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| Stink bugs allegedly pierce tomato plants and fruit but we've seen no signs of damage |
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| This very hungry caterpillar, however, was removed and rehomed far, far away. |
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| Tomato blossoms in mid-June promise ripe tomatoes in July |
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| Maybe this fat, happy spider is the stink bug controller??? |
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| Fox and Vix |
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| Vix likes to play the piano |
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| Tommy 2 is just the right size for exploring. Look at those catssassin claws! |
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| We brought 3 hive frames home, leaving 15 frames to ensure the bees have food during the long, hot summer. The cells capped in white wax contain cured honey. |
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| Very sticky project to uncap the honey cells. |
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| Centrifugal force is used to extract the uncapped honey from the frames. |
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| The last step before bottling the honey is to strain out the wax. We'll wash the wax and melt it to make lip balm, candles, maybe other things. |
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| Meet Vix. Otis named her for the catssassin on Fortnite. She may well live up to her name as her Mom is an accomplished mouser on a farm near Kyle. |
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| On the farm where Vix was born is a small herd of miniature horses. This foal is only about 10 days old, as I recall. |
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| Now that's a baby bottle! |
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| The kids |
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| We started out agreeing that Fox and Finley (who visits her grandmother next door to us) could play if they wore masks and stayed 6 feet apart. That lasted less than a minute. Ja vel. |
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| Zephyr tries out the box Otis set up for his kitten's arrival. "You know I'm still queen of the house, right?" Zephyr reminds us. |
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| No Louvre or Eiffel Tower for our 25th after all. Thanks, COVID 19. But we did have quiche, creme brulee, and French wine. Maybe next year, for Tom's 70th. |
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| Last Google meeting with Otis's sixth grade class. Fox's last day of school was at the end of May. |
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| Hard to get that ball from Otis without fouling |
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| Honey is extracted in June this year, due to a good "honey flow" (lots of wildflowers provided abundant nectar for the bees). Papa and I had no idea how to extract honey from our hive. We took a class at Oakley Apiaries on June 6, well into the pandemic, yet were the only participants who wore masks and stayed 6 feet from other people (except here, where Papa is learning how to uncap the honey cells on the frame). Must have been okay, because as I write this on July 12, we're well past the incubation period with no symptoms. Whew! |
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| After the frames are placed in the extractor, centrifugal force slings honey out of the cells. A tap on the other side of the extractor is then opened so honey can flow into the honey bucket, through a strainer to catch pieces of wax and bee body parts. |
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| Thank you, Zephyr, Einar, and Fluffy. No squirrels or birds in the tomatoes this year. |
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| Delicately fragrant moonflowers are blooming |
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| "We are not pleased." |
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| Papa found this baby opossum in the water bucket. Poor thing had probably been there all night. Luckily, its nose was above the water level. |
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| We dried the baby off and put him in Violet's old hamster cage with some of her food and bedding. |
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| Fur is dry and fluffy. We opened an end of the cage and let Baby decide when to leave for safety under the tool shed. |
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| Fox and Lala at Half Price Books for the June 4th pick up |
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| Otis and Fox together for the first time since Otis's April 16th arrival to Austin |
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| One of the options for Otis's Ancient China studies was to build a papier mache Great Wall of China model. No. Found this greater Wall of China option on Amazon. |
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| The main part of the real wall was built in only 10 years by several hundred thousand soldiers and citizens pressed into service by the Emporer. |
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| Done! That's my foot, not Otis's. |
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| Flora at Cornerstone |
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| The cells covered in white wax are capped honey. The cells capped in yellow are drone brood (worker bee cells are capped differently). We have yet to spot the queen, but know she's there because we keep seeing new brood. Each hive box can hold 8 frames like this one. |
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| Wild turkeys at Cornerstone |
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| Neighborhood cat who we call Bootsie stops by to sample the catnip |
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| Catnip makes Bootsie so happy |
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| The very hungry caterpillar munches pepper leaves. His older buddies are in various stages of cocooning. Hard to believe such a big caterpillar becomes the tiny brown cocoon, which later becomes a giant moth. |
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| Last meal before the habitat |
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| Protesters started at police headquarters, shut down part of I-35, then marched to city hall. |
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| Horses graze while officers monitor protesters |
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| Darn tobacco caterpillar ate half the pepper! |
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| So fat and happy! Headed for the butterfly habitat to cocoon. Once the moth emerges, we'll release it far, far from anyone's garden. |
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| No idea what these are, but they remind me of the pods in Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Do the bees like them? Guessing not, as no pollen is visible. |
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| The bees do like cactus blossoms. So does this beetle of some sort. |
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| Inside the hive. The bees love their sugar water, inside the feeder at the end of the frames. The sugar water supplements nectar gathered during foraging. They are working hard to build honeycomb. |
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| Outside the hive. The hive entrance is the slit at the bottom of the boxes. |
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| Amon forgot his mask but was able to pull a cargo net and some napkins out of the Mini Cooper to improvise. |
