Bees making Honey. . . Goats with fat, lumpy bellies. . .

Today I thought I would take a quick look into my hive, and lo and behold, there was quite a bit of honey there! I did the fastest harvest of honey ever--under 20 minutes, no smoker. And I cleaned things up a bit in the hive, much to the consternation of the buzzing girls. One disadvantage to top-bar hives is that the bees are in charge of forming their own combs, and sometimes they form them in crazy directions that make harvesting impossible. So I had to clean out some of the comb that they had formed in some very abstract forms, telling them, "no Gehry-style architecture, girls!", and used some well-formed bars/combs to serve as guides for new comb-building. I was really surprised how much honey they have already made. Last year this time, I just stopped checking the hive because there was so little activity; then in July, we got lots of rain, and by the time I checked the hive again, it was bursting with honey. We have had an unseasonable amount of rain the past few weeks, so that must be good for pollen gathering and honey making.
And the other girls, the goats, are looking so fat and lumpy! I spent some time out at the barn this morning, just hanging out with them, and it's so fun to see what they do when they are relaxed and not expecting food. They invade each other's space, lie down practically on top of one another, scratch their neck itches along the ground in crazy stretched-out positions, and nibble on pine cones. They also let out these little groans and close their eyes contentedly like pussy cats. Very sweet.
My new soap & lotion molds are in the mail to me this week and should be appearing at the market and on my website very soon! The lotion bars will come first, then the soap. . . Can't wait to share them with everyone!