I can't believe it's already May! At the end of March I started many of the seeds for our garden. About three weeks ago we started working the garden soil and I put in my first section of potatoes. I also dug up Steph's strawberry patch. After that I realized I had to rent a tiller! We debated over whether we should get a regular riding lawn mower or a garden tractor. With the GT you can get add ons to till soil or blow snow around. We decided that the extra thousands of dollars it would cost would be better spent renting a tiller (only $33 for a couple of hours, which is all we need) and we already have a snow blower and a great neighbor with a giant tractor blower that comes and does our drive for us and a great price. The mower was delivered today. It's a John Deere with a 48" cutter. I'll probably mow tomorrow...wait... it's Mother's Day...well, I just might anyway, lol.
Tom built a Top Bar Bee Hive and about two and a half weeks ago we got our bees. They settled in quite nicely to the hive... now if we can only get some good weather for them to go gather pollen. It's been cool, very windy and damp to rainy. Top bar hives are not the typical way people have kept bees, but it's an older way and according to Toms' research, it could be better for the bees. He's not using smoke either. Apparently that stresses them out ~ and it makes sense ~ it makes them think the hive is in danger of burning so they don't care what else is going on they are preparing to flee. Instead, Tom has a sugar water mix in a spray bottle ~ set to a fine mist. He spritzes them and they can't fly, plus they love the sugar water and they kind of chill out. We've pretty much left them alone. I planted several bushes around the area. Most are to the west to help create a wind and snow block, but one is to the south just in front ~ mostly to keep anyone from approaching it from the front, which is a bad thing as it's right in their flight path. There is cardboard on the ground there to help create a path to it. I've planted a few American Plum trees just to the west of the hive too. We won't be mowing about a 15 - 20 ft section from the tree line on the north there toward the south and also on the east side of the property to create a prairie border between the us and the farmed land.
We've got most stuff unpacked now. We've actually decided on some changes now that we've been here a couple of months. The barn, we've decided will not be the studio for now. Instead we'll have it in the old garage. The back half of the bottom floor of the barn we are going to turn back into a barn for the goats and whatever other animals we decide to get. That's all for sure just now, we'll have to make those decisions later.
Also, instead of building a chicken coop, Tom fixed the collapsing door way to the big old shed in back and we're going to make the back third of that into the coop. Tom also made a Chicken Tractor! It's a portable chicken coop that you move around the yard. The chickens can stay in it or wander around during the day. Then they can be locked up all safe from predators at night. We bought eight hens from our friends that have an organic chicken farm. We'll be raising some from chicks soon, but just haven't had the time yet! So now we have plenty of fresh eggs! They are so delicious! We've had the chickens for a week now and today we let them out for the first time. (So they would get used to being here and come back to the roosting boxes) I was rather surprise how happy and satisfying it felt to have them wandering around freely. It makes me wonder if I really will be able to eat them later! I wanted to post another picture of the tractor, but I'll have to figure that out as it won't let me have more than one in a post.