Category: Life on the Farmlet

Photo Friday: the invasion has begun

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Like aliens from some unknown realm

they dig their way to the surface

climb the nearest building, tree,

or truck tire.

There they latch on tightly,

and begin to split down the middle…

emerging as

Cicadas.

For most of the summer they will buzz

in the heat of the day,

singing in waves across pastures

and through forest stands

calling, calling, calling,*

till they find the response

they were looking for.

~*~

Cicadas lie in the ground for 13 years and then emerge en masse.  Apparently, 2011 is the year!  This year marks the Magicicada XIX!

Just for fun:

A recent news story out of Tennessee about Chocolate covered Cicadas

AND, possibly more info, and videos, than you ever wanted to know about the curious little creatures  can be found… HERE!

*I took a drive to Collinsville, Alabama on a two lane highway (Hwy. 11) through the country.  Radio on, windows up, I think, “What is that noise?”   Turning off the radio and rolling down the windows I hear it…  Imagine multiplying  the call (linked in ‘calling’ above) by hundreds of thousands and you will know what I heard!  Amazing sound for a little one inch flying bug!

And Sew it Begins: avoiding alzheimers

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They say that if you want to avoid Alzheimers then you should teach yourself something new as you grow older.  And so I have chosen to teach myself to quilt.  When I started I wasn’t sure if I would like it, but I wanted quilts for my home and couldn’t think of any affordable way to get them other than to make them myself…

And so it is that I have discovered a new passion in life!  Quilting!  In my research I found the Missouri Star Quilting Company who offers lessons online.  I have also discovered Sir’s Fabrics in Fayetteville, TN, where I can go and get plenty of fabric for practicing my new-found craft… This allows me to learn, and make mistakes, for very little money.

Also of interest is the site called Civil War Quilts.  Here I can learn to quilt a block a week and I get a little history lesson via featured excerpts from diaries that were written by women of the period.  I find it fascinating and fun.

The following is a bit of what I am currently working on and yes I am working on more than one project.  (Weirdly, I often read more than one book at a time too.  I suspect that it is a hangover from study habits in my college days.)

The Sock Monkey

One row of blocks…

This quilt is called a disappearing nine patch.  You begin with the basic nine patch quilt block, cut it into fours, and rotate each piece.  The end result is a more modern mosaic of color vs. the old-fashioned pieced blocks.

So why call it the Sock Monkey?  It’s all about the colors…

Isn’t he adorable!

…and a lot about nostalgia!  Everybody’s Granny made these for their grandkids when I was little.  (Hmm… my Grannies missed out on this gene.)

Progress on the Sock Monkey?

Two rows of blocks sewn together and bout 1/4 done.

I had hoped to have this done for the guest room in October, that’s when some very good friends will be visiting, but it remains to be seen if I will get there.  Fact is, I have recently found out that if I want it machine quilted it will cost me about 1 cent per inch… or about $100.00.  (So much for economical quilts!)  So, I may be doing it the old-fashioned way with needle and tread.  That will take a while.

The Underground Railroad, from the Civil War Quilts site is my inspiration for a table runner I will be making.

Pattern:  The Underground Railroad

I found the lovely fabric at a little quilt shop called A Time 2 Sew in Collinsville, AL.  I just love the ladies there.  They are so friendly and full of advice and information.  Want to know a little secret about their shop?  It is housed in what was, until the mid seventies, the Collinsville Jail!  The cells are now used for storage and to display some of the antique quilts they have there!

I am dying to show you my nearly complete creation, but it is for a friend in Chicago and I don’t want to spoil the surprise!  I will share when it is done.  I promise!

Erratic Bee Keeping: what not to do

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I have a little Top Bar bee hive (TBH) out back.  It has been there for just over a year now.  I have not been into it since mid summer for two reasons.   Partly because it has a window on the side for viewing and, this is the important part, I only had a hood to wear and not a full bee suit.  Too many bee stings made me gun-shy.

That has all changed.  If you own bees you have to get into the hive and check them out during the warmer weather.   So, I spent the money and got the bee suit.

Amazing!  It gave me the confidence to do what was needed.

Happy beekeeper wearing the season’s latest fashion in Beekeeping attire!

I learned how to get my smoker to smoke too!

I’m not certain, but I almost thought I could hear them coughing… or maybe what I was hearing was the sound of thousands of angry screams?  (I hate using the smoker.)

Once inside however, I found that although my bees were very healthy they were over crowded with honey.  Further, the little bur comb that I had found earlier last summer and removed… well, they had built it back.  But worse than that, they had replicated it onto about 8 bars.  This essentially attached and locked them into place!!!

ECH!

Notice the cut at the top?  This is where the comb was built with a spur connector over to the next bar.  This was replicated for eight bars through the center of the hive.  It was a mess to say the least.

Not happy.

Trying to loosen the bars worked, but I had to cut into the comb to separate it.  This weakened its structure at the top of the mass and the weight caused a couple of them to break off and fall into the hive.  One of the broken combs was a perfect pattern brood comb and I could not locate the queen.  (Can you feel me panicking?)

After I cleaned out the carnage and finished separating the rest of the connected bars, and I inserted some new bars into the Top Bar Hive placing them in between the remaining brood comb.  It is my hope that the bees will appreciate the new real estate and begin building new comb that the queen will find lovely for egg laying… This assumes of course that she is still there after all the bungling on my part.

What I did with the broken brood comb

Trying to salvage the mess I had made, I then took the broken comb and tied it into a foundationless Langstroth frame with cotton kitchen twine.  Next, I took two of the removed bars of honey, taken from the TBH, and inserted them into the Lang hive with the brood comb.  The Lang hive now has brood and honey with room to grow…

IF the bees will make a queen in time!  But here is the problem.  I was never able to locate the queen!  So, I have either one or none of my hives with a queen inside.  If they are quick, and make some queen cells they may be OK.  Or not.  Only time will tell.

Amazingly, the very next day the bees I moved to the Lang hive were defending the entrance fiercely from the bees from the TBH!  This I did not expect!  Seeing that, I turned the reducer to allow the smallest entrance in hopes that in their weakened state, it would help them to more easily defend their new home.  I have observed no further fighting over the past two days.

So now I wait.  It seems a bit of all or nothing at this point.

Observation:

I noticed as I worked, that even with the problems I’d had, I was much calmer.  Towards the end I observed that this seemed to keep the bees happier than using the smoke… The slower and calmer I became the slower and calmer the bees became.  Next time I try the new approach, working without the smoker, and it goes without saying I will be wearing my suit.

~*~

If you keep bees then please feel free to comment on what I did, or give your opinions about what went wrong.   I could use some good coaching for the future.  Thanks!

An Event to be Reckoned With: severe weather

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We woke up at 4:30 AM to the NOAA weather radio’s alarm.  The first wave hits our area.  As per usual, we came through nerves frayed, but OK.  The schools have closed their doors for the day.

The sun is shining now at 10:00 AM and the wind is picking up.  The second wave is on its way and the Governor has declared a “State of Emergency” for the whole state of Alabama.

The alarm goes off again.  It is 11:20, and although it is not on us I still feel the pit of my stomach tighten.   The storm has really picked up speed and it is on Athens doorstep and the sky is darkening here in Hazel Green.

I watch the lines of the storms moving across the map on television, and think of the armies marching on Minas Tirith.  It is overwhelming to me.  I think I should turn off the television and just go clean house or sew on my quilt, but I don’t.  The television’s constant conversations, and maps are my friend for the moment.

I eat another cookie.

I see my cat Claus run by the dining room window and he has something wriggling in his mouth.  He heads for the park.  Jumping up I go out, following his path to see what he’s captured.  It is the baby Robin I had been photographing this very morning when the first wave had subsided.  He appears to be fine and in spite of nearly having become a meal himself, he turns to me and opens his beak chirping for a meal!  I take him back to the tree and try to imagine how to get him back up there!  The ladder will take too long and his parents are dive bombing me while I stand there.  Finally I run to the barn and grab the broom.  I tell him, “Hold on baby, its a bumpy ride from here!”

I put him on the broom, lift him up to the closest branches and cheer him on… will he hop off the broom and onto the branch?  He does!  His parents swoop to the tree and continue to scold me.  As I walk away I wonder if it was a futile attempt with the next storms on the way.

In the time it took me to write this the alarm has gone off two more times, the reporters are confirming tornadoes, and the siren is going off outside.  That last cookie is doing somersaults in my stomach…

Bob calls and says he’s coming home.  We hang up.  The newsman is telling me that the wall cloud has produced a funnel cloud where Bob is.  I call him back and he says he’s seeking shelter as we speak.

I am numb.

Our power is cutting in and out.  I think I may go to my neighbors for shelter.

The phone rings, I answer it, the power goes out.  I look out the window, the wind is pushing the rain horizontal, and it has become very dark.

Earlier in the day I had prepared myself a cubby in the pantry.  I go there now and sit in the dark. When it gets quiet the weather radio comes back on and tells me the storm has moved on to somewhere else.

The only sound I hear is Bob’s battery backup beeping.  It reminds me of the hospital.   I crawl out of hiding and turn it off.

I call Bob and he is fine.  I venture out to check the chickens, Polly and her babies, and find them unharmed.

So now I wait for the third wave.  The newsman has warned us that the third squall line is going to be a wicked one.  At this point I am scared spitless, and can’t even imagine worse that what we’ve already had but I take it seriously and prepare myself as best I can.  Suddenly I feel very tired.  I have no idea what it will be like, but I am emotionally spent.  It is said that ignorance is bliss, but at this moment I would disagree. In spite of my terror I lay down on the couch to rest.  The little dog whines and I let him get up to lie next to me.  Laying there we are a comfort to each other… we fall asleep.

Buddy barks to signal that Bob is home.  I feel such a sense of relief to not be facing this emergency without him.  He goes out and starts the generator so that we can have the television news to help us understand the storm system that is terrifying us.

Between the hours of 3:30 and about 6:30 we would enter the pantry many times and pull the dog’s mattress up over us.  We had no idea each time we went in to shelter ourselves if we would make it or not.  We knew it was bad, we heard it on the news, and we would have no conception of the devastation all around us until the morning light.

This morning we know that all of North Alabama is without power.  We are pretty sure that the worst devastation was produced by EF 4 (winds of 190 mph) and EF 5 (over 200 mph!) Tornadoes.   It breaks my heart to see it; I can’t begin to imagine what it must be like to live through it.

Today we run the generator in spells to keep the food from thawing and to get a bit of news at the same time.  When not listening to news we are in the yard cleaning up the debris left from the horrible winds we got here.

I rake up tar paper, and a bit of wall board.  It was part of someone’s home.  It makes me cry.

I find a bit of white paper on the ground.  I pick it up and  the shape of it is eerily familiar… it was an envelope from a card,  hand addressed to a family on Highway 194, in Russellville.  I look up the address on my NUVI and find that it is 82 miles away from our home.   Again I find myself tearing up.  I wonder if they are OK.  Did they make it through?

Perhaps you will not understand, but I am resolved that when the power is restored, the roads are cleared and the dusk to dawn curfew is lifted, that I will have to go find this family.  I have to know that they made it.  A tattered bit of their life has traveled by storm, fallen from the sky, and landed in my life.  I feel a connection.  I have to know…

It is beyond comprehension that nature can tear apart so many lives, take so many lives, leave some with nothing at all, and yet leave their neighbor unscathed.   Yet, here we are.  We are inconvenienced by a lack of electricity but can’t complain.  We have so much to be grateful  for and we praise God that we are here and our home was untouched.

And we pray for those who have experienced loss.  I ask for your prayers for them too.  It will take a long time to rebuild, and even longer to heal.

Tattered Life via Storm Mail

 

Addendum:  4/29/11 This posting of Wednesday’s event here in Alabama is being sent out from Tennessee as we still have no power and may not have till next week.  A very few areas have regained some power, but most efforts for restoration are on hospitals, pharmacies, gas stations water pumping stations and some grocery stores.  All these essentials are being brought up and online via generators.

Due to the severe circumstances many are shining and coming through for those in need in ways that are simply heroic.  Yet, we got news this morning that in spite of the curfews there are malcontents who have begun looting.  I do not understand the mentality of this kind person.

 

NOTE:  If you are interested in seeing the magnitude and sheer force of the tornadoes that hit Alabama you may go to Youtube and simply type in “Alabama tornado April 27, 2011.”  There are many who braved the situation to record them.  They are awesome, powerful and frightening.