May extravaganza

This post is backwards. This week we had two stray dogs get in the fence and terrorize and kill chickens.Five did not make it. I spent hours in the rain and cold finding chickens hiding in the tall grass. Puffy and Little Brown did survive.May 8 was the ground-breaking for the KC Temple.4 or the 5 sisters...where was Sally?This was the Thursday before dad's big party. We're trying out the plucker Matt gave me for Christmas. It worked. BTW...47# dressed out.Prepping the water for the turkey. Dunk and then pluck.Matt and Tom get ready to kill the turkeyAmber thought she wanted to be a farm girl. Tom's tying the bird for hanging.Mission successful.Wednesday after we picked-up the turkey.Tom's loves to do yard work or any work while on vacation. He's helping line up the raised beds using precision.

Sunday Afternoon

There I was napping when it started to rain really hard and then hail. The biggest storm that blew in was Matt's RV. He has had it sitting up at a friend's farm for the past few years. Miracles of miracles he was able to drive it back. Now he has Amber helping him clean it up and is talking of updating it and using it.  Sunday was rib day. After running out of propane in one tank Trevor found another to finish grilling the ribs.The kids enjoyed the sunshine between rain showers.

Grandpa decided to load up the kids (along with Taylor) and go looking for mushrooms down by the gun pond. Kids were hanging on everywhere.

Bee release

Yesterday I took out the box the bees came in. They had to be smoked because most of them were out of the boxes buzzing around. Today I smoked them again and released the queen from her cage. All the frames are in now. I'll give them a few days then check in on them. Matt was going to switch out routers but it didn't work so he had to re-hook what we had. He had plenty of help.

Bzzzzzzzzzz

So, a couple of hours before I was to pick up my bees I decided to open the hive and get ready for them. I hadn't opened the hive since late last summer when we realized that I didn't have any bees. Anyway I saw a big mess. There was webbing everywhere in the brooders and in general it was a mess. A panic call to my bee guy, who didn't know what I was describing, and I decided to clean out the mess. And clean, and clean. An our after my bee pick-up time I left to go get them (they were an hour away.) After describing to the bee man (where I was picking up my bees) the mess, he said, "Moths. The old wire type frames are especially suseptible, every beekeeper get them sooner or later." And not a surprise since my hive has basically been inactive for almost a year. I had two choices, either I re-wired and waxed the old frames (taking them apart, etc.) or buy new plastic ones. $32.50 later I was done messing with the old frames. Had I known what I was doing I could have saved the hours cleaning the old ones in the first place.                                                                                          

Mr. Hughes sells bees and bee equipment out of his garage in suburbia. I wasn't the only one picking up bees last night.Since I got back after nine last night I 'hived' my bees this morning. After putting in some of the new frames (the old ones are stacked) I removed the feeder can to get to the queen and the rest of the bees. I had sprayed them with sugar water so they were busy cleaning themselves and didn't bother me.I put the queen in and then the box with the rest. Then put on a feeder tray and closed up the hive. Hiving successful. Tomorrow I open the hive and remove the box the bees came in and add more frames. Mondy I open the queen cage and let her free. Honey will be on the way.

Saturday fun

Mandy loves all animals.The kids get to help Grandpa move the old railroad ties.Critters were found, much to the thrill of some.Hill-billy surfing.Will waits to see if Grandpa will be back to drive him around.We still have to level the boxes, bring in dirt, etc. and then plant.

Putting in raised-beds for my vegetable garden was lots of fun for the kids, produced a new hill-billy sport (railroad tie surfing), and a time of animal discovery.

Easter

Mandy and Trevor and the kids, Matt and Amber, and Nate and Krista and their kids came over for Easter and Conference watching.   Getting the kids lined-up from youngest to oldest.

And here comes Will to get it started.

Everyone rushes out to find their eggs. Bingo joined in the fun. The eggs were hiden by the bunnies Matt and Amber.

Loads of fun.

Amber was out encouraging the hunt.        

A successful find.

Will would jam peeps into his mouth.