Ouch!

In other news today, I think I broke my toe yesterday. Dan and I have decided to make more of an effort to start hiking in preparation for a trip we want to take this summer/fall. So we have been going in the evenings to do short "hikes". Well yesterday I stepped up on a log, and then down off a log. Under a green bush there was a 1" dia tree stump that someone had cut to about 4" off the ground at a sharp angle. It went through my shoe and grabbed my baby toe while I was landing the decent from the log. All in all it HURT.

And still hurts. Hopefully gets better soon because I really want to do this trip this summer. Our goal is to hike across Isle Royal National Park. Isle Royal is a island in Lake Superior and the length of the Island is about 45 miles. I have my fingers crossed! (But not my toes at the moment )

Oh Honey!

Dan and I checked on the bees today! It was the first time that I got fully suited up since we got the bees on April 1st. I was much more relaxed this time, which is good news! The bees seemed to react much better to the smoking this time, but I think that was due to the fact that they had honey to eat now. (When you smoke bees their reaction is to eat as much as possible because they think there is a forest fire and they may need to move). The good news is , they had honey to eat now! And so did Dan and I! We got a small honey treat because they had built some honey comb in some weird places of the hive, so when we opened it up there was nothing for it but to scrape it off and save it for a sweet taste later! It was pretty awesome! The honey isn't quite fully fermented/ to the right humidity but it was still very sweet and delicious. It was just thinner than you would expect and had a little less color.

Our first taste of our backyard honey!

All and all it looks like the bees are doing great! We have another couple of boxes that we will be adding soon! Can't wait for harvest time. :)

2 year Anniversary!

Today is two years from the day Dan and I closed on the house. It really has been an adventure that I cannot say I have loved every minute of, but I can say I have learned every minute of. It is great to have pictures like this to be able to look back and see just how much I have done over time. I can wait to see in five years how much has changed. It really is exciting. Thank you to everyone who has helped me get this far.

May 2010

May 2012

Click image to see a larger composite of the two pictures

First White Coat!

Here is a picture of the first white coat of pain on the tub! I am using a Sherwin Williams oil based enamel primer. It smells REALLY bad. Looks nice though. 2 coats of this, then two coats regular high quality primer, then three top coats. Moving right along!

First Tub Coat!

Finally got the first coat of Penetrol on the tub! After about two hours of scrubbing with a wire brush, scraping and blowing with an air compressor, I decided I got most of the loose paint off and it was time to start resealing and finishing! The penetrol should seal the cast iron and rust deposits and prevent future rust. The first coat takes about 24 hours to cure and then I will do a second coat. It just looks clear, but when it would hit the cast iron it would turn almost black. Anyway the tub looks far worse than it did before. As my neighbor always says to me, "You have to make a mess to clean up a mess!" Cant wait till it starts getting primed!

April status

Things are definitely green around here! Spring is in full swing and the only thing in the yard that hasn't turned green yet is the mimosa tree. I remember talking to Dan about "taking that dead tree in the back out before it falls and ruins the fence" when we bought the house. Glad we were not in too much of a hurry! It is really stunning when it blooms. All my iris' that are going to bloom this year have buds! Unfortunately I moved quiet a few of them around to clean the soil of the grape vine that was strangling the iris (how in the world do you pluralize the word iris???) so I don't think they will bloom this year.

The upstairs bathroom is coming along! I haven't done much more work on the tub as I am debating my tactics. Do I want to strip the whole thing or just paint over it and try to obtain a smooth appearance with a lot of love and time? Either way its going to take a while and I don't want to try one way and then go back and want to do it the other. Anyway the second wall is completely gone now and my dad is in the process of repairing the hole in the floor from the old tub. Looking good! I still need to pick out tile. Remind me to never fully design my own house. I would die before I picked the siding color.

And i will leave you with a cute picture from today... This is Nora :)

And this is a picture of the beehive enclosure that I built to keep stupid people away from the hive. And Betty and Rye.

Busy as Bees!

It has been a busy Spring! I have so much to accomplish this Spring that I have hardly spent any time indoors it seems like! The tulips that I caged in have already bloomed and faded away. (The two I caged ended up being a red plant and an orange plant). I am very excited I was finally able to see them bloom this year though. I have also been moving lillys around like they are dishes straight out of the dishwasher. They all came from my side yard and are now all over the place. I even gave away a 5gal bucked of bulbs at work. Needless to say, I think the side yard may be back under control, for the first time in maybe 10 years. (We have only had the house for 2!). I replanted some of the lilliys in a bare garden spot I had in the back. However the chickens thought this was an awesome place to scratch and kept demolishing the lillys. I ended up buying some green plastic "fencing" and blocking off a large area of the garden to keep the chickens from harassing the lillys and two blueberries and a raspberry plant I have back there.

We have also been busy preparing for our bees! I made a lattice enclosure that matches the colors of the house to set against the back fence to hide the hive and keep predators, stupid people, our cats, and the chickens from having direct contact with the hive. The three sided contraption turned out pretty well and is just awkward enough that it takes two people to move, or one strong determined person (aka Dan). I also set up a cement fountain that my mom gave to me. This is so that the bees have a constant source of water that is not our neighbors swimming pool. (And the fountain looks great!)

Gathering supplies together to put the bees in the hive. 

We went and picked our bees up on April fools day, as fools we are. We brought them home and kept them cool and fed until evening when we shook them up, knocked them around, and attempted to pour them into the hive. Nothing quiet like a swarm of thousands of really pissed off bees. It took a couple of days but it seems like they are in a regular routine now. Friday evening we opened up the hive to make sure the queen had made it out of her box. (She come in a separate box when you buy bees, otherwise they would kill her, once they get to know her they eat the candy trapping her in her small box and make her their queen. Bees are pretty cool, you should read more about them). The queen had made it our of her box and is now happily in the hive. Attached to the queen box was some comb already! They had started to incorporate the queen box into the hive!

First sight of honeycomb!

The honeycomb is so intricate. It is amazing that they can make something so perfect on such a large scale when they are so small. Perfect hexagons with prefect circles inside. On the left side of the picture you can see how the pattern just sort of fades out. (The right side is where it got ripped off the queen box)

It appears the hive is doing well! Fingers crossed we get some honey this year!