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I’m Also Very Helpful

Monday, July 20th, 2009

Amazingly, since covering the floor of Bernie’s lean-to with gravel, the chickens seem to have lost interest in scratching around under it. While that is exactly what we had hoped for, I was absolutely certain it would never work. But those chickens like to keep me guessing, and I suspect they stay out of the lean-to area just to prove they do what they want, when they want. As if I ever doubted that.

We put a metal garage on this property long before we actually moved here. Originally it was used to store the lawn mower, yard tools, shed tools, etc. We didn’t put a floor down for it, we just covered it in pine mulch and, because the ground is not completely level under it, there were many spaces that were large enough for the chickens to scoot into the garage and play in the pine mulch. When we finally moved onto the property, we began actually using the garage as a …. well…. garage. We began parking our cars and motorcycles in it. And the chickens continued to get into the garage and play in the pine mulch. They hid nests in there, and they covered everything in dust with all their scratching. I’m sure you know where this story is going…..

Yes, as you guessed, Bernie was so pleased with the gravel floor of the lean-to that he decided he wanted to put gravel down as the floor for the garage as well. So last week he started by spending a couple of days hauling dirt into the garage and leveling the floor.

When he finished he called me out to look at it. I was so pleased with all his hard work that I blurted out “If you wait until this weekend to bring in the gravel, I’ll help you with it.” And then I immediately prayed that I had only thought that and not actually SAID it. But my fears were realized when Bernie replied “OK.”

Doh! Why, oh why, can’t I learn to keep my big mouth closed?

So Saturday morning we began emptying the garage in preparation of hauling in the gravel. When we got to a corner where Bernie keeps an air compressor for the car tires, he called me over. “Watch what’s under the board this air compressor sits on.” And as he lifted the board, I saw this:

Spotted Salamander

Just look at that cute Spotted Salamander. Could you not just kiss those spots right off of him? My creative juices immediately began flowing, and with every ounce of originality I possess, I named him “Sallie”. Bernie said he’d been seeing Sallie scurry out from under that board for quite some time, so I guess Sallie has declared the garage his official home.

We ended up putting Sallie in a shoe box because he nestled himself into the corner of the garage and refused to leave while we were working. We started putting gravel down at the opposite end, and when we got to the end where Sallie was, we put him in a shoe box so we could finish up.

Spotted Salamander

He didn’t seem particularly crazy about the shoe box, but I was very pleased that he curled up in a corner and didn’t try to get out for the short time we kept him in there. And after we finished putting down the gravel, the first thing Bernie did was put Sallie’s board back down in the corner of the garage. And Sallie seemed pretty darn happy about that.

Spotted Salamander

And then I took a picture of our beautiful, graveled, garage floor.

garage

And now, when we close the garage doors, there are no longer any spaces the chickens can scoot through to get inside the garage.

garage

When we were finished, I took the pups down to get mail and to look at what’s left of the ton of gravel we had delivered.

gravel pile

My muscles go into spasms every time I look at that dwindling pile of gravel. Just looking at that pile and knowing how much work Bernie and I had done wore poor Diesel slap out. He sat at the edge of the woods by the cabin recuperating for quite a while.

pups

And Dolly offered quite a bit of sympathy.

pups

And then they forgot all about the pile of gravel and hard work Bernie and I had done and told me it was time to take them home and feed them. Which is exactly what I did. Just because I’m just so dad-gum helpful.

Bee Free,
Penny

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Posted in basic living, biker, chickens, homestead, homesteading, motorcycling | 17 Comments »

Hamburg Heaven and Indian Pipes

Wednesday, June 17th, 2009

Just as my other hatches, this last hatch happened at day 20. Yesterday, all four of the eggs the broodies were setting on hatched out. The broody Hamburg has concerned me all along with regard to exactly what her mothering instinct would be. Hamburgs are notoriously NOT a broody breed, and she wasn’t the best broody I’ve had. When I took her off her nest each day, she would often stay outside for about an hour. When she went back to nest, she would get on the wrong one. I made her set on fake eggs and let the Phoenix broody hatch out the four eggs. I just didn’t trust that Hamburg.

Well, after the eggs started hatching, I put two of them under the Hamburg and she seemed to be doing great with the new babies last night. This morning, however, I found one of her babies in the far corner, and the Hamburg kept pecking the baby when it got close. I took that baby and gave it to the Phoenix, who was more than happy to have three to tend to. So the Hamburg has one baby – and I will say she is a ferociously protective mother of that little baby. Every time I try to lift her a little to look at her baby she screeches and pecks the snot out of my hand. The Phoenix broodies are protective too, but they don’t react as vicious towards me.

Hamburg with chick

She is truly in heaven with that little baby. And the Phoenix is doing wonderfully with her three. The nine little 2 and 1/2 week old babies are learning to free range with their mamas and loving every second of it. And it’s getting difficult to tell the difference between the older, 4ish month old chicks and the adult chickens. They grow so fast.

It’s been raining steadily all day, but that didn’t stop Diesel and Dolly from demanding to go on their daily mail run. I put on my rain gear and we took off for the mailbox. On the way home, Diesel and Dolly decided they wanted to go off road and walk through the woods to the house. As soon as we got a few feet from the road into the woods, I began seeing the most beautiful plant – everywhere. I thought it was a fungus of some sort as it was growing out of fallen, rotting pines and on the forest floor. And it was white. A beautiful, white fungus looking flower thingy. These flowers were growing in clumps and those clumps seemed endless. They decorated the woods beautifully on such a rainy, dank day.

I didn’t have my camera with me because it was so wet and rainy, so I picked one and brought it to the house. Look at this pretty little thing:

Indian Pipe Flower

(Forgive the background – I held it next to the window so I wouldn’t have to use a flash and inadvertently got The Big Top in the picture.)

Isn’t that pretty? Can you just imagine seeing the forest floor covered in those snow white beauties? As it turns out, that’s an Indian Pipe. And it is not a fungus. It’s a flower. This is how the flower part of it looks:

Indian Pipe Flower

Indian Pipes are really fascinating little things. They are plants that produce no chlorophyll, which is why they are white. Although they are not a fungus, they do have a very important relationship with fungus. And apparently bumble bees love them. If you are interested in reading more about Indian Pipes, I think this website offers the most information in an understandable and succinct fashion.

Oh! Yesterday was Bernie’s birthday. I asked him how it feels to be a year older and he replied “I’m not a year older. I’m just another day older.” Well, according to my math that’s A LOT of days!

Happy Birthday, Honey. I love you.

Bee Free,
Penny

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Posted in basic living, biddies, biker, chickens, homestead, homesteading, motorcycling | 7 Comments »

Random Stuff We’ve Been Up To

Tuesday, October 30th, 2007

This blog and our website have been such great experiences for us. I started the website because when we first considered homesteading, I found lots of site about people who were homesteading, but very few that explained how they got started with it. I figured we were bumbling our way through it, and maybe someone could learn from the mistakes we make as we go and the stuff we do right. I never dreamed we would make so many new friends, and hook up with so many old friends we had lost touch with. It’s been great! Now if we could only get our families to look at it…… they’d rather call and ask “So what have you been up to? Anything new on your website?”

I think I told y’all that Senator Obenshain asked us to get a bunch of bikers together and ride in a parade for him the second weekend in October. Senator Obenshain has been a great friend to us, and we love riding, so we got a crew together and made him proud. Here’s a group shot at the end of it. If you’ve ever been around bikers you know that trying to get them in one place in one time is as easy as nailing jello to a tree, so this picture is missing a few. But it’s a nice picture anyway, so I’ll post it here:

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I also posted some additional pictures on the VFR website. Check them out!

We were having a lot of trouble with yellow jackets robbing honey in one of our hives. We ended up screening in the bottom entrance, so the girls would all use the top entrance and hopefully be able to ward off the predators a little better. Well, they were still struggling. So I put out some wasp traps that I hope will give the girls a little break. I talk about how to make the traps on The Bee Buzz if you are interested in reading it.

Tonight I made some coffee soap that is supposed to be great at getting rid of cooking smells (like onion, garlic, fish) off your hands. I have always wanted to make those pretty swirl soaps, but I never had much confidence that I could actually do it, so I didn’t try. Well, tonight I decided to give it a shot. I made the swirl color out of cocoa powder. The coffee soap is a dark tan, so I thought the deep cocoa color would be pretty in it. And it probably would. But I learned what I suspected all along. I am swirl challenged. So instead of swirled soap, I have blobbed soap. But it really smells nice. I’m hoping when I take it out of the mold tomorrow and cut it, it won’t look as bad as it does in the mold. But did I mention it smells really nice?

Bee Free,
Penny


Posted in basic living, bees, biker, freedom fighter, home made soap, homestead, homesteading, honey bees, rain, Virginia, wasp, yellow jacket | 2 Comments »

The Count Down Until Full Time Homesteading

Sunday, August 19th, 2007

Well, we left the homestead today knowing that we only have one more time to leave it! And while it’s difficult not to wish the next two weeks away, we have so much to do in that time and so much to enjoy that it will take focus to take it one day at a time.

We left the Paper Wasp nest to hang for another week before we remove it. My Dear John had an excellent suggestion and we’ll put it in the freezer for a week or so before dissecting it.

Our big project this weekend was putting a double barrel Weber carburetor on my trike. That may not seem much like homesteading to you, but let me tell you that I would be one mean homesteader without my trike. So anything we do to it should be considered absolutely related to homesteading. The happier my trike is, the happier I am. So you can see, it is all very much related.

Putting on this carburetor involved everything from a simple wrench to a rubber mallet to a sawsall. That motor area is unbelievably tight. Like by buddy Tex explains, it’s a jigsaw puzzle. But we got it all disassembled and then put the new carburetor on, only to learn we screwed up on putting the alternator back together. Yes, putting on the carburetor involved removing the alternator. It is indeed a freaking puzzle – so much so that the instructions recommended removing the motor. It probably would have been easier had we done so, but Bernie and I are not known for taking the easy way out, so we just kind of winged it. But while we were winging it with the alternator, we didn’t realize it didn’t go back together quite right. So we had to mess with that a while. Once that was finished, the Grape Ape fired right up! I did a little jig. Bernie tried to look all “Yea, I knew it would start” but he was grinning like a fool. Very nice! The bad news is that I screwed up the throttle connection to the hand grip when we were testing the pull to the carburetor. Expensive lesson, but I’ll buy a new hand grip this week.

Other than that, we just really tried to enjoy our time on the homestead. The bees are doing great and you can read about them on The Bee Buzz. I began rendering beeswax this weekend, and once I am finished I intend to put up a webpage on the process on The Bee Buzz website. I have searched high and low on the internet for step by step instructions, and have yet to find them. Maybe this will help out some other searching soul. I hope to have it up within the next two weeks – complete with pictures.

Bee Free,
Penny


Posted in apiary, basic living, bees, beeswax, biker, homestead, homesteading, motorcycling, paper wasp, wasp | No Comments »

Sneaky Little Things on the Homestead

Saturday, August 18th, 2007

Earlier this summer we were sitting at the picnic bench at the homestead on a fine, summer day with Tex and Charlotte when we became aware of an odd, rather annoying noise. “Scrape. Scrape. Scrape. Scrape.” We all looked around. What in the world was making that never ending sound? Finally Charlotte spotted it. It was a Paper Wasp and it had found a piece of cardboard left by the electrician with a schematic drawn on it – it was hanging next to the electric box outside, which was very close to where we were sitting. We watched the wasp work for a while ,and then fly off, only to be replaced by another wasp very quickly. Bobo jumped up to eat it, but we yelled at him and as he opened his mouth, the wasp flew off to safety. We laughed about that a while and then removed the cardboard and allowed Bobo to tear it to shreds. Bobo likes to tear up cardboard.

So fast forward a few months to…. well …. today. Bernie and I spent a couple hours mowing today, and then spent the rest of it working on my trike. We added a two barrel carburetor. She ought to like that pretty well! We’ll finish it up in the morning, but we finally reached the point where we could go no further until we visit an auto parts store. So around 4:30PM, we called it quits and came inside to relax a little before cleaning up and eating supper.

Bernie can not relax without turning on a TV, so he did that about the second we walked in the door. I was in the kitchen stirring the spaghetti when I heard him ask “Did we pay the cable bill this month?” By “we”, he meant “me”. I pay the bills. “Well, of course we paid the cable bill this month. Why?”

He didn’t look convinced when he said “Well, we have no cable. The message on the screen says a bunch of stuff that I think means maybe we didn’t pay a bill.”

“We paid the bill. Maybe that tree foliage got too big. Maybe the dish got out of alignment.” I was pretty sure I was not to blame here.

“I’ll go outside and look.” And Bernie took off outside. I shut off the TV and the dish box and then started them up again. I saw Bernie walking by the window. I opened the window and said “Well, what do you think?” He said “I think you need to come out here. And I think you need to bring your camera.” What????? I didn’t question him. I grabbed my camera, threw on my sandals and took off outside. I anxiously asked “What is it?” He pointed at the corner of the house, up on the eave and said “Look up there”. I expected to see the spot where a meteor had struck our roof and destroyed our satellite dish. Instead, I saw this:

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Paper Wasps! Darn things. And I knew where they had gotten most of that paper from.

Still, we couldn’t help but admire the hard work of these creatures. It really is impressive what they can come up with using something as simple as a piece of cardboard:

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And they build those little over-hangs as the entrances/exits. Very impressive indeed. But really not cool to have hanging directly overhead of an area we mow, weed eat, and walk in. So we sprayed them with poison that we hate using. Next weekend we’ll remove the nest and dissect it. As much as I am terrified of wasps and hornets, I do admire them. And I’m interested in how they build their abode – although I would highly recommend they do that in one of the thousands of trees we have on our homestead rather than right on our home.

By the way, the cable was fine. When we came inside the satellite had restarted and a nice picture was playing on our TV. I told him I payed that bill.

Bee Free,
Penny


Posted in basic living, biker, homestead, homesteading, motorcycling, paper wasp, wasp | No Comments »

Plan B is in Effect

Sunday, August 12th, 2007

Well, after trying to sell our home in town for over a year, we’ve decided to go to Plan B. As much as we had hoped and planned to sell the house and use that money to pay off all debt before we move to our homestead, circumstances have led us to realize that it really makes more sense for us to move forward. Bernie has resigned from his job effective August 31. Three more weeks, and we’ll be on our homestead permanently.

I will keep my job for now so that we can continue to meet all of our financial obligations. It will be a little tight, but it is certainly doable. In the meantime, Bernie will slowly move our belongings out to the homestead, and clean and paint our home in town. Maybe it will sell more quickly if it is empty. I’m happy that we’ll finally be on our homestead and I can realize my dream of having chickens and goats. Bernie’s happy that he’ll no longer have to wake up to a 3:15AM alarm clock. We’re both happy that we no longer have to remember what food, furniture, tools, and clothing we have at one place or the other. We stay perpetually confused about where our “stuff” is.

It was a nice weekend on the homestead. We went out Thursday night and enjoyed a nice, quiet, relaxing evening. It helped that there was no sign of bears. Then we went to Natural Bridge, VA on Friday for a Governor’s Motorcycle Advisory Council meeting that Bernie had. The meetings are open to the public, so I decided to attend since it was being held in such a cool place. If you’ve never been to Natural Bridge, it’s worth visiting. It has been listed as one of the “Natural Wonders” of the world. Very scenic. We rode our bikes down and although I confess to being very partial to Virginia, I will still say that there really is not a more beautiful state. Every state has something to offer, but I think Virginia has it all. And it’s so darn pretty.

At any rate, we stayed Friday night at the Natural Bridge Hotel and it was awesome. The hotel is completely biker friendly and the guests just seemed to be there to enjoy life and have a good time. We made new friends from as close as neighboring counties in Virginia and as far away as New York and from other places that we never thought to ask about. Some were bikers and some were not. It was a really super stay in a really beautiful place. I give it four out of five stars – and that’s only because the rooms could use just a little renovation.

We arrived back to the homestead Saturday morning and enjoyed a relaxing day. This morning we got up and got busy with the bees again. You can read about it on The Bee Buzz.

We had another great weekend on the homestead – and it only made it more enjoyable realizing that we will only be leaving it two more times before being there permanently! You’ll be hearing a lot more from me after that – you lucky dawgs.

Bee Free,
Penny


Posted in basic living, bear, bees, biker, homestead, homesteading, honey bees, motorcycling, Natural Bridge, Virginia | No Comments »

The Cyle of Life

Saturday, July 28th, 2007

As I approach 50, kicking and screaming every inch of the way, I find myself reflecting on the cycle of life more than ever before. It seems that every situation I find myself in boils down to the “cycle of life”. It’s interesting to me. I don’t necessarily find it depressing, I just find it very interesting.

We arrived at the homestead this weekend to face the fact that we have lost one of our beehives. No, it was not due to Colony Collapse Syndrome. It was due to the fact that we really refused to believe we were losing a hive. This is the hive that had a drone layer and the hive that we have never found a queen in. Still, we chose to believe we just missed the queen. There was a great deal of activity around the hive, afterall. But the truth is, the hive was dieing and while we had hoped it would last until Bob from the Department of Agriculture showed up with a new queen, the hive was struggling. And now it’s dead. Very sad. We still have five hives, but it’s pretty depressing to lose a hive when you know there is no one and nothing to blame but yourself. It was a cycle of life for this hive, but we could have prolonged it if we had interfered. And with bee hives, you really must interfere from time to time.

Well, Bob will be here Monday and we’ll inspect the other five hives. I wrote a little about the bees and my wax rendering experience on The Bee Buzz and I put some pictures up of some honey robbers on The Bee Buzz Website.

And speaking of the cycle of life, I told you last week of how my trike had a header blowout and we patched it up with a beer can and a clothes hanger. Well, here’s a picture of it:


Today we put new headers on her, and if the new headers weren’t so darn pretty, I would be a lot more sad about getting rid of this beautiful patch job. But do not worry, the old headers will go to Tex. He can take anything and turn it into something to be proud to own.

Speaking of Tex, he and Charlotte are coming out tomorrow morning. They’re bringing Bobo of course – I suspect Bobo is the real reason they are coming out. I think he gets to missing me and insists on it. I’ll feed them breakfast, and then Tex and Bernie will level out the container so we can build a lean-to off of it. I imagine Charlotte, Bobo, and I will spend a lot of time inside. These man-jobs can be a little nerve wracking. Besides, I need to melt and filter the beeswax one more time. I think Bobo will enjoy that activity a lot more than watching the guys do man-stuff.

Bee Free,
Penny


Posted in apiary, basic living, bees, beeswax, biker, homestead, homesteading, honey bees, lip balm, motorcycling | No Comments »

How a Coat Hanger, a Beer, and Bikers Saved My Life

Monday, July 23rd, 2007

This weekend Bernie and I took a little road trip to Hillsville, Virginia. The Virginia Bikers Association (VABA) sponsored Thunder On the Mountain and this was certainly an event worth making an effort to attend. I must say, VABA put on one of the most organized and enjoyable biker events we’ve had the privilege of attending – and we’ve attended a few. It occurred at the Lakeview RV Resort, which is a completely awesome place to spend a weekend.

Hillsville is about 250 miles from our homestead, and with the weatherman forecasting a beautiful weekend, we decided to ride down. So I hooked up the trailer to the trike and we loaded it with a weekend full of necessities – which involved a couple changes of clothes, toothbrushes, and a cooler full of libations. Bernie hopped on his bike, I fired up the Grape Ape (that’s what my trike likes to be called) and we headed off to Hillsville.

As I mentioned, it was a great time. We saw lots of old friends and made a few new ones (Bo and Beth – you rock!). VABA put on an awesomely organized Poker Run – well, actually TWO Poker Runs. One was a long run and one was a short run. I chose the long run because it went through a tunnel and I thought that sounded like it would sound cool to roar through a tunnel with 50 other bikers. It did not disappoint me. Neither did the Grape Ape. She ran like a scalded dog. I was pretty proud of her.

When we got back to the campsite I parked her in the bike show. She’s rather shameless and enjoys the attention. When it came to our turn to ride down the “runway” for all to see, Bo came running over to tell me something was wrong with the exhaust. I turned around in time to see him smack the tailpipe with his hand and say “Oh no”. I asked “Can I ride her?” and he replied “She ought to be OK to go up and down the runway once”. I had no clue what was wrong, but I knew my number was up to show off the trike, so I turned my attention to ground in front of me and took off. When we returned to our spot I hopped off and ran to the back of the trike, just in time to see the header come loose and droop to the ground. It was barely hanging on. All I could think of was “Lovely. I’m 250 miles from home and there ain’t no way the Grape Ape is getting me there in this condition.”

Did I mention we were at a biker event? Bikers are some of the most resourceful people you will ever meet. Within moments Bo assessed the situation and announced we needed some kind of wire or something to hold the header up off the ground and a clamp to try and close the huge crack in the tailpipe. Another biker ran off to get a coat hanger. My buddy Boil thought he could find a clamp. By the time Bernie ran down to check everything out, we had a plan. Bo took charge and wired the header up with the coat hanger. Boil and another biker donated a couple of clamps. But we still had a fairly large crack in the tailpipe and it was clear we needed something to cover it or I would be sucking air all the way home. Beth ran over to the trash can and came back with a beer can, which Bo cut the ends off of and then sliced down the middle to make a nice piece of medal that covered the crack just beautifully. Between the beer can, clamps, and some wire, we managed to get the crack covered pretty well. Well enough to get me all the way home anyway, even if we did sputter and pop when downshifting.

Homesteading is all about self reliance and self sufficiency. Not all bikers are homesteaders, but certainly as a group bikers are self reliant and self sufficient – or at the very least extremely clever.

I’ve always known that beer is a wonderful thing. And I’ve always been a little fond of the great service coat hangers have provided me. But tonight I am especially grateful for the both of them and for my biker family. While I really enjoyed Hillsville, I wasn’t looking forward to spending the rest of my life there. I am eternally indebted to a coat hanger, a beer, and a bunch of bikers. And Bo and Beth – I owe y’all one.

Bee Free,
Penny


Posted in biker, homestead, motorcycling, self reliance, self sufficiency | No Comments »

Happy Independence Day!

Wednesday, July 4th, 2007

Before I even start, I will preference this by saying this may seem an unusual post for a blog about basic living, but in reality it is very appropriate. Living “free” is only possible in a land where the government allows that to be so. I suppose in Utopia, no one would have the right to tell you how you can live, but we don’t live in Utopia – and as much as I hate to admit it, government is a necessity for us all to live in some semblance of harmony. I don’t think any of us would argue about that – the argument would be about how much of a role the government is allowed to play.

So today is the day we celebrate our independence from, by all accounts, an oppresive government. It seemed appropriate that today Bernie and I would ride our bikes in a parade to support a delegate who works tirelessly to keep our current state government from becoming any more oppresive than it already is. Delegate Lingamfelter stands on the side of freedom – and we stand on the side of Delegate Lingamfelter. He is a patriot and we were proud to show our support by riding in a parade for him.

You can view some of the pictures on the Virginia Freedom Riders website.

Regardless of how you celebrated Independence Day, I hope it was safe and meaningful. Enjoy your family, enjoy your freedom – and don’t forget to thank those who fought and fight to insure you can do so.

Be Free,
Penny


Posted in 4th of July, basic living, biker, freedom fighter, homestead, homesteading, Independence Day, July 4th, motorcycling | No Comments »

Rubba-Dub-Dub

Saturday, June 30th, 2007

We are having a great weekend on the homestead. It was raining when we arrived, which was a welcome respite from the dry weather we’ve been having. The grass is coming in quite nicely now.

This morning we worked on my trike and corrected a backfire issue is was having by replacing the #1 cylinder spark plug and wire. We tuned her up and she’s running like a top now. Which is really good – because we’re riding in support of Delegate Lingamfelter this week for the Dale City 4th of July parade.

Afterwards, I made a batch of home made soap. I’ve been reading up on this, and it’s something that seemed a little intimidating, but I really wanted to do. If things were to get really bad, I’d like to think I could at least continue with basic hygiene. The ingredients are pretty easy to come by, with the possible exception of lye – and I found a recipe for making my own lye, if it comes down to that. At any rate, I spent an hour or so making soap, and I am pretty excited to see how it turn out. Check it out!

This afternoon we cooked out and grilled some great burgers and bratwurst. Then we walked down to check out the bees. On the way down we stopped by one of the little creeks and saw several of the girls getting a little drink of water. They were darn cute standing on the rocks so their feet didn’t get wet. Wish I’d had my camera. They seem to be doing pretty well. Lots of activity around every hive. We’ll get Bob W. from the Dept. of Agriculture to come out again in a couple of weeks so we can do another thorough hive inspection.

We also noticed on our walk to the hives that we have raspberries, blackberries, and blueberries ripening up. I had a few for dessert as we walked. Hopefully I’ll be able to beat the birds and bears to them in the next couple of weeks and collect enough for a pie – or at the very least for a nice topping on my pancakes!

Oh – and for those of you who have asked, I do believe I reign triumphant over the mice! I haven’t seen a sign of them in the house for several weeks now. Of course it helped that daddy helped me search out every conceivable point of entry for them while he was here and fill it with that expanding foam. And as a side note, I would mention that when you read “expanding” on that foam, it means EXPANDING. That stuff looks alien about 30 minutes after you spray it – and it ain’t budging once it’s in place. I speak from experience.

Bee Free,
Penny


Posted in apiary, basic living, bees, biker, freedom fighter, homestead, homesteading, honey, honey bees, motorcycling, self reliance, self sufficiency, soap | No Comments »

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