Why haven't I been blogging regularly? This could have something to do with it.

**make sure to click the links in this blog if you enjoy bees**

Don't take this personal but

my husband is so much cooler and more exciting than yours..

neener, neener, neener!

You may of read that Jacob found a bee tree...

Well, this is how it was handled- (we are ex-beekeepers, ya know)

This is Rick, my husband... he is looking up the tree sizing up the situation. He has dropped trees bigger than this before and handled bees... Pretty amazing, huh?

Yes, believe what you see. This is Rick, in a bee veil and gloves for protection, standing on a Jeep, dropping a tree with his chainsaw.

Dangerous? Yes!

Daring?  Yes!

Crazy? Yes!

Exciting? Yes!

Productive? Yes!

Homeschooler's dream moment? Yes!

After he cut the tree down he put a "lid" on it. We left the bees alone for the next 24 hours so they could relax. The bees actually handled it much better than I thought they would. Bees are not mean like yellow jackets or hornets are.

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When we came back the next day we brought a board with a hole cut in it. We replaced the "lid" with this board and then placed a hive box on top of it. Then Rick put two nails in the tree and ratchet strapped the hive box to the tree. Now the box is securely in place. In about 2 weeks we will come back and (hopefully) the bees will have begun building part of their colony in that box. Then I can take the box off, stick a queen in it (or let them make thier own) and take my new hive home! Presto!

Then I can put another hive on top of the tree and let them produce me another hive which I will take home in about two weeks... and so on.

At the end of the season I will cap the tree and let them winter over. I have a never ending hive producer!

Do you have a bee tree? There are other ways to do this. We could of cut the tree open with the chainsaw and scooped to bees out into a box. Pluses? We would of got honey THEN and a big hive. Drawbacks? We would of distrubed them and killed part of the brood (babies) and only had one established hive. It would of been messier and more nerve racking with all those bees all over the place. There is also the chance they would get frustrated, swarm and leave.

Jacob found a bee tree a few weeks ago. What is a bee tree? It is a tree in the woods that is full of honey bees! What a great find. We used to have bees but I think they died because the moron that grew corn near us sprayed the corn with chemicals. Moron....

Anyhow, Jacob found this tree so we put together some frames for boxes. This time Jacob and Rebekah helped make them. Now that our bee boxes are ready we will be cutting the tree down this week.

Rick will cut the tree in half letting the top part of the tree fall. Then we are going to put a big board on the stump. The board will have a hole in it. On top of the hole we will put a hive box so the bees can start building in the box. In a few weeks we will have a hive with brood and bees. Then we will remove the box...

If this doesn't make sense just wait. I hope to get pictures of the process....

For now here is Jacob and Bekah helping out. Ages 7 and 11.

We hatched our own chickens this year. Then Rick went to the store and found us some meat chickens on clearance at Agway so he brought them home too. We are swarming in poultry.

We have an old truck cap in the yard that we are using for a peep portable coop.

We are going to put some wheels on it with a handle to make it easier to move around the yard. It will keep the peeps really warm and give them fresh grass and sunlight everyday. They are easily picked off by predators so this will keep them safe also.

Here are the peeps in the truck cap. (recycle, recycle, recycle) It is not your accessories that are useful and could save your life.... it is the junk!

You may think it is cute we are raising chickens BUT let me tell you: it is more than cute. It is necessary. The cost of food is outrageous. They are using hormones, steroids and medications in our animals that are for food. Not to mention they feed them genetically modified foods. It is no joke-- we are practically guinea pigs because we don't know what the ramifications of these ways of raising animals will be. Not to mention that normal commercial operations raise animals in totally unhumane and sick ways. I want to eat chicken that can walk and is healthy. I don't want to eat sick animals that are only alive because of the medication they are feeding it. Folks this is sick. Raise the animals yourself, go vegetarian or get them from a local grower. But then maybe you like your Walmart sheet meat!!!! Or maybe you like to eat the dead rats and fecal matter that is mixed in with your ground beef. (they don't have time to stop the production line to get the stuff out). Tumors on animals? Yum. Chicken that has to have a part of it's beak cut of at birth for your eggs and meat (we can't have them pecking each other). Want to go eat a burger? Go ahead, save 50 cents and some time by shopping at your local grocery store and shut the little guys down.

Next month we are selling our turkey poults and maybe some chicks. The month after that I plan on selling Chukars, Quails and maybe some Ringneck Pheasants. 

We will be keeping the Guineas we are going to hatch. Guineas eat tons of bugs and LIKE TICKS! They only eat the bugs above ground so they don't tear up the landscape like chickens. You can eat the eggs although they are a bit smaller than chicken eggs. It takes about 2 eggs to equal a large chicken egg. Guineas also kill snakes. Are you sold on Guineas now too?

Adah Mae on an interesting, burnt looking, log that was on the rock pier.

Doesn't the sun look huge? I wanted to see the sun midday but knew I couldn't look at it so I closed my eyes and took a photo.

Snails on the rocks.

Oysters grow on the rocks.


This crab had one leg. They must be the cockroaches of the ocean. We put this one in the dump truck and then it got out. I actually got pinched by it but it wasn't as bad as I expected.

I just don't know what happened. I thought I raised her better than this.... If anyone has any suggestions on how I can fix this problem will you please let me know? I just wish I knew where she went wrong.

It all started when we she went and got a purple tattoo of a heart on her hip. Now her horns are all painted up like a harlot. PLEASE HELP! NELLY HAS GONE WILD!

1. They fold up into their shells. They have hinges on the shell that enable them to close the shell around them. When they do this there is no way to reach the turtle. There are no holes all the way around the shell. It is very interesting. I wish I would have gotten a picture of it all closed up. They don't develop the hinges on the shells until they are about five years old.
   
2. They know where they live. If you remove it from it's home you can cost it a ton of time, maybe years, off it's life because it will wander around looking for it's home. After we found this out my husband felt bad because he used to find them and then move them to a pond that was near his house. He thought they would be happier down there. He was wrong. I wonder how many turtles wandered around aimlessly looking for their old living areas.
3. They live up to 80 years!!

This is of him getting ready to be let go.

Bye bye turtle....