Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Fruits of Our Labor and Our Bug Man

our garden is AWESOME! tomatoe plants are huge. we have sixteen of them around four wire racks which are completely hidden now. buds and green tomatoes are everywhere and these ripe ones are our first harvest from the tomatoes. there were at least six more that i had to throw out because bugs and birds got to the first which is very frustrating. the corn is so tall and my cilantro has really shot up. i love cilantro, but the thing i anticipate most is the basil. ever since i went to oregano's and had their bruschetta, i have been obsessed with basil. so yum! the squash (we have four kinds) has taken over. thank goodness we made their boxes bigger. this zucchini was the first we have picked - isn't it huge?! making zucchini bread! we do have a problem with our green bell pepper which has brown rotted spots and we can't figure our why. it looks like a jungle. brookie says it's on steroids. i'm loving it. it's getting pretty hot though when we water it. argh!


now about the bees!


on sunday, kyle wasn't feeling well and came home early with addison. as i started to walk down the back porch toward our door when i got home, kyle was on the stairs and told me to go around the house. on our way to church, we had noticed about six bees flying around the grill. now it was around twenty. when i got in the house, i saw kyle was wearing my hoodie and he told me underneath was a windbreaker and his church clothes. he was wearing this to protect himself from the bees in the middle of JUNE! and he was dying. yuck. kyle also told me that he was pretty sure they were coming from the grill so he had turned it on earlier to kill them. he wanted to get a closer look at it, so he had me tape a net to his face and gloves on so he could go outside. so that's what the second picture is.


armed with bug spray, he started stepping on and misting the growing population of now 70 bees. once he began to get that under control, he went looking around the grill, tables, chairs, and other odd ends that are on the porch. not much. then BINGO! sure enough, when he opened the grill there was the hive like he thought. hundreds of bees were piled about seven inches high on top of the rack and even more below, dead from the flames and smoke. i was watching through the window and couldn't believe it! kyle finished killing as many as he could and the next day he cleaned it up. what a handy bug man!

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