the first night of fireflies

is something that I always wait and look for in my life, no matter where I am.  Summer is finally here, the first cut of hay is off, and the vegetables are growing.  The fireflies may have been the portal to my life with honey bees.  As a child, I collected them with my brother and sister and brought them into our bedroom.  They are fun and magical.

Last night the fireflies first appeared at our distillery and later on the farm. Lighting up the night, they flutter around when their season comes, turning on and off with their flight, much as a loon dives under the water and comes up in another place. They come and go with the temperature changes of the night.

There is a rhythm to the seasons that becomes part of your soul. Now the frogs are singing every night, choruses of little peeper frogs and larger tree frogs on the pond and in the marshy areas of the woods. As the temperature rises and falls through the night, the singing moves from one group of frogs to another, just as a conductor points to different members of an orchestra to play through a symphony.

Climbing Barr Hill in the summer is one of my favorite hikes. The juniper berries all over the summit recall the early days when we were hiking here and thought of making gin and finishing it with raw honey. Barr Hill is a thin place. Our ancestors in Scotland call a sacred place “thin”, where heaven and earth are very close and mingle together.

We always anticipate the moment in the summer when we know there will be a crop of honey. I call this “the turning point” – over 12 months of preparation have gone into this moment. The preparation for the next crop never stops; even when you are in the middle of one crop, you are always thinking ahead to the next. I recall one year in the St. Lawrence River Valley of Northern New York. Just as I was seeing 100 lbs. of new honey on hive after hive for the first time, an Amish horse and buggy drove by, with the horses’ hooves pounding on the dry road for a half mile before and after the bee yard. When the crop is on the bee hives, we breathe sighs of relief and gratitude.

This past weekend a swarm moved into some bee equipment on the farm. All the colonies in this bee yard had died this past winter, and that was tough. As I was too busy and bees were not available for purchase at this late date, it was time to surrender. I left a pile of bee equipment outside in hopes of attracting a swarm. When a neighbor came over to borrow bee equipment for her swarm, I noticed a lot of activity in this hive, and sure enough, a swarm of bees had come and made a home in this hive within the last two days. There were just a few eggs, and the next day I found the queen.

“A swarm in May is worth a load of hay
A swarm in June is worth a silver spoon.
A swarm in July is not worth a fly.”

Timing is everything in agriculture, and we are grateful to have the bees back on the farm. There will be squash and berries to pollinate this year, and apples next year.

These are the rhythms of the season in a place that we love, and it is an honor to move through each of the four seasons in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont.

thank you for your interest in and support of our work with organic honey, grains, and elderberry,

Todd D. Hardie
CLICK HERE to view the complete June 2014 Newsletter

“Get right back up on your pony when you fall off.”  These enduring words from my grandmother Agnes have changed a life and the generations that follow.

They describe the life of Jack. Lazor.  Jack and Anne Lazor have been farming at Butterworks Farm for close to 40 years.  Their organic yogurt has been beloved and appreciated for years throughout Vermont and beyond.  The Lazors were early pioneers in growing organic grains on the farm.  What began as a way to provide quality feed for the dairy cows grew into a desire to perfect and encourage the growing of organic grain in Vermont and our region, and to supply quality grain to co-ops, stores, bakeries, and those who make beverages.

I met Jack years ago at our first Food Fair that Northeast Cooperatives sponsored every Spring. The Vermont guys were put together at a table, the young farmers, he with yogurt, me with honey. His inspiration to our work was as important as the Butterworks Farm yogurt, which is most always in our refrigerator at home. For years, Jack has encouraged countless farmers to have courage, innovate, develop value added products, and keep at it. He has been very important in NOFA and the Northern Grain Growers Association.

The history of distilling is agriculture: how to get a return on your crop, how to preserve it, and how to move the crop to the market in a cost effective way. With the revival of craft spirits, we are now seeing a broad support for family farming, with fair prices paid for grains, a higher quality of crops in the shift from conventional to organic farming, and a market demand that is changing grain farming.

Recently I had the privilege of sitting with Jack while he was on his daily kidney dialysis in the living room. With patience and love, Anne went through a lengthy prep process to hook her husband’s chest up to this machine. I had come late to get the truckload of organic corn that we are using at Caledonia Spirits to make corn whiskey and bourbon. The flow of Jack’s life continued and the conversation about corn, how much was in storage from the last crop and available now for milling, went on for hours as we sat together, the machine beeping away and his rugged body, red and scarred from needles and operations, filling the room with courage and the most humble strength you could imagine.

Jack is a gentle giant, who has changed the face of Vermont forever. Without medical insurance, he has some big bills to pay. I hope that you will consider of being a part of this benefit and celebration for Jack on May 24. We would like to make a serious dent in paying off these medical bills.

For a cost of $140.00 we will share a box containing:
• Caledonia Spirits Early Riser corn whiskey, 200 mL flask
• Jasper Hill Farm, 1/2 lb. piece of Alpha Tolman cheese
• Pete’s Greens, 1 lb. of organic carrots and 1 lb. organic potatoes
• Vermont Soy, a 14 ounce box of fresh organic tofu
• High Mowing Organic Seeds, a packet of Mesclun Mix
• Butterworks Farm, a bag of farm grown cornmeal, with a recipe for cornbread from Anne & Christine Lazor
Jack will be available at the benefit to sign and share copies of his book, The Organic Grain Grower.

Saturday, May 24, 1:00 pm, at Caledonia Spirits in Hardwick, Vermont

To reserve your box contact: todd@caledoniaspirits.com. Please make checks payable to Vermont Jack Lazor Fund and mail to: Vermont Jack Lazor Fund, P.O. Box 1249, Hardwick, VT 05843. All proceeds after actual costs of goods and advertising in the newspapers will be given to Jack Lazor to pay his medical bills. You can reserve your box to be picked up at Caledonia Spirits in Hardwick, Burlington, Caledonia Spirits’ retail location in Ferrisburgh, and other locations around the state and region. Please pass this on to your friends in New York City, Boston, and Washington, DC. This limited edition of Early Riser corn whiskey will only be available through the purchase of this special box for Jack.

thank you for your interest in and support of our work with organic honey, grains, and elderberry,

Todd D. Hardie

Live from the Hive: The gift of the dandelion

May is such an important and busy month for the honey bees. The colony is rearing brood, and many plants are flowering, providing food for the growing population. Ground ivy and dandelions are everywhere. Dandelions are such an important food source for bees. Many people consider them pest plants and spend hours trying to dig them out or pour toxic chemicals on the lawn to kill them. But the bees really need the dandelion’s nectar and pollen to support the colony. Besides, what’s more cheerful than a bright yellow dandelion flower with a bee on it?
Annie Watson, Thistle Hill Studio
Wine Warehouse is now distributing our full line of products to the northern and southern regions of California. The accounts that carry Caledonia are starting to appear on our Store Locator.

the soul of a farmer
field notes from an 8,000+ mile, 4.6 week trip around our country

“Here we are smelling the nectar off of the ti-ti flower. We are fixing to raise queens, and are about two weeks late because of the weather, rain and cold. The bees are getting ready for tupelo which will be around the 15th or 18th of April.” –Steve Cantu, Wewahitchka, in the Florida Panhandle

March 20, 2014
Steve, his wife Leslie and family have moved their honey bees for years from Central Florida north into the Panhandle. The excessive use of chemicals in Central Florida was keeping their queen bees from successfully mating, and was killing the bees that were out for pollination and honey production. The Northwest of Florida, the Panhandle region, is heavily forested, and the bees gather nectar from the flowers here, including the famous tupelo tree that grows in the swamp areas. As it is not an agricultural area like Central Florida, it does not have an extensive use of chemicals.Steve is a long friend. For years we bought orange blossom honey from his family business. The Cantu family moves its bees between the pollination of vegetables and honey gathering of Florida and Michigan. He and Leslie are people of great faith and courage. Finding locations to put your bees and moving them throughout the season is a lot of work.The United States is a country addicted to drugs. The overuse of chemicals in pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, bactericides, miticides, and GMO’s is appalling. Not only is it killing the honey bees, but it is ruining the health of our people. The chemicals and GMO’s offer a short term gain but, as with any drug, the gain is fleeting, and there is always a price to pay. There is no cutting corners for food production without a cost. We are seeing this now in the deaths of bees, the rise of allergies and gluten intolerance many people now have, and the loss of soil.

The endless miles of GMO corn in Indiana and Illinois were staggering. Maybe it was because it was so many thousands of acres upon acres all at once. In Vermont, we are not perfect; we use chemicals and GMO corn, but there are many organic farms, and it is all on a smaller scale.

true friends

Jim Huggins on his farm
Jim Huggins, Cartwheel Landing, by the Pee Dee River, Marion Country, Mullins, South Carolina

In this day and age, it is rare for a commercial beekeeper to not move colonies of honey bees south for the winter and migrate to a warmer climate. As bees pollinate much of our food, they have to be moved around during the season. For four winters, we moved most of our colonies of honey bees to the Pee Dee River Valley of South Carolina. The bees rested for the winter and were increased in the spring on the land of Jim and Ann Huggins and their family and friends.

Last week I paid my respects to the Huggins family. As always, the visit was centered around family dropping by, meals with pork and cornbread, and a drive around the 1,000 acres of hogs, cattle and timber. For 50 years, the Huggins have been giving shelter and food to northern beekeepers. When you spend much of the winter and spring 900 miles from home, it is a blessing to belong to a community of such generous and kind people and know that you can always walk in for a hot meal, no matter how tired or dirty you are.

By mid-April, the beehives are loaded onto tractor trailers and brought north for their summer pasture. One spring, after the tractor trailer of bees was fully loaded and netted down for the trip north (the bees are loaded when it gets dark and then travel under the cool of the night), the 80,000 lb. load got stuck in the sand of the pine forest and would not budge and move to the road. I called the Huggins family and asked for help. In the middle of the night, they appeared 45 minutes later on their big old tractor, the one with dual rear wheels. They hitched onto the front of the tractor trailer and pulled it, the 200 horsepower diesel engine screaming for an hour, inch by inch to the road. They would not let me cover the cost of even their diesel fuel. The bees were on their way, north to the cooler states before the sun came up. These are true friends, the ones you are forever grateful for.

diesel & hot dogs

Driving north from the Huggins’ last week, I was reminded that I knew every crack in the highway home. Years ago, when I made the trips with the bees or bee equipment, I would often set out for the 900 mile trip either way with $8 cash and a Texaco credit card. That was all that I had, and thankfully it worked. I did not use the toll roads. Honey bees were not allowed on the New Jersey Turnpike. With the credit card, I could buy diesel and hot dogs, cashews and coffee along the way. JR’s on I-95 in North Carolina had a box of cigars marked “free”. They were all broken but they were good for the all night driving with the bees.
Returning home a few days ago from my 8,000+ mile journey across our country, I was very grateful that the trip was much easier. I was not carrying bees; with them aboard, you cannot stop or they will fly away. No stopping at JR’s, but at the homes of a string of friends along the way.
This is a big country, filled with really good people. I saw the growth of local food & spirits being supplied to markets across the land. We need this to take care of our families, our land and farms, and our health.

thank you for your interest in and support of those who work in agriculture and organic honey, grains, and elderberry,

Todd D. Hardie