Well, we had a blast at Sunday’s Open House and already can’t wait for the next one! Hopefully by that time, the new Honey House will be completed as well as a retail space in the front of the property. We’ll see. 🙂 We want to thank everyone who came by to visit and also those who sent well wishes when they couldn’t join us. We really do appreciate the support and as Mark told a customer earlier, every single purchase means a lot to us as we grow our little business. Things are picking up now that the holidays are fully upon us. Even in our house I have Christmas tunes on as we work this evening. Smokey is out cold on the sofa. I love our cozy home.
During the Open House, we had fun showing folks our products and then of course the bees in the back yard. Everyone loves the bees and we love how gentle they are so that we can take people so close with little worry about attacks and stings. No one even needed a suit. I think that surprised many people. We love turning them onto to gentle honey bees. Nice when we can win fans over. We had one brave young man join us that day so that he could overcome his fear of them. He did fantastic! He said he’s no longer bothered by them and that made us happy to hear. Makes the work all worth it when people really begin to understand how gentle they can be if managed properly here in Texas.
We also enjoyed showing them where we plan to have the temporary bottling tanks and the beeswax equipment and candle making table. We’ve decided to keep the garage a fulltime shop. I’ve lived this long without a garage to park in, what’s another six months or so as we build the HH. I told Mark let’s go for it. It’s already a lot more room than we had in the honey house for storage and a retail space. We’ll make it work. If you would like to see the full set of Holiday Open House pictures, just just click here and have a look.
As I mentioned earlier, we are also gearing up for the holidays with more baskets and gift sets in addition to the usual honey and candles we package and ship. Now that we are at the Pearl every Saturday, we also regularly accept orders via the web and then people have the option to pick up at the Pearl. That’s working out well. Speaking of which, I have so much to share with y’all!
First of all, we are joining the Quarry Farmers & Ranchers Market every Sunday morning, 9a-1p. Yep! You can check out their website and then come visit us sometime. We are looking forward to it even though that’s about the last day we had free to rest, go to church and get chores done at home. However, Mark has heard my concerns about fatigue and he’s giving me a break – Stan will be helping us out at the Quarry so that I may take a break once in a while to get things done for the home. What a guy I have. 🙂 Lucky me. Hopefully, one day soon, I can help Mark full time and that would make it a lot better. Anyway – visit with us! It looks like a neat market environment and we are super thrilled to be accepted into the mix. We are totally enjoying access to fresh eggs, meats and veggies. AND awesome eats and then there’s the food (CrepeLandia’s at both Pearl and Quarry – woohoo for the Shrimp & Grits Crepe!)!
Secondly, we will be at the annual Yulefest at the Seguin Coliseum this coming Sunday. You can catch us there from 10a to 4p. We will have plenty of our products there as we have a double booth again this year. 🙂 I may even do some shopping myself as there are some nice vendors there with us. So, come do your Christmas shopping with some locals!
Thirdly, we got a new bee net! Our first one to own. In the past, when we’ve picked up bees, we borrowed friends’ nets. It was time to plop down some serious money for our own net. It was huge and heavy! I wanted to pick it up so you could have some relative size comparison. Don’t you love how Smokey photo-bombed me? Crazy kitty.
Fourthly (is that a word?), Mark went and got some more beeswax today! Thanks to the increased movement of our beeswax products, we’ve about doubled our beeswax on hand and in the coming year, we anticipate producing quite a bit of our own with our increase in hives. Mark will start processing it pretty soon as we need a LOT more candles for the holidays. Good thing more candle molds are also on order.
Okay, I guess that’s a good wrap of things for now. I don’t want to overwhelm people. I have gift boxes to make now. Goodnight and sleep tight. ❤
Gretchen Bee Ranch 