Texting

I've started a new morning routine that I think is better than what I've been doing for some months now. When Hub tumps me out on the curb at about 6:50 a.m. I now walk 1/2 block and sit down at a small round table under a covered deck that is open to the morning on all sides. There has been a breeze and a territorial mocking bird present each morning as I have begun to establish this habit. I pull out my breakfast (a scone, or dry cereal, something simple) and drink my coffee in my mug that has kept it hot since 6:00 a.m. Then, I spend a while with the LORD in His Word.

This location lacks the distractions of my office, or the Union or Jester (where I've been eating breakfast as I watch morning news routinely.) Already I've seen benefits of beginning this way. My mind is being SET on Him and not on troubles of this present world.

Yesterday, when I finished my table time with Him, I was walking up the steps toward the building and saw a girl sitting on a bench, with her legs up under her, leaning forward, with her head down. I thought, she's praying. But, when I got closer, I saw that what she was actually doing, was texting.

That, in the midst of what I was discussing with Him, gave me this!
If we are in the Word, God can 'text' us! That's how we know what He's trying to tell us. So, praying is more like a phone call with him; it has been compared to that often. But, reading His Word is like accessing His texts to us!

Now, I hope you realize that I don't even have texting with my phone; so, this analogy was purely due to what was in my mind as it was set on Him. Amen? Also, if you look at the image of her texting, you'll notice the background contains massive, substantial steps going up, and further back, a more typical, narrow narrow staircase going down into? You can't see where either goes. When we are looking to the LORD for direction, His texts will guide us upward. When we are consulting with the world, that direction is definitely a downer.

The scriptures in this post are ones He texted to me this week!

Buzzin'

I seem to be averaging about a post a month. Not that there isn't plenty to share, just that I have to get a concept first. A theme or a particular point I want to make.

This topic is Perseverance. For years Hub has talked about having some bees. I had no idea what all that involved. I suppose I was as clueless about beekeeping as he was about horsekeeping when we first entered into that together. I admit that I haven't been as supportive of his bee planning as he was about the horse enterprise. The idea of having bees seemed fine to me. I envisioned a white hive or two way WAY back in the corner of our property where I would never have to go near it. I thought you just called someone and asked them to deliver the hives to your property. You set them down wherever you wanted them sort of like a round bale.

Here is what getting bees on our property entailed:
(HUB did every single bit of this without my assistance)
1. Find out when Bee Keepers' meetings are held. Attend them. They have them in Round Rock, Brenham, Temple...Amazing to me how many beekeepers are out there. He has now attended at least four meetings (in the past two months).
2. Buy a hive. (Not the bees, just the box). Assemble it. Paint it. Prepare it. The hive he is setting up is a top-bar hive. So, there are these stick things that fit into the hive which have grooves in them. Each groove had to be filled with beeswax. Legs had to be put on the box. The box had to have three coats of paint. There had to be a "cover" made for it.
3. Purchase brood and a queen. I think this is called a Nuc (not sure of the spelling). Ordinarily, the queen, two to three pounds of bees and frames of brood are put into a temporary box for transporting home. But, since we got a different type of hive, a top-bar hive, it wasn't that simple. The fellow who sold us the "nuc" (who is near College Station) allowed Hub to bring his box home. The bees in the box had to be "smoked" (this calms them and settles them) so that the box top could be removed and sugar water could be placed inside for the bees to live on until they were transferred to the top-bar hive. The amount of time recommended for them to settle is one day. Ours ended up having to spend about 10 days in that box. It did have an opening so that they could get out for some fresh air, water and nectar from flowers and trees.
4. Set up for transfer. Hub carried a table out near the hive. On it he placed the smoker, a knife, pliers, and a plate. He put on his bee suit (which he purchased used from someone at one of the meetings). The veil and hat are all but wore out and need replacing. He had to have the veil taped tightly with masking tape so that there were no gaps. I did get to do the taping. I did miss a spot because a bee did get into the veil and sting him. Not sure how; I saw no openings. But, it was disconcerting to be given the job of protecting him and have a bee beat me.
5. Smoke the box they were in. Open the lid. Remove the ...WHAT ARE THOSE CALLED?...(I looked it up) frames one at a time. There were nine in there, I think. Take the frame to the new hive box, with a beebrush gently scrape (brush) the bees off the frame (which has comb and brood attached to it) into the new box. Take the frame to the table, cut the comb containing brood loose from the frame. Slice it into a shape that will fit into the new hive (because it isn't the same shape as the old hive). Attach this piece of comb with brood (using pliers and wire) to the support pieces in the new hive. Do it again, and again, and again, and again...Come ask your wife to please pull stinger out of your neck and retape the veil. Drink water and wipe sweat while face is exposed.
6. Now that brood and hopefully the queen are in the new hive box, close it and leave space at base for bees to squeeze in and out barely. Idea being that they should stay in the new hive for a day or so to become acclimated.
7. Carry the frames into house and squeeze honey out of the remaining comb attached to them. Filter honey. We ended up with about a pint.
8. clean up mess.

So, that's a brief summary; there was more to it. The box had to be returned to the lender. The bees seem to be accepting their new hive. The hive is about 70 feet from my porch. Hub says these are extremely gentle bees. So far they haven't stung me. Or the dogs. The cat actually went to the hive and tried to climb up to the box. It appeared that they did not mind him overmuch since he is still alive and I didn't see any swellings on him to indicate he'd been attacked.

We got our hive set up about two days before the summer solstice. The bees are ahummin' and abuzzin' out there.

Hub also has his other project now underway: his garden. There are five tomato plants and three grapevines and ... (not sure if there is anything else at the moment) growing in it.

The rain we've gotten has been wonderful! We've had a glorious spring. There is more grass than the cows can eat. They are obese. And we still have wildflowers (beefood).

Here's Rely still sporting dapples into June (usually we only have those for a few weeks in April when he first sheds out).

Night TERRORS

Wow! It has been over a month since my last post; much has happened! We took Ellie and Buck on our church trailride and had a wonderful time! Ellie is such a blast to ride! She thinks everybody is there to be her friend. Her gaits are so comfy! The pictures were taken on the day of the trailride; none of me because I was taking them. And I finally got Kevin to try her out and he agreed she's as pleasing under saddle as she is from the ground. Buck has been lording it over her, but then you have to cut him slack since this is probably the first time in his whole life when he's had a horse buddy he could push around! He's loving it! I'm hoping that as the weather gets colder he'll want to cuddle more and bully less. I could go on quite a while about our latest hay hassles and horse adventures and recent rainfall, but I actually was motivated to post by a recent experience that is a first for me!

A few nights ago (Saturday to be exact) while Kevin was off at choir practice, I came out of the barn (where we have our washer and dryer) into the deep dark of a cloudy night and less than 30 feet away from me a sound erupted which was by far the most blood-curdling, heart-stopping, gut-wrenching noise I've ever heard! I stood still, totally paralyzed, attempting to determine what on earth (or not on earth) could have emitted the cry. I was so shaken that I couldn't even replay it in my mind; I had never ever experienced anything like it; not in my worst nightmares. A few seconds later, an owl hooted in a tree above the spot the sound had come from. I was immensely relieved. I told the owl, "you just scared the s--t out of me!" I couldn't imagine how an owl, even a large one (we have barred owls on our place), could make a sound like that, but I decided he must have been projecting his voice to make it seem to come from the ground. The dogs, too, apparently were fooled. They ran barking to the spot where the cry had come from . Thinking they were wrong I called them back. I fussed at the owl for a few minutes and actually hoped he'd repeat the performance to confirm my conclusion. But, he spoke not another word and the silence was broken only by the panting dogs and my pounding heart. I went on about my evening chores making a mental note to look on the internet to see if there were other people who had been privy to an up close, personal, terrorist owl encounter.

I told Kevin when he got home about it. Then, yesterday morning I started searching on the web and listened to a variety of owl cackles, screams, hisses, clicks, hoots, ...but there was nothing remotely close to what I had heard. I spoke to a bird expert and he said that he didn't believe any owl made a noise such as I described (not that I was able to describe it very well). I said that it was VERY loud, about 2 or 3 seconds in duration, and it was unearthly. Like a banshee? He suggested a possum. I looked that up and no, not long or loud enough (although fighting coons sound like cats fighting). I know what coyotes sound like (and they can be pretty weird, too) and I am familiar with wolf howls, pig screams (we do have wild pigs around), various night birds like night hawks...but this just wasn't anything like those. I began to just try searchwords like: banshee... and up came a youtube with Eerie Fox scream. I played it and that was it! A FOX! Right up by our tackhouse, near the horse pen, only yards from our house. Hard to believe but the sound was unmistakable. I played about four more youtube clips of foxes and found in the comments left that many other people had had similar encounters with them and had come away as terrified as I. It was a huge relief to finally know what was out there. I was very grateful to the owl who had temporarily accepted the blame. His comment on the fox's scream was a blessing since I was able to just go on with my evening instead of hiding in the house waiting for Kevin to come home to cope with I knew not what! Nothing he could have done about it, either.

Go on youtube and put in Fox Screaming Eerie and after listening to that one, try Screaming Fox? On the second one, the person posting it wasn't sure what he'd recorded, but many commenters identified it for him as a fox. The part of that sound clip past the middle is exactly what I heard, only MUCH louder and closer. For those who live in the country, DO listen to this so you'll not have a heart attack if it happens to you! I have no photos to show of this; somethings just aren't visual!

Lifestyle

WHEEEE! Exuberance! Remember running or rolling down a grassy hill? Those were the days!
I'm taking a Lunch N Lose weekly seminar which has raised some questions in my mind about what amount of physical activity is optimum at my advanced age. I've learned some interesting things already (only been to two sessions). I've learned about websites which allow you to keep a food diary. Keeping one has been eye opening for me. I knew already that being of small stature, and post menopausal, and somewhat sedentary, my caloric requirements were much diminished from my youthful years, but, tracking calories and comparing my intake to what I'm burning through my daily activities, is actually fun. I really like being able to list what I've eaten, see the resulting total and then apply the activities to see how many calories I'm burning over and beyond what I've taken in. Math folks may yawn here. If I'm supposed to stay under 1500 calories a day (and I am supposed to) and my lifestyle requires 2100 a day (for functioning), then the difference of 600 calories is drawn from storage and burned every day. So, if I just did the daily minimum, I'd lose a pound a week. But, I've been averaging 800 more I'm utilizing once I figure in the rest of my activities. That translates into 1-2 pounds a week I can lose if I'll keep puttering!

I've also realized, that if I were to do more weightbearing exercise (like if we lived nearer the grandkids and were lugging them about)
or if the "uphill" walking I do were in NH in the dead of winter
or if I were rounding up horses and harnessing them and walking behind them as they plowed, that would burn more calories that casually tossing them hay and grain...

but, it is still gratifying to see that I do get credit for the walks round campus, doing the laundry, feeding animals, even taking a shower!
I can't eat like a lumberjack, but I am getting some productive exercise. I'm realizing that steaming and grilling food allows some of the fat to just run right off. Twice I've let the water boil out of the pan under the steamer basket and the resulting black syrupy stuff sticking to the bottom of the pan is sugar that I didn't consume! Sugar from lima beans!