From Dawn till Dusk

I know I been behind keeping up with comments, making posts and visiting other blogs the last couple of days. It's just we have had like three days in a row with no real rain. The ground has dried out, the grass grew a foot over night and the wind even died down today. I don't have a minute to waste when the sun is shining because the rain could start again and shut me down for a week this time of year.

We are still waiting on one pregnant Ewe and Sammich is still a definite "who knows". We got 25 new baby lambs bouncing around and screaming to be fed and I just barely got the second round of mowing finished this evening. I should have taken the Winter inner covers off the bee hives and opened up Jamestown to check if it is alive or dead today but I just didn't get to it.

I did get another swarm trap placed about a mile or so South of the house on a neighbors property. Looks like a good spot too so hopefully I will capture any swarms I might miss from my own hives or maybe a few from the South. I can almost see the trap from the house actually as I placed it on the other side of the huge field my neighbor plants each year. I think he is doing beans in there this year since last year was corn. There is a largish lake he put in over there and a few wild Plum trees along the tree line that had plenty of honey bee activity in it too. So it is within range of some hives even if mine don't make it out that far.

So far this year I have seven traps out. I could put a few more out if I went and asked other neighbors but I am thinking seven is about enough. Last year I about broke myself on gas just checking the traps daily during the height of the season and I hope to avoid that this year so I am putting out less traps overall.

I have a feeling this might be a good swarm trap year as the Winter was really kinda mild overall even if the Spring was a bit late kicking off. I guess we will see.

I got an offer on the tiller but the guy is wanting me to deliver it so we will see. Unless he stiffs me when I get there I should have enough proceeds from the sale to go buy me a new one. Again though I am not going to count my chicken before they hatch. I had to take the PTO shaft in and have a custom tractor-side half built from bar stock to make this buyer happy. If he turns around and stiffs me on it I will be really pissed although I am sure I could turn around and add the price of the shaft and re-list it.

So things are progressing. Not making as much progress as I wanted and since grass mowing season has started I am spending about half my available time on that now. If we don't get too much rain this weekend I may even be able to start putting in posts Monday. I have decided to shift the fence project now to around the barn area since it dries out faster. I missed my window on the East pasture I guess and now I am going to have to brush hog that section before the cockle-burrs take over again.

The next two months are going to be a frantic effort at just keeping up until the grass slows down. I know I will bitch about it constantly but by the end of June I will be happy for the rain and the super grass we get around here.

Keep Prepping Everyone!!!!!