The birds, the bees, and Gluten Free makes 3!

Wow, it's been a while since we last spoke old friend. Let's get right into it.

Today was a big day around the Wheaton circle of interest, or at least what I paid attention to.

The Bees

Let's start with the bees since they started off our day. We already have chickens, so I thought it was high time we got some bees too. Let's hope it was a good thought. I've got my suit and smoker can at the ready just in case of an unruly rise up (2012 is supposed to be the end of the world, maybe I'm part of the real cause?)

Don't Drink And Fly

My wife and I are taking great steps towards raising a successful colony, so the first thing we did was wash out our backyard pond which Roscoe tends to frequent. Nonetheless, it's clean and ready for the girls to use now. And use it they did. After about ZERO seconds the first 10 or 12 bees were waiting for us to fill the pond back up. I happen to have my camera with me since I was taking photos of other things, keep reading, it will become apparent. I'm telling the story from the end, like a Quentin Tarantino flick, so stay with me.

CPR For Bees

Being a newbee myself and this being one of my new bees I didn't want to see her drown in the clean pond so I thought I'd give her a hand (or a large stick as it were). I gently pushed her toward the edge. Out she came, shook off her wings and off she went back to the hive. It's so awesome to be writing that!

The Birds

We have these adorable little Cassin's Finches everywhere out here. It's our doing though, we provide roughly 1 gallon of black oil sunflower seeds to them every week or so. These two were happily building a nest on top of one of our outdoor speakers. We called her Dumb-Dumb since it's right next to a major thoroughfare on our patio. But oh well, you can't help stupid. Just make fun of it I guess. Right Colbert?

That pic above is actually the parents of this little baby finch. Which is funny, because today is my sister's birthday too and she's pregnant. Man, big ol' circle of life there. So anyway. This little one hatched TODAY! So Happy Birthday to my sister Amy and happy birthday to this little Cassin's Finch too! Ah hell, if its your birthday today too, then happy birthday dear reader.

And Gluten Free Makes Three!

My mom, dad and I launched our new family owned business; Gluten Free Prairie!!! My mom and my sister both have been diagnosed with celiac disease (her blog post about it goes into greater detail). I had quit an IT job I had for over 11 years because it was no longer what I wanted to do with my life. My parents were thinking about retiring. We decided to work together and see if we can't have some fun with a family business and make delicious gluten free oat based products at the same time!

Our First Product

In recognition of May being Celiac Disease Awareness Month we are taking 25% off your order if you use the promo code "aware". We hope you'll join us on this journey!