Monthly Archives: April 2009

And a few happy things, too!

“Things” have been pretty busy around here.

Joanne continues to be extremely busy with work… but enjoying the challenges a great deal, so that’s good! Her wood carving activities continue – I’ll shoot a few pics tomorrow and put them up, they’re great! And our Spring yard clean up / gardening efforts are beginning to, er, bear fruit. Pics of that stuff over the weekend, too.

More to come over the next few days, so until then, thx for stopping by, be well and don’t forget to write when you get work.
hal

Acknowledging a few sad things…


Try as I might, I can’t let the month close without noting the 28th was the two year passing of our sister, Chris. We miss hearing her cheerful voice and laughter on the phone… but we are eternally grateful she was such a big part of our lives.

And it’s with an almost-equal amount of sadness that we note that April marked the six month anniversary of losing Delilah. We miss her extra-large dose of Catitude around the house… perhaps the most at tuna can-opening time (“Hey, Old Guy – how hard can it be to open a can and put the fish in my bowl?”) and catbox cleaning time (“Hey, Old Guy – you about done in there cause nature’s calling and one of us might get hurt if you don’t hurry up and move outta the way.”)

Yup, we miss them both: Dee and Sis.

Man’s best friend?


Here’s mine.

Monday night about 11ish, Joanne came in to wake me and tell me she was sick. She looked horrible – in fact, the very worst I’ve seen her in 26 years. (Flannel jammies, aside.)

So I got up to help her and take care of things around the house a bit – settle the pack down a bit, make sure Joanne had what she needed to be comfortable and then I headed off back to bed.

Next morning I woke up sicker than a dog. Whatever Joanne had the night before, I had in spades, too. For the next 36 hours or so both Joanne and I were unable to do much / take care of much around the house (Thx, Ellen! for picking up ginger ale, gatorade and checking in on us). I’m sure we slept at least 32 of those 36 hrs. I couldn’t help but notice every time I woke up, Pan was beside me on the bed / couch / wherever I was, she was always there.

Eventually, Joanne began “responding to the bell” before I did and put fresh food out for Pan since Pan hadn’t touched her food in over a day. No response from Pan (if it were Dee, the second she heard the opening of the can, she’d have left me in a Campbell Minute* – assuming she would have been by my side in the first place!). But when I got up to go to the kitchen for a few minutes on Wed, Pan jumped up to “her” island and ate both bowls.

I said to Joanne, “That’s odd – Pan just two bowls of food, gobbled them right down.” Joanne said, “She hasn’t left your side for 2 days. She wouldn’t eat. She wouldn’t drink… I was worried about you both. Now that you’re up a bit, she’ll eat and return to normal on your schedule.”

I think I’ve said it here before: We’d always been dog people. Never had a cat of my own. Didn’t want a cat of my own – everybody knows they’re aloof and self-centered. Clearly, not true.

Joanne and I are almost back to normal, now (thx for asking and…)

Thx for stopping by, be well until next time and don’t forget to write when you get work.

best,
hal
* I’ll tell you what a Campbell Minute is in an upcoming post.

Update on the newbies

I just returned from working the bees and found both hives very heavy with activity.

Both hives are being rapidly filled with fresh comb and pollen, and both hives previous honey stores appear to be in the process of being moved (by worker bees) so the queen can use the center frames for brood.

“Feeding” stocks of honey – which needs to be watered down before feeding to very young bees – are being moved / stored in the corners of the brood frames for easy access by the worker bees to feed the young.

Both queens appear to be very actively laying as there are many – many – larvae visible, often next to capped pollen stores / comb.

Seems like we’re on the right track with this year’s crop of newbies 🙂

Garden update

Seems we’re moving in the right direction in the garden…

We’ve put in 10 heads of lettuce – the shot above I call, Lettuce Alone 🙂


Quince blossoms are coming in nicely this year -we’ll see if any survive to mature fruit.

The potato patch: I half expect to have a zombie hand come reaching up through the soil as I pass by.


Apple blossoms on our Gala apple tree. They smell absolutely wonderful and appear to be the pollen harvesting grounds for many of our bees – the tree is fairly buzzing with activity during the hours of light each day. Speaking of blossoms and buzzing – you should see / smell / hear the citrus grove out front / side of the house: UH-mazing.

UH-mazing smells… the grapefruit, oranges, lemons and tangerines are all in heavy blossom and, combined with the lilac, jasmine and wisteria out there… it smells absolutely incredible.

And the bees that are working the blossoms… at times it sounds like an actual swarm out there… very, very loud buzzing as they work through the blossoms.

We’ve also installed 4 tomato plants in Earthboxes – they all seem to be doing well, too. The new peach tree is ready for installation – we’re waiting for the 90+ hot weather to pass before planting it.

And, finally, we just picked up a couple of squash, cucumber and bean plants that will go in the ground soon.

Yee Haw.

thx for stopping by and don’t forget to write when you get work.
hal

May we have a profile shot, Miss Molly?

Sure, boys – anything you say… how’s this?


I was out in the backyard yesterday getting ready to wrangle the bees when (as usual) Molly flew to her perch on the birch tree and announced in song that she was on the job, covering my back… or so I imagined she said, anyway.

Since I had my camera with me, I took a series of photos and voila, got this (for me, anyway) unique shot of her. (Don’t forget to click the pic for the up-close version.)