Fencing and Cleaning Up Brush

The fence on the longest stretch is almost done.

I hope threading the needle through these trees ends up being a good decision.  I'll probably come to regret not cutting them down but, for now, it seemed like the best way.

The entrance area is looking much better.  It's starting to look like it's on purpose instead of a jumble

It's been nice working on the fence in the evenings.  You get to see interesting things like this contrail going across the moon.

Doing an evening burn pile.  The smoke hanging low in the trees.  It's hard to make a picture do it justice but it looked really cool in real life

Cleaning up the winter pen in preparation for transferring the donkeys over.

Catching Up On Farm Life

Well, our cruise in April kind of threw me off my posts and am just now catching back up again.  Instead of trying to recreate the whole summer, I figured it would be easier to do it in one fell swoop.

It's been a hot summer but it didn't seem to bother the bees.  We were able to add three new hives that have survived so far.  We also had our rock star hive give us one of the best seasons we've had so far.  The bees in the pic above spent most of the summer hanging out on the front porch like that.  At first I thought they were overcrowded, but after inspecting, I came to the conclusion that they were just hot and liked hanging out on the porch, catching the evening breeze.

Seth took his buddies down in the Knife Slash sink hole.

The bees loved having the watering trough to get their water.  I put a board in it to make it easier and prevent drowned bees.  It worked pretty well although they seem to prefer hanging out on the side despite the board.

I've been working hard on the new field all summer.  It's satisfying to see how much it's improved but kind of depressing how much there is left to do.

 Got the fence painted and  did some clearing by it.  There are still some big cedars that I left, but after looking at them for a month or two, I think they have to go.  They're just too scraggly.

I stepped up my beekeeping this summer and added more hives.  I also stepped up my inspections.  It was painful, literally.  Several times the bees got so mad they stung through my heavy gloves.

The never ending process of planting fence posts.  I've developed a new system that works pretty well.  I haul a trailer with all my gear which includes a generator, jackhammer, machete, concrete, breaker bar, post hole digger, extension cord and a chainsaw.  With my mobile post operation I can put in a post just about anywhere a 4-wheeler can go.

Here's a before and after shot of the big field I've been working.  We're getting close.

The unexpected arrival of Simple Jack the donkey on Valentines day really screwed up my fencing plans this year.  I spent a big part of the summer fixing fences he'd destroyed.  Electrifying the summer pen was part of that process.

I found that my overalls, despite being stylish and comfortable are also great for carrying parts while I'm working

Since I got into the bee biz, identifying wildflowers has become an interest of mine.  Usually I'm able to track them down but this pretty flower has so far eluded identification.

 Brown eyed Susans had a good year

Sarah was a big help getting the 2nd corner post set on the new field.  It was a lot of work, but you could hit it with a truck and it wouldn't move.

All this time doing bees and I've never seen one actually working a flower until this summer.  We were ecstatic to see this one working a flower in a far corner of the property this summer.

Part of the anti-Simple Jack fencing program included building a solar tower for fence energizing box.  I was really happy with how it turned out.

It's been so long since I've worked the bee field that it's getting all grown in with grass.  I need to either scrape it or bush hog it soon.

Mid summer moon rise over the old shed.

More bee inspections.  This frame looked a little sporadic, but there is still a lot of capped brood and larvae in various stages.

After taking a year off, we decided to get back into goats again after finding a really cheap deal on them.  Hopefully these will fare better than the last ones

Sadie isn't too sure about her new buddy.  Part of the reason for getting them is to give Sadie some company, but the goats pretty much stick to the sink hole so Sadie is still alone since Simple Jacks mysterious disappearance.

 The third, and hardest, corner post so far.  Only one more corner to go.  Look for more updates to come since we're all caught up now.

Clearing Cedar Trees

It's been such a beautiful spring that it would be criminal to not spend as much time as possible outdoors enjoying it. For me, a big part of enjoying spring is working on projects down at the property.

A project that we've been working on for a couple years is building a bridge across one of the sink holes.

The long, drawn out process went as follows, in year 1 we identified the site and cleared a trail to it. Year 2 was finding the logs to use for the span and dragging them into place, and year 3 was bolting it all together, clearing out the underbrush and putting the cross pieces on.

 All our hard work paid off.  A sturdy bridge is born.  Here's Seth modeling the finished result.

 

As we finished up, I saw a dead tree that I somehow missed in our initial trail clearing.  When I noticed it, I  mentioned to Seth "I need to cut that down before a storm comes through and knocks it onto the bridge".

That tree had to have been there for many years, but wouldn't you know it.  A storm came though not a day after I said that and snapped the top of the tree, which hit the bridge and broke one of the cross pieces.

Luckily it will be pretty easy to fix.  A few feet more to the left though, and it would've been disastrous.  Those logs are incredibly heavy.
 

Another spring project is getting the bees ready for the nectar flow.  This involves inspecting the hives, checking on the brood patterns, looking for parasites or disease, etc.

 

It's always really cool to find the queen.  They are shy and fast, so without having them marked, like the one below, it's sometimes tough to spot them. I was able to find the queen in the new hive.  A good sign.



One frustrating task this year was having to swap out my 'deep' brood box because the queen keeps going up the hive into the 'shallows'.

I should have swapped them earlier to prevent this but I guess better late than never.  The problem is that I have two shallows on the bottom, which will be hard to fix later on.
 

We're starting to get a lot of wildflower blooms.  These unique flowers are Eastern Red Columbine.  I've been researching whether bees like them but haven't found anything conclusive.



Here's a field full of bluebells near the hives.  They look pretty but I don't think the bees have much use for them.  The cone is too deep and its hard to land on.

 

Another spring project is working on burn piles, trying to get our new cow pasture ready.  We definitely want to get this done before the summer heat sets in.



The line between the new grass and what we have left to do



What it looks like after we knock down all the cedars and scraggly trees.  Still a lot to clean up.  You can see the building burn pile in the background.  This used to be so thick that you couldn't even walk through it in the summer time.



The burn piles get so hot that even after two weeks and three big rainstorms, the hot spots in the ash can still start on fire.  This little flame popped up after I bulldozed the ash pile from our last burn.

 

An essential part of land clearing is have strong young men to help.



Time lapse of the last burn pile



After shot of the last big burn pile in this field.  It's good to have it done.




The new grass is starting to fill in.



The beautiful field at sunset makes all the work worth it.

ATV Hitch Modification

Me and my engineering consultant Kent had a new project to work on, namely fixing the hitch that kept falling off.

Having the right tools makes a big difference.  The ramps came in handy getting it up off the ground.

 

Getting the receiver ready to weld on



Adding a shim to make it level

.

Grinding down the welding points

 

Welding the receiver in place.

 

Looking good.  Time to put the final welds in place

  

Time to try it out.  It worked great!

From 2016-03-15