Birds and the Bees

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cedar wax wing

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~ Birds ~

We are very much bird nerds around here. When the girls came from Guatemala and still spoke spanish… they surprised me one day by pointing to a mourning dove and mimicking it’s sound perfectly. It seemed very natural to all the kids as they would sit at the window with the bird feeder and flip through the pages of a bird call book. Each pointing at the feeder and then asking their big brother what each bird was named. When I was young.. I would sit at my grandparents window seat by their bird feeder and my grandfather would tell me what each bird was as he sipped his tea, always tea. I guess it makes sense that I grew up to paint flocks of birds… albeit I never really thought about all that till right now.

~ Bees ~

The bees are settling in nicely. The older hives from last year are going like gangbusters…. and the new hives.. are a bit slower. I think the bees love the smell and feel of the well loved hive opposed to the two fresh shiny new hives. My favorite beekeeper and I are getting very comfortable with the bees. Actually I am just more comfortable with the idea of being stung (which has never happened) than with getting my very very very pregnant self into a beekeeping canvas suit. So comfortable in fact that today I was dressed all in black (bees hate black) and in a skirt! Some say that may have been pretty risky…even for a pregnant girl. But again… I am too pregnant to even think about getting back into that bee suit like I did when we installed the bees. It is just too hot…way way too hot!