Hopefully Back to Normal

It has been a long road getting back to my normal routine. But hopefully, I am back. I will have to have about a year of physical therapy to get total use of my left foot back. But at least I can walk!!

We have replenished the chickens that were killed by the neighbor's dogs and now we have more eggs than we know what to do with. Greg has found one customer who uses about 6 dozen a week and that will help a lot. We are getting more than a dozen eggs a day now.

I have been researching egg recipes on Pinterest. You can follow me at  https://www.pinterest.com/maen/. Eggs are a very economical way to feed your family. When you think about the price of meat these days and compare that to a dozen eggs it's pretty easy to see that eggs, even though they seem expensive, are still a cheap way to feed your family.  You take a dozen eggs add a few leftovers to them and have a meal that will feed your family for around $3.00.  And it's a great way to use up the leftovers. Add a little leftover green vegetable, some leftover meat and some cheese, maybe some chopped onions or other herbs and bake a fritata or crustless quiche and you have a complete meal in just a few minutes. Serve it with toast and it's a great meal.

One of the bee hives didn't make it over the winter so we ordered more bees and established them in the hive yesterday. If the weather permits we will open the hive on Wednesday to see if the queen has been released.

We still haven't planted anything, it's been too wet to get into the garden. We are thinking about turning our garden into a strawberry bed and moving the garden to one of the fenced in areas. It will be a bigger garden than what we have now. And, this year we are going to make a real herb garden. In the past I have just planted all of my herbs in pots or containers. I am really excited about that. I also want to plant some Asparagus, Rhubarb, and grapes this year.

We are also looking into buying goats again. It has been a while since we have had goats but we really want to get some more and start over.

How is your Spring going?

Have a great day!
Mae

Bees and Chicken Tractors

We picked up our package bees on May 4th. Since we lost our hive last fall we decided to start with 2 hives this spring. We should have done that in the first place but hindsight is 20/20. When we checked on them on Wednesday, May 7th the queens had been released.

Hives are ready

A little sugar water bath.

 Pouring the bees into the hive.

The aftermath.

We plan to check the hives again tonight, if the weather permits, to see how things are progressing. They have already slowed down on the sugar water. Honeysuckles are blooming and soon the Honey Locust will be in full bloom so we are hoping the hives will do well this year.

We have also been working on the chicken tractor. It is finished and waiting for the chicks. I only have pictures of the beginning of the project and haven't taken one of the completed tractor yet.

The roof is on

Side view

There is one piece of metal on either side that is even with the roof and one across the back. The rest is chicken wire.

Our garden isn't planted yet, We are getting a late start once again. It seems like when we are home it's raining or the garden is too wet to get into. Hopefully, it will be planted soon.

Things have still been busy even without getting the garden in. 

Have a great day!

Mae

Planning & Doing

Now that Spring is finally here we are making plans and preparations on the farm. We have ordered 75 chicks from Cackle Hatchery. We ordered their Hungry Man special. This will be our first try at meat chickens. We decided to go ahead with the Cornish Cross and try to slow their growth a little. Everything we have read says since that is the meat we are used to, we will like it better. And since we are hoping to eventually sell the meat chickens we decided to stick with what people are used to. We will also get 25 brown egg layers with the order. This will give us more eggs to sell. The chickens will arrive on the 21st of April.

We have also ordered two packages of bees. Our bee hive has been empty since late fall. So we ordered bees for that hive and a new hive. We will pick up the bees on April 27th.  We are going to buy another hive on the 18th.

We are also looking into getting rabbits. Since the kids are staying with us Dixie has decided that she wants to raise rabbits.  The first 4-H rabbit club meeting that she can attend is the 21st of April. We want to have at least one rabbit ready for her by then.

Daniel and I also planted some potatoes. It is a bit early here for planting potatoes. But we thought we'd experiment with the barrel again. It has been warm enough here for them, so far.  I am afraid they might drown with all the rain we have been having.

Daniel also installed on of our rain barrels by the side of the house, and it is overflowing today. We have had over 3 inches of rain in the last two days.

I am making garden plans and once it is dry enough, hope to get some peas, lettuce and cabbage planted.

I am so glad Spring is here!

Have a great day!
Mae

Hopefully Honey

I know it's been a while since I posted but I wanted to show you what has been going on.  We have been taking a Beginner Beekeeping Class.  It has been really interesting. And Greg and I both have been stung by the "beekeeping bug".  We went to Frankfort and bought our hive and gear. Then our bees came in the next day.

Me in my gear

We released them into their hive on Saturday, April 27th.

Some of the bees didn't pour out so they came out on their own later.

Then we went back 3 days later, on Wednesday, to see if the Queen was out of her cage. And she was! 

We are hoping this means the bees accepted their Queen.  This is what we found attached to her little cage that was inside the hive.

We are really enjoying this so far. Bees are amazing little creatures.  They just know what they are supposed to do and do it.

Hopefully we will get honey, we probably will not take honey from them this year so that they have enough to get them through the winter.  We will look in the hive again Sunday to see if the queen has started laying eggs yet.

I will keep you posted.

Have a great day!
Mae