Ok well our bees are reparing cells and making honey...emmmm, yummy honey. I can not tell you what a joy bees are to raise. There is at least 50, 000 bees living in that colony right now. They are so cool, the way the ladys all work together. The queen bee is the only one that lays the eggs. She only leaves the hive once to bred with a drone (a male bee), the drone is the only boy bee. All the bees in the hive are female. Each bee in the hive has a job as well, some bees do nothing but feed the queen or the baby bees, othere guard the hive and some gather honey and pollin which is important to the heath of the whole hive. Bees are also neat because inside the hive they create their own ac and heat so that the hive stays a constant temp all year round. Honey is the nectar from flowers that has been ingestied and then thrown back up into a pre-pared cell that is made just for that purpose. The bees than use their wings to dry the nectar a bit and when it is just right they place a cap of wax on it and and it becomes honey. Next time you have a spoonful of honey just know a whole lot of hard working bees made that.
I have gotten my classes for next term, which is in Aug for me, now I have to go back and fix it and tweek it jsut a little, I had way to many hard classes and I need balance and a history class to calm my nerves,I know I am a nerd and I am ok with it...lol I found a regular job outside of the house, which will bring our taxes down and maybe help us to be more self releiant in the future. Paying 60% of what the farm males in taxes is just crazy, so I am forced to find employment and it looks like subway is willing to take a chance on me as part time help. I am ok with working over the summer if it helps us to beable to have a better quality of life over all.
I am going to try an work in the garden tomorrow morning and get some of the tomatoes into the ground and the JA that are sitting on the table. Elijah is growing some cucumbers that will be ready to go into the gorund soon and I know he is really looking foward to doing that. I plan to plant some corn, ( swear I never learn...lol), some carrots, some more peas and get the bean seeds in as well. I have to gather asperagus in the morning before and water it all down again. Our strawberries look wonderful and I know the new bees are really liking them.
The cow has still not had her baby, I hate waiting... On a brighter note the person with the beefalo called, though I called him back to late tonight, I will call him in the morning. I am looking foward to having those guys here, getting them fat and into the freezer they will go. The gent next door to use wants to buy a beef cow fro the freezer now, so I talked to a few people I know that raise cows, with out chemicals and such and found one nice lady with an two year old Angus bull, who weighs around 700 pounds and she wants a dollar a pound live weight which is very reasonable. So I think we will do that, I am calling him in the morning to let him now and see what he says. I am sure it is a go though, because if he says no, I know some one who will say yes. Having meat on the table is getting harder here in the States as gas prices rise and companys like Monsanto start to own the seed market. Meat has gone up over 30 percent in the last five months and continues to climb. Today on one of the groups I belong to I say a women buying bottle calfs at over 250 bucks each, yikes, they are half dairy and have Angus. Full dairy bulls were $100.00. I called her and explained how much meat was on a dairy calf or a half dairy calf and it did not merit the amount of milk and feed one would have to put into it to get back any amount of useable meat. On our calfs we got about 100 pounds of meat after putting in 50 dollars in milk into each one and the cost of 50 dollars, than about $210 each in hay,plus the kill fee of around 70 I think so that means it cost us with hay around or at $380on the low end to raise and have one animal butched. What that means it it cost us around $380. for about 100 pounds of meat or $3.80 a pound that sounds cheap, but they take up a lot of space and time to get them there. the first two months of there life they must be bottle fed at least twice a day, a half gallon of milk at a time. Than you muct keep them healthy, when Israel was drinking his mothers milk it was too rich for him and he scoured, it cost over $20.00 to get him well that I had not figured into the cost factor. There are a lot of little things one does not think about, such as the drive tot he butcher,there is 20 buks of more round trip it all adds up. It is great quality meat, don't get me wrong, but it is not enough meat to make it worth while for some one with five kids to feed.
Now to the hubbies post....
I have gotten my classes for next term, which is in Aug for me, now I have to go back and fix it and tweek it jsut a little, I had way to many hard classes and I need balance and a history class to calm my nerves,I know I am a nerd and I am ok with it...lol I found a regular job outside of the house, which will bring our taxes down and maybe help us to be more self releiant in the future. Paying 60% of what the farm males in taxes is just crazy, so I am forced to find employment and it looks like subway is willing to take a chance on me as part time help. I am ok with working over the summer if it helps us to beable to have a better quality of life over all.
I am going to try an work in the garden tomorrow morning and get some of the tomatoes into the ground and the JA that are sitting on the table. Elijah is growing some cucumbers that will be ready to go into the gorund soon and I know he is really looking foward to doing that. I plan to plant some corn, ( swear I never learn...lol), some carrots, some more peas and get the bean seeds in as well. I have to gather asperagus in the morning before and water it all down again. Our strawberries look wonderful and I know the new bees are really liking them.
The cow has still not had her baby, I hate waiting... On a brighter note the person with the beefalo called, though I called him back to late tonight, I will call him in the morning. I am looking foward to having those guys here, getting them fat and into the freezer they will go. The gent next door to use wants to buy a beef cow fro the freezer now, so I talked to a few people I know that raise cows, with out chemicals and such and found one nice lady with an two year old Angus bull, who weighs around 700 pounds and she wants a dollar a pound live weight which is very reasonable. So I think we will do that, I am calling him in the morning to let him now and see what he says. I am sure it is a go though, because if he says no, I know some one who will say yes. Having meat on the table is getting harder here in the States as gas prices rise and companys like Monsanto start to own the seed market. Meat has gone up over 30 percent in the last five months and continues to climb. Today on one of the groups I belong to I say a women buying bottle calfs at over 250 bucks each, yikes, they are half dairy and have Angus. Full dairy bulls were $100.00. I called her and explained how much meat was on a dairy calf or a half dairy calf and it did not merit the amount of milk and feed one would have to put into it to get back any amount of useable meat. On our calfs we got about 100 pounds of meat after putting in 50 dollars in milk into each one and the cost of 50 dollars, than about $210 each in hay,plus the kill fee of around 70 I think so that means it cost us with hay around or at $380on the low end to raise and have one animal butched. What that means it it cost us around $380. for about 100 pounds of meat or $3.80 a pound that sounds cheap, but they take up a lot of space and time to get them there. the first two months of there life they must be bottle fed at least twice a day, a half gallon of milk at a time. Than you muct keep them healthy, when Israel was drinking his mothers milk it was too rich for him and he scoured, it cost over $20.00 to get him well that I had not figured into the cost factor. There are a lot of little things one does not think about, such as the drive tot he butcher,there is 20 buks of more round trip it all adds up. It is great quality meat, don't get me wrong, but it is not enough meat to make it worth while for some one with five kids to feed.
Now to the hubbies post....
News From The Doghouse and heat in the morning and a/c in the afternoon...
Long day today,started with my morning tickler as usual, and finally got enough coffee to go walk the doggie, and she just wanted to go to the top of the hill...got back and started the porch chores with paapers hatching in the incubator...did the barn and got back to my 4 cans at a time system, cuts down on mileage and traffic in theory, usually the cans start disappearing when I get efficency going, oh and I gave everyone the diadanaceous earth...misspelled it for sure, I am tired and beat again....gave everyone fresh water too...rolled hay to Moo, she needed it and was holding out hopefully to get a new hay ring, oh well next time...was only suppose to be 72F here but it was in the 80s in the shade on the north porch, so turned the air on, had a fire going last night...collected 5 americana eggs, guess the egg pellets agree with them lol...got the other apple tree planted late this afternoon, after the Bears had their nappytime, although Elisha laid around awhile, he's not feeling so great either, like me....worked on the drainage pipe system from the house and got the pvc pipe glued and trenched a bit, then got the exposed pipe close to the driveway road covered with road-pack dirt and gravel, it's a start again...was eyeing the fence project and with the excess wire from the trees' protective cage set-up, I will have plenty of fastner wire for the posts and fencing...really feel like I am making progress, sometimes it does not seem like it, sometimes it does seem it did not make a dent in it, but at least today I feel it.
Elijah says: hmmmm hmmmmmm <---(daddy's being silly with him!)
I went to 4H outdoor orama and won 3 ribbons in events and got 2 bracelets and my own pencil sharpener, we got a beehive, I helped dad plant a tree, we watched a new episode of Fetch with Ruff Ruffman, I have been playing with the new lamb in the house it is cute...that's all I want to say..."Pumpkinbear!" I watched a new episode of Ruff Ruffman today, and I was playing with my Legos and Pokemon night night
Be Blessed dear ones and know that you are greatly loved.
Shekhinah, Michael and all the kids and critters on Mahanaim Farm
Oh I love you Girl, you are sweet to talk to, sweet to be around and sweet heart period.
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