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Trisha's Journal

trisha
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05/16/2008 08:43 #44358

god save the queens

image

holy shit! i guess i could call myself a beekeeper now. this is a crappy photo, i keep meaning to take more but as soon as i open the hives up, i forget all about it. i never had a hobby before, where you forget all about the outside world. well, except reading, but you know. so passive.

queens jolene and josephine are thriving and laying eggs just fine, i believe. it's so neat to find her, so different amongst thousands, but hardworking in her way as well. jolene is more aggressive and the workers bang against my veil trying to attack. josephine nicely chills out, though it might have something to do with the fact that i usually open it up second and by then my smoker is going a little stronger. eh. maybe, maybe not.

i stole my first taste of honey yesterday from some comb i had to rip off. oh. my. god.

all in all things are going fantastically, i couldn't be more pleased! if they continue this way, i might just get a few jars this year instead of the none i had been planning on.
springfaerie - 05/17/08 16:40
I'm so, so, so happy that things are going well with your hives! I can't wait to see you all decked out in your bee-keeper gear!
paul - 05/16/08 09:37
Thats so cool. I think it would be great to have bes. Where do you live that you can do this? Or is it something someone can do in a city?

04/28/2008 21:54 #44175

bee momma
like any new mother, i am nervous and scared kinda shitless, for soon 18,000 odd stingly flying honeymakin insects will be my charges. also i am nervous because this DEMANDS that i not just dabble in a renaissancelike knowledge of things, like all "lah-tee-dah, that's cool to know, i could totally ace that jeopardy category," as i am wont to say to myself. if i want honey (uh, YES) and if i want the bees to thrive and go forth and multiply (yeah!), i probably should know what i'm doing a little. and i just....DON't. right now, anyway. books can only take you so far, and to be honest i've been damned lazy about the reading in any case.

i am hoping it IS sort of like parenting, and you quickly get the basic hang of it or just suffer. they will for the most part take care of themselves (i hope the queen kicks ass).... and for the most part i will learn this year and not get any honey for meself. some pro at the meetings said after 25+ years you still realize how much you don't know. so that's ok. that's good.

i'm just feeling sort of like "what the hell did i get myself into??" ---all based on some romantic view i had of dancing insects, flower juice, and hexagons. god.


imk2 - 05/16/08 13:50
hopefget they won't get that weird bee virus that's been going around Killing bees

04/07/2008 21:26 #43942

i love houses
paul once asked me what i love about buffalo, and it was during an i hate buffalo ebb. after thinking real hard, i answered "the houses." you could walk for hours, and spot hundreds of nifty little details you wouldn't find repeated elsewhere. there are some gems here too, but i really miss that about buffalo. god i could never live in the south, where so much is new.
for fun, i sometimes browse e-house plans but have been having some disturbing realizations come out of it. it's almost impossible to find one without the palatial master suite, which says a lot about homeowner/mom/dad/queen/king type stuff, and entitlement. then the outsides just look like monstrosities. it is the kind of "luxury" that is so barf-o-rama, new money & tasteless. i don't really get the whole "let's have an open floor plan downstairs" mentality when your bedrooms are compartmentalized and often, the "master suite" is set so so far away from the kids' rooms. if they cried in the night, they would have to mop up their own tears in their own bathroom, or run about 2K to the parents' room. that is so so sad.

i love this house, it's feeling more and more like ours (it's beginning to absorb us now)--- but i do not think it is the last house i will live in. i do not know where life will take us, maybe we will stay or go...if we stay eventually i would love to build a house, one i laid out a floor plan for myself, maybe partially dug into the earth. it would be so odd to live in a house no one else ever lived in.
metalpeter - 04/08/08 20:19
I just wanted to add that you are thinking about right now that you want the kids bedroom near yours so you can hear them. But see in the future you want it the other way around. You don't want to hear there music and if when they are older you or one of them is having sex you don't want either you or them to hear the others. My point is that what is good for now will change at a latter date. I don't own a house but I like pocket doors because they give the option of things being open or you can close off rooms. What is kinda annoying is when you have to go through one room to get to the kitchen and the kitchen doens't lead any where else, or when there are two bedrooms and only one of them leads to the bathroom, I did see that someplace but not sure where.
libertad - 04/08/08 07:52
That is one of the two things I like about Buffalo. The other would be the people. Really the houses are so great though. It can be tough watching some of them be neglected.
tinypliny - 04/08/08 03:12
I am with Paul and also with the rest of you. I like open floor plans a lot. It just feels natural to be able to walk through from niche to niche without missing a beat. BUT I hate getting foodie smells all over my bed or my clothes. So I would love to have some limiting doors to the kitchen or to places with furnitures/objects which would take the smell on.
jenks - 04/08/08 01:06
i'm with you. hate the stupid mcmansions.
drew - 04/07/08 22:35
but an open floor plan helps the party flow from the kitchen!
paul - 04/07/08 22:02
I hate open floor plans. I get all agoraphobic without pocket doors keeping everything separate. No seriously though, I really do like having a kitchen with doors that close because then when something burns in the kitchen or you are frying bacon, it ends up smelling everything up.
drew - 04/07/08 21:41
I, too, am trying to open up the floor plan of my home. I like it when everything is accessible to the kitchen.
james - 04/07/08 21:39
Buffalo has some amazing houses, and I am totally with you on the giant suite/false sense of entitlement thing.

But I love open floor plans. I love them so much. These cramped victorian quarters make me claustrophobic sometimes and there is no novelty like riding a bike in your own home.

03/29/2008 12:49 #43823

the absolutely insane cost of living
....is about to get worse. we now run a small-ish grocery store and have taken a big hit as far as wheat, milk, eggs, etc.--- in short all the things we use to make the rolls, cakes, pizza, etc.-- people are balking at raising the prices but the flour for these things literally tripled in one week. all your basic goods have gone up so so much.

now, to make things SO much worse, it will be insanely expensive to have the cup of coffee you have when you sit down to bitch about such things. coffee, store brand coffee, is apparently going to skyrocket to like $10 a can according to one of our reps. not even maxwell house, STORE brand. ich. STOCK UP NOW, people. starbucks is about to get a whole lot richer.
dcoffee - 03/29/08 20:04
My god, not coffee too!!
jenks - 03/29/08 17:16
did i miss something? why is flour/coffee getting crazy expensive?!
paul - 03/29/08 13:22
When did you guys become grocers?

03/16/2008 23:29 #43697

praying for sleep, and i don't pray
insomnia is the worst fucking thing, i would not wish it on an enemy. all the livelong day i feel somewhat akin to a slave, albeit to children i love and adore, but still, i am working hard and putting in hours, and then at night..... nothing. very little, and struggling to get it.

i went to see an acupuncturist, it was INCredible
wowo... i haven't felt so relaxed, i think ever in my life, than i was on that table. for two days i felt calmer and better, now i am back to the crazies. it would be nice to get an acupunture treatment every week, but i don't think it works that way. ...and i can't help thinking i have THAT much negative energy?--so much that it would only last 2 days?

part of it is so so bad because you are completely alone in your insomniac world. you can say i'm SO tired, but yeah yeah--- everyone's tired. you don't GET insomniac tired unless you're an insomniac too. then at night there's no help for it, nothing can really put you to sleep i believe, except yourself, naturally. There are distractions but they're pretty shitty when your mind just can't focus on ANYthing. TV is about it--ug.

it has occurred to me too that it's probably like riding a bike, you can't think about it too much. and i know i am. here i am, when i'm really tired and should be in bed. but i dread it, what might happen once i'm there. i have tried so much, and it makes me angry and it sucks, but i think i have to resort to good old fashioned western medicine, and just go on something.
libertad - 03/17/08 21:06
Sorry to hear about that. Have you looked into one of those sleep institutes?
ladycroft - 03/17/08 16:17
i get horrible insomnia, often. i'll go like 2-3 days without sleeping. i'm down with trying the acupuncture, i always wondered about it.
jenks - 03/17/08 16:07
Wow... that sucks. I tend to fall asleep in about 30 seconds flat (I have falled asleep at red lights before), so I can't even comprehend insomnia. Sometimes I wish I could have a smidge of it, so I wouldn't fall asleep during lectures etc. Though I know I don't *really* want to go through that. My sister used to get so upset about not being able to sleep that she'd cry and wake everyone up. That never helped...

Good luck!