Weekly Update: 5.18.24
Don't eat insects that have wings and walk on all four feet; they also are to be hated.
Leviticus 11:20, NCV
My son, eat thou honey, because it is good;
And the honeycomb, which is sweet to thy taste:Proverbs 24:13, KJV
Bugs. Bugs. Bugs. The creeping, crawling, buzzing, flying, hopping creatures have been the theme of this week. Whether we have been working on bee hives, swatting mosquitos, or putting out fly traps, we keep finding ourselves coming back to dealing with insects in one way or another.
As the weather has turned warmer, the flies have returned to our homestead in full force. We hung fly ribbons and sticky window-clings all over the bunkhouse. It has helped immensely, though some days even the copious traps are not enough. In the tent, we tend to swat the flies or use a "bug-a-salt" gun, which shoots flies with table salt. The gun works remarkably well, though we get tired of having salt everywhere. Even with all of those methods, we whipped up a DIY fly trap this week to see if we could catch more with some vinegar and sugar. Despite the rave reviews online, the traps have done no good at all.
We've also began spending more time in the shade this week -- where mosquitos also try to beat the heat. We whipped up some of our DIY bug spray, but the bugs were so bad we found ourselves slathering with Picaridin lotion as well. Bonnie-Jean mixed up some pet-safe tick repellent, hoping to curb the copious amount of ticks the dogs are bringing into the tent -- even though they are all on Brevecto.
When we take our laundry off of the line now, we have to fight tiny grasshoppers trying to hop into the clean clothes. I flick one away, only to have it boomerang right back.
Going outside at night is hazardous. As soon as the sun goes down, the beetles come out to swarm and swoop around our porch, dancing in the glow cast by our hanging lights. The nasty things love to cling to our hair if we chance to walk by.
And our cicadas haven't even emerged yet!
Even so, we are thankful to be living in a place that so buzzes with life. Doubtless, these are the conditions that made catching two swarms of honeybees so easy. We've worked hard this week on our horizontal hives. Building the hives involved learning to use a table saw and a hand-held router -- two entirely new tools to our family. There was quite a learning curve, and some of us still have a ways to go. My dad spent most of his time on the table saw, while I spent hours first learning and then using the router. Dad cut our planks into tongue-and-groove pieces, and I used the router to shape frames and cut entrances. All of this learning took up a lot of our time this week, but we felt it was a good opportunity to get to know our new tools before using them for our house. In the end, we have two new bee hives that cost less than 40-dollars each. If all goes well, we will be moving our bees this weekend.
In the brief moments we weren't dealing with bugs, we made progress on our other fronts. We started on the electric in our bunkhouse. On Monday, Grace and Levi put outlet boxes in some of the rooms. We had a loose plan of standard outlet placement, but it was fun to think about our furniture and where we would actually want outlets as well.
Getting into the garden has been difficult with all the rain, but whenever we could, we have continued breaking up the soil and removing rocks. Levi put more of our posts in as well. We are hopeful that we will get our fence up this weekend. Then we can start making some rows and getting at least some of our plants into the ground. The starts are growing like crazy, and our bunkhouse is starting to look a bit like a plant nursery.
In between tasks, Grace put together a birdfeeder. While we have always enjoyed watching the birds on our place, there seem to be more of them this year -- and varieties we don't remember seeing last year. Grace has enjoyed doing a little bird photography when she can find the time.
Last weekend, we celebrated Mother's Day. We treated both our mom and Erin with a country breakfast and mimosas. We made quick work of the chores and food prep in the morning, then we spent the afternoon in the shade, snacking on crackers and Wisconsin cheese curds while everyone rested. My mom and I worked on our family tree -- something we rarely have time for these days, though we are trying to work it in. For dinner, we feasted on deli sandwiches and macaroni salad -- a high-carb treat we rarely indulge in.
It was a good, well-rounded week. We have tweaked our schedule again -- something we have to do every couple of months, as we adjust to each season's unique challenges. Now that the afternoons are getting so hot, we are trying to get our most physical labor done by mid-afternoon, using the hottest part of the day to tackle bookwork, planning, and if we are lucky -- a little recreation. The days ran more smoothly after the adjustment, and I'm looking forward to settling into the new routine in the coming weeks. I sit drafting this post in the woods, surrounded by birdsong and gently rustling leaves. It's incredibly rejuvenating. After busy days full of hurry and hard work, a little earned downtime is a special blessing. As the warm summer stretches before us, I'm looking forward to many such late afternoons.
