Bees and the Art of Tiller Maintenance

Another beautiful day today. After 4 days of badly needed rain, things started clearing up yesterday. Today was in the 70's. A lovely sunny day. It was heartening to see that the bees were busy foraging around the farm. So far, the hives that survived the fires this summer seem to be faring well. Everywhere there was water, bees were lining up for a drink. Kind of amazing giving the last few days of rain. But they were thirsty! This spring, my neighbors and I will restart the hives that failed this summer. And the cycle continues.

I used the warm weather to work on some farm equipment. Last fall, my walk-behind tiller threw a rod through the side of the engine crank case. You can see the hole it made in the photo at the right. I saw a piece of the crank shaft fly about 15 feet into the dirt as I was tilling a new field. I went to pick up the piece, and man was it HOT. This is the second engine I've blown in a year. The first one was last spring, just as I was finishing up the new lavender field. That time it was the valve guide, and my brother-in-law helped me put together this new engine from some old equipment. Well, looks like it was on its last leg too. Someday, maybe I'll be able to afford a more industrial tiller. In the meantime, I'll keep nursing this one back to health.

I got a new engine to replace it a couple of weeks ago, but figured as long as I had the engine off, I might as well clean it up a bit, and repaint. Yesterday, I disassembled everything and washed off all of the dirt and grease. But it was still too cold to paint. Today things warmed up, and I repainted in the warm sun. Another coat tomorrow, and I can reassemble everything. It will be good as new! Better than new actually. I'm painting the whole thing my signature lavender purple. I can't wait to see it all back together.

Another fun highlight today, I had a visitor. A bobcat. He came right up to the house. Sorry, my camera wasn't handy so I couldn't catch a picture. When I went outside to look at him, he got startled and took off. Funny thing, he went through a hole in the fencing of the vegetable garden and got trapped inside. Boy did he panic. I watched from a safe distance as he stuggled at the far end of the garden trying to get through the fence. Ultimately he made it through, which just goes to show, no fence is strong enough to keep a determined wild cat from getting through!

Maybe he'll come back tomorrow. This time, I'll have the camera ready!