Mid-July Update

Random Pictures for the week. We were so busy driving back and forth to home depot, focusing on finishing the apartment but its finally done, finished, complete! Phew! Good to get our lives and farm time back. At least we made good use of the days when it was just too hot to go outside.

Did a walk around the front acre where I had planted a bunch of parsley and dill for the black swallowtails. Checked on it and realized they were covered with babies!! Butterflies that visit our flowers stop by to lay their eggs on it - and the resulting caterpillars can reduce a parsley plant down to nubs in a matter of a few days. Here are some caterpillars that will turn into the black butterfly that is commonly seen flittering around in our fields.

Here they are quite hidden in a thicket of parsley. I have them away from the front in hopes of protecting them from the hungry birds. Came back a few days later and couldnt find any of the little guys. Had to do a double take as I realized they had started to change - into yet another stage of camoflage! Wow - Pretty good impression of a leaf! Dumpling said if I hadn't had pointed it out he would not have seen it. Expecting more swallowtails soon. I hope to catch it as it emerges, so I can catch some shots, but that will be pretty hard to do!

The new hens are settling in and have gotten some blue eggs already. "Yum"

Buckwheat is ready to til under. This buckwheat is acting as a "green manure" to fertilize the field. Expecting a delivery of 6,000 sunflower seeds in the mail any day now. Planting that next week, more photos of that step by step process to come.

We had a great July meeting of the tidewater beekeepers association. A master gardener gave a presentation about what to plant for your bees. Seems they are most partial to massive quantities of small flowers. Example, if you let your basil go to flower they will adore that. Alot of herbs have tiny flowers that bees get really excited about, like the mints.

Dumpling was motivated to do some photography and get some videos at the entrance of the hive, here he is checking it out, Camera in tow. I will figure out how to post some videos here soon!

Some up close shots of the entrance.

This shot definetly required the bee suit, lol! Some side views, looks like our house is "beeing " taken over! Very Cool.

I recently learned that 85% of a bees weight, when it returns to the hive, is pollen and nectar.

The girls have been busy.

On a side note, I am drowning in flowers. ! Havent had enough time to even harvest (takes about 3-4 hours minimum to deadhead and cut flowers) so in the last week it has really caught up to me.

Here is me trying to get back on track. Overflowing buckets of petals. Here are some close up shots. Tons of different color variations.

Flowers have gotten alot bigger and better since the first blooms.

More flowers to come!