Bag worm? Cut worm? Not sure but the chickens DON'T like them. Could not believe how many of them were in the cocoon when I opened it up.

The LILAC bushes are in full, riotous bloom. It's enough to make your head swim. We have 2 purple and 3 white lilac bushes around the yard...MMMMMmmmmm....LILAC!

See how we grow our potatoes: This is my innovative experiment for this year. Seems like it will work. Wish I could market this one. SO much smarter than the topsy-turvy growing bags!

Hopefully, I will have honey for sale soon at the Cuivre River Farmer's Market, https://www.facebook.com/pages/Cuivre-River-Farmers-Market/213030598783870: Saturday mornings at the Tractor Supply parking lot (9 a.m. - 1 p.m.) in Troy, Missouri (at the corner of Hwy 47 & Lincoln Street, behind the BP station).

Closer views of pollen (note the color-filled cells: each flower/plant has a unique color and the bees sort of preserve that in the hive) and some cells with pupae (see the white-filled cells).

MORE Photos from the weekend. The fancy structure on the right is "Drone Cone" and it's where the males are incubated. The rest of the covered comb is worker bees attending the to babies, cleaning out empty cells, etc.

Honey BEES!! It's so great to get into the hives. This time I have some photos. The photo on the bottom shows a honeybee with pollen on her back legs. SUCH productive girls!

Getting ready for the start of the season: Cuivre River Farmers' Market will open for business on Saturday, March 3rd from 9:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m. at the Tractor Supply parking lot in Troy, Missouri. Tractor Supply is at the corner of Lincoln and Hwy 47 (behind the BP station).

Items for sale will include:

Chickens (8 weeks and older available from farmers in the market, chicks and chick orders available inside the Tractor Supply store)
Eggs (come early, we only have about 10 dozen!!)
Jewelry
Baked Goods
Baby Goats!

It's a little early for produce, but some people will have plant starts. The honey will flow later in the season.

Go SPRING!!

Greg is in the big red barn, building "temporary shelves" so that we can move the herbs from the seed room (1 of 2 places that we are currently growing seeds) into the breakfast room, by the sliding glass door. Get this: the herbs are growing "too quickly" and need real sunshine. Oh, and we need space for more seeds. We haven't even planted the tomatoes yet. We're going to start about 180 tomatoes. Yes, 1-8-0. Not a typo, a number.

We love farming.

This weekend on the farm.... Okay, in addition to converting a closet-sized space in our garage into a seed-starter room (grow lights, shelves, etc.), last weekend we converted our laundry room into a seed starting room. It didn't quite double our capacity, but it was close.

This weekend, we filled both of THOSE rooms to capacity, puzzled out how to start the potatoes so that we will still be sane at the end of the season: And, we still have a LOT of herbs to plant, many seeds yet to order - and seeds that will go directly into the ground (thus, do not have to be planted indoors). We have turned the corner from "nutso gardeners" to "nutso farmers."

It's a lot of fun, though!

Look at me blog!!