My Mental Therapy Clinic trip

I had an appointment today...a place I've been needing to go to for quite sometime now....

My morning started off as usual, cleaning the house and today friday chores....washing (deep cleaning) everything the clothes, floors,etc....

then I get to plug into the world.....blog.com! I don't ever do a whole lot with or to my personal blog 'cause I'm so engulfed in everyone elses blog. If you've ever visited mine you can tell:O)

So I'm surfing from one blog to another, joining here and there and it hits me I have this appointment.....oh the agony! I don't want to gooooooo! But the nagging and guilt that I feel....I've been supposed to do this for soooo long.....OKAY!!!! I give in! I get up and get dressed, not in my best attire either you can believe that! When I get there my first thought is.....
MAN! What a jungle in here! Weeds everywhere! and NO place to sit.......
Something was watching me and I could see it poking it's head out but when I looked straight at it it would jump back in.........
And I don't even want to mention the little buggers that were there! So I stopped my whining and pulled up a crate box and had a seat.....I started my therapy treatment....:O). I got to memory visit with so many people....:O) my Grandmother for one......I've missed her terribly and the garden is something her and I always shared. From the time I could walk my memories were always with her in the yard and garden....she used to tell me to pull my shoes off so she could put fertilizer in them so I would "grow". I'd go to pull them off and she would laugh and get me to water something. She taught me how to squirt water from the hose....my hands were so tiny that my fingers kept going into the hose instead of covering it, I would be soaked.....she tried all different ways to get the water to spray out for me....as I got older though I learned.

I also learned today something more about myself...something that I've known for a while, just something I didn't want to admit to......I'm an addict! I feel so bad about it....my husband has thought all this time that the honeybees have been consuming all of my time but I have to admit it.....it's BLOG addiction!!!!! I surf and surf from one blog to the next and the next......never quite getting enough.........until something makes me look at the little clock in the lower right hand corner of my computer exclaiming the TIME!!!!! Oh! My gosh! It's THAT LATE ALREADY?????

Then I think I might have time to tweak my blog site and make it more attractive....but NO.....I'm too burned out...my brain is fried......I can't think anymore.....all I CAN think about or WORRY about is Penny's roo over at backtobasicliving......or what farmgirlfoodie is cooking up next.....or how "little Bella" is doing now that she's came into this world(passionandparidise) and the list goes on and on....not to mention the ones I joined this morning BEFORE therapy:O)
Ahhhh...but alas! I've made it to the end of a session......I feel sooo much better now. I can breathe......the guilt is gone......
Along with ALL of my troubles......euuuu.....well I guess I have to book another session.....I have the other side of the sidewalk to do next:O)

So until next time......How does your garden grow????

TTFN!

Julie

Get Liberty

Get Liberty

"Heart Attack City"

Me and my husband were sitting on our patio discussing the events of the day and our "bee" trouble that I found today. (Read my BEE blog) When all of a sudden I heard an awful sound....one that makes my stomach turn into a knot....something had one of my chickens! The scream and squall is a horrible sound! "Heart Attack City" They were out "free ranging" and we had left a trap loaded BUT NOT baited for months now...due to raccoon raiding that took seven of my prize hens in 2 1/2 weeks. We haven't had any trouble in months so hadn't bothered to bait it....but forgot about it...for goodness sakes! the chickens have been out since then but today HAD to be the day! Anyway, the one you see in my lap up top is Grey, he was my incubator hatch, that hatched back the first day of April. He is a roo.

It broke his leg :o( My husband is such a sweet guy;o) He helped me....usually he will get me things and leave me to the gory things but he actually helped me....I was impressed!

We mended Grey's leg with splits, bandage tape, gauze and of course trusty ole' duct tape! But in this case my husband grabbed the "shiny"silver duct tape to match Grey ;o)

Everything seems to be working okay, but it was broken pretty bad. He'll have to wear his make shift cast for quite some time and he'll probably have a bad limp :o) I'm just glad it wasn't his neck....

Now this pic is my husbands idea solely! Trust me the bottle was empty! He said I should put it on my blog and say it was Grey's anesthesia:O)

Well...my day didn't end there...I went to collect the eggs in the chicken pen, they were still out roaming and.....I ran into "Heart Attack City"! I backed out to find my husband and he was under his car changing the oil. I told him what I found and he told me where a stick was! No offer to help....and I didn't want to ask when he was so busy....so being me, I got the broken hoe (the one he used to get the last snake out) And you know what???that hook works wonderful! I felt like a snake handler!:O)

That was one BIG snake! It was heavy too!

Probably 'cause it was full on eggs. That's an egg in it's throat. And the snake is a garter snake or rat snake. I got it out of the pen only for it to go back in around the back way..after trying to steer it away.... it ended up going back out again on it's own...whew! time to renew the mothball treatment. If you want to keep snakes from around certain areas, you can use mothballs. Just please be careful of them because it contains a chemical that is NOT good. So don't use them around areas that you may plant one day. I throw them under the house and porch but ALWAYS leave a way out for the snakes, you don't want to encircle or trap them in. (Some snakes burrow into the ground and you don't know they are there). I usually space them out a few feet. But around my chicken pen I put about three or four into a small jelly jar and punch holes in the top then lay them on it's side (that way the smell can still come out without the chickens getting into it or the rain). I space these out every couple of feet or so all the way around my pen.

Well....that was my day....how was yours???

I wonder what I'll dream about tonite????....Bees..chickens....or snakes??? Ahhhh nature and living with it....makes for a very interesting life!

I am also having a BIG pain in the neck with this blog setup! It will usually be okay until I publish it then it looks wacky! So pardon my progress, I'll figure it out or move to another more user friendly blog source.

TTFN!

Julie

It's a jungle around here

This is just ONE of my garden plots:o( The weeds have taken over. I have not been on my game this summer! Summers past a garden of mine would not have looked like this. My husband consoles me by saying summers past we didn't have bees:O)
Sooo last Saturday I got down to business and started to DEweed my little garden. Did I mention in the 10 things about myself that I get side tracked EXTREMELY easy?? Needless to say it's almost a week later and I'm still not finished.....I'll post "after" pics when I get it completed.
These little creatures are some of the reasons I got side tracked. Have you ever seen a beetle like this one before? Last year when I was deweeding (this same garden actually) my little chihuahua came running to me biting at her tummy and one of these things was attached to her skin pinching her with those things at the top of it's head. Talk about freaking out!!!! This one was on another mission though. It went on scurrying through the grass......it must have gotten lost because I kept seeing it from time to time trailing through and over the grass.
I found a little green lizard egg. See how tiny it is. I put it next to a dime for comparison. I also put it in an aquarium complete with it's surroundings. When it hatches I'll post pictures before I set it free. Did I mention I used to keep these things when I was little? My mom wouldn't let me bring them in the house so I set up an aquarium on the porch. One day I was holing a male and he blew up the little pink pouch under his neck....I ran my hand across it to see how it felt and it paper cut me just like a blade of grass. To this day I can't figure that one out. I've wanted to try it again to see if it was my "childhood" imagination but.....I think I can live without that knowledge for now.
I found this little Caterpillar nestled down in this clump of grass. Don't know what kind it is or what it will grow up to be. I was going to put it in the aquarium with the egg but when I came back to get it it had crawled away.....
And last but not least is this beautiful and unusual little spider. I've never seen one like this before. The angle that it was hanging and the sunlight made it hard to get a good shot at. Before I loaded these pics into my computer they looked really good on my camera. See if you can click on the pics to get a better view. My husband says he has me a new one on order......I can hardly wait...this one is covered in bee propolis and the lens won't even close anymore.

What's in your yard and garden????

TTFN!

Julie

Honest scrap award

Okay....I maybe the only blogger in the world to take this long to get an award back out into circulation...I truly apologize to Penny over at backtobasicliving.com that honored me with this award. You really should check out her blog if you haven't already....she's packed full of outstanding information, what she hasn't got posted, she'll help you find!

Here are the instructions that came with it:

• “The Honest Scrap” award is not one to hold all to your self but it must be shared!
• *First, the recipient has to tell 10 true things about themselves in their blog that no one else knows.
• *Second, the recipient has to pass along this prestigious award to 10 more bloggers.
• *Third, Those 10 bloggers all have to be notified they have been given with this award.
• **Those 10 bloggers that receive this award should link back to the blog that awarded them “The Honest Scrap" award.

Okay first on the list: I am going to try to get to ten things but not sure I'll make it ;-) So here goes.....

1= From as far back as I can remember I never liked wearing a shirt.....I remember crying something awful when I turned "the age" that it was inappropriate for a little girl to run around without a shirt. I know some of you can't even fathom this but back in my day there wasn't a lot of people around where we lived and it was extremely hot and we had no air conditioning. So it was perfectly okay for me to go without a shirt...my mom kept my hair short so if anyone did venture up to the house they would think I was a boy. I never understood why it was okay for boys to go without shirts but not me which brings me to the next truth...

2= I was raised around boys all my life and used to cry night and day because I was born a "girl". I could do everything they could do & sometimes better. I was what was called a "tom boy" to this day I still take pride in the fact that I can do most things for myself....granted now..I'm still a "girl" and I do know my limits:-) But I can work on my car and have helped my husband change out motors, transmissions,etc. He likes the fact that I can "fit" in places he can't...so see...I come in pretty handy;-)

3= I almost lost our first born son at birth...it was a long and enlightening experience that was always "two steps forward one step back". I still cry when I think back about it. But he is a vibrant 27 year old and just by looking at him you'd never know he'd been through an ordeal....he does however still carry the battle wounds and scars. He could take better care of himself but that's just mom talking here.

4= During the time of our son's battle I met a little boy at the "Ronald McDonald House" a remarkable foundation that helps families with a place to stay temporarily when their child is in intensive care at a hospital. (We were four hours from our home)..anyway I met a little guy that was amazing! ...he was an only son with two sisters one older and one a new born. He was three, he needed someone to "play" with and I needed someone to take my mind off of not being able to be at my newborns side or to be able to hold him,so we made a friendship. He had an imagination that was out of this world and he kept me busy. It's amazing how smart little ones are when they grow up in a hospital. My friend had leukemia and as I type this I can't fight back the tears... when we first met I couldn't remember his name and he got so frustrated with me....I told him if I ever got it I would never forget it...his mother and I became real good friends and on their way to the hospital a couple of times a year they would stop in and stay with us...when I found out I was pregnant with my second son I called his mom and asked if I could name him after her son....when my son was four months old "our" little guy passed....he was six years old.

5= I have three wonderful sons and I'm still surrounded with the male gender;-) I was delighted when my third son was born. I still love wildlife and all of the strange creepy crawly things that "ordinary" girls scream at.

6= I've been to Korea.

8=I am a thinker, wonderer and a worrier all rolled into one at the same time. I constantly think,wonder and worry about who or what crosses my mind. And the thing about it is I go way back into my childhood...which is a loong time ago! I think,wonder and worry about people that don't even know I exist!

9= I love adventure! I'm always up for doing something different even though I'm perfectly content being a home body. My husband and sons surprised me with a skydiving trip a few years ago(just me) (made me wonder);o) but it was something I'd always wanted to do. At first I was unsure about it even though I love roller coaster rides I didn't think I would be able to handle screaming for that long;o) But to my amazement it was the most peaceful thing I think I've ever experienced.I didn't scream at all! If I knew someone that had a plane I would do it all the time! There was not the stomach turning or gut screaming effect that roller coasters have..it was so serene...if there is such a thing as reincarnation I want to come back as a bird that soars......my luck I'll be a vulture...the cleanup crew;o)

1=I've always wanted to fly in one of the planes that do stunts in the airshows.

Okay so there you have it.

Thanks go out again to Penny over at backtobasicliving.com give her a visit, she also has a really great "homemade line" on her site called Penny Lane.

TTFN!

Julie

To be continued.....

Due to the acknowledgement I want to give to the honeybees, from now on when I post about them it will "bee" in my new blog:

http://bizzybuzzinhoneybeezness.blogspot.com

In the meantime sit back....relax.....and enjoy something cool to drink;-)

And to all beekeepers out there please remember your bees need fresh water daily as well;-)

It's wise to put it near their hive so they won't be drinking out of you or your neighbor's swimming pool......people tend to freak out when they see bees especially when they are buzzing around their swimming pool;-)

More in my new BEE blog........http://bizzybuzzinhoneybeezness.blogspot.com

to be continued......

TTFN!

BEE COOL!

Julie

Honeybee wall removal

As I said before we have learned allot about bees from the internet BUT we have learned even more by diving in head first and by doing it (knowing of course some of what we might be up against). My husband found a pdf file on the "net" that gave instructions on how to make a bee vac. He and a friend made one and it worked like a charm! The suction is very low and in the back we put a soft foam so the bees wouldn't fly and hit the back of the box. If you want the instructions let me know & I'll get them to you or post them to give credit to the guy that had them on the web. We've made another one since then with some changes of our own.
One of the things that kept going wrong was the hose kept clogging up because of the honey so we had to have two hoses. When working with bees it's best to always be prepared. When I say it clogged because of the honey my husband had to cut the comb because the bees had built several layers of comb one behind the other and in order to vac the bees we had to cut the comb in sections as we vacuumed them, therefore when the honey dripped down it got on the bees that were below and when they got vacced in it clogged the hose.
As you can see the bee vac can be used by both female and male ;-)

We got the bees out safely along with the honey and comb and all with only two stings and that was on my back side when I went to take off my suit two little girls had crawled on my back and

I didn't know it until I rolled them.

This was our first ever wall extraction and it was the most pleasant experience. But, boy was it a sticky, sticky mess!

We got the hive home and into their new home. I took the comb we retrieved out of the wall, cut it to fit the inside of empty open frames and tied it with string (not a good thing) the best thing to secure it in with is small wire, but I didn't have any and was in a hurry to "fix" it up before night fall. But even though the string wasn't a good thing it did hold up pretty good...long enough for them to propolise the sides, top and bottom to hold it in. Then they chewed the string off and carried it out of their entrance, all in a matter of a week or so. Honeybees are amazing creatures! I don't think we really grasp the concept when we say we're "busy as a bee". This hive we call our # 2 hive because it was our second hive. It has gone through so much though since we rescued them in March of this year (2009). The day after we brought them home we got a call to please come get a swarm of honeybees. Boy, news travels fast! My husband got these on his lunch break and called me to come get them to bring them home. This happened for the next three days. So within a week we had 5 hives, three of them were swarm hives. Anyway, getting back to hive #2 I believe they were robbed within a day or two of setting them up because I saw a large amount of dead bees on the ground around their entrance and the number of bees had dropped drastically. That was their first battle. The next was they lost their queen, then a worker decided she would take over the role and every time I would put eggs in for them to hatch their own queen she would chew the sides of the queen cell and kill the queen. I'll post all of this next time because I have pictures. This blog wouldn't let me post but four pics at a time. So to be continued........

TTFN!

Bee Busy as a BEE ;-)

Julie