Monthly Archives: August 2009

BEEKS LOG 8/29/09 / All liqueured up again…

We processed and “finished” our entire pantry of liqueurs today… ~10 gallons of pear, pear w/vanilla bean, blackberry w/vanilla bean, pomegranate, limoncello, tangerinecello, lemongarine, cherry. Play your cards right and this holiday season just may find some of it migrating to your pantry 🙂

We also harvested this season’s fruit from our Perpetual Pear… not without harm, though – one of my bees gave her life to protect a pear she was apparently very fond of.

And speaking of

Beeks Log
Yesterday one of my NSX friends came over to observe my weekly inspection. He’s very interested in keeping bees so wanted to experience what Al went through last week.

All hives are looking, um, hiveish, and doing well. Fuzzy’s doing so well, I’m very tempted to snatch a full frame of honey from it before too much longer, though I’ll probably let it remain to feed the colony over winter. Fuzzy is jam-packed, though – frames and frames of larvae / brood in all phases – and Josh got to watch several bees emerge from their cells. As you might expect, though, Freddie is the Queen of them all and is jam-packed w/all the good things I went in looking for. They’re a little slow to cap @ this point, but they know what they’re doing better than I do so I’ll let them, um, bee 🙂 🙂

Thanks for stopping by, be well and don’t forget to write when you get work.
hal

We are sad… Shellie

We learned just today that Keith & Rochelle’s (& family) Sheltie family member, Shellie, suffered a stroke and passed away last week.

We’ve known Keith & Rochelle for just over 20 years and it seems like Shellie’s always been a part of the family: greeting me at the house, walking with Keith @ the park, riding with Keith in the car and running errands… boy howdy, Shellie’s been there to experience the joys & pains 😉 of being in a household filled with the escapades of growing boys.

We understand how sad the entire family is and we send our love their way.
hal

Migrating toilets of Campbell

As some of you know, we’re big fans of wildlife. Ducks. Geese. Finches. Bees. Hummingbirds. Skunks (as long as they’re not in OUR yard / property ;). Opossums. Herons. Egrets. Osprey. Squirrels. We even like the idea of the Coyote in the area (just a little bit.) But we’ve never heard of the Migrating toilets of Campbell… until now.

The other morning (Mon?), I cruised by Springfield Al’s on my way home from my morning bike-lap. Al and I got to yakking and he told me that when he returned home from the abalone dinner @ our house on Saturday night, he noticed something on his front sidewalk, right in front of his porch.

He parked his car and walked up to the obstructing “thing” only to discover it was a residential toilet with a “FREE” sign on it. “Huh, that’s weird”, he thought, “I didn’t order one of these.” He looked around to see if anybody was filming him a la Candid Camera, didn’t see anyone so put it to the side of the garage behind the gate. The next day he asked the new tenants who had just moved in to our former home if they knew anything about it.

Turns out they did – they’d seen it several blocks over next to a bathroom vanity, both with a “FREE” sign on them! Seems that sometime during the day / early evening, the thing had walked over to Al’s on its own. But the story doesn’t end there. Nope, not even!

Turns out the toilet is in great shape, looks good, etc and – dare I say it (dare! dare!) – I hear it may be migrating to a new home over here on Walnut Drive.

All I can say is I’m glad toilets don’t fly and remember to keep your eyes open for the Migrating vanities of Campbell.

Beek’s Log 8/22/09 w/Beekeeper Al

Last Saturday morning Al showed up at the house, dressed and ready for his first hands-on beekeeping experience. Ready… except for the after shave lotion he’d put on after shaving. Bzzzzzzzzzzt, thanks for playing, Al – time to wash off the schmutz or the girls will be all over you… and not in a good way.

Al washed up and we both suited up, then fired up the smoker and in a few minutes were peeking inside Freddie, Ray and Fuzzy.

As before, Freddie remains a very active hive. The honey super foundation is complete and they’ve filled much of the comb w/honey and capped part of it. Unless things turn south, I’m thinking we’ll get another another couple of gallons from Freddie, including what I take from the brood supers down below. (I may have to feed them sugar water over the winter, but I’ll deal with it.)

Ray and Fuzzy are doing well, brood-wise, and Fuzzy’s honey super is mostly built out and they’re beginning to fill it with honey. Unlikely I’ll harvest any from Fuzzy this year (and certainly not from Ray), but it looks like they’ll do reasonably well and will hopefully survive the winter with a bit of supplemental feeding.

Now, about Beekeeper Al… he did a great job and got to see drones, eggs, fresh larvae, maturing larvae, larvae being capped AND an emerging bee – a young lady, just chewing her way out of her cell. We didn’t see any of the Queens during our inspection but I believe with all of the eggs, larvae, etc, they’re well and healthy (for now!)

As always, thanks for stopping by, be well and write when you get work.
hal
We’ll see if we can get Beekeeper Ellen down here over the next few months 🙂

Skunks are back! (Did they really ever leave? no)

Last week, Dave mentioned he had a skunk on his back porch late one night. This morning the new tenants in B/F house told me they ran in to a skunk in the back yard and that it scooted under one of the rear decks.

Coyotes!

Skunks!

What’s next?

Oh yeah, Opossums and roaming domestic cats.

I wonder if the coyote’s made its way down to this end of the block yet?

We are sad… Dee Dee

We’ve just learned that Ellen’s (inherited) dog, Dee Dee, had a series of strokes this morning and did not survive.

Dee Dee and Max came to live with Ellen a number of years ago and, from my perspective, they were all better off together. In the time since then, it was a normal part of the neighborhood ritual to see Ellen walking with several of the dogs (including Duffy, Ellen’s most constant canine companion!) … doing their neighborhood lap. As the years passed, the number, specific dog, distance and pace may have changed, but it was obvious that Ellen’s care for all of her pets has remained constant and strong… and we know she’ll miss Dee Dee.

We send our heartfelt condolences to Ellen and her household – we know Dee Dee will be missed by the remaining pack.

Just peachy, thanks for asking…

We’ve had an influx of peaches from local folks (thx much!) and Joanne’s used 1/2 of the contributions to make 3 cases of peach goodies – spiced peach jam and plain ol’ peach jam. (Either / both are really bitchin’ in plain, non-fat yogurt / vanilla ice cream. I smushed 1/8 of a peach in a tall glass of ice tea yesterday and that was tasty, too 🙂

Could be a good(ie) holiday season this year.