bzzzzzzzz

I have really fond memories of growing up with my Grandfather (my Mom's Dad) and my Dad having bees. My Grandfather had bees for as long as I can remember, up until he passed away. I can remember attending the Oregon State Fair, where he was exhibiting his bees and honey and trying to locate the queen in his display. I can also remember extracting honey with my Dad and can remember the scent of wax and honey when we did that.

So I mentioned to my Mom about some hives down the road and how they looked as if they hadn't been attended in bit. So she asked the farmer across from the field whose hives they were. And from there we ended up purchasing two hives and two packages of bees from "the Honey Lady". She sells her honey at the local Farmer's Markets.

The bees showed up on Sunday, so I picked up the hives and the bees Sunday afternoon. And then I got to apply theory to action. I have great memories of honey bees as a child, and no experience as an adult!

The bees are shipped in a wire cage, with a can of sugar solution that acts as the stopper to their cage too. The queen is also in the cage, but she's in her own little wire cage, within the main cage.

Aren't they beautiful!!

I originally had Than with me when I picked up the bees, but found out that Than is not real fond of bees. So I swapped kids on the way back and Collin joined me to help put the hives together and install the bees. Here we're unloading the supers.



We set them up on a pallet under a crab apple tree that I remodeled on Sat. (see Mom's blog)

Collin was a great help.

Here he's putting grass in the entrance, this slows the bees down the first 24 hrs so that they don't all just fly away as soon as I put them in the hive!

The hives are used, the lady's bees disappeared for some unknown reason. So she sold me two hives with frames. Here we're checking the frames to see what all is one them. She gave me several frames loaded with honey, so I don't have to worry about feeding them supplemental sugar water while they're getting established.

This is one of the frames loaded with honey.

And now it's time to put theory in action.....you spray the bees while they're in the package with sugar water, which keeps them from flying when you put them in the hive.

So guys are your ready? Hmmmm......I think they look wet enough........here goes.......

Here I'm pulling the can out so I can dump the bees into the hive.

The lady said that you can really spray them down and really bang on the cage to get them out. Sounds easy doesn't it? Yeah, not so much. Here I'm trying to get last ones out...

It didn't go so well.....but the good news is that they eventually left on their own later. Here I'm sliding the queen's cage out of the package.

Here's a close up of the queen's cage. The workers chew their way through a candy cork and release her, once they're installed in the hive. I hang the cage inside the hive and they take it from there. I hope....

One down, one to go.....

Here are the bees, installed in the hive, before I add the last frames to close up the hive.

One last look.....

And we're done. For the moment. Tomorrow I get to open up the hive and see if all went as planned and the queen is out of her cage and the bees are doing OK. Then every ten days, if all is going well, I get to check on them for the next month or so.

Then the end plan is that we'll be able to pull some honey this fall and enjoy it this winter. I'll keep you posted.

swim party

a boy's best friend

Collin and Jayden did this photo shoot. I guess Jayden woke up and was a bit chilly, so he cuddled into Briston. Then Collin came along and here are the results. I'll add that Collin and Lee took the pictures of the baby goats previously posted. They love to take pictures.



In the next picture I thought Briston had swallowed his head!!

I love this next picture. I might even love it enough to motivate and print it out and frame it.

Briston is such a love. He'll probably end up staying with us. There are currently two St. Bs looking for new homes on craigslist. So the odds of finding him another home probably aren't real high at the moment. Oh well, he's cute and he's growing on me....... And poor Jayden has to stay warm somehow!

Easter

We had a very nice Easter. Here is the loot. All the boys got fishing poles, and so did Grandma and Brent. I opted for a book, silly me. They are going out as I write to practice their casting. We were supposed to be going fishing for FHE (Family Home Evening), however it's 32 degrees factoring in the windchill and it's WINDY. So no fishing, but we'll let them play with their poles a bit anyway.



These next few pictures are just too neat and tidy. I can't believe we could dye eggs so neatly and so calmly! We asked the older kids to wait until we were done with the younger two, then they could go at their own pace and more easily do as they wanted. So they did that and I couldn't believe the difference! Amazing.

Brent borrowed a couple of Lee's eggs to decorate. Next year I'm going to have to do up a dozen eggs for him too! We also heard from some friends that used our brown eggs for dying that they work beautifully and so we'll be trying the brown eggs ourselves next year.

I hope everyone had a beautiful Easter.

Happy Easter

Collin snapped some pictures of Jayden cuddling with Briston. Here's one to tide you over until I can get more pictures loaded.

pictures and nothing else......

hmmmmmm

I swore I posted yesterday......really.......except when I think really hard about it.......I can't seem to pinpoint when I did it. So I guess my brain is really out to pasture!!

I keep forgetting to mention it, but I really, really appreciate the comments from everybody. I'm trying to get better about reading and commenting on other blogs, but obviously I'm not doing so hot there either...... And this is where my friend Courtney says "Well, remember you did leave your keys at the White House!!" So I guess I'm hopeless.

Today was a major day in Than's life, he got his glasses. He's so happy and so thrilled with all that he can see now! He had no idea how much better he'd see with them. He had another milestone, but he's probably not going to remember it and it's probably not really a milestone to anyone else either. But to me it is.....we went shopping in the men's department......my BABY in the men's department.

Yes, I know there are no pictures of Than in his spiffy new glasses, bad Mommy, bad Mommy, and my Mommy is going to tell me about it to. After all she's not here to see him, so she NEEDS a picture.

I'll try really hard to get one of him and one of the baby goats, yes I noticed I hadn't done that either. They are doing well and we're not bottle feeding round the clock at this point. It seems like they are older than the neighbor thought, as they are eating a lot of hay and not drinking a lot of milk. So we're still offering them the milk and monitoring them closely, but so far they are doing well.

archery tournament

The boys did really well, Collin was 21st out of aprox. 146 in his category. Lee shot in the same category and he was 92nd. Both are happy with their scores. Lee is on the youngest side of the age range and he was really sore and tired from over doing it the day before, so I think he did well just to compete and be cheerful that day.

Than was 39th in his category, but I don't know how many were in his category. He was very pleased as he got three x's, which means he got 3 arrows in the very middle of the target, hitting the x or the bulls eye right on. It was one of his best shooting days and when he gets his glasses, he plans on doing even better!

I do have pictures, however our internet is giving me fits again. So I'll get those up as soon as I can. I have tried several times today, believe me it's not from lack of trying.....

I had a good time with Courtney. I ended up staying overnight with her family as there was a snow storm on our side of the state and I did not want to drive through it at midnight.

So the weekend was a success and with it, we added two new members of the family! Two baby goats, they are somewhere between 3-6 weeks and bottle feed every four hours. I will try to get pictures of them asap, but don't hold your breath. We're also still helping to bottle feed five orphan lambs at the neighbor's and still keep up with our "normal" routines. If I happen to disappear again, it's not from laziness.....I promise!

puzzles

I’ve been on a puzzle marathon since Christmas. We’ve had a puzzle going in the living room since Mom brought home our Christmas puzzles for the Christmas season. For as long as I can remember puzzles have been a part of our holidays. We start one Christmas day and one New Years Eve. This year we did about 5 puzzles during the season! I just couldn’t seem to stop. And I continued after the New Year. Then an awesome friend suggested a puzzle exchange and we hit the jackpot!!

I didn't even know that 2000 piece puzzles existed until she sent me one!! We've had so much fun with her puzzles. Although my ego is crushed, I thought I was a pretty good puzzle solver, but now I've been put in my place!!

I'm including a few of them below. This first one is obviously an eagle, but it's made up of tiny individual pictures. We've got one of Marilyn Monroe, made up of lots of little pictures of her. That one looks scarey to me.....as in hard scarey!

I just finished this one this week, it was an "easy" one, in that it only took a few days to do, versus the weeks that some of them took!

This is one of the puzzles that took a couple of weeks. It's of the seven drawfs heading home.

I'm off to the start of our busy weekend. Tonight we have a church family desert and dance, then tomorrow I'm driving the three older boys 2 1/2 hours to compete in a archery tournament. And the youngest two are tagging along with me. After that, I'll only be about 1 1/2 hrs from Courtney and her birthday is Monday, sooooooooo you know I have to take her out to the Olive Garden!!

The downside to that is that we won't get to Courtney's until 4pmish, then it's an hour from her house to the nearest OG, then obviously it's an hour back. So that gives us about two hours to do dinner. As I really want to leave her house around 8pmish to get home four hours later around midnight.

Because I don't want to leave Amanda alone for two days in a row and Lee has a talk in church Sunday. Oh yeah, and Brent left today for a business conf. so he's not around to help out. He'll be back Sunday, in time to pick me up off the floor...... I'm just praying that I DO NOT get the stinkin virus that every other person in this house has had. I'm the last man standing as far as the virus is concerned.

brrrrr baby

At least that's what Happy is saying!! I shaved him this week. And I shaved Nicki, but didn't get her picture taken.

Poor baby.....doesn't he make you feel cold just looking at him? Really he sleeps like this all the time, but it does look like he's burrowed in, trying to get warm. Incidently, he's on my COUCH......something that was forbidden until recently. I've just given up....it's not worth it to me right now to fight the dogs about the couch anymore. The kids are enough of a battle at the moment!

And do you remember this guy?! Yes he too is looking chilly... but he sleeps like this too. Really, can you imagine him being cold? He's actually too hot during the day at times now. Mostly when it's over 50 degrees. He even dug a hole to lay in and cool off in!!

I'm thinking of shaving him too. That's on hold while we see if we can find a home that will appreciate him more than we do. We love him and he's got an ok home with us, however he is HIGH maintance and it's possible that there's a home out there that would not just love him and give him an ok home, but REALLY, REALLY love him and give him a home perfect for a St. Bernard. So we'll see what happens with that.

In the meantime, don't they make a precious picture together......if you ignore the fact that they are on MY couch.....yes I may have given up, but I haven't forgotten! And you're looking at 230 lbs of dogs laying there.....that really boggles my mind at times.....how big they are.

baby lambs!

I have pictures!! Aren’t you so proud of me!! When we went to feed the babies today, Lee, Jayden and Max joined Collin and I.

The orphan triplets have red marks on them, so they can be told apart from all the other white lambs in the field. When they get that far. For now they are in a stall in the barn. One has the mark on his head, one on his shoulders, one on his rump.

Max was thrilled to get a chance to pet the babies. We're supposed to talk to them and pet them so they acclimatize to human handling and boy is that hard for us......NOT!!

I have more pictures, than just the babies we fed, I also have the gang that is in the barn currently. They are so cute. She has a few sets of triplets and everyone else is twins, that is lot of babies! I think she has about fifteen to twenty babies on the ground right now. There is a group that are about a week older than this group and they are outside as of Sunday.

It must be spring, the lambs are here!

time flies

Sat. we went to Chicago. Just Brent and I. We left the kids home, all six of them.....yes the house was still standing when we got home. They did really well and took care of everything they were supposed to. Brent and I went down to Chicago to attend the Chicago Temple and we had a nice time, but at the end session Brent was really lightheaded. We thought it was because he hadn't eaten since 5am and it was now 11am. So we got him something to eat and headed home.

But it wasn't just that he needed food, it turns out that he has the same virus as the kids. So he had a mostly miserable ride home. He stayed home from church, and he's been home from work the last two days. He's probably going to stay home again tomorrow.

In the meantime, I got to take Amanda to Urgent Care Friday and she has a sinus infection, I got to take Than yesterday, to our regular clinic and he has strep throat, as does Max, and Collin is still on antibiotics from a previous ear infection. So I have four kids on antibiotics, such fun. For the most part I do think people are healing, it's just been a way slow process.....

I have not been home for more than a few hours since last Wed. I am excited for tomorrow, I don't have to go anywhere! Well, except next door, to bottle feed three lambs.....but that really feels like an extension of our normal chores. And how can you consider feeding three 4 day old lambs a chore!! Unfortunately it's because their mom died this morning......they are dang cute and they should be OK, even with the loss of their mom.

I'll try to remember to take pictures tomorrow. Today Collin did it by himself, because I had my LAST physical therapy apt.!! Yeah, I am a LITTLE excited about that! I messed up my shoulder and now it's doing good enough that I don't have to go back again!

Now I'm off to enjoy the Biggest Loser!

Jayden's bday

Jayden turned 7 this month.....where oh where does the time fly. He asked for cheesecake for his birthday. I was not doing very well, having been dealing with myself feeling sick and several kids being sick, and then the usual day to day stuff that happens around here. So I copped out and we bought one of those no bake kits and he made his own cheesecake and was very proud of it. As he should be! He still loves to cook and he helped me make stuffed shells last night. And would really like to help every meal, if I had the patience to do it.

Did I mention that he was proud?!

Everyone enjoyed it.

And then there was presents......or a present....poor kid, usually the kids go shopping for each other and some how both Jayden and Amanda's bday snuck up on us and so they didn't get presents from their siblings.......I know I am such a baaaadddd Mom! They survived though.

Max is just ITCHING to get his fingers on the bionicle, but he's really controlling himself. At least in this picture he was.....I do seem to remember hearing several times MAX!!!