Do you have a list? If you are like me, there is so much that needs to be done, that when anything comes up, I just say, “put it on the list.”

The list looks something like this:

• Beekeeping stuff
• Household stuff
• Auto Repairs
• Garden projects
• Rabbit projects
• Chicken projects
• remodel the house (before it falls in)
• Finish my novel (I’ve been working on for 5 years)
• Patent my mechanized board game (I need time to build the prototype)
• Plan to take over the world
• ETC…

Now items on this list move up and down based on necessity. Car repairs get put off until they have to be done, while beekeeping jobs are always at the top of the list.

However, for the first time all year, I have gotten ahead of my bees. This bliss will no doubt be short lived, as some of my hives are already booming!

This laps in time allowed me to do a few little things that I wanted to do.

Saturday, I ran to the bee yard and moved some eggs to the queenless hive I have – but I forgot to put pollen in with it. I went back on Sunday and put more eggs and, this time, I put pollen with them. I’ll go check on them Wednesday if the weather holds out.

When I got home, my son helped me cut a tree down in my backyard where I have been wanting to plant a garden. I have house in an old neighborhood that is surrounded by trees and doesn’t get any sunshine.

Sunday I woke up to find there was no water pressure in the house. On the list of things that cause me severe stress:

• Serious illness in the family
• Loss of job
• Pluming issues
• Miscellaneous Wal-Mart Sacks filled with unknown items left on the table when my wife finishes grocery shopping (FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, JUST EMPTY THE SACKS!)

So I threw on some clothes and ran around outside the house listening for leaks. Then I ran to the meter to see if it was moving. However, when I reached into the hole to brush back the dirt, I sliced my fingers open on what turned out to be a broken meter (totally unrelated).
In the end I found out that the low pressure was caused by a drunk hitting a fire hydrant a block over.

Later, after visiting my mom for breakfast, I got my wife’s sowing machine out and finally fixed the hole in my bee veil – which required a How-To YouTube video just to get it threaded (don’t judge my sowing). For the past month I have been duct taping the hole with only occasional success. It is amazing how much calmer the bees are when I’m not flailing my arms and scream, “DEAR GOD, NOT THE FACE!”

When I got home from the bee yard (for the second time), I changed out the solenoid on the lawn tractor… that turned out not to be the problem, so I changed it back out… then I found a blown fuse and, voilà, problem solved.

By the way, I have no mechanical skills whatsoever! However, one day I became the oldest guy in the family and shit had to get fixed. My late father-n-law taught me a little and left me a set of tools but YouTube has been my saving grace.

Anyway, when that was done, I mowed the grass. Then my son helped me move the rest of the tree to the road… the tree turned out to be much larger once it was on the ground and took a few hours to haul out. Did I mention it was in the 90’s all weekend?

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In the new area, I plan to build an awesome raise garden using a variation of the MAN about TOOLS concrete planters.
However, for now I will go with a half-assed garden of whatever, will grow this time of year. I’ll keep you posted on my progress.

Now despite not starting till nearly lunch each day, I still managed to get some housework done, patched my veil, tending the bees twice, cleared land for a garden, fixed the lawn mower, and cut two yards.

If a lazy guy like me can get this much done in a weekend, just imagine what you could get done on your homestead next weekend.

About my diet

I haven’t mentioned my progress in a couple of weeks… mainly because progress has been so slow. As of today I am down 32lbs.

I really thought by now I would be down double that. It is fairly disappointing when you count calories for 6 days, then go out drinking with friends and gain 7lbs. That is just what happen the week before last and it has taken me all week to get it back off. I seem to be stuck in a 8 steps forward, 7 steps back loop… but that is still 1 step forward.