Water for the orchard

Trench for irrigation

One of my fig cuttings from last year is hanging on for dear life and I believe the other one just gave up.   We need irrigation down at the old loading deck, so hubby rented a Ditch Witch from Taylor-Foster on Saturday and started trenching the 400 feet to the orchard.   By the end of the day that Ditch Witch almost got stuck because it ran low on hydraulic fluid somewhere (when it comes to mechanical stuff, nothing makes sense to me).  Taylor-Foster brought another one out to the farm Sunday morning, so the trench is dug and hubby is over half way glueing pipe.  

We needed some parts that weren't available at Foster-Taylor, so we made two trips to Lowe's.   Our new Lowe's is the one in Griffin, Georgia.  Shopping there was such a pleasure today -- great atmosphere, friendly and helpful staff, organized displays -- I just wandered around looking at stuff while waiting for hubby to find all the right widgets and I felt totally relaxed.  Our trip to the other Lowe's was the exact opposite, which is enough said about that!

I planted more cleome, sunflowers, poppies, and phlox for us and the bees to enjoy.   I get my cleome and bee tattoo next week, so that should tell you how much I like those particular flowers.  I also weed-eated to clear space around the red cedars I planted a couple of months ago and to clear the area around our memory bench. 

We have one hive left to check, but all the others are doing great.   Well, one is looking a little iffy, but the rest are fantastic!   The iffy one has (had) and old queen that is no longer laying as much as she should be.  I still struggle with the concept of killing a failing queen, so we put her in a NUC to live out her life and made sure the other hive still had plenty of young brood with which to create a new queen.   It's a compromise that I hope will go well.   The big hive we brought from the city has a fat and active queen now and the bees are no longer bad-tempered.   Hopefully hive 47 will go the same way. 

I'm sitting in the sun blogging at the end of a very busy day and wondering why I have so much more energy here.  Is it the vitamin D or just the peace and quiet?  I think I need to sit outside during lunch at work to see if I can avoid the 3:00 p.m. slump that I get in the city.   It's good to come to the farm and figure out that it's not old age that makes us both want to fall asleep right after supper.   Hmmmm -- maybe the absence of a TV is helping us stay awake!  After all, how many times can we watch the same epidsodes of "Last Man Standing?"   Here's hoping I figure it out while sitting here waiting for the sun to set and the moon to rise.