Feeding Bees, More Baby Goats, a New Friend, Country Food and our Bee Meeting!

 I rolled out of the girl bunk Monday morning at 10:00 to see a text from Sherry.

She was going down to feed the bees on her morning break from work and wanted to know if I'd like to join her!

I threw on a hat and some clothes and was sitting on the front deck waiting for her barely 15 minutes later!

She's set up a pretty good feeding station!!

A kitty litter box with a thick layer of wine corks and she pours in a mixture of sugar water.

The corks allow the bees to get the water without drowning.

The whole thing is set up inside a dog kennel cage that sits on cement blocks to keep it off the ground.

Sherry stuck her head inside the kennel and zoomed in to get this great photo of one of the bees carrying some serious pollen!

I think this is such a great way to feed the bees without feeding any other critters.

She set it up in the front pasture instead of down by the mud tank since the bees kept going past the feeding bucket on to their house!

Bees send messages to  each other by their 'waggles' as to where the feed is located.

Sherry said they must have only given half a waggle instead of a full one!

We drove back across the pasture and stopped at the apiary to watch the bees and then drove on around to the goat pens.

I thought we were checking on the two new babies - until Sherry told me two MORE babies had been born early that very morning!!!

This is mama Elsmay and the other mama is Edith.

I can't believe I held those sweet babies!!

Talk about having a GOOD day!!!

Another blessing was going with Sherry to visit her friend Grace.

She lives about 10 miles from the ranch and her husband passed away recently so she's reached out to Sherry and Dean to see if they would want their beehives.

We had such a nice visit!

Grace has a warm and cozy home - my very favorite kind!

I was admiring her pigs sitting on top of a China cabinet - and she gave me one!

My little piglet is named Gracie and she's also a piggy bank!

Dean cooked a big pot of beans for supper last night and Sherry made cornbread!

She found the beehive baking pan at an antiques store for just a couple of dollars!!

Sherry makes the best pepper poppers!

Such good food!

It was an early to bed night for me and I was in the girl bunk by 8:30!

As sleepy as I was - I was still awake an hour later.

I gave Louis Dean his medicine before I went to bed - and when I say 'gave it to him' - I mean I sat it down in front of him and told him to take it.

I got up and checked to see if he did - and NOPE!

I think I didn't fall asleep because I kept wondering if he had or not so I insisted he take it right then while I was watching so I could GO TO SLEEP!

And that worked and I had a beautiful dream!!!

Let me tell you what I can remember of it.

It was a movie of my life - or part of it anyway.

Diane Lane played me and Louis Dean was Harrison Ford.

How cool is that??

Some scenes I was Diane Lane and some scenes I was watching her and in one of those, I leaned over to the person next to me and whispered, "Her ex-husband was Richard Gere!"

I woke up feeling like I'd just watched a really good movie!

Then I stayed awake a good while and finally read for over an hour before going back to sleep and dreaming some more!

This morning I changed sheets on the girl bunk and the bedroom and started the process of getting ready to go home.

It's been a short visit to the ranch this month but we got a lot done.

Yesterday Louis Dean and his son got the toilet totally unclogged  (it was still being sluggish when flushed) by going down the vent with a water hose full force and Dean inside plunging away!

Now we can gleefully flush with wild abandon!!!

Tonight Sherry and I drove to Hillsboro to our bee meeting.

We had a pot luck supper and a guest speaker spoke on Hives for Heroes.

We have several veterans in our Bee Fellowship and we sat at the table with Jennifer who is in that program. She is such a cool gal. She's a biker and fascinating to talk to! We discovered that we both found family we didn't know we had through DNA testing.

I think Sherry will be a perfect mentor to her!

It's been good for us to be here these last few days.

I'm going to bed with a full and happy heart tonight and am already looking forward to coming back soon. We have all the doctor appointments behind us so we should be able to go back to spending half our time in the city and half in the country!