A Visit from the Home School Group

Anna's home school group visited yesterday for a "beekeeping day".  We extracted a tray of honey, taught the kids a little about hive components and bee behavior, and making lip balm from beeswax.  The kids were divided into 3 groups and they rotated sessions every 15 minutes or so.  At the end, we enjoyed the fruits of our labor with each child going home with a honey bear filled with honey and a lip balm.  Also feasted on biscuits and fresh honey.  Our friends, Bob & Juanita Schultz were visiting from Sacramento so it made the day even more special.

Summer's End

The heat, the drought, the extremes in weather and a busy summer about to end.  Harry cleared off most of the remaining garden today and, though it is still hot and muggy, it reminds us that Fall is just around the corner.  We will be harvesting our honey in a couple more weeks so that's a sure sign that things are wrapping up for the season.

Some of the recent events that I haven't made note of:

Nolan's Baptism - June

A Trip to Science Central with Sydney, Nolan, and Griffin - August

Kensi's Baptism - August

Bees on the Outside of the Hive - Too Hot for Us and the Bees

The Joys of Country Life

It has been a busy couple of weeks.  We went to Collin's blessing in Elwood on June 3 and brought Cole and Kensi home with us for a few days.  Garden work and especially watering have been at the top of the activity list for a couple of weeks.  The drought has made it impossible to get enough water on the gardens to be of much help.  We had a short shower this morning while we were at church but you wouldn't know it now by the looks of the dirt.

Of special interest has been a nest of barn swallows that built above our porch door.  We didn't have the heart to knock down the nest and it has been so interesting to watch them this year.  We think there are 5 babies in the nest and they have developed quickly.  The mother flies constantly about, gathering insects from the air and feeding the hungry birds.  I'd think she'd fall into exhaustion as hard as she works.  The father keeps watch from a plant hanger in my flower bed and I suppose he helps with the feeding but I can't differentiate the mother from the father.  There doesn't seem to be the contrast between the male and female of most bird species in the swallows.

While Cole & Kensi were here, they seemed to enjoy cutting/pulling thistles from various parts of the yard.  That may have been the highlight of the visit for them.  George and Anna's kids were sick most of the week, so they weren't able to do much playing with cousins, but the last day they finally did get together for a few hours.

Hugh left yesterday after a 10-month MBA program at IPFW.  He was excited to rejoin his family.  The family will move to Kalamazoo shortly where he will study Econometrics.

Yesterday Amy invited us for a Father's Day early supper.  That was a wonderful treat.  Chuck's parents and Pat's family came.  Great dinner - great time with family!

Collin's Blessing

Cole and Kensi at Work

 

Hugh Finishes His MBA and Heads Out

The Barn Swallows

Father Keeping Watch

 Mother Feeding the Babies

 Father in Flight from His Post

Just 5 days after the first feeding picture - birds almost outgrowing the nest

Amy and Chuck tending to Collin after dinner at their place

The Big News - New Baby - New Hive

Big news of the past week -  Collin Jameson Jones was born last Friday, April 13.  Proud parents - Pat & Amber have a beautiful little boy.

Also noteworthy -  Harry and I had a call from a beekeeper friend last night that there was a swarm to be had in Autumn Ridge but he was busy and couldn't go get it, so Harry & I suited up and went to collect the bees that were gathering around a light post.  It was a small swarm but we carefully pushed and prodded bees into my hive box and will check today to see if they stayed and hope we got the queen.  My hive is now up and running!  At least we think so.

A Hive of My Own

Freshly painted and located right in the center of the front hill - MY beehive! Painting help from Tyler on the primer, I did the first coat, and Harry did the 2nd coat today. He couldn't wait to set it out, so we did that tonight.

Getting Political

Harry requested a Mourdock sign and he sure got it - not one but a giant one and 2 smaller ones. Guess we have a good location.

Annual Egg Hunt

The Spring wouldn't be complete without the annual Easter egg hunt in the yard. This year it was a week early because Chicago grandkids had been here for the week. We started the festivities with lunch at Golden Corral. Just our luck, two buses pulled up as we were getting situated and let out 100 people, so the crowd was tough to navigate but nobody went hungry - that's for sure. The kids loved the new menu item - cotton candy. One of the photos shows one of the stacks of cotton candy cones polished off by our bunch.

Courtney, Hal & Tyler filled the eggs and hid them this year. Great job!