Wednesday, June 27, 2007

The Buzzing of Bees

That is a sound that we heard plenty of last Thursday, as we went to Paw's to split his hive into two hives, with the new one to go on the land, as well as to rob some honey. Smokestack and I sat in the truck as we watched Paw take off the "lid" and a separating panel under that. Then he removed both supers (for honey) until he reached the brood chamber (for honey as well as eggs). He located his queen, and placed her back in his hive. Then he removed three brood racks and three super racks to put in our hive, along with another queen. He took three racks of honey for ourselves. W took the latter inside and squeezed the honey out of them, separating it into light and dark. After a long process of cutting, squeezing, and filtering, we had bottled almost a gallon of honey, which weighed over eight pounds.












After a break to let the bees settle- and to eat lunch- we loaded our new hive onto the truck and drove it over to our land. We placed it upon a frame that we had built Wednesday and opened the plug- well, Paw did that while we watched from a distance to avoid stings. Smokestack, the intrepid photographer, is the one to thank for these pictures, and he payed for them with the only sting of the day. I was too busy running around to get stung.

~Sherlock and Smokestack

Tuesday, June 19, 2007

Surprise!

As I was finishing up my post (Tiger) yesterday, our family received quite a surprise. We heard a knock on the door, and when we opened it, my Uncle and little cousin were outside. Behind my uncle's truck was a livestock trailer. In the livestock trailer was a calf. My calf.







As yet Miss Moo is unnamed. This heifer was my payment for help on my Uncle's farm, where it has been living since it was born four months ago. It's getting to know me already, and it follows me around (licking me) whenever I check on it. It's currently staying on pasture at my Grandpa's house, since our land has no grass.

Kittens and Cows- quite a day! It seems like our farming ventures are going to start with a bang, as a new exciting development will take place on the land before long; but I'll save that for later...

Monday, June 18, 2007

Tiger

Prairie Girl's dream has come true- she has a kitten. A local Veterinarian had four male orange tabby cats that needed good homes, and one of them found its way into ours. Anyone wishing to speak to my sister must first meow to get her attention.

Isn't it adorable! I'm more fond of dogs myself, but I must admit that kittens can be almost as cute as puppies. Prarie Girl is on cloud nine (wherever that is) and one thing is for certain- this little kitten will get plenty of attention.



Thursday, June 14, 2007

Hey! Where's Sherlock?

Oh yeah, he's still on the tractor!









Although things have been busy lately. We hope to get back over to the land this weekend for some work time. Hey Sherlock, do you like driving the tractor?










We've recently spotted a new species of raccoon on the land. (Or a mysterious masked bandit!)


Careful, she looks dangerous!




Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Our many Adventures

We have been having many exciting adventures lately and have not had the time to blog them. As you probably know, we have been very busy lately and have had a lot of fun. Since it has been a while when we blogged last, I have a lot to say. Peter Jack Rabbit, as many of you have seen and petted, died sunday morning after three days of taking care of him. He ( he might actually be she) is now buried on our land by the creek in a very nice spot for a very nice rabbit.

After we moved, we have been living at our Maw-maw and Paw- paw's house. We have been having adventure after adventure. A week ago from today Uncle Rusty got chickens ( A LOT OF CHICKENS!). 50, 000. It took us from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM to unload and get everything situated. It is very hard to keep from stepping on them, especially when your feeding them. We had a lot of fun that day.

Our next cute and cuddly adventure is a little white puppy. She is a Great Pyrenees puppy and she is absolutely adorable.We have been playing with her for the last few days.






~Smokestack