Comment O-Rama

Thank everyone and anyone who comments. While I started this blog to do some self-pushing, I'm not afraid to admit that I'm a total comment junkie. I love me those comments. Of course, everyone who has commented has been so nice, it's been easy to love them. When you guys start telling me that you hate what I do or that I'm being cruel to bees, it might be a tad more difficult to be gracious.

That said, I'm going way back and gathering comments:

The bees continue to fascinate me. When I looked at the frames last week, I didn't see any eggs or capped cells (which is what they do to grow babies). So I'm not sure what's going on. Suzee doesn't want honey (which is nice because we use a TON in our homemade granola), Rain said that chalk would stop the ants, and Suzee said to try cans of water. I ended up using a product called Tanglefoot, which is a horribly sticky barrier product. After a few commando-crawl raids where I snuck up to the hive from below and behind to spread it over the teensy spots the ants had discovered, we have finally achieved ant-free hiving!

B over at BritKnit admits to a woeful lack of bee knowlege! The queen lives about four years. After that in the wild, the worker bees grow up a new queen by feeding a regular egg "royal jelly" and either swarm out or stay home. Also, if a hive gets too crowded -- those queens can lay a LOT of eggs per day -- the workers can grow a new queen and some leave. I think that's how I got my hive.



Oh, for bfmoma, the rose on Thing4's sweater is just a plain ol'rose from Nicky Epstein's Knitting Over the Edge. I tried to make a felted violet, but couldn't do it to my satisfaction. Anyone know how to make a felted violet?

Good Dog Mack continues to do well. The vet saw him again and said his sutures were mildly infected, and they're concerned because it's a bone. So more antibiotics (and another bag stuffed with cash to the vet -- ouch!) and a head collar to keep him from worrying his wrap so much. He doesn't seem to be in pain at all. Maybe it itches.

Sharon, Suzees mom, is right. Mack may look like Cassie, but he is so not like her. In fact, Suzee told me once never to get another lab assming it would be like Mack. Dar is right -- Keith isn't like Mack. I don't know many dogs who are. He's preternaturally calm. Jen is right, he has a lovely face. I used to think he was probably reincarnated from some really attractive, muscular guy who had achieved some kind of Zen master status. It may be true, for all I know.

Sarah sweetly asked what effect this was having on me. To be honest, the week before surgery, when we thought it was probably cancer that had spread, was bad. The adults were having lots of talks about how to deal with the kids, and how hard it was going to be for all of us. While I fantasize (daily) about life without dog hair, I really want him around. After the surgery, things were much better because there wasn't evidence of rampanct cancer. Just regular healing.

Allison cheered me on for running -- we ran again today! What videos do you like best? I'm thinking that I need to do some things on my non-running days. I just got a snazzy pair of yoga pants. . .

Emma is so clearly going to have ten pets the minute she gets out of her apartment. . . Houses are nice, but wait until we start having the thousands of dollars of work done on this house that it needs. Apartment living might seem attractive in comparison. Meredith is using the tired excuse that children take up her journaling time. Ha! Well, if it's any consolation, Thing 1 has a much more extensive set of journals written about her than Thing 4.

Amy noticed that Thing 4 is very, uh, bright, in the last post. It's a new outfit from my mom for her. Every six months or so, she whips out double-thickness flannel pants for each of our kids. They practically live in them, and they enjoy choosing matching or contrasting fabrics so they can alter their look by turning their pants inside out. Mom didn't think she wanted to make teensy pants, so a clown suit. When the little one is walking (any day now) I think I'll ask again for pants. Mmmmmm. Warm and comfy flannel pants.