Meet the New Beekeepers!

Bees buzzing around their new h

This Memorial Day weekend proved to be a very busy period as I learned Friday morning that our package of bees was ready to pick up. However, Saturday was also the Neighbors and friends Memorial Day BarBQ Bash put on by our neighbors, Kenneth and Derrellene. In the interest of keeping ourselves presentable Saturday, I headed out to Die Weide Friday to get the sweaty work of watering the orchard, berries, and garden out of the way. Using the pump and truck and the water harvest tank, I watered the garden and orchard with 300 gallons of water.

Afterwards I wandered the woods and took photos including this (very poor, back-lit) photo of a bird I have yet to identify through my searching on the web. The bird was about 1/3 smaller than a robin and skinnier. It's head was a very dark black without any crest I could see, and it's breast a pretty bright red. The beak shape doesn't match any of the birds I've found online with a black head and red breast like the "painted redstart" and the "rose breasted grosbeak". The beak could be from an oriole, but the breast is more red than orange as one finds in the Baltimore oriole and the tail should also be the same color as the breast or at least very light. (Addendum - it appears that this is likely an "Orchard Oriole")

Unidentified Bird - Black Head, Red Breast, black? split tail. Maybe oriole?

Moving from birds back to bees, after the chores I drove to the Northwest Hills part of Austin (in a bucket filling, flash bang filled thunderstorm) to pick up the package of bees. Friday evening I prepared the feeding syrup, pint jar feeders, and the safety gear for Saturday's installation. After much preparation you don't see, Inge started filming the video of us installing the bees. Note that I left the sounds natural - which includes a cardinal singing loudly, annoyingly loud wind gusts on microphone, and a continual stream of instructions from Inge, who watched the same youTube videos with me on how to install bees in a top bar hive.

 I loaded the video to youtube an hour ago but it takes up to two days for it to show up to blogger, so for now, here is the link to the youtube video. When it's visible to embed, I'll add it in.

First Bee Installation Top Bar Hive

Berry Bountiful in Fruit and Wildlife

Wild Berries Picked on Die Weide

We thoroughly enjoyed our visit to Die Weide today because we found bounty and beauty all around.  After a light day of garden chores due to more than an inch of rain last week, I sat down to rest next to the picnic table as usual, only to be interrupted by the loud 'kirrr-kirrr' I know to be a hawk. I  looked over the neighbors woods to see not one, but three hawks circling in an apparent mating dance. One hawk stooped on another but they dropped below the treeline before I could see the result. The hawks were a rather nondescript light brown color, with a light band on wings seen from above perpendicular to the leading edge close to the wing tip. I haven't found a google photo of one yet to identify, but I'll keep looking. The hawk is slightly smaller than a red-tailed hawk though.

Not a minute later, I heard a fierce deep humming sound I recognized as hummingbirds flying around the wild honeysuckle growing near the shed. One of the hummingbirds started swooping around in tight figure-eights around the other, then landed on a limb. I quickly, but carefully went to grab the binoculars from the shed and studied the bird. I didn't have my camera, but this is a picture of what I saw - a black-chinned hummingbird: (Thanks to JeffCo Gardens blog for this photo) The hummingbird performed another figure-eight flight but this time the hummingbird swooped in ever growing vertical loops around the hummingbird still sitting amidst the honeysuckle. Awesome to see!

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After the bird watching we set out to pick the ripe berries that abound in May after good spring rains. We were delighted to find a bounty of berries in the Northeast corner of the property. If we ever decide to get goats, we'll fence off that corner to prevent loosing the annual bounty we obtain from that corner. We'll be picking berries there for the next three weeks too!

Happy Berry Picker

 Below, Inge snapped a photo of our apples growing on the trees we planted this year. I snipped off most of the fruit, but left a couple on to keep Inge happy. I left both apple trees (cross pollinating but different varietals) with 3 to 5 apples growing.

Apples Growing Nicely on new trees

 During our walk in the woods to retrieve the trail cam we saw two deer bounding away. Later I heard a steady drone and realized I must be hearing a bee swarm. I followed my ears to this tree on the North boundary of the property. The bees furiously flew around a quickly growing clump of bees that must have been surrounding the queen bee. You can see the bee swarm clump located at the juncture of the down-growing branch from the horizontal limb. I wish I could get them to populate my bee hive. But I am hoping to get our package of bees next weekend.

Bees Swarming on Tree in Woods

Birds chirped and tweeted endlessly as we walked the woods and pastures and enjoyed what turned out to be a wonderful day on Die Manchmal Gruene Weide. (And to top it off, the room is now filled with the wonderful scent of berry pie Inge is baking!)

Dusk and Dawn and things in between.

Sunset on Die Gruene Weide

My brother, Kenny, and I spent a weekend drilling the ground water well. Over two days we descended another 8 feet to a total of 32 feet depth. I plan to drill between 40 and 45 feet. When we started, water stood in the well so I have hope that we've reached the water table.

During the day Saturday we took a break and walked Die Weide photographing flowers which I will post later. I brought my .22 rifle and a bunch of cans to plink at. I've shot targets with the rifle, but this was the first time I've plinked cans in years and it was a lot of fun!

Colorful Clouds at Dusk

 Saturday evening I took advantage of having my Canon Digital Rebel with me along with a 28mm lens to photograph awesome sunset scenes. Subtle and beautiful colors abounded and I shot a lot, of which these were among the best.

Dawn on Die Gruene Weide

Kenny and I slept on cots in the shed and  my thermometer registered 43 degrees upon awaking at 6 a.m. when I jumped up due to nature's call. I then decided to snap a couple of sunrise photos to go with the sunset photos. The photo below shows the work site ready at the dawn for us to fire up the compressor and start drilling again. Kenny made coffee and I made sausage, egg, and cheese breakfast tacos, then by 8:15, the compressor droned, the drill bit whirred, and we started another day of well drilling.

Drilling equipment at dawn - ready for another day.

Annotated Well Drilling Rig

 Later in the day I took a picture of the PVC drilling rig showing the mud line which is about a foot into the hole and at the time about two feet from the 30 foot tape. As recommended by the drill equipment provider, I secured the compressor hose to the PVC pipe every five feet to aid in depth monitoring. The shadows show the picture occurred around 10 a.m. when we stopped to refill the in-line oiler. By the end of the day the mud line had reached the 30' depth tape.

Twine trellis for cucumbers

When Kenny spelled me at drill duties, I did some minor garden chores like stringing up twine trellis for the cucumbers, building tomato cages from left-over fencing material, and securing the grape vines to the wire trellis I built last week. I was surprised to see grapes already growing on the vines. We planted them two years ago so I thought we needed to wait another year before we got grapes.

Grape Vines on trellis

 After finishing the day's drilling the water appeared like a dense soup of water with silt. We used the rock vacuum to suck the soupy sludge out so the silt wouldn't settle to the bottom and make life difficult the next time we drilled. Afterwards, I pointed two flash lights down the hole, which had been vacuumed to a depth of about 15 feet. It looked so well lit, that I decided to attempt to photograph the well hole. It came out great using the 60mm macro lens and a high 800 ISO setting.

Looking down the well hole - perhaps 12 to 15 ft depth.