and lay the eggs that will become their colony for that year. In the Fall, the males contribute their genetic material then die, and the fertilized queens each hibernate alone. Hornets and bumble bees follow a similar life cycle.1 So do our native solitary bee species, but as their name suggests, the females raise their young alone rather than in colonies. Male solitary bees sleep out-of-doors on flowers (another reason to skip the chemical garden sprays).2 Honeybees aren’t perfect paragons of communal living, though; they systematically kick the drones (male bees) out of the hive this time of year, to die of starvation and exposure. Only the females get a chance to survive together to Spring. Nature is brutal.

Our Bees

As of a week ago, the newest hive, that was requeening at the time of the last post, had both the old and newly-emerged queens living together peacefully. That scenario is unlikely to last; either the new queen, pending a successful mating flight, will start laying and take over the hive, or the hive will be without a fertile queen and need to be combined with another colony. Though there’s been warm afternoon sun, the nights have been cold and pollen sources are dwindling. We still see foraging bees, but have insulated the hives and made the entrances smaller (for heat conservation and pest exclusion).

In the Kitchen

Seasonal Shift

The leaves are turning. The sun drops out of sight rather quicker than is polite in the evenings. We’re nearing the end of marching band season here, also known as high school football season. We’ve brought out the sweaters and extra blankets. I plan to take advantage of this weekend’s St. Luke's summer to do hive checks, and combine any weak colonies with more robust ones. It feels like a Midwest October.

What have you been up to in October? For those in the Northern Hemisphere, have you experienced colder temperatures yet, or even the first frost? What garden tasks are on your list before November arrives? Do you have any fun insect facts to share?

I’ve opened up the Chat so that any subscriber to The Suburb Farm can start a thread now (not just me)! You can jump in anytime to share garden photos, post a link to farm-ish news, or crowdsource food-growing questions to other readers. Just keep it wholesome, please, like the mindful & demure people you are. Click here to start a Chat.

—Erin, in Michigan

Preserving the old ways from being abused

Protecting the new ways for me and for you

What more can we do?

—”The Village Green Preservation Society,” The Kinks, 1968

Listen here to the full song and then to Natalie Merchant's lovely cover version.

I’ll give you the recipe

I have a general idea of the age range of my readers, so it’s not a huge leap to assume that the majority of you own at least one recipe written in ink, on an index card, that was given to you by someone you know, and that in many cases it was a recipe you requested. The food someone made was so delicious that you wanted to replicate the taste, or you remember a certain dish from your childhood, so you asked some version of the timeless question: Could I have the recipe? Chances are that you kept the physical paper recipe, rather than digitizing it and throwing away the original. The faded ink handwriting is unique to the recipe writer, and the grease stains on the paper attest to the recipe’s authenticity.

I search Pinterest or food blogs as much as the next parent who’s in need of quick brownies with 5 ingredients because you promised to bake for 50 high school band members for tomorrow’s event and it’s almost midnight and you are not going out to the store right now even though we’re low on sugar. As a hypothetical situation. The brownies were a hit though. But I have a hoarder’s instinct unhealthy obsession serious problem penchant for collecting cookbooks, and a partiality to books and recipes given to me by people whose table I’ve shared. Recipes passed down from great-grandmothers, those gifted to me by women who attended my bridal shower, and collected from friends and co-workers after a party or potluck. The sharing of recipes is imbued with historical etiquette; when someone lets you in on the secrets of a family dish, you’ve attained a respectable degree of trust. Food blogs have tried to replicate this feeling, but it’s just not the same. We quickly scroll past the flowery history or click skip to recipe because we don’t have a personal connection to the writer or their food; they just fit the keywords we fed the search engine.

Most of the time, my general inward feeling toward all things grownup is most akin to Imposter Syndrome. Then, once in a while, I’m brought face-to-face with the awareness that I am an adult. This is not always through dramatic or difficult means. In fact, not many months ago, an elementary school acquaintance sent me a message on social media asking for a recipe, and I was able to find it for her, and that just seemed like a very middle-aged thing to do. She remembered a cookie recipe that my family had contributed to our school cookbook, which was compiled and sold as a fundraiser at some point in the 1980’s. She’d made them for her kids many times, but had lost the recipe. Both my mom and grandma still had copies of that cookbook (as, it turned out, did other class moms), so we ended up sharing tips on substitute ingredients for various dessert recipes, in that centuries-old tradition of adults.

Now you, too, can join the circle of trust! 😎Click the link for a printable version of the Snickerdoodle Recipe.

I suspect it’s not as common now, in this age of endless consumer choice, for multiple people in your social network to own the same obscure cookbook, and I don’t think I’ve bought a locally compiled fundraising cookbook in over 20 years.1 Hopefully someone, somewhere, is putting a new one together, because there’s just something about using a recipe from someone in your community that you can’t get from browsing allrecipes.com. Not to say we can’t replicate some sense of it online; I’m more likely to use a food preservation or holiday recipe shared by a Substack friend than from a random website. No one would say I’m the cook in the family, but I love to play around with baking. I flagrantly mark up recipes with alterations, using ink on paper to help whoever ends up with them when I’m gone, to bake them like I did. Come to think of it, I should’ve made the brownies from that school cookbook for the band…

A moment for Dame Maggie Smith

In my last post, I used her role in Downton Abbey for meme-ery. She passed away 8 days later, so I felt I should include a dignified photo of her this time. Most recognizable to younger generations as Professor McGonagall in the Harry Potter movies (the last 3 of which she filmed while undergoing breast cancer treatment) and as the Dowager Countess of Grantham in Downton Abbey (which she herself never watched); she played countless roles over 7 decades, on screen and stage, and collected at least 15 awards from Oscars to Baftas.

You can read her London obituary here. My fall watch list now includes (reading then watching) The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969) and rewatching Gosford Park (2001) which reportedly was Julian Fellowes’ pre-Downton foray into writing stories centered on the misadventures of British society’s upper crust. Rest in peace, Dame Maggie.

Garden Update

It’s just past Michaelmas weekend (which was high school Homecoming & birthday weekend here, so no feast of goose & blackberries) and the turn of October, which at last is bringing Autumn weather to our area of Michigan. There have been blue daytime skies, nighttime rain, and cool breezes to temper the glorious warmth. Cherry tomatoes are still slowly rolling in, and we’ve just been eating them fresh, mainly as pico de gallo. There is still a proliferation of goji berries, which go straight to the dehydrator; they have an unpleasant (to my taste) astringent quality when fresh. I’m still harvesting herbs, both culinary and medicinal, which I air dry and either store that way or mix as tinctures. The elderberry is showing off with another round of blossoms and fruit.

The garlic is planted for harvest next year. The string bean plants gave lovely red flowers, but failed to yield enough beans for more than a snack. There is a single watermelon; a poor showing from the potato plants. Similarly, we have a few hot peppers and exactly 1 sweet pepper. Thankfully, we’ve been the recipients of other people’s garden overflow, including some very spicy habaneros.

Bee Update

We currently have five(!) hives, all queen right. The newest hive is making a replacement queen, though, so that will be interesting and very possibly a failure, especially given the time of year. This long run of unseasonably warm weather has to end sometime, and our first frost is expected near the end of the month.

We’d purposefully planted flowers and native varieties with the goal of blooms through the fall for pollinators, but that isn’t sufficient for the need. So we’ve been feeding 2:1 sugar water inside the hives and leaving out bowls of it around the yard, as a decoy for would-be hive robbers and a nectar-ish source for foraging pollinators; fall food source levels being directly related to winter survival rates of bees. To see more bees on our spring flowers, we should provide them forage in the fall. Honeybee colonies will typically continue to send out foragers until daytime temperatures drop to 50℉ (10℃), and bumblebees until 45℉ (7℃).

What could you plant next Spring to help feed pollinators next Autumn? There are great suggestions at the links here at Epic Gardening and by gardening zone here. You can also hold off on deadheading your summer blooms until the pollinators have gone into hibernation. Consider this your permission to remove “tidying the flower garden” from your to-do list. Birds will visit you all winter for the seeds, native bees will stay warm inside the stems, and leaf debris will provide shelter for other beneficial insects.

Our tears and prayers are with all those in the southeastern U.S. whose homes, towns, and livelihoods have been destroyed by Hurricane Helene; not to mention the tragic loss of life.

Until next time, may your gardens bring forth good harvests and the times we live in be less interesting.

—Erin, in Michigan

Here in the U.S., Labor Day weekend is the perceived marker between summer and fall. The holiday is celebrated on the first Monday of September, commemorating one of the largest labor union marches of the Gilded Age. I guess legislators of the 1890’s were a decisive lot, as it took only two years for Congress to declare it a national holiday🤭. The laborers for whom the holiday is named worked long hours in grueling factory conditions. It’s a day that ought to remind us of our industrial past, even though it’s now white collar office workers who are most likely to have it as a paid day off, extending the standard 2-day weekend.

Ideally, U.S. workers who do labor on Labor Day get holiday pay. Of course, there are many Americans who must work that day regardless, including farmers. In the agrarian calendar, Labor Day falls during harvest season. This busy season known to our ancestors did not allow for rest, until the harvest was brought in and winter preparations made; only then did they celebrate. Michaelmas (pronounced “Mickle-muss”), which falls on September 29th, was one of the most widely celebrated harvest feasts in the British Isles, and you can read about our family’s celebration of it here.

In early modern Britain, the last sheaf was brought in on a festively decorated cart, which the farm laborers followed to a “harvest-home” banquet.1 The ending scenes of the lesser-known and far better of the 2 Emma adaptations of 1996, with Kate Beckinsale in the lead role rather than Gwyneth Paltrow, centers around a harvest-home feast held by Mr. Knightley for his tenants. The snobbish Mr. & Mrs. Elton are horrified on finding they are expected to dine with the families who farm the estate, whilst Austen’s most uppity heroine learns to respect those below her social class. The inclusion of this harvest festival is a welcome use of poetic license, which is a tricky thing to achieve in filming the movie version of any classic or well-known novel. The script is by Andrew Davies, who also dramatized the 1995 Pride and Prejudice mini-series of Colin-Firth-diving-in-a-pond fame. This version of Emma, which, unlike the other released in ‘96, is free of Harvey Weinstein involvement, is free to watch on YouTube here.

Did you get a view of the Full Harvest Supermoon + lunar eclipse a couple days ago? What started as a giant orange circle above the eastern horizon blurred to a smaller circumference of piercing white light. According to The Old Farmer’s Almanac, my favorite source for astronomical lore, the Harvest Moon is either the last full moon of September or the first full moon of October, depending on which is closer to the date of the Autumnal Equinox. September won the title this year, but in the years it loses to October it gets to be the Corn Moon, at least in much of the northern U.S. The names of this full moon are derived from the names given it by the Native peoples living in different regions. Some beautiful examples are Moon of Brown Leaves (Lakota tribe) and Yellow Leaf Moon (Assiniboine tribe).2 This year the Equinox is September 22.

On the liturgical front, I have to give a shout-out to St. Hildegard of Bingen, whose feast day is September 17. Born at the turn of the 12th century, this Doctor of the Church was a musical composer, artist, medical researcher & herbal healer, and prolific author of both plays and theological treatises; the abbess of a Benedictine monastery who stood up to pope and emperor when they were not doing right by the common people. She was a big food-as-medicine proponent; if your humors are leaning melancholic in these shorter hours of sunlight, I recommend making her “cookies of joy” and violet wine, as demonstrated in this video:

I’d also recommend this meditative, mesmerizing performance of St. Hildegard’s music by a girls’ choir in Slovenia (start at minute 6:10 if you just want a sample):

Garden and Apiary Photos

Here’s an overview of our September garden harvest:

The last of the monarch butterflies flew south, but we get to see who they left behind:

The bees have been busy this month. We ordered 2 new mated queens through the mail (yes, it’s a thing; they arrive with 2-3 attendants in a little cage blocked with fondant which her new subjects have to chew through to release her), only to find that one of the hives we thought was queen-less had just been hiding their queen (Her original Majesty from May). Rather than resort to regicide, we set up Her mail-order Majesty in her own hive, with bees and comb taken from a larger colony who could spare them. So there are now 2 hives in the fenced apiary and 3 in the main garden.

made a few top feeders for the hive boxes, so the bees can drink a 2:1 mixture of sugar water from a mason jar suspended over their frames. Even though it’s been unusually hot here for most of September, mid- to high 80’s Fahrenheit, it’s also been unseasonably dry; so there’s a dearth of flowers and nectar for bees to forage. Other than bright orange pollen from goldenrod, there hasn’t been much coming in to the hives, hence the need to supplement their food supply.

The Suburb Farm has almost 300 subscribers now! Thank you many times over to all of you for reading and engaging with this little Substack newsletter. Most of you probably haven’t read this post from 2022, so if you’d like to nerd out on calendar history and the shortest September on record, here it is:

How is your September? What are your plants doing? Are you ready for the season to change? What blooms do you leave for pollinators once summer is over?

—Erin, in Michigan

I had every intention of posting in June & July, but alas, did not. It turns out that I have a limit for what I can accomplish with a reduced workforce of 3 on a property set up to be managed by twice that many. & our youngest daughter were in Japan from April 1 to August 2, for a teaching exchange, and our son was in North Carolina from mid-May to the end of July, working & living with his uncle & aunt. That left me and 2 daughters to mind the homestead (plus go to work & school, etc.). It’s amazing how many chores & repairs have been done in the short time since the travelers’ return! Many hands really do make lighter work.

Summer Synopsis

It’s been an interesting growing season. Early last frost date, hot & humid, rained at least once during every 24 hour period until very recently. Every crop has been ready for harvest about 3 weeks earlier than expected this year. Some staple crops, namely squash, corn, & peas, never made it into the ground for 2024.

This year, we are pretty much berry & garlic farmers. We had huge, early harvests of strawberries & raspberries. The elderberry is outdoing itself. A couple of weeks ago, we harvested multiple rows of garlic that were planted last Fall. The garlic and onion scapes were put to good use earlier in the season, added to every possible dish. Our first beehive from May survived a successful split into 2 in July, and on Phillip’s return we split each of those again! Four hives?! I think I might really be a beekeeper.

It looks like there will be a small harvest of beans, peppers, potatoes, pears, and herbs, and a moderate amount of tomatoes and horseradish. I’m still crossing fingers for cucumbers and watermelon, but that’s probably a pipe dream at this point. We did have a great number of salad greens early in the season, just from what self-seeded last year, and the arugula continues to produce. Kiwi, figs, paw paws, and grapevines have grown in grandeur of healthy green leaves, but not so much in fruit. The blueberries were looking good, but an excess of rain ruined that. There will be a few spotty peaches and some pears, but sadly no apples. The lilies have been magnificent. The native plants in our yard have thrived in the tropical monsoon that hit our area of the Midwest; we now practically have tree-sized boneset, tickseed, cardinal flower, and iris. Mullein popped up everywhere, as did milkweed, and sections of the back garden were overrun by horehound.

The native wildlife have been thriving, too, except for the skunk that found itself being thrashed around by our dog’s teeth, and fought back in the typical way skunks do (yes, ick). There also was a terrified possum who lumbered into the live trap we’d then set for more skunks, whom the dog became intent on freeing into his jaws. It’s unfortunate that no one caught the ensuing scene on video: me trying to lift the cage trap out of reach, dog leaping up at the cage anyway, me spinning away holding the cage with the possum who was now hissing by my face as it spun, me screaming in response but holding tight to the cage handle. 15 year old daughter finally separated the dog and released the frightened possum (well, she opened the trap at any rate, and by morning it was gone). At least that incident didn’t require a jug of vinegar, several dog baths, and the disposal of a deceased skunk. Anyway… so many birds, in type and number, including a nest of robins born just outside the back garden and screech owls heard at night. Many native pollinators, another migratory visit from monarch butterflies, plus fireflies and cicadas in the evening.

More Photos

Back to the Title Question

How was your summer? Did you travel? Grow anything especially beautiful or delicious? See or hear cicadas in your area? Did you have unusual weather patterns? Any wildlife encounters? Please share in the comments.

Now that our crew is living under one roof again, I’ll be posting more often. I missed chatting with you all in this space! It’s good to be back in the ‘Stacks.

—Erin, in Michigan