Honey Harvest

Well, the bees were busy this summer. They made a lot of honey. James and Shawna are in Arizona, and someone should and needs to get the honey from the bees. Hmmmmm, Lorie, can you get the honey harvested while I am working in Colorado? No, she is canning peaches and apples that we were blessed with this year. I had planned on harvesting the honey anyway so finally the day arrived where I had chosen to take the honey from the bees.

Now, I had this all figured out: just smoke the bees, get them drunk on old straw smoke, and open the hive. I had been practicing this all summer and hadn't gotten stung yet. Now for the real thing. James had gotten me a hat with a net so my face would be protected from maddd, crazed bees. I looked for my long sleeve white tee shirt (the bees like white objects that do not appear to be bears or threatening).

I opened the first honey super and there was some bees and a little honey. It was not capped but I took it any way. Then came the next honey super. It was loaded with capped honey comb and bees. Well, I will just smoke them good. Then I lift the box with 10 frames of honey comb weighing about 50 pounds off and set it a side (bees and all). Now there are hundreds of bees flying around my face and head butting me trying to convince me to leave their golden nectar. Nope, I am not through yet. Now I pry the third super from the hive. This super is on top of the brood box and the bees are as numerous as the sands of the sea. I lifted it off and set it a side and NOW THERE are THOUSANDS of BEES in the AIR. One bee somehow made it into my veil protecting my face and started buzzing around my ear. I knew it was going to sting me so I swatted it and prepared for the worst by ripping my nice hat and veil off. My glasses went somewhere on the ground. I don't mind getting stung, just not in the face. Oh well, it stung me and now I was in a mell of a hess, bees all over. Bees in the air, bees crawling on the ground, and bees all over the honey. Up to this point it had gone very well.

With bees all over the ground, I didn't want to kill or anger gobs of bees by stepping on them. So, what do I do. James is in school, Kelly has done this before, better call him. He told me to go on and finish loading the supers with the honey into my pickup and bring them to him. This was the plan all along as he has a honey extractor. That is a story for another day. Shawna and James were surprised that I only got stung once. Actually, so was I, I thought I would get stung a lot as I had never done this before. These bees are quite docile and easy to work with. They do sting if they get in your face as I have found out, but all in all, not a bad work out for an afternoon. No one was there to help me or take pictures so you will have to imagine it.

Colorado Drilling

Well, the Wyoming work is done for a while. The company grew too fast and now is struggling. I am now doing some drilling in Colorado north of Grand Junction. In fact, it is about 15-20 miles due north of Mark and Dani's house. The picture of the country side, terrain, and the rig is below. The trailer is next to my pickup; it was a 36 foot trailer. It is designed to carry two four wheelers, it has a bedroom, shower, bathroom, and a of course a kitchen. The four wheeler bay has been converted to be an office with a sink for washing samples. One problem though, the sink has no water nor is it hooked up to drain. So I have to wash samples in the kitchen sink. This is where I live my life away from home.

The Derrick is a triple, meaning that it can stand three lengths of 30 foot pipe on the floor. When we trip for a bit, there will be 5,000-10,000 feet of pipe standing on end. Now on to other thing that may be more interesting.

I went to Colorado to help finish Grandma Thomas' estate. There is 80 acres of land that was hers and Grandpa Thomas'. His dad surveyed for the US government in the early 1900s and late 1800s and as part of payment, the government deeded him some land in southern Colorado in the San Juan Mountains. I, my dad, and Kelly went up to find the survey corners and place fence post at the corners so that the children of Harold and Bertha Thomas would now know where their land is and what it looks like. The picture of the cadastrel survey post was placed in 1987 before Joseph F. Thomas surveyed the property, but I did find a tree that may have been used in the original survey as a corner tree for section 1 and 2 of T32 N, 4 E. It was fun working with Kelly and Dad, although at times it was hard to determine who was the boss.

We found the SE corner to tract 5 of the property. This marker is the one shown and it is the center corner of Section 1. The eastern property line goes from this marker north for 1/2 mile to the North Center corner, which is the NE corner of tract 1.

The elevation of the property is 10,000 feet above sea level. The air was thin and walking with steel posts was difficult for one who is not in shape, boy how I miss being 20. The property had been logged and was very healthy. New growth was occurring and the remaining trees were free from beetle damage and very healthy. The days, both Thursday and Friday were warm and sunny with threats of rain by large dark thunder clouds during brief periods of the afternoon on Thursday.

Life in the fast lane

Funny, I have not been able to catch up on my blog. We are as busy as the rest of you out in the real world. Harvest is here and the peaches, apples and pears are great (pics to follow later).

The last adventure, well it is a funny one. The little girls (Nikki, Rachel, and Hailee) and I went to Tyler Rasmussen's reception the Friday of Labor Day weekend. I looked at the directions which were for a chapel in Provo, yea, that should be easy enough to find. It was north of the Provo Temple, in the Indian Hills subdivision in northeast Provo. James and is family live to the west of that area near Edgemont and so, hey, this is easy to find, I know the locality.

Well, we left Castle Dale at 6:00 that night thinking that we would arrive about 8:00 and have time to visit with friends and family. I had called my cousin Rochelle, she and her sister Ranee were going to meet us there where we would have a small reunion with the cousins. I told the girls that I would buy them a good dinner after the reception, so we just bought a snack when we stopped in Price.

We arrived in Provo at about 7:50 and proceeded to drive up to the temple and follow the road behind it toward Indian hills. We drove down Iroquois drive and couldn't see a park next to a church. We did find several churches but not the one that we were suppose to find. We then drove in to the Rock Canyon park to see if that was the park but I wasn't convinced because there was not a church nearby. Then the self doubt creeps in and you begin to believe that you are lost and you didn't see or read the directions right. Then, with me pride takes over and I hate people thinking I am lost. In the work that I do, I travel to all sorts of places that I have never been to and never get lost or loose my way except when I am looking for receptions or weddings. So, I did take it a little rough specially when I am with my girls and start to look bad. Boy, do I hate that. It doesn't happen much, but it does happen.

Well to make a long story short and after finally making contact with Rochelle - she left her cell phone in the van while she attending the reception, I leave my phone in the car also when attending public functions - she directed me to the chapel and we got to see the bride and groom get into their car. I did see Uncle Lynn, Dorothea, and Dianna in the parking lot. We followed them to Ed and Carolyn's house and we did get to see family from Arizona. It was fun and it was worth it, however, we didn't get to see Rochelle or Ranee, that was sad. And the girls still think I am lost.