Snow - No School Today! ... but, the snow was beautiful!

Our school was called off late yesterday evening.  Probably a good thing ... when I went up to Holland about 8:30 AM, snow was still on Hwy 100 and slick.

Fed the birds today and added a feeder up close to the house so I could get some picts.  Above and below are pictures of a slate colored junco ... one of my favorite winter birds.  They winter here but migrate to northern Canada for the summer and breeding season, a long trip for such a small bird (a little larger than a golden finch, shown in the bottom pict)  They love feeders, but feed on the ground so I threw out some extra sunflower seed close to the feeder by our back porch hoping to get pictures.

Today, I started building some supers for the summer ... all mediums.  I am setting up two 8 frame hives with mediums.  I picked up supplies at Kelley's in Grayson County the week before last.  Trying to buy local.  I will begin painting them tomorrow.  I need to order some bees for the spring ... I am thinking of ordering two swarms with queens from BeeWeaver in Texas ... they deliver to TN.  Last Spring I got 5 swarms from the brother, RWeaver (when our high school softball team played in Texas) and they were great bees ... quick buildup and actually made some surplus honey even thought it was well into April before I installed them.  I am hoping to get a diverse group of drones available when I start making splits.

I took a long walk down to Long Creek in the afternoon.  It was cold but a good time to see lots of animal tracks in the snow.

Students in AP need to begin working on your Chapter 3-4 discussion questions ... biochemistry is basic to understanding biology ... build in this foundation! ... especially protein structure and function!

rr