Life in photos

The kids have already been out of school for a month! We've gotten a decent amount of rain with another couple of storms supposedly moving in tonight so the grass looks great and it looks like the hay situation may be good this year. The wheat, however, is a different story and much of it is beyond help. Most people said they've never seen it so short and if rain doesn't come at the right time of development, it's all lost. I would imagine most people will cut and make it for hay, but without grains, I can't imagine it would be better than straw. Nonetheless, it is what it is and sometimes that just happens.

We're been working long hours on the "investment" house and there is quite a bit more work that we made for ourselves than we had to although, doing it now means we won't have to do it later and updating it just makes it that much more marketable, whether it becomes a rental or a flip.

Here is a link to the house photos and video if you'd like to take a look: CLICK HERE I doubt I'll post any "during" photos, it just takes a lot of time but you can go to this link as often as you'd like to see how we are coming along. There is also a 12 minute video. I apologize if you cannot hear all that well, my camera is so so with taking video but at least it should give you a better lay out of the house. The flooring is almost done in both upstairs bedrooms. The upstairs bathroom is ready for the stud walls between the master bedroom and the bathroom and where the new tub will go. I should be done by the downstairs laundry room today (Wednesday), but I am publishing this post for tomorrow. I will also need to paint the one wall in the kitchen (stairwell wall) because we're picking up cabinets today.

A couple of weeks ago we roped off the woods by the pond for the goats with temporary electric wire and posts. They enjoy getting out there and eating all of the delicious treats, we enjoy that the woods are kept a bit more tame.

 Our garden is completely in. I made some garden trellises for the pole beans and melons. We used a 16' cattle panel bent into a hoop between two t posts for our gourds and luffas to climb up. We use cattle panel sections for the climbing cukes too, it saves space in the garden when we can get as much as we can to climb vertically. When all was said and done, I think we have over 50 tomato plants in, 12 melons, 4 cukes, lots of pole and bush beans, cabbage, broccoli (both green and purple), lots of herbs, tomatillos, squash (butternut, patty pan, yellow & green and spaghetti)...and sunflowers =).

I have the trellis here over the cabbage so that once the pole beans start to grow up (I still need to drill holes in the horizontal beams and install cordage for them to wrap around), the beans will shade the cabbage and hopefully keep it cooler. We didn't have a problem growing cabbage this time of year last year with the heat except the grasshoppers were of biblical proportions and we lost them all. 

 The meat chickens have been put in to the roving chicken tractor. They get moved once a day for now but when they are a bit bigger it may be twice a day although by that point they are allowed out of the cage during the day through a door on the side and they can free range. They all go back in to the cage at night for safe keeping. They are already 4 weeks old and will be processed in about another 4 weeks. We also bought 3 turkeys as well.

The piglets are getting big. We kept 2 back. One sow and a male we castrated. We may keep the sow on as a breeding sow and sell off her sire, our big boar. We have a friend with a boar who would stud him out and keeping one sow and one boar is NOT cost effective.

 

Lastly, here are just some random shots.

 

Bees!

We picked up our bees on Saturday and the transfer of the frames went off without a hitch! We love them and are perfectly enthralled with them! They are SO docile, proof of being well handled. We do not need a veil to work around them, now that may change when we start collecting honey but for now, we can stick our faces right into the hives and they go about their business.

Jeremiah and I built these hives in April. They are top bar hives.You can read more about there here if you'd like: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horizontal_top-bar_hive

Because we bought "nuc" colonies (bee colonies that were already established), they came in a "nuc" box with frames the bees were already building on. We took out the frames and slipped them right into our hives and within an instant, they went right to work doing what they do.  We placed them on a  hill up behind the pond. They are protected by the trees there and the animals won't mess with them. Additionally, we don't have to mow around the hives and disturb the bees.