May 2 2023
9:15 PM.
It was another hot day, I am enjoying the night air on the front porch. It’s almost dark but it’s one of my favourite times to sit out here. In the dark, you are forced to use one of your other senses to enjoy what’s going on. I can hear Robins and a few other birds still singing but the best are the sounds of the toads. Near the end of our driveway we have what I like to call our wetland. This time of year when the toads emerge they make a sound that almost sound like ducks quacking. I love it.
 |
| Cleaning up the bee yard |
Now that the snow is pretty well gone, things are coming alive. The other day we had a bear grazing in the yard. The buds in the cottonwoods are bursting open with this hot weather. The brown dead grass is greening up and the fruit trees are showing life once again.
The weather we have been having for the last week, is very uncommon for this time of year. Records have been broken all over the area for highs temperatures. It’s been +25C. We are not used to it yet.
Today I decided to remove the bees winter wraps and air things out a bit. I also removed their entrance reducers during the day. I haven’t done inspections of the hives yet but all going well if the weather holds, I will get it done soon. They are still bringing in pollen from the Pussy Willows, but on the weekend I noticed the catkins are starting to develop on the wild hazelnut trees. So it won’t be long for those.
We also tore apart the old strawberry beds and built new ones. Tomorrow I will fill them with dirt and get them p,anted. We also added two grape plants today. Most of the fruit trees and bushes survived the winteri, so we were pretty happy for that. However one cherry tree doesn’t look very good but we will leave it for now and see if it comes around.
 |
Another cool project we got done last week was to build a water tower, we don’t have electricity or running water on the property where our bees are. So we decided to build a tower and have gravity feed water to make it easier to water the forest garden/orchard.
 |
| New water tower |
It’s such a beautiful time of the year…..crazy busy, but still beautiful. Cheers my friends. Until next time
