Hereford Zone
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Not ready to call it a summer
This is it. Back-to-school week for teachers. And I’m not ready. Oh, I’m “ready.” I’ve gone to Office Depot for a boatload of supplies. I’ve paid Toyota a significant amount of money for scheduled maintenance on my car. I have the weeksheets typed up for my first week of lessons. I even practiced using my alarm clock on Continue reading
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Tending the herb garden, with thoughts toward school
One advantage to ignoring the garden for awhile (like the entire ridiculously hot month of July) is that when you finally attack the chaos, the results are dramatic. Getting started, though is a daunting task. Where to begin? My philosophy on tackling overwhelming tasks is to start with one big thing that is really bugging me Continue reading
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Honey Harvest 2012
If there’s anything more satisfying to a beekeeper than seeing buckets of harvested honey, it is seeing that golden sweetness in jars. It’s a little bit arrogant on our part to take pride in a good harvest since the bees make the honey, but there’s enough work on the part of the beekeeper to justify it. Continue reading
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Preparing for the honey harvest
Today was an exciting day as we got the hives ready for harvest. Today’s tasks: to put bee escapes on the honey boxes and put entrance reducers on the front entrance to the hives. The goals: (1) to get the bees to exit the honey box without getting back in, and (2) to try to prevent robbing Continue reading
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Summertime…and the reading is easy. Sort of.
It’s mid-summer and my dilemma du jour is this–which book to read next? Before heading off on vacation last week, I spent hours browsing and uploading books (or at least samples of books) onto my Nook. I didn’t really need to do that since our beach place had internet as well as books, but it’s Continue reading
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What’s bugging you?
Which is worse–a three-day power outage or seeking refuge in the Hereford Zone where bugs are a fact of life? Temperatures in the 90’s led daughter Julie to choose the Hereford Zone. She walked in the door to a warning from Dad. “There’s a big spider on the kitchen counter, but don’t worry, it’s dead.” Ok, Continue reading
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Kitchen Canisters
As all teachers know, summer vacation is when all the projects that haven’t been done the rest of the year get done. This includes things like filing paperwork, getting to the bottom of the laundry, and putting away errant Christmas decorations. The dilemma is not what to do; it’s where to start. A seemingly simple Continue reading
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Chillin’ out in Boulder, Colorado
The first week of summer vacation finds me in Boulder, Colorado where hubby John is taking a class for IBM. Boulder, with its reputation as “the happiest town in America” is a shock to my system. Boulderites merrily bike along paths that are an integral part of the city layout. They bike as transportation as Continue reading
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Adding more honey boxes…how sweet it is!
Eying a near-empty honey jar in our kitchen the other day, someone asked, “Do you still do honey?” Good question, since we did not harvest any last year. A rough winter in 2011 did in all of our bees, and a harsh summer did off two of the four replacement hives we bought. (Digression: The ESL Continue reading
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The Home Stretch
After a visit to the bee yard to watch the take-offs and landings of the honeybees, we noticed that bumblebees were all over the wild raspberries Sunday evening. They have been busy pollinating and there looks to be a nice batch of raspberries this season. Saturday morning I took a stroll down to the blueberries Continue reading
Slightly Off the Grid 