I am shutting this blog down. Maybe someday I will be back on.

I am online through my husbands phone... that means if he is not here than I am not online. The little bit of time he is here I am busy. So, I realize I can't do it all.

It has been nice being friends with some of you ladies. (((and I do consider many of you ladies FRIENDS))) Maybe I will talk to you again in heaven someday if I never get back to blogging.

Bye.

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

You know what really ticks me off? The fact that so many people pretend we are still a free country. Ya, free if you follow every stupid law and get every permit. Whatever.

What starts my rant? Well, here is the story-

I go into Tractor Supply today which is a local farm type store. Jacob, who is 11, has his birthday money. We go by the chicken peeps and they have ONE duck!!! So, he is going to buy it.

Long story short, they won't sell it to us... you have to buy SIX birds at a time. STATE LAW! WHATEVER!! We left and the kids were really bummed.

Thankfully, we actually have some duck eggs in the incubator at home. So HA.

The guy said they want to incourage birds for agriculture use only. Since when should the government be allowed to say how many animals you are allowed to buy? Should they say how many we can own? Have you ever given a second thought to your dog license? The fact that your animal is CHIPPED if you get it from a shelter???? Freedom.... what's that?

In America FREEDOM= THINKING ABOUT COMMUNISM AND BRAINWASHING THE PUBLIC INTO THINKING THEY ARE FREE

**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.

-

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.

Yesterday Jacob had his eleventh birthday.

We got him a REAL 22 rifle. He is moving up from the BB gun. Rick had him close his eyes and hold out his hands and then gave him a gun. When he open his eys Jacob said "WOW! For real?" He was really happy.

Rick had a chiropractor appointment that day in the city and suprised us all by going to Tractor Supplies and buying us a gift. Rick walked in the door and pulled a Bantam peep out of his pocket for Jacob. (Jacob really has an obsession with those kind of chickens) and then he pulled out a Comet ROOSTER for me! Why do I consider that romantic?!?!? LOL I needed a purebred comet rooster for my chickens and now I have one. ((THANKS DADDY))

Notice his poison ivy is drying up....

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?

Isn't he cute????

This is him in a patch of unusual flowers that grow in a circle at the bottom of the yard. Does anyone know what they are? From a distance it looks like a silvery white circle....

Gabe is **sort of** crawling. Jacob and Ben were both crawling by now but Gabe prefers the 'I'm being held' way of transportation. He IS the youngest of six! He has learned to pull himself up on things now. He says "mama" but he said "dad" first. He can wave his hand and say "hi" and poops and pees on the pot **IF** I take him on a half way regular schedule. He'll hold it for an hour or two or even three but after that he just goes.