Babymakers
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**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)
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. 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.
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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? |
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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!
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| We have been so busy lately! Spring IS here! I just wanted to share a few things that have been occupying us lately. The first is a mother Robin that laid eggs in the backyard. She laid them low enough that we were able to watch the birds until the were gone. ![]() ![]() There are also more birds in the house! As we speak there are baby chickens (from our own chickens) hatching in the incubator!!!! It is amazing! Did you know it take HOURS for one chick to get out of it's shell? They started with a little crack in the shell. ![]() Slowely it gets bigger..... ![]() Then eventually you see a larger hole..... ![]() ![]() The baby is finally almost out.... ![]() Then it just lays there.... ![]() Finally it can stand up.... ![]() It could be hours before they can walk. They are so shakey and stumble around. Have you ever seen inside an egg after the chick comes out? The white and yoke are gone because they were just the cushion for the chick and it's food. The yoke is the food part which is why it is so high in protein. It has to feed a baby chicken for 21 days! ![]() ![]() The interesting thing is that they seem to know they "need" another life to take care of them. When we put our hand in the chick will wobble over and lay on our hand. If a chick needs touching and love then how much more do our children need it? Have you given someone a hug today? When was the last time you held your child? Time goes tooooo fast, so go do it now. Don't be a chicken and go do it now! |
| Since it is fall, it is time to harvest honey, from the beehives. I got on my gear and went in. The bees were a little protective of their Winter honey store and I got stung twice. They are not normally like that though. My favorite part is the honeycomb. Most people have never even had any. They are missing so much! I don't need chocolate, soda or coffee: just HONEYCOMB!This is a picture of one of the sections of comb. ![]() Now comes the important lesson from this blog. Do you know what the Bible says is sweeter than a honeycomb? Look in Psalms 19:10. You will have to look back and see what "are they" refers too. There are many verses that refer to honey and honeycomb as sweet as something but this one says sweeter than which tells me this must be really good! |
This cold weather sure makes me think about summer. One of the critters that stayed with us for a while was a box turtle.![]() Here are some of the things we learned about Box Turtles-
This poor little guy might have been old. He had hinges so he was at least 5. Somewhere along his life's journey he lost a leg. It was able to heal over and now he has a stump. ![]() This is of him getting ready to be let go. ![]() Bye bye turtle.... ![]() |
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It turns out that it is really easy to do this. I found this detailed, step by step website about how to do it. I have ours in an old container with a piece of cheesecloth over the opening. I held the cheesecloth on with rubberbands. We used a plastic divided food tray to hold the water, food and dirt seperate. To keep it warm we put it on top of our computer monitor. ![]() Feeding them is easy because they eat things like old produce and catfood. You could always buy the special feed at the petstore if you wanted. We caught ours wild in the yard but you can also buy them from the pet store. Savannah (9) was a cricket catching fool! Adah Mae (3) only caught a toad, now named Vitamaker (?), that I allowed her to keep. Now I won't have to worry about running out of food and going to the petstore all Winter! How great is that? I will be saving money on feeding all these critters that I will describe below - Kermit - tree frog We enjoy watching him in action. Teeny- salamander. I regret to inform you that he died tonight before I finished this post & Jacob is taking it hard. This is a picture of him on my son's thumb. My heart was so broke for Jacob. He has never been one to cry over an animals death but this one got to him. ![]() ![]() Tiny- another frog that is smaller than a penny! My son finds creatures of all kinds. I should have named him Noah. Vitamaker- toad. If we hadn't let the Box Turtle go ![]() By the way, who needs an elementary science book? |
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