Taking a Minute

 When you look back on these days, what will you remember the most: the fourth variety of cookie you managed to bake? How sparkling clean your floors were? The hand-made gift name tags you cranked out instead of sleeping? Oooooor the time you carved out with intention to take a minute and just be?

Don't forget to take a minute in the midst of it all, friends. Happy Solstice!

Right Now

Right now, I'm...

...looking over my lists (you could say I'm checking them twice, har har), making sure I haven't forgotten anything before putting away the wrapping paper and calling that done.
...waiting with anticipation for our new dishwasher, scheduled to be delivered tomorrow! (It would be OK to eat takeout off paper plates until then, right?)
...slowly adding holiday cards from friends and family to our card wreath, and feeling thankful for the few we still get via snail mail!
...enjoying the lightness and freshness of my latest holiday music find, The Piano Guys- A Family Christmas.
...taking stock of our creatures after a night with the lowest lows in years- I believe it was 12*F with wind chills around 3 degrees this morning before sunrise. Um, burr.
...feeling twitchy and edgy after being awakened at 1am by a chirping smoke detector running low on batteries... then shortly after that hearing the screams of a terrified Bubba when the alarm- which turned out to be the one in his room- woke him up, too. And now? Now there's another one chirping somewhere in the house, but it's not chirping frequently enough for me to locate it yet.
...trying to save a few Christmas cookies for sharing this weekend. It's been a challenge.
...turning planning to our upcoming Solstice celebration, and poling around the interwebs for a fun new dessert to try in front of our Solstice fire.

Right now I'm indulging in a little time stolen from other things waiting for my attention to visit this space and check in. There are chores to do, there are projects to complete, there are e-mails and papers and phone calls that all need tendin' to... and there is the deep quiet pull to be still fighting against it all.

Here's to finding balance in it all, friends, in these last few days of December, of Fall, of pre-holiday, of darkness. May we all make the most of it, whatever 'it' is for you and yours.

Tiny Swarm

This past weekend we got out for a little Christmas concert, and by the time we made it back home it was already dark. As we pulled up the driveway and my car's headlights swept across our bee yard, something strange caught my eye: there was an odd blob on the side of my smallest hive ("Middle Hive").

So in heels with the car pointing into the apiary I slipped over to check it out... it was a swarm. A tiny swarm in mid-December, clinging to the north side of my weakest hive.

The bees inside the hive were very agitated and unusually active given how dark it was. It also seemed to me that there was a higher-than-normal amount of dead bees outside the hive.

Now I either don't know much about bees, or I know juuuuuust a little more than nothing about 'em, but either way it's enough to make me freak out about stuff like this, so I called my beekeeping mentor immediately. There were so many possible explanations... were these my bees, swarming because one of my hives had a pest or viral load I'd failed to notice? Were these Africanized bees moving in on one of my hives? Was I seeing a robbing party that had been fighting it's way in to my weakest hive to steal their winter stores, but had been caught by the dark and were unable to return home? Were they a diseased swarm from a neighboring hive? Or could they possibly have come from a bee tree in the acreage that's currently being bulldozed for a housing development just a few blocks away?

The short answer is no one can say for sure in the middle of the night.

So I grabbed an empty nuc box and my bee brush and swept them into the box for the night.

The next morning I went out to check on my box o' bees. My plan was to open up the box and let the bees warm up in the sunlight, then watch which way they went when they flew away. If they headed back to my bee yard, maybe they were my bees. If they took their orientation flights and headed off in a "bee line" somewhere else, I'd feel safe guessing they were a robbing party.

They did neither. They just stayed in a ball on the lid of the box.

So I did what any normal (ha) beekeeper would do: I started poking the ball. And you know what? I found a queen bee.

 First of all, high five to me for spotting my first unmarked queen without help (woo-hoo!). Second of all, I freaked out again and started texting this picture to everyone I knew in my bee club. My text was something like, "NOW what do I do?!"

Everyone's answer: put frames in the nuc box, feed 'em, and when the weather is warm enough CHECK ON YOUR HIVES.

 So that's what I've done, in the most slapped-together, improvised way... I still have no idea where these bees came from, but they're sitting out in the bee yard now, strapped to a cinder block and awaiting warmer temps so I can go play bee detective.

If I find out they came from one of my hives, I'll have to figure out why they left, and I'll probably end up dumping them back in.

If they're not from one of my hives, I'll probably rob a few frames of honey from my strongest hive ("North Hive") and try to get them through the winter.

Either way, there's nothing like a little excitement out in the apiary in mid-December, amirite?

Hard Freeze

 We had our first "arctic blast" last week, complete with a hard freeze and a day with wind chills in the teens. I've been kinda unplugged for the last month or so, and I'm embarrassed to admit I wasn't very prepared for it to get so darn cold. When we stepped out into that wind in the morning and noticed all the green things looking not quite right and all the creatures moving sluggishly, it was pretty obvious that we'd missed a chance to shore up the place, and stuff was hurtin'.

I spent the better part of the morning trying to help all our wards recover from the cold. I filled the bee feeders with warm heavy sugar water. I made the chickens some oatmeal with blackstrap molasses and lugged a big pitcher of hot water out to their frozen waterer. I doubled the hay in their coop and nesting boxes, and I threw some scratch out into their yard to get them moving. I broke the ice on the bird bath (which was close to a half-inch thick at that point) and put out fresh bird seed. I even dragged the dog's bed closer to her space heater in the garage and gave her some meaty leftovers.

I felt a little less guilty about the neglect they'd all felt the night before after all that, but I've vowed to pay a little more attention to what's coming our way in the winter days ahead. As for my poor freeze-dried lantana? It was a monster anyway, and it needed to be cut back a little. I'm sure it'll be fine. It's a shame we'll loose all those blooms, though.

It's a good thing everything around these parts is so hearty!

The Playhouse Tree

We got our house up to holiday code over the weekend, and here and there the kids have been helping with the finishing touches. We've even started wrapping a few presents.

But that decorating bug has bitten my kiddos and they care not that the house is pretty much decked from hall to hall. They want more.

They each have a little tree in their rooms... but that's not enough.

They have their little wooden tree between them on the table... but that's not enough.

They helped hang ornaments on our big family tree... and pine cones... and candy canes... but that's not enough either.

What's a Mama to do? Well this year, Mama dug out an unused, fake, older-than-the-kids mini tree and sent them outside with it. If there's not enough sparkle and flare in their lives at this point, they can turn their attention to their own house.

Bubba kinda burned out on being told to stop messing with the tree, so he spent the decorating time "sleeping" in their playhouse bedroom. Audrey put the lights on, found leaves and acorns and sticks for ornaments, then went inside to her craft stash and made a star out of pipe cleaners for it's topper.

She was very proud of her playhouse tree. She even sang "O Christmas Tree" to it... in Spanish.

Weekending

This weekend our kiddos stayed with their grandparents so we could slip away to a company holiday party. We spent the hours before the party and then again before the kids came home hunting, dragging in, and trimming this monster tree. Our goal was to have a little holiday magic waiting when the Littles walked through the door. We ended up with a big something magical for them instead, but oh the fun we had climbing up and down the ladder to put on the ornaments!

Wishing all a little something- or a big something- magical to end the weekend!

Happy weekending!

Wrapping Up

What a ridiculous November. Not all bad, of course, but one for the books nonetheless (and I'm sure there are quite a few people who would agree). Our November 30th was one of the coldest days so far this season, and we wrapped it up with conversations about loss and growth and memories while using up the last of our Thanksgiving turkey in homemade tamales (we always use this tutorial for the masa, it has the best step-by-step).

How apropos, us literally wrapping up the notable leftovers of the month while trying to more abstractly bring resolution to the happenings of the same.

Our evening project ended well. Let's hope we can say the same about the month.

So long November 2016, may there never be another November like you again. Ever.