*beeing brave

Getting suited up on a hot sultry day in Florida was less than fun.   But, it was recommended to me to enter  the hive area to do any work in mid day when the bees are busy.

To the left you see the supra that I am about to add to our hive. The brood has grown so much that we need to add the supra already.  I am getting my gloves on and making sure everything is tucked in before I begin working with the bees.

When I took the top board off it was covered with buzzing bees! I remained calm and carried on with my work.  To open the hive and hear the wings of the workers fanning hard and to see them buzzing around was a pretty awesome experience.

Carefully I am putting the top board back in place, doing my best not to kill any of our girls!

Success!  The job is done! In a few weeks we will open the hive again to check out the work that has taken place in the supra since we added it.

Since adding the hive to our farm, the tall sunflowers are covered with our "Honey's" early each morning. Our garden is now buzzing more ever too. Speaking of the garden, it is growing well and our freezer is starting to fill up with our harvest to carry us through some of the year.  Soon I will share with you a new way to preserve yellow squash for the freezer. Well, it was new for us anyway!

*sunflower, sunflower

"Keep your face to the sunshine
and you cannot see the shadow.
It's what sunflowers do."
by Helen Keller

*a morning at Erilyn in pictures

This is how the little girls act when they get to free roam the land. They come rushing out, then they act like they have no idea how to act!  These chickens (and other animals) are so entertaining.

*bee calm

 Do you know what this means?

YEP!  We got our first hive today!  We have been on a waiting list with Mr. Bundrick for a hive for a couple of weeks and now it is our turn.  I met Mr. Bundrick at his shop this morning at 8AM, I drove Eric's truck so I could bring the hive back (myself) this morning and put it in place.  Mr. Bundrick must have sensed that I was a bit nervous  because he offered to follow me and set the hive up here on the farm for me.  I was so very grateful!  He has been doing this for many many years and didn't even wear a hat, netting, gloves or anything - oh, he did use his smoker though!

The hive weigh about 45lbs at the present and he was a bit worried about me being able to pick it up and set it in place. Such a sweet heart of a gentleman!

The screen on the front of this hive was to keep the bees inside the hive while he traveled from his home, to his shop, then of course on to our house.  The strap around the hive is to keep the top plate in place.  This comes off so you can add a supra when that time comes (which for us is now!) Mr. Bundrick actually has had this family of bees for us since Easter weekend, and normally  when he cannot get in touch with the person on the list, he goes on to the next one.  Since Mr. Bundrick is so patriotic and so committed to showing his appreciated towards Eric for his service to the country, he kept these for us in one of his hive boxes until we got back with him.  The swarm has of course grown since that date and are now in need of more space, so the supra is getting painted today so it can start to cure. 

I asked him if he would mind if I took pictures, he told me to just make sure I was taking pictures of the bees and not of him.

He here is taking off the screen that was put there for the purpose of travel.  LOOK.. NO GLOVES... NOT FACE PROTECTION... Um.. you wont see me out there like that any time soon anyway.

So I fed the animals and then went back out to get some more pictures of the buzzing madness, and was chased off by a drone.. He was caught in my hair, got loose, continued to chase me from the hive area to the barn.. I was hitting myself in the head, accidentally of course, with my camera. Running along like mad, my pants started to fall off my non-existent waist even though I had a belt on.  Fortunately my next door neighbor, who is always out working in his yard was up the road helping a friend this morning, otherwise he would have likely had a good laugh.   Needless to say any further... this is the last picture I got of the bees on that walk.  I think I will wear my hat with netting next time I go out to "visit" the bees. I am also assuming they would have liked a little longer to get acclimated to their new surroundings.  Lesson learned.

*the Chick-Inn - vacancy

After many long laborious hours The Chick-Inn is finished!

Eric has worked tirelessly many days on in.  He is a researcher and a planner and skilled in many areas which makes him an all around great handy man!  I love him and I think I am gonna keep him.  Let me count they vast ways I love him. Oh, sorry- this post is about the chicken coop, not my hubby. 

The coop was made from recycled materials from various parts of our property.  You will see things we ripped out of the workshop, closet doors from the inside of the house, and even wood from the tree house that was in the back yard when we bought the house. We, of course, had to purchase chicken wire, screws, and a few pieces of lumber but most everything you will see are recycled materials.

Measure twice, cut once!

This is the back of the "egg boxes" as Eric so fondly calls them.  These are cabinets that were in the workshop that at one time were part of the kitchen in the house. Eric amazes me. He accessed what we had and then made his plan from there. The cabinets are installed as they would have been if they were hanging in a kitchen, but he arranged the cabinets as such so that he could use the doors on the back of the cabinets - aka nesting boxes- so we could lift up and gather eggs.  The coop itself has been built inside the barn where one of the stalls were at previously.  The coop will also extend to the outside as well. 

The flooring is going down!  Eric decided to put in a wood plank floor using some wood that was recycled from part of the workshop.  There was an area in the spacious workshop that had a loft built but was not necessary to us. Henry labored for a good while dismantling the loot floor and pulling out nails so these could be used as part of the Inn.

Almost all of the planks are down at this point. With the guidance of my hubby, I helped him snap a line on the planks so he could get a good straight clean cut.

Doesn't it look great?

Is it ready yet???????????

So perhaps you might remember me telling you about some closet doors that I recycled indoors for other functions besides the ones they were intended for? Well, Eric took a pair of the folding doors that are hinged and you can see that he screwed a board to the top and bottom so it would no longer fold, but instead create one solid door. In this picture it is opened and latched.

Yes, there are those doors again!  He chose to use a single one on the end as part of the wall framing.  Then he used a pair of the larger folding doors for the bottom part of the wall.  He once again used some 2 X 4's to go across the top and bottom of the door so it will not fold in like folding doors are designed to do.  If you enlarge the picture or look closely you can see the latch on the bottom center of the big door.  He did this so the door can be lifted up on its hinges and latched in place for cleaning the coop out. So smart!

Our next door neighbor harvest hay to sell to the public for their livestock needs.  He gave us this roll and told us if we needed more to let him know.  Good neighbors are a blessing. As he was leaving I gave him a bag of squash, I hope that was a good trade!  The hay will be used to cover the floor of the coop.

The last thing we had to get done on Friday night before we could let the chicks in was to get their roosting rack finished. I was so excited!  I know Eric thought I had lost my mind because of my giggly behavior.  I could hardly wait to get them in there. The roosting rack was made of wood that was in the recycle pile as well.  We used one of Eric's tools to rip the boards to the size we needed for the slats. 

The first group to come in was the younger chicks. They went right to eating, after all it was dinner time.

Then we let the bigger chicks in, and the bullying started. This picture does not show all of the younger chicks, but if you will notice to the left are all the "bigger chicks" and they had basically shoved the younger ones into the corner out of fear. I felt so sorry for the little girls.  I wanted to spank the older ones and tell them they should know better.. but I didn't think it would do any good. 

Yeh, Yeh, we know you all are the bosses...

The wire shelving rack over in the corner is sort of a test.. I am not hip about this particular item in the coop.  It may prove to work well for what Eric has intended, we will just have to wait and see. Oh, yes.. that is my foot. I had had my boots on all day and my feet were aching. I took them off, so excited to get the chicks in, I sat down in the coop with them and snapped a few pictures!

Thanks Darlin!  Thanks for working so hard to provide a "Fort Knox" for our chickens!  Look above the back corner of the coop and you will see one of our cats, Timon. He went up the stairs to the loft and then came walking over to the top of the coop. The chickens were making all kinds of noise at this point so he was quite interested in all the commotion.  There is a small door down near the floor where Eric is standing which is hinged and can be opened to let the chicks free range or go into their outdoor coop area.  We have not put straw in the nesting boxes yet but plan to get that done one day this week. We still have some time before they are needed, not long though.  It is our hope that none of them get the idea to spend time inside of those cozy little areas until it is the right time. 

 The Chick-Inn had vacancy for a limited time, but now we have have put the NO VACANCY sign out!