Sunday, September 26, 2010

Mushroom Beauty

Mushroom profile

I have noticed some really interesting looking mushrooms around lately and wanted to share two of my favorite shots. The top one is one that Mark noticed out in the countryside along a fence line as we excited one of our bee yards just outside town on Highway 123. The one below is a tiny little one (of many) that I saw hidden under all the overgrown grasses at the same Big Oaks bee yard. Both times were evening lighting and I changed the lighting just a touch on the shot below. The shot above I changed lighting a color just a little also.

Shroom

Saturday, September 25, 2010

Seguin Trade Day Fun


Hi Hope!


Today was tiring but a LOT of fun - thank you to those who stopped by to visit with us. :-) Always great to see friends (like you fellow blogger, Hope!) and meet some blog followers (hi Lisa T. - sorry we didn't make it over to visit your booth before you left! Next time.) We sold a good amount of honey but what was even better was getting to give customers some face-to-face times with the bees thanks to the observation hive. Very nice and everyone seem amazed by their activities. Pretty neat that we can watch the queen lay eggs about six inches from us. Cool stuff for sure.

Below is one of my favorites during the day's event - this is Dino, is he cool or what? Loved it and had to get a shot. :) Hope you all have a great Sunday! I'm going to crash now. Talk about tired.

One cool canine

Friday, September 24, 2010

Seguin Trade Day - Sept. 25

Observation hive

Would you like to see what's behind that wooden cover? :) I think if you have checked out our bee blog before, then you might already know. But if you'd like to meet us and some of our bees, we're going to be downtown on the square tomorrow all day (8-5p) at Seguin Trade Day. Our lovely booth will be directly behind the Court House and we'd love to meet you if you are in the area.

This event happens about every other month though with the holidays coming soon, we will be at the October one as well. Hope to sell all our honey by the end of that event!

Here's a peek inside:

Bees in observation hive

Friday, September 17, 2010

Sheep, Sheep, Sheep

Cute sheep

Recently I got to visit a dear friend of mine and her kids breed show sheep. I have often wanted to stop by and snap shots of the little, little ones but haven't managed to do that yet. At least we have some grown ones to oh and ah over. The babies are even more adorable! I love these black face sheep. Something about them that appeals to me more than the pale face ones.

Fun fact: You can "rent" male sheep for breeding. TRUE! :) Just like breeding other animals to maintain a high caliber stock. Interesting. I just never thought of it until they told me that during my visit.

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

US Postal Service

Box of Zia queens

This shout out is for our friend Jim, who works for the US Postal Service here in town. He was so kind and kept an eye out for our special delivery of queen bees that came shipped through the mail. Did you know you can do that? Before I learned these beekeeping things from Mark, I never even thought about how beekeepers get their supplies. And then I learned that you can order and receive equipment AND live bees in your mailbox! Or sometimes they may call you to come and pick up your package. :-) Must be something to process livestock in the mailroom. Can you imagine the buzzing?? lol

This is our box of twenty queen bees from Zia out of New Mexico. The free-flying bees are attendant bees who are tasked with tending to the queens' needs. Beekeeping is so cool!

Wednesday, September 08, 2010

Rain & Clouds

Behind our house

We've been having some wonderful rainy days this week - we sure needed the showers. Since Saturday, we've had between 6 and 8 inches! Woo hoo! Plus all the weather has created an amazing number of interesting looking clouds much like these though this was snapped prior to this week's weather. Hope you're having a great week so far!

Friday, September 03, 2010

Insulator Sky Watch

Glass Hemingway insulators

Happy Friday, everyone! I hope you all have had a great week. Ours has been packed and here are some highlights -
  1. We are set for trade shows to sell some honey. I'll share dates when I pull it all together! Several events here in Seguin and one BIG one in Gonzales.
  2. Mark's computer died but we have a replacement. Woohoo!
  3. We finally got RAIN! And a decent amount, too. I am very happy that our trees and lawns got some great relief this week. A north wind started blowing today and it got down to the upper 80s. NICE for us!
  4. We had a nameplate contest at work - I didn't win but I had a TON of fun with it and got to know several coworkers better. It was awesome!
  5. I have great friends and I just want to thank them for their love.
  6. I got my first paying photo gig. :-) Cool!
Ok, that's enough catching up. Sorry I've been so busy!

This shot was snapped when we spotted them on the way to one of our bee yards. Lovely to see glass insulators in the sunny sky - much more beautiful than the clay ones being use predominantly these days. Aww...reminds me of when Mark and I had time to go insulator hunting when we first met over 12 years ago. Seems like yesterday! lol

Be sure to check out the other cool shots at Sky Watch!