Think Positive!

When I told Bee the title of my last post, he said, "I think you need to work on being more . . . positive . . . . with your posts."

Which probably explains why I haven't posted in so long.

So -- in a mostly-un-negative fashion -- here's a quick update on the awesome goings-on of the Toxic Household:


1)  We caught two bee swarms!  And by "caught", I mean that someone else caught them, started them in hives, then let us load the hives into the trunk of our car and bring them home.  But it sounds better if I say I caught them, so that will be the story I stick to.

We found the queen in one of the hives.  Apparently, she is a "virgin queen" (I shall name her 'Elizabeth'), which means that she had yet to leave the hive for her Mating Flight (whence she hussies herself off with multiple drones).  When I checked on her today, she was still sashaying around the hive; no evidence that she's been mated and is laying eggs yet, but that doesn't mean that she hasn't.

I couldn't find a queen in the other hive, so we went the test tube route for that one:

That's a "queen cell", with a queen growing inside.  Apparently she will hatch out on Saturday and get her strength up a bit before departing on her Whore Flight Mating Flight.

As a bonus, if you look really closely in those open cells, you can see tiny white dots: those are eggs.  In case the Test Tube Queen doesn't work out, the worker bees will raise one of those eggs to be a queen instead.

We were lucky-enough to get all these bees and the queen cell for free from a local (and very kind) commercial beekeeper, which saved us a couple hundred dollars.  Score!



2)  The vegetable Garden of Good And (Mostly) Evil progresses.  That's my cabbage pictured above.  I have four of them.

Here's some of my spinach:
(note the dead leaves already.  Could be a bug; too bad I'm too lazy to find out)
And, since I know you're DYING to see it, here's my lettuce:
Do you remember how I proud I was that I'd managed to make those lettuces grow from seeds?  I'm still pretty proud, but they haven't done so well since I've transplanted them outdoors.  Of all the seedlings I had going . . .
. . . I now have only 7 plants struggling outdoors.  Not sure what I did wrong in the transplantation, but I'm not going to dwell on it (mostly because I promised not to bitch too much for this post).

my new violets, which are still alive despite an entire week in my care
3)  The flower Garden of Good And (Mostly) Evil also progresses.  I have a love/hate relationship with my irises: I love that I've hardly watered or maintained them for the last few years, and they've still grown like weeds.  They are the perfect flower for a brown thumb such as myself.  However, I hate that they're only good for a few weeks of color, and then they die off and sit in ugly brown lumps that you're not allowed to touch for the rest of the year. 

I'm working really hard this year to diversify my flowers so that I'm not just dependent on the irises.  Thanks to the wonders of craigslist, I found a good deal on bundles of violets, which are making me very happy.  I also planted some stargazer lilies, a few ferns, some forget-me-nots, and some other seeds I just HAD TO HAVE RIGHT THEN but whose names I have now completely forgotten.

What's more, I've actually told Bee that summer-blooming bulbs are all I want for Mother's Day (well, bulbs and a spa certificate, but I know that won't be happening). 

Now, since I am not being negative, I won't say how it kind of freaks me out that I'm suddenly (and still) so interested in maintaining a garden. 

Since I am being positive, I will simply point out my theory that last year's farm class was sort of a trial-by-fire: it worked me so hard and pushed me so deep that now I'm actually excited to grow (1) just a few things (2) on my own property.  So, that's a positive thing that came about from all last year's exhaustion.



4)  I'm going to be an Auntie!  We have finches (I think) laying eggs in one of the hanging baskets outside our living room window.

Aren't they pretty?

Now -- again: no negativity here! -- the birds' choice of nesting spot was a little, well, stupid, since it means that the female flies off in a panic every time we open our front door or look out our living room window.  So far, though, she has always come back.  The fact that I inadvertently created a habitat suitable for a bird's nest lessens the sting of the fact that the plant in the hanging basket is already dying.  Less than two weeks after I planted it.  But, no worries: I'm being positive!


before . . .

5)  I am still working on our back yard.  But here it is currently:
. . . right now
Ahhh: the power of fresh bark.

Also, I am redoing our guest bathroom. 

Since we like our guests to feel welcome, we shove them in our cold, dark basement when they visit, forcing them to sleep on a full-sized mattress crammed into a corner between Bee's drum set and my wood lathe. 

Last fall, as you may recall, a bunch of friends helped me freshen up the basement.  Now it is past time to freshen up the basement's bathroom.  I ought to first tear out the shower and find the source of the water leak that makes itself evident at the top of the shower by causing the wall glue to 'bleed' down the shower wall, but -- who am I kidding? -- I'm not that into making my guests feel comfortable in my house.  Instead, since I've always felt held back by the three shades of white and baby-boy blue, a friend helped me choose more neutral bathroom colors:
Artesian White and something-or-other Sand
Now my friend has promised to help me find the proper-colored rugs, towels, and curtains to bring it all together. 

My awesome lack of negativity keeps me from stressing over the fact that I spent $47 for the paint for that tiny room, which is about $25 more than I wanted to spend, and which seriously cuts into my accessories allowance.  I'm hoping for some good thrift store finds.  I'm also wondering if I can sell the leftover paint (since there is a lot) to someone on craigslist.   That would make me feel better.

This is not a project I will let drag on, as my goal is to have the bathroom in top (if not un-bleeding) shape by the end of May, when my parents have promised to come visit.  Because they know how comfortable I strive to make them, they have allotted an entire twenty-four hours for their stay.  So I must have the bathroom work finished so that my parents can instead focus on shoveling bark and moving rocks for my new landscaping.

I'll post pictures letting you know how they did!

Comments

  1. Just a thought about your lettuce... last year we tried seeds inside and then transplanted with about the same luck you had. This year we started the seeds in the garden and they did much better. Also if you want to start them indoors then you can take them out for a few hours everyday after they have some real leaves (not the starter leaves) to harden them up. But I recommend with lettuce starting outside because lettuce is very cold tolerant. We grew ours all winter and it is still going strong.

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