Mama’s event, repairs, bees, chickens and gardening, schedule changes

Saturday, Mama participated in an event at the local High School. For her it was one of the most productive days she has had so far marketing her Color Street nail sets. That was a great encouragement to her. She sold twenty-five of the set she had on hand. She developed confidence in the card reader she has programmed into her phone to take payments via credit/debit cards. She made dozens of contacts with promises from five or six people to have parties in the near future. Her nail sets generated a lot of excitement. All vendors, including Mama, packed up early because the winds picked up and became too violent to continue. Mama had borrowed a canopy from friends and even with the weights supplied with that canopy, it was impossible to hold down the canopy against the force of those winds. All in all, she felt very good about the event and will have lots of follow-up opportunities to keep her busy for several weeks.

Meanwhile, I worked on some household repairs. Recently one of the drawers we have in the kitchen fell apart. The drawers are enclosed behind double cabinet doors, so they are large. Over the process of living and keeping things close for use, we overloaded that drawer and the support on one side actually came loose within the cabinet allowing the drawer to collapse on that side while the other side remained connected.  I had to replace the support that had broken loose, replace the drawer slide and reinstall that drawer. That took some time trying to match one side of the drawer to the other to make sure the new drawer slides would work properly. Once that was done, I replaced the slides on the remaining three drawers. The three that were still intact were simple to redo, so now Mama has new drawer slides on all her large kitchen drawers. They will all be loaded up to capacity soon, but I am fairly confident the new slides will hold up to the weight of all the pots, pans, mixing bowl, cake pans and casserole dishes they will store for Mama.

I wanted to work in the hives Saturday afternoon, but the winds were too strong for me to do so. The general rule of thumb is that it is best not to go into the hive when the winds are more than six miles per hour. Opening the hive in high winds makes the bees pretty angry, especially as frames are lifted out of the hive to be inspected. So, as much as I felt like I needed to inspect the hives, I held off. Almost every day the winds have been high, and it looks like that trend will continue, so I may be forced to violate the guidance I have been advised to follow. Also, late Friday evening, I set out three swarm traps to see if I can catch one or more swarms. I have high hopes of getting back up to four strong hives this year – if not more. I feel like I have the experience now to handle the eight hives recommended for us to produce enough honey for personal use for a year.

Tonight, Mama and I will clip the wings of our chickens because we have a few hens that are flying into the garden and scratching up the rows of  flowers we have sprouting there. The chickens tend to look for moist areas because those are the areas that attract the bugs they are looking for. The moist areas in the garden are the rows of vegetables and flowers that Mama and I water several times per week. The results are that the chickens are naturally attracted to the rows Mama, and I are tending to – ruining those plants growing in those rows. So, to keep the chickens from being able to fly over the fence around the garden, we will clip the feathers on one wing of each of the hens. With only one wing clipped, the hens will not be able to fly. Maybe we can win this conflict, maybe not, but we will try. Within a few months, the clipped feather will grow back out, so there is no injury to the chickens. Now, if we can beat the rat that has caused us so much damage in the coop, I will feel much better.

Mama taught a class at our church school this morning. One of the teachers asked for Mama’s help so she could make a doctor’s appointment. That teacher has been experiencing some severe pain and has been waiting to get help. Today was her day. We do not know the outcome, but Mama got to play teacher and she enjoyed it. It is not something she would like to do on a daily basis. She likes her time at the farm, but it is a fun, challenging reprieve for her at odd times.

I worked from the office today, per my new schedule. It is certainly much busier when we meet together at the office, but it is nice to quickly and easily make the face-to-face contacts through the day so questions can be broadly addressed and more thoroughly discussed.

Fun times.