Eastern Redbud

Everything is green here, in May. Flower and vegetable gardens are in full swing, and tractors are in the fields, baling hay. But in late March or early April, when it seems the sky and woods will always be the same dreary shade of grey, the eastern redbud is one of our first signs of the hope of spring.

The purple blossoms fill the woods overnight, scattered with the white of the occasional wild plum, cherry, or dogwood, and after a warm rain or two, the spring grass lends a complementary green. Trees, bushes and brambles start to bud out, and before long there is nothing but growth and birdsong. The eastern redbud then retreats gracefully, going unnoticed until fall, when clusters of seedpods hang below its heart-shaped leaves.




This is a beautiful tree, would probably make great shade in the yard. In thick woods, it sometimes gets very tall (up to 40-50 feet, according to my older tree book), and the blooms seem more sparse, then. Other places, it lives in the understory, and takes on an umbrella shape. The trunk is not thick. The seedpods are plentiful, legume-like, but not as long or large as the pods of the locust-tree, and they dry flat and brown. The leaves are large and heart-shaped. We do have one redbud here that I have seen not bearing seedpods, so I'm wondering if there are male and female trees.

Something about it reminds me of the catalpa tree. Must be the leaves, and the feel of "cool shade" when you're near it.

Trees

I've always loved trees. Whenever I get a chance, I like to wander through our woods, and I'm always trying to identify the trees I see.

This week I found elm trees, sugar and silver maples, some large ash trees back behind the house, and discovered that two of the trees growing beside the old shed are a hackberry and a box elder. That poor box elder, it's right by the shed door, and I used to cut it down close to the ground, every summer. It kept coming back, and after letting it go one summer (or two?), I no longer have the heart to kill it; it's a "real" tree, now, and I have a climbing rose that has clambered up through the lower branches and bloomed out for the first time. Don't know what we'll do when it finally blocks that door...but I have a feeling that the tree will be around longer than the shed.



The locust trees have been in full bloom, and now the white petals are starting to float down into the garden whenever the wind blows.

This spring has been cool and wet, giving everything a chance to recover from last year's drought. We also didn't have another late freeze. Blossoms survived, and it looks like we will have nuts and fruit this fall.

I really need to start carrying my camera and a tree book. Wouldn't hurt to have binoculars, for those hard to spot leaves and flowers, twenty or thirty feet above me!

I do have some photos from previous walks. I think I'll start posting them here, it would be a neat way to keep track of them.

Conspiracy Theories

Posted ? July 26th, 2008 by JennyWren

Okay, so I was all set to write a series of blog entries on the "conspiracy theories" I’d been researching, which mostly turned out not to be conspiracies or theories, but fairly blatant plans made by various groups. But in the process of trying to objectively follow one rumor or another to its "official" source, I started realizing that all of this stuff played right into my natural tendency to view things in a sort of survivalist way. By that I mean: expect the best, but plan for the worst.

I’m a bit of a hoarder, in a heard-stories-of-the-Great-Depression way. I’m convinced our nation’s food industry is killing us through what is lacking, as much as by what is added. I’ve collected books for years on do-it-yourself everything. I don’t need anyone to convince me that general preparedness for whatever may come is smart (although convincing me to get up and do more about it…that might help). The parts I skipped were politics and money. The two things that can actually decide whether or not you end up needing the skills I’ve been obsessing over. I’ve finally taken a peek at both, and wish I’d worked harder at so many things.

This is all one huge mess, it’s impossible to know where to start when describing it. Rather than dwelling on the negative and scaring myself out of my wits, though, I’m going to work on what was always my goal, whether we’re headed for chaos or not: raising a family in a way that makes sense, with what we have.

Canning Adventures, Here We Come!

Today's the day! I've got the chicken cooked, the veggies I need to make chicken soup, and a beautiful pressure canner that I haven't had the nerve to try using, yet.

A friend is on the way over with her canner; we're going to make a marathon of it. Hopefully I'll have some pics if I don't blow us up. ;)

Bees and Cell Phones

See? I'm not completely insane! Cell phones ARE making the animals wacky!

Apparently, scientists are looking at cell phone radiation as a possible culprit in Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). They went looking through previous work, and according to a study that had been done in Germany in 2003, when cell phones were placed near hives, as much as 70% of the colony failed to find their way home after foraging. Now I'm not sure how much radiation they were exposed to in order to have this effect, but that's what's happening with CCD, as well. The bees aren't dying in the hive, they just aren't there anymore. So it's possible something like this is at least involved.

Of course, I am also reading that certain pesticides used against aphids can cause bees to behave erratically.

I have to wonder, if we ever actually figure out what's causing this, and it turns out to be something we aren't willing or able to change...what happens?

Combine the fact that bees pollinate most everything except our grains, with the grain issues due to weather (not mentioning corn for ethanol, I'm not!), and I'd say we're in for a long, bumpy ride this year on food prices/supply.

Bees Update

A friend said:

I suppose that’s alright if you will get to work on it later, right?

I suppose! LOL

Turns out I did work on it, but of course I waited until the last minute. I ended up ordering a complete new hive - get this, you can order them pre-assembled! for around the same price as unassembled - so that I wouldn’t panic, thinking I’d forgotten something. Besides, this way I will have extra "supers" (basically additional stories for their house, like the second box I added).




I also waited until the last minute to paint the hive. Something about that didn’t seem right, and sure enough, according to one of the books I have, the bees were likely to be "outraged" at the smell. Great. They were due in one day, and I had probably just royally offended them. The package arrived Monday, much to the joy of our local post office, I’m sure. The bees came in a box, with wire mesh sides:





They had a can of sugar syrup to keep them happy for a while, which was good. It was so cold here, I was worried about putting them in the hive, so they lived in my kitchen for a couple of days. Now THAT was interesting. Did you know they sleep sort of like bats? At least that’s what it looked like to me. They are quiet and still, and because they’re in a swarm, they hang like leaves, or almost like shingles on a roof. Once in a while, one will get fidgety, and a bee next to her will buzz irritatedly at her to settle down. Anyway, it was fascinating.


So on Wednesday afternoon, it was time to "install" the bees in their hive. I’d spent two days listening to them, talking to them, feeding them sugar water, reading the beekeeping forums at beemaster.com (the guy I linked to in an earlier post about smaller cell size posts there!), and watching installation videos on Youtube. That last one was a big help. Watched one more to get my nerve up, fired up the smoker, put on a long-sleeved button-up shirt, hat and veil, and got started.




I opened the package, was overcome by the swarm of Africanized killer bees that came boiling out, and was stung to death.

























Okay, okay, it went just fine. I didn’t get stung at all, unless you count the bee I accidentally squished when I was picking up my supplies to go back inside. I felt a slight prick through my glove and found her. :(

All in all, it was a rush! I was ready to do two more when I finished. I could have climbed a mountain, right then! lol


My two youngest kids shouted instructions to me from a distance (they’d watched the videos, too), and my oldest took pictures, probably hoping for something she could send to America’s Funniest Home Videos. Anyway, if I can get that posted on Youtube at some point, I will.

I shook out the bees, but apparently I don't shake very hard; there were still tons of them in the box, so I propped it against the base of the hive. Here's a pic of the rest of the them marching into their new home, and checking out the paint job:


I went back out yesterday to make sure they had released the queen - ooh, I didn’t tell you about the queen. She comes in her own little cage, with a couple of attendants to care for her. In one end of the cage, there is a candy plug. I removed a cork covering it, and placed her cage between two frames in the hive. The bees then ate their way through the candy, and by the time she was released, they had become familiar with her, and accepted her as their queen. At least, that’s what I hope happened. At any rate, when I checked, she had been released.

I refilled their Mason jar of sugar water, moved it to the front entrance and removed the extra box I had used, took out the empty queen cage, and then pulled out a center frame to look for the queen. I didn’t see her (I asked to have her marked when I ordered, she has a yellow dot on her back), but the bees had started to draw a small amount of comb. I hope everything is well, I felt clueless standing there looking at it. Will have to do more reading, and check again in a few days.

Well, that’s it! I hope the pictures aren't too huge. It may not sound like much, but I definitely recommend beekeeping. It’s a strange combination of both an adrenaline rush(I’m going to get stung, I just know I’m about to be stung), and zen-like calm (just staaaaaay calm….you’re not being stung). LOL

On Being a Scanner

I've always called myself a Browser, with a capital B. I'm never more happy than when perusing, picking through, and considering. That applies to everything from picking green beans to choosing a book at the public library, and I'm always looking for that next new thing to learn. Consciously or not, I can't help it; I'm always watching for something delicious.

When I've found that Next Great Thing, I jump in, taking all I can find (grab it while it's ripe!), staying up until the wee hours researching, studying, then planning and designing. I am completely focused on that subject for a few days, a week, a month or so. Then, when I've had enough, I move on. I'll come back later when I get a craving to revisit that particular topic.

My friends and family shake their heads and laugh, they can tell when I'm on another tangent, usually because I'm babbling excitedly about how fascinating it is. And really, there is no end to all of the glorious things left to be studied.

The downside to all of this fun is that I lose track of TIME, that annoying thing that everyone else seems to use to measure their lives. There's just not enough of it, is there? Certainly not enough to keep up with the dishes and laundry! The competing guilt and my lack of organization keep me frazzled, and it seems I never finish any of my great ideas or projects.

Turns out I'm not the only one who lives this way. A few months ago, I picked up a book by Barbara Sher, Refuse to Choose: Use All of Your Interests, Passions, and Hobbies to Create the Life and Career of Your Dreams, and I'm not exaggerating when I say that reading it has changed my life.

According to her, I'm a "Scanner" (my type is the Sybil Scanner, to be exact, and I've never been so relieved to sound like I have multiple personalities)!

If you've ever felt frustrated or inadequate because you never seem to stick to anything, you leave unfinished projects for something new, or you just can't seem to choose or commit to a career because you might be missing out on something else, you might very well be a Scanner, yourself.

Here's the part where Barbara Sher changed my life - being a Scanner isn't a bad thing!

What? You're kidding. You can't seriously mean that the stress of dealing with piles of books and craft clutter and laundry is a good thing. Inability to make a decision or be satisfied - those are character flaws, right?

Well, I was looking at it wrong. Those things are often the result of me trying to force myself to do things the "right" way, rather than allowing what feels natural to me. I'm wired differently than someone who is able to choose a project, move through it at a regular pace toward a set goal, and finish neatly. But my way of doing things is just as valid, and in my case, sometimes better!

Sher's book explains the perfectionism and guilt, and even our own mistaken assumptions about what we should be doing. But then she moves on to give pure inspiration to discouraged Scanners like me, with organizational tools that fit the way I think, and methods for developing the life I want to live. She even describes fulfilling careers for Scanners.

I've gone on long enough, but I'll just mention one of the tools in Refuse to Choose that I have found most helpful - after sketching out some ideas in my Scanner Daybook and making The Big List (okay, so I mentioned two more!), I condensed my interests into about 30 categories (like gardening, writing, homesteading, crafts, business ideas, etc.) that each cover more specific topics, and then I started making a 3-ring binder for each of those categories! I already had one for Homemaking, and had various notebooks floating around for my gardening and writing projects. But everything was scattered, just like my thoughts. Now I have a shelf started, just for my binders. When I come back to an interest, I know where to find it, and I can add notes, research, ideas, photographs of finished projects, anything I want to include. As Sher points out, over the years I will be creating my own books, and I will also have something to show for all of the time and work I put into things. Sounds so simple, but it was a light bulb for me, and has helped me organize my mind, and actually control my tangents a bit better - I have somewhere to jot down an idea, without going overboard when I don't have time.

Now I'm thinking about blogging in a similar way, maybe having a few blogs, each covering certain subjects. It might keep me from tangling up so many things in one post, anyway!

We'll see if I can pull off the balancing act of not spending more time writing than doing!

Spring Things

Woo hoo! How's that for keeping up with things? It's been what - nine months?

I'll jump in again, might as well.

Just to keep my future self abreast of what was going on in 2008:

January: Ron Paul. Dove in completely. This transformed into
February's research on various "conspiracy theories", many of which turned out not to be conspiracies or theories, but flat out plans by various groups.
In March, I realized I wanted to keep bees again,
And by April, I was in full-tilt survivalist research,
Which brings us to May, where I have bought a canner and a grain mill, the bees are in their hive, and I have my veggie garden barely started!
(There are more than a few smaller tangents in there, like bento boxes, and Japanese crochet, but I'll skip those for now. You're welcome!)

Ooh, back up. Forgot that in December, we ended up buying a house in town. The internet situation here was not good, satellite created a lag that interfered with hubby's work. After having our hopes raised and dashed repeatedly by local phone companies, and cleaning the house enough for the guys to come in and install lines that wouldn't work (we are just a wee bit too far for most things), one company finally installed DSL that isn't as high-speed as "real" DSL, but has a great connection with no lag. By that time, though, we were already buying the house, because the quoted costs of various lines had been higher than a mortgage payment!

Anyway, we went ahead with the "town house" for a few reasons: hubby plans to use it as office space, we can set up a schoolroom there, it is within walking distance of the kids' activities, the theater, etc., and since it is zoned for business, I can have a little shop there!

Now, of course, these plans have been lying dormant, other than a bit of dejunking that resulted in a great yard sale on Saturday. And with the economy looking the way it does, did we make a mistake? Because yes, we kept this place...

So the plans for the shop have changed a bit. I'll go into that in another post, though. No, really!