The Fighting Ducks!

well...every spring there's a female duck from next door who decides that OUR pond is THE optimal mating and egg-laying place to be. Not that she doesn't have the most awesome pond next door (much more awesome than OUR pond). But this is her choice, and she shows up on schedule. Usually, a couple of male ducks follow her over here, and without much ado, it narrows down to one male duck and they hang around. And you know. Once, there was a lovely egg just deposited right there on the dock. Just there. But this year, there is some competition for her attentions..in the form of two very feisty males. Both of whom want to win this war of the ducks. So there was some commotion the other day. And Will got his camera. Below is a series of photos of The Fighting Ducks. Don't ask who won... We can't tell them apart anyway! Hopefully some decision has been made! Otherwise somebody is going to get hurt!

Tis Spring...

 ...and the bees are stirring....so of course it is time for Will to prepare the hives for the little critters. Will rummages in the workshop and pulls out boxes. He wants to let them air out overnight so he can put them on the hives. Then the little bees will have lots of room to begin building up their store of honey. Very nice. He starts to set them up right around the corner of the house - up on the sawhorses. "Why don't you put them over on the levee...a little further from the house?" I ask. Just in case. "Oh, there's not much in the way of honey in these - I'll move them tomorrow" he says.

 well. ok. There's something so nice about seeing the boxes all lined up in the spring. So I ran to get the camera.

Well that was yesterday right before dark.  This morning, a beautiful Mardi Gras day. Going to be in the 70's and perfect for all of us lucky Louisiana types to be off of work and - if you're not going to get into the partying fray, you can spend the day outside playing in the dirt - my plan exactly. I went out to the patio to plant the flats of petunias. An innocent thing to do, surely. Yes, there were lots of bees around the side of the house, so I couldn't get the rake. I figured I'd just get down and crumble and smooth the dirt I had shoveled and hoed late last evening...no rake really needed. I put in one tray of petunias - oh such a nice morning. And then I heard buzzing. Not a little but a lot of buzzing and I looked up from my work. My god there are a lot of bees, I thought. Then I looked into the carport. uh-oh. Hundreds and hundreds of bees. Can I make it to the door? I darted inside and slammed the door. And called Will at work. um. Will he think I'm just a ninny? probably. But at this rate, I won't even be able to get to my car! He agrees to come home and deal with it, move the boxes somewhere further from the house. I saw him stop his car out by the hives down the road. He knew right away this was a big problem. The bees had found the boxes and reported back to their minions. All the bees were robbing each others hives out there and there was bee craziness by the house - big time. As you can see, I couldn't even step out to take a picture. 

Will loaded all of the boxes into the truck.

 He asked for a bunch of sheets. He wet them all down, went out to the hives and threw wet sheets over them. Then he came back and threw a sheet over the stack in the truck - then drove the whole mess out to the barn and left the truck out there. He came inside and peeled off his bee suit and I got some baking soda and made a paste for the inevitable stings he had gotten - yes, the bees find their way into the suit no matter what you do. They were not happy with all of this moving around of boxes.

 It had calmed down considerably in the carport, but you could still hear quite a bit of buzzing through the screen door. Will walked out to get into his car to go back to work. Then he started high-steppin' it and had to jump into the car. There was a bee on him. I saw him slapping around, but he must have killed it, because he drove away. I'll give it an hour or two. Eventually, the bees will figure out that the boxes are no longer at the house, and they' trickle down to just a few. Then I can get back to enjoying the dirt. I'm a little embarrassed I had to call him, but, as usual, he stepped in and saved the day. He's glad I did call, because the bees were going nuts and it would only have gotten worse later in the day. Who knew how ready they were for spring? Who knew the boxes had such a store of bee-magnet material in them? you certainly couldn't tell that last night. They looked almost 100% clean of anything interesting to a bee. ha. And it wouldn't have made a lick of difference if the boxes had been further from the house. Those little buggers were armed and ready for action. One thing I can tell you - there's never a dull moment around here. Happy Mardi Gras.

This from Will:

Oh, I knew the bees were ready for spring, which is why I was preparing the honey supers to go onto the hives this afternoon. It is a live and learn thing. The supers we extracted last year were initally put back on the hives for two days in order for the bees to clean them up. I stored them over the winter all taped together with moth crystals placed on a board on top of the boxes to keep the wax moths out. When I set them out to "air", I didn't realize how much nectar the bees had deposited into the combs over just a two-day clean-up period last summer. But that's all it took to drive the bees nuts this early spring when there is still a dearth of flowers. But the hives are primed and ready for the spring flow, better this year than any thus far. Here's looking forward to a productive year.

Walk Around in the Afternoon

So it's February...the 3rd....Spring SO wants to be here, but I don't believe it...but all of the plants do believe it. It makes you smile, but then it makes you a little sad. It has to freeze again...and sometimes the plants and trees do get fooled - all but the pecans, of course. For now, though, it's into the high 70's during the day, and it just feels so good. We took a walk; we both had cameras. I don't have Will's pictures, so you'll have to settle for mine. No real farm activity - except the tomatoes coming up in their flats in the greenhouse. Other than that, just things busting out; jasmine, figs, clover, camellias, may-haws...the biggest. head. of. lettuce. ever. The Mousey-Tongue checks it out - Will hold it up...altogether a beautiful afternoon.