Building fence

Saturday and Sunday, Dad and Daniel were building a new fence. Freddy and I investigated. I helped by driving the tractor that held the spool of wire. Dad and Daniel did the hard part: driving the stakes. Freddy walked with us until he got too hot and then he sat under a tree. I didn't leash him to the tree but he stayed there for at least an hour until I came back to get him.

Freddy wore himself out! 

Pulling the wire tight

This is the field we're building against. Dad plowed and planted this field in a mixture of grass for haybales. It really is that color of green. This is the kind of view I like to see when I'm in the field: no hint of civilization, just a peaceful view of trees and grass. 

But this is the view we now have for about 15 degrees. Our new neighbor decided to cut down all the trees on his slope and build a house. He has a beautiful view of trees and fields, but now our view is interrupted by a dirt slope and a house. 

I hope he plants trees.

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Our little gingerbread boy

A couple weeks ago, I was looking for a flea and tick medicine that was ok for use on puppies. Most everything I looked at was for puppies over 12 weeks. He was 8 weeks at the time and the vet said to be careful because his skin would be really sensitive still.

So I found this from Sentry, an all natural medicine with ingredients I can pronounce like Clove Oil. Freddy smells so good I want to eat him. In fact, the first time I used this stuff, Grandma was convinced I was baking.

Freddy is getting big. It seems like everyday I look at him his legs and torso are longer. He has a vet check-up this coming Saturday and we'll see if he's put on any weight since two weeks ago when we went to get wormer.
A couple favorites and dislikes for now:

He'll eat these treats if he's hungry, but he's not too crazy about them. 

He likes these peanut butter flavored rawhide treats.

I give him the green bone treats after we've been on the farm exploring all day. They're supposed to be good for his breath and teeth. He likes the round peanut butter ones, too. These are from the bulk bins at Petco.

We switched over to Hill's Science Diet. He was on Avoderm for a couple weeks, but that puppy formula only comes in 5 pound bags and we were going through it in a week and a half. Hill's also comes in a 15 pound bag, so less trips to the pet store. 

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Today's harvest

Today we got tomatoes, tomatillos, two cobbler potatoes that mom found sticking out of the ground, a zucchini, about ten cukes, some jalapenos, a big pile of green and yellow beans and about a cup of blackberries. A pretty huge harvest!

Dad and Daniel were working on building a new fence today so Freddy and I went in the fields to observe. Freddy got really hot so I took him over to the creek where the cows hang out. He LOVES to jump around in the water! I was a little sad that I didnt have my phone, but I'm sure we'll play in the creek again.
Then I gave Freddy a bath in an old clothes washing tub. He was not too excited about that and promptly rolled in the dirt. Next time I need to remember an old washcloth (so I can scrub his ears) and an old bath towel. Sorry there weren't any wet dog photos. Next time!

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Yesterday on the farm

I harvested more tomatillos, beets, THE FIRST TOMATOES, and some jalapenos

The chickens hung out in their yard for a couple hours. Freddy stood guard and barked when they got too close to the fence. (Even though they can't get out of the fence.)

And then Freddy took a nap after dinner because he was worn out.

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Open Door Policies

Sunday afternoon, Daniel and the Hubs helped put the chicken wire around the chicken yard. Dad bought 6' tall chicken wire. 

The chickens won't be out all day yet. We have a lot of farm cats and they like to sit outside the chickens' door and watch them. We may be installing more fence across the top of the chicken yard so the chickens can't fly out and the cats can't jump in. For now, they get to run around in the yard for a couple hours every evening.

Freddy weeding; he doesn't like morning glories

Freddy is about to stay outside all day. He doesn't know this yet. He'll be 11 weeks tomorrow and for some reason I think 12 weeks is the magic number. There's a little bit of fence fixing that needs to be done at Grandma's house so that he doesn't crawl out under the chain link.
I don't want him to be chained to a tree all day. Eventually, I'd like to get to the point where he can run free on the farm, without chasing tractors and trucks going by on the road, and without digging up the garden.

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Bees-ness

 Yesterday we harvested 6 zucchini, about half a pound of tomatillos, 5 little cucumbers and about a cup of blackberries. We need another cup of blackberries so Grandma can make a pie (she needs at least 4 cups).

 The cat, standing guard, and taking a break from playing with Freddy.

Mom, Daniel and I checked on the bees yesterday. It's been about two weeks since we last checked.

 The bees have filled up about 6 frames with comb.

 We didn't look for the queen yesterday. The bees were pretty hot. There were several dozen at the entrance to the hive, fanning it. Instead of using the smoker to tame the bees, we sprayed them with sugar water. This kept them busy because they were concentrated on eating the sugar water instead of trying to sting intruders.

You can see the different cells; The larger ones that stick up off the frame are drone larva. The ones that are flatter are worker bee cells.

We probably could have waited another couple weeks for this, but we went ahead and put the queen excluder on and a small super for honey. The queen excluder does exactly what it sounds like; it is a plastic piece that has holes in it that are large enough for the worker bees to fit through but not the queen. You put this between the brood box (the larger lower box where there are eggs) and the upper supers so that the queen doesn't lay eggs where you want to store honey. 

From this point forward, we won't be feeding anymore sugar water. Otherwise, the bees will store sugarwater in the super. 

 To make the wax foundation a little more enticing, we sprayed a little sugar water on the foundation.

Then the inner cover went back on, and our make-shift outercover, which is a piece of corrugated metal with a concrete block on top.

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Loaded

Our garden has been pretty dry this last month, due to the lack of rain. In the last week we got almost 1-1/2" of rain. But this last week I've harvested a lot. And a lot will need harvested soon.

Earlier this week: peas, zucchini, tomatillos, peppers

The honeybees - I'll check them this weekend to see about adding a honey super

Blackberries, peas and beets (I convinced Grandma to make refrigerator beets like you'd make refrigerator pickles. We'll see how they turn out!)

Romas

Yellow tomatoes

Jalapenos

Tomatillos

Sweet 100s

One of our ponds is stocked with catfish. It is loaded with catfish. Dad feeds them  sometimes and there are some HUGE fish in there!

squash/zucchini

acorn squash

Pumpkin

Watermelon

Cukes, investigated by Freddy

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