Wow, have I been busy. What with work and spring, I've been running and running.

My bees arrived on Friday in the mail. I promptly picked them up and dropped them into the top-bar hives I made.

I've become obsessed with bees lately (as I do about things), and there is much to tell about the reading on bees I've been doing.

I was worried at first ( Read more... )

I already posted these to f&*$book, so if you've seen them, feel free to ignore them.

I've been obsessed lately with honey bees (courtesy of mercurialgirl ), and decided to spend the afternoon yesterday building some top-bar hives. I wanted to make four, but ran out of time and built two. A top-bar hive is a relatively simpler and cheaper alternative to the ( Read more... )

Wow. I'm surprised how busy I have become of late. I thought when A was off treatment, I'd have all of this free time. But I'm finding I'm busier than ever. Between work, family, the house and the animals, I haven't been out hunting deer at all this year. I went goose hunting once early on, but that's about it ( Read more... )

Yesterday I butchered two turkeys. I thanked them for giving up their lives so that we may live before removing their heads with a sharpened hatchet. Knife work and a huge amount plucking followed.

( Pics behind the cut. (WARNING: SERIOUSLY GRAPHIC PHOTOS.) )

What a great idea. It's called a laplander stove and is made from a log that has a cross cut into one side. You shove kindling, cedar shavings or pine needles into it and voila: handy outdoor stove. I'll have to try this the next time I'm camping.


( Read more... )

We're sitting in the airport, waiting for our flight home from Paris. Very tired. Very bored. Free wifi, ma derriere. We posted lots of photos to our facebork pages. I will cross-post many here tomorrow after we get home. Our vacation was wonderful. Relaxing. Fun. Beautiful. It sounds cheezy as hell, but every corner you turn in Paris transports ( Read more... )

It's been a bit since I last posted, and not surprisingly quite a bit has happened. The little hen hatched out six of her remaining 10 eggs that she had been sitting on. I gave her a few extra days to make sure she wouldn't hatch any more before finally disposing of the dead eggs this morning.

To recap, she had originally managed to collect a ( Read more... )

I planted the organic, non-GMO white winter wheat yesterday evening in the main field in front of the house. I ordered a couple pounds, but it only covered about half the field. Since I don't have a drill seeder, I had to broadcast spread it. I then disced it in with the tractor. Apparently, that's how wheat used to be planted before technology ( Read more... )

 I'm calling it a half day and heading out to the Charles County Fair this afternoon with the family. We're going to eat fair food, get some cotton candy, watch livestock and ride some death-trap rides.

It's nothing fancy, just a real country fair with bad food and creepy people. Sounds like fun.

I just got in from my 40-minute tractor ride back from the hunting property up the road. That's so much fun driving the tractor on the road, and I'm pissed I didn't bring my camera to document it. I'm sure I'll do it again, but driving past the cows, the horses and the farm fields on the tractor, doing about 10 miles an hour, was such a thrill.

Well ( Read more... )