been a long time

It has been awhile, but so much goes on it is hard to keep up and yet I feel I don't want to continue without all details, at least the ones I thought you should know. So, inspired by my sister in laws amazing blog, I will try to be more regular about posting.
Good news is no sign of melting honey or wax in our walls from the bees. So it looks like we lucked out there, of course next year will tell if more bees find the hive and move in.
We had another bear encounter, though this one was not seen. We love the birds and enjoy feeding them, despite advise not to because it attracts bears. Please that is silly. I went out one morning to let the chickens out and saw that our hummingbird feeder (yes the bottle of 'sugar water') had been knocked down and chewed up a bit. Raccoons I figured, we never see them but we know they are there. On my way back from the chicken house I saw our wrought iron Shepard's hook that holds 2 feeders bent all the way to the ground, still stuck in the earth, but bent flat to meet it. The feeders were toast. Bryan still denies that it was a bear and tries to convince me that it was a raccoon, a really big and or angry raccoon. Now there will be no feeding the birds till winter and no going out in the yard at night. We were told by the farmer who cuts our field that we evidently live on the bear highway. Good to know, perhaps that should have been in the Century 21 write up of the house.
Mid July we welcomed our first eggs, I couldn't wait for our chickens any longer so I purchased some laying hens, Ameracaunas that lay light blue/green eggs. Within the last 2 weeks our chickens have started laying eggs. Eggs, eggs everywhere! With the help of my nephew, I finished the butchering of our many roosters, we are now down to 3, well maybe 4. Mom has 2 chochins, they are identical so we call them Betty/Betsy. Well it appears that Betty/Betsy could really be Betty/Betsy/Bill. Because they look so much alike the only time we can tell them apart is when Bill attempts to crow, which is not often or he attempts some alone time with the ladies. We think he has waited to share with us the evidence of his gender due to the overwhelming dominance of Jubal, our alpha roo.
I have started cheese making with goats milk I get from a couple of different farmers. It is a lot of fun and wish I was set up to make more varieties. I will begin making goats milk soap soon also.

Let me tell you about the bats and the bees

Last weekend was a typical weekend, Bryan was home and working on projects, weather was nice, and that's when it happened.
Honey bees on my soap porch, just a few at the window, but more than you would normally see together. Now I am allergic to bees and not to happy about the visitors. As we continued to watch more and more bees arrived, we have a hive somewhere. Luckily the porch is closed off from the house so the bees didn't extend into the main part, well a few did, but they were easily dealt with.
I would have to call someone to deal with them, my concern was the problems honey bees are having these days, I really didn't want to have to have them killed.
Meanwhile, mom read online that they do not like citronella, so we filled an oil burner with the oil and began burning. Now I like citronella, to an extent, but this was pretty powerful stuff, 100 % uncut essential oil. It seemed to be working while there were plenty of bees moving in, there were also plenty dying on the floor.
The exterminator is coming Tuesday am to do the deed.
I go outside to put the rabbits away for the evening when mom comes out to tell me that Sarah said there is a bird flying around in the house. No problem we have had starlings in before. Only this isn't a starling, it's a bat. Now I like bats, from a distance, in an open area. Up close and personal in my house is another things. Every girly vision of bats stuck in hair, dripping fangs etc start playing in my head. Mom and I armed ourselves with broom in an attempt to mildly stun the bat so he could be moved to the great outdoors. haha.
The girls still thought it was a bird, we thought that best. After awhile, he quit flying and we got braver, venturing into the living room. Sarah went upstairs to get her blanket and innocently asked "what's that?" pointing to the little guy hanging from the ceiling.
So we came up with a plan to catch him in a net. That was funny. Finally we hit the internet again. Step 1, leave room, Step 2, open window (i know these are not in correct order, but take what you can), Step 3 turn on lights and bat will leave on its own. Well it did work, we hope.
Tuesday rolls around, exterminator shows up and does the deed. I also had him check to make sure the bat was no longer in our belfry.
No signs of bats or bees, and so far no sign of honey dripping through our walls to show where the hive is.