Alligator

The neighbor called tonight and told us there was an alligator in the yard.  What fun Georgia is!  The county sheriff's deputies (3 of them) came out to catch it and take it to the river.  They said that last time they had a gator they called the game warden.  By the time he called them back they had caught and released it.

Green Beans

A storm came through the other night and blew all the green beans and about half the corn.  I spent the morning puting bamboo stakes in the ground and clipping all the green beans back up.  I think they will survive.  While I was out there I finished weeding the beds and picked the beans that were ready.

Dan's new chickens

Following the success with the turkeys in the incubator Danielle decided to put some chicken eggs in from the hens.  The rooster has been enthusiastically chasing the girls around since we got him.  Actually, that's about all he ever does.  She put a variety of colors in the incubator.  20 eggs went in at 10 hatched.  Not too bad I suppose.

Refinishing/repairing the deck

The deck has been getting pretty nasty.  We decided it was time to clean and re-coat it.  I started with a deck cleaner that did a pretty good job killing the mildew.  After it was soaked we took the pressure washer to it to clean the rest off.  The area under the roof still had a good coating on it so I had to use some stripper under the overhang to remove the old coat of stain.  The top board of the railings is going to need to be replaced from cupping and splintering, along with 10 of the deck boards.  We started staining this weekend and I am almost done with the decking now.  Here are some pictures, courtesy of Logan and Paige.

5/22/13 Garden update

We looked at the peppers already so here are some other things.

The carrots look like turf, we'll see how they turn out.  2" spacing may be a bit close.

I spent about a half hour tonight cutting off suckers and clipping the tomatoes on the twine again.  This is the first bed.

Second cleaned up bed of tomatoes.  My fingers are green from handling the plants.  They're loaded with flowers and little tomatoes.  We may actually get a harvest this year!

The first butternut squash.

I'm thinking that weeding the green beans on Sunday MAY have done some damage to the roots.  Or the chickens got in the garden again and Danielle doesn't want to tell me :).

First Jalapeños and how to type a ñ

The pepper plants are doing well.  We have some peppers on all of them.  Here's some pics.  Also, to type a   ñ hold down the alt key and type 164 on the number pad, then let go of the alt key.

Banana Peppers on Sunday 

Banana Peppers today

Jalapeños on Sunday

First pick of Jalapeños this year!  Come on tomatoes and onions, I want salsa!

Installing the Nucs

Smoke, lots of smoke.

Fat man, little shirt......

3 new empty frames in the clean hive.

After the 5 nuc frames are installed.  They have to go in the same order that they came out of the nuc.  The 2 outside frames from the nuc become the outside frames of the hive.  These 2 frames are honey frames used as insulation.  Also, if you put a honey frame in the brood chamber the queen won't normally cross it and lay on the other side.  If she does she won't come back across.  Some beekeepers use this to have 2 queens in a hive, but that's a bit beyond me right now.

A frame of bees.

In the Nuc 1

In the Nuc 2

The second hive is populated!

The first completed hive.

The second completed hive.

Now we just hope that the bees like their new home and they are still there tomorrow.

Bees are finally here

We had quite an experience getting the bees from Dixie Bee Supply.  First the weather, then someone poisoning his bees.  Finally, last week he said that some of his nucs were ready.  Unfortunately they weren't the medium nucs we wanted.  All he had ready was the deep nucs.  We drove 4 hours to his house in Lula Georgia on Saturday to pick up the bees.  When we arrived he was in the yard.  One of his first questions was "where are your boxes".  Turns out that he now charges for the box that nucs come in.  It's right on the web page he told us.  Of course we had no internet access to check.  So we each had to pay an additional $25 for the decrepit nuc boxes that were in his bee yard or $25 for a shipping box.  Either way he was getting another $100 out of us.  When I got home I checked the page and it did say BYOB Bring your own box.

However, that's not the web page I remember when we ordered the nucs months ago.  One of my favorite sites, archive.org keeps copies of old web pages.  As seen herehttp://web.archive.org/web/20121002041214/http://www.dixiebeesupply.com/Dixiebeesupply/Sales__Bees_and_Honey.html

the previous site says "Your choice of medium or deep box"  Seems that you should get the box if the page stated it was included when you ordered the nuc.  Enough complaining though.  I just won't be going back.

Some pics of the $25 nucs sitting on the hives.  When we got home we put the nucs on the hives for a couple days to get the bees used to their new home before moving them into their new hive.

Heritage Turkey feed rates

Age in Weeks Heritage Broad-Brested 1-2 .6 .6 3-4 1.75 1.75 5-6 1.9 3.6 7-8 2.84 5.5 9-10 3.54 7.75 11-12 4.32 9.8 13-14 5.48 11.9 15-16 5.68 12.5 17-18 6.65 15 19-20 6.92 15 21-22 7.93 23-24 8.24 25-26 8.37 27-28 8.71 Total 72.93 83.4

Planet Jr #3 wrench restoral

The neighbor that gave me the old wheel plow called me over the other day.  He had found the original wrench that came with it.  Of course after a few decades in his shop it was a bit rusty.  I figured that the electrolysis dip worked well on the plow, so I'd try it again on the wrench.

After looking around the garage I settled on the top of a chicken water dispenser to hold the solution.  I didn't really measure the washing soda this time, just threw a fistfull into the water. Once again, it's washing soda, not baking soda.

Instead of the rebar pieces I just coiled a piece of copper wire and suspended it in the solution with the wrench hanging from a wire in the middle.

Once it was all assembled it was hooked to the battery charger (on low) and it bubbled overnight.

A few minutes rinsing under the fresh water and it was off to get spray painted.  I know it's not the right shade of red but I had this red left over from making the chicken plucker.