My my my, I have fallen behind on blogging. Last time I did that I ended up having various stupid things happen to me and then I had nothing but time to write out my woes ..... maybe all a coincidence, but maybe not! HA!
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| Smith Lake is starting to thaw |
Anyway, I have been wanting to blog for a while, but I have this life that keeps me hopping. The play, in specific, was a time consumer. I will say, this was quite the remarkable group of kids. No drama, everyone took care of themselves, and their props and costumes, and it was pretty amazing. I enjoyed them very much! They all (well almost all) listened when I ask them to get out of the way of the stage crew, and they cheerfully cleaned up after themselves and it was good.
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| Stage crew |
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| I had company on my porch! |
Anyway, this particular past weekend, Saturday was just a spectacular day. Warm (yes- 65 in March- warm!!) ;) and sunny and lovely. Why, I even sat in the sun in the morning on my lovely yellow Adirnondack chair. After doing a bunch of errands, I went for a walk down to the lake, carrying my new camera equipment, which is incredibly heavy! Lol. I was so happy to be outside, and in the sun and not in school. It has been really cloudy/rainy/icy and I haven't been as active as I want to be. So, it was a great thing to be outside. I checked out the ice and refused to walk out on it, though there were people who indeed walked out right in front of me
So the other interesting thing that went on is that we have verified that indeed one of the bee hives has lived through the winter. Upon discussion with a fellow beekeeper that I know, I found out that the Mad-Middle son had some pollen patties left, so the bees got some protein, which is probably pretty important at this time of the year. You should see those poor bees flying around trying to find something to eat.... they did hang out in the driveway, I assume drinking water.
I took pictures of the bees from a safe distance (they were a little cranky) with my new long camera lens. I put out one honey frame that did not get cleaned out completely, and they were all over it. Bees are such interesting little things.
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| The kids cleaning out a honey comb |
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| Lots of bee butts in the air |
I did cook up a batch of sugar candy for the hive this weekend as well. Want to make sure that they get enough calories for the next month of bee famine. Anyway, I made it and left it until the MA could put it out, as I was too tired to go out on Sunday afternoon when I got back from the play. We removed the 3 discs from the paper plates and he sort of folded them up a little and left. He marched right back into the house less than 5 minutes later with said sugar candy because the bees were still hanging out - similar to the photo below.....
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| They sure are messy in the spring- here they are hanging out outside of the hive on a lovely 60 degree day. |
Unbeknownst to me, he laid the blob of cooked sugar water on top of a package of chocolate chip cookies (that's right- nothing homemade this weekend). Right before we went to bed, I heard a rustling from the front room, where he had gone to lock the door and such. I looked into the room to see him trying to pull the table cloth out of the sugar blob, and then started to try to remove the sticky mess from the cookies package. This candy is not rock hard, and eventually flows and bends.... especially since it isn't really very cold out. I rolled my eyes so hard at this one! Shaking my head, I took the whole mess and threw it into the freezer overnight. good grief. I was able to fairly easily take the now frozen sugar mass off of the plastic package and lay it on another paper plate, where it stayed until the bees were presented with breakfast Monday morning..... always an adventure living with this supposedly intelligent person who is in sort of work induced state of stupor. Similar to what I am like most afternoons, but have the luxury of recovering from my stresses in relative peace and tranquility. At least now that the play is done....
We all have our work crosses to bear I guess.
Anyway, onto a definitely not spring-like week. While we have started off warm, things are looking to go downhill quickly. We shall see! I won't jinx it here...
Until next time, be a joy giver!!
