Guess what I forgot to pack?

My camera cord and the cell phone charger. Good thing I didn’t forget that I’m an IDIOT!!!

This is the end of communication and the end of the world.

It is 4:20am. Marlboro Man is going to come wake us up in about an hour.

My new blog Coal Creek Farm is sitting there waiting for me to work on it some more. I would love to hear what you think so far, what you would like to see and if I should make any changes. It’s a bit like I dumped clean laundry on the floor and can’t find any hangers. So, I’ll take advice, but I may not be physically able to implement anything right away. There is a learning curve……I’m at the bottom.

Okay, line up your chickens and give them a big peck for me and I want you to know, you are my favorite reader, yes you are. Oh, the arrogance, it’s what keeps me going. Love, love, bye, bye, kiss, kiss, hug, hug.

Or in my case, small landscaping rocks. April has purchased two new bras! It’s a miracle, a true blue miracle! Well, except the bras aren’t blue. I’d show you a picture, but, um, no. I will tell you that I bought them from Target and they were under $8 on the sale rack. Please, please, I know, thank you, really, please hold your applause, thank you.

In other news….

When it rains it pours my friends. I’m trying to get my life organized enough to leave town for the weekend, but all I can do is turn circles.

Today I lost a load of clean laundry I was going to fold. Just so happens I took it out of the dryer, put it in the laundry basket then put it all back in the washer to wash again. Gah.

The store I need to go to today doesn’t open until 4pm and I’ll be doing one of my little volunteer jobs at that time, then taking my son to his “GOD PLEASE PICK HIM” baseball practice, then picking up my kids from church, then, then, then…..

Clay is conveniently out of town for business and will get home just about the time that I’ve picked up all the kids and started for home. Yeah for me.

I’ve become completely distracted by a potential job that I would love to have, so much so, that I can’t think of much else. And that’s not good, refer to laundry mishap in first paragraph.

The other night I spent a strange amount of time searching for boar semen. I know. We plan to artificially inseminate one of our pigs and I thought I should start researching boar semen now. Who knew there was such a big market for that stuff? Wow. Being a Pig Farmer is not the job I was referring to. I’ll let you know about that later, maybe, if I can remember.

What was I saying? Boulder holder, lost laundry, job, semen….um yeah, I think that about covers it. Oh wait. I forgot to tell you that we have added a new member to the family!

He comes and goes as he pleases. He lives in every room. Sometimes he stays outside, but right now he’s on Ellen’s bed. The boys love him. I, well, I, um, er, I hate him. He causes me a lot of work. I wish he would have the courtesy to stay outside where he belongs. My family doesn’t seem to notice him sometimes. Especially Clay, he just forgets that the little guy might be tagging along with him. Do you know what he is?

My oldest son turned 13 a couple weeks ago and all of the sudden he’s gone from a tiny little bundle of chub with auburn hair that smelled like a wet puppy rolled in sugar to a giant, stinking beast balancing between boy and man.

I know several people that are going to say, “April, Seth has never been tiny.” And to you people I say….phlbbbt, he’s a babaaaaay! A tiny helpless infant!

Seth, my baby-buh-buh-buh was asked to try out for a baseball team because he just happened to be in the right spot at the right time.

When he got home Clay told me it’s an older team and they do a bit of traveling………..and that’s all I heard. Traveling. Traveling. Traveling.

“But, you know, he may not get picked. They’re trying out four guys for one spot.” said Clay.

“Gah, I hope he doesn’t get picked!” I complained.

The coach called today. They want Seth to come practice with their team tonight and again on Wednesday. They are interested in him, but can’t promise anything. And now. And NOW. AND FREAKIN‘ NOW, I’m all nervous!!!!!

I’m not nervous that I’m going to have to take him to all these freakin‘ tournaments all over FREAKIN‘ KANSAS! No. I’m nervous that THEY WON’T PICK HIM!!!!!

For cryin‘ out loud what if he gets all excited about playing with this team and they choose one of the other boys? One of those other stinky boys that is NOT a teeny tiny baby boy with wittle bitty fweckles on his squishy wishy nose? I’m not sure I can take the rejection….I mean Seth, I’m not sure if SETH can take the rejection.

Oh boy, I think I might have a problem.

The real question is…..WILL THAT COACH READ THIS BLOG AFTER I COMPLAIN ABOUT IT????!!!

Oh, Lord. Why? Why is my life steeped in sports? Why can’t my children like art and dance and music and….and…FARMING!!!

The young architect let Clay borrow his bee suit so he could take a look inside the hives without getting stung to death. The young architect is just a tad smaller than Clay which is obvious when you see how we had to duct tape the suit and around his ankles and wrists. Clay felt a bit trapped. Have I ever mentioned that Clay is horribly claustrophobic? He hates the feeling of being trapped.

Note that little orange tool in Clay’s pocket. That is called a hive tool and it is crucial when you want to open a hive, especially one that hasn’t been opened all winter because the bees glue everything shut with something called propolis or bee-glue or virgin wax.

He’s suited up and protected from any stinging bees. The next step is to create some smoke to sedate the bees before opening the hive. We don’t have a smoker yet, so we created one in a metal coffee can. Not the best solution, but it worked, mostly because it was a cool windy day the the bees weren’t very active.

Dryer lint and leaves make a good smoke. Kansas wind makes it difficult to start a fire.

But that same Kansas wind was very helpful blowing the smoke into the hive. A little smoke into the entrance below and then….

take off the lid. The smaller white box on top is where we will collect the honey, it’s called a super. The lower two boxes are where the bees live and work and breed and most importantly, it’s where the queen reigns.

All of these things have names like supers, boxes, brooder, nukes, blah, blah, blah. I would fail a test right now, so bear with me as I learn. Clay is using his hive tool to take out all the things that the bees will build wax comb on and then insert golden honey, we call them frames.

The frames come with wax or plastic bases that have a hexagonal shape embedded on them. The bees build their wax directly on top of the hexagon grid. You can see a bit of the yellow wax that has already been built on top of the white plastic grid.

Down in the that oval shaped hole you can see the bees. Clay blew a few more puffs of smoke in the top of the hive so I could rush over and take these photos.

After taking out all the grids Clay loosens the top. The bees glue down everything. That is why you have to have a hive tool.

I can’t remember what this board is called but it can be used to invert a jar of sugar syrup inside the hive to feed the bees and you can place a little one way door in the oval to keep bees in one part of the hive.

It was glued down pretty tight. The bees were calm and stayed inside the hive because it was incredibly windy and a tad chilly. You should never open the hive if it’s below 55 degrees F.

There are approximately 40,000 bees in this hive. They could product up to 50 pounds of honey.

The brown specks are the bees. Clay was contemplating his next move. This was the first time he had opened the hive and he was excited and nervous.

In the end he decided it was too darn windy to take out any of the frames inside the hive for fear he would find the queen and she would blow away. So he removed the wooden board with the oval hole and inserted a queen excluder which looks like a metal grate. You can see it lying on the ground on top of the white lid. It allows the worker bees to crawl up to the top super and make honey but the queen is too big to get through the grate, so she stays below to lay eggs.

Here’s what we have spent on our bees thus far:

$200- for two completely built hives includes two queen excluders, only one hive had live bees.

$50- to attend a bee conference and become members of the Kansas Beekeepers Association which sends out newsletters and crucial information for beginners.

We still need to buy a suit for Clay ($70-90), hive tool($5-7) and new bees for the second hive ($????).

Stay tuned I’m trying to get another post written about our hive that died.

I’m happy to say I’m having a very sultry affair with this Ebay and it’s paying off quite lusciously.

So far, I’ve purchased two dress shirts (one new, one used) and one pair of new dress pants for Clay. Normally I would have paid around $200 for those three items, but I only shelled out $30. I know!!!! It’s like Heaven has opened up and rained Ebay on my head.

Right now I’m in a bidding war with some awful person that wears the same size jeans as I do. She has no idea who she’s bidding against, I think if she did she would have mercy and stop bidding on those Calvin Kline jeans that need to be on my body!!!!

Don’t worry, I do have a bid limit. I’m still the cheapest person in the world and I think I will be saying goodbye forever to those very cute Calvin Kline jeans that should be covering my big bodacious self. Dang it.

I also hit a thrift store a few weeks ago when I visited my sister. I spent $7 on a new Gap back pack that was full of playstation games and music cds, two shirts, one wool skirt, adult sized snow pants, rain jacket and several sweatshirts for the boys and Clay. I was surprised some of the clothes were in great condition and were name brands like Abercrombie, Gap, Carhart and American Eagle. My boys have been having a great time with the cds they found in the back pack. SCORE!

I told Clay that I might be able to cloth our family for around $1000 a year at the rate I’m going.

WOULDN’T THAT BE AMAZING?!!!

I tell ya, it’s time consuming and somewhat irritating doing this debt thing, but I dig the challenge. Mostly, I appreciate all of you that have helped point me to some great resources. Thank you!

Now, I’ve got to go check my bids.