How Could We Forget The Honey??

One of our Fiends, Marylin, The Cat Coach, is sad tonight about a Bengal Friend of hers. Can you nip over to her blog and give her some love and support? I will let her words tell the story...Our thoughts and hearts are with her.

Yet another long day today, and I think I am not going to make the shows in the Cities, seeing as how the Cities are more than an hour away, and "early" figures into my waking up in the morning, but I want to hear from everyone who got to the Lojo show. (Or anywhere else fun tonight)

One thing that happened today, besides the chicken soup making and lemon and honey and ginger drink making , was we noticed, yes, we had harvested the honey (Fancy bee talk for Stole the Stuff) but had neglected to extract it, and there it was sitting in the basement, beginning to leak. Oops.



We have an Extractor, as you can see, it's that big silver thing in the picture above, and tomorrow the Birdchick is coming out and we are going to test it for the first time, but we decided to use the old bucket and cheesecloth method for the uncapped comb.

I'll explain. If the bees cap it nicely it will keep for yonks. But if it is not capped, it can turn into Mead or crystals soon, and we didn't want to mix the two. We have more capped than un-capped. We had two supers (bee talk for little boxes) and one brood (bee talk for big box) harvested.



I got out my fancy honey scraping tool and went thru all of the frames and pulled out anything with open comb and scraped away. This is very messy. Sticky too. Now I have these....They will drip thru the night, and we will have honey.



The lighter and darker honey is simply what sort of pollen the bees were having at the time. Here's a closer shot of our golden bucket.



This next is a nice picture (amazing what a girl can do with a camera with a view screen!) of some capped honey, with a wee bit of un-capped in the upper corner.



The Bee Area is a Mess. Old hives and frames and empty hives everywhere. Dripping buckets, and a thin layer of Sticky all over everything. Tomorrow we learn to spin the extractor, which I know will BEE interesting, because like ALL bee equipment, for reasons known only to the Secret Order Of Bee Equipment Manufacturers, it does not come with any instructions.



Love and Honey,
Lorraine

If I Only Had A Brain....

This is the "Fods, it has been a long week and it ain't over" post. I am really tired and have big plans to do not too much of anything but catch up on Bengals and reading.

Here's the good news for the day! My camera battery came! It is now charging and tomorrow I will have a camera, with a battery and a view screen! I will be able to SEE what I am taking a picture of! Ah, they joy of it! Who knows what sort of pictures will come from this! (I am thinking Bengals and Horsies are going to figure in heavily)

But even better, Miss Kitty is coming to visit in a week, and SHE will be taking pictures and making little movies, she tells me, now that we know how to post them on You Tube and embed them in blogs.

No Horsies for me until Monday, the way this weekend is panning out, but considering how sore I still am, that might not be a BAD thing...I will get fit. And I will not break any bones in the process.

Still hoping to get down to the Cities Friday night and see some Lojo at The Acadia. She is having her cd release party, and there is going to be some great music. A Lojo show is a place where anything can, and most likely will happen. Trust me. She rocks. I taught her everything she knows.

(Susan, pass that onto her for me, yes, hee-hee...)

I am trying to think of some more adventures for you, but the only thing I seem to recall is that in French, the word for Lawyer and the word for Avocado are the same. HOW they decided that I am not sure we will ever know...

Makes one think...

Love and couches,
Lorraine

My Winter Romance

Tonight ended up being rather different than I had expected. Life throws you alot of things that are un-expected, but in some cases, it throws you something wonderful and you end up blogging from cloud nine.

I (finally!) got the time to go and see Horse trainer Melissa, and start the re-learning to ride process, in hope of getting good enough to participate in the sport of Bareback and Bitless", (which is NOT some kind of strange sex, but rather where one rides sans saddle and bridle) and also to learn to ride sidesaddle, and jump, all of which I have been wanting to learn since I was about five.

Getting there was like trying to find Brigadoon, the fog was so thick, I said to Melissa "Is this the first TEST? I can find the place, you share your ancient Horse Knowledge with me???"

And once I did get there I felt like Dork Princess wandering around the barn (Ok, "barn" doesn't cover it, HUGE honking heated indoor riding arena with stalls and plants for goodness sake) calling out forlornly...Let me in..let me in....

A nice lady let me in, and she and a gentleman and another nice lady (I knew they were nice as I had met them before) and welcomed me. Really welcomed me. They were really nice. Too nice. They, have you ever heard the expression "Smiled Toothily"? They Smiled Toothily...Come they said, Melissa has your horse all ready for you....

And there was Melissa, with one of the most beautiful horses I had ever seen. Black and White Pinto, half arab, half saddlebred. (One can tell) Tail and mane braided up so they would not trail on the floor. Ok, I'm in love. THIS is your lesson horse????

Not exactly. I hadn't been on a horse for a long time now, had a bad incident that scared me for a long time, but getting on this horse was like coming home. SO smooth, so easy to ride, responded to every cue instantly. This is what riding can be, I thought. I know I have never been on a horse this good before.

The nice people watched, and cheered me, and Melissa called out tips, and I rode, western tonight, as it has been a while, as I said. The nice gentleman said he had a camera and went and got it and took pictures for me.

Then Melissa said "She for sale your know"

HA! I said, I don't know as much about horses as you do but I sure do know I don't have that kind of money lying around. (think 1000's and not under 10)

Well, no, says Mel, but you could lease her, she needs the work.....

Leasing around here means one pays for board or a portion of it and in exchange, rides whenever one likes, without being responsible for any vet bills or feeding or anything, as long as one is acting reponsibly. And this far out into the country, a lease is often very reasonable, as there are always horses needing work. I've done it before, but never with a horse of this caliber....

Not being able to think of a reason this sounded like in any way a bad idea, I now have a horse.

Meet "Winter Romance"



Adventures indeed.

Love and Horsies,
Lorraine

Home Thru Ice and Snow..Might Be Winter...

Bon Soir, my Fiends..Or Bon Jour for those of you just waking. Or Hey There for those of you who aren't sure.

French got kind of funny tonight. Learned the "re" verbs. No, I am not going to give examples, it would only hurt us both. But it did get kind of funny. Le Prof, who is a Saver of Cats and so, cool in my book, helped myself and another Student, us being the two who, er, uh, sure aren't getting it QUITE as quickly, mostly due to missing classes due to other commitments, tho I think we are more entertaining.

(none of them know us, or this blog, except Le Proff, so I feel comfortable sharing, they are all fine people)

But the sentence would be something like "Do you generally win or lose at tennis when you play?."

Obviously, this is not a one word answer will do sort of question, and one is meant to answer " I win at tennis most of the time" or some such thing. I would get frustrated and say "I crush them like bugs and then drink the blood of my enemies"

Another one I liked was "Does your cat jump off the table when you come home?" and my answer "NO, they leap from the re-fridgerator onto my head, yowling like banshees!"

Fortunately, Le Proff knows I am also a Saver of Cats, so I think I am cool in her book.

Moving on, I need Someone to help with Something if anyone cares to and has the time. Any PG Wodehouse readers out there? I have a manuscript by a new author, which may be good, but I am not well enough read in Wodehouse to know, it written somewhat in the style of Wodehouse type humor, but again, I don't know enough to tell how good it is.

Anyone want to read and critique? It is no one you know, nor is it MY book, so you can critique (to me) as you will.

Hera sent me a picture of the nails she did on me when she was last here. Did on me just drawing by the way. I love all the scratches on my hands, do you think I had a new Bengal???



Love and Tired,
Lorraine

Happy Birthday, Boss!

First of all, of course, Many Happy Returns of the Day to my Boss! Happy Birthday Boss! I am sure Boss will be very glad to see this, as if he can see it, it means he is now home, and not going anywhere for a while. A Good Thing.

Mads showed me the COOLEST thing tonight, it is a thing called Table Music or more correctly, a Retrograde Inversion Canon. This one was a piece by Mozart for two players, only, it is one page of music, the first person plays it right side up and the second reads it upside down and it is a perfect duet! Some more explaining HERE

We played it together. I am in awe. I know Bela Fleck as written musical palindromes, jazz banjo pieces that can be played forwards or backwards and are the same either way. But a duet???? That one reads and plays upside down? Mozart had it going ON!!!!!

Lojo is having her cd release part on Friday night at the Acadia Cafe. I think it is very close to the 400 Bar a bunch of you were talking about going to, to see someone whose name I have forgotten, as in on the same block. I think I am going to nip down and sit in for a song or two with Lojo, and then perhaps nip over to see this band whose name I have forgotten, but recall I thought sounded like a good idea at the time. Lojo's show is no cover, and I am hoping she will let me play on the one song I love.

(yeah, forgot that name too, what is this , the Senior Moment blog tonight???)

Finally, just noticed Malena has posted a vid on her site that literally made me snort serious tea. The women can be truly funny. It's kind of "Sarah Silverman does Rabid Pit Bull" funny....