Rain!!!

No huge writeup on this but I just want you all to know how wonderful it was to see this sky and to finally get some rain. WOO HOO!!!

Texas Sky In July

Hello folks. Was feeling under the weather a bit this weekend so I am behind. I actually wanted to share this on Saturday but oh well. My world was tilted so no posting from me. Anyway, this is our lovely, hot sky above Seguin from one of our bee yards. It has been about 100 degrees everyday, not counting the heat index. We sure do need some rain and tomorrow is predicted to have a 40% chance of rain. Come on rain!

Intro to Beekeeping - Explore the Hive Video

This is part of our beekeeping class we did in our backyard last Saturday. I just realized it was posted on the KWED YouTube channel. Cool!

Monday Sky

Here's what today looks like from our backyard and on the ramp of the honey house. It's HOT. Oppressive really, but the sky is lovely. Hope you had a good Monday. Four more days until some chill time. :-)

Bee Suits, Not Aliens

No, aliens did not land in Seguin this weekend, in case you drove by our house and wondered that. It was the first official beekeeping class in Seguin, as far as we know and have heard. We had a great time and we think the students did also. It's a lot of fun to introduce new things in our community to people. Already looking forward to the next one on Saturday.

Here are two write-ups on the class in case you're interested:

Our official GBR post from the beekeeping couple's perspective (or the wife part of the couple, at any rate - Bee Ranch Blog

Our friend and reporter, Jessica Domel's perspective (very hilarious) - Jessica's Blog

Team USA Rocks!

Today Team USA was welcomed home when they arrived at San Antonio International Airport, which is about a 40 minute drive from Seguin. It's either here or Austin. I pick SA every time. :-) Very manageable traffic and airport. This is the softball gold medal team that beat Russia in the championship round of the Special Olympics World Games in Athens! I work with one of the team coaches and his son is a team member as well. We are so extremely proud of everyone. I just had to share!

Circus Train

Here's what Mark saw passing him as he drove to Marion to restock the honey shelves - the circus train! I wish I could have seen it with him. He said there were passenger cars, then animal cars, then equipment cars. Neat! I haven't been to the circus in so many years but it's always a fond memory I have of elementary school and going with my class. Though I do recall not volunteering to go down to walk around on the floor because no one explained to six year old who just came over from Viet Nam that participating with the circus folks won't mean that they'll take you away for forever.

Watermelon & Bees

Hope everyone had a great fourth of July today - filled with friends, family, parades, good eats and plenty of fun and laughter. But one thing I know we didn't have at all this year are the fireworks - banned due to the drought. Oh well, it is better to be safe than burnt up more than we already are. I'm glad for the precaution because we are still in need of rain.

This is a gloriously sweet watermelon a friend brought us in exchange for some honey. Her family apparently has quite the garden and we bartered for fresh veggies and fruit. Wonderful deal for us! We've enjoyed cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, squash and zucchini, cantaloupe and now this. It was so sweet and delicious. Nothing said holidays more to me than snacking on watermelon all day. Especially after a hot spell out in the sun as Mark helped a faithful honey fan get rid of some bees whose home had tipped over to reveal all that honeycomb. Luckily they were not Africanized. The watermelon on the trip back to Seguin sure quenched our thirst.

Look Up for Mistletoe

One of the things I love about Texas - abundant mistletoe. It just doesn't matter if it's 20 degrees outside or 100 degrees. If you look up, you will see mistletoe here in South Texas. I LOVE mistletoe because it always makes me think of the Christmas season and that's one of my favorite times of the year.

Hope you are all having a great Fourth of July weekend.

Pictures, Honey, Pictures

Ever wonder how I spent time? It is still behind a camera oftentimes, but now it's behind a camera at a bee yard a lot. I am very blessed that I enjoy working with Mark and I get to learn about bees while still doing one of my favorite hobbies - photography! Here we are doing a product photos shoot for our new website we are working on furiously. Hope to get it up and running this weekend but we needed some specific product shots of each type of honey we have. It's always a lot of fun to add props and especially nice when we get to include nature in our photographs. I had a lot of fun doing this one.

Bee Biz Hits Groupon

Hi everyone. I am so excited I just had to share this - our little bee business has just hit Groupon! We are venturing into formally educating people about beekeeping, something we both enjoy a great deal and have been wanting to do on a larger scale and in a structured environment. This partnership with a honey company out of Round Rock will benefit both parties we believe. So far, we've had over 20 takers of the coupon. By the way, if you haven't checked out Groupon yet, give them a try. They showcase different coupons localized to your area or you can search by big city. Pretty neat and growing in popularity these days as we all try to stretch our money.

Hair Haus Revisited

I had the nicest visit to my favorite beauty shop in town! Recently I returned to get my hands and feet beautified with Katie at the Hair Haus and it was WONDERFUL. I'm just not a mani/pedi gal though I always enjoy it when I do have one (or both). I just don't have time for it and it's a luxury I don't often treat myself to for some reason. BUT...if a certain sweetie pie of mine gives me a gift certificate, well then, it's really a pleasure!

If you like having your hands and feet pampered and looking beautiful, visit the Hair Haus. I love that place because it's really beautiful inside. It's welcoming and calming and there is a lot of prettiness to look at - my eyes like it in there for the warm colors and the modern decor. I'm going back for a massage soon so I'll take my nice camera for a shot of the update shop. :-)

Texas Sky in June

Have you wondered how Texas has been weathering the drought? Here's a shot I snapped Friday when I went with Mark out to our Pizza Bee Yard, between Seguin and Gonzales. The sky is gorgeous, isn't it? Especially if you're at the beach! We sure could use some rain here - not just for us but for our bees as well. It sure has been dry this year. Last year was fabulous with all the rain that kept things blooming almost constantly. This year's a different story and while the bees are hanging in there, it does stress them a bit to not have a lot to live on right now. Notice how brown and dry the surrounding grass is around the yard. The tanks are drying out though fortunately there is still water in the tank at this yard so that our bees can water when they need to do so.

Peaches, Kitty & a Friend

Finally getting to enjoy a couple of the peaches from our tree. Nothing like last year but still adds a nice sweet and slightly tart flavor to our fruit salads. Doubt we'll get enough for any peach preserves this year, sadly.

I would like to send a shout-out to Donna P. who is still reading my blog AND following our Gretchen Bee Ranch blog as well. I ran into Donna at the vet's office when I went to pick up Smokey at the end of the day. It was his annual visit for shots and he got a nice little flea dip. Anyway, I want to say hi and thank you to Donna for her encouragement about the blogs. We met when I taught some computer classes here at the Seguin Library many years ago and it ALWAYS warms my heart to see students again. Especially when they remember me and let me know how we met. So, thank you, Donna. You made my whole week last week and I really appreciate your kind words and your continued support of the blogs! Hope you and your family have a great week!

Summer Sights

Here are some things happening in our yard so far this summer. It's been hot and dry though we did get a bit of rain a couple of weeks ago. In the above shot is borage - anyone use it for any cooking before? Someone gave it to us and we've never used it though I read you can use it in drinks and saute it as you would spinach. It's got a lot of white fuzz on the leaves and stems. Interesting and pretty plant.

Here's one of our little tomatoes - we got a late start on them so they are just now starting to bloom out a bit. We planted eight but only six are left with us and I'm working hard at keeping them well saturated to fight the extreme heat and sun. Our squash and zucchini didn't make it sadly. Asian Long Beans are doing fine though no white blooms on them just yet. I plant a LOT of them since we liked them so much last year. I also put some sunflowers in so hopefully they will continue to grow and then bloom for some photos. :-) Below are some of the peaches on our little tree out back. You may recall last year we had so many peaches we had to give a ton away because we couldn't eat them fast enough. They were delicious! This year, we have a decent number of fruit on the tree though nowhere near what we saw last year. I think they look lovely when they turn this beautiful blush color.

Finally, this morning I continue to try and keep our grass from drying up too much so I put the sprinkler out for a bit. I also like to do that for all the birds - they love to come to the water and get a bath in while they can. They fluff up and twirl all around - a lot of fun to watch. I especially love the red cardinals since they remind me of North Carolina.

Concrete Art

I loved the shapes and look of these! We passed this business as we went to one of our bee yards in Kingsbury. Technically I don't know if this is Seguin or Kingsbury and I don't even know the name of the business since there is no sign that we could see. Anyone know? It's no 90A. You see these at construction or staging sites for road and building projects. I bet they are heavy! And I think it'd be neat to do a photo shoot there among these things.

Trade Days on the Square Saturday April 30

Quick post before bed. Gretchen Bee Ranch will be in booths 36 and 37 tomorrow; that's behind the courthouse on the square (near the gazebo). Come on down for Trade Days and visit us! Please. :-)

Gardening, Bees and Jets

Still no rain this month. I don't even remember the last time we got a decent rain. Please, please rain soon. In between everything else we've had going on in life, I did manage to clean up three sections of our garden. It had really gone to the weeds since we had no time for a garden last year, nor did we manage the space at all. Oh well, there are six tomato plants, a ton of Asian long beans, one surviving egg plant, two yellow squash and two zucchini plants - let's see who makes it this long hot season. I can tell it's going to be a tough summer because we are only in April and it's already been in the 90s. Not unbearably humid YET. But it's coming.

And here is a beautiful sky shot (missed my Sky Watch Friday post) from one of our bee yards which is now located where the Schulz Nursery on Highway 123 was, ever so briefly. Pedro, who owns My Father's Farm, relocated there and we moved our bees from his first farm location to this one. It's an organic farm operation. These jets flew by for a while. I think there were five or six fly-bys and I think they were all different planes but I could be wrong on that so don't quote me.

Butterflies and Thistle

This one if for Alan. :-) Thistle is here and so are the butterflies. We saw these along Big Oaks Road south of town a bit when we went to check on the bees out there. So many black butterflies everywhere - it was amazing! We had too many bee yards to check on so no time to get out of the truck. I got a few shots of the activity. We were wondering if these butterflies were competition for our bees as they all searched out nectar in this dry spring. The butterflies must be winning or the bees must not yet want thistle in their diet because we saw not one bee on the purple blooms.

Wildflowers in a Drought

This spring is nothing like last year's spring, that's for sure. Last year we had abundant rain. This year? Dry, dry, dry. And more dry. We need rain! And yet we still are able to see and enjoy some beautiful wildflowers. I know it's nothing like in the years we have rain, but I'd say we're lucky we have what we do! This is a variety that Mark picked from one of our bee yards for a photo shoot for our honey products. I just LOVE all the colors and how different each kind of flower is. The color, shape and scent of each is amazing. This is what goes into our honey that is being made by our bees. I love it.