Back in Beezness. . .

Ok, so I know I've been absent lately. I gave up Facebook and Coke (gasp!) for Lent. I don't typically participate in Lent, but it's been a rough year so far (and here I just KNEW that 2014 was going to be a better year. . .) and I needed something to kick my spiritual rear in gear. Anyone who knows me knows my love of Coca-Cola. I know, I know. . . it's like the Satin of organic living, but my love of Coke goes back way longer than my knowledge or passion for more natural living. It's my chocolate. It's my coffee. It's what gets me through the day with three small children and a neighbor kid or two usually in tow. But I gave it up. It wasn't easy, but it was easier than the last time I tried to give it up.
Anywho - I've also been off of Facebook mostly, except for my business pages (hey, gotta sell the soap to keep the goats!) and I found on the first day without it that the only things worth sharing with the rest of the world are the things that you're doing when you're not on Facebook! However, being that it is spring, our schedule has been pretty busy so I've not found a lot of time to write any decent posts.

So, what have we been up to? When I last left ya'll, I was in the middle of kidding season.
The final tally:
Piper - triplet bucks
Baerli - twin bucks
Bri - triplets: 1 doe, 2 bucks
Annie - twin bucks.

Add 'em up. Yep, that's right.

First day that everyone got outside to play.

The kids had a blast with each other while they were here.

The only doe kid of the year. At least she was gorgeous! I'll be doing a repeat of that breeding in the fall. ;)

Barn full o' babies! And that was even before Annie had her twins.

Out of 10 kids, only ONE was a doe! Gah! Worse stats ever! (well, next to the poor lady that told me she had ALL bucks out of 20 does that kidded!) And the one doe that I did get went back to the breeders that I bought Bri from as part of the deal. >Sigh< So my dream of going to the ADGA (American Dairy Goat Association) Nationals this year went down the tubes. Since it was not a very productive kidding year, I figured I'd go ahead and sell off some stock. I know it sounds counter-productive when you're trying to grow your herd, but really I think this will make my herd stronger, quicker. By only keeping the best stock, I'll have room to keep more doe kids (should I be do lucky) next year, and/or I'll have room in the barn if I decide to invest in another doe or two that I really like.
Still, it's been a very disheartening spring so far. Piper and two of her wethered kids went to a family in a nearby county. The kids are going to show the wethers in 4-H and possibly Piper, but she's mostly going to be used as a family milker. Annie and her twins went back to my good goat friend's house. She's actually getting out of Alpines, but Annie was one of her first goats and she'd been missing her.
So I'm down to two milking does: Baerli and Bri, two yearling does: Penelope and Miss Kay, the buck: Tennessee, and 2 wethers out of Piper and Bri who will be leaving in a couple of weeks to go their new 4-H homes.

So that's the latest with the goats. Despite not going to Nationals this year, I'm still planning on getting out to some more local shows, a new show in nearby Terre Haute that I'm really excited about, and The Hoosier Classic. The Hoosier Classic is one of the biggest dairy shows in the state, it's put on by the Indiana Dairy Goat Association.

And then we had an emergency hospital trip the day that Bri had her triplets. Kindergartener came down with a nasty case of the flu. Luckily he bounced back quickly and was back to his hornery self by the next day.

Enjoying breakfast in bed.

On to other things. . . we've started planting. I've got the raised bed down at the south end of our goat barn full of a few varieties of lettuce, radishes, kale, and cauliflower. The lettuce and kale are coming up already and the kids and I are really excited about eating our first salad out of the garden! We've also got a row of potatoes in the ground. We had a short bout of warm weather, but it was to be follow by rain and colder temps so we just planted one row to be sure that a whole crop of potatoes didn't rot in the ground. The rest are going in soon. We've also got asparagus popping up too and I swear the rhubarb doubles in size every day. It was good for the spirits to be eating asparagus out of the garden already, especially since everything else seems to be late due to the never-ending winter.

One thing that has been very uplifting for my spirits is getting a new package of bees.
Last fall we had the disheartening experience of having our bee colony abscond, meaning that they up and ditched us. They appeared to be performing great throughout the summer, filling up the two deep supers with brood (bee eggs and larvae) and honey, then one day they up and decided to skip town. In hindsight, I should have seen it as a sign of the winter to come - they were trying to get the heck outta dodge.

On Monday, the leader of our local county beekeeping club (who happens to be a neighbor) sent out an email saying that he was going to do a demo on how to install a bee package. I knew we weren't giving up on the bee venture so I let him know that I wanted to attend. He mentioned that he was going to get a shipment of bees that day and that he would have an extra one if I was interested. Score!
So, all day yesterday I brushed up on my bee installation knowledge, and headed over to watch an installation. It literally takes about 5 minutes and isn't difficult or tricky at all! Whew! Relief! I felt confident that I couldn't screw this up. After demonstrating one installation for me and a few other rookies, the BeeMan said that he had another package to install in another hive and told me to demonstrate it.
Uuhhhh... Ooookay.
Easy peasy. After doing it myself - The BeeMan knows how to teach newbies! - I knew I could install ours.

So tonight, Hubby and I trekked out to the Bee Yard and for once (well, not once, but it was one of the few times), I got to play the teacher and show The Husband how to do something Ag-related! The installation went smoothly and when I went to check on them about an hour later, they seemed to be settling in fine.

The new digs.

 I used a front feeder that slides into the hive entrance, yet leaves a little bit of room for the bees to come out. It's filled with sugar water as an early food source for the bees since they don't have stores built up yet. This hive body actually has frames with capped honey it in left over from last year for the bees to start eating on, but it won't last them too long and I set out the feeder to be sure that they don't go wandering off looking for food before they decide to stay put in this hive. It's pink colored so that it's easier to see the level of the syrup from a distance and because I'm trying a little experiment. The BeeMan told me that if you color their sugar syrup, it'll change the color of the honey they produce! Since this first honey will be used to feed their brood and the colony, I figured I'd give it a try since The Husband is not thrilled with the idea of eating honey that is any color other than natural. Silly man. Once the pollen flow hits and I'm not feeding anymore, the honey will go back to a normal color. The one color you probably don't want to try is blue, because it turns a puce green color when the honey is made and no one wants to eat it. I don't know how bright of pink it'll turn, I may try red next time and see if it turns the honey a bright orange color. . .Either way, I figured it'd be fun to show the kids. Ooh! My crazy brain just had an idea (never a good thing), I could swap out colors whenever I go to refill the feeder and make a rainbow/tie-dye effect on the honey cells! Or not.

Everyone seems to be settling in fine.

The three bees that are standing in a little triangle in front of the hive entrance are standing with their abdomens up in the air and their wings look blurry b/c they're moving so fast. This is called "fanning" and it's telling the other bees still in the package to "come this way, the colony is in here."

Isn't she pretty? Miss E thinks so. She told me so. ;)

Well Hello!

Checking each other out.

 I REALLY hope this colony takes and sticks around. Despite the late spring, I think we got them installed at just the right time because the flowers and trees around our house are just starting to bloom, meaning lots of food will be available soon for them to build up their honey stores. Surely after the winter we've had, we'll be rewarded with a good growing season, right? Right? I'll be nervous going into winter, but a good beekeeper doesn't harvest honey the first year anyway to give the bees the best chance of growing strong and putting up enough food for the winter so if they do well through the growing season, they should have a pretty good chance of making it through the winter. I'm going to try to expand this year too. Everyone kept telling me that we needed to have at least 2 hives to start out with and I wish I'd have listened last year. As soon as I can get some more materials together, I'm going to try to get on the Swarm Call List where I can be notified of any bee swarms in the area - basically free bees!

I'm off to go get the milking done and check to see how my new garden buddies fared the night. I LOVE this time of year, you can't help but feel better after the depressing winter that we've had.