Accidental Homesteader
…a funny thing happened on the way to the bar
Releasing the Queen
On Wednesday we released the queen from her box. It’s amazing to me the difference in how we interact with the bees between the first year and this year.
The first year we started at panicked, and it went downhill from there. This year, we both wanted to wear just the jacket, and I even took off my gloves for pictures.
Kitchen Garden Update
So the hydroponics proved to be too much of an attractive nuisance for the kittens. I will try again with better security.
But the kitchen garden is going well. The cats occasionally try to eat the leaves of the kohlrabi, but they leave the rest alone.
They’re Here!
Got a call bright and early this morning that our chicks were at the post office.
Very early. And I’m suffering the effects of dose two of the vaccine. But there’s a coffee shop, so I can get some energy.
Well, Crud
So now that we have the bees settled, it is on to the birds.
The hatch was a fail. Nothing hatched. At 25 days, I finally gave up and dumped the remaining eggs.
Hatch Day?
Today was supposed to be hatch day. We aren’t sure how much the failing incubator harmed the hatch. It is running cold.
Nevertheless, we have three internal pips. I get excited every time I see a notification that there was movement, but it is always a cat.
Busy Day
We skipped our usual Sunday jaunt to MakeICT, in order to work on the bee structure. However, we had ten (!!!) dozen eggs to get rid of. We are going to have to start paying people to take them. My brother was non-specific about how many – “we will take any” – so he almost got five dozen. But I was kind, and only sent two.
Asparagus count: 5
We made a bunch of progress on the bee structure- even if it doesn’t look like it.
It is all excavated, the landscape fabric is down and secured, the key post is in and has concrete. The second pole is in the correct place, level, and has concrete. Next are the two back posts. Then, the roof!
We are coming down to the wire, as the bees arrive on Saturday. Yikes!
A small break.
Matching shoes!
The evening was beautiful. And we sat out on our swing in the back for a while. We call this one “Sunset and chem trails over the sewage lagoon.” (Note, we are joking about chem trails)
We watched the chickens for a while.
And put them to bed.
I’m a Lumberjack (And I’m OK)
Well, the Husband is. We had a dead tree that had to come down before we put up the bee structure. So this afternoon, we felled a 40ish year-old tree.
I did not see the actual felling of the tree, but all went well.
Big honkin tree, no?
Once it was down, we limbed it, and I got to drive the tractor.
I remember the first time I went to Texas, and there was a funny, funny picture of me on a tractor. Because the thought of me on a tractor was hilarious. Um, yeah, anyway.
The limbs went to the burn pile. And the Husband cut the trunk into six-foot lengths. I don’t really know what to do with it. I saved a few smaller discs of trunk, thinking I’ll make something with them.
But they’re now in a pile near Mt. Goad (the dirt pile from when they did the foundation work before we moved in).
We leveled the stump so we can put my bee fountain on there.
And all that being done, we were able to put down the landscape fabric. As per it is dusk by the time we finish.
In chicken news, I put up the lights on the guy wires holding the chicken coop down. I need to pull up the west corner a tad, but it looks festive.
We made surprisingly short work of the tree. Maybe three hours from tree up to half the tree in a stack, and half the tree in the burn pile.
