Once upon a time this had been the vineyard managers house. I’m pretty sure for the past decade or so it has been home to a pack of coyotes. We decided November would be a great month to make some improvements so Preston took off down to Houston to pick up our good friend Jose’ Guzman and his son Jose’ Jr. I spent the time taking measurements, working out a budget and drawing up some plans on “sketchup”.
Jose’ and Jr arrived at Boxing Rabbit about the middle of November and the work began. Right away we discovered that the whole house needed new plumbing so they put in everything we needed for the bath, kitchen and wash room.
Next thing we took the porch off with the back hoe we had rented from United. It took several approaches to make it work and though I tried to get a picture of the fall, Preston was the only one who actually saw it come down..
We got a BIG SURPRISE when the porch left the overhang and exposed exactly what had been making all that buzzing sound. BEES..BEES and more BEES. Our first idea was to see if they would leave voluntarily after being exposed. When that didn’t work Jose’ donned several shirts and hats and tried to slowly remove them into some buckets. Next Jr. started doing the same and he was really good at it. I started calling him the “Bee Master”. I mean all the rest of us got stung, but Jr. He moved row after row slow and steady without any gear and never got stung once. Finally Preston set up a new hive and we think we got the queen and moved them into their new home. I guess time will tell if we were successful.
Last thing Jose’ and Jr. had time to do was put on some roofing to make us a good solid roof and there is lot’s of finishing details to be done. We decided we might put the pergola on the back porch instead of the front, but we did get the house all dried in, windows replaced and a new bathroom fixtures. More to come when we get back to town in December.
