Daily Adventures

The high-desert moan of the wind has been omnipresent for the last week. The warm winds melted away the eight to ten inches of snow piled everywhere, other than in the most persistent shadows, still mounded with dirty ice. So the world, in the low slant of morning sun, was all the dusty taupe of Front Range winter. The trees were black lace against the grass and cold pale sky, and flocks of geese rose in deep V's heading, inevitably north. Their compasses already pointing toward a spring that still feels so far away.

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Donald Studinski is one of the more outspoken beekeepers in the Colorado beekeeping associations. He's knowledgable, experienced, and very very opinionated about how he sees the world of beekeeping. I often enjoy his missives, and recently he came up with a really nice article about what really happens with bees during the winter: Deep Freeze, Honeybees, and You. The title is kind of funny, but it has some really intriguing details about what bees really do all winter and how they actually are raising young through the cold months.

( Some of my own recent adventures with the bees and the cold... )

There's a pen, made by Pilot, where the ink is "erasable". You can buy it here at Jet Pens.

The funny thing is that the ink is actually erased by the heat of friction, and it reappears if you cool the paper down below 14° F (-10° C), which is pretty easily done in most freezers (or outside today... whew it's cold). So it kind of works as a disappearing ink that's the opposite of the usual kind of disappearing ink (most of which appear with heat or UV rays or... ).

Speaking of the Cold. It's been -10° F (-23° C) outside at night or in the early morning. Jet and I have been blowing bubbles outside, catching them on the blowing ring, and watching them freeze. It takes a little while, and you can also blow them onto a pan of water (so long as the water doesn't solidify on you). You can see the crystallization of the soap solution and then the whole bubble shrinks just a little before the film goes solid. Usually they just collapse, but occasionally you'll get a really strong bubble in which holes will appear and just stay and the rest of the structure remains stable. Jet's even poked his finger through the ring of the blower and held it there with the rest of the bubble all around it. It's really... cool. (or so she says as she's freezing her BUTT OFF... ahem)

Hope you're all doing well! Hope Thanksgiving was fun and that the shortening days are inspiring you instead of bringing you down. I managed to do Nanowrimo before I left for San Diego, but I'm sitting here with half a novel of my David finally finding his true love (and Afghanistani fissionables, Ukrainian nuclear power, and Russian politicians who were once Russian Bratva) and wondering if it's even what I really want to do to finish it, but I might as well just finish it so that it's done and David is finally settled down with the love of his life, and then get on with the 'real' one. *laughs* I may just finish it so that I can publish it as a weekly somewhere (including here, since I'll likely do it for free). Nanowrimo certainly made me realize that there's lots of ways to publish on-line content.

The weather is going cold in Colorado, and we're starting to have freezing nights. I've closed up the front entrance, taken out the screened bottom board, and the girls seem very content inside their boxes. I left one super on top, as that seemed to give them enough room, and I think that I'm supposed to start feeding them sometime. I'm wondering if any of the more experienced keepers have a good idea on when. I have a top feeder, and I think I'll wait until a warm and sunny day to open up and put that in.

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One of the few traditions we have as a family is taking the annual horse-drawn wagon ride, which our Home Owners Association does each year. One of the local farmers brings their draft horses and draws a hay wagon or a simple benched wagon around the loop of our neighborhood.

We always love it and, traditionally, it's on one of the coldest nights, usually in the teens (-16 to -6 C), in the dark, and crunching the dregs of recent snowfalls. We always bundle up and enjoy ourselves. This year, it wasn't nearly as cold. We haven't had the snowfall we usually have in November, and our weather is well on the way to a two-year drought. It was still below freezing, however, and the big bonfire and the giant jug of hot chocolate were very welcome.

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It's -3 F (-19 C) and is supposed to get down to -22 F (-30 C) tonight. Jet got today off from school, and will also get tomorrow, his birthday, off as well. He is probably the happiest boy ever. *laughs*

I have a final eye appointment in the morning (and while my eyes are still bloodshot, they're not as bad as in the fall), and while it snowed yesterday, the streets are actually clear and mostly dry today, thanks to sunshine all day and it only being a few inches. It's not the coldest it's ever been since we've lived here, but after 65 F on Friday, it's a bit of a shock.

Nice days to just stay at home, make lattes and hot chocolate, play the Christmas Wii and enjoy the sunshine.

A few years ago we went to Frasier Hill, up in Winter Park, and we discovered that inner-tubing can be a lot of fun, especially down a huge hill that's icy with packed snow and actual rope lifts to do the hard part of hauling oneself and the tube back up the hill.

John planned it in detail. The battle plan included going the night before, getting to Fraiser Hill by 10 am, when the place opened, tubing as much as we could before the skiers quit skiing, and then going home once we were completely exhausted.

( His plan worked. )

We have four inches of snow this morning. 28 degrees.... and the quaking aspens still have green leaves!

The boys are out sledding. Jet is just so excited!

It's supposed to be 60 tomorrow. *laughs* Colorado weather...

There are things I love and hate about the first morning at the bus stop when there's snow everywhere.

The things that I love include my liquid velvet leggings under my sweatpants, my big wool scarf, my rabbit-fur bomber hat with the ear flaps to die for, my felted wool mittens, and my big, huge sub-zero REI boots that I got at like 75% off from one of their spring sales. I love Jet's snow pants (which he wears over his shorts because he is my husband's son), aelfsciene's gift of a hat with the huge pompoms that he wears religiously (even when half the kids are like, you look like a girl with pigtails!! He just laughs and throws snow down the back of their necks), the big coat my Mom got him because she was too cold when she looked at him, and the snaky blue-green scarf that he loves to wear along with the felted mittens he goes no where without when it's cold out.

With all his stuff on, he can play in the snow before the bus all he likes, take it all off when he gets to school and he'll be warm and dry for the day.

( What I hate... )

It was really cold last night for the first time this season. I actually was up a whole hour after going to bed just trying to warm my feet up, but finally I went downstairs and got the rice bag warmers out, nuked them and then brought them back to bed with me. Ahhhh... I hadn't realized I was THAT cold. *sigh*

Today was a no school day, as the teachers needed it to get their stuff together, but the school offers an all-day program for kids that have parents that have to leave them there. So Jet decided he wanted to go, even though he didn't have to, he really wanted to be with kids all day, so we took him into school on the bikes this morning. We were all bundled up and Jet was still shivering. I should have put mittens on him at least for the ride there... anyway... it's good.

Better yet, last night, I put together all the dry stuff in one bowl and all the wet stuff in another bowl for pumpkin muffins. So, this morning, all John had to do was put the two bowl's contents together after letting the oven heat up and we had "instant" muffins for breakfast. They were very warm and yummy and Jet and John ate a bunch of 'em. So it was definitely a good way to start the morning.

I'm making slow progress on the camel down. I'm finally screwing up my courage for the phoenix sweater again, as I'm still terrified of not being able to finish without ordering more yarn or something... actually, worst case, I just spin up some of my Shetland white wool for the last few rows, I think. White at the very top wouldn't be that off-beat, all in all. Sigh... but so it is. I just need to keep going.