A quick update

I'll make this short and to the point, since I'm having a crazy week! Here's what's going on on several fronts:

Bees - On the advice of a friend, we combined our two hives so that they might have enough strength to push on through, maybe with the addition of a couple of frames of brood to repopulate the colony. But the situation had gotten pretty dire by then, and the reorganization didn't seem to "take." In fact, it looks as though our one remaining queen (darned if we know where the other one went) might have led her followers off to greener pastures. But never fear, we are getting a nuc (a small box of bees with brood and stored food) from our teacher later this week, and we'll start again. Also, our friend is on the lookout for a swarm for us. That would get us back up to two hives.

Sheep - Still missing. Every day when I go outside, I hope to see them, but they're not there. It's been nearly a week, so I think for the sake of my mental health, I have to write them off. (Of course, if they do turn up, we will be delighted to see them!)
Meanwhile, Green #8 (cleverly named "Ocho Verde" by the owner's daughter) is still being boarded on our behalf. We think we will wait until our original target date of mid-July to get him, so that we will be better prepared. His owner has also mentioned that he may also be able to get some ewes for us.

Chicks - Very cute and growing fast. They have the same hilarious narcoleptic tendency that all babies have. They're walking along and...oops, fell asleep standing up! Several of them have a habit of falling asleep with their heads in the feed trough. When they're not doing that, they're running around at amazing speed, jumping over and on each other, pecking and scratching for food, and gargling their sugar water.
The ducklings and turkey poults were slated for arrival anytime from yesterday through Friday. I really expected them to show up today, but they haven't yet.

Infrastructure - The s.o. has our charming chicken house mostly built. I will post a pic when it's done. He has also cleaned out the greenhouse and installed landscaping fabric inside it so that it's no longer a mass of weeds. It looks gorgeous.

Garden - The rain has helped immeasurably. It's time to tie the tomato plants to their stakes. Several of the plants even have tiny tomatoes on them. I am still running way behind on certain crops; I haven't even planted okra, and I need to hurry up and plant an outdoor row of green and/or wax beans to follow up the ones in the greenhouse.

Eat Local Challenge - I wrote a post today on the Eat Local Challenge blog on the topic of regional cuisine. Also, don't forget to check out my ELC diary here.
My friend J and I went to the Atlanta Midtown Whole Foods and to the DeKalb Farmer's Market yesterday. We got all kinds of good stuff, from Georgia cheeses to Florida-grown Chinese celery to hot pepper jelly to locally milled whole-wheat flour. We may possibly have fallen off the wagon briefly when we had Vietnamese food for lunch.