Farmer Bob has been working so hard…at his real paying job, as well as all the farm work he does. I don’t drive the tractors, and I don’t bush hog, so that’s up to him. He also doesn’t want me mowing the lawn, which is actually fine with me, as I have plenty of other things to do!

We decided to work ahead and take a few days off for just plain fun, so we won’t have any market hours here at the farm this coming Sunday, September 11th. We also won’t be giving any tours till Tuesday, September 13th, when I will return to my normal working schedule.

I have to admit that the heat has worn me down over the past few weeks, and not tackling major projects outside for a few days will be a welcome relief! Yesterday, I worked for several hours in the apiaries and nearly melted. I do wear a full beekeeping suit and, although it is ventilated, it’s still a hot sticky mess. I worked at the little apiary at Persimmon Ridge farm here in Lancaster County, and then came home to inspect one of my hives that is suddenly showing little activity at the front entrance. I went through the entire hive….lots of bees, honey, pollen….but no brood. No larvae. No eggs. Yikes! That means there is no queen! I wonder what the heck happened to her. Sometimes honey bees will start making a new queen if they don’t like the old one, and then they’ll kill the old queen. Maybe that’s what happened and the new virgin queen never came back from her mating flight. That’s just one explanation, but I think a plausible one. She could have been eaten mid-flight by a bird or captured by a dragonfly. At any rate, I need a new queen and a breeder I have become acquainted with is going to send me some in the mail. I’ll get them early next week and then my new queen will start laying right away. Hopefully the colony will be strong by the time the winter winds blow!

After all the rain we had, I knew the chicken coops would need a good cleaning, and that’s what I did after the beekeeping because I was already a hot mess. I love my EZGO! It’s a real work horse and my personal favorite piece of farm equipment. (Maybe that’s because I can operate it! HA!) Seriously, I use it all day long….to carry feed and supplies to the back forty, to haul beekeeping equipment around the farm, to check on fences, to unload heavy bags of feed from the truck….you name it!

After Farmer Bob finished his work day, he and I caught up all the sheep and wormed them. It’s a constant battle here in the wet and hot Southeast for us to keep our sheep healthy because of all the parasites that can kill them. We always feel so good when we’ve finished! You can only imagine how hot and sweaty and smelly we are, though. Can’t wait to get in the shower and scrub after that kind of work!

One thing that I’m looking forward to doing in my “days off” is exploring two sewing machines I bought a while back. This is a little gem that I picked up from a Craig’s List ad more than a year ago. It’s time for me to give her a good cleaning, lube and oiling, adjust the tensions, and see just what she can do. What a beauty! 

This machine is a Singer, and I know how to take it apart and put it together and all the incidentals, unlike this next machine that I bought just a couple weeks ago. It’s a New Home, and everything is different about it. It will take quite a bit of research and trial and error to figure this one out! It’s in rough shape, but all the right parts are there and work and there are a ton of accessories. It’s been refinished and so has the cabinet, which is what really caught my eye. If nothing else, it is a beautiful thing to behold, even if it is missing the bottom two drawers. I looked up the serial number and she’s 130 years old. Isn’t that amazing?

Since “Granny Bee” won’t be baking for Sunday, and I’ve gotten a lot of my farm work caught up, it will be fun to leave big farm projects till next week, and just enjoy the coming weekend. We hope you have a good one, too, and we hope to see you on the following Sunday, September 18th!

EIEIO!
Debbie