Someday I will have chickens and goats and bees.  Living here in Bellevue I could actually keep all of these in my yard (although I think my yard needs to be a bit bigger to have a goat).  And with three cats, we are actually at our limit for pets so… Until we actually move to a farm my dreams of being a farmer will have to wait.

I am going to be living vicariously through my friend Tillie though as she has just started on a bee keeping venture.  You can read all about it over here on her blog – and before you ask, as I already did, no, she won’t have any honey this year.

We visited a bee farmer on our trip to Chilliwack, B.C. this past weekend.  We’d never been to Chilliwack and once we accomplished our primary mission (to buy as much snack food as we could legally bring across the border) we set out to see the sites.   The kids enjoyed watching the bees swarm the keeper as he opened up the pollen collecting tray for us. It was too chilly to open the hive.  Most of his bees were busy pollinating at a local blueberry farm.  We came home with honey, honey sticks and beeswax candles.

We also drove by a goat farm, a dairy, a potter and a great used bookstore.  Sadly, all but the latter were closed as we were up pretty early.  We also squeezed in two trips to Tim Horton’s for donuts and one trip to Swiss Chalet for lunch.  I have to say, if I ever eat chicken again (you know, when I’m raising my own), I’ll make a beeline (get it? beeline?) for the border for a quarter-chicken white meat dinner.