Monthly Archives: May 2010

Family, Health

One Hip Gal

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Beltane                                  Waning Flower Moon

Kate and I went into see Dr. Heller this morning in his offices at 7o1 25th St. next to the old St. Mary’s Hospital.  His P.A. came in with a small bag, about the size of a medium woman’s purse.  It was rectangular, had a zipper and was black.  He unzipped it and took out various pieces of metal and plastic.  In the correct combination these round and angular components will constitute a new hip for Kate on the right side.  He fitted them together explaining how they worked and the benefits of minimally invasive hip surgery.

Kate’s a candidate and has a procedure scheduled for June 30th.  We are both very happy.  In the traditional hip replacement surgery, about 98% of all of them, a the surgeon cuts a long slice along the hip down the thigh.  This goes through muscle.  It is the healing process for this injured muscle that creates a lot of the hassle post-op for hip replacements.  In minimally invasive they make two small incisions, 2 inches and 1.5 inches, and do the whole procedure through them, guided by x-ray.

These incisions go between muscles so there is no muscle healing required.  This means there are no restrictions–NO RESTRICTIONS–after going home.  The procedure takes an hour, two-three days in the hospital, then you walk out like the lame guy they lowered through the hole in the roof in the New Testament.  Only this procedure costs a lot more.

Dr. Heller looks to be late 40’s, early 50’s.  He’s fit, shaves his head and has a confident, upbeat manner.  He should.  He’s done 1020 of these operations and his recovery numbers in terms of negative sequelae are better than the national average.

This has a strangely ironic undertone for me since I spent the 80’s working with the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood, the very one on which Heller’s office sits, first trying to stop Keith Heller from building 25,000 housing units there, then building neighborhood scale ones instead.

Woolly Mammoths

Late for Dinner

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Beltane                                Waning Flower Moon

Arrived at Christos at 6:30 pm, everyone had their plates in front of them and had finished.  Guess I missed the 6:00 pm memo.  I thought our time was 6:30.

We had a long discussion about bees.

Mark has an idea for a house-boat trip down the mighty Mississippi using his acquaintance with locks and the river.  Sounds fun to me.  Sign me up.  Warren is at the legislature covering health-care issues.  Scott saw an I-Max movie about the Hubble telescope that he highly recommends.

It was Frank, Paul, Bill, Scott, Mark, Warren, Stefan and myself.

A long day after a long day after a long day.  Tired now.

Art and Culture, Bees, Friends

Yeah, Mon

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Beltane                                            Waning Flower Moon

Good bee news on two fronts.  In colony 2, the child colony, I inserted the queen using the slow release method, a piece of marshmallow covering her escape route which she and her new family will eat away over the next few hours.  Hopefully, this slow entry of her pheromones into the colony will encourage this colony to accept a strange queen.  In colony 3, the one begun from the 2 pound package a bit over a week ago, I checked the frames today and found larvae.  That means the queen survived my clumsy introduction of her using the quick release method, basically shake her out on a frame and then close up the hive.

At the moment, then, I have the parent colony with two honey supers on, the child colony, the division, with a new queen, and a third colony with its new life here under way complete with a laying queen.  The parent colony should produce a good honey flow this summer.  The child colony may produce a bit of honey but its primary job is to become a colony strong enough for division next spring.  That is also the task of colony 3.  The goal is to have two parent colonies next spring and two child colonies.  If I can maintain those numbers, we should have a lot of honey, some to give as gifts and some to sell at the farmer’s market.

I added my second copper top when I put in the new queen.  Soon I’ll order a copper top for the parent colony and next spring I’ll add the fourth one.  With the polyurethaned hive boxes and  honey supers, the copper tops will make our bee yard an aesthetic addition to the place.

Earlier today I attended a docent luncheon for Michele Yates, leaving for York, Pennsylvania on June 20th or so.  Allison’s place sits near 50th and France.  Her neighbor’s house has a Sotheby’s real estate sign.  That kind of neighborhood.  Her backyard has stone landscaping and orderly plantings all in vigorous growth.  She has a gracious home and entertains with elan.

Carreen Heegaard told the story of her 1988 honeymoon, nicely timed to coincide with Hurricane Gilbert.  She and her new husband Eric had chosen Jamaica as a destination because the prices were very reasonable.  They spent the first night of their Jamaican vacation in Peewee’s Bar, perched high above the ocean, Peewee’s being one of the few nearby buildings that had concrete walls.  She described the sound of nails popping out as the train-sounding winds peeled back the corrugated roof exposing all those huddled under a long table to the pounding surf and rain.

The highlight of her story, which had many, involved their trip to the grocery store after Gilbert had passed.  In Carreen’s  words, “There we were, a Minnesotan (Eric) and a Canadian (Carreen), standing in line with a grocery cart while the store was being looted.”  Says so much about cultural variance.

Aging, Art and Culture, Bees, Family, Friends, Garden, Health, Woolly Mammoths

Man About Town

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Beltane                                    Waning Flower Moon

We were both a bit achy from yesterday’s garden-a-thon, but it’s that good kind of ache that comes from things accomplished, the kind of things outside, those things that often feel more substantial, more real than the reading and writing.

Today has busy on it, too.  In an hour there’s a going away party for Michele Yates, a sweet woman, an artist, a French citizen long ago, now American for the most part.  We’ll miss Michele, we being the docent class of 2005.  We’re a close group, again for the most part.  We met every Wednesday for two years, not to mention hours of practice tours, parties, that trip to New York, enough time to bond with each other and as a group.  Michele is part of us and she’s leaving, so we need to say good-bye.

I leave Michele’s party to visit my dermatologist, not exactly a 9 on my thrillometer, but one of those important self-care things, like teeth cleaning and annual physicals.  Dr. Pakzad, a thin, intense guy comes in white coat, hurried but kind, confident.

In between Dr. Pakzad and the Woolly restaurant evening tonight, I have to get in a nap, queen my divide and check the package colony for larvae.  It’s doable, but it will be a whir.

Tomorrow morning I’ll go with Kate for her first visit to Dr. Heller, who does the minimally invasive hip replacements.  This visit should determine whether Kate has the right pathology for a hip replacement.  I hope she does.  She throws her right leg out as she walks, trying to find a movement that doesn’t cause pain.  With no luck.

37

The Way takes no action, but leaves nothing undone.
When you accept this
The world will flourish,
In harmony with nature.

Nature does not possess desire;
Without desire, the heart becomes quiet;
In this manner the whole world is made tranquil.

Aging, Bees, Dogs, Faith and Spirituality, Family, Friends, Garden, Great Work, Humanities, Our Land and Home, permaculture

Home

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Beltane                                     Waning Flower Moon

There is here the action:  taking the hive tool and wrenching loose the propolis, moving the frame, all the while bees buzzing and whirring, digging into the soil, placing the leeks in a shallow trench, the sugar snap peas in their row, inoculant on top of them, around them.  The plants move from pot to earth home, their one and true place where they will root, work their miracle with light and air.  The dogs run, chase each other.  Vega plops herself down in the water, curling herself inside it, displacing the water, getting wet.

There is, too, this other thing, the mating of person and place, the creation of memories, of food, of homes for insects and dogs and grandchildren, for our lives, we two, on this strange, this awesome, this grandeur, life.  This happens, this connection, as a light breeze stirs a flower.  It happens when a bee stings, or a dog jumps up or leans in, when Kate and I hug after a day of making room for  more life here.

In a deep way it is unintended, that is, it happens not because it is willed, but because becoming native to a place is like falling in love, a surprise, a wonder, yet also a relationship that requires nurture, give and take.  In a deep way, too, it is intended, that is, we want to grow vegetables, flowers, fruit, have room for our dogs and for our family, for our friends.  The intention creates the space, the opening where the unintended occurs.

Sixteen years Kate and I have lived here.  A long time for us.  Now though, we belong here.

Bees, Garden, Great Work, permaculture

Getting Things Ready

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Beltane                                       Waning Flower Moon

After checking the parent colony with the queen excluder in, I found larvae in the top hive box.  That’s evidence of the queen.  That meant I shifted the middle hive box over to the new foundation and bottom board.  A syrup feeder pail went on top of the new, child colony.  This calms everything down and allows for a peaceful slow release of the queen tomorrow.  Leaving the queen excluder on the hive box in which I discovered larvae, I put two honey supers on it and replaced the inner cover and the telescoping outer cover.  The parent colony now has two hive boxes, one with a queen and brood, plus the other, lower box, which will get reversed on top in 7-10 days.

Tomorrow I’ll check the package colony for larvae a second time.  If they have none, I’ll have to get another queen for them soon.  If there is no queen in the hive, the lack of her pheromones turns on egg laying in the workers, but, since they’re not fertilized they produce only drones.  Once a hive converts to worker egg-laying apparently you have to start over.

This has been a busy couple of weeks for the bees.  Kate’s been making supers and frames and hive boxes, too.  If the divide and the package colony take, things will calm down for a while until the honey flow ends.  Then, there’s an end of the whole process I haven’t encountered.  Honey.

Two more bags of composted manure on the leek/sugar pod pea bed, another on the sun trap and a lot of planting.  The herb spiral has the herbs Kate bought Friday at Mickman’s.  I also planted beets, mustard greens, fennel, onions and a pepper plant in the sun trap.  The tomatoes and other peppers will go there, too.  Those two beds, along with the other bed where I have green onions plants along with radicchio, beets from seed and thyme will be our kitchen garden for the growing season.

Kate did a lot of weeding, including the blueberry patches.  It really makes a difference to have her focused on that aspect of gardening.  She’s also in charge of pruning which has its on rules.

The leeks, onions, kale, chard, garlic, parsnips, butternut squash, other beets and carrots will also be available during the growing season of course, but most of these will get canned or dried or frozen for the winter.

I would not like to do the cost accounting on these vegetables and the fruit because the two fences and Ecological gardens have created a lot of sunk costs.  It will take years for them to zero out the costs, more years, I imagine, than we have left in this house.  In our case, of course, that’s not the big point.  The big point is a more sustainable and healthy lifestyle and in that regard the cost accounting has already tilted in our favor.

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.

Bees, Cooking

El Camino Real

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Beltane                                                 Waning Flower Moon

Groceries this morning.  I had to get some items for a 13 bean chili recipe I had underway.  It was a lot of beans and it made a lot of chili.  A lot.  I finished that up after I got home.

A nap, then I had to attend to a mission royale.   This involved a forty-mile journey out to Stillwater to pick up her highness, a marked Minnesota Hygienic queen.  Turns out queens travel with a retinue, a few workers to keep her company while in her wooden cage.  As her court and the queen rode beside me on the way back to the Andover, the buzzing grew louder.  My guess is that they don’t like being in motion.

They go in the division tomorrow, the part of the division with no larvae.  Until then, the queen has to be kept warm and away from the sunlight.  Kate opened the lid of the grand piano and her majesty now rests on the sounding board of a Steinway.  The melody, however, comes from her court musicians.

A long workout with the speed cranked up, well, not real far, but enough to make me tired and resistance and flexibility work, too.  Later tonight we’ll skype with the grandkids, see what that Ruthie is up to now.

Faith and Spirituality, Great Wheel, Holidays, Humanities

Beltane: 2010

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Beltane                               Waning Flower Moon

The old Celtic calendar divided the year into two seasons, Summer and Winter.    Summer began on Beltane, May 1st, and ended at Samhain, Summer’s End, at October 31st.  Summer is the growing season, the time when a subsistence farming economy like that of the Celts in Britain and Ireland raised food stuffs that had to last throughout the long, fallow season of  Winter.

As my inner journey has  changed over the years since Alexandria, Indiana and my received Methodist Christianity the wisdom of these early earth based faith traditions means more and more to me.   The technology of food raising and preservation has changed dramatically, it is true, but the human need for food has not.  We still need enough calories to sustain us throughout our day and most of those calories still start out in the form of plant material.

Taoism emphasizes conforming our lives to the movement of heaven.  At its most obvious level this means making the rhythms of our lives congruent with what the Celts called the Great Wheel of the Seasons.  If you care for flowers, have a vegetable garden or raise bees, then the biological imperative of their seasonal needs tends to pull you into the season.  If you enjoy the gradual and beautiful transition in Minnesota from the growing season to the depths of Winter, the cool days and leaves may call you outside, perhaps to hunting and fishing, perhaps to hiking and birdwatching, perhaps just for the changing colors.  As fall changes to winter, you may, like the bears, begin to  hibernate, turn away from the cold and begin to do inside work.

Taoism also encourages us to conform our lives to the possibilities of the moment.  That is, when standing in a river, pushing it back upstream is foolish, but it is possible to dig channels for it and divert it’s energy.

The Great Wheel is often seen as a metaphor for the human journey:  baby (spring), youth (summer), adulthood (fall), elderhood (winter).  The tao of human life is to act as the moment in life you are in suggests.  A twist on this might be to consider what the adult stage finds calling to it when the season of summer is upon us.  There are many levels.

Beltane offers us a chance to reflect on those things in our lives that have begun to take on real form, that seem poised for a season of growth.  In my case bee-keeping and the translation project come to mind.  I’ve done preliminary work with both of them and it may just be this summer that they grow into regular parts of my ongoing journey.    I hope so.

Whatever it is for you, whatever things in your life  need a long hot summer for maturation, give it to them.  This is the movement of heaven.

Kate’s colleague Dick, whom I have mentioned occasionally here, has come close to the end of his painful last days.  The cancer has proved more than his body and the medical wisdom we have now could defeat.  What comes to maturation for him in these first days of summer is the whole of his life and the transition of death.  None of us know what lies on the other side of the grave, or even if there is another side, but all lives end.  Vale, Dick.