:: What's better than a Bee Swarm for an Early Birthday Gift !?! ::

What's better than a Bee Swarm for an Early Birthday Gift !?! 
Cause it's still my birthday "week" remember! ;)
Thanks to the wonderful world of Facebook, a friend and I were tagged on a gals post requesting a swarm removal. After our last two attempts not going in our favor I was convinced that third times a charm! My friend had to work so I had to go it alone. Oh shit! I'm not gonna lie. I was so nervous to do this on my own. I asked my oldest son Coe to come along to document it for me and to be my moral support.
The homeowners were so amazing. They let me drive my truck right under the tree where the bees had taken up residency.

Just to clarify. I'm not a huge fan of heights and while this swarm was relatively low I still had to stand on a ladder in the back of my truck with thousands of bees above my head, hold on to a wooden box, and try to scoop piles of those bees into said box. Needless to say, my hands were shaken & I was sweating like a you know what in church.  

I nervously babbled and talked the entire time to keep myself calm and I'm sure the homeowner thought I was a nut. Hee! 

 I sprayed the bees down with some sugar water and started to scoop them into the box a bit at a time.

Just breath & keep going ... You got this...

 Yep, all those black specs are bees. Lots and lots of them.

 The homeowners were kind enough to let me take off a few branches (and helped me) to get them all. I told you they were awesome people!

After literally scooping and brushes bees out of the back of my truck and into the box, I think we had our queen and most of the swarm. Success! So far so good.

I placed the caught swarm ontop of my weak hive with some newspaper separating the boxes until tomorrow morning when my mentor is coming over to help sort things out.

Welcome to Home Sweet Home Honeys Bees. Please stick around!

Part 2 Coming Soon! 

Thank you G Family for being so kind and helping save the bees!

:: Birthdays are Meant for Celebrating All Week Long ::

My friend Beth and I have birthdays a week a part & what better way to celebrate than to torture our husbands, I mean go on a little day trip with the family and go hiking!
We set out yesterday morning around 8am. Three rest stops, a few "are we there yets", and a chipped windshield later; we arrived at our destination :
Matthiessen State Park in Utica, IL

It's located just past Starved Rock State Park; which was our next stop (unbeknownst to the guys).

The trails were beautiful. Muddy, but beautiful. We walked the lower trails, the upper trails, and maybe a few spots twice. 

We had a picnic lunch on the tailgate and set out to our next set of trails at Starved Rock. When we arrived we couldn't believe the amount of people there! The cars were lined for miles along the road just to get to the lodge. The kids nor the husbands were about to walk that far just to "freaking walk some more". LOL! Then, it began to rain! Seriously guys, did you do a damn rain dance?

So, we crossed that off our list and headed to the local Lock & Damn to watch a couple of barges come in. We stopped at a few local stops to look around, buy some fudge and then onto the guys' favorite part of the day: Lou's LaGrotto in Peru, IL for the best deep dish pizza ever! 

There was sleeping and laughing on the surprisingly quick ride home. It was a fun and exhausting day.

But, the birthday week isn't over yet! Next weekend we're signed up to go fishing, kayaking, and zip lining at the end of the year 4H party! Aaron is so excited : NOT. 

(Oh and Beth, be prepared for a little coyote hunting come January. Aaron is already plotting how we will be spending his "birthday week". LOL!)