Saturday Catch Up - Firewood for next year, Cedar Posts and Flying Bees

Well not a whole lot of catch up to post about this week as it was cold and busy. Just keeping the critters fed, making a work run or two and attending the shearing class pretty much filled my time this week. The shearing class of course was scheduled for the first really nice day we had but it was worth it.

I did get out and start cutting some small stuff for next year's wood supply. I am making an access path down to some larger standing dead trees over at the old farm and that requires cutting down a number of little trees. Basically three or four times the work for about a tenth of the wood it generates and all live stuff that needs to be cured to boot. However opening this path up will allow me to get the tractor down in there and pull up some much larger trees I have my eye on.

The plus side is that there were a couple of good post sized Cedars in the way that had grown nice and straight in there so I managed to snag myself two 8 foot posts and a 10 footer for my fencing projects. They have a little more sapwood on them than I would like but they should last my lifetime I hope. There are at least two or three more good sized post Cedars along the line I am going to cut as I go deeper in. With these and the telephone pole sections I have there should be enough for all the corner and gate posts I am putting in. I will use the smaller ones for the walk in access gates I have planned. Each post I get should save ten or twelve bucks at the minimum so I ain't complaining

I can already tell my Spring planting is going to take a real beating because of this fence and gate project but it will be worth it to skip a year I think and get this done. I already had the feed store order me in 25 pounds of Buckwheat seed so whatever doesn't get planted this year will get a nice Buckwheat cover crop.

The bees were out in full force today, at least the ones up close to the house, I didn't walk back into the pasture to check on the ones down there. They are really out looking for forage and there isn't much for them to get yet so any time spent outside meant you were constantly being buzzed by bees. I need to refill the yard feeder this evening after dark.

The Peach trees are showing some real budding action so the Redbuds and Maples should be budding by the end of this week I suspect since they are never far behind.

The real rush is just getting started now to get as much done as I can before the grass starts growing. Every day should be working on the fence project now until April when I will switch to bee hive production and putting out swarm traps.

Another year is starting.

Keep Prepping Everyone!!!!!