Life is a banquet!

No bees for me in 2013

I'm halfway through the BUMBA beekeeping class and I've decided after much consideration that I'm not going to get bees this year. The closer I got to having to make a decision, the more I realized that I wasn't ready.  

• I had a hive to design and build or buy. 
• I had a porch to repair and paint (where the hive will go)
• I had new local beekeeping legislation to understand and comply with.  
• and all the non-beekeeping prep things that I need to get done this month including our 2012 taxes.

On top of that, my schedule was such that I didn't have time between now and the early-April arrival of my bees in the mail to have everything ready. The clincher was that the main package bee supplier to the club reported that he and most bee suppliers were already sold out for the Spring. If my heart were really into it I would have immediately started scouring the web for other sources of bees. But instead, I just felt a sense of relief.  

With that big decision behind me, I'm happy to enjoy the rest of the class, keep reading about beekeeping, and plan to volunteer to help out as many neighborhood beekeepers as I can to get lots of practice before I get my own hive...next year!

Bitten by the Quilting Bug

Just as I feared, it happened.  After years of fending off the temptation to take up quilting, I succumbed.

It started innocently enough last Fall. I was scrolling through Pinterest when I spotted this very cool looking quilt by Daniel Rouse. It was like falling into a rabbit hole. Soon Pinterest led to thousands of quilt photos on Flickr.  Those led me to blogs written by witty, creative and thoughtful quilters.  The more I read, the more I thought I could give it a try. Many of them posted tutorials and instructions for how to make some of their marvelous quilts. They made it look so easy! 

All the while I was scanning, scrolling and reading, I was falling in love with fabrics. So many colors, patterns, styles and attitudes to choose from. I was drawn to the modern style quilts with their irregular shaped motifs paired with sassy color choices. This isn't your grandmother's quilting! 

The final straw was discovering spoonflower.com - a print on-demand fabric (and more) online store. That is when I discovered the Doctor Who themed fabrics. I was smitten! I've got an idea for my next quilt. It is going to be fun. And yes, it will incorporate some of these kinds of fabrics from spoonflower!

Finished: My First Quilt!

I'm absolutely delighted to announce that I've finished my very first quilt. The photo really doesn't do the colors justice but I couldn't wait for a perfectly sunny day to take a picture outside.

How long did it take me? Not long! It took a few months to figure out what I needed for materials, where to find things, practice a few techniques, make and recover from a few mistakes and learn how to piece everything together. I am so pleased with the results. It was so much fun to explore a new creative outlet and work through the technical processes on this project.  I'm already itching to make another quilt.

 

Finished!

 

This baby-sized quilt is 40 inches square. The fabric on the front was purchased at our local Hobby Lobby and the fabric for the binding and quilt back were from Quiltin' Country, a wonderful fabric store in Killeen, Texas.  The folks at Qultin' Country were so friendly and helpful when I stopped in to browse on my drive from Austin to Dallas in January.  I am looking forward to ordering more fabric from this store.

Now for pictures of the quilt in progress.

My first quilt square

Quilt squares nearly done, trying out layouts

Laying out the design with white sashing

Closeup of the green binding

Photo of the fun fabric on the back and the quilting stitches

One last photo before going in the laundry

 

Keeping bees is getting closer to reality

On Thursday I moved one more step closer to making my beekeeping fantasy a reality. I attended the first session of a six-week course on beekeeping. We'll be in the classroom for six weeks and then in mid- to late-march, we'll go on a field trip to a local apiary to handle bees for ourselves. I've got lots of decisions to make in the next few weeks:

• what kind of hive will I get? I am leaning towards a top bar hive because I like the simplicity of the construction. It is something I can build myself. And, it will be easier for me to manage because it won't be as heavy as the more traditional Langstroth style hive. There are some disadvantages to going with this style mainly that it isn't widely used in this area so I won't have many beekeepers to call on if I need help or have questions. See the photos below to see the two styles.
• what kind of bees will I get? There are different kinds of bees and they have different properties. Some are known as calmer bees, some are known good producers, others are what is known as "hygenic." Hygenic bees are more vigilant at keeping themselves and their hive clean of parasites and other unwanted items.  Lots of decisions to make but not a lot of time. I've got to order my bees now to guaranty delivery by the end of March/early-April
• how many hives should I start? Before I took the class on Thursday I figured I'd just have one hive, but the instructors advocated I should get two so that I can compare them and have a safety net if one of my hives fails. It is something I hadn't considered but I am thinking seriously about.

In the meantime, I'm voraciously reading up as much as I can so I can take the best care possible of the 10,000-20,000 bees that I'll be responsible for in a couple of months!

Last, one very important thing I also need to do is figure out the new Washington, DC City regulations on beekeeping. I want to make sure that I'm doing everything on the up-and-up and my neighbors know and are comfortable with my project.  Fingers crossed!

 

Langstroth hives

Top Bar Hive

 

My Social Media Diet

Lately I've been feeling sick of social media. I did it to myself. Like a kid who has been given the keys to a candy store, I was gorging myself on it. Every time I needed a break or wanted a break or was bored I reflexively turned to my facebook or twitter feed. It was making me unproductive and encouraging me to think in 140 character sound bites.   It really got to the breaking point when I discovered the Daily Mail online.  I became a voracious reader of sensationalist news about people I didn't know and who were not doing anything meaningful that I needed to know about (e.g., "Will & Kate on Babymoon!" "Ellen & Portia & Katy Perry's Boobs at the Grammys!"). 

On Monday I declared to myself that I would go on a social media diet.  No checking Facebook or Twitter or Pinterest or blogs or even news websites during the day.  I turned off the social media notifications on my phone too. The silence was deafening. I was so used to this visual and mental chatter running all day that it was striking to have it cut off cold turkey, but I pressed on.

It turns out I had a super-productive day. Sure, there were many times that I wanted to post something to my friends and tweeps, things like:

• MasterCard's fraud protection service rocks - they just spotted three 16 cent charges from "Expedia France" on my credit card and sent me 3 text messages, an email and called all 3 phone numbers they had for me to let me know!
• Who has a good source of bingo cards for State of the Union Bingo tonight?
• Leftover chai cake with ginger butter cream icing = breakfast of champions!
• Having a productive day since I went on my social media diet

So now Lent has officially started and I think I've found what I'll be giving up this year.  Lent is a time of contemplation, a time to try and silence the noise of our world.  I'm going to use this time to focus more on fewer things and spend meaningful time with the people who matter most to me. And I'm going to try and share my thoughts and experiences more fully here on my blog. 

Spring is Coming!

 

Daffodils emerging in the garden

I took Echo out for a lunchtime walk and discovered that our daffodils have been busy.  And looking at the bare branches of trees outside my window I see that buds are beginning to swell too. I'd better start thinking about getting some garden seeds started on the windowsill!

 

 

Long time no blog

Somehow nearly two years have passed since I last blogged. I guess life gets busy. 

The past two years have brought some big changes in my life. In March 2011, our dear dog Gemma died.  She was 13 and had an inoperable tumor.  It was tough to say goodbye. 

In September 2011 my company was acquired by a private equity firm and they made lots of changes. One of them was to have a layoff of 90+ folks (including me) right before Thanksgiving.

Being laid off ended up being one of the best things to happen to me. It forced me to explore new opportunities, career paths, and more. In the end I got a great job with a fabulous company, a wonderful boss and fantastic team! That said, the five months I spent searching for a job was probably the most stressful period of my entire life.  I learned a lot during this period - about myself and about my support network of friends and family. While I don't recommend unemployment as a general rule, if you find yourself unemployed, think of it as a character-building experience.  I might blog about some of my lessons learned in a future post.

Just days before getting my layoff notice, we found out that a litter of Airedale terrier puppies had been born to Gemma's breeder.  It was great to have a new puppy to look forward to. And, as it turned out, our puppy Echo turned out to be a welcome companion as I spent hours at home researching jobs, networking online, and doing phone interviews.  Her boundless energy meant that we generally took 3 walks a day and averaged about 7 miles of hikes around Capitol Hill.  Echo is now 14 months old and still full of boundless energy!

In May 2012 I started a new job.  The Education company I work for has offices all over the world but I am lucky in that I work from home.  Most of my colleagues work out of their own home offices all around the country. While I miss the office banter and face to face fun that the office environment brings, there are many advantages to working from home. For example, the commute I have to my attic home office can't be beat!

This Spring I'm looking forward to learning how to sew clothes, expand my nascent quilting hobby, getting my garden started, and diving into my new beekeeping hobby.  Looking forward to the adventures that 2013 brings!

 

 

 

Hello Nasturium

I'm delighted to see how vigorous the nasturium seedlings are. They practically popped the top off the little grow box I've got them in.  With any luck these will do well enough to plant in bright bunches around my yard.  I wish I could say that the lavender I planted was doing as well.  If you look closely in the photo, you can see the lone, sickly lavender sprout coming up in the lower right-hand quadrant.  My plans for multiple lavender plants are fast fading. Such is life.

In other news, Ricky the landscaper is coming by the house Thursday evening to see what we'd like to have done and gather information so that he can give us an estimate.  On our punch list is:

• re-grade the yard so that water drains away from the foundation.  I haven't done an estimate of how much dirt we'll have to move but it is likely a few hundred cubic feet. 
• pull out a few volunteer holly bushes and forsythia shrubs
• clear out the broken pottery and random rocks that litter the yard.  There may have been some kind of artistic plan at one time but it has been obscured by time
• help me install my 3 raised beds and fill them with fresh soil.  Ideally I'd like to have this done by mid-April so I can get my seedlings in the ground just before the date of the last frost.
• help me site and plant a new semi-dwarf tart cherry tree.  This is only going to happen if the tree I spotted at the garden center is still available. They only get so many tart cherry trees each Spring and then once they're gone, they're gone until next year.

 I'll have a full report after his visit!

Spring Cleaning

Today I realized that my garden needed a thorough Spring cleaning.  I'd spent so much time in the dream garden in my head that I didn't see all the prep work I needed to do to make that dream a reality.  Today I tackled things head on.

Realizing that re-grading the yard is going to be more work than I can do by myself, I emailed a landscaper who has done work for me in the past.  I hope that he can fit in my job with all the rest of the work he has. Then I set off for the garden center to see about a few things:

• looked for supplies for making raised beds - discovered that they don't carry any supplies
• learned about fruit trees - learned about the kind of semi-dwarf cherry tree I should pick and even identified one that is ready to go. But I realized that I should make sure my yard is ready for a new tree before I spend money on one
• learned about espaliering and think that this will be a great project for 2012 when I've got a re-graded yard and one year of gardening under my belt
• bought six Lenten Roses and some lime and manure to make them happy in their new bed
• learned that they'll be getting in vinca, sweet woodruff (aka Gallum), and other plants in the next two weeks so I definitely have to go back

By the time I got home the weather was perfect for gardening work and I got cracking. I started by trimming back the holly tree to create a neater shape and to provide more light to the ground beneath it.  Then I ripped out all of the English ivy that was taking over and have prepared the soil for vinca and sweet woodruff that I'll be putting in next week.  Then I trimmed last year's growth off the ornamental grasses scattered throughout the yard. Finally, I prepped a small bed in the front of the house for the Lenten roses.  Phew!  I took some before and after pictures.

Before

 

 

 

 

After

Hello basil!

This morning I checked my seed trays and discovered much to my delight that the basil (lemon and Genovese) had emerged. These little sprouts of green are such a welcome sight after a dark day of cold, windy rain. Who knew these little seed trays could be so much fun!