Location, Location, Location …

… it is all about location. Access to the southern sky for sunlight in the winter, access to the east so the morning sun will encourage an early start to the day, a proper windbreak to prevent a deep freeze in the winter, access to a water source, and somewhere relatively quiet. Who is this dreamy real estate for? Why her majesties and about 100,000 of their subjects of course! Well, about 20,000 subjects upon arrival. For those of you still in the dark, I am talking about Apis mellifera or also known as our friend, the honey bee. I spent the last week clearing, in part, the area that will host the apiary. We have yet to come up with a clever name for the area and will entertain any and all suggestions. Here is a preview of the girl’s new home:

In the foreground is the start of our orchard, two apple and two pear trees, with at least six more to come. The apiary will go further out next to the fence line.

As you can see, we still have quite a few (sarcastic understatement) Russian Thistles to remove. Once that is complete, we will install the hive stand, shown below. We are still in the process of designing the windbreak and flowerbeds.

That’s right, I opted for Old School pencil and paper!

Ketchup … Delicious Condiment or The Act of Making Current …

… To be perfectly honest, I just used the word Ketchup because I am tired and could not come up with a good heading for the blog (because apparently “Ketchup” is the epitome of literary mastery). Anyways, I thought I would post a little something each blog entry to catch everyone up on what we have been doing over the past year. In this episode, we will examine the process of turning a dilapidated dog pen into a new wood shed. However, for the sake of brevity (and because … well … I am lazy) I will just cut to the chase and show you the finished product. We basically just constructed an A-frame roof on top of the chain-link fencing and covered it with a tarp to protect the firewood (which has yet to make an appearance in spite of the repeated sacrifices that have been made to the local firewood deity).

I struggled with tearing it down and building something from scratch, but decided recycling something old was better.

Washed Clean by the Flood of Thirteen …

… Last September, for those of you that missed it, Colorado experienced some serious flooding that put most of the property under water.

About two and a half feet of water.

Including our garden that we had built the previous spring. Not only were all the crops destroyed, but all the work we did with mulching the paths between the beds, etc. was wiped out. So I thought I would post a “before” picture of the garden prior to fixing it back up.

Our poor garden.

Over the next few weeks we will be rebuilding the garden, adding four new raised beds, amending the four existing raised beds, and making space for corn, pumpkins and melons. Once we start sowing some of our seeds indoors over the coming weeks, I post a complete list of what we are planting this year.

The Bird is SO Fowl …

I know, I know … really bad … sorry. It is late and have been working on a paper about honey bees for school over the last week and my brain just refuses to sling adroit, sprightly prose as is typical of my, if I may, beautiful mind. And when I say beautiful, I mean in a high-strung, OCD, brilliant if not bitchy manner … but I digress. Yesterday I noticed quite a few of the roofing panels on the existing, ramshackle birdhouse, were missing. Being the great humanitarian that I am and to disabuse any ill-gotten notions that I am in fact an avian slumlord that flips birdhouses for profit, I decided to give my fine-feathered friends a new roof.

Not terrible for a 15 minute fix.

We actually still intend to install some of our own birdhouses to the property, since they do indeed help with the grasshopper plague, which is just a few, short months away.

I will endeavor to author something a bit more arresting and tantalizing for the next blog entry. And in case you are wondering, no, that doesn’t put place any real pressure on me. If nothing presents itself to write about, I will just make stuff up, like I normally do. 🙂