New nerve racking neighbours....

It's been a long time waiting, but spring is finally here.  We started working on the bunky again to get some insulation work done and cut out two more windows.  Cath expanded the garden and planted a couple of hundred leeks.  We're about half ready for putting in Tomatoes...the seedlings are growing in the basement and we need to prep another row or two with some compost/soil.

We must have missed some garlic last year, because there's a half dozen clumps that sprouted back up.  And, now in it's 2nd year, our rhubarb is doing nicely.

Saturday night Cath went to dancing bee with the girls to get 3 nucs (start colony sets...4 frames with a queen, brood, honey and a bunch of bees).  Driving around in the dark with a trunk full of bees, getting turned around on country roads, walking around in the dark field with an armful of bees (that aren't really sleeping!)...nerve racking and not the time to trip!

Sunday morning she moved the bees into the waiting hives, and after inspecting the surviving hive from last year she found it was doing so well that she thought that they would have split over the next 2 weeks (we won't be back for 3 weeks to check on them again).  So she pried open the hive, the bees had really glued it shut tight with wax, eventually found the queen and moved 4 frames over to her last vacant hive.  The remaining bees DID NOT like that their queen had gone and really became upset and on edge.

While we got a window cut out, framed in and screened, we were really hoping to get more done.  However, we have been trying out the Milwaukee M18 cordless tools and while they work well, we learned the hard way that that the jigsaw uses a lot of power quickly (far more than the drill/impact/circular saw).  And we should bring the charger just in case next time...

All the birds were out, the turkeys gobbling away on the other side of the forest, the coyotes howling up a storm at night...just wild and lovely.