Lughnasa Waxing Back to School Moon
Finished digging the potatoes. The crop seems smaller than last year’s, but I can’t tell for sure. Still, we don’t eat potatoes often and we have enough to last us quite awhile. Kate made an early autumn roast vegetable medley with onions, carrots, leaks, garlic, beets and one potato I pierced with the spading fork. It was delicious. So was the raspberry pie–of which we have two. Our raspberry bushes have been exuberant. We’ve still got leeks, greens, beets, carrots and squash in the ground. Some of it will stay in the ground until the frost and freeze gets serious. I made a mistake last year with the carrots and didn’t get them out before the ground froze. They became organic matter for the soil. We also left our entire potato crop out in our garage stair well. When the temps dropped down, way down, the potatoes froze, then thawed. Not good for potatoes. We’re trying to not make those mistakes this year. We’ll make new ones!
Working with Leslie today reminded me of the punch there is in ministry. Yes, the institutional confines squeeze life out of faith, but the individuals, the people can put it back. She asked me an interesting question. We got to talking about Christianity and she wondered, “Do you miss it?” I’m not sure anyone has asked just that question of me. I don’t, not at a faith level.
I miss the thick web of relationships I once had there. I miss the opportunity to do bible study. That may sound strange, but higher criticism of the bible is a scholarly affair requiring history, language, knowledge of mythology and tradition, sensitivity to redactors (editors), an awareness of textual differences, as well as a knowledge of the bible as a whole. I spent a lot of time learning biblical criticism and I enjoyed it. Not much call for it in UU or humanist circles though.
By the time my nap finished it was too late to put the shims in the hives. I hope there’s some clear, sunny time tomorrow. Also need to put the feeder back on the package colony.
The Vikings. Not sure. Favre needs some better wide receivers, yes. The defense played well. Adrian Peterson did, too. It felt as if we were outcoached the last two games. Not sure about that, that’s a murky area to me, but something doesn’t feel quite right.
house where I pushed in the cork at the end of her wooden home, inserted a marshmallow (tiny) into it firmly, then opened the divide, took off the honey filled top hive box and inserted the queen in the middle of the second box. This is called a slow release. The queen and her workers eat away the marshmallow from one side, workers in the hive from the other. Over the time this process takes, so the theory goes, the new queen becomes less threatening to the workers, who then allow her to come out and become their new monarch. If it doesn’t work, they kill her. I won’t check for another week.
get from honey supers to bottled honey, most of which will go in canning jars, but some will go in fancy jars as gifts or to sell at a farmer’s market. This is the next to last phase of beekeeping and one still new to me. The last phase of beekeeping comes after the honey extraction. The colonies will need inspection for varroa mites and nosema before late fall. Doing this stuff is also new to me, but I have to learn at some point.
weeks ahead, at least that stuff that I got in the ground at temperature, but not date, appropriate times. I know, this is weather and that’s climate, still, one measure of the advance of global warming is earlier springs, which bring earlier plant blooming cycles. Of course, one year is not a trend.