Plantsssation

I found these little pink flowers in Oly. while I was waiting for the bus, pretty pink buds!

Branches in the first, and last patch of sun yesterday.
I really like it when you can see the termite tunnels on trees winding their way around and around...

What Star Missed Today...

1. Rain: it rained today. Not anywhere near epic conditions, but there was rain and I did walk in it for unusually long distances. Also, everything had big, fat, happy rain drops squatting on them.

2. These flowers: who also had happy rain on them.

Gorgeous. They were tucked away behind the Lab buildings on the way to the O-farm. A lovely little surprise in the beginning of what promises to be a very long day.
3. The Walk to the O-Farm: Here is the path, and here are the leaves that line the path (note the happy rain is here as well).
This is what happy rain looks like.

4. My Tea: Oh so pretty in its very own mug.

Ahhh.. blackberry tea.

So tastey.

So I went to beekeeping this morning and learned about...

bee disease!

(if you say this out loud it mostly rhymes).

Anyway, it turns out the bees are dying. Who knew? There are a variety of things causing this: Varroa mites, tracheal mites, American Foul Brood, and of course the Colony Collapse Disorder which is the main source of the bad news. About 32% of bee colonies failed last year, 29% of those were caused by CCD which at this point, remains a mystery. Everyone is panicking about it, including Haagen-Daz (the ice-cream company and also the main contributor of funds towards researching this epidemic. Our ice-cream is IN DANGER! Don't you people realize how frightening that is? Contribute dammit!).

Oh, and we also learned a little bit about the animal predators.

Skunks:Will walk up to a hive, scratch around on the side panels to get the bees nice and angry, and then saunter to the front. Here, they wave their luxuriantly rank tail in front of the hive entrance. The bees then attack the tail, get stuck and then the skunk just turns around and picks them out as if they were little popcorn kernel snackies. Crunch crunch crunch....

Bears: Don't really want your honey mr. bee, all they want are your babies. The bears like the brood (which are apparently quite edible, but a little tangy... I really wouldn't know).

Lizards: And other small critters can sometimes just hang out inside of the hives and pick bees off as they buzz on by. Jake (the bee-instructor) was telling us about a lizard he found in the bottom of a three story hive. He had popped off the first two supers (the boxes bees hang out in) and found a little, fat lizard on the floor of the bottom one. The lizard had been there SO LONG that the bees had covered him in a thick layer of wax with just his head free. He was calmly and quite contentedly snapping up bees the walked past his head and showed no desire to move in anyway. Jake popped him off of the floor, a change that the lizard wasn't too happy about, so he wound up just staying in the hive anyway. His little wax mummy casing was pretty nasty because of the months of dead skin sheddings that had accumulated. Gross.

I think that's all I'm going to tell you for now.

I'm Scheming...

up an idea that has only one possible outcome: complete success! I'm trying to lure people into helping me because I think I'll need to feed off of other people's ability to focus on a project long enough to finish it. I'm still 1/3 of the way done with my second glove... I haven't touched it in almost a week. Also, I made whipped up a shirt a while ago but never got around to putting a zipper in the back. Yesterday, I decided to wear such shirt because even though I thought it was hideous when I initially put it aside, it was calling to me yesterday. So I decided to pin the back. Not with safety pins, mind you, but the kind of pin you use to take things in place when you're sewing. You know.... of the infinitely sharp variety. So I did that, and it worked until I got to Jessie's when I hear a muffled *pop!* and all of the sudden my chest was freer than everything was supposed to be. I pinned it back but quickly changed out of it when I got home. Luckily I have little whale buttons I'm going to use on it. The only remaining problem is that I don't know how to sew button holes. So right now the shirt is relegated to my new "in progress" bin in my brand new craft room (I shifted all of Paul's crap out of his old room and into Katherine's old room so that I could appropriate his bachelor-hole for crafty biz-nass and I'm imagining a Monty palace in the corner). The project I have in mind for the mean time, however, is A CARDBOARD RHINOCEROS HEAD! I found this kit online but I'm very sure that I could do it on my own with a little help and a lotta cardboard. I'm pretty excited.

Oh and this is my little friend-in-progress. I don't know how to finish it. All I have is the beginnings of a boring, white body. I think it'll either be a llama or a horsey. I was thinking camel, but I didn't think about it soon enough to build the humps into the basic body structure. Lemme know what ya'll think he should become or what colors! I have dark brown, bright green, tan, this off-white and a brown/grey combination.

And the tree in our front yard bloomed today! I don't know what it is but between it and the plum tree next to it everything smells heavenly outside.

It Sure is Purty Outside!

I was prowling around in the garden this morning and tooks some pictures of our hens-n-chicks and kalanchoe plants. They're oh so purty and one of the only things that still look happy about heading towards winter time. I think the look a little like those microscopic pictures of germs or other nasties that you see in science books.

BEES! and lavender

The bees are everywhere and oh so happy. I have to stop myself from picking them up like those little pipe-cleaner chicks you get at Easter, because unlike those wee chicks, bees have a way of making any attempt to cuddle them unpleasant.