Tentative Good News

So it being a spectacularly gorgeous day (besides being Christmas) the SB and I were spending a good part of the day in the garden. After a half hour or so of working on digging the silt out of the creek, we took a break and I went out to have a look at the bees. There is a magic temperature, which I believe is around 57 degrees, above which bees will fly even in winter. They get out to air themselves out, forage if possible, collect water and poop. I cannot tell you how excited I was to see the bees outside the hive. They were a little disorganized, but out and flying and doing all the things that bees should be doing. I dashed in and whipped up some syrup for them and put it in the hive so they had snacks. Hopefully they will gorge themselves and be a little better for it. I really had very little hope that they were still with us, and I am hoping I still have a chance to get them through the winter.

The next project was to plant the fruit trees that we got earlier in the week. While we were planting, the SB got sort of tired of me remarking repeatedly how excited I was that the bees were still alive. He tolerated my enthusiasm though. He can be a good sport. While we were digging our neighbor (who, by the way of nothing, makes fantastic pizza) stopped by and chatted while we dug and planted. It made the time go more quickly and was a nice visit. We gave the trees the royal treatment. Kind planting, followed by a big drink of water, followed by spraying deer repellent (compliments of Santa Cho), hanging plastic milk/soda water containers on the branches (my neighbor swears by this), sturdy stakes set (to deter deer and help straighten the trees) and finally a dose of Roots, which is like vitamin water for plants. Tomorrow, I will be hanging the tiny bags of milorganite as recommended by Chuck at the apple farm. We're givin' it our all here.

Then the SB continued to work in the garden while I went to pick up our milk at the farm. Apparently, cows give milk on Christmas too. Lucky us! Then I worked in the garden more (this is how it goes when the SB is home, we get LOTS done).

I had to drag him in from the garden on the brink of starvation and on pain of missing a visit with our friends J&J who had open house over the holidays. We take any excuse to go by and ooh and ahh over their renovation, sit in the best potting shed in C'ville, and snarf up the general hospitality.

After that we went to do some cat and fish feeding for a friend out of town and had a visit with my mama and step pa and picked up the rest of the Christmas loot. Now we are tucked in at home, pouring through our new reading materials (the SB received a number of books and I got a subscription to Cooks Illustrated *swoon*).

All in all, I couldn't ask for a better day. It was filled with all the delightful surprised (yeah bees!), family, friends and good solid work with much progress. I hope your holiday was as lovely, but you are going to have to convince me it was better than mine....