SEMI PRODUCTIVE WEEKEND

SO...I woke up Saturday to a great breakfast but had the beginnings of a headache.  But things needed to be done.  So I drove to the farm.  Got there and saw the neighbors goat...I thought it was on the other side of the fence until I saw the pear tree bend over as it ate off one of the lower branches! 

BAD GOAT!!!!!!!!!!!

I ran over there when I realized it and chased it back, it ran back through the gap in the barbed wire fence and started grazing like it had never left.  J from 2nd Family said they got out in the road the other day so she called the sheriff who came and got them back in and warned the owner.

Barbed wire fence

The picture above shows the gap where the old wiring was bent down.  It's a quarter of a mile (or more?) long if we wanted to have it all replaced.  The neighbor is not inclined to do that and so we'd have to pay for all of it.  Not going to do that, right now anyway.  So I got R from 2nd Family (not their goats but the same fence borders their property too so he's always checking it).  He brought some barbed wire and we put another section in the open spot.  It was only on about four posts where it had snapped loose.  He said he was going to check the rest of the fence line tomorrow for us.  Headache still going on...

The above picture is from shortly after we lost the hive.  We had already thrown away all of the comb and the frames (you have to dispose of the frames as well).  But I still had to clean/disinfect the rest of the inside of the supers and each component to reduce any possible contamination of the new incoming hive.  While I was doing all this, I attracted a lot of bees, even though this is probably an acre away from our remaining hive, I guess they were curious.  I was constantly fending off curious bees.  Didn't help with the headache...

Hive components

I scrubbed and chipped away the propolis and then pressure washed them all.  I left them in the hot sun to dry and disinfect further, periodically flipping them to make sure all parts were hit by sun.  The sun didn't help me either...

Beehive matching barn

Here is it, put back together (minus the frames inside, those are on order).  It's ready for the new residents, which are also on order and should arrive the 2nd weekend in April. For now, I put the hive back in the barn so that nothing else decides to take up occupancy in it.

Weeds in a raised bed

Next I turned to the garden.  

Last weekend I mowed but this weekend I wanted to get the beds weeded.  Some were OK but a few that had their plastic panels blown off in various rainstorms got lots of rain and thus, lots of weeds.  I started pulling weeds, and about two beds in, I pulled up a weed that was in the middle of a fire ant mound.  I dropped it but 5 or 6 fire ants got my hand.  

That didn't help the headache either...

Raised bed weeded

But I pushed through and got ten of the sixteen raised beds mostly weed free like above.  The others I'll worry about another time.  At least we have some beds almost ready for planting.

Raised bed cover

I put the covers back on and hopefully we won't have any big storms (none in the forecast at this point) before next weekend.

Water manifold

The last thing I did, which wasn't on the list but I realized I needed to do, was make sure I got all the hoses hooked back up.  For Winter, we unhook, store away, and wrap everything to protect it all from freezing.  Of course, we had NO Winter this year but I still needed to make sure there were no leaks and that we had good, working, water capability.  I got it all hooked up and all is good.  

I've ordered our drip irrigation pieces and so now all that's left is the mulch.  Hope to get that ball rolling next weekend.  I did it all by myself last time and it dang near killed me, ha.  For those new to the blog, CLICK HERE to see what it looked like when I did it.  The picture below is after I did it.  Definitely beautiful.  Definitely a lot of work.  This time around, 2nd Man said we'll hire help.

Hopefully it won't be as bad.  

Right after mulch put down the first time, TWO years ago

But it SURE is pretty when it's done!  I look at this picture often to remind me that we need to get it done again.

I gave up and came home to rest...

Yesterday was my birthday and sadly, 2nd Man started getting sick.  He thinks he's getting a cold.  Sigh.  So we postponed an official birthday dinner, although he did make a wonderful dinner anyway, so it was still worth it.

Hope your weekend was better!