Living the Good Life

The shade garden, a work in progress

With the exterior of the house complete,  we only have trim to finish on the inside and excavating on the outside.  We decided to focus on some landscaping.  I have a ton of plants free from other master gardeners, plant swaps and MG college.  I even have a few we paid for.  It is time to get them in the ground.

We started working on a shade garden since the sunny area of the house still needs some excavating.  we put in a pathway and used up the last of the boy scout mulch.  We got quite a bit done,  but had to stop until we get the trailer sold and out of the way.  Know anyone who might be interested in at 40ft park RV?


This photo will be so much better when we recreate it with landscaping instead of a dirt pile!

We had some friends over for a marshmallow roast and it turned out to be a fabulous evening.  the weather was perfect and no bugs.  Chris made these log candles with the chainsaw and they burned for hours.  The turned out to be the perfect marshmallow roasters and gave out a ton of heat.  We will certainly be making more of these in the future.  It has been so nice to take a break from working on the house and enjoy the porch and yard. Hopefully we will not settle in and forget we still have work to do.



Cooper perfecting his roasting

Allelulia

The siding is finally finished!   I think Chris may have almost died of heat stroke a time or two,  but he finished and it looks amazing.  This means the exterior of the house is complete!  WOOHOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Slow and Steady Wins the Race

Chris putting some finishing touches on the garage
gable.  Yes,  our insurance is up to date!

If slow and steady really does win the race we should be coming into a huge prize very soon.  Chris has been plugging away at siding every day for two weeks now.  He is getting very close to finishing and hopes to have the exterior all buttoned up by the weekend. 

We lost another 6 chickens,  all babies, last week.  We think they didn't get into the coop before the door closed and a night predator got them.  So sad,  but the chicken that looks like a bald eagle survived.  We are only getting 6-8 eggs a day, so the extra layers would have been nice.  Hopefully the newbies will begin laying soon.

The garden is coming along nicely.  It is a bit weedy and we are trying to keep up between vacations,  but they seem to need to keep up with the phrase 'growing like a weed'.  We have several baseball sized cantaloupe and lots of golf ball sized watermelons.  We are getting a few tomatoes however small they are still yummy.  We can't wait for the 'mortgage lifters' to ripen.  A few peppers are coming in and I think I should be harvesting carrots,  but am not sure so I keep holding off.

We picked a ton of raspberries from the forest and made a beautiful pavlova.  It was so tasty,  I would have included a photo,  but it didn't last long enough for the camera.

We are enjoying this time of year.  The fruit and veggies are bountiful and the porch is nice and cool even on the 90+ days.  We love it when guests stop by for a cool beverage on the porch.  It all feels very southern.  I think I am going to have to perfect my mint juleps.

Free-Bees!

The swarm cluster from far

This weekend Jackson was mowing and came in to let us know our bees were swarming.  He said it was like a hurricane of bees in the air.  Sure enough our 8-frame hive decided to split into two colonies.  Unfortunately we were not prepared and had no knowledge of capturing swarms.  We found enough equipment in the barn to come up with a hive until we could get more appropriate materials ordered.  What we lacked was the knowledge,  but we can be very resourceful!

After reading that you have 1-hour to 3-days to catch the swarm or they will find a new home on their own,  we were anxious to capture them.  After all, a package of bees costs about $125 and free bees sounded good to us!  We researched how to shake the branch and let the bees fall into your hive body or use a sheet to be sure bees don't fall into the grass etc.  The main idea seemed to be if you can get the queen then the swarm will follow her.

Closer view of the swarm

Our swarm had come to rest in a pin oak tree about 25 feet up.  A box on the end of a couple of two by fours would do the trick. Easy!  We went to the barn and found an old Lou Malnauttis Styrofoam cooler and two really long PVC pipes.  PVC and Styrofoam are light materials and would make it easier to reach the swarm, we thought.  The PVC poles ended up not being long enough so we backed Chris' truck into the brush and he climbed into the bed and just barely could reach the swarm. 

With a firm knock of the branch the majority of the cluster fell into the box.  What we didn't plan on was how heavy the bees were and in slow motion those PVC pipes began to bend and the box fell onto Chris' truck and the ground and we had a mess.  Bees were everywhere!  There was a puddle of bees on the windshield, a puddle on the hood,  a puddle on the ground and surprisingly still a bunch in the cooler.

So we just sat and kinda watched what was going on for a while.  Mostly we were dumbfounded at what happened,  be lets just say we were studying the bees behavior.  No bees were going back up into the tree,  the puddles were disappearing and the box looked about the same.  After about 10 minutes Chris saw the queen in the cooler.  It was the queen from the package we bought this year and she had a bright blue spot on her back.  WOOHOO!  We dumped the cooler into our makeshift hive and crossed our fingers and went in for the night.

Two days later we still have bees in the new hive.  This is not a story I would share with anyone from our bee club as they might kick us out for the crazy way we caught our swarm,  but needless to say, we are quite proud to have got the job done!  We now have 4 hives and have high hopes for a nice honey flow in July.

Never a Dull Moment

I am always amazed that I can find things to write about each month.  Although, Chris does not want me to blog about him hanging out of the scuttle hole in the ceiling when the ladder fell out from under him as he was climbing down, so I will have to focus on other interesting tidbits like the snake I found in the basement.  He must have just shed his skin because not far from him I found a snake skin that we were able to measure 42 inches long. Once again I found myself in the job of snake wrangler and armed with a broom and two sticks helped this one fine his way out of our basement. 

oooooo  snake

We had a rainy weekend and decided to work under cover and began working on the porch railing.  It took the whole weekend to figure out the how tos of installing a railing.  So we didn't make much progress, but we did finish it up over memorial day weekend.  It makes the porch feel so much bigger and gives the house a more finished look.  We decided that not a lot of people put in their own railings because the hardware store does not stock the parts in very big quantities.  To gather all the pieces we needed for this project we went to Lowes in the following cities: Sterling, Frederick, Winchester, Chantilly and Gainesville.  We finished an audio book with all that driving and every time we get in the car the kids say 'We aren't going to Lowes again are we?'

Front porch with railing.

Our beloved excavator, Ron, has been bringing in lots and lots of free dirt in the past weeks.  We think he is going to do our final grading any day now.  I sure hope so because I keep buying landscaping plants and I am afraid if I don't get them in the ground soon,  Chris is going to have a plant sale when I am not home.

New tennants

We have some new tenants here at Watermark Woods.  We have yet to run into them, but we are sure they have settled in as they have really spruced up the landscaping in their front yard.  Below is a photo of their place.

 

We have been working on the outside of the house bit by bit each weekend.  We have all but two walls up finished which just leaves the gables and the front angles.  Areas that are going to take a lot of time and certainly a lot of cuss words.



It is just a few days until the eggs begin hatching.  We have been candling the eggs to see inside and we think there are two 'yolkers' which are eggs that were not fertilized.  Several of the eggs we can see the network of blood vessels and the chicken moving.

We were able to get in a little target practice this weekend.  It was a lot of fun and a nice respite from all the construction work.  Zombies beware. LOL

Due in 21 days

This week I have been so fortunate to spend some time in the garden.  All the beds are ready for planting and the chickens have been feasting on weeds!  Now I am just waiting to be out of the frost danger zone.  We have lots of plant babies and several packets of seeds that cant wait to get their new home in the ground.

I have also been hanging around the local nurseries trying to find some native shrubs for our landscaping.  Not an easy task especially when you want some things to be evergreen and some things to have color. I think we are going to have to work  to find a balance between native plants and ornamental plants.  I do have a few great finds sitting in pots just waiting for the final grading to finish up. 

the new babies

After the fox attack we(I) have been considering more chickens.  We put 7 eggs in an incubator and in 21 days we should have new baby chicks.  We can't wait to see if this really works.  The only problem is that we are bound to end up with a couple of roos.  I guess we really are going to have to make chicken soup.  Anyone with experience butchering birds want to come for a visit in late October(you know who you are)?

We are looking forward to nice weekend weather and hope to once again get moving on the outside siding and trim.