abeille à miel

Can’t wait to see them tonight.

More later about Terpsichore, but wanted to pass this along – the White House hive is doing well:

It’s not a great picture, but I’m at work and wanted to post this before starting more serious things.  Received a packet of seeds and a letter from SFSU’s Great Sunflower Project.  I’m excited to be a part of this worthy project, and hope that our bees will be happy with lots of sunflowers.

Feeling renewed today.  (Venus going direct – thinking about it)

I’ve made mistakes and assumptions with our land, and have acted foolishly.  I’ve done great things with it as well, but continuity is what I’m striving for.

But I need to change my outlook on how I want to bring this land to life with a bit of me in it.  So shall it be.  This packet of sunflower seeds will be going in this weekend.  I was so happy walking in the garden last night, watering and saying hello to the bees.  This grounding earth, this blessed feeling of creation – I will strive to remember it when tides of emotion really want to carry me somewhere else.  Ashe.

It’s been crazy at work, and I hope to upload more pictures and write longer posts this weekend.  Went up to water the garden, see how the new seedlings are doing, and to say hello to the bees.  All looks great, especially since Mark put some ant-repellant on the rods holding up the hive.  Just a few ants straying along the top of the hive, as though they were caught up there when he applied the oil (ant-repellant used here was motor oil, go figure!).  The sugar water was just about gone when I lifted up the telescope lid, but there were lots of busy (did they look bigger to me?  It’s probably my imagination, but they did!) bees clustered around it having some dinner.  It’s been very blustery lately, and while the bees have been buzzing around, they’re in by the time I get home from work, about 6PM.  When I walked up there, I saw one stray bee flying around, eventually going right into the hive (with pollen hopefully?).  I love them.  Going up there after work gives me such peace.  It calms me down to water the garden and then go up to say hello to the bees.

Hope you’re having a good evening, too.

Wow, was suddenly greatly inspired by looking at Bee Creative.  Look at these Prayer Flags.

Her site is beautiful.  Have a look.

Basil (several kinds), favas, sunflowers, sweet peas, lots and lots of weeds cleared -land reclaimed for planting.

At the top left of this picture are raspberry vines, uncovered from the weeds.  Sunflowers are above them.

A particularly successful loaf of bread, baked Sunday afternoon.

I swept pathways, painted seed row markers for the garden and got housework done.  By the end of the weekend, I felt good and grounded.

That’s Maiwenn in the foreground, me fiddling in the back with the camera, and bees.

Maiwenn had ‘no fear’ around the bees.  Next time we open the hive, she’s invited to be an assistant!

Wow…

It’s been a very productive day and while I have lots of pictures to post and blogging to do, I’m a bit windblown and sundrenched.  The pictures need the laptop for uploading, anyhow.  🙂

This morning was wonderful, waking up to sunshine, having tea in bed while looking through the stack of library books begging to be read.   Lots and lots of gardening and being outside has really tired me out, but it’s only 5:25 PM and it’s Saturday.  I’ll take a shower and have something to eat and think about tomorrow’s projects while decorating my garden markers. 🙂  I’ll miss my family in Nevada City tomorrow (for Easter), but my parents are stopping by next Saturday for a visit (it’s been a LONG time), so there’s a little consolation there. 😉

However, I learned a few things today, too.  On my way to the library and into town, I walked up the hill to the hive to see how things were.  It was very, very quiet.  There were 25-30 dead bees on the ground around the hive.  I told myself it was early and still chilly, but also that we were told to expect some to die.  It didn’t help that much, though.  When I walked into New Leaf to grind my peanut butter, I looked at all of the honey displayed next to the dispensers and – teared up.  I feel so stupid sometimes, this deep feeling of love for all things I have pledged to care for.  It overwhelms me sometimes.  On my way to the Farm and Feed, I talked to my Mom (we were discussing basil crops), and told her what I saw (the bees).  She has no experience with keeping bees so did not know what to tell me, but I laughed when she said something  *very similar* to something Seeds in the City said, ‘well, it seems like they give you 3 pounds of bees for a reason, that maybe a pound might not make it.’  🙂

Sure enough, when I got home and turned on the bubbling fountain, there was a vision of bees in the air.  The sounds of the buzzing, the beautiful way they flew around everything, and all of the color in the bright sunshine was true bliss.

Okay, shower, dinner and art projects are calling.

This is one side of a super – it’s the only one that has a Lyre on it, the rest of the sides of this box are ‘gilded’ – rubbed with a light gold paint, meant to give just a little extra shine.  I can’t wait to see it all set up in the sun.  More than that, I can’t wait to get home from work tomorrow night to welcome the bees.

This picture was taking at almost 9PM, in the kitchen – so it’s not giving the best effect.  But this is meant to be ‘for posterity’ right now, not for artistic merit 🙂