the wedding of Sadie and Jesse...

Saturday, July 20, 2013.. at 11:00 AM the wedding ceremony of Sadie Mae and Jesse John.... at Sweetgrass Farm.........

We are set up, and ready to go......

Food arrives..... a traditional pig roast!!!!!

The house is alive with activity... everyone is getting ready for the big day.....

The woodstove serves today as a flower spot....

Abbie is taking this very seriously and listens carefully as to what "her job" will be...

My Mom and Dad.. and Amy, take their turn going down the "isle"....

Pastor Abby, Jesse, and the grooms men....

the flower girl.....

Here comes the bride......

(and Tatter nearly trips Ed!!!!)














Kassy....

the vows.....

a shady spot, and perfect view of the activities......

exchange of rings....

The wedding party.... of course we had a professional photographer, so these blog photos are what I could catch while trying to play Mother of the Bride.... and I will just let the rest speak for themselves... but I will be so excited to see what MaryEllen captured with her camera....

The Manchester family.......

getting ready...

As with any big event in my life, it would seem that we plan and plan, and it feels so far away, and suddenly.... here we go. The farm has been all dressed up and it feels like something big is about to happen. Even the "yard" that we have kept "wild" for our bees, seems to be showing off it's beautiful colors....

The weather is still quite warm, but we are so grateful for the breeze that is sweeping down the pastures. IF there is a breeze to be found, it will come across our front lawn, right where we plan to put the tents. Ed was up early, went and got Rick and the two of them headed down to pick up the supplies. Everything went very nicely into out big trailer and they were back much quicker than I had thought.

The rest of the setting up troop arrived and parts and pieces were laid out. I was a bit worried about this "tent business"... normally when you reserve one, it comes with a set up crew... but we didn't reserve it in time, so the set-up was up to us. Ed seemed pretty confident in doing it....

Kass, Nate and Reagan arrived to help out where ever they could. They also are staying over tonite, so that makes me very happy. Reagan was pretty interested in all the going on's and didn't want to take his nap.....

Since there could be only so many playing with the tent, Nate jumped on the mower and finished up that job for Ed... I have to say, with the rains we had all spring and the late day thunderstorms.. the grass has stayed nice and green.....

All in all, the tent went up quite easy.....

Course, if one could figure out how the knots worked....

Or what "kind" of knot you might need to keep things up..... that might be a good thing!!!!!

And then all of sudden.... tent was up and there it was!!! We were very pleased to notice right away how much cooler it was under the tents... and now if the breeze keeps up, we will be in great shape for tomorrow. One thing, no predictions for rain...... so, we'll take the heat and sun....

Jesse's Mom - Terri - volunteered to do the flowers, and had her own little "shop" going in the garage. This is certainly going to be a family style - home grown country wedding... which, I believe Sadie and Jesse were hoping for....

Pretty as the wild flowers out in the pasture....













And so, here we go!!!! and not to brag, but could there be a prettier place to have a wedding.... for today, I think not....

on a hot, hot day in July..............

We have officially hit a heat wave in the great state. Three days in a row over 90 degrees qualifies us as a "heat wave" and we have had more than three days... it's been a whole week. I am NOT a hot weather fan and find myself sitting about, getting nothing done. With a wedding at the end of the week, getting nothing done is NOT good, but it's all I can do. Today, however, we took a break from the heat.....

Kass and Reagan came up and along with Abbie and I, we spent the day at camp, playing in the lake.  I like the water, but can't say I am a real swimmer, so, when you find me in the lake, let alone spending the better part of the day in the lake, then you know it's HOT.... all the doggies took swims too,

Reagan is turning out to be a real water baby, and he smiled all day long being in the water and nice and cool beside the lake....

He floated around in the "lily pad" and had a great time with Mommy, Abbie and Baby....

Course, we all know what a fish Abbie is... and every time, she tries a little more... she really is almost at the point of truly swimming.... and we really have to watch her, because she has no fear and would try to swim across the lake if she thought she could...

All smiles.....

She will go completely under the water and can even swim a bit.... I love the fact that she is happy at the lake. Sadie was just like her and spent many hot days swimming... the next generation is "taking over"....











There was no limit on the water today... and it certainly helped to renew our energy... but I will be so happy when we can get back to "normal" weather!!!!!

busy as the bees...

The summer days are zooming by.... hard to think that we are half way threw July already. Between wedding plans, puppies, and just enjoying the time of year... I feel like I fall into bed at night and up again.. and fall into bed at night. Little Debbie has settled in very well... and is already attending puppy classes. The only trouble is, when you are the teacher, you can't be the student... so Kathleen has stepped in and is working with my little girl in the classes...

She's good little worker and in true Lab style.. offer that little "cookie" and she'll do about anything. Here she is with Noble, (Mary and Scott's CCI puppy)...

Kathleen must have some pretty good treats in her pocket... she got two for one on this command!!!!!

Our little bees seem to be "buzzing" along. Ed and I try to get in and check them once every two weeks or so. The weather hasn't been the greatest, so I "worry".. though I know that bees have "done their thing for centuries".. certainly long before I wanted them around, and I have a feeling they know what they are doing....

Been staying on top of the yard work and gardens... one, because it looks nice to do that and two, with the wedding just a week away.. we want everything to be in A1 order. I was hoping that we might have the front walk in by now, but it just hasn't worked out on the list of things to do...

Back to the bees. When we last checked they were doing a good job on getting the second box filled up with comb and such.. so I thought it would be time to add a third box. This box (in my opinion) will be a honey box and will give them a place to put extra stores. Though sometime the queen can go up there and lay brood, but we're hoping she will be happy with the bottom two and leave this one for honey.

Our bottom two boxes are large, this one is a medium... everyone says that the large boxes when filled with honey are very heavy and so most people chose to use the medium size for the honey boxes. We decided to follow their advice, and put together this medium. For the first year, it is also advised not to harvest this box, but to leave it for the winter. However, if they do fill it and don't use it, we can take it next spring....

Off to the hive.....

Look out girls, here we come. I am very pleased at how easy going this hive is... we don't bother them much and go in and out as quietly as we can.. and handle them gently.... people are surprised that you can go into the hive like this and not really upset them ....

Too bad this picture isn't clearer.. but this is a frame that has pollen stores in the corner (where it is yellow--- like the black eyed Susans which are in the field right now).. and the rest is brood... the "white" things are little bee lava which will be capped over when they get a bit bigger... and there are some empty combs where we have probably had some hatching's in the past week or so....

This frame shows capped lava, which means the little bees are transforming into their bee bodies and will hatch from here.....

This frame is being "built out" with new comb... hard to see, but if you look closely, it has a "puffy" look to the foundation, so the girls are working on building up wax here....

Move out of the way ladies..... after playing around in the bottom box, we need everyone to move so we can put the second box back on and begin to check around in that one. Killing a bee is bad... not only does it mean you loose one, but then it can put an alarm threw the hive that they are in trouble. So you want to handle everything carefully and make sure that no one gets hurt.....

In the second box we found good honey stores....

the upper part of this frame is filled with honey.. and it's all capped over which means, if we could harvest it, this is what you take. Capped honey is honey that is all "finished" and ready to use....










I'm thinking the second box could be built out more, but we decided to put the third box on... with all of August, September and possible the first part of October.. they will have time (I hope) to work on this box too...


this has certainly been a very fun project, and I am hooked. If we can get them threw the winter .. there is no doubt we will be having another hive next summer..... who knows, one day I may be selling my honey at the local farmers markets... that would be fun!!!!