They're Ba-a-a-a-ck

Honey bees have again taken up residence in the old locust tree right outside our front door.   After swarming last summer - and the swarm was picked up and lives with our friends Nick and Deb - there was some activity around the tree but it seemed like a very small population and then by September we didn't see bees anymore at all.  I guess whoever stayed behind couldn't make a go of it and so they lived out their little bee lives and died.

It was sad in a way, but both Andy and I had been stung and we were concerned a visitor would get nailed and since we didn't DO anything to the bees to hurt them we just put it down to "nature's way".  Well, yesterday it was nature's way to repopulate the tree :-/

 

We didn't see what direction they came from, but in the time it took to walk past the tree, get something from the upper barn and walk back, they had arrived and begun moving in.

 

 

They came at a good time.  Of course everything is blooming, but they have roses.....

 

 

....a mock orange bush......

 

 

...and soon the out. of. control. Amur River privet hedge will be in full bloom.  Fun how nature has that all worked out, eh?

 

We moved the sheep back over into the south pasture.  They had made the most of the middle north pasture and the south had regrown nicely.  In a perfect world we'd have let that pasture stay unoccupied longer to avoid potential parasite issues, but we only just cut one pasture for hay and the other which was cut a couple of weeks ago hasn't regrown sufficiently.

 

 

 

Flopsy and Nugget came outside last so I 'helped' them work their way down below the Baby Pasture to graze.  Then I could step over the fence and make a getaway. 

 

 

 

The grass is yummy and tender and with Nugget as a role model Flopsy is doing a bit better with her grazing.

So this is what we do?  Eat the grass?

 

Yes!  That's why you're up to your eyeballs in it.  Sheesh..... little kids.... <chomp, chomp, chomp> 

 

Well, OK, but it seems like there ought to be more to it.

 

Sometimes it's the little stuff that throws you.