Garden, Bees, and Baby Turkeys!!

 This week's pic of the garden-we now have Jacob's Cattle beans that are about 5inches long! The green beans are blooming like crazy, the corn is coming right along, and so are the cucumbers! A few of the tomatoes are blooming in the raised beds up next to the house-and the comfrey is growing beautifully as well! We've had just enough rain to keep things growing-we did water a little on Wednesday-the cukes were looking a little droopy-but then we got nearly 2 inches of rain on Friday-thank you Lord!

 Jeff opened up the bee hive after Church today-and what a wonderful surprise! The bees have drawn out about 6 frames of foundation-and some are capped off! So all is progressing as should be. His second hive is due in this Friday from an apiary in Ohio-hopefully they will adjust and do as well as these have so far!

 First look into the hive in 2 weeks-surprise-they are building comb just like they should!

 And on Friday-the turkey hen hatched her eggs! She hatched 11 of the 12 she was sitting on-the 12th one she had pushed from the nest earlier in the week-guess she knew more than we did!

We've been having trouble keeping them in the pen with her-they go right through the wire on her pen. When we came in from Church today-she had flown out and was keeping up with them in the pasture. She even flew into the face of one of the cows who got a little to close! Now we have to decide whether to put her up-then pen the babies under a light in a cage-or just let her try to raise them on her on. I'm just scared the dogs will get them-or a night time visitor!
OK-I got a shock when I tried to log into the blog today-some of you already know-they changed the format-so it may take me a little while to get used to the change-but I did like the way they changed the picture downloads. I don't know how many times I've waited for pics to download-only to find I'd clicked on the wrong ones. Now we can see them ahead of time-YEAH!
The hummingbirds are finally showing up-we have at least 2 that are making an appearance-they were pretty busy this morning. We also weaned the calves today-it will be fairly noisy around here for the next few days until they get over not being with momma!
Have a great week!

My Tulip Tree is Blooming!

My tulip tree finally bloomed! I bought the tree nearly 10 years ago when I was delivering mail with some money I had received. An elderly neighbor of ours when I was growing up planted one and we watched it grow as we did. One day she called by Mom-all excited-her tulip tree was finally blooming! Today I finally understand her joy! I can only see 2 blooms at the moment-and they are really up high. When we added on to the porch last year-Jeff wanted to cut it down-but I talked him into just kinda building around it-so far so good! Now it might just get to stay!!

Newest pic of the garden-although it was taken on 4/5. We are due some really tough weather here shortly-and we fertilized and plowed them for the 2nd time yesterday-so I'll try and remember to take a new pic in a few days! Everything is growing like weeds this year-we are SO very thankful to God! We tend to get a little tickled at each other-we'll walk down and check on it in the morning (I'm still in fear the deer will find it and wipe us out like they did last year!)-when we check again in the evening-we can see the growth from earlier in the day! It really is amazing! Kaytlynn & Mady played in the corn yesterday-just running up and down the rows. I can't wait for it to be taller than them and really watch them play in it. We kept catching Kaytlynn just laying out in the rows-staring up at the sky-oh the days of being young!!

Bees are Here!

Well-we finally got to pick up Jeff's bees in Navasota yesterday! Here he is getting ready to put them in the truck for the trip home-they rode up front with us all the way home! 3,000-5,000 honey bees with 1 queen!

Getting the queen out of the main package-she's in the small box with the orange tag.

Queen cage with a few workers protecting her.

Jeff's got the queen in the frames and the workers are going in!

These bees are busy(hehe!) It only took a couple of hours and they were about their business-coming and going-it was amazing! He'll take the lid off tomorrow to make sure the queen is out and everything looks fine-then it stays closed for 2 weeks. Then open it up to make sure the queen is laying-then let them do their job!

Nothing has hatched yet in the incubator-doesn't look good. Don't know what went wrong-but better luck next time I guess. The garden on the other hand looks wonderful! I took a pic the other day-I'll try to get it posted asap.

We had a great Easter-started with Sonrise service @ 7am-then breakfast-then normal services. Had lunch at Jeff's mom's and lots of family! Was a long day-but good! The kids enjoyed the Easter egg hunt as well.

Have a great week!

Update!

One of the sweet sea gulls on the beach last Wednesday-it was such a beautiful day-and we caught 4 fish while wading-but the water was like stepping into ice!

This hen found her way into our bedroom on Saturday afternoon-I had run her off the back porch all day-she scratched around and stayed awhile-but she didn't lay an egg. We might have to buy a screen door for our bedroom just to keep the chickens out-You might be a Redneck if...

The first picture of the new garden-taken 3/17-it was a little cloudy-but I want to remember to take pictures of it every week or so to keep up with the progress.

Ok-this started out as a different kind of Spring Break-from Friday afternoon until after we left for Church on Sunday morning-our lights had gone out 7 times! We had Jordan's birthday party in the livingroom-no moonwalk as planned due to the rain! We tried to start planting the garden on Monday morning-but after several rows-just couldn't stand playing in the soup anymore. We did get the corn and Jacob's cattle beans in, though.

We left Tuesday morning for the beach-tried to fish on Bolivar-but it was just way too crowded-we couldn't find a place without too many people. We rode the ferry over to Galveston and got checked into the hotel-had a really good few days!

We bought 2 pear trees while at the beach-so got them, along with the rest of the garden planted on Friday. Then when I went to check on it Sunday morning-the corn and beans we had planted on Monday were already up! Now even the seeds from Friday are coming up. And we got over 2 inches of rain today!

Jeff picked up a total of 12 bitties-so we have them out under a light. We set 18 green eggs and 8 turkey eggs in the incubator on Sunday as well. So hopefully-a good hatch is on the way in a few weeks-actually chicks should hatch on Easter!

We heard from the apiary-we can pick up the bees on April 7th-so Jeff's looking forward to getting them and getting them installed in the new hive.

Have a great week!

Kylee's First Tractor Ride!

Kylee got to ride the tractor with Grandpa for the first time today-she LOVED it!! I was worried the loudness of it would scare her-but no way! She wouldn't go to Alana or me-she wanted to stay on with Grandpa! She is crawling all over the place-pulling up and beginning to let go-and now has 4 teeth and 2 more nearly here and she is still so little-not quite 15 lbs yet!
Wow-have we had rain this last week-3 1/2 inches yesterday alone! Jordan had his 8th birthday party yesterday here at our house-it was planned for outside with the moonwalk-but not happening with all the rain! And to top it off-our lights had gone out 7 times since Friday afternoon! Luckily-they did stay on for the party-and haven't gone out again!
We got out this morning and planted a little in the garden-got the tomatoes-peppers-some comfrey I'd ordered-some dent corn and Jacob's cattle beans in. We had to finally stop-the ground is just soupy-it's so wet. I really don't want to complain about the rain-we went so long last summer without any! But the warm sunshine we got today was SO nice! And we are heading down to the beach in the morning for a few nights! We are packed and ready-we'll do some fishing and just hang out and relax a little bit. The beach always seems to have such a calming effect on both of us!
Have a great Spring Break-we're sure gonna try!

Spring is Arriving Early on the Farm!

The 3 eggs we collected today-one of each color!! I am so tickled! Finally got a green one after all these months. And even better news-we have 3 turkey eggs as well!! And a litter of bunnies was born today, too! And all this while I was at work! Jeff is having all the fun! He got the big tiller up and running today and tilled up our big garden-it hasn't been worked in several years-and also got his Mom's tilled as well. She was ready to go buy seeds and start planting!
Jeff is nearly finished with the greenhouse, too! It is looking great! Even better when you realize most of the materials were free-Yeah! And he picked up the steer from the locker plant last Friday-282 lbs of fresh beef! YUMMY! We had t-bones the first night-not much bigger than the size of your palm-just the right serving size! And very tender! Had round steak the other night-good eatin', too!
We've got several home improvement jobs to do in the next few weeks-got to get to our bathroom first. Got a leak somewhere in there-and the old gardentub is just getting to be a little bit difficult for Jeff to get out of-so we're gonna take it out and tile in a walk in shower-It'll be really nice when it's done. Also want to move the stove and frig around-so we can get a new frig-ours is over 15 years old and in a pretty tight space-so they will swap places so we can get a side by side. We've also got to replace some yard and garden fences before we plant.
The weather's been warm-then cool-then rainy-I'm ready for some sunshine and warm-It's comin' and then it'll be HOT. Have a good one!

Rain & Storm Damage

The high winds and rain-we got 2.2 inches!!-late Friday night and into Saturday caused one of the dead trees to fall onto the back yard fence-which just happens to be a pasture fence as well! But the cows weren't able to reach it-so they couldn't escape. But that didn't stop them on Friday morning-they somehow managed to get the pasture gate opened and Jeff's brother-in-law Donald called to say they were in his yard. No damage done-they are like a herd of puppies-just call 'em and they come running-kicking their heels up the whole way like it's some sort of cute little game to be escape artists!

Part of the tree fell across the fence and onto the kids trampoline-it was like a different playground for them-tunnels everywhere! Country kids can find fun in everything-not to mention all the mud puddles from all the rain we've been getting!!

Well-we now have one of the newest members of the LJH cheerleading squad living next door-Congrats to Hailey-she made the squad for next year!! We are SO proud of you! She was nervous-but at least she didn't have a panic attack this year like she did before drill team try-outs last year! It'll be a busy summer for her-and most likely for us as well!

We finally pulled up the brocolli plants and fed them to the cows this week. They had given all they could-I didn't think they were ever gonna stop making-but that's ok by me! I love brocolli! We'd picked up a few cauliflower plants-so we put them in their place. It's way too wet to even begin thinking about getting anything planted. We bought seed potatoes-but they will have to wait until it dries up a little. We aren't expecting any rain this week-so far- and it should be fairly warm-70's some days. Some of the fruit trees in the area are starting to bloom-my redbud in the front yard is starting as well. I really wish we had the bee hive already and didn't have to wait until the end of April to go pick them up. The tomato plants we started from seed are the most beautiful ones I think we've ever had. They are growing strong and healthy looking-looking forward to the fresh tomatoes they'll make this summer!