At Home My Way

My two girls always loved to go "picking in the pea patch" beside my parents' home in Florida. Although, the peas we picked in Florida are conch peas or purple hulls. The girls use to get so hot and sweaty when we were picking peas. One summer they decided to pick peas for money. The owner of the "you pick" offered that he would pay the $5 for a 5-gallon bucket of peas. Well, a 5-gallon bucket is a lot of peas. Their granny and I picked and picked, and the two girls picked and picked, and those girls were black with granny beads, sweat, and dirty little feet when we got finished (as I'm sure we were). We fought bugs and glaring sun to get finished with their bucket. Sure wish I had brought a camera for a picture of those girls picking peas. I just didn't know that the time would fly so fast! Not only did they like to pick peas, but they loved to shell peas. We all piled up on the porch with our pots and paper bags, and shelled peas off and on t...

Finally... spring seems to have arrived. We have gone from coats and sweaters to shorts and flipflops at my house (yes mom.... I wear them to work every chance I get). The trees are budding out and are just on the verge of blooming. Our bees will be thrilled with that. There are daffodils blooming all around and I think my crab apple tree will be opening some blooms by the time I get home this evening. We started feeding the bees sugar water this past weekend. Each hive consumed 1 quart of sugar water within 2 days. We added more last night (3/30). Hubby tried to put the feeders out at lunch, but the bees were ALIVE with activity and he didn't have time to "suit up" so we just waited until slightly before dark and changed the feeders out. Today its suppose to be in the 80's. It is SO HARD to stay at work when we are having such glorious weather! Two new swarms of bees are ordered. They will arrive April 17. My brother and his wife are also getting...