Where's the sunshine?

Today was my first full day of normal activity and I was so hoping that it would be a sun filled day. Sadly it was drizzly despite the 0% chance of rain.  So it was another day of small projects.

1. We set the slate pieces in front of the hives.  So much hard clay.  Two days of rain and the ground was like concrete.  This area is close to the well head and I think this clay was brought up when they drilled the well.  It's the only place in the yard where the clay is the top layer.  Most of the time you don't get clay until about 10 inches down.

2. Planted  3 Turtlehead chelone lyonii  plants behind the bee hive bird bath.

3. Transplanted 3 ruby sedums that were growing by the driveway pillars to the area in front of the bee hive bird bath.  These plants were getting overrun by the large Autumn Joy sedum plants so maybe they will do better now that they do not have to compete.

4. Cleaned up the wood pile area.  Two loads of wood left today but there is still more to cut up so they both promised to come back.  Yippee.

5. Hauled out a bunch of stuff out of the top floor of the barn.  Hopefully it will all sell fast on Craigslist.  Outdoor Christmas items, a pair of kitchen chairs, and some metal snack trays.

Here is a close up photo of the Stokes Aster that I planted last week.  I need to buy more fall blooming plants.  My yard has very few flowers after mid August except for my Knock Out roses and the honeybees don't seem to be very interested in them.
We also stopped by a flagpole business but they only install short aluminum flagpoles and that is not what we want or need.  So the search continues.  R really wants to rent a boom truck and so it ourselves.  Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh, no.  I can't imagine wrestling a 30 ft steel flagpole without breaking at least one window and/or either one of us.

Tomorrow I am going to spray around the beehive again with the vinegar/epsom salt/Dawn solution. I have sprayed twice already but after three weeks everything starts to green up again.  I really have not had very good luck with this recipe.  It appears to kills the vegetation above the ground but doesn't really affect the roots.  But Round Up is out of the question when you have honeybees.

Honeybee Fun Facts

Foraging bees have to fly about 55,000 miles to produce a pound of honey, visiting around 2 million flowers. 

If the queen honey bee is removed from the hive, within 15 minutes, the rest of the colony know about it. That's faster than TMZ!!!!!