Long weekend

Thursday evening Mama, Victoria, and I rearranged the living room with the specific intent of making room for the wardrobe repurposed for her craft supplies to be relocated from Grandma and Grandpa’s bedroom to the living room. It took a couple iterations, but we rearranged the sectional sofa, moved my recliner and managed to enlarge the open area in the living room.

Along the wall where we wanted to set the wardrobe, I moved a shelf that had once held our TV and most recently the incubators under the bar that extends from the kitchen counter into the living room. To do that I had to move out all the barstools that had sat unused at that bar. We placed our recently purchased trestle table in the living room, moved the bar height table out of the house and placed the heavy oak dining room table in the living room for Mama to use as a craft table. It all came out well, but it took a lot of effort.  

Now we will find a dresser for Grandma and Grandpa to use. They have lived out of a laundry basket for the past year and have never complained about the crowded room they live in. All of the furniture in the room they call their own are pieces Mama and I placed in there to years ago to make the room serve as a library for us. Other than the bed they sleep in, all the clutter in the room belongs to Mama and I. The clothes in the closet belong to Victoria. It seemed high time to give them some more space they could call their own. Moving the large wardrobe was the first step. Hopefully, Grandma and Grandpa can set things up to their own liking in the next few weeks – at least in part.

I checked the hives over the weekend and was very pleased with what I found. Both the hives are rapidly filling with honey in the top box while the bottom box of the hive is filled with brood. Those are great indications of the health of the two hives. Since the top box was nearly filled on each hive, I placed a smaller honey super on each hive to give the bees more room to make honey. My expectation is that by mid-July I can harvest the honey the bees will have made by that time. From the look of things, we should be able to get twice as much honey as I was able to extract last year, perhaps twenty-five to thirty pints. I do not plan to harvest again in the Fall, it was too challenging in the cooler temperature, so what we get this summer will be all we gather this year. Hopefully, it will be enough so that we can sell some. I have at least a dozen fellow employees who want to buy some honey from me and Mama and to date I have not had any for sale. They will be very pleased as well if we are successful in this harvest.

Most of my energy over the long weekend was spent getting trees trimmed high enough (14’-16’) that the driver of the container we ordered can back through the opening I enlarged from the driveway entrance to the place where we want the container set. The smaller branches I was not able to cut into firewood overfilled the utility trailer which I parked at a brush pile we have accumulated at the pond in the farm lot. I have yet to pick up the pieces of firewood salvaged from the tree limbs I cut away, but I know it will be more than two full bucket loads of firewood. I ran out of energy that would have been required to collect that wood, but I made sure the approach is open for whenever the container arrives. We are praying the driver will not have a problem with the location we have chosen for the container. It is a long approach to back into. I have done what I knew to do, anything else needed for the placement will be dealt with when I find out what I lack in the preparations I was able to make.

Mama and I enjoyed the long weekend, but as usually happens, it was not long enough to get done all the items we put on our list. We did get some important things done, but some of the less important, time-consuming chores will be finished at some point this week or next. Most of the chores were gardening or yardwork items. I almost always put those lower on the list anyway. They still need to get done, but I am not as focused on those types of chores as on others.

We are harvesting a lot of squash, peppers, onions and spinach from our garden. Another of the chores I did not get to start was tilling between the rows of plants in the garden. It certainly needs to be done. Again, I will get that done sometime later this week, but I ran out of energy to do much more than what I did finish over the four-day weekend.

I logged almost 14,000 steps yesterday. By the time Mama and I went to bed last night, I could feel it.