You can tell the ends are purple, right? She was happy with it yesterday. It's smack dab in the middle of summer so it's the right time to do fun stuff like that. I didn't get it as dark as I could have, but we still have most of the tube left......we'll see how she feels about it today.

Alina's friend was looking at the cabbages in the garden yesterday, pointed to them and said "What's that all about?"
I said "I assume you mean the pantyhose? All normal people do that."
It's to keep the bugs out. And it does a pretty good job, too! But they do get holes in them eventually, and bugs do crawl in eventually. I am on a mission to do something with these today, so I am looking up fun cabbage stuff as soon as I'm off of here!

This is the honey we ended up with last week! I have sold it all, already.

Troy went noodling again on Friday, I went with him, and this time he got his fish. About a 40 lb Flathead. He was so excited to share it, we had to stop at everyone's house on the route home (that he knows) to show it off. So we were late getting home, it got dark, and he had to clean the fish on a big plastic Rubbermaid tub in the yard wearing a ball cap with a light clipped onto it. Not ideal. But we eventually got it in the freezer. So, he's satisfied for now.

 

He installed this beautiful gate on Friday, earlier in the day.

On Saturday he demonstrated at a tractor and engine show in Pittsburg, like he has for the past several years. I love to watch him demonstrate for the kids that come through. He talks about how you couldn't go buy stuff at Walmart in the old days, somebody had to make stuff like forks, spoons, nails to build your house with. Then he pounds out a nail, dips it in water and drops it in a kid's hands.
But a lot of old men stop by too, to talk about the old blacksmiths they use to take their plow shares to.

And we found some people there who made and sold cord survival bracelets, so we bought one for me, Troy, Kalyn, Carrie and Madison. Just in case we run into trouble on our hiking trip in Peru.

Alina also came home on Wednesday night last week. They had to stay an extra night in North Carolina due to storms on the east coast interfering with travel connections to get home. She has been keeping very busy ever since, spending a day at Farlington Lake one day, swimming with her cousin and a friend late into the night last night, hitting the RBI that ended her game the other night! Today we dip dyed the ends of her hair purple, just for summer fun.

And she's been worrying over the weather when we travel to Colorado next week. 

See:

Aye, aye, aye! 

Take a look at the cake Kalyn made for Dyson yesterday for his 19th birthday.

The flag says 19. It's the 19th hole! She is so clever. Love that she told Susan the day before that she would make him a cake, thought of something cute, and never stressed about getting it done.

At the moment, Alina is complaining that I need to feed her (Ahhh, summer!) So I will tend to my child now. Will update tomorrow!

Honey!

So I mentioned last night that Charlie's hive was full of honey. After work today Troy decided to check ours. It's not ready yet.

I like the way he used the geranium tower as a hat rack when he put on the bee suit.

Since we knew Charlie's was ready to rob and he already had the bee suit out, and I really wanted to take pictures, we headed over to Charlie's.

We took a big plastic tub with us to collect the frames that were full of honey. He pulled them out and knocked off the bees. There was also a little bit of angry bee chasing going on, but since I was one of the people being chased, and I did not have a bee suit on, I don't have pictures of that.

Then we took the frames to the shop to extract the honey from the frames.

The bees cap off the cells of the honeycomb after they fill them with honey. That's when you know it's ready to harvest. But you have to scrape off the wax cap with a knife to extract the honey. Troy wants to leave the honeycomb itself intact so when the frames are reinserted into the hive, the bees can simply repair it and reuse it. Otherwise they spend a lot of time and energy rebuilding the honeycomb, rather than making honey. And nobody wants that.

Then he scrapes both sides of the frames with a wire comb to make sure none of the cells are still capped. Then two frames at a time can go into the big spinner.

And then we spin the honey out.

And we flip the frames around and spin some more.

These are the extracted frames that will go back into the hive.

 And this is honey flowing from a spickett into a two gallon bucket when we were finished.

It's filtered through mesh to remove pieces of wax and any dead bees that might have gotten in there.

We still have to put them in jars, which is my project for tomorrow. But how exciting!

Waiting

Today:

These chairs are waiting for the sun to dry out their cushions.

This cabbage is waiting to be blanched and frozen.

 

This dog is waiting to be fed. (Was, I fed him.)

This bed is waiting to be slept in tonight.

This mama is waiting for her Alina to return home!

Beekeeping

Earlier tonight I was looking at pictures on facebook of people riding a bike trail across Missouri and I told Troy that I thought that was something I want to do.
I said "Those people look just like me."
"You mean gorgeous?" He very sweetly and wisely asked.
It wasn't what I meant. I meant that they looked like people who weren't in terribly good shape, but just enjoyed being outside and active.
"I think if they can do it, I can too. At the worst I will be sore by the very end of the ride but I think I can live with that."
And he said "Hey, Jack, if you want to get honey, you're gonna get stung."

This comes from days of active beekeeping lately on his part. Last week he was at his mom's helping with cattle when he and his mom noticed her bees were swarming and he had to move them to a new hive. Then on Saturday he, Kalyn, Helen and I were driving a couple hours away to Nixa, Missouri to pick up bees they ordered at a hardware store when he got a call from his dad that the bees at his house were swarming. The bee guy at the hardware store also got called away to pick up a swarm while we were there. Someone there said there is a lot of swarming going on right now for some reason.

Well, he wanted to have at least 10 hives by the end of summer, and with the bees he and his mom bought and the two swarms he moved, he's got them! Now we wait for honey. We bought nice glass jars at the store. We will sell them for $11.00 a 2 lb jar with a dollar deposit back if you bring the jar back!

Tonight I went with Troy to look at bees because I wanted to pick some wildflowers along the way. And take some pictures with my cell phone.

He's smoking the bees at his dad's to calm them down so he can check things out. He's not wearing a bee suit because ain't nobody got time for that! When he checked it out he discovered that this hive was full of honey!

So we headed to his mom's to check out her hives. Along the way I had Troy stop and pick flowers for me. Look at these through the truck window!

  

And then we got to some country property that we own and there were wildflowers as far as the eye can see!

 Troy said "I'm not going to drive very far in here because I'll get stuck."

But he got out and picked me some white flowers because he's a good husband. And then we saw some yellow flowers off yonder and drove just a little farther and sure enough, got stuck in the mud. So we put the truck in four wheel drive and splattered mud all over.

Mud and grass splatter on the windshield.

But look at my bucket of pretty flowers! The trip is worth it to me now.

So I tried to get a little closer to look at the honey here and I got in trouble. I heard an angry bee come out of the box and directly at me. I tried to calmly back away, but he got up by my ear and really let me know he meant business. So I tried to swat him away, but he managed to get in my hair and he stung me on the back of the neck. Troy says I shouldn't have made any sudden movement. Now you try standing still while a bee is going to sting you!

Now this has happened to Troy several times. He swells up and itches when he gets stung. I have never been stung by a honey bee before. I just felt pain as that bee kept pumping his venom into my neck.  Troy came over and pulled the stinger out for me but I swear I still felt it pumping in there. I complained about it and Troy said. "Oh it doesn't hurt, really, it doesn't. It just itches." Because apparently I don't know the difference!

I never did swell up there, though. And I tried to swallow about a hundred times to make sure that I could still, but alas, I think I am not allergic to those bees.

Which is good news, because I'm sure it will happen again. Because it's like all the other things that are worth doing in life. If you're going to try to get the honey, you're going to get stung!

Do you know what noodling is? Hillbilly hand fishing?

Pat, the guy that works with Troy, has been doing it for years. Troy, adventurous guy that he is, is fascinated with the sport. He has been able to go with Pat a few times over the past couple years in lakes and rivers in the area. He went again this weekend. This weekend was the first time Troy "got bit"!

Noodling is catching fish with your hands. Usually it's Flathead Catfish. Big ones too, like 40 lbs or larger sometimes. The males are protecting eggs on a nest in a hole somewhere, under a rock by the bank or in some kind of structure there or under a boat dock, for example. It can be in shallow water, or sometimes the guys have to dive under water to get to it. That's what Troy had to do yesterday.

Anyway, the fish is protecting the nest so he will be very aggressive and bite whatever tries to come into the hole. Troy reached in, his hand got bit, he grabbed the fish (about a 25 lb. fish) and pulled him through the tight hole. He had to sort of wrestle with the fish, so one of his fingers got pulled and twisted and his hand got pretty beat up. In the end, he wasn't able to hang onto the fish. But he was very excited to have gotten so close.

I went back with him today to the spot where it "almost happened", so he could try again. But, we got an awful lot of rain yesterday (oh, yeah, they went noodling in the rain!) and the area rivers are quite swollen. Too swollen to give it a try today, unfortunately.

This story is to be continued, as he will not rest until he has gotten one!

That's me and Troy, in front of the water falls.

Randoms....

1) I washed a lawn chair pillow in the washer and it busted open and exploded in there. The volume of stuffing and pillow is unbelievable. It takes up about 5 times the space of the original contained pillow. What a mess.

2) I am watching the weather in a different part of the country today (it's beautiful here) because Alina, her cousins and Aunt Cheryl are flying to North Carolina via Chicago and there is some weird weather event (I've heard the term "inland hurricane") going on all along their flight path. Uncertainty in travel plans always makes me nervous, even when I'm not involved, apparently.

3) I have a doctor appointment this afternoon, it is my every two year check up that includes scheduling a mammogram and all that. I was thinking this morning about the last time, which was humorous. The doctor had apologized to me about the exam room being so hot and she said the heating and air guys were coming in to fix the issue. Then, as I'm still on the exam table in my examination gown, the door suddenly opens. It was the heating and air guy! About 28 years old, wearing a ball cap, and just horrified! Not that he witnessed anything traumatic, but the thought of the possibility of it was clearly displayed on his face. We laughed so hard. Not him, but the doctor and I. You never think about anybody just barging in through the door in the exam room, everyone is always so polite and knocks before entering. But those doors aren't locked. Something to think about.

4) Here's a picture of our little girl before she left us last night.

Alina with (bad dog) Camo. We had to chase him down again last night!

 5) The problem with Camo sneaking out of the yard is not yet fixed.

Just two things on my mind this morning.

1) For Kalyn, who can not get her sleep pattern straightened out. I want to get to the bottom of it and help her sleep like a normal person should.

2) We have picked some peas and dug up some new potatoes so I am going to make cream peas and new potatoes today.

And that is all. Perhaps at some point my day will get more interesting, but that's all I've got right now.

 I'm going to brag for a minute, but then I'm going to follow it up with a good, strong dose of reality so nobody gets worked up, alright?

Loving Alina's enthusiasm for softball right now. She is constantly wanting to practice, coach says her hitting is looking good and she wanted to watch older cousin Emily play last night to see if she could get some tips. It is a shame she will miss a couple games this week and next.

Kalyn organized a team run for this morning with her cross country team. Yes! I used the word "organized" in a sentence about Kalyn. About running. In the summertime. In the morning.

Here are some pictures of my yard. This is taken from under our red bud tree in the front yard. Looking good, don't you think?

 Let's get a little closer so we can see my geraniums in the flower boxes.

 A little closer still.....

I went with salmon this year, instead of red. When we came back from Slovenia Troy made these flower boxes for me so I could put red geraniums in them just like we had seen in Europe. But I impulsively grabbed salmon instead of red this year at the nursery. Which started a whole new rebellious trend.

Compare previous years with this year:

previous years:

I have been fond of planting petunias in the space around my patio. But this year I went for kitchen herbs because
a) they smell good  (except my family hates the smell of cilantro, which is planted abundantly there)
b) they are close to my kitchen, can go cut them barefoot
c) according to some gardening magazines, they might just keep mosquitoes away while we are sitting on the patio

I have Cilantro, Traditional Parsley, Italian Parsley, Thyme, Oregano, Basil on one side and Sage, Rosemary, Dill and Peppermint on the other! And one of my projects this summer is to come up with some kind of cute markers for each of these plants. (Come on, pinterest! Help me out with this.)

See those two iron tall planters on the lower left of this  picture, at the entrance of our garden? I call them the twin towers. Anyway, I have always planted green and purple sweet potato plants in them because they take the heat very well (Did you know it gets very hot here in the summertime?) and they cascade down so beautifully.

There they are one year shortly after I planted them.

Well, it will look a little different there this year. Because I couldn't find the sweet potato plants. And I was feeling regret about not planting red geraniums, so I grabbed a couple of them to go here. And then I noticed that they are two completely different colors, one is orange actually.

So things are going very well with the girls and the yard and I even actually got in a pool at Susan's yesterday for a real taste of what a relaxing summer feels like.

Here are the girls in the pool, there will hopefully not ever be a picture of me in a pool on here.

Okay, so here is the scary reality that I promised. It's grim. Because summer isn't just for growing things and playing around and enjoying my girls. It's also about organizing all the junk in the house and trying to put together a yard sale.

 

I don't know about you, but I am hearing the scary suspense shower scene music from Psycho as I look at this picture.

This is what the front room in our house looks like right now. The room that lurks just behind the pretty salmon colored geraniums in the flower boxes. This pile is all leaving our house in some way, except the suitcase, which is going with Alina to North Carolina this week. This is my dreaded summer mission that simply must occupy the rest of my day. So I'll just be starting on that right now.