Category Archives: Weather +Climate

Bees, Weather +Climate

Bee Plan for the Weekend

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Beltane                                     New Moon (Planting)

The sun.  The sun.  We’ve been doing a great imitation of Seattle for the past week, cool and rainy.  Today and tomorrow we’ll have plenty of sun.  I’m glad because I have to check on my division (#2), see how their doing; check on my package colony (#3), see if they’re drawing out comb, the queen’s laying brood; and, finally, I have to check the two honey supers on the parent colony (#1) and see if I have to add supers, as well as doing a reverse on the two hive boxes.  The reverse follows, roughly, the amount of time it takes a queen to migrate into the next hive box.  This way, she lays eggs in the bottom hive box, then moves up into the top one, lessening the chance that the colony will feel crowded and want to swarm.

Tomorrow, too, I’m going to take my new digital camera and shoot pictures of the pancake comb I’m seeing, as well as the dark, splotchy comb.  I’ll send the pictures to Gary Reuters at the UofM to get his take on them.

The sun after a long stretch of Aunt Roberta dull, gray days makes me feel great.  Work to be done and time to do it.

Kate continues to look forward to her hip surgery as the pain in her right hip has become excruciating.  I’ll be glad for her when its better.

Bees, Garden, Politics, Weather +Climate

A Quieter Period of Time

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Beltane                                            Waning Flower Moon

We had a light frost last night.  Many flowers are now gone, tulips mostly, and a few leaves have that sickly green color that comes from burst cells in the stem.  The weather service has predictions of 29 tonight, that means I’ll for sure have to cover the sensitive plants this evening.

A really busy week last week with several trips in and out of the cities, meetings or events at various times of day and three days in a row at the MIA.  It’s nice to have a few days where I can organize my time on my own.  Not like there’s nothing to do, of course.  My three bee colonies each will need inspection today or tomorrow and there’s weeding and other gardening chores.  Latin, chapter 14 in Wheelock, will put me half-way through this text, usually used for a year long college level course.  Then I’ll tackle my next four verses in Ovid.  There is also a tour to prepare.

This is supposed to be the last or next to last week of the legislative session, but the Minnesota Supreme court’s ruling on Pawlenty’s unallotments of last fall has thrown the whole situation into a big mess.  We may end up with a special session, in which case the legislative committee’s work is not yet done.  You may have seen that the Minnesota House voted to lift the moratorium on nuclear energy though with some important provisions.  Until such legislation is also passed in the Senate, worked out in conference committee, then signed by the Governor, it is not law.

Bees, Garden, Weather +Climate

A Colony Divided Against Itself Can Stand

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Beltane                                      Waning Flower Moon

The potato bed now has three bags of composted manure dug into it and the leek, sugar snap, bok choy bed has one and one more coming.  Kate has weeded several beds including the herb spiral and the sun trap.  It all looks better with the weeds gone.  I found the seeds purchased Friday, so I’ll be able to plant them after lunch and the nap.

The honey house is swept out and ready for a large table and better organization.  It feels good to have a place just to store bee related things like frames, hive boxes, the smoker, smoker fuel, bee suit and gloves.

I leveled the foundation for the divided colony and after lunch, as the winds die down toward mid-day, I’ll do my first division.  We’ll see how that goes.  This will be my third colony.  After this year I should run at four colonies until or unless I have a winter kill or disease.

A full outside day with pleasant (60 degree) temps and a light breeze.  Not like the 40 mph gusts from yesterday.

Aging, Garden, Great Wheel, Great Work, Humanities, Weather +Climate

The Great Wheel

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Spring                                              Waxing Flower Moon

As spring winds down toward Beltane on May 1st, the green up has taken on an accelerated pace.  We have leaves on trees like the Amur Maples, ash and feathery new leaves on the oaks as well.   The daffodils and tulips have brightened our April for some weeks now.  The more integrated I become to this property and its transitions, the more I can layer them in my head.  That is, as this moment of greening and flowering promises a new season, the needed resurrection of the plant world, I can also see late August and September when the florescence begins to yield to brown, to decay, to dieing back.  The two are not polar opposites but places on a continuum that extends not only from season to season but from year to year, decade to decade, century to century.

This layered sensibility is one of the privileges of staying in place, where the rhythms of the land call different things out of me.   As Rachel Carson said, “There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrain of nature–the assurance that dawn comes after night, spring after winter.”

This rhythm, the Great Wheel, teaches us about our experience of life, about life’s ongoing struggle against entropy, a struggle always lost, yet a struggle always valiant and often joyful even though destined to end in tragedy.

I hope your life has a springtime right now, one in which the trees have begun to leaf out, the daffodils have bloomed and the first vegetables have started their journey toward your table.

Art and Culture, Weather +Climate

A Bold Spring

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Spring                                    Waxing Flower Moon

Yesterday the magnolia blossoms fell like snow driven by the wind.  This bold spring has leaped right into existence, confounding plants, gardeners and meteorologists.  I like it.  The transition from winter to summer often happens in the same way with a cold April followed by a chilly May, then June and the heat.  Not so now.  A real, southern spring with sun and warm breezes.

A tour of Spanish art this morning then a stop at the Wedge to pick up some new items for our pantry.

Art and Culture, Humanities, Weather +Climate

Goddess of Rivers and Streams

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Spring                                                 New (Flower) Moon

Oh, what a beautiful morning.  69 degrees.  Sunny.  Greening.  Daffodils waving in the breeze.  The smell of moist earth as soon as you walk out the door.  As metaphor, This is the day that the Lord has made works well for me.

Which reminds me.  I have a pension with the Presbyterian church.  I’ve not claimed it yet, won’t for at least a couple of years, maybe more, but still I want the info.  Went on the website and it wouldn’t let me on.  Sent two e-mails.  No reply.  Called this morning and the first one hung up just as a person came on the line.  Gosh.  Maybe they don’t like me since I quit?  Turns out that’s partly true.  According to the person on the phone inactive, terminated folks like me can’t access our information on the web because there are too many of us.  An interesting factoid.  Turns out they’ll answer any questions by phone.  I hate the phone.

Decided on objects for my spanish arts tour.  I start in the arts of the americas where I have chosen a very nice statue of CHALCHIUHTLICUE, goddess of rivers and streams, wife of Tlaloc, the rain god and patroness of women in childbirth and the gold objects from Mesoamerica.  Reading about her and Mexica (Aztec/Nahuatl) gods and goddesses got me interested again in the whole pantheon and the elaborate system of sacrifices that made their faith tradition go.  With these two objects we’ll discuss the cultural traditions the Spanish wiped out, then we’ll head over to Goya’s wonderful Dr. Arrieta, my favorite piece in the museum right now.  From there in to Africa and the Goya inspired Sleep of Reason by Nigerian expat, Yinka Shonibare and after that up the stairs to another personal favorite, Morales’ Man of Sorrows.  El Greco follows and after that onto surrealism with Dali and perhaps a stop at the most famous Spanish artist of all, Picasso.  Should be fun.

Did some more Sententiae Antiquae, ancient sentences.  You know, one of those days.

Oh, one other very cool thing.  I figured out how to stream Netflix onto the TV threw Kate’s Wii.

Art and Culture, Humanities, Weather +Climate

PostModern? Oh, Yeah? Prove it.

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Spring                                              Awakening Moon

It’s been a long, long dry spell.  We’ve had no appreciable rain or snow since ()  and the garden has begun to show it.  The daffodils have come up a bit stunted, many still in the ground would have popped long ago if they had the moisture.  Our irrigation system doesn’t start up until late April.  I may give’em a call and see if we can move it up, but that means I have to fix the netaphim Rigel and Vega chewed up at the end of last growing season.  Gotta be done anyhow.

Until Now has me cranked up into steep learning curve mode.  I’ve had the first two lectures, another one comes up next week as do walk-throughs for Art Remix and Until Now.  Before then I have to get my head into the new artists and the new art, read a good bit.  Look at the art.  Read some more.  Write a little. Peck a little.  This should be fun, a new universe of art and artists to explore, many of them working with enlightenment ideas, especially the idea of the modern and the so-called post-modern.

That’s another rabbit hole I’m going to drop into again.  Post-modernism.  I started getting into when I did my D. Min. thesis back in 1990.  Since then, I’ve read a good deal about post-modernism.  The content of the term still eludes me.  Perversely, it has made me very interested in modernism.  That happened because I decided I needed to understand modernism to understand what folks claim about post-modernism.  Seems logical, but I’ve begun to suspect that post-modernism is camouflage for other ideas, especially an assault on the nature of truth claims.  Bet you can’t wait to find out what I learn.

Into the MIA today for two tours, both highlights.  I did a highlights collection of things I already know well because this was a busy week for me.  Besides, I’m putting my energy now into the Until Now/Art Remix.

Weather +Climate

A Traitorous Thought

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Spring                                         Awakening Moon (the moon phase is now available on this page elsewhere)

I saw an outdoor digital thermometer yesterday, on some bank, that read 76.  76.  We have 76 predicted for a high today, too.  76.  We have the moist, earthy smell and approximate temperature of Hawai’i. 76.

(Molokini on a day when the temperature was 76.  High yesterday in Princeville was 75.)

A traitorous thought crossed my mind yesterday as I rode along with the window down, taking deep breaths of the soil laden scents.  This is pretty nice.  Maybe this could happen early like this every year.  Even more traitorous.  I tried to remember the cold, the bleak midwinter and I could not recall why I liked it so much.  Then again.  This may be, probably is, living in the now.  It’s nice when the temperature is moderate, the air moist and the sky blue.  Just like it’s nice when the sky is crystalline, the earth white and the temperature well below zero.

Today though whatever the outside world has to offer my head will be plunked firmly back in the days of Augustus, Ovid and Caesar.  Today, Wheelock Ch. 10, 4th declension verbs and -io verbs of the 3rd declension.  Vale!

Weather +Climate

March the Lamb

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Spring                                                 Waxing Awakening Moon

All signs point to a historic meteorological March here in the north country.  No snow.  None.  Nada.  Null.  Only 6 nights below freezing and not one day when we claimed the lowest temps in the US.  El Nino is the culprit says meteorologist Paul Douglas.  It’s strange and has the plants and gardeners all confused.

Got a late start today, so it’s almost lunch time and I just had breakfast.  Unusual.  Gotta get my to-do lists in order and revise that presentation for tomorrow.

Art and Culture, Bees, Garden, permaculture, Weather +Climate

Echoes of Narcissus

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Imbolc                                     New Moon (Awakening)

An all day Latin day, this time 3rd conjugation verbs, the notorious bad boys of Latin grammar.  Due to a weak vowel they got jiggered around by spoken Latin until they’ve become most unusual, irregular in some ways.  Got remember the paradigms for present, future and imperfect.  Just gotta remember.  Latin has become easier and harder, reflecting, I suppose, past learning and present state of ignorance.  It is true though that I have begun to be able to read sentences without looking up a single word. That’s pretty exciting.

Ovid here I come.  Of course, that’s Owid to English speaker’s ears.  I have a plan to put my Latin and my affection for Ovid to good use.  When I get closer to its realization, I’ll let you know.

Talked to Mark Nordeen.  He has some pollen patties and has agreed to give me one for the live hive.  I’m gonna see him tomorrow.  Then, in April, I’ll hive the package bees and wait until mid-May to divide the new one, feeding and caring for both of them in the interim.  Kate has volunteered to be assistant apiarist.  Her first job involves whacking together ten hive boxes, eight supers plus frames and foundations.  It will be fun to have help.

All the fruit trees are now visible.  No rabbit or vole damage on any of them.  That’s a relief because I was exasperated at the end of the last growing season–trying to keep Rigel and Vega in the yard, then out of the gardens.  As a result, I didn’t put up the hardware cloth protective barriers around them.

It hit 64 here yesterday and its 56 today.  Geez.  The sun feels good.  When I walked out to pick up the mail today, I felt warmth on my neck.  It surprised me.