Work at the farm continues – 10-12 hours a day – it has been a great spring – this heavy rain & wind tho is a challenge – the fields are so muddy it about sucks the boots right off your feet. We have been putting down cypress boards between the rows so we can stand & harvest without getting ‘stuck.’ It makes the work very tiring – even the wagons are hard to pull thru the wet stuff and of course – washing up the produce is a whole ‘nother animal –

Today is Monday May 12 – a religious holiday for our Amish help – a good thing since the weather is so bad – we are inside today doing ‘maintenance’ work & errands – catching up on paper work etc . I had hoped to do some wash today but sure can’t hang it out in this mess- would have to staple it to the clothesline to keep it up (clotheslines BTW are a country “privilege”)

One activity that we enjoyed this week – the arrival of 3 new bee colonies.

We had ordered extra bees in early winter – they were supposed to arrive this past Wednesday – when they did not appear we began to be concerned. They finally showed up at the post office on Saturday at just before noon – we have to go in to pick them up & sign – the bees are shipped in little screened boxes- about the size of a shoe box – the 3 boxes were ‘crated’ together – so it made a big size package – the bees themselves weighed about 5 pounds each box & then the weight of the crate- they make quite a noise when you carry them around –

Getting them out of the post office to the van sure caused quite a stir – lots of people stood off a few feet & pointed & asked questions – a few brave ones ventured up for a closer look

We ‘hived’ the bees just at dusk – it was a cool day so they settled right in – we had to be careful to remove the “queen’ in her special carrier & place her little box in the middle of the new hive. The ‘worker bees’ went right to work to get her settled.

Hope you all enjoy your veggies-

Best,

pam