Nate's Birthday...

August 1st is Nate's birthday, so over the weekend, the family came together to celebrate. I feel so blessed when ever I can see the "grands"... let alone seeing them together. Abbie is still madly in love with her little cousin, and Reagan is growing in leaps and bounds, and is becoming "more like a little person all the time"....

Our dear friend, Glenn, was visiting from Tennessee. He and his family always try to make the trip up this time of year... so, when he came into town we were so happy that he came to the birthday party.

He was so happy to meet Reagan... last year when he came, Kass was just beginning to tell people that she was expecting... so to have him here in real life, is a treat for Glenn... 

It still seems odd to me at times... that our high school friends...who we hung out with and "got in trouble with" are now celebrating the arrival of grand children with us!!!!

Nate was up for doing anything fancy for his birthday.. he was just as happy having people over to the house and enjoying the fire pit.....

And birthday PIE!!!!!(blueberry I might add - what else would it be this time of year???)

It was a fun evening.... family, good food, old friends... this is certainly one of the jewels in life.....

Well... unless you are three.... then your jewel is being able to play with Tee-tee's computer!!!!!

So, the summer on the farm continues in it's usual routine... I feel that the day to day stuff isn't so exciting, so I know I don't write as many stories as I did when we were building. But, its all good. Ben came out to trim the horse's feet... old Silver is hanging in there... he's having a good summer, but as you can see, keeping weight on him hasn't been easy. I'm not sure "what" the decision will be about trying to get him threw another winter.... I can't quite think about that right now.... for the time, though, he is going along pretty well.

Every few weeks, Ed and I try to make a check of the bees. They seem to be doing well too. They're building up the hive and seem to be quite strong. I hope we have a good warm fall of flowers and such, so they can get the honey stores in for the winter....

We added a third box a while back, I was hoping to see some honey stores in it, but they are still building up the comb. (Do you see that one little bee half way in a comb cell??) I've been talking with other bee folks, and it's isn't uncommon to have them just get the comb built and not use it over the winter. and in fact, it will give them a jump for next spring....I hope we get them threw the winter!!!






The two lower boxes have good activity... here we have a frame of good "brood".. the ones that are capped are baby bees that will hatch soon, and the uncovered are the lava that when they reach a certain size will be covered and then hatch. Other than finding honey stores, seeing the lava is a good sign of a strong and working hive. so... we'll see....



Hard to think we are into August already.... we have some busy weekends coming up and dare I say... Labor Day will be upon us.....