We sent our first steer to the butcher this morning along with a boar hog.

It took me longer than expected to find someone to do this so Porterhouse was becoming too pet like. If he would have been around much longer I don’t know if we would have been able to butcher him. Well one of we. If everything goes well with this butcher it will be a regular occurrence. I have too many pigs right now and two more steers that are either going to be sold or sent to the freezer. I know one is next years freezer steer but the other may be sold.

Over two weekends I worked to straighten the comb in the hives. It was a mess. Instead of following the guides down each bar the bees built at a 45 degree angle across the bars. I caused so much disruption that I haven’t been back into the hives. I wanted to give them a chance to get all the comb reattached. I use hair clips and string to hang the comb in line with the bars and that means they have about an inch or more to fill in.

I was pleasantly surprised to find both queens had stayed with the hive and both were full of larva and hatching baby bees. I was watching the bees come and go this morning and about half looked like they were carrying white saddlebags.

The garden is doing very well this year with all the rain. So are the weeds.These pictures were taken right before the last series of rains. Now the beans have grown up and over the fence. It is a green wall.