Personality

SO.....I haven't blogged in a long time, I know, I'm bad, but I've had too much going on and then too exhausted to think clearly. Now, however I realized over a month has gone by and I had to sit right down and write myself a letter.

Living up here in the country you see neighbors helping neighbors, people doing for others..of course one still encounters rude, self-serving idiots, but what can you do? This past month two friends needed some help. One, needed a place to stay for a few days due to some marital strife, so we had a house guest for a few days until he got himself re-situated, the other, got caught in a bit of a car accident, and after my other half and another friend fetched her from the side of the road, took her to the hospital and waited to learn of her broken hand. Since she couldn't drive or do too much, she too wound up here for a few days.

It rained nearly every day in June, and every time we went to check on our new bees, the weather wouldn't allow it. I was able to do one cursory look when the new, beautiful copper hive tops arrived, and I snuck a few minutes to remove the old ones and install them, but that was it.
The bees don't like wind, rain, thunder or lightning, and since we had one of those every day, I just couldn't open those boxes.

Now last year, the hives we had were so docile. During an entire year, I was stung once. Most of the time, they buzzed around me crawled on me and were not remotely threatening. They didn't survive the winter. The colonies we have this year, are nothing like that. Virtually the minute I come near they buzz wildly, fly around in a snit and dive bomb my hat and veil. I nearly asphyxiated myself puffing smoke around me to drive them away. I did manage to do the majority of what I needed to, but I could have gotten more accomplished if the two of us were here with two smokers to keep the little buzzers at bay.

Macavity, the orange cat did a little investigating at one of the hive openings and was smart enough to walk away. Cyrano, on the other hand, suddenly took off like a rocket, so I think HE may have not been quite as wary as the cat...so much for that old adage about curiosity...this time it got the dog.

It is interesting to ponder how every bit of fauna seems to have a fairly distinct personality. I've encountered plenty of animals, and more than enough people. This is petition season, the time we knock on doors to put candidates' names on the ballot in November. As people come to their door, it is always interesting to see how they respond. I only go to doors of people who are registered to the same political party as the candidates on my ballots. I generally knock on the same doors every year. It is amazing to me who remembers me from time to time, who is clueless, nasty, one can see in their faces when they answer how their words will be.

And somehow, what I can't get out of my mind is: the police who raided the gay bar in Ft. Worth and threw people down, arrested them and made lies about a "former bartender" who called in a complaint. We know it wasn't a former bartender, because the place had been open one week and had its original staff. Then there was the sheriff's deputy in San Diego, who threw a woman in her sixties onto the floor, and twisted her recently operated on shoulder when he got a "noise complaint" about the fundraiser in the woman's house for a politician. And then he sprayed the guests with pepper spray when they objected to the woman being treated that way. As for the noise complaint, it was early in the day, before the time a noise ordinance took effect, and the neighbor was shouting down the politician while she tried to speak at the party.

And personality comes into play, when I get nasty, sarcastic and petty and wonder why our president wants gay people to wait for civil rights until the "time is right" while he appeases the religious right who will never accept him anyway. I want to know why Mr. Obama can't grow a pair of balls as big as his ears and just do the right thing? if Truman could understand where the buck stops and integrate the armed forces with one presidential order and not wait until the joint chiefs approved, then in 2009 Obama can do the same thing. If he had the personality of my bees, instead of my dog.

Rule # 1: Don't Piss Off the Bees

One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight!

So now you know rule number 1. Rule # 2 is remember rule #1.

I read in one of my bee books that the only time the author was stung is when he was careless, a little too cavalier about approaching his bees. So what did I do today? Broke every damn rule of beekeeping and almost wound up like poor Gloria Swanson at the end of 1974's Killer Bees, with the little buggers crawling all over her. We didn't bring the smoker, wore dark clothes, went in the late afternoon, my shirt wasn't tucked in, and when they attacked, rather than standing still, I panicked and ran! O what a fool I be.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight!

What was especially foolish, was the fact that these are new colonies and I really did not know their temperament. I learned. Colony number two is just a wee bit irritable when you open their hive top and start playing around with their comb.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight!

And all we were trying to do is make sure they were happy and settling in well. Well, they are settling in, but they sure weren't happy today.

I'll show then who is boss -- I'm calling up a local bear to pay them a visit.

Since this already seems like Sesame Street with the counting, I'll tell you, today's word is... OUCH.

Why couldn't it have happened to someone more worthy, like Dick Cheney.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.

Don't worry, Ma, I'm all right (and they say it's good for arthritis, so the joints in my left hand should be terrific.

Spring has Sprung

So the lilacs are running rampant, the tulips are almost all gone, the grass is too high and I've just ordered 25 pounds of sugar.

Last week three new packages of bees arrived (David met the truck on his way back from dropping off 150 or so packages to a winery on the North Fork of Long Island) and they got shaken out of their boxes into the hives. We drove the three hours up to Betterbee and bought all kinds of supplies (and some honey in the honeycomb) to keep them happy and healthy. It is wonderful to crouch off to the side and watch them going in and out of the hive entrance, carrying away the dead bees. It is amazing to see them come in for a landing with huge balls of yellow-orange pollen stuck to their legs. In a few days, we open the hives for the first time to make sure the queens are laying eggs, and that all is right in their worlds. That's why the 25 pounds of sugar -- we're mixing up sugar water for extra food to make sure they are getting enough to eat. We'll stop that in another week, or so, as they will be acclimated and able to find enough food on their own.

One of our hens has been very busy sitting on a nest, so we're getting many fewer eggs, but soon the peep-peep of little chicks should be filling the barn.

Speaking of pounds of supplies, Bessie II has arrived...well, half of Bessie II, which we shared with some neighbors. Bessie is the locally raised, grass-fed cow (actually it could have been a bull, in which case it would have been Ferdinand) which arrived on our doorstep, after she went off to the nice man who put her into little white packages to go into our freezer. So the next few months will be beef fest here at Bear Ramble Farm. Luckily, there are no bears rambling quite right we we are lately. Our poor friend, Wayne, lost two sheep and someone else lost a goat about five minutes from here. DEC caught and moved the 500 pounder! It's starting to feel like Mutual of Omaha's "Wild Kingdom."

Mea Culpa

I know it's been far too long since my last blog...I've been naughty, spank me. Actually, I've been busy. Those who read this probably know about the museum and the exhibit that opened this week. Movie Stars and the history of them is just about all I have been thinking about for the past few weeks, with no time to really even write about the subject here. Our small museum in the country had a successful exhibit opening...a packed house to see the exhibit, which I think looks pretty good. Big thanks to all those who helped make it happen (it takes a lot more than just this village) Demetre, Joe, Fred, Monica...now I have to put together the companion booklet.
All the while, the goats still get fed, the eggs get gathered, the bees get checked on the cats and dog get all the petting time I can spare.

Deaths In The Family

So it was a warm day today, warm enough to go out without a jacket, so it was a day to inspect the bees.

One hive was a buzz, they were doing their thing of cleaning house, which means sweeping out the bees that didn't make it through the winter. The other hive all was still, which I half expected, as the lid of that hive came off one morning, and I assumed they got hit with chill (even though there was a weight on the lid).

I began to disassemble the still hive, slowly removing each layer. A few bees came over to investigate, but I assumed they were from the other hive. As I removed each layer, I discovered more and more dead bees. Now, I can't say I was really attached to them, unlike the chickens I hadn't attempted to name the bees (although a few were called Bob, Beatrice, Barney, Betty, etc. as i saw them, but they do all look pretty much alike). Taking out each frame and seeing more bees stuck to the wax cells immobile and greyish was pretty horrifying, especially as the other hive had those brownish-yellowing girls all buzzing about and doing their thing. As long as one hive survived, I will go forward and get another colony of bees as soon as the weather gets warmer. This year, I'll monitor more carefully, get better hive tops and grow from my experience. One only learns by doing, but at the expense of all those little lives, it is a karmically painful lesson.

With so much death and destruction on the planet, it almost seems foolish to be lamenting the deaths of bees -- Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, the Middle East, Africa -- so many places human beings are dieing - greater tragedy. Even on an individual basis, when not factoring in the numbers of people there are many situations worth mourning more than the bees.
I walked past Lenox Hill Hospital this week, thought of poor Natasha Richardson who died there and welled up with tears. I met her once, a long time ago, and she was warm and lovely. To lose one so kind, charitable and talented is truly a great tragedy. My heart goes out to her entire family, for the loss of this irreplaceable soul on this planet.

I can buy another box of several thousand bees.

The seeds are waiting for the ground to warm up so we can start the next Spring adventure.

March Madness

Haven't blogged in a while -- life and facebook taking up too much of my time. The snow and ice have finally melted, winter is over and Mud Season has arrived. The roofer drives his truck across the side lawn and tracks so deep I could plant bowling ball sin them appear. The mud is so wet, the cats come in and soon every counter they can sneak onto reveals their fiendishness...tell-tale paw prints. Did I mention it's muddy out there? All of my black shoes are now brown shoes. The ground is so soft the back fence gate isn't holding tight in its anchor and the goat can but the door open....which means the roofer has to watch those horns and run up the ladder -- serves him right for putting those ruts in my lawn.

So the roofer starts replacing the roof: removes the asphalt shingles, removes the metal roof under them and finds the cedar shingles dating back to the 19th Century -- good-golly! He also finds that thanks to a bad repair job the back of the house has sunk 5.5 inches, and has bowed out 3 inches. So now there are chains pulling the side walls in, and an almost six inch gap between most of the first and second floors of the back of the house. (was there a budget for this job? yes, when we started). At least all of the beams have now been sistered and the back door has been replaced (3 weeks with a plywood wall in place of the back door was fun). Now all the wood siding that had to be removed has to be replaced and the last section of roof still has to be installed. As grandma would say back at the shtetl (her shtetl house was probably built after this house was) OY!

Meanwhile, I lost my key to our mailbox, but OK, we still had one key...then David goes away for a few days and takes his keys...oops, now I can't get into the mailbox, but wait! -- this is Cuddebackville/Godeffroy (yes the two towns are small enough to share a zip code) -- so I tell our letter carrier my predicament and she offers to just drop the mail off to me at work instead, it's virtually on her way home, anyway. I LOVE LIVING IN THE COUNTRY!!!

Meanwhile, it's warm enough that the chickens don't need the electric heater under their water and I just have to try to not get stuck in the mud as I walk to the barn to collect eggs each morning....Did I mention it's so muddy that our black dog has turned brown?

I am hysterically writing the historical notes for the exhibit I am curating -- the deadline looms larger than the Hollywood Hills, but isn't that appropriate as the exhibit is "The Star Is Born: The History of the Movie Star in America from Florence Lawrence and Valentino to Heath Ledger"? I'm even editing the poster copy at the same time...I need to get the walls spackled and painted, then set up the exhibit, after I'm finished putting it together (bit by bit, dot by dot -- and that is the state of the art) (5 points if you get that reference).

It's been raining, everything is wet, I feel wet to my bones, even the firewood is damp from the air, which makes for not hot fires in the stoves and mud everywhere. Have I mentioned it's muddy? I forget...must be part of my March Madness. Speaking of madness, next week is St. Patrick's Day (St. Paddy's for short, NEVER St. Patty's) and even though I will be in NYC, I promise not to drink any green beer. Maybe I'll write more on this next week if I steal a few more minutes.

Took my car to the car wash, came out nice and clean, drove three minutes, it was covered in mud...better than salt and sand, I guess. have I mentioned it's muddy out there? The mud is like sand from Coney Island, it keeps appearing in the strangest places long after you've been in the house.

To quote W. E. Coyote: "Hello, my name is Mud."

The Russians are Comming, The Russians are Comming!

So in all the TV chatter about Tom Daschle and his tax evasion/withdrawing from nomination problems, one commentator said that he was not only going to have his cabinet position, but was also to be the new Health Czar.

Can we stop this crap? Please? First of all, the word is Tsar. That's how the Russians pronounce it T-sar, not zar, so there is no way to pronounce czar that reflects the actual pronunciation.

Now we have to stop the rest of the crap. (note I'm watching my language, unlike the last blog, and not saying "shit", but using the polite version, "crap") We have appointed drug Czars, Energy Czars, and plenty more I can't think of yet, and we still have drug problems (i.e. prescriptions still cost too much, too many drugs are over-prescribed, the street drugs aren't as pure as they used to be and are also more expensive (so I'm told)), and still have energy problems (i.e. We're running out of oil, people think windmills are ugly, at my age I'm lucky I have the energy to get through a day without a nap) with no end in sight. Maybe that's because we are appointing czars, not Tsars.

If we appointed a few Tsars, maybe things would get cleaned up. Remember, friends, the Tsars were pretty awful tyrants. Despots. Supreme rulers who believed they got their powers from God. Just the other day our local PBS channel showed Dr. Zhivago. Great movie, better book (I had tea in Pasternack's house outside of Moscow in the early 90's, but I digress) and there's that one scene where the communists are having a peaceful march through the streets, playing music and carrying banners. Zhivago watches as the Tsar's mounted police charge them with swords flailing, trampling and cutting every non-violent protester they can. This is what Tsars do.

Let's get a drug Tsar in position in Washington and he can order the troops to go into every suburban high school and kill every pot smoking and cocaine snorting teenager, go into the better neighborhoods and kill the meth and e taking party boys, and go everywhere and shoot up the heroin users (pun intended).

Let's get a real Energy Tsar and he can order troops to shoot every driver of a big gas guzzler, kill that damn teenage girl who refuses to turn off the lights when she leaves the room, waterboard oil company executives for not developing new technologies, or for hoarding reserves, or whatever it is they do or don't do.

Maybe we could appoint a marriage Tsar to protect the sanctity of Marriage. Let's see, put up in front of a firing squad for abusing the sacred vows between one man and one woman: Zsa-Zsa Gabor, Elizabeth Taylor, Brittney Spears, and especially that lesbian couple from Massachusetts -- they really have some nerve fighting for the right to get married and then not staying married to set an example for all these straights who can't figure it out. Hell, even my mother was married twice and that was a loooooooong time ago. -- Sorry ma, but I think, we've got to back you up against the wall, put that blindfold on, that cigarette in your mouth and...no, wait, no cigarette.. our new Tobacco Tsar won't allow that.

We need to stop the war on drugs, the war on poverty the war on crime, the war on Christmas, the war on peace (sorry Tolstoi) and all these Czars/Tsars and maybe try to come up with some new, less despotic, less violent ways of handling our problems. Of course, Russia did get rid of their Tsars, and it didn't help them much. Just go watch Dr. Zhivago, if you don't believe me.

P.S. Maybe I'm thinking about the Tsars so much because there's still so much snow and ice here on the farm with the thermometer hovering at 11 fahrenheit that I feel like I'm in Siberia.