I know, I have been slacking on my posting and I still haven’t gotten around to emptying my phone onto my computer so I can post those pictures that I promised all two of you.  Unfortunately, I injured my back and have been hobbled by pain for several weeks.  I feel as if I am on the right track to recovery, so there will be a myriad of activities this weekend.

Several weeks ago, Michelle and I bought our first bee hive from GloryBee (www.glorybee.com) in Eugene, Oregon.  Anyone interested in beekeeping who lives within a reasonable driving distance of Eugene should plan to attend GloryBee’s “Bee Weekend” event.  They hold it each April’ish.  They have live demonstrations of introducing new bees to hives, hand out the bees that people have bought, and there are food vendors there.  It’s like a small fair.  Alan Turanski, the President of the company, and his family have been doing this a long time and are more than willing to answer any questions you might have about beekeeping.  You might think I am getting paid to say all of these nice things about them and I sort of was getting paid, because I used to work there, but I genuinely love this company and the owners.  They are just good people who have built a great company.  I will always try to give a shout out to the local companies who are doing it right.  Anyway, they called a few days ago and have the demo hive we bought all ready to go.  The demo hives are a little spendy at around $350, but they come already established when you take them home, so it was the fastest way to get up and running our first year.  I was afraid that, if I bought a nuc (pronounced “nuke” evidently) I would screw up introducing the bees to it or something like that and I would end up with an empty box and no honey.  No one likes that noise.  I am really looking forward to having the bees on our farm and producing raw honey (one of my favorite ingredients) for several things I enjoy and a few things I want to experiment with.

Second, one of the owners at the company I work for has his own farm out in Mulino.  He offered to incubate some baby chicks for me, so I took him up on his offer and will have some chickens out at the farm soon.  I love eggs and they are so useful to have.  So many foods use eggs to bind the whole thing together, plus you have meals that revolve around eggs (lots of breakfast items) so getting chickens has to be a staple of a good farm.  Chickens are also very low maintenance and cheap to feed, so the return on investment is pretty good.  The biggest issue I can see is keeping the predators out (skunk, opossum, raccoon, etc.), but I think I have figured that one out.  Besides the fenced in chicken area, we have our Alaskan Malamute, Goose and our German Shepherd, Charlie (no, no Maverick yet) who is just a baby.  Goose is a lover, not a fighter plus his Malamute instincts don’t really make him a good protector.  He is a gentle loving dog.  Charlie, on the other hand, is an assertive little puppy.  She has no problems getting up in Goose’s face and wrestling with him and she is only 8 weeks old this weekend.  I’m hoping that she will be able to patrol the property and keep any would be predators at bay, given her natural propensity for being assertive and the protective nature of the German Shepherd breed. I know, they are loft goals, but what is the point of life if you have no goals?

Lastly, we have this big tilled field and we need to plant.  I would really like to get most of that done this weekend just so we can have some stuff starting to grow.  I look at the field, from my back porch, and wish I could will some plants into existence.  Unfortunately, my control of the Force hasn’t escalated to the point where I can materialize objects out of thin air yet, so I am stuck having to plant those vegetables this weekend.