The Bee-Keepers' Apprentice

~Our oldest granddaughter was so excited to help my Hubby, her Poppa, work with his bees. I hope she knows we have bees because when her Daddy, our oldest son was a little boy, the age she is here, he wanted to keep bees. He learned a lot about bees and for his 8th birthday we pooled his saved money and ours to buy his first hive and some of the basic equipment needed to keep bees. We have kept bees now for 24 years.

~Here Poppa and #1 granddaughter open the hive and take a peek to see what is going on. She is holding the frame gripper, that is the tool that grips , lifts and holds the frames of bee brood and wax inside the hive. "The bee master must be first of all a bee lover, or he will never succeed." Ticknor Edwards

~The hive box is lifted to check the box under it. These boxes are full of bees, brood, honey...a whole buzzing , hard-working community of yellow-gold and black bees producing honey, most of which we will take for ourselves later in the year. "How doth the little busy bee Improve each shining hour, and gather honey all the day, from every opening flower. How skilfully she builds her cell, How neat she spreads her wax, And labours hard to store it well, With the sweet food she makes." Isaac Watts (Against Idleness and Mischief)

~This is the big smile we got after she was done helping with the bees! I think she is a natural bee-keeper, and Poppa can use an apprentice !~ "He is not worthy of the honeycomb, that shuns the hives because the bees have stings." William Shakespeare

Happy Mother's Day !

~Happy Mother's Day to Ewe!~

Wood Duck Watch on Cedar Pond

~This is where I sit when watching the comings and goings of the pond. It is a nice spot for sipping hot coffee in the morning ( when the weather is nice) and a great spot to sit in the evening with my husband, especially when we get a camp fire going....I have noticed I see the wood duck enter the snag every evening about 6:30 - 7:00. I don't know where she goes, or where she comes from....but she arrives and enters the snag so quickly I cannot snap a picture of her!

~I did get a picture of the two ducks that survived the coyote massacre...they are swimming peacefully on the other side of the pond. They have a nest in their pen and I noticed the runner duck female ( right ) carefully covers her eggs with feathers and wood shavings before she leaves them to swim in the pond. The male is a tiny Call duck, and I have seen him and the female mating so I know the eggs are fertile, but i cannot help wondering just what the ducklings will look like ...a cross between a Call duck and a Runner! In terms for you non-duck people, this is like a Chihuahua male mating with a Greyhound female . ~The island was beautiful! It is covered in Lilies of the Valley and ferns..shaded by Cedar, Cottonwood and Alder trees. The wild ducks are still here too, nesting somewhere on the island.The pond was still enough for the reflection to be almost mirror - like. ~Here is the top of the snag, about 16 - 20 feet high, where the wood duck quickly flies in. I saw her tonight and I think she was deliberately toying with me. As I was quietly observing the top of the snag I heard.... then felt, a WHOOSH as she flew barely 2 feet directly OVER MY HEAD and alighted on the snag and into the crevice. So, she is still here, I am assuming the ducklings are not hatched out, and I will keep watch.

"Four ducks on a pond,A grass bank beyond, A blue sky of spring, white clouds on the wing: What a little thing To remember for years- To remember with tears!" William Allingham ( 1824-1889) Irish Poet

Goat House

~This is the goat house my Hubby built for my goats because I requested it as a Christmas present. My Hubby would probably prefer not to have so many animals around, but he loves me and when I brought 2 little , tiny baby Nigerian / Pygmy goats home he allowed me to keep them. He also designed and built this deluxe goat condo for me and them! Above is a picture of Thorin, gazing out of the 2nd story apartment . ~Here is a picture of the first floor , it is a hay feeder with standing / reclining space on either side. This is a perfect feeder for goats in the rainy Pacific Northwest. The goats can keep their feet out of the wet and mud while eating and napping. There is also a mineral / salt block in a special holder attached to the inside of the first floor post. ( Bombadil looking toward the camera) ~Thorin climbing the ramp to his apartment, Bombadil looking out. Both Thorin and Bombadil sleep in the 2nd story. It is cute to see them peek out at night when I am outside. They like to sleep in too. During the day they nap by the feeder or on the stumps placed in their pen for jumping and standing on. ~This is the back side of the goat condo. This gets the afternoon sunshine and often both goats will nap here so as to soak up as many rays as possible. You can see they get a good view of the sheep, and what you cannot see is that the busy- body goats also get a full view of our front porch, the drive way and Goth's pen next door to them! ~Blessings: watching goats play, a husband who will build me a goat house to keep goats he did not want in the first place!

Betta Enjoy Them,They Grow Up So Quickly!

~With the arrival of spring and warmer weather we have the always present mosquito larvae in our animals' water troughs. When life gives you larvae, why feed the fish! That is what larvae are good for! Here is one of my Bettas. I have 3. They are like keeping exotic, living art in the house. My Bettas live a long time , at least 2 or 3 years..and I think the last one that died had lived here for 4 years. They are just beautiful. I put them in glass bowls or containers with rooting plants. It is relaxing to watch them. Often I find them cradled in the nook of a root, and though books tell me fish don't sleep, they appear to be thoroughly enjoying the fish equivalent of a recliner! Anyway, back to mosquito larvae. Now that the mosquitos are enjoying the weather by using every possible water source to leave their young in, I am scooping the abundant supply of larvae in my net to feed my Bettas. If you click on this picture ( above ) it will enlarge and you can see the larvae this Betta is about to snap up!

~Quacker update:They are growing so quickly! Remember the ducklings ,all16 came in this litle box?~

~Then all 16 were moved to this plastic bin in the bathroom?~

~The ducklings grew quickly and were moved to my brooding shed!~

~Now, observe the same waterer in the previous picture with above picture in comparison with the size of the ducklings.They are as big as the waterer! These little quackers are always at the water! It is near impossible to keep them dry, and you can see the splashing of food mixed with water all over the outside of the waterer. I clean and refill the water several times a day. I am excited for the day I move them near the pond in preparation for them to start life there...they will be happier about this than me.

~Another Betta, isn't he gorgeous? A living centerpiece, complete with color and greenery.~

I Couldn't Help Myself...I HAD to Be Happy!

~Between storms there were spots of sunshine. I took my camera outside and snapped shots of things around our home that made me happy, I couldn't help myself, they made me be happy!How could the pretty and dainty bleeding hearts ( above ) all in a row not make you smile? "Man is fond of counting his troubles, but he does not count his joys.If he counted them up as he ought to, he would see that every lot has enough happiness provided for it." Fyodor Dostoevsky ~I was surprised one late afternoon a week or so ago to see a Wood Duck fly into the hollowed top of this Cedar snag that has been here near the edge of our pond since we moved in, and before we built our home, 20 years ago. I have since observed the Wood Duck fly swiftly to this snag and disappear into it several times. I am hoping to see the ducklings emerge and throw themselves out of this snag to begin their journey of life out of the hole in the snag. This too makes me so happy."If you want to be happy, be." Leo Tolstoy ~I call this one of the 'secret places' here at Cedar Pond. It is in the wet and marshy places between our home and that of Hubby's sister and her husband. It is so dark and wet and filled with intertwined roots and small trees we rarely venture in, but it is beautiful in its' own way and I have observed wild ducks and my ducks happily paddling in the muck and quite a few Ruffed Grouse, along with many native small birds. Tonight my Hubby and I observed a Spotted Owl perched above this area. This makes us both very happy!"Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be." Abraham Lincoln ~One of our many rhododendrons in bloom."We tend to forget that happiness doesn't come as a result of getting something we don't have, but rather of recognizing and appreciating what we do have." Frederick Keonig ~ Little blue-eyed, broken, Candy Cat who does not seem to realize she is not all the average cat is, the sight of her soaking up sunshine by the rhododendron makes me happy."Now and then it is good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy."Guilaume Apollinaire ~White Bleeding Hearts, growing by our front porch!"If you observe a really happy man you will find him building a boat, writing a symphony, educating his son, growing double dahlias in his garden, or looking for dinosaur eggs in the Gobi Desert. He will not be searching for happiness as if it were a collar button that has rolled under the radiator.He will not be striving for it as a goal in itself. He will have become aware that he is happy in the course of living life twenty-four crowded hours of the day." W. Beran Wolfe

"Happiness grows at our own firesides, and is not to be picked in strangers' gardens." Douglas Jerrold ~So don't worry, be happy!~

OOPS! He Did It Again.....

~He did it again. Goth got his own right leg caught up in his right bottom horn. I wrote a post about this July 16, 2008.Goth seems to have learned a thing or two since then because after hobbling around all day on 3 legs he finally untangled his leg by himself.He does well with 3 legs though, he was able to shake his horns at Delilah and hoard all the alfalfa , he was able to hobble fast enough to elude me in my attempt to disentangle his leg from his horn, and finally, he DID actually get his leg out all by himself. Hooray Goth!~