Work Around the Homestead

This past weekend was pretty hopping busy around the Homestead! Here is a little recap of how things went. Friday night, Justin's mission, to remove the radiator from our new (to us) tractor...I guess it needs a new one. Bummer! I'm thankful to get it done now, before we are needing to use it. My mission, to reorganize, and take inventory of our canning jar supply. Both missions were accomplished!

 All nice & organized....

 My pantry...

 I simply used masking tape to label where I plan to each item.

 This is all we have left...a few cans of tomato juice, apple sauce, apple pie filling, peaches, spaghetti sauce on the bottom.

SATURDAY

Hubby spent the day on the road with the kids...picking up a part for the tractor, then picking up our new (to us) garden shed. Again, thank you Craigslist.

I spent the entire day at Beekeeping School!

 I started off the morning putting together the hive kit. It was great to see all the parts of the hive and exactly how they go together. (Above: the bottom board, the hive box.)

  I have all the frames built, and ready to go, I was so proud of myself! 

I forgot to take a picture of the completed project with my top & all..opps!

Then the morning session was finished off with a demo on using the smoker. Then the whole afternoon was spent consuming an ENORMOUS amount of instruction. I took three pages of notes. I plan to teach all the great info to the kids as a part of our garden study.

Shortly after arriving home from "school" I saw this in my driveway!

 My new Garden Shed!! (This is the back.) The previous owner built it for his daughter as a playhouse.

 We went to work prepping the site. It's a little hard to tell, but there was lots of brush in the way.

 Caleb & Zach helping to move things our of the way...love my helpers!

 My good looking Hubby, and my father-in-law clearing the brush...

 All cleared out, tree branches trimmed, now time for the machinery!

 My awesome father-in-law leveling up the ground ...

 After leveling, we laid cement blocks.

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Then after more time than we planned on, and executing Plan A, Plan B, Plan C, Plan D...you get what I mean.... we finally got this HEAVY beast in the spot we wanted. I LOVE IT!!

While the men all worked on the shed positioning, the kids and I played outside.

 The kids were enjoying some chips for an afternoon snack.

 I was admiring the blooms on my thorn-less blackberry and all it's buds....I can hardly wait.

Then I moved on to check out my blueberry bushes....Look at all those gorgeous buds!

My raspberries look like they wintered very nicely as well. Many of the perennials I transplanted are starting to come up. I'm very excited about the peonies peeking up through the ground. Okay I think it's safe to say I'm just excited about everything around here these days!

 I'm linking up to Homestead Revival this week!
You can go check out what other Homesteaders are up to.