So what have the Ponds been up to?

Oh, just the same old, same old thing!  (laughing out loud)

Bob finished installing the cork flooring in the basement and it looks GREAT.  We had a party a few weeks ago an asked people to vote on what they preferred, the winner is shown below.

Next up will be the trim around the windows, doors and baseboards.  The sink will be installed, and we need to order the refrigerator.  Angela is looking forward to exercise space, mosaic space and Bob is looking forward to work space (desk, printer, etc).

We can see a forest fire from our house.  It is burning 3000-4000 acres near Estacada, OR, about 30 miles south of us.  Here is what it looked like yesterday...amazing how much smoke it puts into the atmosphere.

The body of water is the Columbia River.  We are looking due south of our house in Camas, WA

We have a new beekeeper!  Meet Belal Sejouk.  Belal is our son for one year while he goes to school in Camas as a senior in high school.  He is an exchange student from Libya and hopes to someday have a career in software development.  He is bright, polite, very good looking, and loves everything about America.  I asked him so far had anything not been so good about his time here (he arrived one month ago) he said "what's not to like?"  :)  We like his attitude and his sense of adventure and humor.  He will move in with us when we return from our vacation next week.

That's the news from our mountain.  Any news from you?

Honey Harvest and Home Improvement (or not)

The Bees have been busier than we have is what you are going to think while reading this post.  This may indeed be true.  Just after the last post, Bob was inundated with offers of work.  He has attended a conference in Tunisia, then worked for 10 days in Burkina Faso.  He has submitted proposals for other jobs coming up in the next few months.  So....work on the deck and on the basement came to a screeching halt!

Two hives with "supers" added for extra honey.  Hive to the right has been very slow to progress.

The bees have been attended to in what has been described as a "bad honey year" with "poor nectar flow".  Since this is our first year, we just nod knowingly when a more experienced bee keeper says this and wonder what a good honey year looks like?

Last week, we induced the bees to leave their honey stores (called "supers") then transported them to a garage of a fellow bee-club member who owns an "extractor"...a very expensive piece of equipment that uses centrifugal force to get the honey out of the combs.  You can see the action below!

Here we are tending the bees

The extractor holds four honey frames at a time, spins them for 10 min or so and honey comes out the spigot at the bottom.

Before the frames are spun out, the end "caps" of the honeycomb must be opened.  Here, Bob uses an electric hot knife to uncap the honey.

And here it comes!  It filters through two stainless sieves to fill up our bucket just below.  We ended up with almost three gallons of honey.  The process took about 4-5 hours.

We took the bucket home (I hesitate to call it a honey bucket, ha ha) and then the real fun began!

So.  Now we have 36 1-pound jars of honey, plus 2.5 quarts (we ran out of small honey jars).  Once we label them, they'll be ready to hand out and be enjoyed.  We have already begun enjoying it on toast and straight from the jar.  It is wildflower honey, with a mild taste...quite sweet, and it won't take much to sweeten your tea!

Bob's professional work has come to a lull, so we returned to basement work yesterday.  We got the room and the stairwell to the basement painted a lovely shade of silvery/grey.  Next we'll put down the cork flooring, then Bob has to stain / cut / install doors, trim and windowsills.  Go Bob.  The next post will show his progress on the Work Room as we finish 1/3 of the basement space.

As Busy as Bees, and I'm Not Kidding

 

Bob and Nick have embarked upon building an extension on our deck(s).  If you've visited, you may recall we have two smallish decks, and they weren't big enough to host an outdoor dinner, so Bob took action.  He and Nick have dug holes, moved boulders and rocks and mixed and poured two tons of concrete (or so they say!).  They have 13 supports in the ground and will be ready to begin the next phase when the June rains end.  

Here is a photo of the two of them at work. 

This was taken from the existing deck; you can see the pipes they had to move prior to pouring the concrete in the forms.

 Our friends, Bill and Mellie, loaned them a cement mixer when they got tired of doing it by hand.

The inside basement work continued when the drywall team showed up and worked for 5 or 6 days.  Here are the finished walls waiting for paint color decisions to be made.

View from the front looking to the storage room

Our future work space for mosaics and (Bob's) work desk

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So, next we will pick out paint colors, choose a flooring and get to work on finishing this space.  You can see my EMPTY mosaic work table against the wall.











Now, the bee update.  We have three hives that seem to be thriving, although each at a different pace.  We have been warned that first year hives often don't produce extra honey (for us) as they are kept busy just producing enough honey to feed them throughout winter months.  I think one of our hives may dispel that idea, however.  With several months of pollen and nectar gathering left to go, hive "Due" is getting full of comb and honey.  FYI, the bees are "Italian Bees" so we named the hives Uno, Due and Tre to make them feel at home.  Here are some photos of what the yard is looking like.

There are thousands of wildflowers about to bloom.  We hope that keeps the bees busy and happy for several weeks.

And for some other photos, here is one of a Great Blue Heron that we spotted last week at the Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge in the northern part of our county.  Also, I included some photos of wildflowers already blooming in our field.

 Hundreds of poppies have come up this year much to my surprise.

Also the first year for these to bloom, no idea what they are called.

I will add more photos of the field of wildflowers in a few days.  We've had LOTS of rain the past week so they should open up soon.

Bees and Building

First, The Bees

We have spent a good deal of time attending bee keeping classes and trying to understand how to keep our hives, bees, and queens healthy and happy.  There is so much to know!  We joined the Clark County Bee Club so that we have a network of support and information....but lots of You Tube and some books have been great sources of information.

We ordered all the supplies and Bob constructed and stained the hives.  We sat them in the middle of our "field" which will be filled with wildflowers in a few weeks.

Feeding nectar every 2-3 days

One hive has been very slow to grow, the other has tripled or quadrupled in volume which became a problem last week.  We'd added an additional "story" for them (officially called a Deep Box) but we were a few days too slow to add it.  We guess they thought they were running out of room, so they swarmed or LEFT the hive.  Bob and I happened to be doing a repair on the porch when I noticed (saw and heard) about 30,000 bees in a tornado shaped cloud hovering under a Douglas Fir tree.
I grabbed the camera and here is what it looked like:

Thousands of bees flying up to the tree

As luck would have it, two college aged men were here cleaning our windows.  One of them had helped his dad with bees for six years, so we asked him what was going on.  He said it looked like a swarm, where the bees move out for various reasons.  He called his dad for advice on how to capture the swarm and we were able to do it with lots of help from Adam and Austin.  Original plan was to climb the ladder and saw off the branch with the swarm (20 feet up!)  Since luck was on our side, they didn't have to do that.  The Queen and her followers fell to the ground and the swarm reconvened in the dirt.  Adam and Austin got a long stick, coated the end with honey as bait and they clung to the stick.  Easy transport back to the hive!

Bob discovered the mini-swarm on the ground

Patiently waiting for the swarm to settle on the stick

They used two sticks as one got REALLY heavy

Adam and Austin, our heroes

Austin and Bob placing the bee covered stick into the expanded hive box

We closed them into the hive, and by the following morning, they had left the stick and gone back to their combs and were back to work.  We don't know if we now have THREE queens or two, so we have put the bees into three hives.  One may be queenless and fail, but we didn't know what else to do to insure at least two of the three hives continue to thrive in our beehives.  We were tired and stressed after that day!

And Now, the Building

The basement wasn't finished when we built the house; we weren't sure exactly how we wanted to use it, nor did we have the funds at that time to do anything special down there.  Bob has 1/3 of the basement for a wood shop, complete with his grandfather's tools, 1/3 is for an additional guestroom and bath, and the third (center) space has become a multi use area.  To make it more inviting to use, we have decided to finish it.  Because Bob isn't working at present, he is doing the vast majority of the labor himself.  He finished the framing, then did the electrical wiring and the plumbing so we can add a sink. 
Here is a shot of the space we are working on.

Stairs lead to main living area, back is for storage room

Great light in a walk out basement

We are going with an "industrial" look for a room that will be my mosaic studio, Bob's work desk and a space for working out with gym equipment.

We went shopping a couple of weeks ago and found vintage lights, a vintage 1925 farmhouse sink and faucet and a great table with a galvanized metal top for my mosaic work area.

Standard porcelain sink, advertised in their 1925 catalog

Vintage faucet found at Hippo Hardware

I didn't take a photo of the table, and it is currently disassembled.  I'll post it soon.
One light we found at ReStore and found a compansion at the antique store where we bought the sink.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And last but not least, my recent mosaic work.  I did it in a class /work shop over 2 days, so was kind of rushed....not as detailed as I would like, but I learned a lot in the workshop and I love the colors.  We have these type of Black Eyed Susan growing in our field later in the summer.

The landscape

Hello again,
Time for a few more posts.  We have decided to do (well, hire someone to do) the landscaping around the house.  After living in the house for one year, we feel we have a good sense for what we'd like to look at when we look out the windows.

Wildflowers, mainly daisies, foxglove and brown eyed Susan's are abundant in our "meadow".  I've attached some photos to prove it.   We are likely several weeks away from getting the landscaping put in, but I will be sure to post before and after photos to show the progress.

Interior Views

We are slowly getting the decor finished. Placing art on the walls and objets d'art (I use that term loosely) around the house is taking me longer than I expected. Here are some photos of friends in the kitchen and some progress with the great room.


We are expecting a flurry of guests this summer, we look forward to showing you the house in person.

On Time, On Budget, and Beautiful

Well, we did it. The Bank Appraiser has determined that we are 100% finished with the house and the construction phase is at an end.

We are far from settled or organized, but that is a major step (or hurdle) that we've achieved, so we are glad that is behind us. Attached are some photos of the exterior painting and Bob's final handiwork, the trim around the great room windows. Last month's post showed the unfinished windows, so it is easy to see the nice transformation that has taken place in a few weeks.
No more ladders in the great room. :)

Susan and Denny were our first official guests this past weekend. Who is next?

I guess the blog will end soon....next time I'll try to post some interior design views.
But for now ..... here is where we are! Isn't she beautiful?