The Bee's Knees

Thanks to my friend Kathy, I have my second swarm of bees! It was my first time collecting a swarm, so I decided to document it with pictures. The swarm was about the size of a large pineapple. This is it, hanging in a Clematis vine.

The vine is growing off of a laundry line that stands at about 4 and 1/2 to 5 feet high.

Me. :)

Once I shook them into the box I had, this is what they looked like.

A small cluster of bees started to re assemble on the laundry line, so I placed the box below them for a while, and they crawled into the box, which helped me to be sure I had shaken the Queen into the box. Her scent is was caused the secondary cluster to migrate from the laundry line into the box.

All taped up... there were probably about 50 or so bees that got left behind.

Once I got to my house, I prepped the hive with some lemon grass essential oil, and then poured the bees into the hive.

Waiting for them to calm down a bit before I start placing the top bars back into place.

View of hive before being shut in.

All shut in. They got pretty riled up over my presence while I was shutting them in. I got the bars out of order, so I had to fuss with correcting that. Took me a while, and that didn't help. I took this picture at 11:14 AM

Here's the hive today at 4:08 PM today. The cluster on the front is shrinking, and it appears that the bees are using the entrance to the hive to enter.

A little bit about my hive:
I have a "Honey Cow" Hive, a 55 gallon plastic barrel cut in half, with top bar hive style bars across the top. Each bar has a guide line cut into it, and bee's wax melted into the guide groove. A removable roof keeps the hive dry.

And the Winner Is....

Thank you to all who entered to win the giveaway from PrintRunner!! Using Random.org, the winner is comment #4!!
 
KatelynMW
Oh yes! Amitie could definitely use some cards. A little extra marketing never hurt. :)
Congratulations, Katelyn!!

Babies!

Ahhhh babies on the farm...
Meet Nutmeg. She's the second born, and the smaller of the two. She's also darker than her mommy and her sis.

 

This is MiniMe. We'll be calling her Mini. She was the first born, and definitely NOT mini. She weighed in on day two at nearly 5 lbs!! 

 

What cute sisters. :) Their momma is doing well. She had some back leg issues from delivering such large babies, but today, she seems to be getting her strength back. 

DOELINGS!!

Ginger had her babies last night!! I was crossing my fingers for a girl, but I didn't just get ONE, and got TWO!! This is pretty cool news for my herd, because any does out of this breeding will be keepers!! I'll be able to breed them to both my bucks.

I Mustache You to Read This...

My friend Linda Woods and her seester Karen rock. End of story. They rock. First of all, because they are just super dee duper cool people. Mostly because they are one of the pillars in the foundation that started my creative adulthood. They recently wrote a new art journaling book, and called it YOU RULE. I love it on about a billionty different levels. I especially love that they don't encourage you to only journal or create when you're happy, or have only nice things to say. I was already sure before I read it, that the book was going to be pretty amazing. Then Linda asked me to take a look at it. Of course I said YES!!
I got the Kindle version, and it's amazing. I was inspired. I wanted to get out the paint and get some frustrations out...
but there's this thing.
I call it
SOBUSYICANBARELYREMEMBERMYNAMEITIS.
It's pretty contagious, and I have it really bad right now.
Busy busy busy.
I have so many things on my to do list of busy that when people ask me what I've been up to or what my plan are,
I
go
absolutely
totally
100%
BLANK.
Seriously.
I cannot remember.
My life had better not DEPEND on me remembering either... because otherwise, I'm toast.
Linda's book, however, has affected me.
It put an idea in my mind...
and when I get creative ideas, they swim in my head until I get them out.
I had to create.
So I went digital!!
Linda's book is about rules, and the rules that no one seems to have put into the handbook of LIFE.
When you read them, you will totally have a personal experience that fits the rule.
Every.
Time.
My new rule was inspired by my friend Kelly, who is the QUEEN of cussing by using non cuss words. I love her for it, and even though I know the latest one I heard from her isn't new, it was fresh to me...
and
I
LOVE
IT. 

cuss like you mean it. YOU RULE is also available in print if you want to hold it in your hands!!
Disclosure: Thank you, Linda, for the free kindle version of YOU RULE!! I would have needed to create this and blog about it anyway. :)

Business Card Giveaway from Print Runner

Once in a while I get requests from other companies to help promote their product. Most always, I decline, but this latest offer was something I thought might be able to benefit one of you!! I was asked to host a giveaway for Print Runner.com. PrintRunner.com was established with little more than a small press and a dream. Ten years later, their company became one of the foremost quality printers in Southern California. They are committed to providing the best value and high quality full color printing at affordable prices, and that has made their company grow. PrintRunner is a full service high quality printing company located in Chatsworth, California.

I got to choose from a small list of things to offer, and I business cards, because all us little people need those!
*You will be eligible to win:

250 Business Card Size and Style Business Cards  

2x3.5 (Standard) Colors 4/4 Color Both Sides Paper 14 pt. UV Coating on Front, 14 pt. UV Coating on both sides, no rounded corners. 

If by chance you don't WIN... you can still use print online with PrintRunner! They print business cards that look professional and expensive at an affordable rate.

TO BE ENTERED TO WIN: 

You only need to

• Comment here on this post. 
• Include your contact information, either by enabling emails through your blogger profile, or by listing your contact email in your comment. 
• Be a resident of the US 
• Be 18 years of age or older.

THE WAY IT WORKS:

• Winners will be chosen by a random number generator, and selected from first comment being #1 with the second comment being #2 and so forth. 
• Ineligible comments will not be counted. 
• Contact information will be verified before passing it on to PrintRunner, and unanswered efforts to confirm contact information will result in a new winner being chosen. 
• It would also be really nice, but it's not necessary to win, if you would hop over to Twitter and/or Facebook and connect with PrintRunner there!

The deadline to get yourself entered is MAY 26th, 2012!! 

Comments will be closed once the deadline is past.  

*Giveaway is open to US Residents only, ages 18 years old and above. 
** As part of the deal for hosting this giveaway, I will be receiving my own set of business cards from Print Runner! 
*** Winners are allowed to win only once over a two-month period, so if you've recently been super dee duper lucky, and have won something through them in the last two months, you will not be eligible to win these cards.

The Family that PLAYS together...

STAYS together...

Kara loves to play with Hash, and today, Macs tried to get her to play tug of war with him. Obviously she was happy to do it. lol Hash likes the IDEA when it's just you and him... until you actually pull on the rope. This arrangement worked out really well, because he just mouths the rope while the real tug of war happens between someone else. lol

White Rabbit's Pocket Watch with Clear Cast Resin

I'm having so much fun with my Amazing Mold Putty®!! This time, I used Creative Paperclay and Clear Casting Resin to make a custom pocket watch for my White Rabbit doll! Visit the Amazing Mold Putty BLOG and check out my post with instructions on how I made the watch to go with the White Rabbit!!
As Shared on the AMP Blog:
"One of my favorite things about Alumilite products is their versatility for use with other products. As a doll maker, I see the versatility as a window of opportunity to create things that I might not have been able to for my dolls. Talk about customized!! One of those items, is Creative Paperclay®. I use Creative Paperclay® pretty heavily in my doll making, and recently, I started work on an Alice in Wonderland White Rabbit doll.

While I was making him, I knew I wanted to create a Pocket Watch for his "costume".  I started with a watch face I got at a thrift store. It was just the face, with the hands still attached, but no backing.

Using Creative Paperclay®, I began layering paperclay to the back of my watch face.

I let the first layer dry, and then added a second layer to bring around the edges of the watch.

Once those layers were dry, I used a fine grit sand paper to bring out the edges and lines that made the "frame" of my watch. Then I added a small eye screw to the top for future hanging of the watch.

Next, I painted the clay to be metallic.

After the metalic paint was dry, I aged it by adding some black paint over the top, and wiping it all off except for the crevice areas of the watch. Once I had the watch ready and clean, I mixed equal parts of Amazing Clear Cast and poured the liquid into the watch.

Of course, I'm a sucker for details, so I Googled "tea time" and found that it's usually between 2-5pm... and since the White Rabbit is LATE... I set the watch hands to just past 5:00 before I poured the resin in. Clear Cast resin takes longer to cure than the white casting resin by Amazing Mold Putty, so I set the watch on the windowsill to cure overnight.

Once it was cured, I hung the watch just out of Rabbit's pocket!!

Be sure to share any projects you make using ideas like this on the Amazing Mold Putty® Facebook Page!!"

 

Disclosure: As a member of Amazing Mold Putty's design team, I receive product at no cost to myself.

Never Really Meant to be Ours

I know a lot of people won't agree with the choice we made... or understand why/how we needed to make it... but I know a lot of people will ask about what happened when we decided to re home our Chiwiener dog, and get a new dog. I've decided to blog about it.

We originally bought Buddy (our Chiwiener dog) for Macs' birthday. He was supposed to be Macs' dog. We tried to establish good pack order, and not encourage "lap dog" behaviors, which all worked. However, no matter what we did, Buddy did not LIKE Macs. He wasn't aggressive, he wasn't mean, (the dog OR Macs) he even LIKES little kids and babies, but it was very obvious that Buddy's favorite human was NOT Macs. (which broke Macs' heart every day) He was a good dog, just a terrible fit for our family, and our reasons for bringing him into our home in the first place. It was obvious he didn't enjoy "us" much, and we were all disappointed in how things turned out with Buddy. For a long time, we kept trying... 
"He's still young, give it some time. He'll come around..."
We kept saying things like that... making excuses. Looking back, I see it was like walking with one foot up the side of a hill... you can do it, but it just doesn't feel right. It's extra work, and not really that much fun. It's forced.

Eventually, it started to become clear that Buddy was never going to be "second nature" in our family... Not because of anything we were doing wrong, and not because he was a bad dog with bad habits. We were just off sync with each other, and that was probably not going to change. Eventually, Travis and I started talking about getting a larger family friendly breed that would also be a good guard dog. We didn't have room for three indoor dogs, so we talked about finding a new home for Buddy. It all happened a lot faster than I imagined it would. 

I posted on FB that we were looking to re home him, and gave our reasons why, explaining that he was a good dog, just not the right dog for US. Within an hour, I had a friend contact me saying that she had recently put her Chiwiener down, and had started looking for another dog. She wanted Buddy. Macs and I took Buddy up to meet Kelly and her family, and so Macs could see and feel good about the new home Buddy might be going to. Right off the bat, Buddy was in love with them as much as they were with him. That made Macs and I both feel at ease. It was pretty obvious he was going to be much happier with them, and so left Buddy in his new home.

Travis and I agreed that we would wait to get a new dog until just the right one came around... we wanted to be sure we didn't force anything, and end up in the boat we had just gotten off of. Travis checked Craig's List, and we called on a couple dogs that didn't feel right. We passed on them. We ended up scheduling a visit to the local shelter. We looked at about 4 dogs while we were there. One of them seemed to be a good fit. She was large, but good with the kids, and seemed at ease with Travis and I, so we decided to bring Hash in to meet her. I've never in my LIFE had a dog absolutely refuse to meet another dog, but Hash did. He wouldn't go anywhere NEAR the other dog. It wasn't even a matter of them not getting along! He wasn't going to give her the chance to not get along with him! They just plain old weren't gonna happen. So we went home empty handed. On the way home, Travis and I talked about what exactly we wanted, and what we might face now that we knew Hash might be too intimidated by large dogs to even give them a chance. As much as we were trying NOT to get a puppy, it was something we thought we might have to consider given the newest bit of circumstance with Hash. 


Later that night, I re visited the shelter's website to look back over the dogs we HADN'T looked at when we were there... at the very bottom of the page, there was a new listing that hadn't been there when we were there that morning... a 2 month old puppy. A female. (one of our requirements) Spayed. I called the first chance I got the following morning and put a hold on her until I could get in to see her later that day. We had some pretty specific requirements for what kind of a puppy we would consider getting.


When I got to the shelter, Sahara (her name at the shelter)  was with her brother in the pen. He was being adopted as I was waiting with Sahara's papers to adopt her... and his new owner, seeing her papers in my hand called out to his wife, "See Hon!! I TOLD you she wouldn't be here all alone without her brother for very long!!" Funny, because I was about to feel bad about leaving Sahara's brother all alone at the shelter without his sister... lol 


She's very dainty and petite compared to her brother... Not too big for Macs to handle, and easy for us to manage while we teach her the basics of obedience. Her personality is very calm, and she loves just BEING with us. I wasn't expecting for things to move so extremely fast like they did... but it's been pretty cool to see how after all this time, trying to "make it fit" all of the puzzle pieces seem to have fallen into their places more perfectly than I had ever imagined.
 
Buddy getting the start treatment at his new home while Alexa gets her hair did for prom:


 Our new puppy Kara (pronounced CAR UH) crashed out with Macs the way he's been pining for Buddy to do since the day we got him...



Sometimes, I guess you have to stop trying to force things, and just surrender to the fact that no matter how much you love a thing... once in a while, they were never really meant to be yours.
PS: She and Hash get along just fine. :)