Bees, Garden, and More

Whenever I have a moment or two of free time - which is actually a little more often now that the girls are on a great sleep schedule - I try to keep up with our animals and the vegetable garden.  This year has been a great year for my bees as well.  I counted at least four swarms!  That means that the hives are doing so well that they have multiplied enough to split into four additional colonies.  The first swarm happened two hours before a neighbor was coming to help me split the hives (thus hopefully preventing swarming).  In this photo the first swarm is way up on a pine tree branch in the middle top of the frame.

 

Here's a close up of the swarm taken with my telephoto lens.  In the middle of that mass of bees is the queen bee.  A few scouts are off looking for a new place to colonize while about half of the original colony waits on the branch with the queen.  The other half is in the original hive awaiting the birth of a new queen who is about to hatch.

 

Watching the bees swarm is pretty impressive.  They get very irritable just beforehand (ask Matthew about his experience with that) and then they all start buzzing around the hive in what looks like a tornado of bees.  All of the little specks in this photo are bees.  You can hear the collective hum of their wings too.

 

Here's another swarm that happened later in the week.  This one was low enough on a tree that my neighbor came to collect it.

 

Here's a video of her scraping the bees into a bucket.  She'll then take the bucket and dump it into a new bee hive set up at her house.  If she hadn't collected them, the scout bees would return and "tell" the swarm about a great new spot they found and all of the bees would take off together to fly to their new home.

 

 

 

I've inspected my hives several times this year and they are hard at work.  Here is a frame from one hive that has queen cells on it.  Those peanut-looking things each contain a bee that is developing into a new queen.  No wonder my hives swarmed so many times, look at all of those queens!

 

 

The garden is also having a stellar year.  I took a photo each month for the last three months and you can really see the growth.

 

March

 

April

 

May (taken today)  The last week and a half of rain has been wonderful!

 

I'm also pleased with the progress my kiwi plants have made, even though it took five years.  They had their first bloom this year!  Only the female bloomed so no fruits yet, but I'm excited for next year!  The bloom is the tiny white flower in the center of this photo.

 

My other vines are producing this year too.  This is the second year for the grape vine and we have fruit!  I had planted the grapes because I was giving up on the kiwi and wanted to use the trellis for something.  Someday we might have lots of fruit!

 

A little downside to the heavy rains and storms - my sad looking corn.  We tried to prop it back up with t posts and baler twine but we'll see how it does. Matthew hypothesized that aliens were trying to send us a message with a tiny crop circle. 

 

The bountiful harvests just keep coming from the garden.  I guess the soil is finally benefitting from all of that rabbit manure!  Here's one days' worth of veggies.  I've frozen 5 pints of snap peas and 26 pints of broccoli in addition to what we've been consuming on a daily basis.  The green peppers, cucumbers, and yellow squash are also plentiful at the moment and my tomatoes look perfect, I hope they don't succumb to any diseases like in years past!

 

Here's half of our potato harvest for the year.  I ran out of space in my bucket and space for drying them!  I'll have to dig the other half next weekend.

 

 

Finally, a couple of wildlife shots.  This one is from a while ago.  The fox den had six kits early this year but they have since grown and gone.  There were a few interactions between our cats and the foxes but no one was harmed and the foxes eventually moved on.

 

After reviewing footage from the game camera, we actually had two different sets of fox parents using the den.  The original six kits pictured above plus this momma had one baby a month or so later.  She has a scraggly tail and is distinctive on the camera.  Her single kit was also much smaller than the first six, although they were photographed together at the den.  She hangs around the house a little closer and this photo was taken out of our bedroom window.

 

Nine Months Old

This month has been a busy one for growing and learning.  In addition to standing and crawling (see photos and videos below), the girls also learned to wave and clap.  They don't like to do either when the camera is out but they often wave and clap when daddy comes home!  They are tough to contain for monthly photos too, here's one of them together with the blanket mostly smoothed out.  They are both wearing outfits gifted to us by one of my clients.

 

 

And here's an outtake.  They don't stay still long!

 

Elsie

 

Leonie

 

Although mealtimes are not getting any neater (quite the opposite) they continue to be a favorite part of the day.  We still haven't found a food that they don't like!

 

 

Leonie

 

Elsie

 

Occasionally we have some extra help cleaning up the mess but for the most part the cats don't like their options.

 

While the weather was beautiful I took the girls out to play in the yard.  They love to feel the wind on their faces and watch the animals.  We've also done many naps in the stroller while mommy gets a little exercise later in the day.

 

Both girls were very proud of themselves when they figured out that they could stand up!  I brought out this little walker to help give them something to hold onto.  It didn't take long for them to learn how to pull up and how to sit back down.  They are getting better at it every day with very few tumbles so far.  Here's Leonie.

 

And Elsie.

 

We didn't have any visitors this month so mommy had to get creative in order to service all of her clients' tanks.  One day daddy met us at a client's and took the girls for a picnic while mommy worked.  They loved it and we loved the much easier clean up!

 

Another day Leonie worked and worked and finally learned to crawl.  She managed one forward step with her knee and that was all it took - off she went!  Here is a video of her second crawl, I was too slow to catch the first.

 

 

 

Within minutes Leonie was crawling all over the place.

 

 

 

Elsie took a little longer and learned step by step.  Both girls are pretty good at getting places now, provided there aren't too many toys in the way.

 

 

 

We had to put up the baby fence to keep them contained in our living room and out of trouble.  The cats sometimes taunt the girls by laying just outside.

 

 

Finally, a photo of me with my girls on my first Mother's Day.  Leonie is on the left, as well as Louie who was helping to entertain the girls.

 

Eight Months Old

Another month flew by raising these ladies.  They are learning new things every day and are getting so big.  They both weighed about 15 pounds at their doctor appointment this month!  We had a hard time getting them to lay still on the blanket for their photos so here's the best we could do.  Leonie is on the left.

 

 

Leonie

 

 

Elsie

 

The girls still love dance class and we attend most weeks.  Here we are doing a little obstacle course with the older kids.  Mostly Elsie and Leonie like to wiggle to the music and watch the other kids dance around.  It's great mommy exercise too!

 

We usually meet daddy for lunch too.  Here's Elsie enjoying some veggies.

 

 

This month's visitors were Nanny and Pop for a week.  Here's Nanny reading to the girls before bed.  Matthew is holding Elsie.

 

Nanny also joined us for Mommy and Me dance class, she's wearing Leonie.

 

Sleeping, naps especially, have been difficult with the girls lately so we bought a new camera to monitor them while they sleep.  We've also hired a sleep consultant but we're only one week in with working with her.

 

Food was definitely the theme this month.  I don't think we've found a food that they don't like yet!  Here are some messy faces after yogurt, Elsie on the left.

 

 

Elsie really enjoyed spaghetti night too.

 

REALLY enjoyed it!

 

 

Leonie was almost as messy.

 

 

We've also added in lunch.  The girls usually enjoy some baby pancakes (apple & oat) or some breakfast casserole.  Elsie.

 

 

Leonie eating lunch.  They also both like Cheerios now and eat them with Daddy in the morning.  They are getting quite good at picking them up!

 

Last week I forgot the baby carrier when I went grocery shopping so I tried putting Elsie in the seat on the cart.  She loved it!  Leonie is in her car seat in the cart.

 

 

Here's a couple if photos that I think highlight how grown up the girls are looking as well as some of the differences between their facial expressions.  They are now wearing 9 month clothes.

 

Elsie

 

Leonie

 

 

A couple of cuties!

 

 

A little off topic, but I finally got some time to put together this photo collage.  Only took 8 months!

 

 

Finally, a cute video of the girls playing with a new favorite toy.

 

 

Camping, Round Two

Last weekend we took the girls on another camping trip.  This time we went a little over two hours away to a competitive horse trail ride near Toomsboro, GA.  We left Friday afternoon and came home Sunday morning.  The girls had a great nap on the way!

 

The weather was just right for sitting outside and playing so that's what daddy did with the girls while mommy was off riding her horse on Saturday.  I stopped halfway through the ride to nurse too, luckily the trail came back through camp at a good time!

 

Using the adorable camp chairs from Aunt Emily.

 

 

I didn't get any photos of the whole camp setup, but here's Mow on his highline. 

 

 

We all had a great time.  The girls were very happy (which made things much easier for daddy) and Mow was a well-behaved boy.  I was hesitant to come to this ride because of how things went last time but I'm so glad that we did.  As you can see, Mow and I also cleaned up with a first and second place in our division!  Our next ride won't be until fall - I think the girls will enjoy camping even more by then.