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long live the queen


These lovely pictures are all taken from my second hive. That hive is thriving and the bees look great. They are making a lot of honey and look strong going into the winter ahead. I love the look of capped honey showing in the picture just above. That's what they'll live on during the winter months until the dandelions bloom in the springtime. 

The first hive isn't thriving. I've known this for weeks now, but haven't been sure what to do about it. I always see dead bees around the base, in disturbing numbers. In one of the first bee keeping books I read it recommended always starting your bee keeping experience with at least two hives so you have something to compare your hives against. I am so glad we did this, because towards the middle of August I could tell that the first hive wasn't keeping up with the second hive.

The trouble was that I didn't know what to do about it.

I kept telling myself that bees are resilient. They don't have keepers in the wild. Surely they would figure it out. I had read that if the queen was unwell or abandoned the hive, the other bees would build a new queen cell. But apparently that didn't happen. Adam, my bee keeping mentor came out the same day Mama J died, and confirmed what I already knew...my first hive had no queen. As we stood in the noisy cloud of bees surrounding the hive he told me that the bees swarming around and in and out of the hive were likely robbers from other area hives coming to get the honey.


I've taken the loss of this hive pretty personally. Adam assured me that it's really common. That it is not uncommon for a bee keeper to loose 1/3 of their hives in a year. He knew it would be sad, but assured me that next year he'd get me set up with splits from his own hives, queens that he grows and we'll be on our feet again. But I'm still so disappointed and feel so guilty about having lost an entire hive.

Adam did mention that if I had caught it soon enough, there usually is about a 10 day window to introduce a new queen (I thought this was done by the bees, but apparently a keeper can introduce a new queen as well) with hopes that the hive might resurrect.

The biggest lesson learned is simply that I still have so much more to learn. It is obvious to me that I need to be in some sort of bee keeping class, or honey bee school.

It's sad and disappointing. I'll study up this winter and be ready for another round next spring. In the meantime, I'll be building a silt fence around the second hive preparing it for winter.


a mess a minute


I found her with hair product all over her face and hands. I said, "little girl, you are a mess a minute."

She protested with frustration, "No! I'm Elsie!"

a florescent fall


I didn't change the coloring on any of these pictures it's just that this fall has been this spectacular. I told Rory that I wouldn't have thought neon colors were all that natural, but they totally are. You can see them everywhere lately. I took the kids on a country drive this morning and got a few of these pictures.

We spent the weekend in Wisconsin at our friends' cabin. It was a great weekend with a wood burning fire, hot apple cider, good food and conversation and snow on Saturday morning. We were so surprised! And it really was pretty. I never mind the snow at the beginning of the season. (Though I'm glad it's not the actual beginning of the season...)

But the kids got excited. Today they wanted to get the sled out and I was happy to pretend there was snow. And for the record, they did not want to go outside on this glorious day so I told them, "when you come out with your boots on, I will give you a peanut m&m." It worked and we played hard for an hour before nap time.

Bribery felt acceptable because it is the time of the year that you soak up every single lovely day.

wet and soggy


This morning while I was in the shower, Elsie was brushing her teeth. And then she said, "uh oh mama, I'm all wet." So I pulled back the shower curtain and saw that she was indeed getting all wet. Because she had plugged the sink, had it running and had flooded the countertop so badly that water was spilling over the front like a waterfall. I didn't even stop the shower, lept for the sink, turned it off, unplugged the drain and used my bath towel to direct the water on the counter back into the sink while pushing the pile of clothes on the floor over to soak up more of the water on the floor.

All the while Elsie was crying that I was getting her wet with my wet hair, standing over her step-stool as I cleaned up her mess.

We went to women's Bible study this morning in an absolute frenzy. When we got there the kids told me they were thirsty and I told them they had to be very careful with their little cups of water. But moments later it was I who knocked the water on the floor. And again I was down on my knees, cleaning up the second wet mess of the day. I commented to a friend that it felt like a day of baptisms for me. Water everywhere.

I raced the kids home after Bible study to get my clothes for the funeral. I didn't even let them out of their car seats. I packed them up for an afternoon an Auntie Lisa's and hit the road. And when we got there it was pouring rain. But I hadn't brought coats because it wasn't raining when we left. And I surely didn't have an umbrella.

I got ready at Lisa's and she let me borrow her umbrella. It was as I drove to Target, with the windshield wipers on full speed that I told God this water theme wasn't lost on me.

I went to the funeral and cried a whole lot of tears. Mama J's ashes were set upon the baptismal font and the pastor began the service by reciting Romans 6, "When we were baptized into Christ Jesus, we were baptized into his death. We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might live a new life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his." 

Baptismal water.

The service was lovely. A lot was said of Linda's love of boating and even a fishing trip story was told. I went up to read the scripture Linda had chosen for me to read and fell to pieces. I was totally caught off guard that I struggled so badly. But it was a funeral, and people do cry at funerals...

I drove home in the rain and ran into the house where Rory was boiling some hot water for our first night of small group. Minutes later our house was full of new and familiar faces, all ready to pour over the story of Noah.

You can't make this stuff up, folks.

And even as I sit here, the best word to describe my mood is soggy. My eyes are puffy. I'm thirsty and tired. I feel tired in my bones and sad in my heart. And I'm holding onto that baptismal promise with all my heart, believing that Linda is resurrected with her Maker, and that one day we who know and love Christ Jesus, will join her too.

how to be good people



On the last day of 7th grade my friend David asked me "out" in the back of my yearbook. (The text above is hilarious for 39 different reasons.) I said yes, I would go out with him. And that made it official. Just where we were going, no middle schooler actually ever knows.

A day or two later we were talking on the phone and he was telling me that he was going to his cabin that weekend. He commented that I would love his cabin and that sometime I should come up with his family.

Well, this freaked me out. And I'm not sure if it was in that conversation or in the next one, but soon after I dumped David.

My plan was to never talk to him again. Ever. In my life. Which was going to be tricky, but I felt up to the challenge since I made it through the rest of the summer avoiding him each Sunday morning at church. And then school started up and I knew this was going to be hard. We were in classes together. And band. And the school play.

But I kept at it. Avoiding eye contact. Avoiding him.

One afternoon during play practice the secretary's voice came over the loud speaker, "Becca Harrington and David Wagner, please report to Mrs. Johnston's room. Becca Harrington and David Wagner, please report to Mrs. Johnston's room."

When I got there all of the chairs were up on the tables from the end of the day, except for two that were facing each other with a table between them. Mrs. Johnston had us sit down. And then she said to us with love and care, "I don't know what happened to you two, but this has to stop. You are two of my favorite people and you deserve each other's friendship. You are better than this. You are meant to be friends and that's what I want to see when you are done talking here today."

She left the room and I was left to talk to David. And so I told him that when he said I should come to his cabin sometime I thought that was moving too fast and he commented that he never meant anything by it, except that I would love his cabin and that it's his favorite place in the world. His feelings had been hurt by my 7th grade dramatic over-reaction and we were able to talk through it all and when we walked out of Mrs. Johnston's classroom that afternoon we were friends again.

I love this story because it shows quite clearly how dumb and mean a 7th grade girl can be. And how important a 6th grade math teacher can be. Because Mrs. Johnston used her influence as our teacher not only to teach us math, but to teach us awkward middle schoolers how to be good people.

She was just my middle school math teacher, but since the day I stepped into her classroom, she was one of my most faithful mentors and constant life teachers.

And it's a good thing she got David and me talking again. Because we ended up MCing the senior prom, taking a train out to Montana to work at flathead lutheran bible camp, meeting up in India while studying abroad, and now, to top it all off, we live in the same small town.

Sure am glad I stopped ignoring him.