Day #169 Gotta Lighten Up

Okay. I’m tired of grumping about the rain and worrying about what it’s doing to bees throughout the area. And the birds shaking off their wet feathers and trying to find food. And the various animals, and people, too, who are caught unavoidably in the rain.

So, here are some pictures I took last week to remind us all that weather does change if we wait long enough.  

Delphinums as Epcot Center,  and

a friend I met underground at Animal Kingdom

BEEattitude for Day # 169:

       Blessed are the patient, for they shall eventually be recompensed.

One thing Fran is grateful for right now:

       The camera Millie loaned to me for my trip   

http://www.franstewart.com


And now a note about the devastation in Japan:
My good friend Doug Gazlay, who is a musician/writer/producer in Atlanta, has composed a "SongForJapan" to help raise money for relief efforts there. If you'd like to download the music from CDBaby, a hefty portion of the proceeds goes to a good cause. Here's a link to the song trailer.

Day #168 Rain, Rain, Rain

Other than a short break on Sunday, just long enough for me to dig up those hostas, it’s been raining since last Saturday, and I just read that it’s supposed to keep going, with thunderstorms no less, at least through Thursday.

Other than the inconvenience of trying to keep the bird feeders filled without getting the seed soaked, rainy days have never bothered me. All in all, I enjoy cloudy days and rainy days. Maybe it’s because I have vitiligo, a condition where there is little or no melanin in the skin, so there’s nothing to protect me from the burning rays of the sun. I go through most of the year with long sleeves or a sunbrella. Yes, that’s a word. I invented it.

The floods in 2009 weren’t any fun, but my neighborhood was safe, even when the creek that runs through my back yard grew from a gentle two feet wide to a raging torrent that I measured (after the floods were over) at more than 50 feet wide. It was easy to measure. The plants were all bent sideways

But now, with my bees arriving in a couple of weeks, I’m beginning to see rain in a different way. If my bees were here, now, in all this rain, at the end of winter with their honey stores somewhat depleted before the strong nectar and pollen flows begin, they’d be pretty unhappy, fairly restless, and possibly awfully hungry.

Think about it. If you can’t fly in the rain because the water weighs down your wings, and you’re stuck in one room with 20 or 30 thousand sisters, wouldn’t you get a bit grumpy?

BEEattitude for Day # 168:

       Blessed are those who are patient, for they shall eventually get what they need.

One thing Fran is grateful for right now:

       The squirrel-guards on the birdfeeder poles. So far, they’ve kept the squirrels on the ground, cleaning up the fallen seed.   

http://www.franstewart.com

Day #98 Rain

Well, first it snowed, and now it's raining, and I'm wondering how bees get by in a downpour.

I'm pretty sure a lot of bees don't make it back to the hive when it rains, since they can't fly with wet wings. Imagine how much a drop of water must weigh compared to a whisper-light bee wing. And they'd probably get pretty cold without their sisters to cluster with.

Boy, do I take my roof and my furnace for granted!

BEEattitude for Day # 98:

       Blessed are those who build hive bodies for us, for they shall sleep well, knowing they are saving us bees.

One thing Fran is grateful for right now:

       Cool-Ray Heating and Air, the folks who put in my good furnace.

http://www.franstewart.com/

Day #69 Bees, rain, and geese

Saturday morning it rained and rained and rained.

If I were a bee, I'd have a problem with that. Bees with wet wings can't fly. That's why some beekeepers spray their bees with sugar syrup to calm them down. I'm not sure it calms them; it simply immobilizes them.

So, what am I going to do next Spring when I get my bees if it rains for days on end, the way it did in Atlanta last year? Feed them, for sure, and hope they have the good sense to come in out of the rain and stay dry.

The trouble is, I like cloudy, rainy days. It's my vitiligo -- I have no melanin in my skin, so I can't tan, and I sunburn easily. That means that what I like is different from what my bees will like.

 I don't even have them yet, and I'm worrying about them like a mother goose clucking at her goslings.

Quack!

BEEattitude for Day # 69:

       Blessed are those who plants lots of flowers and vegetables, for their yards shall be well-pollinated.

One thing Fran is grateful for right now:

       Sunny days in the winter and cloudy days in the summer.