Chapter 42

Bee Smart

It takes years to know what you need on the homestead. Common sense comes with the experiences that unfold while learning to provide for yourself off the land.

Chapter 42: Clients

Picking up our new sawmill in Kansas City, Missouri.

We brought the sawmill home and tried it out for a few weeks to discover that I couldn't help move logs onto or the lumber off of the mill. It was too much manual labor for me and would damage my back every time I tried to help.

We were able to trade the TK1600 in for a fully hydraulic TK2000 that solved the problem of me not being able to lift things. Ronnie could run the mill with minimal help.

Milling up harvested dead wood.

This is adequately stickered (wood strips that allow air-flow for drying green wood) and stacked walnut lumber for a customer.

Plowing up a new garden area that sat unused for over a decade. The soil was rich and black.

I had to come up with an innovative way to install drip tape with the UTV.

This was the first trip down to the creek with our new water wagon we built for hauling water a quarter mile up to the garden just off the county road.

Using the water wagon to fill up the water tower to water the poultry most of the summer.

I used hot-wire to fence off a feeder to feed poultry and goats at the same time. It would fling out enough feed for the goats to nibble and get some exercise in between milking while letting the poultry easily slip under the hot-wire fence for feed.

The hotwire around the feeder worked great! Chickens in. Goats out!

Wild honey bees are living in this old oak tree. I discovered them by accident while looking for mushrooms. Two bees chased me from the tree. I ran and pulled off my shirt to swing it around to shoo them, but one stung me in the neck anyway. I had to remove the stinger from my neck with a giant oversized buck knife I brought for picking mushrooms.
I use to go back to visit them often but stayed much further away.

We updated the garage by building a woodshop to accommodate us with the tools to work the new mill's lumber.

Ronnie making dovetails to assemble the beehives.

Adrienne tending the bees.

The view of my bee hives from my garden entrance.

Occasionally, I would take the goats out through the woods on trails to relax and take a break from my busy schedule. The goats loved all of the extra snackings along the way.

Chapter 42: Portfolio