honeybees

Gazebo posts almost in

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When they asked me at the lumber store if I wanted grade #1 or #2 6×6” posts I opted for grade #2 as they were going to be outside and I was being cheap. After having spent almost an hour per post sanding to get the knots flattened out and the paint off of the board I should have gone with grade #1! I managed to get four of the six posts installed today. They are anchored at the bottom in the Simpson steel ties buried in concrete. We have about 250# of concrete in each of the six holes. Between the concrete and the weight of the grain bin panels I don’t expect the gazebo to leave the ground. Once we get the gazebo together we will toss six inch plus rocks all around the base of the gravel pad to hold the pad in place. This will add to the stability of the entire structure. For that to happen I need Little Dumper (one ton dump bed pickup) functional. It has been at the brake shop for two weeks and they have not contacted me yet. I will need to call them next week. When I dropped it off I asked them to not take as long as it did to fix the tires. I was assured it would not take that long.

The grain bin panels are also attached to the wooden posts by 4” structural screw in anchors. Each panel is held with 8 anchors. This will keep the post and metal sides from shifting.

I spent about an hour trying to figure out how to lift one of the panels with the tractor. I cut a couple of pieces of chain then looked at all my different connectors. I found one that I could put through a hole on the panel. I slid the two forks on the tractor together and then wrapped a chain around them with the lifting part of the chain between both forks. I took four vise grips and clamped them on either side of the chain to keep it from sliding. This will let me angle the forks and get another three feet of lift I am thinking. It will just take some manipulation of the forks to get it in the correct spot so one person can bolt it in place. That is the theory at least, a real world test will be necessary to see if that is correct.

Annmarie went out to work the bees today and they are no more. She was right a few weeks ago when she thought the queen had died. It took the drones a while to catch on to reality. The surprising thing is we saw honey bees flying around so there must be a wild hive somewhere else on the property, we are just not sure where. The honeybees have been drinking the milk my mother-in-law is leaving out for her kittens. We can officially now say that they are not our bees! We were able to salvage some of the comb. I will be melting down the last of our wax and pelletizing it so we can have wax if we need it for anything.

The alpaca are really getting used to coming in the front yard. Snoop, our oldest black alpaca, always goes off by himself. Every single one of the other alpaca is on the right side of the walkway and he is the only one on the left side. They are finally starting to make an enough of a dent in the green material that you can see the difference.

We are getting a contractor out next weekend to see about installing solar panels on the barn roof for our house. We are tired of the power going out all of the time.

There were no new lambs today.

Getting ready for contractor

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Last weekend I had to start getting things ready for the contractor. They were going to come out and start tearing the old vinyl siding off and get ready for the new LP Smartside siding. The trouble is I needed to get some things done. I had to remove everything away from the house so ladders, boards, some TREX decking I had left over were moved away from the house. I had to take down the temporary fence on the North side of the yard. I really just rolled it up most of the way. I had never set the posts yet or added a gate as we knew any contractor would have to get over on this side with equipment.

They wanted to bring in a 60’ cherry picker and that meant getting across or through the front spring. I had created a crossing for the septic pump truck but the driver did not want to chance it and was able to reach the tank from our driveway. I had dug out the large rocks I had used for the crossing. So I tore down the temporary crooked fence I had stopping the horse and sheep from getting out of the main barn lot. I filled the crossing with 2-3” rocks and packed it all down by driving over it with the tractor. Some of the water is flowing through the rocks but mostly it is crossing a wide spot with about 2” of water. I used part of the temporary horse corral panels we had blocking the narrow creek side of the barn lot. This can only be temporary as I need those panels to block off the spring access when we run cows through the barn lot. So I may have to insert a small fence. I am thinking about just making a wire gate. We will almost never use this crossing but it is nice to have the option. I am tired of buying new metal gates at $350/each. I need about another 10 gates and am now going to be selective in which ones get a metal gate. I did find three more metal gates while I was out and about on the farm. It took me a few hours to get all of this up and in place.

I salvaged what honey I could from the hive that died in early winter and was able to collect five half pints. We had them all sold in about ten minutes. We could easily sell 5-10 gallons of honey annually we just cannot produce anywhere near that! We are looking at getting another Nuc and starting a second hive this spring.

Every once in a while I find one of these salamanders when I pick up a plank that has been on the ground for way too long! I am pretty sure we have one living down in the main water shutoff access hole. They are pretty calm. I no longer disturb them and just let them wander off on their own. We are so looking forward to getting the siding completed.

Spring is coming

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The bees know when spring is here. If they can find pollen then spring must be here even if we cannot figure out where they are getting the pollen. Annmarie went out to check on our two bee hives and only one made it through the winter. The other one died fairly early in the winter as the feeder we had placed on top was still full of sugar water. This sucks but we knew that there is a high kill rate on bee hives before we got into this. Luckily, the new hive is bigger and healthier than the one that died off. I went out to the deceased hive and scavenged off as much honey comb as I could. We put it into a metal strainer and then crush it up and let it drain out for a week next to our propane stove. We managed to salvage five half pints of honey. The only thing we did was run it through cheesecloth to get out any chunks of wax and bees. It’s pretty dang good!

Annmarie went out and gave the single hive an extra honey box and put in a queen excluder so she could not use it as a brood box. We have been letting the scavenge the honey from the comb of the dead hive. They have just about cleaned up all of the honey left over.

When Mr Rainman came back with the burnt out switch the first time I was working on getting the dirt pad elevated some more. I put up string so I could find the correct level height the pile needed more dirt and to be flattened out some more. I am holding out hope that the Gingerman can get the 57 truck “little dumper” up and going so I can get gravel instead of having it delivered. I had Mr Rainman work on moving dirt while I fixed the wiring for the second time. My hope is we won’t have to pay for gravel to be delivered, I will be able to just go out and pick it up and pay for it by the ton. Once the wet weather is over we will break out the compactor and start beating some gravel into the pad and getting it level. I just did not want to make the entire pad out of gravel. I think once we get the pad level. I will dig four equally spaced holes and put deep concrete pylons in place. All thread installed and I can fabricate anchors so we can bolt the structure down so it cannot blow over.

The Gingerman came out yesterday to work on the 57 truck for a few hours. All of the hoses except the heater hoses are replaced and the single belt is replaced. He had this cool tool that allowed you to pop the distributor and insert it and then use a drill to pump oil throughout the engine! This is pretty slick. We tried to start the engine for real after he messed with the distributor cap and got all of the wires in place. It tried to turn over a couple of times but would not just go. We are going to get some fresh fuel and some starting fluid and give it a whack next weekend. I am still trying to get tires for it. The shop did come out this week and verified that the four rear rims are indeed Widowmaker rims and I will need to replace the tires and rims. So they are now getting me a quote for six tires and four rims. We are going to go up in size on the tires to match the front tires. I have spent some more money on the truck this week. I purchased a window/door gasket set that includes all of the needed items to fix both doors and the front and back window seal replacements for the low low price of $350. I found some cheap cotton bench seat covers and some floor mats I will need to cut to size. So the truck total so far is at $1079.78 and it is not running yet. It will be a race to see if they can get the tires on it before the Gingerman gets it running. The seat covers need to be installed as the seat is in sad shape. As I was trying to start the engine I noticed that I will also have to adjust the doors so they sit correctly in the openings before I can install the seals. I did check for shocks and that is not an issue as the truck does not have any! It has this huge double sided leaf spring arrangement. I bet its gonna be a smooth riding machine when it’s empty! If we can get it running then the next big thing are the brakes, the hydraulic cylinder for the dump bed and the wiring for lights. Currently, the brake pedal is on the floor. I have no idea why and honestly it is low on the priority list as brakes will not be needed until we can get the thing started.

My view one morning this week on the way to work.

Bee Equipment storage area almost completed

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It has been busy in our lives so I am a little behind on the blog! I will attempt to catch up this weekend. Mr Rainman was able to come out last weekend on Sunday and help me finish up a couple of projects. Well, almost finish a couple of projects is probably more accurate. We went back into the old wood shed and finished installing the plastic liner for the bee equipment storage room. We also got the shelves installed so we could hang all of our bee frames. We even managed to install a shelf and setup another row of holders so if we needed to hang more frames a second set is already installed on the wall, it just needs hangers. The only thing left is to install is a door. We put pallets on the floor so I will be able to put out mouse bait without fear that any other animal can get to it. Mr Rainman filled the bee area with all of our extra bee supplies that we picked up this summer. We have enough stuff for four hives now. We have two live hives but are not sure if they are both going to make it through the winter. Time will tell but we have done everything we can to make them successful.

The chickens are still thinking up ways to die. Many years ago I tried to raise quail in the chicken coop. Once that endeavor failed I just kept the cage in the chicken coop. Unfortunately, it was cobbled together from scraps so the lid was made out of 3/4 plywood and OSB. Over the years the OSB has sagged and the height difference between the boards made a grip spot for the brave or fool hardy chickens to roost. This has caused more sag and the storage area under it to fill with chicken poop. One of the bright chickens got its leg stuck. We had to tear into the lid to actually get the chicken loose. Once the chicken hobbled away after it was freed we tore the quail cage off the wall. It had a lot of screws in it and it was built right onto the wall so all of the screws had to be found to get it down. I left one board so the picked on chickens could get away from the main set of perches. We then put a new chicken run entrance in place. I ordered a new solar chicken door from China. I know this as the bank had to call me about my “Run Chicken Door” purchase. They had flagged it as fraud and had stopped the charge from going through. I told her it was legit and I was attempting to stop my chickens from becoming raccoon food. We then blocked off the other yard entrance that night, forcing the chickens to use the new opening. The door will just screw onto the front of the plywood. It’s solar so it should work all of the time as we are installing it on the West side of the run. I want it to be the last door to close due to the sun going down. This will make the run area a safe haven for the slow pokes that miss the main coop automatic door. Now I just need to work on getting a wire top onto the chicken yard.

Freezers moved, winterizing begins

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This has been a very productive last couple of days. Mr Rainman and the Apprentice came out on Sunday. The Apprentice is coming down with something and slugged through the weekend but it wasn’t easy. She managed to get the dirt shoveled mostly into one end of the new bridge. We think that there was a blacksmith shop right outside the old house next to the creek. There would have been water in the creek then and we are finding layers of coal scraps and a whole lot of iron scraps and horseshoes. They were storing coal in the old woodshed on the right hand side. The space is about 11×4 feet and has a side door on one end so you could really toss in the coal. There is a high hole cut into the wall at the far end to allow you to unload coal into the storage area.

We emptied the big freezer into coolers, unplugged it and hooked up a heater to blow into it while we went out and worked on the coal side of the wood shed. I had “borrowed” the wife’s really good (expensive) hair dryer in case I needed to get the ice out of the freezer, but the heater was the bomb and had it all melted out in a few hours. We kept wringing out towels, finally used a plastic tray to catch the melting ice.

I sprayed foam insulation into the cracks of the walls in the woodshed. Unfortunately, the can top was leaking and spraying foam all over my hands. I refused to quit using it and ended coating both hands with foam. I have only ever done this one other time and it was years ago. Thirty minutes later I realized why I had only ever done it once, its miserable. The only way to get the stuff off your hands once its dry is to peel the skin off your hands. This does not work out well until day 2-3.

We unwrapped the old billboard vinyl sign I purchased and attempted to get it on the walls and floor of the space. We got it about 80% installed before we needed to go get the freezer moved and filled again. The vinyl is 6 mil and was not very expensive, a 14×44’ sign was only $125. The idea is to line the entire inside of the room with vinyl and with the new metal screen over the window opening I think we can get to a fairly bug free storage area for all of the bee hive extras. We are going to use the metal hanging shelve holders as a way to put our frames up on the wall and hanging free. I think Mr Rainman and I can finish the room in one more day and then we can fill it up with all of the supplies.

We were amazed at how easy it was to move the large freezer! It’s the only one we actually emptied prior to moving. We got to the freezer room entrance and could not get the handle portion of the front door through the opening. Nope, we could not just take off the door handle. We had to move it back out and take the entire door off the freezer and then put it back on once the freezer was through the doorway. Hamburger is in the small chest freezer, fruit and vegetables have a couple of shelves in the small upright along with lamb and the tall freezer has beef and a little pork. We have another pig coming soon. One can never have too much bacon as evidenced that there is no bacon left in the freezer.

Mr Rainman and I got the stock trailer hooked up to the pickup and backed right up to the corral. In the morning we needed to sort sheep and load them up so I could drop them off. Afterwards, I spent about an hour shoveling dirt into the low spot by the gate in front of the bridge. It won’t get filled in by itself.

Monday started at 0600 by attempting to chase the sheep into the barn. They were down in the barn lot area and went to the back of the barn easily, but we could not get them to go into the barn. Mr Rainman and I were not effective. I went and got the puppy, Chance , put her on a lead rope and she had them in the barn in about three minutes. She is doing great! Stays when I want, lays down on command. She broke once but went back down within three feet of the original spot. I really think that by next spring we will have the “off” command (down) drilled in well enough that we can stop her even when she cannot stop herself. She is almost there. Mouse pouted as he had to stay in the yard. Mr Rainman took one of the best pictures of a sunrise we have seen on the farm.

It was still dark outside so we did a light check in the barn, our first one when it was actually dark! The lights are amazing and are going to make things very easy this winter. We tried to just push all the sheep to one end of the barn then I wade in and snag all of the boys. I did this four times and we could not find the fifth boy. The stupid rams kept trying to mount the pregnant ewes so we decided to pull them off, it was time anyways. We have two rams and 40 pregnant ewes and four whethers, not five. The coyotes ate our lamb, we had the other four sold. I dropped off the lambs without any difficulties and Mr Rainman spent the day winterizing the watering system and trimmed the lavender.