Peekaboo Animals & Unidentified Flower

Last week Mark and I went for a ride just outside of town so he could show me some flowers the bees are working right now. While we were looking in a pasture for the flowers, I spotted these little wild piggies. There were a lot of them! And they looked different from the domestic pigs - well, at least to me. Kind of cute but they ran off when they heard us coming. As did some of deer we saw - good points of them, too.



The baby cow didn't seem to mind me and he did well when we called for him to look at the camera. :-) And below is the flower we have been trying to identify. I zoomed in as far as I could since they seem to be located in pastures to which we do not have access. boooo! If you have any idea what it could be, please let us know. It's always nice to know what our bees might be feeding on since they are still making honey.

Hope you all have a GREAT weekend! Another hot one around here - upper 90s into next week and still no rain. Let's pray for some relief SOON.

Busy August

If you have wondering what I've been up to lately and why there's a lack of posting, then here's why - honey harvesting time! :-) It has been a busy, busy but truly awesome year for us. We have been so blessed and here's why:

1. The bees are doing GREAT this year thanks to an awesome spring filled with plenty of rain which helped with all the blooming wildflowers. That was harvest #1.
2. The mesquite bloomed way after the wildflowers faded for some reason. That was harvest #2.
3. Last year we harvested about 200 pounds of honey. This year, we got about 3000 pounds! Yes, amazing but true.
4. Mark's successfully split our strong hives and now we've grown from 25 hives to 40 and they are still looking strong.
5. We are having a TON OF FUN together with this bee and honey business. We are very lucky and work great together.

We've enjoyed steady sales since we first announced the availability of our honey and mostly we have been selling to friends, family and folks who knew about us last year. A lot of word of mouth. After our venture into farmers markets and trade days (Marion a couple of weeks ago), we are ready to take on additional shows in the next two months as everyone gears up for holiday shopping. Wish us luck! And I'll post ahead of time where we'll be in case you want to come out and see us. As always, I love to meet new friends. And I'd love to introduce you to our bees - we got a cool observation hive this past weekend!

Happy Friday Skywatch!

Happy Friday, everyone! I hope you have had a great week and will have an even better weekend coming up. Here's a shot of the sky right in front of our house recently - isn't it lovely? Lately it has been hot, hot, hot here with temperatures in the upper 90s and sometimes a heat index of over 100. Blazing sun with no clouds to buffer the intensity. Still, it hasn't been as hot as last year! :-)

Check out the other Sky Watchers as well for some great shots!

Sky Watch Over The Mill

Mark called me one day and told me to check out the sky because it looked really neat. So here's what I saw outside and I'm so glad I did! Hope you guys have a great Friday!

An Apple A Day

So I'm driving home yesterday and I see this truck and its haul going in the opposite direction - well, it was simply to intriguing not to turn and follow. I couldn't make out what they were at first (besides being apples, obviously). Luckily for me, the driver made a pit stop at a gas station and I got an easy shot.

These are from a ride that you might see at a carnival or fair. They are so beautifully bright and eye-catching, aren't they?