Early Mother's Day Gift

My dear mom gave me an early mother's day gift that I adore.  Here it is, hanging over our kitchen table:

Isn't it awesome?

Thanks Mom!

Oh, and please pretend you don't see that pile of dirty dishes!

Britt and the Bees

A few years ago my sister started beekeeping.  I can't get over how brave she is to do so.  Despite my post about saving honeybees (check it out here), I have always been terribly afraid of them.

Here is a peek at her honey harvesting process.  There are beautiful jars of honey at the end of this...

Britt at work.  Isn't she cute?  I love the overalls.

Scraping the panels of the hive into a bin to separate the honey.

According to Britt, here's how it works:  You make a spatula warm and scrape it off.  Then the honey and wax are together.  Wax is much lighter.  I rigged up a way to separate.  It's on the cheap.   

The separation system.

The honey.

The wax.

Voila!  Lovelieness.

We sure love it when grandpa comes to visit

I love you Dad!

Our March ::

Here are some images of our life in March.  I did a somewhat better job of archiving this month, but still, I like compiling them all in one place.

March is still very wintry, but because the light is increasing so quickly all the time, we started taking some lovely evening walks.  I think we are all feeling more upbeat in general.

June is increasingly a big girl.  Hardly any toddler left in her.  She helps her brother put his coat on and similar things.  She is like a little mama.  She has started to branch out with her color preferences - now loving blue and green and not so much pink and purple.  She's even started wearing jeans a lot.

Miles is a love bug.  Always hugging on mom.  He is smart, puts things together easily.  Has a great vocabulary and talks a lot.  He's so damn cute too.  It's hard to think of what may have been different last month from this one.  Somewhere I have a list of all his funny words, like glubs (gloves).  I don't think I've posted it yet, but will soon.

Dinner at one of our favorite places.

Playing together.

Milo Silhouette.

Alaskan girl.  Going home to her igloo.

June.

Miles.  He has almost ditched that green plug for good.  Almost.

June making faces while drawing.

Saving Bees

For the last year or so, I have been made aware of Colony Collapse Disorder.  According to a recent Harvard Study, this disorder is caused by imidicloprid, and it causes colonies to collapse even at doses lower than that used in agriculture.

Even more unsettling, when the substance is applied to seeds, it grows with the plant.  Bees seek out the nectar and then take the laced nectar back to the hive.

It’s just insidious.  Personally, I think we need to quit tampering with nature.  But if we can’t go that far, we can at least make it known that this is a real problem.

I mean, can you imagine a world without honeybees?  Without honey?  There is no other way to stop the extinction of bees except to act.

For this reason, I created the above image.  Please use it freely.  Crop it, paste it into something else.  Go to cafepress and make it into stickers.  Put it on anything. Call your senators and representatives.  Make a difference for bees.