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Daily Ramble
Sunday,6
May 2007
Peer's on vacation right now. We'd hoped to get alot of
planting done but it's been too hot and we haven't had any rain in
weeks. It's suppose to rain starting tomorrow...I have my fingers
crossed...
The bees are doing well, the canola is just about done flowering for
this year so now I guess the bees will move on to wildflowers or maybe
even the forest to find the pollen and nectar they need. Peer split the
hives last weekend, he took a few combs from each hive, put them
together in a new hive box and then moved them a few km. from the house
where they will make a new queen and a new hive. We'll leave them there
for a month or so while the queen grows up, then move them back here.
Since the weather hasn't been co-operating we decided to spend the day
at an open air museum about an hour's drive from us. We go there
usually
once a year or so. The purpose of the museum is to show how people used
to live, here in Germany, a few hundred years ago. They've located
several old buildings from all over Germany, they tear them down, move
them to the museum and rebuild them. Then they furnish them as they
would have been a few hundred years ago. They also raise old breed
animals, fruits and vegetables and have really made
a neat little time capsule which we find fascinating. We also get alot
of
inspiration and neat ideas from the things we see there, things we can
use in our own lives here.
So here are a few pictures, I didn't get too many good pictures of the
insides of the buildings, there wasn't any electric lighting so most
buildings were pretty dark inside, but I got some great pictures
outside.
First of all, some chickens... I took alot of chicken footage. For one
thing, they wouldn't hold still long enough to get a good picture so I
wasted alot of shots. For another thing, they have several
different breeds here,
including some that we'd like to raise ourselves maybe next year (it
was research I tell ya...  ). And finally,
just because I love chickens 
...Anyway, the ones we are really
interested in are a short-legged variety (not the ones pictured below).
They can't run very fast and
don't wander very far due to the short legs. They're cute, efficient
egg layers and not very common anymore...a dying breed... My battery
died before I got to take any pictures of them though :/
I thought this rooster was especially handsome...he thought so too.
So, this is basically what the layout is like. You follow trails which
wind through forests, meadows and fields. Scattered throughout are
buildings which they have set up like little villages. They grouped
them loosely by age, they have some from the 17th and 18th centuries
and some even older dating back to the 15th century and before. Most of
the buildings you can go into, others have plexi-glass covering the
doorway so you can see, but can't go in.
This is a typical 18th century house which would have been owned by
fairly rich people.
And this is a poorer working family house, I think this one was even
set up for
2 families. The type of house you would find on a bigger farm, for the
worker's families I think.
A typical kitchen for that period... I really love the stoves and all
the iron cookware :)
Sausages were hung in the rafters in the kitchen area...
I think that's a butter churn.
Then I met this guy, he was very handsome and wanted to come home with
me, but Peer wouldn't let him. :p
Windmill...
This is a little roadside temple....
And here is what you see when you look through the window...of course
there is a little slot for donations :p
A gorgeous door way...
I love old iron door elements, there were some great ones but this is
the only picture that turned out fairly well...
This is a kitchen sink, it's made out of stone. I really like this
picture even though it's a bit washed out.
I was pleasantly surprised to find hundreds of tadpoles in the little
ponds around here. I tried taking pictures but only got one good one.
I haven't seen tadpoles in decades so I spent alot of time here 
Ok, I have lots more but I won't bore you with them all. We had a
really nice day :)
Monday, 23 April 2007
Remember, in
my last post I told you how sweet and good natured our bees are? Well,
guess who got stung yesterday..lol! We knew we'd both get it
occasionally, it goes with the territory, but, I figured Peer would be
the first! I stand by what I said though, these are really good natured
bees, I'm amazed that more of us didn't get stung considering what Peer
did to them yesterday...
As I mentioned the other day, the bees are busy collecting canola
pollen and they are producing honey like crazy right now. If they run
out of room in their hive they will swarm, which means that a part of
the hive or all of it, will leave in search of a larger home. In order
to keep them from doing that, it is necessary to add new rooms to the
hive so they have room to store all the honey they are making. That's
what we did yesterday...well, that's what Peer did. I took pictures and
got stung :p Admittedly I didn't have any protective stuff on, no
veiled hat, and so naturally I got stung on the eye lid. Anyway, here
is how you add a new room...
This is a honey box (actually it is two, one stacked on the other, we
have two hives so need two boxes), note the grated section leaning
against the box. That is so the queen can't get into this new section.
She can't fit through the grating.
There's Peer in his nifty bee hat. The thing in his mouth is a bee
pipe. When you blow smoke in the hive, the bees think there is a fire
and they load up with honey, when they are full of honey, they can't
sting (mine forgot the honey I think). You will notice that at this
point our hives are only 2 boxes tall.
Peer has taken the top off the hive and is blowing smoke into it.
You can see that the bees have been building comb on the top of the
comb sections. Peer is scraping that off and getting this area clean
and ready for the new box. It amazes me when I think of just how many
bees there are in one of these hives and that they remain so calm when
their home is basically being torn apart. There are at least 40,000
bees in each of our hives...
Now Peer is inspecting and cleaning the bottom box.
And finally, he sets the new box on top. Now the hive is three boxes
tall and they will have plenty of room to store honey, at least for a
few weeks. Then another new box will be needed, or Peer will divide the
hives and make a completely new hive. I can see how people end up with
30 or more of these things...the farmers across the street will hate us
...lol! 
And I will leave you with a gorgeous picture of the many canola fields
around the village.
Saturday, 21 April 2007
Last night we went and picked up the hives and
brought them home. The bees spent the day today exploring their new
location. They found the bowl of dried beans soaking in water that Peer
was planting this morning and decided it was a good place to drink.
Ya know...these bees are really quite fascinating. I knew I would enjoy
having them, but I enjoy them even more than I thought I would. These
bees that we have are extremely good natured, you really have to work
at it if you want to piss them off.
The farmers had their cows out today too for the first time this
year...they are actually right between the bees and the flowers that
they are currently working on. See the yellow stretch of land behind
the cows? That's a canola field and the bees love, love ,love this
stuff. But anyway, the bees and the cows get along just fine, just like
we knew they would...hopefully the farmer is a bit more relaxed about
it now.
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