Morning Song Farm News

Quite a bit of ruckus going on in the goat barn this last week as Lulu, our gorgeous, spotted Nigerian goat was on the losing end of a tussle with a rattlesnake. We've had an unusual breed of rattlesnakes out here this year, many just don't rattle. It's like they're just too lazy to bother. Which is a bummer, because it's the distinctive sssshhhhhhh of the rattlesnake that alerts us of their presence. There was a couple years, about a decade ago...when the rattlesnakes on the farm were wildly aggressive; just exploding with rattles and hisses whenever someone came near. Those got thinned out pretty quickly because they alerted predators to their presence. Some locals are saying that the California rattlesnake has bred with other snakes and the current breed of rattlesnake is a hybrid. I'm hoping that's just folklore because a non-rattling, lazy but still venomous snake is pretty bad news. Poor Lulu's face is swollen to the point she doesn't look li...

Well, we have more honey than ever this year and think our mixed-pollination honey is the best sweetener out there. We still only offer our honey to our CSA members or Rare Fruit Farm Tour participants, as we don't ship yet. Here's the thing: it's not illegal to feed bees buckets of high fructose corn syrup, which unfortunately they love. They scoop that stuff right up, as if it's a competing hive's honey, which they view as a resourse. Like stumbling into a gold mine. So an unscrupulous beekeeper can "make" honey in a few days by feeding their hives garbage HFCS and then selling that nonsense as "honey."  I think that might be what's happening with honey coming from some third world countries. It's so cheap, and there's no oversight whatsoever. I think that might explain why honey doesn't taste like honey sometimes. Also, FYI...if your honey doesn't eventually crystallize, it can't be honey. Left on the shelf, pure honey ...