Many paths, no destination

Well, at least none yet. Once that rainbow sweater was all done (except of course it's not all done because I have to reseam the arms. . .) I gleefully continued with other things.

Although I still have that lavender wool (about 75% spun up) hogging my wheel, a garden expansion required that I harvest all of the Japanese indigo I grew this summer. I'd tried once to dye with it, but it turned out a shade that didn't do it for me thanks to an equipment malfunction. This time?


I got blue. I can hardly wait to spin up "old blue jeans." The fiber is a Sheep Shed mill end, the kind with a bit of mohair in it. Should be fun to make and fun to use!

Mostly, it's been all summer work around here. Canning produce,


taking little ones out to do some fishing in the local lakes,


and doing the big honey harvest for the year. I may get some more in October, but 52 pounds was the haul this time. Not bad, not great, but maybe enough to see this honey-loving family through to next year.


Sarafina got her braces put on, and she's dealing with the not-fun parts of sore teeth and expanded hygiene requirements. My teeth moved quickly under my braces, so I'm hoping she'll have the same experience. Ellie is currently visiting grandparents out of town, and being celebrated in the ways only grandparents and aunts and uncles can do. I miss her and believe she's having a great time. Tor is reading more every day, and playing a lot with his little sister, who is currently sick. That's why she's leaning against my leg in the canning picture. She just feels rotten.

Ellie and I took a beginning crochet class. I can make at least one type of granny square and just need some practice and maybe I'll give a pattern a try after that. I'd like to make market bags as gifts, I think, and this seems a quick way to do it. No pictures -- maybe after I practice some more!

Through all of this, I am doing some knitting, though. From extreme left to right clockwise, a swatch in Mission Falls' Merino Superwas, for a baby due next month -- and a little bird tells me another one might be on the way in the neighborhood, so I'll have to get cracking on that, too -- then the Extremely Boring To Knit Yet Fun To Wear saddle shoulder sweater, up to the armpits. I'm actually having trouble figuring out how to make symmetrical armholes. That's when walking away seemed like a very good idea. Then another pair of Embossed Leaves socks, or at least the cuff, in Piedmont Yarn's kettle dyed sock yarn, then a quick hat in Brown Sheep's Bulky. I had actually finished the hat and realized that the decreases drew it above my ears -- a common hat experience for me -- and it's been picked out and set to go again.


I keep getting projects started and realizing that what I need is mindless knitting (hence the hat) for little bits of distracted time. But I do have to get that baby sweater moving, so perhaps it will draw the other projects along in its wake. Of course I promised Sarafina some wickedly complicated colorwork mittens for Christmas, and Cat has requested a Dale of Norway sweater, and I caved and bought the yarn, so who knows when anything will get finished?

Going, going, almost gone

More of the needle cases are gone, off to new homes to make their owners very happy. My father in law has a new set, based on Australian hardwoods, that are coming available, but you can see here which ones are still around.

Haven't cut the sleeve steeks yet, because I had a wild, wild day in the beehive yesterday, followed by many household responsibility-before-going-camping sorts of things. I did discover that Costco sells bagels that I love and the balance bars my spouse eats at work are less expensive there than at Trader Joe's. The things you learn.

Buzz on the garden blog

I'm blogging bees at the garden blog today.

Buzz.

Front Bands

One's picked up along the left of the Kauni cardigan and I'm noodling along on it.

There had been some discussion about whether or not I wanted a zip or buttons on this sweater, but I found some lovely pewter buttons with bees on them and thought it might be fun to have those, since they had a nice geometric feel to them, to go with the squares on the sweater.

Busy couple of days. I got to play with someone else's bees, and got dinner out of it -- thank you so much, Esperanza! Finally did some gardening, and I'm looking forward to finishing those bands. Slow, but I see progress on the horizon. So much to knit, so little time, such a messy house to do it in.

Steeking in Public

My Kauni sweater came with me and my swollen hands to park day today. Partly, I wanted to work on it, since I'd just finished the neckband on a ride to and from the snow yesterday (thank goodness for friends who drive) and partly to cut a steek dramatically in front of a group.

It's all part of my "demystify life" paradigm. Do it right in front of people, a lot like John Cleese showed many years ago, right? Well, not quite like that. But I do try to obviously create and do and show other people that life isn't a matter of perfection, or fixed rules, and that just jumping in rarely creates disasters -- often it's a perfectly reasonable approach.

Anyhow, I used regular sewing-up needles to sew guidelines, then got out my scissors. A friend yelled, "Come look! She's going to cut her sweater!" A few of the other homeschoolers gathered around. I didn't ask their permission, so I'm not going to put their faces here, but Sarafina snapped some pictures of them recoiling in horror. Gasps all around. Poor Sarah just said something like, "I couldn't do that. I'd just knit a regular cardigan." It made me laugh.


Then I got to demonstrate how well this whole "cutting up your knitting" thing works -- "Look!" I said, "it fits really well, and it holds together nicely."


A young friend, a relatively new but already very adventurous knitter, said, "Why doesn't it unravel?" I showed how the yarn was "sticky," and had good inter-thread adhesion, and also that I wasn't pulling on it.

I didn't get the bands picked up, partly because I was wavering on the zipper/cool pewter buttons decision, and partly because this morning I tried to give the bees sugar water using my new Zen beekeeper persona. This involved lifting the covers, putting in baggies of sugar water, putting on a new empty box and replacing the cover.

I got as far as lifting the first cover when the first bee bumped my nose. Apparently it wasn't the accident I thought, but a warning shot. The next three bees didn't bother bumping.

They're all unique

That's at least what I hear about snowflakes; we don't get enough snow here for me to do any personal research.

My only recent experience with the singular nature of snowflakes was a wooly type. I finally (finally!) finished the Stashbuster Raglan, and was embroidering snowflakes along the red band, as I'd planed.


"How hard could it be?" I asked myself. Well, three snowflakes in, I realized that for me, it was "hard," perhaps "impossible," to embroider snowflakes I was both happy with and that bore some relationship to one another, designwise.

Duplicate stitch! That would surely save me. Nope. Apparently making duplicate stitches resemble one another in more than a third-cousin-once-removed way is also beyond my capacities.


Leaving it with just one finally made the most sense, I figured. We'll go with the "it's as unique as you are" approach.


He doesn't seem to care that I managed to knit one red arm-end with a too small needle, since I picked up the last needle I'd made the rolled edge on the other one to finish the second. He just likes it because it's warm and soft. I don't think I'd do the purl ridges on the arms again.


They look a little bit like weird arm gauntlets, but the bustin' out all over apricot doesn't mind, either. And I don't live in Blueland, it was just evening when I took the picture.

The brown cat doesn't mind the children, as long as they're asleep.


Oh! For those of you who care, I pulled a total Bee Whisperer move yesterday! I had talked with a new beekeeper at the Association meeting on Tuesday evening, and he was telling me about his mentor, who works his bees barehanded and often veilless. And yesterday, I wanted to super one of my hives. Didn't want to get in it, didn't want to powder sugar them to treat for Varroa mites, just wanted to make sure I got that honey super on before the flow.

So without changing any clothes or suiting up, I walked to the hive, and with lots of slowness, eased off the top cover very slowly, set it on top of the super, and turned toward the hive. A bee landed on my hand. So I made like a statue, and held very very still. Tor called across the yard, "What are you doing?" I just said, "Waiting for this bee to fly away." After some moments, she took off. Various other bees had been landing on my shirt and pants, but just sitting there and flying off when they were done doing whatever they were doing.

Without moving my feet too much, I turned again toward the super, grasped the sides, and pivoted to place it on the now-topless hive. I didn't want to crush any bees, so I placed the first corner of the super on one corner of the hive, then gently, so gently, lowered it along the sides so any bees in the way could move. Once it was on, I walked away.

Then I felt the shakes. Apparently I'm not quite the Zen beekeeper I was acting as. Not yet. I don't think I'll open hives at least without veils, but it made me feel as though I was making some progress.

In other catch-up news, I'm still maintaining the running schedule, although my slowness and literal feeling that I'm "hauling ass" down the street (like dragging a bag of rocks) hasn't changed much. And I'm supposed to be on a panel discussion on local food production for Earth Day, so I have to get my talking ducks in a row. Someone asked me yesterday how many hours a week I knit. I laughed and laughed. I consider it a bonus day if I even get to pick up needles lately. With four kids, three classes to teach, and a household to run, who has time?

When I feel cool

I generally think of myself as kind of dorking along. I run sort of cloddily, I run into things, I wave my hands around a lot when I talk, and I just kind of blunder my way through many things I do.

Take beekeeping. I can't keep my smoker lit, not to save my life. So I do the bees, but I'm not great at them. A lot of the time I open a hive, and think, "What is this?"

But I did something very cool today. After watching them zoom in just loaded with pollen (the eucalypts are blooming in the hills), I wondered how the hives were doing since the look-see I did the other day. Generally, I suit up completely when I play beekeeper. But I just wanted a little peek.

Soooooo, I just tiptoed over behind the first hive, and lifted the top up barehanded about 2-3 inches. Just enough to see the girls on the top of the frames. Not enough bees to put a super on top -- they're just starting to move up there -- but they're in both boxes. Next hive didn't look so fantastic, so I will go in more fully in a week or so to evaluate. But no stings, no fuss. I felt kinda like a rock star.

And the kids and I started our Trails Challenge today, with a short lakeside hike, which also was pretty cool. We'll see if my enthusiasm holds all year 'long.

Bee Season's Over

No, I haven't seen the movie yet. I liked the book, and bee magazines are featuring the beekeeper who trained the actors on the set in interviews. Looks to me like this lady is taking something of a final bow. Yesterday I did my final hive inspection of all three hives, and I'm hoping to get out to one final top-bar hive at a friend's if it's sunny for the next couple of days. It's time and past time. Friends are finishing their harvests all over, but I didn't pull any honey from these hives this fall.

Two of the hives were moved, and by moved, I mean cut from top bars and tied into frames, in June and July. This set them back a bit, in terms of production. I took honey then, but anything they've managed to put up in the last two-three months is theirs to keep. They have to eat something in the winter, even if we don't get serious weather out here. The third hive, the one in the picture, in fact, is a tiny swarm I caught late in the summer. I'm not completely convinced that they're going to make it over the winter, even if I feed them in December/January, which I plan to do. They might not be able to keep themselves warm enough, and I don't want to fuss with stacking them on their screen bottom on top of another hive. Just more hassle than I'm willing to undertake (sorry, ladies!), so they're on a sink-or-swim kind of trajectory.

I saw the queen in the lavender hive in the background of that picture. She was just. . . well, queening along. Beautiful, but I couldn't tell if there were eggs in the comb she was walking on or if it was a spotty brood pattern. I may requeen all the hives in the fall next year, just to know where I am with them. Or not. It may work out well without the added expense and hassle.

The bees are active still, on the days when it's not so cloudy and cool, they get a few good hours in. This plant has them all excited -- I don't know if it's something special, or if it's just that there isn't much blooming lately. Just stick your tongue right in, apparently. Yum:

Other things are about to bloom, like the sidewalk pumpkins! Go figure.

A final bit of bee housekeeping (after I counted frames of brood and honey and made certain that there were stores right next to the brood nests) was to stop the ants from getting in. The hives that are more ant-ridden are grouchier. No one needs ants in their houses. So I use Tree Tanglefoot, and make sticky barriers to keep the ants out, and have to stir the bands up every once in a while because the chickens kick up dirt when they bathe and make it much less sticky. Just one more thing that I bet the bees appreciate (when they're not getting stuck there themselves) and it makes me feel as though I'm doing what I can for them. Since I'm not a Super Beekeeper, I do what I can.

I'm apparently not a great citrus grower either, because something is making the tangerines split. Too much bath water? Too little? Wrong timing? Maybe they won't all split. I'd love to have a few off of this tree. It's Thing 3's special tree.

And as always, I'm swamped with work. When I'm done transcribing the last 20 rows of the mittens, I may try to knit again. But possibly not. I'm just in deep. The shorter days make me grateful for any time I spend outdoors, but also make me want to get my needles going again. I'll have to schedule it for me, I think.

All hopped up

Thank goodness for over the counter cold medicine. Even though the cold still has me tightly in its grip, I'm able to sleep. And, as any parent who has been through an infancy or two knows, with enough sleep, one can do anything!

Besides the regular cleaning, grading, homeschooling, parenting, and sweeping that is my daily lot, I also learned that double-digging, a la John Jeavons and his crew, isn't bad, especially if you have beautiful, crumbly, moist-cake-crumb soil. One of the compost bins is nice and ready, so I felt very accomplished while spreading it over the bed. Plus, I'm sick enough that running sounds like a very bad idea, so even though this digging made me shake for most of the afternoon, it was at least somewhat active.

The Fuji apples in the front yard have been blooming like it's spring. I don't know if they're on time or just fooled by all of the leftover bath water they've been sucking up. I know some ladies who are pleased by this, though, and it's good timing as not much is in bloom.

The seedlings in the flats are doing well. Besides my own anality, planting carefully in flats would also avoid the carpet of lettuce I'm wrestling with. Planting out teensy leeks

and kales

and spinaches and broccolis and cabbages and lettuces is hard enough when they're not tangled up

all over each other.

I wish the little ones could write clearly enough to do the intensive record keeping I'd prefer. I'll have to think of some other way for them to help.

Hey! A book review

Despite the name of this blog, I don't often write about what I'm reading. Sometimes it's because I'm employing the "grab and go" method at the library, which can yield some interesting book choices. For example, I just finished what can only be called a romance novel, set in Amish Pennsylvania, with a mystery. But the romance stunk, the mystery literally was never solved, and it was wooden in concept and execution. Fortunately I read very quickly so I could indulge myself and finish it.

I can't knit on the mitten welt while I read, but I can read out loud to a child while I spin, if it's a book I'm familiar with, so that's been a help.

There is a book I chose for my usual library sprint reason, which is liking either the title or the cover. On this one, I liked both.
This one grabbed me right from the beginning, partly because it started with the last three stanzas of a poem that sang. True confession time: I'm a long-term English major who doesn't like poetry. It always felt like a dirty secret in school -- who doesn't like poetry -- but I didn't.

Now that I don't have to like it, there are sometimes poems that fly under my radar and just work. I may actually look up more of this poet's work.

So anyhow, this book shouldn't be the kind I liked. It deals with unbelievable pain, geographic dislocation, environmental change and pressure, a fracturing family, and did I mention pain? And it was, in fact, difficult to read.

But it reminded me what art is sometimes -- the transforming of pain into lucent beauty. So if you are looking for a read that is so beautifully crafted that the painful subject is worthwhile, check out this one.

I also got honey from my friend's underperforming hive today. We decided that they're underachiever bees, but we did meet her neighbor who is keeping five top bar hives just down the street. So that was a sweetness above and beyond finally rewarding her patience with honey.

Where oh where

Generally, Thursdays feel most like a weekend for me. Once preparations are made, we go off to park day and everyone plays and plays and plays.

Yesterday wasn't that blissful. My beloved car won't start, and my mechanic-by-telephone said he'd love to look at it, could I bring it in (no, obviously, it won't start) and after some serious kerfluffle, my spouse arranged for me to come and borrow his car, necessitating a bus trip by me and the son-child. That was actually fun, and getting to go swim at the lake afterwards was also much fun, but worrying about not being able to help out a friend as I'd hoped was a bit more stress.

Then, there was the call at the lake about a swarm of bees in the next city over. I arranged to talk to the person later and headed home. When I told Eric the address, he said, "Oh, no. No. NO. Not a place you want to go after 7pm." Well, okay, he knows this city much more than I do. Then the person returned my "I'm not coming" call, and after I hung up with her, I looked at the caller ID. It read (I kid you not and will provide a picture as soon as New Camera shows up -- whoopiee!) "Pimp oftheyear." Apparently it really isn't the neighborhood I want to be in.

I do not get it. Okay, I get street cred and all this stuff, but why? Why make anything harder on yourself. It's as though the Enron guys would have programmed "White collarcrime" as their cell phone IDs. I don't know. Things remain far too mysterious for me.

One curent mystery is the location of the two pieces of dowel around which I wind newly-spun yarn into skeins, on my "yard stick" which is a piece of board with holes (the diameter of those dowels) driled in it. One round is two yards, which is how I count how many yards I spin.

Yesterday I finished the crabapple roving I'd dyed back when they were in bloom. It wasn't a fully accurate color match, but it was nice thick spinning and I gave the 45 or so yards to a friend and she'll do something lovely with it. But last night, I finally finished the bamboo/merino (well, okay, I stopped -- there's still some of the maddening-to-spin bamboo left) and plied it up, trying to not underply as is my wont.

Now I would dearly like to wind it off and see how many yards it is. But Thing 4 had those "sticks" yesterday, and now she doesn't know where they are. Neither do I. I do know they are not "in my head" as she's insisting.

But when wiping a shelf in the refrigerator two days ago, in preparation for putting new groceries on it, I found nail scissors. On the shelf. Those sticks could almost be anywhere.

Feels like Summer

Although our recent heat wave is over and we're back to the Weather Worth Paying For here in Houses Are Insanely Priced (Still), CA, I'm feeling summer nibbling around our household's edges. Barbecues sound good. Felafel is making a return to the menu. The kids are starting to ask if local watermelons are in yet. At night, enough sunlight comes in around the edges of the little ones' blinds that bedtime is starting to seem arbitrary and for the convenience of the grownups. Of course, that's utterly true. . .

At any rate, we're also fortunate to have as friends a family who love to take their friends kayaking. So last weekend, the younger three Things and I met them at the American River. Good times were had by all, and Thing 3 asked, "Can we get one of those boats?" I think more experience is a good idea first.

Here's my son being ferried across some rapids by friend Mike:


And now his big sister:


The baby offered to paddle me around a stream for a while, so I let her:


It's been a long time since I've had that much fun. Also, these friends are pretty much the parents I want to be, so being around them is a combination of fun, relaxing like a spa, and inspiring. Good day.

I may have announced before that I'm changing beehive types again. The top-bars are interesting, and I am delighted with their cost basis, but managing bees in them is a higher-input job than I'm willing to do. So I drove out to a beekeeping factory and got a whole whack of woodenware. My nephews and my kids nailed most of them together yesterday. Hopefully all of the boxes (called "deeps" and "mediums") will get painted today, and we'll move the bees Friday. By "we," I mean me, Thing 2, now the proud owner of a child-sized suite, and whoever else I can rope into helping. It's going to be a tough day, I think.


Work has me over a barrel, but slacking on schoolwork is helping a little bit. Yesterday, with the company of my sister, her children, and some of mine, I ran for 45 minutes. Who would have thunk it? Apparently I run well in company. And I got past one repeat on the sock!


So now there's just those pesky sleeves, more grading of many papers, some housework, and 1 7/8th socks between me and the Kauni cardigan. Seems totally doable.

Some day.

To my adoring fans

Thing 4 thanks everyone for their compliments on her knitting.


Remember how suave I was feeling about getting those bees yesterday? Nice and easy, I said.

Today was . . . different. Maybe it was that Spouseman stayed up until 1:00, after having watched the city planning commission quite late for work, making two beehives for me to use today. Even though I went to bed relatively early, I didn't sleep soundly until he came to bed. Maybe it was that when I woke at 12:30 or so, I remembered that I hadn't filed a grade change form for one of my students. And it was late. Or maybe it was me waking up at 5:30 to go get the bees (nicely tied up by the homeowner) and then helping finish those hives. Think the neighbors liked hearing a table saw at 7:00 am? Thing 1 was indignant: "You said you were going to take me with you to get the bees!" "You said you'd changed your mind!" "I have no memory of that."

It was all a rush, as bee mornings often are. I'm worried that the tied-up bees can't get enough air, what with the box being wood and then them being wrapped in a sheet on top of that. I'm worried about the temperature creeping up and up as the sun goes higher. It's also our homeschool Park Day, which means food, and getting everyone going in the same direction, and things like that.

So, having shifted into Turbo Hurry mode, I checked one hive body, and noticed that the plexiglass view side was much higher, high enough to make the bars hang unevenly. So I used a saw to make parallel cuts vertically in it, and then snapped off the offending high edge. Fast.

With my thumb.


Fortunately, previous ER trips for stitches have convinced me that nearly everything can be handled at home with bandaids and superglue. But it hurt, and it was enormously stupid. Thing 1 brought me actual pliers for the remaining snapping.

Then, off to my sister's house. The "bad hive" -- the one that took two queens and killed them in favor of a laying worker, meaning that the hive slowly dies off as only non-foraging males are raised -- had to be addressed. Therefore two hives for one swarm.

I'd also put another swarm in a nuc box (a small, mini-hive) on her apiary shed roof a week ago, and they deserved a real hive too. Therefore the two hives. So I got almost all of my equipment up on the roof while the children played inside and she made lunch for her gang. I'd forgotten my smoker in the morning's excitement. I figured that since swarms are pretty benign, it wouldn't be a problem. Even if it was, I was up a shed roof without one, so I might as well hope for the best. I just had to climb down to get the very last thing, but with the ladder's help, took a faster route down by pitching off of the top rung right onto my bottom. I had enough time to shriek wildly and try to call my sister before hitting. There was something in my pocket -- the pliers? The bee brush? and it hurt a lot to land on. Looking on the bright side, I missed the terra-cotta plant pot with my head by a good few inches. Lying on the ground, counting your blessings and feeling the effects of your autonomic nervous system, is a good time to make resolutions about level ground and helpers with ladders. My sister came out and held the ladder after that. She hadn't heard the fall at all, which is probably a good thing. I thought about charging her double, but since double of nothing is. . . well, you know. So sometimes it's good that there's no video about. A wise beekeeper would remember that the next time she gets cocky.

Back in the saddle, I took the week-old swarm (now a real hive) from their box and set them up in the new hive. They were wonderful -- in a week, they'd made about 4-5 full combs and started filling them with nectar, although I forgot to check for eggs. I didn't see any capped brood. They were mellow and very nice, although the bees not on the combs, but left in the bottom of the box were miffed when I upended it and thumped on the bottom to dislodge them. A cloud flew up, and more were upset when I dropped the box off of the shed side.

Next, I moved the bad hive out of the way, placed the new hive in its place (different bar dimensions; we're still experimenting) and dumped the neatly-wrapped swarm in it. They did the usual fly around in circles thing, buzzing loudly. The bees from the bad hive got carried across the yard hanging on the bizarre comb they'd constructed, and then I intended to use the bee brush to get them off. As I began, however, one of some hive's bees got into my veil. Again. And again, as I tried to get it off, I got stung right on the face. Blast. There's a vague chipmunk vibe going on in my mirror this evening. Again, glad there's no video during this episode either.

After everything had settled down, I could tell that bees were trying to return to their old home and being checked at the door by the new swarm. Maybe they'll be accepted, maybe not. The hive had dwindled strikingly. It's up to the bees, now, fortunately.

After a quick trip to provision for the park, we finally arrived. And I worked on that sweater. Two parts, together at last!


One or two more repeats of the leaf pattern would have been smart, but hopefully some blocking will even out the bulgy look. On, it looks flattering on the recipient:

Since I'm all about learning my lessons, no bows until those sleeves are done.

Spinning and Swarming

So I've been working with my wheel some every week, although not every day. I'm also at the binding off to sew together the parts stage of the green sweater. I tried to somehow graft the live stitches at the bottom of the waist to the trim, but it wasn't working well. I've decided to go to regular mattress stitch. Figuring out what to do is half the battle. But I'm so far off my 12 sweaters goal that it's becoming fairly clear that it might not happen this year, let alone any other finishing goals. . . drat these new time-sucking hobbies!

I was obviously quite spoiled by starting with the Blue Faced Leicester, because it spins like buttah -- sometimes buttah with big blobs in it, but it was lovely nonetheless. My really for practice spinning has been a pound or so of Norwegian Gray I got from Paradise Fibers' sale area.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with this fiber. I think it's combed -- it's top, and it spins up as well as I can spin anything. But it's nothing I'd like against my skin. Remember those old Icelandic sweaters? Warm as anything, but scratchy? It feels like that. These skeins total 78 yards, if my warping board is measuring correctly. It's two bobbins' worth, plied. Thing 1 keeps muttering "Cloak, cloak," and maybe it would be waterproof, but I'm thinking "Oven mitt, oven mitt." We'll see how it goes when the whole bag is done. No matter what (if anything) I make out of this, the practice is doing me good.

This is nice because I'm doing a three-day spinning and dyeing intensive at the same studio I began spinning. I can hardly believe I'm getting to do this -- it's terrifically exciting and I am looking forward to showing off my new skills, such as they are.

For everyone who asked so sweetly about the camping trip, it was wonderful. Dirty, but wonderful. Here's one of my favorite images. Thing 4 talked her head off the entire weekend. People who know her kept telling me that they knew I said she talked a lot, but they'd never heard her. They did there. She also learned to knit.

Just kidding, but she probably could. At the campsite, someone asked, "Can you say XXXX?" in a fairly patronizing way. I said, "She could probably say "Hypotenuse," which she promptly did.

Our household has been fairly busy since we got back. Schoolwork, mountains of laundry, getting certified to belay the rock wall (me) so the kids can climb any time at the gym, orthodontist appointments, grocery shopping -- busy, but not always noticeable. Spring moves into summer, inexorably. I noticed that the sun was shining brightly at 6:00 this morning when I went in to get Thing 4. Yawn.

Instead of napping this afternoon, though, I retrieved a swarm all by myself -- none of my kids were there, the homeowner wasn't there, the terrified-of-bees painters even left. I borrowed their ladder, but even so, the hive was above my head significantly. I had to stand on the "don't stand here" step of the ladder, AND cut branches AND cut the main branch over my head on which the fairly large (3#?) swarm hung. I only wish I had pictures. Actually, I wish I'd had someone taking video. . .

As I cut, I realized that if I used both hands to manage the clipper and the branch, respectively, I would have no free hands to hold on to anything with, so I hung an elbow on another branch. Finally, the 2" or so branch broke under the weight of the bees as I cut away on it. Fortunately, it broke very slowly.

I had already cleared a path through the little branches with my clipper for me on the way down, so I dropped my clippers from the ladder, climbed down the ladder carrying the swarm, which swung from side to side, because it was very "loose," on this warm day today. No bees dropped off -- it was lovely. I lowered the bees into my wooden swarm-retrieving box, placed the cover over most of it, and snapped the branch, dislodging the bees. I waited there until I saw bees fanning their Nasanov glands on the edges of the box.

From then on it was just like every other hive retrieval. The homeowner came back while I was finishing up, and I asked her to "burrito-wrap" the swarm box after dark, so I could pick it up easily in the morning. (I prefer to pick up swarms in the early morning, so I don't strand workers.)

But you know, I would have LOVED to have had an audience. It was so neat, so clean, and so flipping HIGH up in the air. Sigh. The good ones never have anyone there, saying, "Wow! You're so smooth!" Just the ones where I'm tripping over my stuff.

I also decided to restructure my swarm-removal prices, so that they go up if 1) I step on a ladder, and 2) they go up again if I hit that top step. As I was swaying on that tree, I said to myself, "Getting hurt for this is just Not Worth It At All."

So now I have to hustle and make two more top-bar hives tonight, because I'm going to place this bunch where my queenless hive is, taking those bees away and shaking them out, so they can return to the new hive in their old hive place. I've tried everything else to requeen that hive. Having two hives there side-by-side (there's a box of bees waiting there for a bigger hive already) will making keeping them easier, as you can mix and match as necessary. Making new hives is going to play havoc with me going to bed early tonight before getting up at 5:30, but that's the nature of life, I suppose.

The Queen is Gone; Long Live the Queen

Before I get on to what people really want to know, some knitting content. I'm still very much not finished with the Pearl Buck Swing Jacket, and there goes finishing March's sweater in March. That sweater is going to need a few quiet, kid-free hours (babysitting!). I realized that I needed some easy knitting-to-go, and so cast on for April's sweater. It's a top-down yoke sweater

using E. Zimmerman's percentage system from a knitlist pattern for Thing 1. I'll let you know what I think of it when I'm done. I'm using Paton's Classic Wool, and it's probably going to need a mock turtleneck under because it's a little scratchy and the neck is close-fitting. The colorwork is going to be a mix of stripes and stranded patternwork done with a coordinating self-striping yarn. I don't know how it's going to work, but the benefit is that it's fast enough to rip it out and redo if I don't like it. The collar looks wonky because it's going to be folded (that ridge is the purl turning ridge) and sewn down. After biasing the last hem I tried to knit in, I figured that I'd rather sew it later, and I wanted to make absolutely certain, after the fiascos with the orange sweater, that it was loose enough to slip over her head without drama.

You wouldn't know it, looking out my window to the grey, sort of drizzly morning, but it really is spring here. Bees, flowers, and at my house, eggs:


But, spring, to me, is now pretty much all about bees. The swarm I'd picked up and gotten stung for, after seeming well-established, flew the coop. Literally, as I'd put the hive in the chicken coop. I wish I knew why, since I did everything I know to make them happy. They were more than two miles from where I'd gotten them, they were in a nice hive, heck, they'd even started to draw comb - isn't that beautiful? -


and found pollen to put in it.

But who knows what goes on in the minds of bees?

I was bummed, to say the least. Then I had the brilliant (to me) idea of posting a "swarm wanted" post on Freecycle and on Craigslist.org. Soon enough, the emails started pouring in. Unfortunately, they were along a few different lines: "I'd love local honey; my husband has allergies," "I used to have a swarm, but they flew away," and my favorite (and still ongoing) one, "I'm making a film about Freecycle, can I come when you get one?"

So I just resigned myself to waiting. Yesterday is our big out of the house day. I even left early for Park Day with the homeschoolers. You know, an old house with four messy children, two not-completly-neat-but-not-as-messy-as-the-kids adults, and pets, needs daily vacuuming. The Hoover canister that I got second-hand probably wasn't meant for this kind of work. I had gone to the local vacuum store and drooled over the Mieles, but had talked myself out of the expense. I figured I'd just get along with the old one for a bit longer.

The carpet beater head on the Hoover started smoking yesterday morning. Since the whole vacuum was now also randomly turning off, I deemed that the Last Straw, and hied me to the vacuum store. I walked in and said, "I want the least expensive, large-capacity Miele you have." I think he was a little stunned, but I don't like to mess around when my mind's made up. Unfortunately, the box wouldn't fit in the bike trailer, so I left it there for later.

After a full day of play, I biked home, jumped in the car, went back to get the vacuum and pick up a quick dinner, and finally checked my email.

A swarm! Just a few streets away, and they wanted it gone. So I packed up a box and my new pheromone lures from the beekeeping folks and went over there. It was full dark, but I could tell it was large, about as long as my arm, and nicely placed. It was my good fortune that the homeowners had a large bucket, and I placed the swarm box (knothole taped shut) underneath the swarm and left it overnight. For comparison purposes, the box is 16" on its wide side:


This morning at (yawn) 6 am, I was back, with reinforcements in the form of a full (new) bee suit, new gloves, clippers for the branch, bee brush, camera, and my grandma's sheet. I also figured out a way to tie my veil that perhaps is the proper way, as it makes a firm seal around the veil part and my shoulders. I felt much more confident.

The swarm hadn't moved.

So I set up, opened the box, and clipped away the branches that are obscuring the middle of the swarm in that picture. A couple of them had mini-balls of bees on them, so I shook those into the box. Then I lowered the branch and cut it from the tree. Plop! Branch and bees, all in the box. There weren't many stragglers at all, and I spent some time making certain I'd picked up any big bunches of missing bees on my brush and putting them right in front of the entrance. They liked the pheromone, and were going inside as fast as they could:


Finally, I pushed as many as I could manage to inside the entrance hole and took the low-tech hole cover and sort of scooped them along, figuring that they'd rather be with the queen and their sisters than my grandmother's sheet, nice though it is.

Once done, I taped the box well shut and rolled any stragglers up in the sheet:


Brought 'em home, dumped 'em in, and have left them alone. I managed to bring one in on my veil, I think, because as I was nursing the baby, I felt those tell-tale little feet on my neck. So I slowly and carefully got up tossed the baby to her father and shrieked my way around the room until it flew off, then we took it outside. There are some still hanging out in the small box, and I'm afraid they're going to get very chilled, so I'll go out tonight and finish putting them all in.

Cross fingers for them staying, and for more swarms. We're planning to build more hives this weekend. Oh, and maybe knit too.