Oh! How the days are filled with wonder! Farming, planting, weeding, tending, caring, and building.... Celebrating and rejoicing. It's been a full month around these acres.
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| The barn is finished! (sans the floor) |
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Catching swarms! I should have split those two strong hives this spring! At least I caught the swarms. This one took three attempts. They kept flying back to this branch about 12 feet in the air. Gary would lift me up on the big loader and I would either snip the branch or drop them in a bucket. It's a little tricky with such a big swarm and being lifted up in the air.
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Needed more woodenware for the new swarms. This is the first time I've ever painted my hives the traditional white. Looks nice.
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Our baby chicks and turkeys arrived. Alas, two weeks into their life a varmint attacked the coop and we lost about half.
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The first year I actually got my tri-colored chrysanthemums in their pots by mid May!
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Poppies! The bees seem to love them.
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Preparing the new blueberry field. Peat moss and our secret recipe acidifier applied and tilled in. Followed by making raised beds with 20+ year durable, water permeable fabric. I'm going to get on top of these weeds yet!
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The biggest events have centered around the graduations of Ben. He graduated first from our area's Community College with his Associates in Science and then from high school (yes, in that order!). We are SO proud of him! I cried so many times at his high school graduation. The closure of one chapter and the hopes of a new one, yet unread, unlived, awaiting. (For both of us!)
Ben (and his classmate majoring in aerospace engineering) will be attending University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana in the Fall majoring in Biology. He is yet unsure of whether he wants to pursue medicine with an emphasis on research or genetics or something else. It will be an adventure seeing how his decisions and life's passions come together.
Today's Journey Joys: Growth - plants, chickens, farming and most importantly our son Ben. My heart cannot contain the love I have for this young man. Tears of joy oozing out everywhere.
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