Walk About Acres

Hi there everyone. Thought I had forgot you? No, just busy and not too good at keeping the blog going. The new news is, we are going to expand our beekeeping supply business. We are in the first stages of construction, which means paper work and permits. Fun, fun. Then comes ground excavation, electric, water, then building. We hope to get this done before winter.  When completed the building will be our beekeeping equipment shop and warehouse. We also plan to build some of our own equipment, such as top covers, inner covers, bottom boards, etc. We are looking forward to being able to keep more inventory on hand.

This spring Vera and I taught a beginning beekeeping classes through the Columbia Area Career Center for about 20 students. We think it went very well. The Career Center must have thought so too, because they asked us to teach another one this fall. We accepted. If you would like to take the class contact the Columbia Area Career Center to enroll, call 573-214-3803, or see their web site www.career-center.org/adult.

We just finished supplying ice cream for the Missouri State Beekeepers at the Missouri state fair. Melissa is always ready for some time off after all the work she puts in making the delicious honey ice cream.

Need to close up the chicken house for the night. The raccoons and possums like to visit - not a good thing.

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     Gosh, it's been almost a month since I wrote anything, and lots has been happening. We have had one of our emus setting on eggs. A few have hatched. I didn't get the adult females out in time and three chicks were killed. We now have one baby emu and two more eggs hopefully to hatch. We also have 10 Black Cayuga ducklings, 3 Anacona ducklings and 7-8 Black/Blue Swedish ducklings. We have 5 Toulouse gooslings, and boy, are they big fellas. We have a variety of chicks: Silver and Gold Starlites, Rhode Island Reds, Black Sex Links, Barred Rocks and Colored Egg Layers. Nice variety.

     Last Saturday we had our package bee pick-up. That kept 7 of us very busy all day long. Sunday was also pick-up bees but in the afternoon we had a class on installation of package bees. We also showed how to make a split from an existing hive and how to re-queen a hive which was doing poorly. Long tiring weekend.

We did have a loss in the goat family. Belle, our Pigmy Goat, was pregnant and couldn't birth her kid. We took Belle in to the vet but the baby was too big. Belle and the baby both died. We do have 15 kids out in the pasture with their nannys. Two of the kids we are feeding with bottles.

We are keeping busy with the babies and the bees.

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Today was Columbia Farmers Market and was it ever a nice day. It was reported that we had over 2200 Customers today. We did a special on Honey Ice Cream at half price and it feels like all 2200 came to our booth. Then we hosted a birthday party this afternoon at our place. Where is the bed? We are both worn out. 

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Well this past weekend was stressful for us. When we got home from Iowa a neighbor called and said our Great Pyerneese was ill. We went to get her and took her to the vet hospital. The diagnosis was anti-freeze poisoning. She was in a coma and complete renal failure. They told us that she could receive dialysis but would have to send her to Louisanna or New York. We are now talking thousands of dollars, so we made the tough decission to have put her to sleep. This ended our Sunday.

 On the bright side we did have two more goats deliver twins on Sunday. Boy they are cute. One is black with a white ring around is belly whose name is naturally OREO!!!!!!

 We got the news the package bees will be late. Pickup date is April 30th.

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This week started off running. We went to the Tri-State Agritourism confrence in Pittsburg, Kansas. Yes there is such a place. It was a great confrence learned many things about marketing, use of i-pads and blackberrys, networking with other local and regional tourism destinations. When we got back we were on the road again to get cyprus beekeeping equipment from Illinois. Then today unpacked the cyprus and inventoried and also did the same for two other bee equipment orders,whew. Last Thursday I placed one of our Mulefoot guilts, Rosey, in with our boar Mulefoot, Tubby, and then today I placed another guilt, Goldie, in with Tubby and Rosey. They seemed to get along well. I do think Rosey was a little jelous. Well Farmers Market over by the ARC starts tomorrow so need sleep. 

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