Texture Tuesdays 'Love'

It's Texture Tuesday again over

at Kim's

and the theme this week

is

LOVE.

I used two layers of Kim's 

texture 

'the leaf'.

I LOVE the wild bees that live

in our corn crib

and the bee's 

LOVE

the last of the

garden's flowers.

I'm enjoying the beautiful

weather we are finally having after

a summer of triple digit 

temperatures and drought.

I think the bee's are feeling

the same way!

I hope you'll check out the other

textures over at Kim's!

Maura :)

Buzzzzzz

The corn crib

This morning when I walked over to the 

old garage to feed Shep

I heard buzzing.

When I came out of the garage I looked up...

there were bee's everywhere!

Between the corn crib and the garage

the air was filled with bees.

They never bothered me so I headed back 

to the house. Later this evening

my hubby came and got me and told me 

to bring my camera.

This is what I saw!

I couldn't believe my hubby was standing so close...

and he was wanting me to come and

take a closer look! 

The neat thing is...the bee's weren't the 

lease bit worried about him.

I didn't care...I wasn't going any 

closer.

Thank goodness for zoom lenses!!

If you look closely you can see how

the wood above the door is wet.

I think it's excess honey. 

The double wall in the corn crib

is filled with the bee's honeycombs. 

Last year hubby tore part of the wall

out and this is what we saw

Here

The honeycombs were about 4 or 5 layers

deep in places and went way up into the wall. 

Now they are even higher up and they've 

moved over.

The bee's are very docile,

neither of us have been stung...

yet. Some friends think we should 

get rid of them....we like them and  they're

great for pollinating our gardens and fruit trees so 

they STAY. 

Now if we could just 

talk the bee's out of a quart or two

of honey ;)

Have a wonderful week!

Maura :)

Buzzing In The Corn Crib

We have a corn crib. One day we hope to restore it.

Unfortunately our plans have been on hold ever since moving to the farm a year ago last June.

The reason?

BEES. 

We knew the bees were living in the wall of the building but weren't about to try and evict them.

We want the bees to stay around but we would really like our building back.

Last February on a very cold day DH sawed out part of the inner wall to see what was in there. He came across this...

( You can click on the pictures to enlarge them )

He saw no live bees.

He asked me to come out and take a picture of the comb and since it was winter I knew there would be no problem with the bees if there were any.

I'm afraid of bees.

As I got closer to the hive to take a picture I thought I could hear a buzzing sound. DH who has severe hearing loss could not hear anything. I put my head up against the wall that hadn't been taken apart and sure enough there was a distinct buzzing.

DH proceeded to cut more of the wall out

and this is what he found...

We decided to just leave them until he made a hive for them and then we'd move them but we just

had too many other things to do around

the farm so we just left them alone.

A couple of days ago DH came into the house and asked to use my camera. He didn't say what he was doing but he came back and said..."put this on your blog"!

I uploaded the pictures to my computer

and this is what I saw.

I couldn't believe it!

This was a warm day and those bees didn't even fly when Keith climbed up into the crib.

And look at the size of that honey comb!

This thing is about 3 layers thick

and if you look closely you can see honey seeping

out between the boards!

We have no idea of how big this hive is but you can see

the honey and bees in the cracks in about a 3 foot wide area and I have NO idea how far up into the wall it goes.

This summer I saw bees swarming around the top of the corn crib door and also around the peak of the building so I'm sure the hive is way bigger than we think.

So...I guess we won't be restoring the old place

for a while....but I think maybe we should start

reading up on becoming bee keepers!

What do you think?

Enjoy your weekend.

Maura :)

Cats Bees Digging Holes and Dust storms

Oliver

It's been busy around the farm this past long weekend.

Now that we've sold one of our farm buildings Mr Fixit has had some major work to do moving water lines etc as the bladder tank for water to the house was in that building. This morning he moved it to the house.

The building we just sold is 40'X180'

Thank heavens the people who bought it will be taking it down!

If you think this one his huge...we have another building that is 30'X240'!

Earlier this weekend he borrowed a 'trencher' and dug trenches all over the yard for 'risers' which are where we get water to water the animals or gardens etc. He put in 5 so we should be in good shape for keeping the lawns green next year. He also ran a new water line to the house.

Thank heavens for our tractor with the backhoe and friends with trenchers!

So now the yard is a mess with trenches that need filling and dirt all over the place plus for the last two days the wind has been howling and we got a good taste of what it was like during the dust storms of the dirty 30's.

What a mess!

I thought I had closed all the windows but unfortunately one was open about 3 inches...so now there is dust everywhere in the house!

Oh well I may as well wait until all the work is done and then do my fall cleaning which is a pain because I cleaned the house from one end to the other before we went on vacation last month!

What was left of our barn after the fire

Last Wednesday we had some fellows come and take away all the metal that was left on the farm by previous owners and what was left of the old barn after the fire. They were here 3 days and they should be back today to pick up the remains of the barn. I'll be glad to see the mess gone so we can move on from here. I really do miss that old barn.

Despite all the mess and work it's been a nice long weekend.

I managed to take some pictures around the farm and some fun ones of the cats. So I hope you'll enjoy the pictures seeing what we've been up to.

Lizzy can sleep anywhere

Poor girl wasn't happy I woke her up to take her picture

We have a bee hive in our corn crib. We'd like to restore it so this winter we'll try and move them to a manmade hive outside. We don't want to loose them though as they keep all the fruit trees well pollinated. While hubby and I were laying water lines I heard a noise and looked over to the corn crib and this is what we saw.

I guess the queen must have been moving around in the wall so they were stirred up.

They soon settled down.

I went out to take pictures of all the dust but got side tracked when Olly came out to see me.

He's such a goof ball!

Handsome fellow.

So I look forward to another week but at least a short one. The weatherman is predicting a 30% chance of storms over the next few days so we'll see if he's right this time.

Goodness knows we could sure use it.

Until then...I need to get outside and back to work filling trenches in this beautiful cool weather.

I hope you have a wonderful week.

Maura :)