Friday, June 29, 2012

Baby Bump update

Yes, I know, I have not been good about posting belly pics but I do have an excuse! My usual photographer, aka my husband, has a sick computer and the files are stuck in its belly!

Thankfully our friends Josh and Aubrie Moates were sweet enough to take a few shots for us. Josh is with Kim Box Photography and he and Kim actually shot our wedding so obviosuly we are fans of his work. Plus, Aubrie does FABULOUS work herself so check them both out if you want some amazing photos!!!

Josh, Aubrie and their 3 year budding photographer named Ever, along with our friends Erika and John Tracy and their son, Thomas, drove up to Chilton County and took some photographs in a peach orchard that is owned by a beekeeper friend of ours!

So....here I am at week 31! Eat your heart out! (we did, literally, on peaches that is!)








And last but not least, 3 year old Ever took this one and it just happens to be one of my favorites! Notice the slightly lower angle of the shot! Ha!


So I'm now at week 33 and still feeling great, thank goodness. The heat is pretty bad around these parts but that means that EVERYONE is hot, not just me. I'm drinking about 3-4 liters of water every day which is helping and I'm still excercising but I have now moved INDOORS!! Other than that, things are moving smoothly and we will see Baby Boyd in about 7 weeks!

Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Best Day EVER!!

Well Tyler and I took quite the field trip recently! We realized that we were ready for our second beehive so the president of our beekeepers association put us in contact with a man who sells nucs (small colonies of bees) up in Central, AL. So Tyler and I borrowed his Dad's pickup truck and drove north to pick up our girls. Side note: we decided that since our hives are mostly all girls that they needed sorority names so this new hive is named Beta Zeta, BZ, get it? bzzzzz! Anyway, when we got there we were amazed, this man had almost 60 hives that were all painted bright pastel colors like an basket full of Easter eggs! He also had a beautiful organic garden which almost completely feeds he and his wife, numerous fruit trees and bushes,  a slew of guinea hens and a wood shop that Tyler would die for. Needless to say, Tyler and I found our utopia!





More than anything else, this trip was a great learning experience for us. The man opened up many of his hives and explained exactly what was going on and what we were looking at. This kind of education my friends, is priceless for a novice beekeeper like myself!







We even got to assist him in catching a swarm. Not so scary looking huh? We had to get the queen in the box so that all her worker bees would follow. IT.WAS.AMAZING.




The bees were so preoccupied with what they were doing that they didn't even sting his bare hand when he stuck his finger in the clump to find the queen!


You can see her in the picture below with the little white dot on her back. He marks his queen with a paint pin so that he can spot her whenever he inspects his hives. Think Where's Waldo!


The picture below in no way does his garden justice! It's huge and beautiful and he practices only organic methods to support his whole food vegetarian lifestyle. It really is an inspiration to see!


Check out that Dinosaur Kale on the left! Yum!!!!

 Tyler and I came home on cloud 9 and can't wait to go back and visit him again! There really is something so amazing about seeing how things grow and produce!

And yes, I know I am a huge dork!