Life On The Farm

I walked down to the mailbox yesterday afternoon and on the way back up the hill I hear buzzing. I looked up in the tree and there is a big ole swarm of bees. So I put the walk into overdrive and called son in law Mike. He and Crystal have bees on their farm also.  They came over to capture the swarm and put them into a new hive.

Mike usually gets stung a few times while working with the bees but I don't think he did this time.  One trip up the ladder results in a bin full of bees.

He think he captured the queen because of how the bees are on the outside of the box.  He made another trip up the ladder to get more of the bees.. Unreal to me how many bees are there!

 Corbin and Leland got a little bored staying back and out of the way. Is there anything cuter than 2 little boys resting in the grass!!  We think all is good so the family heads home.

A few hours later Ernie comes home from work and I'm telling him of the great bee adventure. He goes to check on them and those darn bees are back in the tree. That means the queen wasn't captured and the drones are back protecting her. He's surprised the swarm is still in the tree.

So up the ladder he goes to get the bees again. He goes up twice but isn't convinced the queen is in the hive.  He comes to the house to get his little saw and up the ladder he goes again to cut off the branch with the remaining bees. They are also delivered to the hive.

After another hour or so, he goes back down and the bees are still in the hive. That's a good thing.  I'll check on them in a while to see if they are flying in and out. I will not open the lid. I'm not that brave!

Live on our farm is never dull.  Thanks Mike and Crystal, Leland and Corbin for helping me out. Cross your fingers for us.....this beekeeping is challenging work sometimes.

Prepping Challenge-Day 4

After sending Ernie off to work with a lunch box full of fried egg sandwich, apple, zuke bread, and the other stuff I can't remember, I fixed myself a smoothie for breakfast and loaded up the car to head to retreat.

After a lunch of home made soup and sandwich, I came home to check my chickens and let the dogs run for a while.  Son in law Mike arrived with a bucket of bees that had swarmed from his hives. (That's not Mike or the swarm in the picture, that's Ernie with our bees from last year.) So we-mostly he-set up a new hive and got the bees in and was off again.  And so was I!  Back up to retreat-it's only 3 miles away-and sewing and laughing up a storm.  We are hoping to have a successful bee season so we can start stockpiling honey. Maybe one of these days we might have enough to sell or barter with if needed.

There was a little talk of food stockpiling for "just in case" and it was interesting to hear other people talk about it. No one talked about a zombie apocalypse but of power outages and storms and illnesses and the real "what ifs".

So I'm headed back up bright and early.  I know for this challenge that I don't have a problem with feeding my family with what I have on hand for the short term. I do need to stockpile more water and animal food. The little dog and the cat have a good amount but for the big dogs and the chickens, I need to be at least one shopping trip ahead of them.  I do have the space to store an extra bag or 2 away from critters. I just need to do it and stay ahead of them.

I'm adding this to the day 4 link list at Patchwork Times.

Design Wall Monday

Not much sewing time this week.

I did complete 4 more Pineapple Crazy blocks

but I didn't take a picture.

Friday I picked up Taylor and we did a bit of shopping for 

just the right blue and greens for the Hawaiian Sunset quilt.

I think we nailed it on the corner greens.

I'm making mine all the same to calm things down.

That means I have to exchange the corners in the one block I had complete.

But I'm on my way now.

All the 9 patches have their sashing and cornerstones ready to be sewn on.

I received this fabulous postcard in the mail Saturday.

Thank you so much Annie.

I squealed with delight~it was such an amazing surprise.

I will hang it right where I can see it and smile.

If you aren't a reader of Annie's blog, you should visit her.

She does such great thing.

Head over to Patchwork Times and see other fabulous design walls.

I love Monday in Blogland!

Quiltathon Plans Gone Astray

Judy L at Patchwork Times was hosting a Quiltathon that started Thursday.  

When she first announced it, I was so excited.  

I started making my plans.  

You know what they say about plans...

I'm OK with the change in plans.  

Thursday we went to the fair.

The fair is so much more fun with kids.

Friday was spent running around town.

Here, there, everywhere.

Lots of knitting time.

After another trip to town in the morning and more knitting time, 

I spent most of Saturday canning green beans.

Ernie worked around outside.

Later in the afternoon, we went for a walk up the hill to check the bees.

  Then it was Saturday night pizza picnic on the deck

with Crystal and the kiddos.

Finally today I played with fabric.  

I sewed on my Pineapple Crazy Blocks this morning while Someone slept in.

I needed to get these fabrics ironed and ready to cut for the next 2 strips swaps.

Now I'm going to cut my strips and get them ready to mail tomorrow. 

I got a lot done in the last 4 days.

I guess that's a good way to spend my Quiltathon time.

Design Wall Monday

 Not much sewing has been happening around here.  I did get this mini quilted and the binding put on.  Then I took the binding off.  My seam allowance was very, very wrong!  I decided to wait until the big machine was set back up again and promptly put the featherweight in it's case.

I need to focus on getting my sewing room back together.  I am so good at procrastinating.  If I could turn that into a full time job, I'd be rich!  I am really glad the recycle guy doesn't have to physically pick the bin up to empty is. Yesterday I purged papers and magazines.  It was painful but I did it.  I try to keep up with them but again, the procrastination set in.  It was amazing how few things I took out of the magazines.  I even pulled somethings out of my notebooks to make room for the new pages.

Bee report:  Yesterday was day 9.  It was time to fill the feeders and check to see if Her Royal Highness, the Queen Bee was laying eggs.  It appears she was doing her job but I cannot verify that as I stayed way back and used the zoom on the camera.  

It looks like another fabulous day to be touring around Blogland.  Start by visiting Judy L, so many great looking links already.

Sunny Day On The Farm

DJ getting loves from Mae.

This past Wednesday, DJ had a terrible limp.
I took him to the vet and was told he has old man knees.
He is taking an anti inflammatory medication.
He is supposed to take it easy.
He will, after his little people go home.

Mike and Ernie doing some work with the queen so she can be released from her little box.

This is Ernie's first day doing bee work. 

He wasn't taking any chances, hence the gloves. 

I think they look cute in their bee suits.

Nothing's more fun for Elliot than a good wiggly tree branch.

Leland, Corbin and Mommy stayed home, I think the boys were napping. 

Smart boys.  

A bit of quiet time for Mommy.

I took several pictures of Miss Whitey but she kept moving. 

This must be her good side.

I drug the big chick pen/stock tank outside so the chicks could work 

on their tan and see what sunshine was all about.

I think it's time to make them an outside pen. 

They are still too little to go in with the big chickens.

They still need their heat light.  

It froze here again last night.

This is outside waiting for me to help unload.  

I guess I better get my gloves on.  

Really, I would rather sew!

Maybe later.

The Bees Are Here

Today was bee day at the farm.  Crystal and Mike picked up 2 boxes for us and 2 for themselves.  We went to the fair last August and Mike spent quite a bit of time talking to the bee man.  The next thing I know, we are both going to become bee farms.  Well that is if you can call 2 hives at each place bee farms.  We call it the beginning. 

 I was quite surprised at how the bees were packaged.  I don't know how I thought they would show up because this is really is Ernie and Mike's project and I am pretty much clueless.  I love that the kids are so excited but a bit scared at the same time.  Which is the way it should be.

See the storage container behind Mike's head?  To the right of that is where the hives are.  Crystal and Mike carried the bee boxes up to the hives.  I think by now we are on trip 4 up the hill.  Once everything was up there, I think it went pretty fast.  I don't know what Mike thought though.  LOL

He has read everything he can get his hands on about bees and beekeeping and has become quite knowledgeable about all of it.  He is our Bee Whisperer.  I guess I shouldn't call him City Boy anymore.

I was quite impressed with him as he reached into the bee box to take out the little box that held the queen.  Look, no gloves.  I realized I was holding my breath.  I didn't have a clue what would happen but I had some pretty vivid images of a swarm.  There is a method to getting her out and set up in the hive. I think she gets released in another couple days.  Then the bees were dumped into their new home.

TaDah! Hive 1 is done and he lived through it!  Within a few minutes, hive 2 was set.

Look at Crystal, she was videoing while he was working and I was hiding.  She kept moving closer and closer.  I posted some photos on Facebook and this is copied from there.

• Bert  The basic kit only comes with one protective outfit?

  6 hours ago · 
• 

  Mike  No Bert, I only bought one. She had to show how tough she is. But, she wasn't the one with alarm pheromone all over her, so they left her alone. As you can see, i'm covered in them! These 2 hives were super gentle. Not one sting. Came home to do my 2, and I got stung twice from the same hive.

My New Book

It's dangerous for me to buy a new book. Especially a cookbook or in this case the Ball's Complete Book of Home Preserving.

It all started here at Chickens in the Road where Suzanne writes about strawberry lemonade concentrate. I followed the link to the book and in half a heartbeat that book was ordered. It came yesterday and I started looking at pictures.

This morning while being quiet so someone could sleep in, I started reading. I found the strawberry lemonade concentrate on page 192. I marked recipes for ketchups and relishes. I found a recipe for carrot cake jam.....oh my, I think I am going to be busy!

I just looked at the copyright date--2006.....How did I miss this??? No longer matters. I have lots of pages marked, a list made and have lots of ambition. The list for the garden just got longer.

Life is good here on the farm. Speaking of the good life on the farm, we are getting bees in a couple weeks. Ernie is out right now making a nice home for the hives. I better get out there with the camera and the gloves and be a helper bee. More on this later.

Now go order your own book and make your list. :0)