Honey Time Again

This year's harvest of the honey crop included 3 newcomers - George, Grandson Logan and Grandpa Lyon (Anna's dad). It had lost some of the thrill for last year's participants (some of us are still excited) and they opted to ride the golf cart during part of the harvest process.

It was not as productive as last year when we got almost 5 gallons of honey. We harvested close to 2 gallons this year. Somewhere in our reading or through our local beekeepers group, we learned that we should put what was left of the honey supers (boxes with honey trays) in the yard somewhere not back in the hives as we did last year. The bees have been swarming to the boxes for the past couple hours since we put the boxes out. Supposedly, this will prevent the robber bees from getting into the hives as they did last year. We sure hope it works. It was sad to see our hive's demise last year from the robbers. They say the bees will come to the boxes and clean them up so well that we can then put them back on the hives and ready them for winter. We will start feeding them sugar water to give them plenty to build up their own honey for winter and we didn't take all of the honey - left a box on each hive to give them enough to make it through winter.

The end of another good day and season at the farm.

The Tree

After a fun picnic with Pat's family and the Elwood Branch (I forgot my camera as usual), we had an early birthday celebration for George's #32 by cutting down a dead tree in his yard.

FHE - Pears

The kids joined us for FHE on Monday. We picked the pear crop from our 2 trees and followed the work project with 'Smores. The most fun... no those aren't hot dogs, they're cattails - the kids had a great time picking cattails and spreading the fuzz all over the place and burning some of it in the campfire.

Sunday! Sunday!

As with most Sundays, George & Anna & crew came out for dinner. Today we introduced the trumpet to Natalie, Sam & Seth while Harry and Levi went home teaching. I've picked up a few instruments at garage sales over the past couple years (a trumpet, saxophone, guitar, and clarinet - never give more than $20 for one). The kids are finally at a stage where they understand taking turns a bit better, so it's probably time to get them out and make use of them. Anna brought her flute to practice a song she will be doing for church in 2 weeks. The kids all got their turn to try to the flute and none really got a sound out, so I got out the trumpet and Sam got some decent sounds out of it right away. Natalie heard the sounds and came in to take her turn and she did a good job, too. Poor Seth doesn't have the technique of not putting the whole mouthpiece in his mouth yet so he had less luck getting any sound out. He did a good job humming into the horn, though.

We also had visitors to the back yard after the kids left. It's been awhile since we saw deer and much as we hate to think what they'll do to the garden if they become regulars, they were too pretty to shoo them away.

A Week With Grandkids

We were lucky enough to have Sydney, Nolan, and Allison for a visit last week. Syd & Allie are bosom buddies and Nolan hung out with Grandpa a lot. We filled the week with lots of fun activities but I'd have to say that the favorite past-time was riding the golf cart. I didn't get many photos of the week's events but got a few from Science Central.

Fourth of July on July 3

Big day on the farm with George & Anna's, Anna's parents (Tim & Mary Kay), the Fruths, Amy & Chuck's, Britney and us - a nice round 20. We had a great BBQ and then fireworks in the driveway. Only Seth was a non-participant, reminiscent of another year when Natalie was about that age and was afraid of all the noise. Grandma Lyon and Grandma Jones entertained him inside by reading books. The 4th landing on a Sunday was reason to celebrate on Saturday, the 3rd.