What a weekend at the urban homestead! It reminds me of a book I read called, “Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway” by Susan Jeffers.
We started the weekend excited about getting a new barn shed that we plan to use as a woodshop. After several months of dreaming of having more space, we started looking at the quick sheds for sale at The Home Depot and Lowes. These seemed expensive after realizing windows and doors are “add-on’s” and it was hard to understand what the process was going to be to actually get one installed on our property. I also read many blogs and pinterest posts about building our own shed, but that seemed like too much work for our family. One day, while riding along as a passenger, I saw a company called “A Structure for Life” along the freeway. Their property had several sheds and small barn structures as displays. I immediately google searched and couldn’t find them.
I am not easily defeated…I drove in the general direction and found their location the next weekend. Unfortunately, they are only open by appointment. I called their number and left a voicemail. After two voicemails, I received a call back. I set up an appointment for the next available weekend to view the example structures. I would have to wait two weeks because they would not be open on Memorial Day Weekend.
When we met the owner, he was very nice. He had his toddler daughter with him. He answered all of our questions and showed us many samples. We ended up with a 12′ x 16′ shed that looks like a barn. The company is booked until July, so we will be waiting more before it arrives. I’m learning that waiting gives me time to prepare myself. In this case, we need to knock down lots of blackberry bushes, get a stump grinder and empty the old moldy shed to prepare a space for our new shed.
The next day we started to tackle the blackberry bushes with the help of family and their very strong weed whacker and an electric chainsaw. After a long day of work, we sat on the patio to relax and quickly realized the air was full of bees! We watched with worry that our bees were leaving us. 
Our hive appeared to have lots of bees still coming and going as usual, so we hoped it was just the hive splitting because it had grown too large.
The bees made their way to our neighbors back yard. As we watched, we could hear them closing their windows and doors. The bees were very interested in their crab-apple tree. They started forming a large clump. This is just what I had read about!
My husband suited up and I ran to the store to buy a second hive. This could be our chance to have two hives. When I got back, we got all the bees we could into our new hive.
After all this excitement, my heart was racing. I wasn’t afraid of the bees but the thought of losing the bees made me very sad. We didn’t know if we had the queen or not. The bees were leaving the new hive. There was nothing we could do, so we went out for Mexican food.
When we returned the new hive was empty, but at least the old hive was still busy. We saw the bees were back in the neighbors tree. so we went and got them again. The were the hive in the morning when we woke up. I hope they will be there when I get home.
