Kerstin Ilana and Alden

Alden's Birthday Party

2012-01-15T21:58:00.007-05:00

We celebrated Alden's birthday a few days early this year since his actual birthday falls on a Wednesday. We held it at the Children's Museum in Portland, which is probably Alden's favorite place in the whole world. His good friends Sophia and Evelyn were there, but also a few new friends from his preschool this time, Henry and Ariana.
They had a blast!! It was probably the most excited and overstimulated that we've seen Alden, but he was happy and excited to see his friends and played for about 3 frenetic hours, stopping only briefly for cake and ice cream.
The museum has a little party room in the lower level where you are supposed to gather, eat cake and ice cream and open presents. The room is rented out in 2 hour increments and theoretically you can party in here for the whole duration. However, the excitement over the museum was so great that the kids didn't really have it in them to finish their cake and ice cream before lure of the museum got too much to bear and they all cleared out. I'd venture that they spent a maximum of 15 minutes in here total. I don't really know therefore if they even liked the train cake I made. But it was a nice, quiet place for parents to catch their breath and grab a bite of fruit salad or a quick chit chat with another adult. It was the best birthday party yet and a huge success. Hooray for the Children's Museum!!

A snow blower for Kerstin's Birthday

2011-12-30T21:54:00.005-05:00

Alden, Joseph, Sandy, Joseph, my Mom and I all pitched in for a snow blower for Kerstin's birthday this year. When Alden and I picked it up from the store, the sales clerk gave us the low down on the operation and Alden listened intently. When we presented Kerstin with his snow blower, Alden covered all the features for him.

Chanukah 2011

2011-12-24T21:48:00.004-05:00

We celebrated the first 3 days of Chanukah with Joseph, Sandy, Geoff and Karen this year. Alden is learning his baruchas!

Alden Sings

2011-12-22T17:27:00.004-05:00

The Stepping Stones school Alden attends had a Christmas show last week. It was held at a lovely mansion in Augusta (Governor Hill's Mansion).
The program was crazy long... 37 songs all together... It lasted at least two hours (Alden's songs were over an hour) we waited as long as we could but finally had to go.

At least half of the performance Alden looked lost. He did step up on a couple songs... and then he went and cuddled with his teacher for the last part.

Here is Alden at about 50 percent performance level.

Advent Calendar

2011-12-01T20:37:00.004-05:00

We are doing advent calendars this year and did the first day today. It is something that fascinates Alden. The chocolate is the cheap kind, but he loves it and thinks the tiny doors and numbers are swell.
I have one and Alden gets the other one. Ilana wants nothing to do with this nonsense.

Here's to 23 more days and figuring out how to tie it in with Hanukkah the end.

Alden Loses Tooth!

2011-11-30T20:12:00.004-05:00

Today Alden lost his first tooth! The thing had been wiggly for several weeks and so we took him to the dentist in September. His dentist said that it was a little early for a loose tooth, so maybe he had some trauma... we could not think of any mouth-hits he had taken, so it may just be that he is ahead of the curve in this regard.

The last straw was brushing teeth tonight when the chomper twisted under pressure from the toothbrush. It came out when Alden spit to rinse, easy as you please.

There was no pain and no fuss, in fact Alden was pretty excited by the whole deal. We have a little plastic mouse-box our dentist gave us, so the tooth goes inside the box, under the pillow, and the tooth fairy will come and replace it with something awesome.

Winterizing the bees

2011-11-28T07:45:00.002-05:00

For the past month we have been feeding the bees sugar water, hoping it will help them have enough food to make it through the winter. We also acquired some bales of straw to use as wind blocks.

Over the weekend we took away the sugar water, added an inner insulator board and wrapped the hive in some Styrofoam insulation and tar paper... This is the final step in winterizing the bees

The insulator board goes under the bottom cover and the bottom cover gets flipped, which means the bees clinging to the bottom cover get exposed to the cold. Bees shut down at around 45 degrees, which was about the air temperature over the weekend. So when we flipped the cover there were about three or four dozen bees freaking out. We tried to brush them onto the porch of the hive with old Goldenrod stalk with mixed success. I think we got most of them eventually, but it stressed everyone out.

Here is the hive, ready for winter, with a bale on the NE and SW sides, wrapped in tar paper with the entrance on the bottom open and an air vent at the top. I hope we will see the bees next February.

Thanksgiving Chores

2011-11-27T19:23:00.006-05:00

Thanksgiving was small this year. Ilana was out of the country taking a class for work, so Alden and I had the run of the house. We were able to get quite a bit done over the holiday.

I was able to get chores done that Ilana may have frowned upon due to the mess factor. I finally plastered and painted the sheet rock I hung on the bedroom ceiling (maybe three years ago... yipe). I threw down many drop clothes, but cleaning the dust was still a challenge.
I completed the woodshed with help from Karen (who watched Alden), Darrell (who helped with the walls and roof), and Scott who helped with the roof and wood stacking. All the wood is now safe and dry in its new home.

At the end of the holiday weekend, Ilana came home in a new used car. Since the truck got totaled a few months back we have been keeping our eyes out for something new to drive. Our friend James was getting a new vehicle so we were able to adopt his old Camry. We are all very excited about it.

Getting ready for winter

2011-11-15T20:19:00.007-05:00

Summer is over and fall seems to be flying by. It seems lately we have been keeping our collective heads down and pushing forward.

I have been busy with chores all summer and fall. I have been renovating the house piece by piece, with the latest additions being a new closet (i.e. replacing a hole that lead to the basement) a new downstairs bathroom, finishing the downstairs hallways, a new upstairs guest room, a new equipment shed, a new compost heap, more weatherproofing around the house, and various landscaping projects. I also completed a new firewood shed in last week. Some of these projects have been over a year in the making. The bathroom was started over a year ago and I took a victory lap when we got working fixtures.... eight months later the last of the drywall was painted.
Alden and the floor of the soon to be woodshed.
Alden and the new compost heap
The corner of our new tiny guestroom

New Bathroom

Alden has been growing in leaps and bounds. He became fully potty trained awhile back, and he's now able to sleep through the night without accidents. He recently started making his own breakfast so we can sleep in (we place a bowl of cereal on the table and a cup of milk in the fridge and he puts them together by himself). He knows his letters and numbers and is sloooowly learning how to draw, although he still has no patience for it yet. His motor skills need to be honed so he knows more than he can do. His bargaining and negotiating skills are pretty advanced and he is very good at verbalizing what he wants. He still has a hard time talking about his day, the "what happened at school today" question is usually met with either vacant or distant looks and he requires additional prodding for answers.

Alden was rewarded with a homemade a train cake after he had no nighttime bedwetting for a whole week. No more diapers for this family - yippee!!

Ilana developed a new garden plot and headed our CSA membership garden all summer. Lately, she has mostly been taking advantage of travel related to work, for classes and workshops.

Wintering the Bees

2011-10-18T19:50:00.004-04:00

We started getting the bees ready for winter by feeding them medicated sugar water and reducing the hive entrance. In another month we will lock them down for the cold weather, but right now the days are pretty mild and they are still finding pollen from somewhere.

NEW BATHROOM

2011-10-10T19:51:00.004-04:00

When we bought the house there was a room on the east side of the kitchen. It was heated by an electric monitor heater and primarily used for laundry, storage, and had a large chest-freezer. It had wood paneling and a hatch that went to the basement and another that went to the attic. There was a fiber tile ceiling and linoleum floor stapled down over a plank sub-floor.
When we moved in we got rid of the chest freezer and moved the laundry machines to the basement. We christened the area the 'Mudroom' and it was an off-and-on storage area for things as we did renovations on the house. About two years ago I started chipping away at making the space usable, which not only included the mudroom, but the area above and below as well. The first project to be done was the basement, because it was the easiest. Next was making a functional second bathroom (sink and toilet) which was completed about a year ago, but not finished... just functional.
About a month ago I got the bathroom finished enough. There are still a few bits and bobs I want to do, but for the most part it is complete. Toilet, shower, sink, tile, lights, shelves, cabinets, and the rest.

We also had the outer walls insulated, new electric and plumbing, and new windows along the way.
We did everything ourselves except run the plumbing.
Tah Dah!

Skunks 4, Woodchucks 3, Racoons 3, neighbor's cat 1

2011-10-02T17:45:00.003-04:00

One more skunk catch and an eventful night when we got this lovely couple brings the trap count up to:
Skunks 4
Woodchucks 3
Racoons 3
Neighbor's Cat 1
All but the neighbor's cat were taken to the beach.

The traps have been quiet for awhile and I hope this will be it for the season

Monhegan Island Visit

2011-10-01T13:12:00.009-04:00

We took a trip to Monhegan Island a few weeks ago to see Uncle James, an old family friend who has known Kerstin his whole life. James traditionally rents a little cottage on the island for two weeks or three weeks every September and has been doing so for over 30 years. The boat ride to Monhegan was Alden's first oceanic trip and we got to see Minke whales on our return! Alas, they only surfaced for a short while, and I didn't get my camera out in time to snap a pic.
We walked around the island and did a little tidepooling and boat wreck climbing. Then we hiked up to the cliffs on the opposite side of the island where we enjoyed stunning ocean vistas.

We also took a jaunt through town, which was filled with beautiful gardens and butterflies. One house had chickens, so we stopped to watch them for a while.

Alden's favorite part of the island was playing a chase and hide game along the road. Thankfully, there are very few motorized vehicles on the island and the roads were mostly empty, so Alden was free to run about as he saw fit.It was really great reconnecting with James on the island, although it was only a brief visit. We were lucky enough to see him a week later when he stopped by our house and joined us for a rousing evening of poker.

3 skunks

2011-09-23T21:01:00.004-04:00

Over the past two day we have captured three skunks in our traps, baiting them with catfood or sausages.

On the first day we got a young skunk

On the second day we got one young skunk and one old one.I transported them all away to the beach. I hope now our bees can sleep in peace and not be so cranky.

Racoon

2011-09-21T21:19:00.001-04:00

Not sure if this critter was eating our bees, but he was in our trap, so it was off to Peacock Beach with him.

Autumnal Garden Bounty

2011-09-17T09:08:00.005-04:00

We had a frost advisory last night, so Alden helped me pick some of the remaining frost sensitive vegetables in our garden. Here's what we hauled home yesterday. We've tried a few new crops this year which are pictured here - sweet potatoes (woot!), mellons (meh) and Korean sesame leaf, or ggaennip (fun!). I'm most proud of my sweet potatoes, pictured in the upper right, which are not easy to grow in Maine, but thrived in our newest plot. The mellons got a slow start - the worst of our cucurbits - and flowered late in the season. The fruits may not be ripe yet, but I didn't want to risk the frost damage, so I picked them anyway. The sesame leaf has been fun to experiment with. We received these seeds as a gift from our friends in NY who are Korean and American. They love this stuff and grow it in pots on their rooftop garden, so they thought we should give it a try. I had no idea what to expect, but they did well. The plants grew about 33" tall and produced beautiful, serrated cordate leaves with a really assertive and unique flavor. I'm at a bit of a loss to describe it. It's almost a minty, oniony cilantro, but it holds its flavor when cooked, so it's amazing in enchiladas and soups. Sesame leaf also makes a great wrapper for ceviche, sushi, and dolmas, and infuses a brilliant flavor to meats when stuffed in fish and grilled. I've really grown to love it and we're all having fun coming up with new ways to use it.
And of course, the tomatoes. We had reasonably good luck with the tomatoes, but they got septoria relatively early in the season and I didn't keep on top of it, so our plants were reduced to shriveled brown snarls much sooner than they should have been. We grew Orange Banana Paste tomato this year, which makes the sweetest tomato sauce I've ever had. Luscious is the only way I can describe it. We'll definitely grow this one again. The tomatoes pictured above were collected over a week or so and made about 8 cups of tomato sauce, which we froze and squirreled away. We also grew a variety of heirlooms and sun gold cherries, which are so sweet and tempting I don't think they have ever made it out of the garden.

Angry Bees

2011-09-11T13:56:00.003-04:00

We've been amazed at how docile our bees are, even when we're routing around in their house. I've often wondered if they've had too much aggression bred out of them and if they would actually defend themselves against real attackers. That question was answered yesterday.

Kerstin was moving some cinder blocks in the area around the hive as he does every time he mows and was stung 4 times in rapid succession. Luckily Alden was not in the area and Kerstin had the presence of mind to run away like a big sissy. Not so luckily, one of the workers really jammed her stinger into Kerstin's hand, which swelled up like an inflated latex glove on the ring finger and pinky side.
We suspected that the bees were being robbed. This happens when workers from another colony decide that it's better to take honey from a weaker colony than collect their own nectar. The marauders either kill or sneak past the guard bees at the entrance and run roughshod though the hive, ripping open capped comb and stinging those who get in their way. The way to deal with robbing is to reduce the entrance to the hive and trap the offenders inside where they can get their asses handed to them by the angry colony. Kerstin set out the entrance reducer and crammed some grass in the crevices. We were then to wait until nightfall when all the workers would return to the hive and place a wet blanket around the hive, further sealing it and masking the smell of alarm pheromones which attract robbers. However, when we went out last night to put the blanket on, we were met with this:
There was skunk munching away on our poor bees under the hive. No wonder they're so pissed off! We chased the punk away and baited our havaheart trap with cat food (supposedly most attractive to skunks). I've since learned that skunks will scratch at the entrance of a hive to agitate the bees, and then eat them as they come out of the entrance or as they crawl under the screened bottom of the hive. We didn't catch the skunk in our trap last night, but we're going to shut the bees in their hive completely tonight so that the skunk can't get to them and see if we can get it tonight. We may need to lock up our bees at night for a while until we're sure the skunk (or skunks?!) is gone. Lessons learned for next year - put the hives on stands at least 18 inches off the ground so the skunks can't reach them. They're up on cinder blocks for this reason, but we only did 12 inches and it clearly wasn't high enough to protect them. We've also fenced off the underside of the hive with chicken wire so the skunk can't get underneath it.

The trouble is that early fall (i.e NOW) is the time to treat for varroa mites and our bees are much to angry to let us get anywhere near them. Kerstin and I can only work our bees on the weekends, so we had no choice but to medicate while the bees were riled up. For the first time since we've owned bees, we had to suit up completely to approach them and smoked them liberally. Kerstin removed the top two supers, and our livid bees immediately dive bombed us as I fumbled with the pads (we're using Mite Away Quick Strips this year). It seemed to take an eternity to put them down on the frames and close the hive up, but I think it took less than 30 seconds in actuality. I didn't get stung, but Kerstin got stung on a little strip of flesh above his wrist that was exposed by his cuff as he lifted the hive.

Now we know the fury our bees can summon, it makes me appreciate their normally gentle nature that much more. We just need to take care of this *#&ing skunk to get back to baseline.

First Day at a New School

2011-09-07T21:53:00.005-04:00

Alden's first day at his new school was Thursday. He was supposed to start on Tuesday but he got sick early in the week and only fever-free for 24 hours by Thursday. He took an instant shine to the frogs in the classroom, naturally, but was otherwise pretty jittery at first. Kerstin stayed with him for about an hour before Alden was comfortable enough to part ways. He had a terrific first day at school, his teachers all reported. He was friendly and polite. He had no meltdowns, freakouts or pants wetting. We were all terribly proud of him.Alden is amazed (and perhaps a bit frightened) by his new cubbie!

New Hampshire Saturday

2011-08-15T17:55:00.005-04:00

We went to New Hampshire for the day to see the chickens
Oh, yeah, and to see Aaron Liz and cousin Levin too.
Alden and Levin got along really well, it was sweet to see them play together.
We had an appointment Sunday so we could not stay. But it was a barrel of monkeys while we were there.

Karen Birthday

2011-08-08T22:39:00.002-04:00

Karen hung out with Alden and I for her birthday. It was a rainy day, but that did not stop her from taking Alden on his first kayak ride.
I made cream puffs for us all for breakfast to celebrate

And a chocolate cake for supper.

Another CSA

2011-08-08T22:38:00.003-04:00

Kale, broccoli, patti-pan squash, zucchini, cucumbers, bush beans, purple runner beans, lettuce, and blueberries.

Raspberries are all-but-gone, Fava beans are old and punky, peas are gone and the apples on the main tree did not really produce this year.

Groundhog 3

2011-08-04T21:51:00.001-04:00

Again with the groundhog.
These creatures are the gift that keeps giving.
Fortunately they have not gotten into the garden yet.

Groundog Revisited

2011-08-03T18:57:00.003-04:00

Got another one.
Took him to Peacock Beach with the rest of his family.Alden and I thought this one was particularly fierce.

Batty!

2011-08-02T17:58:00.000-04:00

I got a call the other day from Karen, who had this little visitor in her house.

Alden and I raced over to capture the scamp. We plopped him into a tupper-ware container and looked at him for awhile, then let him go outside. Very exciting. In hind sight I should have let him go at my house, I think bats are awesome.

CSA 3 - August

2011-08-01T20:47:00.003-04:00

This week we have loads of kale and green beans from the garden. There are also squash and broccoli and basil. Some red runner beans salad greens and one very nice beet. I was not able to harvest the blueberries which are almost past due... maybe tomorrow.

I put Alden in this bucket to keep him occupied when harvesting. It worked well until some bug bit him... or tried to bite him. But it was enough time to get most of the veggies in. Karen helped, but she was tired from watching Alden for the day.

Tennis puddles

2011-07-30T18:21:00.002-04:00

I took Alden on a stroller ride this morning and stopped by the high school tennis courts, or what we now call Disney Land.

Ground Hog Acquired

2011-07-27T22:04:00.001-04:00

Ha! Off to Peacock Beach.

CSA 2

2011-07-25T06:00:00.002-04:00

This week our garden brought us broccoli, patty pan squash (yellow), round zucchini squash, kale, peas, lettuce, spinach, blueberries, raspberries and fava beans. The apples on our tree are ready to pick too, but I did not get a chance to harvest them.

Groundhog Again

2011-07-24T09:15:00.006-04:00

I looked out the window this morning to see this trap being flipped over. Next to it was a teen groundhog chewing on some leaves. Alden and I went out to chase him. Alden loved seeing him run. Yep, he got away this time... but we will get him eventually. I reset the trap and baited it with more tasty apples.

So Hot the Bees Won't Work

2011-07-21T20:54:00.003-04:00

It was hot today... low 90s and humid. It was so hot that the bees just hung out on the porch of their hive moving slowly.

I cant blame them.

Our CSA

2011-07-17T20:53:00.007-04:00

I do not think we had mentioned that since June we are growing food for others in our garden. We have two people who have 'shares' in our produce. Usually Ilana deals with this, but since she is away in Santa Fe, I harvested the edibles.
This week Raspberries came on-line as did blueberries and round zucchini. We still have a lot of lettuce, spinach and kale growing. Peas are producing well and fava beans are at their peak. So this is what the bounty was.
I had some great help. Joseph and Sandy are visiting and Karen was able to watch Alden while we picked, cleaned, and packaged.
The day was hot (90d) so we filled Alden's pool and played with him in the afternoon. The bottom was very slippery so he preferred to be dragged along, back and forth, as opposed to sitting. Karen and Sandy helped him with this, as did I later on.

Good Bees

2011-07-15T17:14:00.005-04:00

This is the do or die moment for the colony. With this hive-check either the queen is making brood and the colony will get strong again, or no brood and the colony will peter-out an be gone by the end of August. As you may notice I am wearing less and less protective gear. I also stopped using the smoker before opening the hive.

Because of the split/ un-split the hive has three levels now. the top two were either honey or empty, no brood, but that is not uncommon for the top boxes.
The bottom box had brood! The babies are back and the bee experiment can continue!
We even got to see the queen, and both Ilana and I agree that she looks magnificent. We are not sure if this is Sally or not. The plan is to keep the hive closed for a couple weeks and just let the bees do what they do.

Alden pretending to be at LL Bean

2011-07-09T07:38:00.006-04:00

Yep, this is what we do for imaginative play in Maine. LL Bean (Alden still calls it "L On Bean", which I think makes it sound more sophisticated) has an elevator, a swinging foot bridge that runs through the children's department and clock chimes that ring every hour. Alden LOVES elevators and chimes so you can see how this evolved.

Good news/ bad news for the bees

2011-07-08T18:50:00.003-04:00

When we introduced the new queen to the green hive it seemed like the workers wanted to kill her, so we put the new queen in a new purple hive - splitting the green one.
We didn't think that the green hive would make it, but since we put a fresh queen in the purple hive, we thought it was sure to thrive.
Well, for the past week the purple hive looked almost abandoned, no bees flying in or out. When we looked in today we didn't see a queen or any larvae , just a bunch of lazy workers eating their way through the honey stores. Obviously the queen we introduced last week was gone - killed, left, whatever.The green hive has been going strong all week and looking very active. When we looked in, we saw a big fat queen... so maybe we will be reuniting the hives this weekend. Dang...

Goodbye Daycare

2011-07-07T14:45:00.007-04:00

Today was Alden's last day at Harbor Children's Center. He has been there since he was about 2 1/2 months old, so we are not sure what removing him from that environment will do.
Ilana is going to Santa Fe for a month to get some training for work, and unfortunately the daycare is not close to anything I do, so it would have been a huge problem to transport him. Alden will start at a different school in September and until then we will have a parade of family and sitters taking turns for his care.He made many friends at the center and it was his main point of socialization in many ways. We have some friends with kids, but have been rather slack about forming playgroups and making play dates and the like. Perhaps the paradigms will shift now that we are 'on our own'. As far as we are concerned the daycare was amazing and we are sad to be taking Alden away from it.

Splitsville for Bee City

2011-07-03T17:52:00.011-04:00

Yesterday we decided to check up on our hive and if Queen Sally had taken control of the situation. Sadly, it seemed like Queen Sally was not doing her job. There were no eggs or larva and the workers had started filling the brood box with honey. I suppose they were doing this because, "screw-it the queen isn't making babies and the comb should be used for something." <-- bee thinking.
Since Sally was nowhere to be seen, we figured she was dead and went out and bought a new queen. Our pal Darrell came over for a visit and took part in the re-queening. This is a process where you take a queen (in her little screen box) and place her in the hive. Hopefully the bees are excited to see her and over a day or two eat their way into the box, thereby freeing her.

When we put the queen in our hive we were not sure what we were seeing. It was hard to tell the difference between happy bees swarming a queen to welcome her and angry bees swarming a queen to kill her. We thought it could be either case and left the queen in to see what happened over time with the assumption that the workers would soon warm up to her.
When we checked back later in the day things seemed tense. The workers had NOT warmed up to the new queen, but were mobbing her and trying to sting the cage. This kind of behavior suggests that Sally was still around. We took the new queen out of the hive and pondered what to do next.
The solution we came to was to split the hive. We would set up a new hive on the other side of the yard. The new queen (who we've named Bertha) would be their leader. We took several frames from our old hive and placed them in the new purple hive (workers included). We scrutinized each frame to make sure we did not accidentally transport Sally. We let the new colony sit overnight before we introduced Bertha. When we placed Bertha in the hive the workers behaved very differently. They mobbed the box, but they also all fanned in unison, which we hadn't seen before. This kind of behavior is often seen when the hive is suddenly queenless. The workers fan to spread any lingering queen pheromones in a desperate attempt to locate her. It was still kind of difficult to tell if they were happy or angry though. Bee kisses are pretty hard to distinguish from bee bites.
When we checked back later in the day, the hive was mellow and it looked like the workers accepted the queen. We have high hopes for the purple hive under queen Bertha's reign. The green hive with Sally (or whoever) is still a worry, but at least we think we've successfully hedged our bets against a total loss.

All Hail Queen Sally

2011-06-27T21:41:00.004-04:00

Carnage outside the bee city was piling up this morning. There were several queen carcasses on the patio and probably more scattered away from the hive. All together we counted around 16 queen cells, which means 15 queens-to-be did not make it.
We think this little lady was the victor and is now the new queen. Alden named her Sally... yep. Ilana and Alden saw her clinging to the side of the hive for about 15 minutes this morning before she took off on what we assume was her mating flight.

We did not see her return, but will know if everything happened as it should in a couple days if we see baby bees again in the hive.

Some of the workers in the video above are trying to help Sally find her way back to the hive by fanning the nasonov pheromone out into the air.
We collected a few of the vanquished queens for a posthumous photo shoot. RIP little lasses. It was amazing to see just how much smaller the virgin queens are than mated queens. The queen's abdomen really expands dramatically once it's filled with sperm and eggs.

Bee swarm part II

2011-06-26T21:17:00.009-04:00

Alden holding a drone. A worker bee in our remaining hive is fanning the nasonov pheromone.

We never located the bee swarm after they left, but we knew they had to be somewhere nearby. We only want the best for them and will be happy as long as they are happy, blahdy blah, but still it would be nice if they would just realize that the best place in the neighborhood really is in our backyard and come home. The weather was cool and rainy all week, so I thought we might still have a chance this weekend to impact their decision. Since I'm halfway though Honeybee Democracy (fantastic book, btw!) my head is filled with crazy ideas about tracking and eventually coaxing our swarm back to our property with a fresh new hive filled with comb, the ideal cavity volume, and a south-facing courtyard, etc. These are all qualities of a nest site that are highly valued by scout bees, so my thinking was that since our swarm was probably still nearby going through the bee equivalent of the neighborhood real estate flier, we'd swoop in with an offer so good, they'd be fools to pass up. Our family made a trek to the local bee supply store today and returned victorious with a fresh set of supers, complete with matching frames. Kerstin had barely unloaded the trunk when our neighbor approached us and inquired about our bees.

"Um, they swarmed on us last week, why do you ask?"
"Oh, my friend and I were walking the dogs by the llama farm down the road and saw a massive cloud of insects heading for the open pasture on the other side of the farm. At first we thought they were flies and then I realized they were bees. They aren't yours, are they?"

Curses!

We jumped in the car and drove down to the farm and the pasture to see if we could catch of glimpse of them on their way out of town, but alas, we were too late there too.
We're still building the new hive and plan to put it out in the field anyway. We hope that another swarm will find it attractive to them and take up residence before it gets too late in the season to build up the honey reserves to successfully overwinter. We are all quite taken with our bees and hope to increase our apiary to 3 or 4 hives by next year. In the meantime, the ascendent queen has probably offed her rivals and will probably take her wedding flight soon. More drama is still ahead of us until she starts laying. Stay tuned...

A New Reign

2011-06-25T20:53:00.010-04:00

The colony was acting weird today. I told Ilana to check them out and she came back to tell me that the queens were 'tooting'. This is not a euphemism for gassy bees, oh no. 'Tooting', also known as piping, is the noise the baby queens make either while still inside their cells or immediately after emergence. The queens make this noise by vibrating their wing muscles without moving the wings, which causes the sound to resonate in the thorax. It occurs most often where there is more than one queen in a hive and is thought to be a battle cry announcing the queen's willingness to fight. It may also demonstrate the fitness of the new queen to the worker bees, which may rally around the strongest virgin queen. You have to listen to the hive very carefully, and if you are lucky (which we were) you can hear a sound like a mosquito buzz (high pitched whine) coming from inside the hive, possibly followed by a response buzz from another queen in a different cell. The sound from our own hive was too faint to record for you, hence the You Tube link, but it sounded identical to this video. Specifically, this is the 'tooting' noise, which suggests that at least one queen has already hatched and, workers willing, is on the prowl.

If they haven't already done so, any day now the rest of the queens will emerge and it will be Thunderdome time, unless they are planning successive swarms. Good timing for it, the weather will be nice this week for the victorious queen's mating flight.

New Closet

2011-06-22T22:25:00.008-04:00

When we bought the house the door off the side of the dining room did not lead to a closet, but rather stairs to the basement with shelves. At one point it WAS a closet until some Yankee genius cut a rectangle out of the floor and installed some scrap-wood-stairs. I'm sure there was a good reason for doing that at the time, but for my lifestyle I prefer to have the closet space. The 2 biggest downsides of this modification was that it took away a really good place to put stuff and it made the house very drafty. So a couple months ago I decided to reclaim the space as a closet. So I re-installed the floor, threw on some sheet-rock and did a little plastering. And voila!

One thing that makes these jobs totally worth it is when Alden discovers the new space.

SWARM!

2011-06-19T23:20:00.006-04:00

All indications point to our bees having swarmed. Which basically means that the queen and half the workers thought they could do better somewhere else and took off. I have not been able to find a definitive reason why bees swarm. There are several factors that seem to relate in an equation of hive-space vs. bee population vs. honey supply vs. time of year vs. mystery.
I can't help take their leaving personally and am a bit hurt. I looked around the property but could not find any clues to their whereabouts. The bees that were left have already made some queen cells and we are hoping that if we leave things alone everything will be back to 100% in a couple weeks, new queen and all. If the new queen isn't up to the task we will have to run out and buy a queen in a hurry.
We figured the watch-n-learn approach would be the best which is why we have not bought a new queen yet. I now see the reason to starting the bee keeping hobby with two hives however. The books I read sated you should do this so you can compare the two and in case one dies. What they did NOT make clear is how a healthy hive can help an ailing one. In my case I worry that there wont be enough good (genetically diverse) drones for the new queen. If I had a second hive this would not be a worry.
There should be at least twice as many bees on the frames and a lot more brood.
If a new queen works out and the bees can get their population back up we might get a little honey in the fall. If things don't pick up they may not have enough food to last the Maine winter and we could lose the hive. Yipe.

Skunked!

2011-06-12T22:12:00.002-04:00

We had our friends Darrell and Bethany over for drinks and conversation the other day and right in the middle of the social gathering a skunk got captured in one of our garden traps.
It took awhile to figure out how to release the little bugger. Putting the cage in the car or truck to take the varmint to Peacock Beach seemed like tempting fate. So even though skunks can eat bees, I decided to let it go in on the property. We all stood around trying to think of the best way to do this. We finally came to the conclusion that we should throw a tarp over the trap, then prop open the front with a stack, and hope for the best.
Fortunately there were no casualties or amusing stories beyond this point.
We went back to our garden party.

Hive Beetles

2011-06-08T12:07:00.006-04:00

We spied a few hive beetles after our weekly inspection yesterday (pictured here on the left of the middle frame). They are small black things that scurry away when the inner cover is removed. From what I've read, the larvae of this beetle are the biggest threat to the colony, because they feed on pollen and honey, and may damage combs. Right now they seem to be concentrated in the top super only, so we're going to place our beetle traps up top and see what happens.
The top super seems to be dedicated to honey storage at the moment (!!!). It's full of ripening honey, while the queen appears content to continue laying eggs in the bottom super. That said, the frame with the most honey on it was the outermost frame of the lower super (pictured below). Kerstin actually struggled to lift it because it was so heavily laden. Our little bees certainly have been busy in this string of sunny, warm days!Having 2 supers worth of frames certainly complicates the inspection process. Kerstin was bombarded by no less than dozen bees bent on his destruction near the end. This is the angriest we've seen them and thought for sure today was the day we'd finally get stung. Bound to happen eventually. But no, we managed to escape the assault. Another day, perhaps.Here's the queen (upper right, dark thorax, golden abdomen). She still seems to be doing her job, although the workers are still building queen cells. I still don't get this, but we're just going to let them sort it out themselves.Alden was a champ and sat patiently on his little cinder block as his parents stirred the bee hive. Everyone (minus a few unfortunate bees who were crushed during the inspection - RIP) came through unscathed.

The Latest Garden-scape

2011-05-30T08:02:00.010-04:00

For 2011 this is how our garden has expanded. There is an entirely new garden-plot and (of course) bees. There are also a few more blueberries and a new blackberry patch. The fruit trees are pretty much the same, but we cut the top off the hemlock to get better sun in Garden 1 and we also did some major pruning to the old apple tree to remove the big vertical growth.
2010 garden
2009 garden
2008 garden
2007 garden
Not bad from where we started (what came with the house) in 2007.

The Bees are All Right

2011-05-29T21:41:00.002-04:00

Latest check shows that there is a queen (below) and there are larva and capped brood so everything looks good. I think the scare is over.
Last week I swapped the position of frame 1 and 2 and frame 9 and 10 at the ends of the hive. I did this so the bees would not forget to build wax on them. My trick worked and every frame was ready to go this week, which means I could put another hive on top.

This is how the bees were acting mid-week. I think the new queen was on her mating flight and so the workers buzzed on the hive to spread pheromones to help he find her way back. Usually bees do not loiter around the front of the hive.

Alewives Running

2011-05-28T09:17:00.004-04:00

The Alewives are swimming upstream! There is a fish ladder in Damariscotta/Newcastle where they bottleneck and you can get a good look at them as they ascend uphill. Yesterday was the first hot day of the spring and Karen, Alden and Darrell went to pay our regards to the swimmers.
The last time I saw the alewives migrate was about ten years ago. The fish ladder has developed a lot since then and there is even a campaign to develop it further. There's even a fish ladder celebration already in its fourth year. One of the best/worst developments is that they have put nets over the stream to keep predators from grabbing the fish, which makes photography difficult.
There are also a couple of basins on chains and motors that occasionally are activated and lucky fish get hefted upstream a ways.

Fixin' the Truck

2011-05-25T09:16:00.010-04:00

On the edges of the spectrum there are repairs and patching. 'Repair' is getting as close to a restoration of original quality as you can manage, 'patching' involves making something functional with the least amount of effort. In the middle are stages of the 'fix'. There is 'fixing', 'fixin', 'fixun', 'fexun', 'pheksen' and so on. I would say I am somewhere around fixun the truck.
The truck accident last week TOTALED the truck, but for something like $600 I was able to retain ownership and get the insurance settlement. All the damage was to the truck bed (none to the frame) so my pal Darrell came by and we went at it with hammers and pry-bars.

The two best tools of the afternoon were the come-along, which we attached to a tree and then pulled the point of impact back to original position. This move fixed about 50% of the problem. The next best tool was a pipe we used to extend the handle on my ratchet set to remove the bumper and lift-gate bolts.
We made good progress and I ordered a new bumper, bumper-brackets, and driver tail-light. When they arrived I continued/ finished the fixun... and voila !

They see me Rollin'

2011-05-24T08:06:00.000-04:00

He still gets distracted and drifts off the sidewalk, but all-in-all I am psyched that Alden is riding his trike.

Bee Confusion

2011-05-23T07:01:00.000-04:00

The hive seems to be developing a little slowly because of the cool damp weather, but it is developing well, with new brood, pollen and nectar filling the comb. So it is distressing to see the queen cell still hanging on the frame... are the bees really discontent with their queen? Ilana and I love queen Isabella and hope they don't depose her. I suppose we are bee royalists.
There seems to be more bees in the hive (this is good) but the young bees are a little funny looking. Their eyes are kind of far apart and their heads are fuzzy.
We caught this little gal chewing her way out of the comb. Welcome to the hive newbe(e)!

2011 Groundhog

2011-05-22T20:44:00.003-04:00

Here is the first groundhog of 2011
We noticed activity around some of the holes from last year, suggesting a new brood had arrived. About a week ago we baited the traps and put them out.

The rain and cool weather may have kept them underground until this point, but the sun yesterday and the overcast-but-not-rain day today got them out.
We took this one to Peacock beach as per the tradition. Alden was excited to see that the groundhogs were back and enjoyed taking him to the beach with me. Alden wanted to pet him, but we told him you only pet rabbits, not groundhogs.

Drone Bee

2011-05-21T09:21:00.000-04:00

For those of you who do not know there are three kinds of bees in my hive. One queen, dozens of drones, and thousands of workers.

The queen is the most important, she lays eggs and creates pheromones
The workers are also important, they work all day and night all their lives making honey
The drones are male, they do not lay eggs, or work. They hang-out and eat, if a new queen needs to be mated they are useful, but they can go years without doing anything.

The plus side of drones is that they can easily be identified (Big eyes and non-pointy abdomen) and they do not have a stinger. So if their wings get wet you can pick one up and let it crawl around on your hand.

Trouble in Bee city

2011-05-17T20:21:00.004-04:00

Last Saturday I checked the hive to see if everything was okay and found a queen cell (top middle). This is worrisome. A queen cell means that the workers are not happy with Queen Isabella and want to replace her.
At first we thought Isabella was killed or injured or missing, which would cause the workers to make a new queen, but we found her in the hive, so it is a confusing state of affairs.
IF Isabella is 'failing' then there are two options. Either let the bees sort it out themselves, or buy a new queen and re-queen the hive. We decided that since we don't know what we are doing we should make the bees some sugar-candy and hope they can sort things out.

We will watch the hive closely and if there is still worry by mid-June we will re-queen. Until then I hope they can settle the matter among themselves.

New Hampshire

2011-05-16T19:35:00.007-04:00

We had a quick trip to New Hampshire this weekend. Scott came up to visit on Friday and Saturday and enjoyed the Friday Gardiner Artwalk and then helped with chores on Saturday.
Saturday night we drove to the Casa de Scott and slept over. On Sunday it was rainy and cool, but we still did farm stuff like look at chickens and ride the tractor.
There was also some extra tractor equipment in the barn we checked out.

Truck Broke

2011-05-08T14:43:00.005-04:00

I was rear ended on my way home from work Friday. It was one of those guy-stops-quickly-to-make-a-turn-while-everyone-behind-him-slams-on their-brakes kind of deals. I didn't hit the car in front of me, and the guy behind me managed to steer into the soft shoulder and miraculously missed both my truck and a large tree. The guy behind him didn't realize what was going on and slammed into me. I wasn't hurt and neither was the man who hit me, but poor Mel really took it in the rear. She was carrying a whole load of composted manure back from Boothbay and she managed to get most of it home despite the accident. What a trooper! We really hope the insurance company doesn't scrap her.
On a happier note, the garden was manured this weekend, both by this load and by a huge pile of llama manure we bought from our neighbors and things are finally moving forward with the garden. Pictures soon.

Found the Queen!

2011-05-07T22:30:00.005-04:00

Kerstin and I took stock of the frames in our hive to see how the little bees were getting on. I learned that they start building comb in the inner frames and work their way towards the outer ones. As such, most of the inner frames looked similar to the image above. The yellow-tinged comb is where the brood are reared. The combs are open while the larvae (white blob pictured below) develop. When the larvae pupate, the combs are sealed until the adult worker bee chews her way out of the comb. She then cleans her comb to make way for a new egg and takes a job as a nurse bee, feeding and tending to the larvae. Once she is older, she'll become a guard bee and eventually a forager. The capped comb at the top with the white wax cover is nectar that's being aged to become honey for feeding the baby bees developing below.

Kerstin took out each frame in turn and we examined both sides while taking note of the amount of comb construction, larvae, nectar, pollen and capped comb. We also took stock of drone vs. worker larvae. Most of the brood we encountered were worker brood with an occasional drone cell here and there. This is what you want to see in your hive because the drones serve little purpose other than being colony's testicles. Workers, on the other hand, are its lifeblood.
The workers peeked out at us as we removed their frames one by one, but remained calm and collected throughout the whole census. As someone who hasn't ever handled bees, I thought it was remarkable how well they tolerated the inspection.
We located our queen, Isabella, shown below at the bottom right with her attendants surrounding her. She has a much larger abdomen than the worker bees and unlike the striped abdomen of her daughters, hers is completely golden, . She was laying eggs on frame 7, which had not been fully drawn out. She seems to be doing her job making babies quite well. We may be ready for a new super in just a couple of weeks!

Two week bee check

2011-05-01T21:44:00.005-04:00

The bees have been around for two weeks, so it is time for a check. We don't have any reason to think that they are in any trouble, but we have not looked in since the queen was released and wanted to make sure everyone was doing their jobs.
Today was a great day for bee-peaking. It was warm (70d) and the dandelions started to appear a couple days ago (when dandelions come up you can stop feeding bees sugar water). Kerstin took his time smoking the bees, which paid off. He puffed a few clouds under the lid and then kept the lid on for 30 seconds. when he took the lid off all the bees were down inside the frames being mellow.

We pulled out an outer frame first, which had some bees on it, but no work was being done.
The frames in the middle had the action. There are 10 frames in the hive with 2 sides per-frame. I would say that the middle five frames (10 sides) had a good amount of work done to them and were full of drawn comb, caped brood, honey and pollen. The outer frames (2 on each side) were pretty empty, but this is what the book said we could expect, so we were happy to see it.
We checked to make sure the queen was laying, and managed to see some larva in the comb. Everything looked legitimate so we put the frames back in a hurry. In hindsight we should have examined more and made some notes.
After the lid was put on I wanted to get another picture. The bees had already started coming to the frame-tops... the smoke was wearing off

Garden Prep

2011-04-30T22:53:00.007-04:00

Over the last few days, the temperatures have been warm enough and the the soils moist enough that the grass practically greened before our eyes. And almost immediately afterward came the shocking revelation lawn mowing season was upon us and we hadn't even prepared our potato plot. Time to get our butts in gear.

Kerstin burned the brush pile that was situated right where we planned to put our potato and squash/melon patch right before Alden and I left for Passover. The wood was still green and it had rained a whole bunch, thus we managed not so much a burn pile as a smoke pile that smoldered for a few hours and then wimped out. Seeing as we were picking up bees the next day and our pile was immediately upwind from their hive, we had to burn under less than optimal conditions. Enough brush burned that we felt we'd made a dent, but there was too much left behind to simply till it in. Kerstin worked all yesterday evening and this morning moving the remaining charred branches to our new pile further back in the yard.
Burn pile before...
Garden plot after! Kerstin tilled in the smallest pieces of charcoal, and lawn to create one large, new garden plot. Hooray for husbands!! I trenched the perimeter to allow fencing to be placed about 1 foot below ground and Kerstin put in the posts and the fence itself. We should be ready to plant our potatoes within a week or two.Alden and I picked up our potato order from Fedco today and I'm so excited about the varieties we're trying this year. Left to right: Yukon Gold, Romanze, Adirondack Blue, Adirondack Red, and Desiree. I've also ordered some northern-adapted sweet potatoes that will join these guys in the plot in mid May.
Alden got his first tractor ride of the season and had a great time wearing his industrial ear protection.
We grew kale in a corner of one garden last year and it self seeded, almost to a ridiculous degree. The emerging seedling cohort looks and feels like a lush ground cover. They have practically taken over a whole row of our garden.
The first asparagus shoots are starting to emerge. It's officially spring!

Easter

2011-04-25T22:25:00.005-04:00

Easter Sunday!

Saturday was rainy and cold and I spent most of the day mad at the weather for not being cooperative for yard work. Sunday was great however, and we spent the first part of the day faffing about the garden, raking leaves and planting seeds.
We started getting ready for Easter guests around 2pm and by 3 folks started showing up.
We relied on Karen to bring the holiday cheer (eggs to hide) which she was happy to do.
Karen brought a basket of six plastic eggs, two cardboard eggs, a frog and one metal egg. Before she came inside our house she scattered them around the yard for Alden to find. Darrell came by with a giant Kinder egg with seven smaller eggs inside... Very awesome.
It turns out that Alden did not need all of the eggs. After he found all the ones Karen 'hid' we just walked around the yard hiding the same egg over and over. Wander wander wander. Hey Alden, is that an egg over there? Alden looks to the left. Drop the egg that was in my pocket next to the tree. Alden looks back and sees the egg. An Egg! Alden picks up egg and looks inside. Alden hands egg to me for safe keeping. I put egg in my pocket. Repeat.
We also had some good bee looking time. It was a warm day and they were nice and active.
All in all it was a lovely, quiet, Easter.

Passover 2011 - Trip to the D.C. Zoo

2011-04-23T13:15:00.010-04:00

Alden and I did Passover in Maryland at my Uncle Rob's and Aunt Kay's house again this year. Like last year, Kerstin had to teach a class and was unable to join the fun. This was my nephew Levin's first Passover trip and the first time that he and Alden have been old enough to enjoy each others company. They got acquainted by playing on Rob's exercise bike.
We then sallied forth out to the zoo in D.C. We took a train into the city, which both boys thought was pretty great. It culminated in the largest escalator ride that Alden had ever experienced. I think we had to climb about 5 or 6 stories to get back to the surface. Alden's mind was completely blown.
At the zoo, we rented a double buggy for the kids to get around and they had a great time mostly sharing snacks. Alden helped himself to Levin's stash of Cheerios and Goldfish, but made sure to give some back to Levin. "One for me... one for baby Levin". Levin was satisfied with this arrangement, although I'm confident Alden ate more than he shared.We also met up with Alex's (Ben's girlfriend) brother Greg, who has a plush government job giving tours at some big house on 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. He and his girlfriend April also joined us for the first night of seder. My cousin Sarah was back in the states for a brief respite from her veterinary studies in Scotland.
Alden's favorite animals were the meerkats and tamarins and other little creatures in the Hall of Small Mammals. The bigger animals (lions, apes, elephants, etc.) were a big yawn for him. Levin seemed to be more interested in a wider variety of critters.
At the end of the day, both boys got pretty tired and that's when the squabbling in the buggy began. Alden was banished from his seat when he started hitting Levin, and Levin passed out shortly thereafter so Alden got his place back. He then promptly fell asleep within minutes of the deadline to return the buggy. Luckily, Uncle Ben had the arm and back strength to carry Alden a mile or two uphill back to the train station. Both cousins had great naps on the way home.

My camera ran out of battery life shortly thereafter and since I forgot my charger, I don't have any more images of Passover. I should be receiving more from other family members soon and I'll post them as they come in.

The Queen is Free!

2011-04-21T17:36:00.006-04:00

After work I rushed home to check on how the queen was doing. The bees were upset that I was checking in on them. It was 41 degrees F today and windy, which is too cold for my bees, so they did not appreciate me lifting the top off their house. I managed to grab the queen box however and -- hurray! The queen was out.
I suspect she was in the hive leading the bees on activities. I hope so anyway. I won't know for a few more days. When I check the hive again hopefully there will be drawn comb with little bee eggs. If I see that I can rest easy for awhile.
I am not sure how I could have avoided this blunder, but putting the queen box between the frames separates the frames and creates a big enough space to build extra comb.
Instead of making comb on the frames provided, the bees decided to get creative. The smaller comb pictured above was on the queen's box and the larger comb was hanging off the side of a frame. The bees got snarky when I took their comb away, which is understandable. I was impressed with the amount of work they did in five days, but if unchecked it would have caused big problems. In hindsight the queen was probably on the comb when I yanked it which likely led to to the colony snarkiness. I didn't get stung, but one bee really wanted to get to me through my glove.

In any case it looks like things will be better and now that I've removed the creative comb and queen box, the bees are on the right track. I will check in on the little ladies in a few days.

Queen Check

2011-04-19T09:58:00.008-04:00

When starting a hive with a new queen the instructions are to check the hive in three days to see if the queen has been let out of her queen-box,

There is a 'candy' plug (the white stuff) that the queen and her bee sisters eat through to make a little tunnel for the queen to escape. This is done so the queen and the workers have time to get to know each other in the new hive (accept the queen).
My favorite tool so far is the paintbrush. I can sweep the bees where I want them without hurting them or upsetting them too much.
Here is the hive on day three. The queen-box is wedged between the two frames about 3/4 the way to the far end. It is where the gap-space between the frames is connected with bees.
The queen was still in her box, but it loos like they had made good progress eating through. I will give them another day and a half and check again. When I put the queen-box back I dropped it in the bottom of the hive. I used a piece of bent wire to retrieve it instead of putting my hand in the hive. I feel like a bit of a wimp about that but I think it was the right thing to do.
I was able to grab the little piece if wire-mesh hanging from the box with my wire. As you can see, the bees have already started making comb on it. I didn't have the heart to take it off.
Later in the day I got to see my bees kick-out a small half wasp half bee looking thing from the hive. I also got to see bees returning to the hive with pollen (pictured above). Which is impressive since not much is blooming yet.
Since Ilana is gone I took the liberty of moving this bush, which I have been wanting to transplant for about a year. It is a privacy bush to keep people on the street from seeing my bees... a modesty shrub. As you can see it is pretty big and and transplanting it might kill it, but I am glad I did it.

New Hampshire Bee prison

2011-04-18T21:03:00.004-04:00

Scott keeps his bees in a big cage to keep the bears away. These pictures are for uncle Rob, who started keeping bees before any of us and wants to take it back up... but the bears keep assaulting his hives. I hope these pictures give you some good ideas.

Note the center post, to keep the top fence from caving in when the bears climb on top of the cage.

Zom -Bees

2011-04-17T10:21:00.006-04:00

Yesterday, after I installed my package of bees, I left the box they came in by the front of the hive. This was so the bees that weren't shaken out could climb/fly into their new home at their own speed. I then took Ilana and Alden to the airport (around 3:30) and when I got back all the bees in the box seemed to be dead. It was still and quiet and none of the bees were moving. It was in the low forties yesterday and windy and pretty cold so I figured they got stressed and I was a bad bee keeper for losing around 200 bees on my first day. I brought the box inside, thinking that one or two bees might still be alive and I could reunite them with their family tomorrow. I put the box (with a cover on the opening) on the kitchen counter and over about three hours all the bees woke up and started buzzing angrily. When I turned off the kitchen light and they calmed down. When I went back in the kitchen to get a sandwich they all got upset and made their high-pitched, back-off-pal buzz. Anyway I am glad they are alive and I need to figure how to get them to their hive today despite the rain and wind storms...

Here are the remaining bees that I thought were dead . I I am calling them zom-bees. Fortunately, there was a break in the bad weather and I timed putting the zom-bees out really well. They all went into the hive by 3pm. I am a good bee keeper after all.

Bees!

2011-04-16T22:18:00.005-04:00

Here we are Friday . I took the day off work and set up the bee boxes on their stand. Alden helps by sticking a screwdriver in the extra escape hole of the hive. On Saturday the bees arrive. I bring them home and chat with them over a cup of coffee. Alden and Ilana welcome them as well. A package of bees has about three pounds of bees in it, which amounts to about 10,000 all together, although I didn't count. They are all huddled like that because they are cold. Despite being mid-April it was only about 45 degrees F on that day. I thought we had some good video of me banging the bees out of their box into their hive, but my doing that coincided with Alden deciding he was scared of our neighbors totally friendly and harmless dog. So Alden was being wrangled and soothed and the moment was not captured. After I poured the bees into their hive I gave them some food (sugar water) and medicine and put the box outside the hive so the remaining stragglers could find their way in. Here is a close-up of them checking out their new home.

April Fools Weather

2011-04-01T18:13:00.005-04:00

Three days ago here is the scene. Sun is out, the porch is warm, little sprouts are coming up... It is so warm Alden feels compelled to take his clothes off and streak around.
Actually Alden will take is clothes off and streak around for any number or reasons, but in this case I do believe it was because of the warmth.

Here is the picture today.
We got about a foot of heavy, wet, sloppy snow. The high today was 32 degrees.
In four days they say the high will be 54 degrees, but it is a hit to the psyche to have to shovel the driveway one last time after you thought you were done with that nonsense.

Maple Sunday 2011

2011-03-28T20:36:00.004-04:00

Joseph came for his third Maine Maple Sunday visit, this makes three years in a row so we believe it is officially a tradition. For those not in the know Maine Maple Sunday is the last Sunday in March where local farms in Maine open their doors to show people how they make syrup and sell pancakes. On the surface this sounds great, but in reality it is usually crazy-cold and there are big lines for pancakes. Note the line in the background.

So the way it works is one person stands in line for half an hour while Alden and the other adults go look at the animals in the warm barn. The barn had piglets this time which was very cool, as well as bunnies, chickens, cows, and turkeys

I think three years ago was near the end of the free-pancake era. Most places charge for breakfast these days. I can see the business logic to that, even though folks who attend MMS buy loads of syrup and syrup-related products. The place we chose this time charged $11 for a pancake breakfast which seems a bit much. Although you do feel like a rich how-de-do eating your pancakes looking out the window at the freezing bastards waiting in line to get in.

Of course, Alden loves the food (syrup) once he is inside, and really liked looking at the animals for 20 out of the 30 minute wait.

We may just go out to see the animals and buy syrup next year and then invite our friends over to our house for pancakes... we will see how we feel 365 days from now.

Bee Keeping

2011-03-27T18:41:00.011-04:00

This December I decided I should try being an apiarist come spring. It made gift giving for the holidays easy for folks and I am still grateful for the great books my brother Geoffrey gave me and all other bee related monies gifted from many others once I read the books and figured out what I needed.

In January I signed up for a bee class that started in late-February that would fill in the gaps in on my knowledge base. The class will culminate with a package of bees arriving April 15 (thank you to Barbara and Ben for this.)

Last week Karen, Alden and I went to a beehive factory near Coopers Mill Maine and picked up Beehive parts.
The parts we got were enough for one colony of bees . Two deep supers and one medium super, with frames and wax foundations for them all, top covers and a screen bottom board.
The unassembled hives were stored in the basement for about a two weeks until I got around to building them. It was a good to wait because it was fun to do the project with Joseph when he came for his visit.

Like most of my projects, building the hives took longer than expected. Partly because I under-estimate this kind of thing and also because I am a perfectionist about things that probably won't ever matter. (In case you're wondering, Maker's Mark makes the assembly smoother.)
The boxes now need to be painted and then they can then be placed in the backyard.

Play Date

2011-03-16T21:51:00.008-04:00

Alden had a play date at Sophia's house this weekend. She promptly took his hand and they disappeared into her room for a solid half an hour before Alden realized that there were no adults around and started getting nervous. He took a basket of plastic food out of Sophia's room down to the living room where we had gathered for tea and asked me to play groceries with him. I think Sophia was a little hurt by the snub. We eventually convinced Alden to resume a game of hide-and-go-seek with Sophia and they got back into the swing of things. It was really nice not to have to entertain a kid constantly or to be interrupted every 30 seconds with a gastronomic demand or ploy for attention. I got to talk gardens with Sophia's folks and enjoy some wonderful dal and cheese sandwiches for lunch. Yay play dates!

First Big Thaw

2011-03-06T17:23:00.004-05:00

I'm not saying that Spring is on the way, but the past two days have been above freezing and we have lost about a foot foot of about the four feet of snow that is on the ground. Maine does this every season, a week or two of warmth in March to get everyone excited, followed by a cold snap and a mid-April blizzard. I will just enjoy the idea of spring for now.

New Yorkers!

2011-02-28T19:39:00.004-05:00

Our good friends Michael, Min, Lewis and Ivy came to visit us last week. Michael and I have not seen each other since Alden or Ivy was born... over three years. It was really good to see them and spend time together

Out of town friends are great at making you do stuff you have been meaning to get around to doing. In this case bowling, ice skating, and sledding.

Ilana was down in New Hampshire with Scott for the first couple days. Alden and I did really well as a couple dudes hanging out. I did keep him up pretty late for a few nights (around 10pm) but he was pleasant enough and enjoyed the night life.
After bowling one night we went across to the ice rink and took in a hockey game. The kids were mesmerized. We decided to go skating the next day.
Alden was not as into skating as I wanted him to be, but I am not sure what I expected. He made it around the rink twice before deciding to quit and eat catsup in the lobby.

We also went sledding over a couple days at various locations.

Evvie's Birthday

2011-02-21T15:58:00.009-05:00

Alden and I attended a birthday party for Evelyn Burns, one of his little friends. Ilana could not make it. She was visiting her father in New Hampshire helping him recover from his skiing accident. Alden was the only dude out of the seven kids invited, and was a bit shy at the party. Here are some photos.

More Turkeys!

2011-02-20T18:17:00.004-05:00

I counted 17 this time. Our lifestyle is apparently turkey-rich.

They were looking for food this morning, it was about 9:30am when Alden and I saw them.

Young Artist Alden

2011-02-19T21:06:00.014-05:00

We have been trying to get Alden to explore his art supplies more frequently. He is not particularly interested in sitting and drawing on paper, and when he does draw he quickly gets distracted and moves on to other things... although that is true for most stuff he does.

I am not sure where the bell-curve is for three year old interest in art, but as a parent, want some refrigerator coverings. Today I discovered that he prefers boxes to working on paper and believe may have witnessed a creative breakthrough.

Some earlier work of young artist Alden.

Alden and Kerstin Chase

2011-02-14T00:10:00.003-05:00

Alden is yelling "tractor (English), tractor (Spanish)" here.
I have no idea why, but I think it's funny.

National Toboggan Championships 2011

2011-02-13T22:01:00.009-05:00

We went to the National Toboggan Championships in Camden this Sunday. There were about 500 teams, most were local but some traveled from all over the country to participate and there were a even handful of international teams as well. The races were broken up into several categories: 2, 3 and 4 person sleds, as well as kids and experimental categories. Kerstin's friend from work, Steve (pictured above in the hockey jersey) was one of the participants in the 4-person category. Steve joined a hockey friend's toboggan team last year and has been hooked ever since. Their team made it to the semi finals last year, so he decided to look for sponsorship this year. Steve cold-called Sam Adams and asked them to sponsor his team, and lo, they did. They sent him a toboggan with a beer bottle on the bottom (Darrell is holding it in the photo above), gave the team a bunch of beer and basically told them to give it away during the event. Kerstin was happy to oblige their corporate overlords.
There were best costume heats as well. If these guys didn't win it, they certainly should have. I don't know what they were, but they rocked! We also saw a Star Wars team, a Santa Claus team and an owl-head team.
We pulled Alden around in his own sled most of the day. He wasn't so interested in the competition itself, but he enjoyed being dragged about on the ice and snow and he really liked "skating" on smooth patches of ice.
From what I could tell, toboggan championships mostly involve drinking in shacks on the ice, with an occasional sled run now and again. The sled chute funnels tobogganers onto the ice of a large lake, where most of teams were held up in their own ice shacks, drinking and barbecuing. There were also a handful of food vendors, and a large bonfire along the banks of the lake where one could warm hands and feet. Alas, there was no public indoor area to seek refuge from the cold. And it was COLD! I think it barely reached double digits (F) by midday. By the time we arrived on the site at 11, Steve and his teammates were pretty sloshed. (Note the bottle of Crown Royal on the ice. It was empty within a half an hour of this shot). We left at about 2. Alden did very well for being outside in the cold for 3 hours straight!The team names were fairly amusing. Lots of references to ash (the preferred toboggan material) with names like "Frozen Ash", "4 Ash wipes" and "Cracker My Ash". There were also lots of toboggan refs like "Soggy Boggin' Boys" and "Throbbin' Boggins". Beer and wood references were also rampant.
And here's a video of a team going down the chute. Most teams endured this rather terrifying (or so says Steve) run silently, but not these folks. I think sleds could get up to 45 miles per hour. There were a few crashes, but no injuries that I was aware of. There wasn't much technique to toboggan racing from what I could tell. As you can see on this video, the sleds are launched by officials, not the racers, using a tetter-totter-like device. Steve says there isn't much you can do to give your team the edge except for how you treat the bottom of your toboggan. The treatments varied from turtle wax to bees wax and animal fat. I have no idea which was more frictionless, but it was a heated topic of conversation among competitors.

Turkeys!

2011-02-13T07:58:00.006-05:00

Alden got us up at the regular time (6:30) making the regular request (read a story). After half of a Frog and Toad tale he wanted breakfast so we went downstairs and saw out this out the kitchen window: turkeys!I counted six of them, walking along the top of the snow towards the house. Alden thought they were pretty and wanted to pet them. I told him they would run away if he did that.
We saw a flock of turkeys in our backwoods about two years ago, but have not see them since. Not sure if they were just passing through again or if perhaps they winter in our woods... that would be really cool.
It made me wish I had put out corn or grain or something for them ... then I remembered all the mice in the house when we first moved in and figured the turkeys looked fat enough.

A Little Light Dance

2011-02-12T14:53:00.006-05:00

Alden is a big fan of mid-80's electronic hip hop, especially Pump Up The Volume, (or as he calls it, "Pull Out The Volume"). He rocks out hard to this song when Kerstin calls it up on the stereo and shows off all his moves here. I'm putting this up to entertain a certain member of my family but hopefully others would find it amusing as well.

Alden has seen the music video (below) so many times that he's memorized the cuts and likes to relive these moments. This is why he keeps saying "lunar lander" at the end.

Snow play

2011-02-06T22:08:00.007-05:00

The snow is piling high, as you can see it is halfway up the windows. The temperatures have been consistently low so it just keeps growing. Yesterday was the first day in a couple weeks where the weather got warm enough to go out and play

I scraped the ice layer off the driveway and Ilana and Alden built a snowman and went sledding in the backyard.

The snowman was a success, the sledding... not so much.

There were about three feet of snow to tromp through. Alden could not walk through it and did not like being carried because of the awkward falling sensation when walking through deep snow. The sled adventure was mostly Alden losing his cool waiting for us to break the snow for a sled-run or being impatient while we walked to the top of the hill for a ride.

Alden is Fluish

2011-01-29T20:20:00.003-05:00

Alden got sick around the 20th and was sick through the 29th. It started with a cough and then he got really floppy. He was out of daycare that week and we took him to the doc on the 22. After a quick test they told us he had the A type flu. That lasted for a couple more days, but he wasn't getting much better, so we took him back and they said he had an ear infection...

After ten days of us all getting pretty cranky the pox left our house and we are getting back to picking our clothes up of the floor and doing dishes and other non-sickie activities.

Alden Turns Three!

2011-01-18T14:45:00.002-05:00

Alden is three years old! Ask him and he'll emphatically tell you so too, with 3 little fingers extended. He is now just over three feet tall, and weighs about 30 lbs. He'd been looking forward to his birthday for a week, and getting so excited when boxes in the mail arrived addressed to him. We threw him a party on the 17th because it was MLK day and a lot of folks had the day off. On that morning, he woke to this awesome train set (from Uncle Aaron and Aunt Liz) already assembled on the living room floor. After playing with it for most of the morning, he was whisked away by Ilana's Dad for a Reny's/grocery store adventure so we could get the house ready for the party.

We'd been getting pretty excited too and made plans for his first themed birthday party. Alden really likes frogs and asked for a froggy birthday. We decorated our dining room to look like a pond and put his frog cake in the center.Every day for weeks before the party, Ilana would ask Alden what kind of cake he wanted. The frog theme predominated, although close to the actual event a giraffe was mentioned. As for cake flavor, his requests were for vanilla about 70% of the time and chocolate 30% of the time. The frog-shaped cake was a design by Ilana and ultimately was a yellow cake with hedge-betting chocolate cupcakes for eyes. (This saved us as Alden ultimately went with chocolate when it came time to cut the cake). The frosting was a fondant with green tea (matcha) for coloring. All was made lovingly from scratch with no artificial colors or ingredients. Making a "natural" fondant icing was tough. This frosting takes on the consistency of play-doh if made correctly and is rolled out and draped over the cake rather than spread. All the fondant recipes Ilana originally found called either for boiling sugar in water for an eternity or for vile ingredients like marshmallows and Crisco. The no-cook recipe we ultimately used was mostly powdered sugar, with a little sugar syrup, butter, vanilla and green tea. It was a little too sweet for my tastes, but the kids dug it. Two other families celebrated with us - Evelyn and her family, Sophia and her family. Karen and Ilana's Dad also joined the fun. Alden was thrilled to host Sophia at his house. They hugged and hugged so hard that they fell onto the ground laughing.

Sophia was really excited to play with Alden's toys and to run around the house. She basically took Alden's hand and lead him all around, upstairs and downstairs, inventing new games along the way. She kind of monopolized him, but Alden didn't seem to mind.Playing with Leggos was one of the favorite birthday games. That and chasing each other around the house screaming. Ilana labored for weeks trying to find just the right party game and thought she'd found the perfect one - an olfactory game with paper flower cut outs and lots of different natural extracts. Alden is really big into smelling spices, lotions and soaps. We do a sort of smell safari at the kitchen table, where we pull down jars of spices for Alden to compare, and he'll do this for hours. The birthday game was a big bust. Alden and Sophia just wanted to keep doing their thing and Evvie was a little too shy to play the game with me, so we abandoned it at the table.Alden got some great gifts this year, including puzzles, toy dinos (he is showing us how they go "roar", much to Sophia's delight), books, arts and crafts, giant fuzzy pipecleaners (so cool!) wooden robots, a table and chair set that's just his size, and a annual membership to the Portland Children's Museum. Hooray!All in all it was a successful birthday party, and hopefully one that will be remembered with fondness for many years to come

On the 18th, we sent him to school with cupcakes, and they sent the kids home early because of snow. This is the 4th year in a row that it's snowed on Alden's actual birthday!

Capricorn Ball Redux

2011-01-15T20:20:00.002-05:00

Capricorn Ball 2011 was a little different than in previous years. A friend of the CB hosts has late stage cancer and his wife is one of the artists who frequently makes goat effigies for this party. She suggested a paper lantern salute to bring good fortune to her ailing husband, which was a very nice addition. Karen made the effigy this year, which was burned afterward.
Fifty Chinese paper lanterns were lit at dusk (video below). It was a bit chaotic because the lighting effort wasn't coordinated and it took about 5-10 minutes for the candle to heat enough air to lift a given lantern. The final effect was less a mass launch than a steady trickle of rising lanterns - they looked like new stars appearing one by one in an ever darkening dusky sky. It was magical and beautiful to watch.

The arrhythmic, quasi-tribal and uberwhite drumming that normally accompanies the bonfire was absent this year. Instead a young fella with an iPhone and a couple of large speakers made weird musical "soundscapes". His app allowed him to make different noises depending on whether his fingers brushed, tapped or made circles on the screen. This resulted in lots of atonal, extraterrestrial bleeping and digital whooshing noises. We could only stand a few minutes of it, but it went on for the whole lantern launch and burn. To spare you the same pain, I've muted the sound on the video.

Once all the lanterns were launched, Gust (the party host) lit the bonfire and the straw goat burnt up quickly.

The fire was followed by a potluck and live music by the Zulu Leprechauns, who have been the party band for years. Alden loved the band and was all over them while they were setting up and doing their sound check. However it was a bit too loud for him when they started playing and we had to scoot away to an adjacent room to dance.All the Capricorns attending the 2011 party are pictured above. It was Ilana's Dad's birthday, and since the Ball is all about celebrating Capricorns, we invited him to the party. I think he had a good time. We had black forest cake and ice cream for him back at home later that night.

More Holidays - Birthday and New Year

2011-01-08T22:26:00.006-05:00

Joseph Sandy and Geoffrey came to town the day after Christmas to celebrate the holidays and my birthday. We did a second round of gift exchanging and hanging out.

I coordinated getting a garage door opener for Karen and the Gilg boys spent the next two days installing the thing. It took more time than I thought it would, but it was pretty straight forward and we did not make any big mistakes or come across any insurmountable obstacles in the process.

My birthday was quite nice. One very amazing present was a carpet that Karen and Larry got for me. I was excited to finally have a carpet in the dining room but Alden was over the moon about it. He jumped around and rolled and danced and told everybody else to jump around as well. He did a fantastic job making that carpet feel welcome in our house and showing Karen and Larry they had made a good choice.

Another fantastic gift was the promise of future support for my beekeeping endeavor. I plan to keep a hive of bees this spring, but right now I am fairly ignorant about what I am getting myself into. Geoffrey got me two swell books and once I know what's what I'll let folks know what I need. The birthday celebration was a small affair with immediate family and a few close friends. Of course, the food was amazing and there were two cakes. Folks also went a bit silly getting exotic beers, which were a very nice addition.
Alden was told about my birthday a few weeks too early and was more eager for it to come that I think I was. When it finally arrived he was crazy-excited. A very nice thing to see.
I did not get pictures of New Years, but it was one of the best ones I had in awhile. Geoffrey was still in town so he came over, we invited our friends Darrell and Kenny and played poker till 2010 was behind us. Most of us agreed 2010 was lousy for the most part and are looking forward to an awesome 2011.

Holidays

2011-01-06T22:20:00.007-05:00

A look back at a few of this years holiday doings.
Both Ilana and I had Yankee Swap gift gatherings at work. Mine was especially awkward because there were only eight people (small office) with six participating in the gift swap and only five wrapped their gifts... The point of the swap being to either go with a surprise wrapped gift or take someone's gift you can see.

Ilana's swap was much better, about 50 participants at a nice restaurant with a good spread. The swapping was good fun, even though Ilana was a little put out at getting a tree ornament. It was soon swapped away though and after a swap or two more we ended up with a copy of The Lobster Coast, a book we have both been meaning to read. We also learned that the author, Colin Woodard is on the Board of Directors at Bigelow so Ilana can get it signed if she wants.

Ilana gets a new map of Maine, essential for us non GPS types, but alas it was soon taken from her.

Alden was at daycare finishing his nap for the start of the party, towards end they called us and he got to celebrate with us. He'd been to the restaurant a week earlier with Ilana and developed a crush on one of the serving staff. He kept looking for her, upstairs, downstairs, kitchen, bathroom... but it was not her shift.

We spent actual Christmas at Karen's house, exchanging gifts in the morning and then inviting a few people over for early supper.

Karen's New Cat

2010-12-25T22:17:00.005-05:00

Meet Zoe. She's a 10 month old stray we helped Karen pick out from an animal shelter. She is beautiful, playful, super friendly and good with kids. What more could you ask for from a kitty?

Alden Sledding on Christmas eve

2010-12-25T00:24:00.012-05:00

December 24th was a lovely day. I spent the morning replacing a ballast for the Artdogs Studios and then my pal Darrell came over and we (Darrell, Alden and me) went sledding in the back yard. Alden calls it "sliding", which I think is quite appropriate.
This was the first time Alden had gone down in the sled by himself. We went down together a few times, but mostly it was a solo venture, with either Darrell or me at the bottom to catch Alden.
The sled run was pretty great for a three year old. A long but very shallow incline, which is good because Alden could not hold on to the sled with his gloves on. The only major hazard was our neighbors deck (at the end of the run). It was just the right height for Alden to take a header if he got up enough speed and we didn't stop him.
Alden sometimes closed his eyes on the sled and sometimes turned his head around to watch me after I pushed him down the hill. When he did this I would yell to him to turn around and look forward, which never seemed to work. Alden crashed twice, but took both spills very well. He was only upset until I brushed the snow off his face... maybe 15 seconds. I was very proud of him.

Hanukkah

2010-12-14T22:10:00.003-05:00

Where is my winter insulation?

2010-12-10T19:09:00.001-05:00

I got the east end of the house buttoned up and ready for blown in insulation. The contractor told me that he would try and get to me before the end of the year, but I have my doubts.

Besides running new electrical to outlets and putting fiberglass insulation in the ceiling and interior walls I covered the inside of the exterior walls with half inch polly-iso boards. The boards are usually used for exterior applications, but I think it will serve as a nice extra thermal barrier how I am using it.
The upstairs room got 2 inch polly-iso boards for extra insulation value. Between the polly-iso and the exterior wall is an air void that will be filled with blown in insulation... someday.

Thanksgiving

2010-11-30T21:34:00.007-05:00

We had a quiet celebration at our house this year. My Dad and Kerstin's Mom joined us for some tuna steaks, stuffed artichokes, cranberry relish and a bunch of dishes featuring our garden vegetables (squash, potatoes and kale that was still growing up until Thanksgiving day).
We made a sweet meat squash polenta which came out really well.After the initial toast, Alden wanted nothing to do with the Thanksgiving meal. He refused to try any of the dishes and we had to heat up a precooked chicken sausage for him. He spent most of Thanksgiving tearing apart our couch cushions.My Dad spent the weekend up here and helped Kerstin insulate the unfinished part of the house, including the soon-to-be guest bedroom. We had our first snow the day after Thanksgiving and Alden and I made snow footprints in the backyard. I'll let Kerstin tell you all about the insulation in another post.

Potty Train - Finally

2010-11-20T15:39:00.006-05:00

Our own fault really, sitting in front of Alden staring at him while demanding he "Poo". I can't imagine trying to perform under that kind of pressure. The other week while trying to get Alden to use the potty I ran downstairs to get him some goldfish crackers. I thought if he had something to munch on he would sit on the can a little longer. When I got back VOILA there was a deposit made to the porcelain bank.

Now we ask Alden if he needs privacy, to which he always says yes. It looks like we are on the way to better times.

Third Place Tapas

2010-11-15T18:38:00.003-05:00

Last weekend Ilana and I were invited to a tapas pot luck. Ilana spent most of the day making some kind of mushroom tarta, but it was a new recipe and the texture did not come out right... Oh, and did I mention that the tapas were to be judged with prizes awarded for the top entries? I was helping Karen winterize her house for most of the day, when I got home to get cleaned up and go to the party Ilana was a bit of a wreck. We had an hour before we had to leave and our tapa entry was sub par! Like a boss I got out my trusty crepe maker and we made mini-crepes filled with shrimp, roasted red pepper, onion, and pesto. We cranked out thirty of them within the hour and were off to the party (leaving Alden behind with Karen).

There were about 25 entries in the competition and we were were voted third place victors! Our prize was three wooden spoons which Alden now uses as trees for his stuffed beaver to gnaw on. Score!

Good bye Frida

2010-11-02T20:04:00.004-04:00

Karen's cat was struck by a car today and died. Very sad. She was also Alden, Ilana's and my cat too. We will miss her.

Halloween

2010-10-31T20:23:00.007-04:00

Alden and Sophia reunited for Halloween. There was much embracing and kissing and insane amounts cuteness all around. They haven't seen each other for almost 2 months and I feel awful that I've kept them apart for so long. I blame my insane work schedule and a general lack of social organizational skills.
Alden and Sophia met in Boothbay Harbor for the Halloween parade and trick-or-treating downtown extravaganza. There were hundreds of kids and some really creative costumes. Alden had a bit of a hard time nailing down what he wanted to be. "A froggie and a fireman and a pumpkin" was his final decision, which left me scratching my head for ways to make his chimeric, but very earnest little dream come true. Karen made some fantastic animal heads for Kerstin and Geoff when they were kids and found a bunch of these in her attic, which included a frog. One down, two to go. I'm completely hopeless when it comes to handcrafted, lovingly sewn costumes, (or any sewing for that matter), and my free time has been nonexistent as of late, so I knew that making a firefighter's jacket was out of the question. I'd therefore resigned to shelling out cash for some tacky costume off the RiteAid seasonal rack or whatever, but I lucked out. Alden's school had one in their costume collection that his teacher let me borrow. Score!!

Two down, that left only the pumpkin. This part was easy. I figured I'd buy Alden one of those ubiquitous plastic Halloween pumpkin totes and call it done. While shopping for one, I found a tasteful felt pumpkin bag and figured I'd give him an upgrade.

So there you have it folks - a froggie and a fireman and a pumpkin. Kerstin and I wore matching Panda heads, courtesy of Karen circa 1976. Sophia was an adorable ladybug with a matching ladybug bag embroidered with her name - very high on the cuteness index!
The festivities started on the lawn of the Boothbay Harbor Library, and snaked through town, with merchants at every shop ready to fill Alden's bag with an amazing array of candies he never even knew existed. He was thunderstruck by the abundance and diversity of his haul. We don't let him eat candy, so this was more of an educational experience for Alden than we'd anticipated. Let's just say his horizons have been greatly expanded.
We've all learned that Alden really likes lollipops and peanut butter M&Ms. He's not fond of KitKats. We're not giving him gum, but other than that we'll probably let him sample everything and see what he thinks. He's a very particular eater, even (or especially!) when it comes to sweets, so I feel good knowing that he'll likely reject about half of his candies.

Checkin' out the ninja's stash.

The specter you see before is not some ghost of Halloween, but rather a very excited kid hopped up on sweeteners. I love that you can't even make out his feet in this image and it looks like he's literally flying. Alden was riding the sugar dragon pretty hard when we got home, but crashed hard too which made bedtime a relative breeze.
Happy Halloween!!

Aldens new bed

2010-10-19T20:57:00.003-04:00

We decided that Alden should have his freedom in the mornings. He has been very patient with us coming to get him out of his crib, and on some level we have to ask ourselves why we are letting him let himself out in the AM. However he has started to climb up the inside and balance on the top of the frame.

Alden's crib has a removable crib-front, but was missing the mini-front that you replace it with (one of the problems of buying a crib at an auction for $5). It took us a few nights and an out-of-bed tumble to decide to place a board across the front. Yes, a little ghetto but Alden doesn't seem to mind and it functions well.

Phytoplankton Pumpkin

2010-10-19T00:10:00.006-04:00

Emiliania huxleyi jack-o-lantern. I'm really proud of how this one turned out. Are there any more suggestions for microbe-oriented pumpkin carvings?

Barbara Visits

2010-10-18T23:00:00.010-04:00

My mom visited last week and interviewed for a job in Brunswick (she said it went well - fingers crossed!!) We also packed lots of activities into the 5 days while she was here. We spent a day in Portsmouth, where we saw a bunch of my Mom's friends, as well as my uncle, aunt and cousin.

It was a windy, but otherwise amazingly gorgeous day. After hanging out in Market Square for a bit, we walked around town, marveling at the eighty million or so coffee shops that seem to have sprung up over the past 10 years. We ate at my old high school stomping ground, the Friendly Toast, a dimly-lit campy 50's/60's romp that specializes in huge breakfasts and brunches. Eating there again would have made me all dewy-eyed over my lost youth if Alden hadn't sucked down a pint of whole milk in a little under 3 minutes, then puked it up all over the bathroom floor. Parental note number 543,347,699: children under 3 should not harness the awesome power of straw technology without strict supervision.It was lovely to see my family and walk around the town. When Alden went down for a nap, Kerstin developed this crowd-pleasing technique for blocking sun and wind. The backwards lean was an especially nice touch. On our way home, we stopped at L.L.Bean for some quick shopping. Alden really likes the elevators in that store. He calls it "L-On-Bean". That really cracks me up for some reason.Alden and my Mom at the state museum.
We also went to the Pumpkin Regatta in Damariscotta. The whole town (seriously!) grows giant pumpkins competitively, first for bragging rights, then for carving contests (including an underwater carving contest), demolition, and finally for building make-shift watercraft which are then raced in the harbor. The course takes boaters from the dock to a buoy in the middle of the harbor and back twice. There are paddle divisions, and motor divisions, relay and solo races. It's pretty insane, or so I hear. We couldn't see over the mob of people who lined the shoreline. We tried to let Alden watch by carrying him on our shoulders, but he got fidgety and cranky instead. We left before the real fun started, sadly. Interested parties can watch some random clips from this year's race on YouTube here and here. Pumpkin boat designs were quite varied. Here's a basic model from the one race we got to see:
As you can see from above, there were many casualties of poor balast and or balance. Below is a more colorful craft. It was outfitted with a horn that played "Dixieland" and had a turning radius of, oh, 12,000 ft -- awesome is the only word I have to describe it.It was really nice to have my Mom out for a visit. We saw lots of people, went to some great events and ate some great food!

Pumpkin Fun

2010-10-12T22:47:00.005-04:00

My mom visited us this week and we carved pumpkins with Alden. This is the first time I've done this in like twenty years. She made the cat, I made the bacteriophage. Alden liked blowing out candles.

Bounty Shots

2010-09-20T15:08:00.008-04:00

2010 was a banner year for our garden. We managed to produce vegetables we've never been able to before. Eggplants, red peppers, romanesco, basil -- all the warmer-climate produce that up in Maine usually only manages to eke out a tiny, unripe fruit or two before the first frost, was fabulous this year. And so, here are some gratuitous produce shots.
Alden, his face still messy with breakfast, shows off the zucchini he grew. (He helped me plant all the cucurbits and beans this year).
Our romanesco! We managed to harvest 9 or 10 heads in total and they were absolutely amazing roasted with olive oil and sprinkling of kosher salt.
Benning's Green Tint patty pan squash and swallow eggplant.
Here's a shot of all the veggies I harvested in one sweep of the garden right before for dinner.
Clockwise from lower left: Valencia tomatoes, Zeppelin Delicata squash, Red Kuri squash, Arcadia broccoli (still productive in mid-summer!), Japanese Black Trifele and Brandywine tomatoes, New Ace red peppers, Revolution pepper (large green one), Bulgarian Carrot pepper (green, in little bowl - very hot!), Jimmy Nardello's Sweet Frying peppers (awesomely sweet!), Swallow eggplant, basil.
A fall harvest of salad greens and chard. This is the biggest bowl we own and it still couldn't contain all of the greens I pulled out of one bed.
The potatoes did OK this year. We got about 60 pounds total -- not bad, but definitely not as productive as in years past. They probably won't last the winter. However, the mean size of the potatoes was much larger than in years past. This is the first year that we grew Kennebec, a true Maine spud, so I don't know if the varietal is especially well suited for our climate and soil or if it just produces larger potatoes. I don't have any shots of the starchy leviathans by themselves, but I'll try to get a few posted soon.

Alden and Sophia

2010-09-02T21:10:00.004-04:00

Alden's best friend is Sophia, a lovely little girl he met at daycare. She has sadly started a new preschool, so he doesn't see her every week anymore. We can tell he misses her because he likes to watch the videos of the two of them playing in the evenings. We are trying to keep their friendship going by arranging regular play dates with her family. Here are some pictures of one such play date on the eve of Sophia's third birthday.
The pool was fun.
Emptying the pool one bucketful at a time was even more fun.
Best yet was the lift and squeal game on the lawn.

For Sophia's last day at daycare, her Mom brought in a cake shaped like a lady bug. Alden prefers to call it by the Spanish name, mariquita.
"Remember when you ate mariquita with Sophia?" he asks me before bed. He still get his personal pronouns mixed up.
"I do remember when you ate that cake," I lie between my teeth (I was at work when this magical event took place).
"That was really, really tasty."
Coming from a kid who generally loathes birthday cake, this is a big deal. It just goes to show what a high regard he has Sophia. We're going to do our best to keep the two of them in touch, despite their different schools.

Jospeh and Sandy Visit

2010-08-31T19:50:00.001-04:00

Joseph and Sandy visited us for a few weeks at the end of August. It was great to finally see Sandy again, who missed the last visit because her mother was having health problems. Sadly her mother had health issues on this trip too, but she was stuck in an Italian hospital for the whole time, so there wasn't much Sandy could do.
Alden showed off his new undies. The visit by the grandparents marked the start of potty training boot camp, which I'm sure was more than they had bargained for. Our Superior plum bore fruit for the first time this year and they ripened right on the day that Joseph and Sandy arrived, so we all got to enjoy them.
On the first night we went to the Theater at Monmouth, which is pretty well known for its summer Shakespeare programming. The production we saw was a bit disappointing, but it was nice to get out nonetheless.
We made lots of delicious meals at Karen's and our house.
Joseph fired up the grill for our first barbecue of the season (I'm ashamed to say) and made us a wonderful meal celebrating the harvest in the garden. We used a lot of our garden vegetables in most of the meals.
Karen had guest passes to her fitness club, and took Sandy, Ilana and Alden with her one day. Alden liked the pool a lot, but also really liked the elevator in the facility.
We took a trip to the Portland Children's Museum on a rainy Wednesday thinking no one would be there but the place was packed. At first Alden was sort of tweaking on the energy in the place, and did pretty well considering, but had a sensory-overload meltdown after a few hours.

Alden discovered the firetruck this time and was really into it. There were lots of buttons to push to make noises and lights flash and that's what he's all about these days.He's also way into fake food, for some reason. He plays with it all the time at daycare too.
There was a great little puppet theater in the basement and Joseph did a stirring rendition of Froggie Went a Courtin'. Alden just wanted to mash the puppet's faces, mostly and drag them around on the floor.
There was also a fun little exhibit with a theremin-like instrument that the kids could control using the wheel mounted to the wall.

Sandy left a little early to try to connect with her Mom, leaving Joseph with Alden all to himself for a few more days. They went on long walks in the stroller to the park and to the Gardiner library, where he entertained in another puppet stand.
They also got ice cream from the farmer's market, which he usually is not allowed to have. That's what makes Grandfathers so awesome!

Train Ride

2010-08-30T17:56:00.007-04:00

We took Sandy to the airport today. On the way we stopped off at the Portland Narrow Gauge Railroad.My brother and I LOVED train rides when we were small. We would take them as often as we could at the Saint Louis Zoo. The trains at the zoo were the tiny kind designed to haul kids around. This train was actually a working train back in the day, despite being about half size.Alden thought the train was fantastic. We sat at he front car of the train at first, but the diesel smell from the engine started making him a little sick, so we moved farther back.
The whole train ride took about half an hour, up the track and then back. Lots of good photo opportunities along the way.