Petrified Trees

On the way home from Grandma’s, we stopped to see the petrified trees. The trails are along the hills, with the revealed trees held captive for viewing. Each tree was labeled as to its breed, and they varied from small piles, like this ginkgo, to unite impressive sizes.

This collection is a couple miles off the highway. The view was lovely, and the hike was a pleasant way to break up a long drive.

Desert brush in bloom gave interesting hues and fragrance to the dried grass of the landscape. It’s been raining, which kept the pollen down. All in all, a lovely stop.

Kiddy Pool

When it’s a scorcher out there, it’s nice to dip in the local wading pool.

What is in the Coop!?

The chickens are laying in the forest. We're out of eggs. Do you know how hard it is to bake anything with no eggs? Okay, those with egg allergies do, though we don't have that issue. I went from having a dozen and an half eggs per day to just one, two, or three on a good day. The egg count started dwindling about a month ago, and I expected it was the hens running off into the woods broody. Three, four weeks, no chicks. What's up? 

T.J. came in during his evening chores and announced there may be a raccoon in the coop. Raccoons eat the heads off chickens! And there had been one headless chicken recently. Ben went out to protect the chickens and came back in to tell me about his adventure. "Guess what was in the coop?" Since his arrival was preceded by a particular musky scent,  I easily surmised. Thankfully, the skunk hadn't sprayed the men, and a wash took off the lingering scent. However, the chickens perfumed the yard in a whole new way.

Skunks usually just eat eggs. The chickens don't like their routine interrupted, and lay elsewhere until they find the trespasser is a pacifist. However, if there are no eggs, then the skunk will happily munch a chicken head instead. The lost chicken last month was probably a meal for this malodorous intruder.

Now, we have a trap. In the evening, T.J. sets it up just inside the coop to catch anything entering through the chicken door. Our first victim?

Restoring a Roof

First heatwave of the summer coincides with a four day weekend. I'm carefully watching that all are drinking plants of water. Ben has taken down the garage roof. He has four consecutive days to focus on this task, and there is no rain in sight! Instead of a straight forward replacement, he's opted to repair. The tar paper needed replacement, so that cost can't be reduced. The metal roof, though, can be cleaned, puttied, and returned to the roof, then painted. This should give us another ten to fifteen years before replacing it. All told, the cost of replacing it, including adding plywood or replacing other wood as needed, would run at least seven grand. Repairing is maybe a quarter the cost.

Double the Hives

With the center hive (most likely) having cast a swarm, we split the remaining hives (the three on the left are the new hives).

The first hive (on the right in the photo) had several queen cells, and loads of drones! I think the queen must have been rolled or squished at some point with how much drone comb is in this hive. I still have a hard time spotting queens, so I'll have to go over every inch on Friday or Saturday when I check the splits for fresh queen cells.

The middle hive is light on bees, but heavy on bridge comb. I have an adapter between the two layers and the bees have filled the gap with comb. They are starting to work the lower hive body (8-frame medium), but in the future, I'll probably just use a medium nuc until they're ready to expand into a larger box, then switch altogether.

This is my first time splitting hives. I pulled four frames for each nuc (said /nuke/, short for nucleus hive), aiming to have a frame of nectar and/or honey and one or two of emerging brood to care for the new queen and make lots of wax for her to lay in once she's bred. I'm using mostly mediums, so I added a second five-frame hive body right away, and chose to feed them. Even with a bit of grass in the doorways to encourage the older bees to stay, most of them will probably return to their old hives when they go to work the fields.

Swarm!

Way up there, maybe 50 or so feet from the ground, they landed. We had watched as they rose in a cyclone of wings ascending from the hive, then flew. I ran outside, searching, as I rounded the bee yard, I cupped my hands behind my ear to trace the sound better. And there they be! We tried what we had available, but the ladder was too short, no pole could reach, the tree frail - each smaller branch snapping easily in my grasp. How would it hold me up to climb another thirty feet? I gave up, defeated. 

We went in to play a game. I wandered out between turns, pondering. At one point, I thought the garden had too many bees flying over it, but I wasn't at liberty to check at the time. I finally ventured to get another tool from the shop and saw it.

A cluster of bees working their way into the hive. Upon inspection, there were dead bees on the ground. The swarm had decided to take over the garden hive. I hazard the guess that this hive may also have swarmed and the weakened condition left them an easy mark for the larger group of bees. They all filed in by nightfall.

Lawn Workers

I've seen lawn crews working to sculpt a perfect lawn everywhere I've lived. My boys aren't the fastest, nor do they strive for that perfectly even turf. But, I appreciate the efforts, and they get paid in food. They do even better in the forested areas!