March and April went to the bees and goats

How could it be that my last post was in March? Too busy I guess to document here as I'd like to. But here is the recap...


March and April were full of preparing for goats and bees. For us that meant partitioning our shed aka garage and converting half of the space into a goat pen. We also created an outdoor area in front of that for them to frolick if they desire. If you had asked me in February when we would be getting the goats, I don't know what I would have said if I was being honest with myself. It was really all up in the air until our local health dept called to say I could try goats. We actually ended up getting the goats first due to this unexpected turn. "Go while the getting is good" I think is the proper cliche. I think the last weekend in March is when we took the 2 hr drive to pick them up. We got them settled in and started milking Iris.


This necessitated a quick milk stand project that my hubby worked on in the wee hours of the night shortly after Iris and Flower arrived. Iris was too difficult to milk without it. Within 48 hours of giving hubby the plans I had a beautiful, well built milk stand in the goat pen. We'll call the milk stand my birthday present as we were so busy that my birthday was mostly uncelebrated and forgotten about. My poor wrist was taking a beating and I was grateful for the effort hubby put into it late into the night after work. There is not a thing I would change about it. I love it. Another trick I learned is to whistle while you milk. Iris calms down immediately. It is a beautiful milk stand that we got the plans for from www.fiascofarm.com/goats/milkstand.html



Anyway the bees were supposed to arrive the 2nd weekend in April. But thanks to a lucky delay in the arrival of the bees and hubby's hard work we managed to to get the two top bar hives built just in the nick of time.




The bees arrived the last weekend in April. Hubby installed them with a friend from work while the kids and I watched on. Other than knocking one plug in on one of the queens the installation went off without a hitch or even a sting.

Oh and I about forgot. We also received our shipment of apple trees x3, peach, plum, and mini-peach and mini-nectarine plus blackberry bushes. It came a bit earlier than I expected and helped make early April extra crazy for us trying to get them all into the ground. Throw in Mama getting sick in the mix, saying goodbye to a mama friend moving to Houston, Easter, Mom Prom. Yep now I know why I didn't get anything posted in April!