Homebrewin'

We're learning how to make beer here in the Gavin house today. Lucky for us, we have a friend and neighbor who is willing to babysit us and make sure we don't blow anything up. Chad is a longtime home brewer and came over tonight to give us a few pointers. Step one, relax. Step two, have a beer. Step three, get out some stuff like this and spread it out on your counter. Step four, blog about it.

Boil your wort and look beer-maker-like:

After boiling your wort, cool it down so you can pitch your yeast:

Clean your fermenter really, really, really well:

Pour your wort into your fermenter:

Beer!

Now to wait for about four weeks...

When are you due?

It's a hard question to answer.  We're expecting an addition into our family.  Soonish.  But not nowish.  If you believe my cycle, you might think the baby is due on October 6th.  If you believe the ultrasound, you might think September 26. And if you believe these contractions, you might think tonight.  Woah, these contractions. 

Maybe tonight.

Currently, I am either 36 weeks or 34 and a half weeks pregnant, or somewhere in between, depending on who you believe: the period tracker on my iPhone or the ultrasound tech. It makes it hard to plan things. And to explain things. People think I am being dodgy when I can't give them a simple answer, as if babies had calendars in the womb, anyway.  

If they did, though, I'm pretty sure they would have boobs on them.  But then again, maybe babies would have Anne Geddes calendars tacked up in the womb.  Or maybe that would freak them out.  "What are those people like out there? They make babies into cabbages?" Maybe if babies had access to Anne Geddes calendars it would prolong pregnancy as babies refused to enter a world in which we make them be sleeping naked grasshoppers and butterflies. 

As has been the case in the later stages of previous pregnancies, I am completely consumed with thoughts of labor.  When will it happen? Will I make it past this important work event, or past the point in which I could safely have a home birth? How will it happen? Where? When? When? When???  

But really. When? 

This time around, we're planning a home birth with a midwife.  One of the reasons I am so consumed with the thought of labor is that if I am too early, I can't deliver at home.  I'll need to go to the hospital.  Considering how much I want a homebirth this time, that is a very big threat.  And yet, the contractions that I've had for weeks continue to get stronger and demand more of my attention.  

I feel guilty for not documenting this pregnancy the way I have done with our older kids.  Here's a summary, before I forget everything, because I forget everything these days, and once you give birth, it often feels like pregnancy happened decades ago.  It's weird that you go from a stage of being completely consumed by pregnancy and thoughts of labor to practically forgetting that you were ever pregnant. (Just me? Maybe that's why I keep getting pregnant... Note to self: re-read this pregnancy journal entry if contemplating getting knocked up again)

First trimester: crippling fatigue and a coffee aversion (aversion makes it sound so Victorian. So polite.  I hated coffee's face.  Coffee smelled like straight up brewed Satan's ass. I couldn't tolerate the thought of pouring a cup of it, let alone deliberately allowing it to gain entry into my body.)  During this time, we were also shopping for a new house, renting out our condo and preparing to move. I horked often and mostly laid on the couch or in bed when not forced to be at work.  This time, I tried everything to prevent, or at a minimum, reduce morning sickness symptoms.  

Google will perkily tell you that you should try B-6 supplements! Eat nutritional yeast!  Drink ginger tea! Drink peppermint tea! Acupressure! Try those motion sickness band thingies for your wrists! Acupuncture! Crackers! Hard candy! Minty gum! Carbonated beverages! Flat Coca Cola! Protein! Put yourself into a coma and emerge somewhere in your second trimester!

It's all bullshit.  Except for the coma thing. That's legit.

The only thing that worked was week sixteen.  If you are suffering from morning sickness, I recommend trying week sixteen.  It definately worked for me.  

We found our new home, met with the home inspector, closed on the home and moved into the home, all while I was in a profound fog of morning sickness.  As of this writing, I still cannot stomach any songs from that Muppets movie where the criminal frog Constantine impersonates Kermit. The kids watched that movie and listened to that soundtrack during the apex of my morning sickness and I get queasy just hearing those songs come on Pandora today.

Second trimester: woohoo! Look at me! I'm not made of lead anymore! Coffee? Yes, please. As if you even had to *ask*.  Silly you.  Who doesn't drink coffee for god's sake? Am I even pregnant?  Go for a run? Great idea!  I am happy! And energetic!  We're having a baby! This is great! You're great! I'm great! Let's hug.

Third trimester: Oh. My. God.  Who filled my veins with lead while I slept last night? My back hurts. My tailbone hurts. I can't run. Contractions.  My vagina is hiccuping.  I think that means the baby is pretty low.  Can I finish your dinner? 

Today: So. Here we are now.  Thirty middle ish something weeks.  I have contractions all the time.  I am short of breath.  Often.  I am moody.  Usually.  I can't bend over to pick anything up, so I live in fear that something important will drop and I'll only be able to stare longingly at it.  The baby tracks across my belly and the kids watch it like a lava lamp.  I ache to sleep on my back again.  I pee every eight minutes. I want a beer.  I want to stand up without grunting.  I want to recline without feeling like I am going to faint. I want to laugh without peeing.  

I also want to meet this new person, this lively little spirit, who we will welcome with arms and hearts wide open into our lives very soon.  

Soonish. But not nowish.  

Also, for real, can I finish your dinner?

Scenes from the Office, Part 2

An exchange I had with a coworker this morning:

Me: “Coworker X, this report you prepared is fantastic! I’ve never seen it before. Who was the intended audience?”

Coworker X: “I’d like to think you've seen it before. Intended audience was staff, committee X and committee Y. We ‘discussed’ it on a staff call. It went like this:

Network coordinator: Coworker X has prepared a memo she would like to talk about.  

Coworker X : Thanks, network coordinator. Did everyone see that report? I posted it on our intranet along with a note asking folks to take a look and think through it a bit for today's call. So first, did the conclusions I reached strike you as true?

Rest of staff on conference call: ….   

Coworker X: ... Or did anyone have any insights?

Rest of staff on conference call: ….

Coworker X:... Should I go through the findings?

Rest of staff on conference call: ….  

Coworker X: ... Well why don't I just do that.  

Rest of staff on conference call: ….  

Coworker X: The upshot is [recites upshot].

Rest of staff on conference call: ….  

Coworker X: …What do you all think?...

Rest of staff on conference call: ….

Network coordinator: Okay, well if anyone does have any thoughts about it, just let Coworker X know.   

***

Me: I see. From now on, you should probably just go ahead and post all of your reports on Facebook. That’ll make sure they’re read during staff conference calls.

Wake up!

These two brothers can't get enough  of each other...in the morning, when it's time to get ready to leave for school and the "nest" they created on our bedroom floor is cozy and the blankets are snugly. It'll be a different story in 20 minutes when they are arguing over Legos, but right now they're besties. 

Jay was adorable right up until he looked at me and asked, "Mom, have you ever considered getting some powder and putting in on your face to cover wrinkles?" 

Does anyone want to buy an eight year old boy? Going cheap.

Fall fun!

Our friend (and realtor), Mary, hosts an annual gathering which is always a ton of fun. She hauls out an antique apple cider press and has a fire on her farm. This year she brought in a band and there was much dancing. We look forward to this every year:

Ella lost her second tooth tonight

And by "lost," I mean she lost it somewhere deep in the cracks of the seats of the minivan on the way home from the playground, probably amongst the crushed goldfish crackers, grubby pennies and dog hair covered raisins. *Shudder*

She procured a replacement from the inside of her shoe, a pebble from the playground, and wrote this note to the tooth fairy:

Here is the reply:

By law, all registered Fairies are required to provide a certificate when they make an exchange:

Scenes from the office

Scene:  Environmental organization’s kitchen, late afternoon. The office manager, a guy with a penchant for pink polos and flip flops is testily swatting at a dozen or so fruit flies that have congregated above the trash can. He jumps a little to reach a couple up high and then swings his arms to bat at a few more.

Him: These things are everywhere!

Me: (pouring a cup of coffee) Yeah, they seem to spike in late summer. I’ve got them at my place, too. Eh. I guess it’s just everybody eating all the produce in season right now. They’ll go away soon.

Him:  But people are putting fruit peels into the trash and then it becomes MY problem. 

Me:

Him: …I suppose it’s not a good idea to spray them with insect killer?

Me: !!!!!!!!

Him: Yeah. Probably not.

Me: Yes, probably not. I tell you what. Tomorrow I’ll bring in some vinegar and we’ll make a fruit fly trap. They work really well and then we don’t poison ourselves, all Rachel Carson Silent Spring style.

Him: (Smiles) That’d be great!

Me: Awesome! (Silently congratulating myself on a small, but important environmental and health victory)

I walk back to my office and then remember that I forgot my coffee cup in the kitchen.  Turning around, I head back to the kitchen and as I round the bend, office manager freezes, a can of flying insect killer in hand. His finger is on the trigger and the can of overkill is pointing at a single fruit fly on the wall. His face, a moment ago contorted in all consuming focus on hosing a single fruit fly with a stream of poison now only registers a slumpy guilt.

Him: Um…

Me:  Um.

Him: It’s uh… it’s... 

Me: Dude.  Duuuuuuuuuuuuude.

Shaking my head, I grab the “flying insect and random other things killer” from his hand and stash it safely in a sane co-worker's office. Office manager continues to bat at the fruit flies like a cat with a shiny toy. 

Now for the multiple choice part.

Do you:

A) Go back to your office and mock him on your blog.

B) Contemplate making funny office manager videos to post on the internet, knowing that the poison has been disposed of properly, predicting that the fruit flies will only increase in number, and that his exaggerated contortions will likely allow your videos to outpace funny cat videos.  Calculate how much you can make on the advertising revenue from funny office manager videos gone viral and then buy a pallet of bananas and have them shipped to the office.  

C) Send him this email:

Dear Office Manager,

If you pick up vinegar I will make a vinegar trap for the fruit flies, so that we do not create a Silent Spring sitch right here in the office kitchen, because generally speaking, I dislike insect killer in my coffee.

PS: You will never get your “bug and environment killing” spray back (mooooohooooohaaaaahaaaaaaa!)

PPS: Why do you hate the environment?

Hugs,
Me

D) All of the above

There is probably a right answer here somewhere, but I'm having trouble figuring it out.  But, hey! Good news! My bananas should be arriving in the next two hours or so.

Making cheese

The honey harvest is over, so it's time to turn my attention to a new skill: cheese making!

I have dabbled in this over the last few years, almost exclusively with making soft cheeses like chevre and mozzarella, but this weekend I wanted to revisit my nemesis: making cheddar cheese. My last (and only) attempt  several years ago was an unmitigated disaster. The curd didn't set right and the cheese fell apart when I pulled it out of the mold. I don't even think we were able to eat it because it was so dry.  Looking at the recipe today, I realize I didn't follow the directions very well when I attempted to make cheddar the last time around.  Ok. Fine. Fine. I didn't follow them at all, apparently.

My biggest mistake was that I tried to cook it on the stove instead of using a hot water bath. This, despite warnings that are all over (really, all over!) my cheese making book that clearly state that hard cheeses require a hot water method, and should never, not ever, oh my god are you kidding, not ever, be made on the stove. Right on the stove it went, because I already know how to do shit and plus I am pretty sure these warnings were not in my book five years ago. (Somebody should look into this thing of books quietly editing themselves on the bookshelf, no?  This is the same phenomenon that results in finding typos in my blog posts and grant reports weeks and months after I have already completed them, sans typos.) 

NOW, the book tells me that the stove produces uneven heat, and is much harder to control.  When the temperature of your milk has to be exact (like, say, at 86 degrees) the stove can't guarantee that you'll hit and maintain your target temperature. My next big mistake was using a poorly made cheese mold and cheese press.  The mold, which gives the cheese its shape, was home-made from materials I had around the house, and didn't hold the shape of the cheese.  The press I used didn't provide uniform pressure and so the whey wasn't squeezed from the curd effectively. Total fail.    

In hindsight, it was 100 percent user error (well, except for that whole book part.  Personally, I think it was kind of dodgy of the book to withhold the bit about using a hot water method for hard cheese and then slyly add it back in this time around. Amirite?)   But, I didn't see it that way back then.  I just decided that hard cheeses were better left to the experts, and that probably this book had crappy instructions. (Clearly.) Frustrated, and without time to figure out my mistakes since I was juggling a newborn and grad school at the time, I packed away all my cheese making gear and forgot about it until this weekend, when we were re-organizing the kitchen. Chris pulled out  my cheese wax and other supplies and asked if I was going to get back into it or if we could get rid of the stuff to free up cabinet space.

Challenge accepted. 

Buoyed by this year's success in beekeeping and soap-making and ready to pick up something new, I rolled up my sleeves.

The first step took a really, really long time for me.  The milk has to ripen, with the help of cultures and rennet, which introduce helpful little beasties into the milk to help the milk transform by expelling liquid whey from the solid curd.  I didn't take any pictures of it, but if you've ever seen a stockpot full of milk, you've got the image. It took me a long time because I had to figure out how to keep the surrounding water in the kitchen sink at the right temperature to maintain the necessary temperature (86 degrees) inside the pot.  It was always a little high or a little low, so it took a long time to get it right. 

Next comes the cooking part. For this cheese, I had to get the cheese up to 100 degrees veeeeeeeeeeeeery gradually, and then maintain that temp for a couple of hours.

Here is the cheese cooking process:

Slices of cheese cooking and slowly releasing more whey

Next, slicing it into cubes to release more whey:

Slicing the cheese into cubes

Back into the pot you go for even more cooking:

Cheese cubes

After cooking it for another 30 minutes and stirring it every ten minutes, it's time to salt it then press it. This is the mold that I broke down and purchased after my last failed attempt:

Cheese goes into the mold and is ready for pressing

This will press overnight:

Cheese being pressed to expel more whey from the curds

After 36 hours of pressing it looks like this:

Since this is traditional cheddar, after it air dries for a few days, I'll coat it with wax and age it for 3 to 12 months.  Cheese making is not a money saving exercise, unless you have your own cow.  It is also not fast, so if you want cheese now, you really should have thought of that three months ago. Come to think of it, I can't understand why sane people do this.

Except that homemade cheese is amazing.  Come visit me in a few months and we'll give it a try!

National Honey Bee Day!

Tomorrow is national honey bee day, and I haven’t even started to plan. Is this a big thing? Do they know about this holiday and have been hoping I would get them just the right gift? Will my bees all need party hats? If so, I have to get started because that’ll be like 60,000 party hats and tiny party favor bags. Maybe I’ll just make one for the queen. Or would that be elitist? She always gets all the good stuff anyway, like royal jelly and attendants to fawn over her. And I guess the holiday is National Honey Bee day not National Queen Bee Only day. They all deserve a little something… am I right? But what do I give to the honey bee who has everything?

My honey bees are doing well and I have fallen head over heels for these winged creatures. As summer slowly winds down, I will start harvesting and extracting honey from my hives, something I didn’t expect to do as a first year beekeeper. They’ve done well at Equinox Farms, enjoying the acres of organic blossoms from fruit trees and berries and squash plants and clover fields and sunflowers and goldenrod and more, gorging themselves at the honey bee all you can eat buffet. Soon I’ll remove one of the top hive bodies (a super) and take it home to extract the honey and melt down the excess wax for candles and to use again for next year’s hives. The learning curve has been huge and I still have so much to learn, but I am in deep, you guys.

My commute

Recently, I realized that in order to get to and from my office, I was spending nearly an hour and fifteen minutes in my car: to commute a round trip of 14 miles. Often, I’d get home and head out to the gym or get in a run at lunch time. Meanwhile, my bike collected dust in the basement, and I felt guilty for burning fossil fuels to idle in a line of hundreds of red tail lights. But like most of us, I’m busy. Driving to work just made sense, because I am busy! Crazy busy! I can’t afford to spend time biking, because I have stuff to do!  Driving allows me the freedom to zip off to a doctor’s appointment midday (once or twice a year) or pick up milk and flour on my way home (once or twice a month) or get home faster so that I can do other stuff that is way, super, important.  Like, really important. I’m not going to give you any examples here, because you can imagine all of the things that a super busy person— like me—  might have to do in the time I save by driving my car to work… Like… uh... Huh.
 
If I were telling you this in person, I would put that bit about getting home faster in air quotes anyway, as in, “get home faster.” Because when I really started to look at the numbers, driving my car doesn’t really get me to and from work faster. It just doesn’t.  The bike ride tacks on an extra ten minutes each way, approximately. And that gain from driving is easily lost on days when I am stuck waiting for a train to pass or road work clogs up the main thoroughfare.

Then there’s the whole question of whether getting home or to the office ten minutes sooner is really as important as I think it is. Could it be that the fastest commute possible isn’t the *best* commute possible? Is sitting in a line of other commuters waiting for a green light really worth my time?  Sure, I get caught up on the news via public radio, but that's pretty much the only good thing the drive has going for it. Otherwise it’s a whole lot of sitting and fuming. Fuming that is done by both my car and me, because while my car burns fossil fuels, I smolder over the fact that I have to sit in traffic. Traffic!

By the way, other people are traffic. Not me.  I am just trying to get home. If they would just get out of the way and let me get to where I'm going, things would be much better. They probably don't mind sitting in their cars, waiting to drive.  In fact, I bet they even enjoy mucking up the roads.  Those other people!  *Shakes fist*       

Then it dawned on me that maybe there was a better way.  Maybe *I* should get out of the way. Maybe, maybe I, too, am traffic.  Could this be?

That's enough philosophizing. I pulled out my bike this week (o.k., let’s be honest. Chris pulled out my bike and checked my air pressure and made sure it looked road ready. I debated whether I could wear a skirt while biking and how I’d pack all of my gear into a small backpack. Because Chris is an awesome husband and best friend and I have yet to work out the kinks of commuting by bike.)  

I biked in that first day and got to the office positively joyful.  The sun was shining, I felt good from the endorphins and I felt connected to my city.  I was going slower and seeing things I didn't get to see in my car like the community gardens bursting with raspberries and lettuce glistening with dew. And the variety of people biking. So fun to see! People in suits, people in racing jerseys, people pulling trailers with kids, people who were skinny, people who were sinewy, people who were fleshy, people in overalls, people pulling trailers with dogs, people who were decades older than me, people who were decades younger than me. And I didn't shake my fist at any of them.   

This morning I biked in and took some time to really appreciate my commute, something I have never, ever done while driving my car.  I only started taking pictures half way through the ride, so I may add pictures to this post later, but here are some of my favorite parts of the ride. 

So, first there's this, a bike repair station.  It features a bike pump and pressure gauge as well as tools for fixing your bike.  It's about halfway through my commute and I used it yesterday to re-inflate my front tire which had a slow leak:

Bike aid station off of Willy Street, Madison, WI.

This bike aid station features all kinds of important and useful looking gadgets.

Then there's this: miles and miles of dedicated, safe and protected bike trails.  Approximately 75 percent of my commute is on trails like this:

Capital City Trail, Madison, WI

Then, there's this.  Signage clarifying for car drivers that this road is heavily trafficked by bikers, earning it the moniker Bicycle Boulevard:

Bicycles are legit here.  Don't forget it.

When I do have to hop off a bike trail and on to a road, many of them have this symbol painted on the pavement, again clarifying that this is a bike friendly road.  So far, I have resisted the urge to paint a tassel on any of them but they look more like graduation caps than helmets to me:

Caution: Graduates crossing.

This was just awesome and I wanted to take a picture of it.  The Old Sugar Distillery is housed in an old sugar factory and now makes whiskey and rum from local ingredients. That's pretty cool, but their truck is even cooler:

Old Sugar Distillery's clever advertisement

The bike trail I use is flanked by wildflower plantings.  Because I was perilously biking and photographing, I didn't get any pictures of those flowers, but imagine if I did.  Wouldn't that have been nice?

The side of the bike trail, where many wildflowers grow, but not here.

One of my favorite things about Madison is this.  This is what is called a "Little Free Library."  They are all over town: in school yards, parks, front lawns, and as shown here, along path trails.  Take a book, leave a book or just take a picture and put it on your blog.

Little Library on the corner of the Capital City Bike Trail and a cross street I didn't get the name of.

Along my ride there is also this.  Giant metal sculptures of bird-like creatures.  Because, hey.  Giant metal sculptures of bird-like creatures. Awesome, right?

Giant metal bird sculptures in Madison, WI

This is me.On a bike.

Let's pretend that this is artsy and not an accidental photo taken while I was fumbling with my camera.

Six miles into my commute, I get here.  Monona Terrace was designed by acclaimed architect Frank Lloyd Wright and overlooks Lake Monona which is beautiful and blue and sparkly at 8:53 am.

Monona Terrace, Madison, WI

If you forgot your bike and need to rent one, Madison has you covered with its B-Cycle program.  Throw your credit card in that bad boy and bam, you've got your very own red commuter bike to tool around town on for a few hours.  Best of all, you can return it to any B-Cycle station in town and there are dozens of them.

B-Cycle Station on Monona Bay, WI

This is just a picture of a fellow commuter which I took because she put a license plate on her bike, and really?  That's just fun.

She doesn't have me fooled.  She is not a car. 

And here is my office, a mere 45 minutes of riding later.

Clean Wisconsin's office in downtown Madison, WI.

Thanks, Bikey, for making that all possible. 

My bike taking a breather after the ride into the office.

Post script: my ride home this afternoon was just as awesome.

For example, when I'm in my car, can I stop and smell the roses? (proverbially or otherwise?) No. No, I cannot.

And look what I am NOT in.  Traffic.  Who is Ms. Gloaty McGloater Pants? That would be me.

Check out this diagonal intersection made just for bikers.  That just makes sense.  

Passing by Atwood Community Gardens:

And finally ending up in my own community garden plot which is right along the bike path and where the berries are ripe and plentiful.

Don't Stop Bee-Lieving

I don't know where that post title came from. Here is a picture of me and one of my girls, during a recent visit to the apiary. She is quietly exploring the hood of my bee suit. 

And here is Jay squinting in the sunlight and letting another bee explore his glove.

Meanwhile Ella watched a bee daintily walk across the bee brush. No stings so far for the kiddos.

How Not to Hive Your Bees

My honeybees arrived this weekend. You may remember my post from late winter about the beekeeping class I took because it is one of, like, three posts from this year.

 I felt perfectly prepared to hive them, for the following reasons:

• When I was three, I went to a daycare named Busy Bees. There were no actual bees, but there was a mural of bees on the outside of the building near the play yard. I hated that place, and while it made me despise fish sticks, I think it still left me with an affinity for bees. 
• I took an introductory beekeeping class in February. Because I paid for the class, I was presented with a pre-printed certificate of completion at the end of the day. 
• My name is Melissa, which means “Honey bee” in Greek. 
• I like honey in my Greek yogurt, which I think takes us full circle. 
• For added insurance, I watched a YouTube video on “How to Hive Your Bees” a solid five minutes before I picked up my bee suit and walked out the door to hive them. 

All in all, I was feeling pretty prepared. I am sure you are nodding in agreement. Upon arriving at my bee supplier, Capitol Bee Supply, the company owners gave me a refresher:

Step 1: Use your hive tool to remove the feeding can from the traveling cage of bees, thereby opening the traveling cage.

Step 2: Take the queen out and put her in your pocket.

Step 3: Shake the bees from the traveling cage into the hive and spread them around the hive “Like spreading pizza sauce on a pizza.”

Step 4: Put the queen in.

Step 5: Close up the hive.

Step 6: Stand back with a self-satisfied grin and watch the bees cheerfully adjust to their new home. Take a selfie and post it on Facebook. (They did not actually say this last bit about the self-satisfied smile and selfie, but I could tell they probably just forgot to say it.)

As I drove away with my girls buzzing in their traveling cage, I went through all six steps in my head. This wouldn’t be so hard. Six steps? Heh. Baking bread is more complicated than that. But I was a little nervous, so I decided to have a heart-to-heart talk with the bees just, you know, to get that out in the open. I felt it was important to start our relationship with honesty and respect:

“Hi bees. My name is Melissa (which, by the way, means honey bee in Greek, so I really get you). I am your beekeeper. I am new at this, but I promise to take good care of you. I will treat you with love and respect and kindness. I’ll protect you and keep you safe. My job is to make sure you can do your job. So if there is anything you need from me, please just let me know. I am kind of nervous right now, but I am going to try my best. Just know that I’ll always treat you with love and kindness and I want our relationship to be one based on mutual respect.” 

I continued this conversation, even giving pauses to allow them to respond to my questions, through much of the twenty-minute drive. They didn’t really talk much, but you know, everyone has a different comfort level when meeting someone new, so I didn’t judge.

The hive is located on a friend’s farm, which consists of about a hundred acres of organic fruit and vegetables. There are apple and plum trees and strawberries and raspberries and clover and dandelions and thistle and violets and all the flowers a bee could dream of here.

 The farm manager approached me as I got out of the car. “Oh! Are you the beekeeper? Neat!”

Can we just pause here in the story? Because I would like to slow that moment down and relish in the feeling of coolness which I have never felt before and probably will never, ever feel again. At that moment, I finally knew what it felt like to feel cool. Intoxicating. That hipster farm manager living on an organic farm with her boyfriend in a super hip “tiny house” just said, “Oh! Are you the beekeeper? Neat!” 

Neat.

Like, is that how pilots in the golden age of airlines felt as they self-importantly strutted through the airport? I don’t know, but I swelled with pride. I wanted to clear my throat and swagger and say something like, “Yup, that’s me. I’m the bee lady. Just here doing my job and being awesome at it. It’s no big deal.” But since there is another person who keeps hives on the farm (and she actually knows what she is doing) I felt compelled to admit that I was just one of the beekeepers, and that this was my first visit out with my bees. 

End of cool moment.

Still, the farm manager was fascinated at the box of bees in the back of my Prius, so she watched them with curiosity and then called her boyfriend over to see them. As they asked me questions that I couldn’t answer and marveled over the bees crawling around the cage in the back of my car, I pulled on my gloves. And then, like something out of a National Lampoon’s movie, my box of bees fell over onto its side. “Uh oh” muttered hipster farm manager. I regarded the box for a moment and then calmly explained that it was ok, because I was supposed to knock the box once or twice to get the bees off the top of the box when it was time to put them in the hive.

No biggie, I assured them.

No biggie, I assured myself.

But as I stepped to the box to sit it upright again, the feeding can fell out and hundreds of bees swarmed out. They swarmed into my hair, the swarmed into the Prius, they swarmed all around me. My head net sat, inertly, next to the rapidly emptying box of bees. Bees, who minutes before had sworn to be biffles with me, were now burrowing into my hair and furiously trying to inject me with pure hatred. As I swatted them from my head and hair, more flew at me and the box remained open, slowly draining of bees.

I grabbed my head net and jammed it over my head, securing the drawstring safely around my neck. In doing, so I trapped twenty-some bees in the net with my face. Knowing that approximately 10,000 bees came in the box, my calculus was that having twenty bee stings was less worse than 10,000 stings. As the bees found their way through my hair, they plunged their stingers into my scalp. Others went for my cheeks and neck.

Now holding the open box of bees, I mall-walked the remainder of bees over to my hive, and holding the box with one hand, I used my free hand to engage in war with the bees who were now sharing my head net. I smashed bees into my hair and face to prevent more stings and hotly ranted, “Ok, it’s ON bitches. Is THAT how it’s gonna be? Bring it. I will CRUSH you.”

 Loving-kindness earth-mother-goddess cool beekeeper no more. I was a raving lunatic, madly power-walking with an open box of bees and furiously hitting myself in the head over and over again and shouting expletives. I got to my hive and, taking the lid off, removed several frames to make room of the bees. I tried dumping what was left of the bees into the hive but they wouldn’t come out. I tried harder. Shaking, tilting, shaking. Shaking more. Shaking harder.

Then I remembered that the queen was still in there, safe in her own little traveling box inside the bigger box. I needed to get her out for the others to come. I plunged my hand into the box of angry, angry bees and pulled her out, placing her in my pocket. Once she was in my pocket, it became easier to get the others out of the box. I dumped the box again and this time got more out.

Then I went to work on the queen. I removed the cork stopper and replaced it with a marshmallow. Over the next several days, the worker bees would work to eat through that and release her. I settled her in between two frames and closed the lid of the hive. Then I went back to the Prius.

Here’s what I saw: Hundreds, quite possibly thousands, of bees walking over, on and around the back of the car. Bees covered the back of the Prius and everything that was in it. A blue sleeping bag was black with bees. Notebooks, sweatshirts, a pair of shoes, a cardboard box and my unused bee smoker crawled with bees.

My car hummed.

My car seats undulated.

They clung to the inside windows and the reading lights on the car ceiling.

I contemplated abandoning my car right there. We only have a few more payments on it, and it was a nice evening for a twelve-mile walk home. I considered how difficult it might be to remove the license plate and pretend it was never my car, but realized that the hipster farm manager now knew my name and I couldn’t get off that easily. So I took a deep breath and got to work.

I took the bees—by the handful— over to the hive. I carried item by item to the hive and gently brushed them off into their new home. A notebook. A sweatshirt. A plastic bag. A cardboard box. After an hour or so, the Prius had sufficiently been cleared out of bees, many of them brushed into the hive.

Maybe it was the endorphin rush from the multiple bee stings but as I brushed the last of the bees from the Prius, I felt an incredible peace fall over me. I felt serene. Blissful. The bees buzzed around the hive and the travelling box which was now positioned next to the hive entrance.

I leaned against the car and took off my veil. When I did, I discovered a lone bee on the inside of the veil, curiously investigating me. She had been there all along inside my veil, but hadn’t stung me. I spoke softly to her and named her Mary. She climbed up and down my arm, touching and tasting as she went. I studied her and she studied me. We sat there for a long time.

As night fell, I packed up my gear and wished the bees a good night. A dozen or more bees accompanied me home, despite driving back with all of my windows open. When I got home, Chris sweetly listened to my story and pulled stingers out of my face and scalp. Afterwards he said, I just want to know, “Why didn’t you just put the feeding can back into the travelling box and close up the hole?”

Close up the hole?! I wanted to smack my bee stung forehead. Why didn’t I think of that? Closing up the hole to stop the stream of bees was a no-brainer, but in my panic, it never occurred to me. I’d like to think that this is one of those if-it-doesn’t-kill-you-it-makes-you-stronger moments, and because it didn’t kill me, I will consider the experience a success. Also, I did learn a lot from this experience. I learned that bee stings are not the worst things in the world, that head nets work better if you don’t pre-load them with bees, and that feeding cans sometimes fall out—and you should probably put them back in— to prevent bees stinging the shit out of your hairline.

I also learned that I really, really love these girls.

Here is Mary, investigating my gloved hand:

It’s Winter, and I live in Wisconsin

So I am trying to keep a stiff upper lip about all the snow and ice and gray skies and cold, cold wind and frozen doors and frozen toes and vitamin D deficiency and whatnot. But it is mid-February and I think I’ve had all I can take. I am feeling dull and lethargic and was acquiring a habit of eating an entire box of Girl Scout cookies for lunch, until I ate them all. That fixed that habit.


Assuming that other people are also experiencing the winter blues, here are some ideas to shake the winter doldrums:

1) Put on tropical music, dance around in your bathing suit and drink a Pina Colada. If your neighbors gape, ignore them. They are low in vitamin D and will soon forget who you are, anyway, because I think that’s something vitamin D deficiency does to people. If I remember, I’ll look that up right after I finish my Pina Colada. Plus, if you have another Pina Colada you won’t care if they gape at you. And if I have another Pina Colada, I won’t care if they gape at you either. I think we know what the answer is, here.  It starts with a P and ends with a "ina Colada."

2) Eat mushrooms. They are rich in vitamin D and taste like dirt. That is good because you won’t get anywhere near dirt for several more months because the ground is frozen fucking solid. So. Mushrooms.  For added benefit, consider putting them in your Pina Colada, like one of those cocktail umbrellas.  Let me know if you do that, because that would be too funny not to post about.       

3) If you have parents who happen to live in Florida, call them. If you don’t have parents who live in Florida, you can call my parents. They will smugly inform you that it is 70 degrees and that they slept with the windows open last night, or had to turn on the fan, blah, blah, blah. This is useful for stoking your inner fire of bitterness, and I find that it generally works better than a sauna.

4) Plant a fairy garden, because it is a form of gardening but with moss and ferns and magic.  This is a totally legitimate thing for a fully grown person to do.  Trust me.  If your kids try to play with your fairy garden, it's completely o.k. to obliquely threaten them by explaining matter-of-factly that the fairies will eat children who invade their garden.  What you have, in fact, is a garden full of child-eating fairies.You can explain that you missed that in the description when you placed the order from the fairy catalog.  Shrug apologetically and say, "Rookie mistake."

When playing in your fairy garden, make sure you have plenty of cool and interesting props (which are not the same as toys, you guys, even though they may look, at first, a lot like your seven-year-old son's Lego people and your five-year-old daughter's doll house furniture.)  If your kids try to pick a fight about whose "toys" (ahem, PROPS) you are using, do not engage.  Remind them that you are only trying to protect them from child-eating fairies.  Get up angrily and hurumph around the house for a while, muttering about how NOTHING you do around here is appreciated.  

After they go away, go back to playing with this:

5) Plan a vacation to the tropics.  If dropping the $3,000 to fly my family of five to the Caribbean is not in your budget, sitting next to the oven while making dinner and using Google Earth to look at pictures of a place where the sun has not forgotten can sometimes be a decent runner-up.  

Finally, remember that spring is just around the corner and that winter makes us heartier, better people. Then have another Pina Colada.

Sarongs are not Weapons

Chris has been gone this week, learning how to make skis at the North House, a folk school on the shores of Lake Superior, in Grand Marais, Minnesota. He has been wanting to do this for years, and we finally made it happen. It meant that I took the week off from work to pull stay-at-home duty, and except for the fact that everyone got sick, it’s been a pretty painless experience.

Pulling off the morning routine single-handedly has been the most challenging thing about it, since mornings are generally hectic anyway, but with just me getting the kids ready, it's chaos. After the first morning on my own, I made a list of all the things the kids had to do every morning, to make sure they didn’t forget AND that I didn’t forget. It worked well, except that Ella can’t read yet.

So, by that, I mean, not so well.

Like, for instance, she may have gone to school without pants the other day.

And by that, I mean she did go to school without pants the other day. In my defense, she wore an old sarong of mine over tights, so I thought she was good to go. The first time she used the bathroom and couldn’t get it back on by herself, the sarong came off. And stayed off. Then she maybe used it to choke a classmate a little bit.

The sarong was confiscated by her teacher. Ella then flitted around her kindergarten classroom in tights and a t-shirt for the afternoon.

In my defense (again), she has been pressuring me to let her wear a loin cloth when we go out in public. Since I’ve refused, she has begun fashioning her own loin cloth, by tying long-sleeved shirts around her waist, one in front and one in back and roaming around the condo without a shirt. She would also like to own a spear.  

I thought the sarong would be a compromise of sorts, in terms of acceptable fashion. It turns out she interpreted it to be a compromise in terms of weaponry.

I had to fortify my list with pictures to make sure that everything was crystal clear. Pants, for instance? Mandatory. Weapons?  Not on the list.  Not even a little bit.   I printed it up and slipped it in a plastic sheet protector so that the kids could check each item off as they got it done. It turned out to be WILDLY successful.  Apparently, kids love, love, LOVE checking things off a list. It’s better than almost anything you can imagine. Especially if you are checking things off that your sibling hasn’t checked off yet. That just makes you a better human being. Clearly.

This week, aside from getting everyone to school, ensuring they were (mostly) clothed, and that we had a fairly normal bedtime routine, I have made all of our meals from scratch, which I proudly crow about, but the kids wouldn’t know that because THEY DIDN'T EAT ANY OF IT. Ella, I think, seems to have mostly subsisted on boogers (the ultimate food for those who are stubbornly self-reliant). By the way, do boogers have calories? This is a question a friend of mine, a fellow mom, and I pondered recently. And Jay…?  I don’t know. Years ago I blogged about staying home with the kids for several days while Chris went hunting up north. I wrote that I suspected Jay primarily survived on atmospheric dust. I am fairly certain he must still be existing on whatever he absorbed a few years ago, because I haven’t seen him take in anything. That leaves Jack, who likes to proclaim randomly “I’m a good eater!” which is true. Especially when there are bananas or cookies or red raspberries around. He did eat what I made, which makes him the favorite. 

Here’s our list which has helped the kids become much more self-sufficient this week:

See the picture of pants? That, evidently, is important to include.  See the bit about packing your weapons?  No.  No, you do not.  Because you should not take weapons to kindergarten, even if they are sarong shaped. I guess they have rules about that. 

Beekeeping 101

I took a class today from Mad Urban Bees to learn how to keep bees. Although we live in a condo right now, I have a friend who has an organic farm on 80 acres nearby. She is happy to host my bees which will help boost pollination on her farm and I am thrilled to have access to plenty of organic blooms. This is what my hive will look like:

I'll order my bees soon and they will bee delivered in the spring (did you see that? "They will bee delivered in spring"? Ha!).