Lazy W Marie

Carpeing all the diems in semi-rural Oklahoma...xoxo

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Archives for March 2014

Dreaming of the Nectar Flow

Our Frontier Country Beekeepers’ club met again last night, and as always we had such a great time. They are the sweetest people. (Do you see what I did there?) I always laugh so hard the entire evening, eat too many wonderful snacks, and learn great stuff. Last night, the speakers’ material ranged from Shook Swarms to top bar hives, feeding with Ziploc baggies, and the shifting demand for bees in Oklahoma, versus honey (more on this soon, it’s very exciting!). We also learned more about producing comb honey. YUM. A few hours with these fine people just further inspires me to become a better steward of all that is under my care, including the bees. And I so appreciate that James, our president, opens every meeting with a prayer and a beautiful expression of love for the little honeybee. He thanks God for the chance to care for this important little creature, and it gives me happy chills.

 

A couple of years ago, my sweet baby named this bee "Fred" before she understood that Fred was a girl. xoxo
A couple of years ago, my sweet baby named this bee “Fred” before she understood that Fred was a girl. xoxo

 

This time of year is especially exciting, because in Oklahoma we are very likely beyond our last freeze; the pollen is in full bloom; and our first honey flow could happen this month. Experiences beekeepers are now feeding their girls sugar-water and Honey-B-Healthy, and some are even relocating hives to take advantage of blooming canola, etc. Do you want to understand how giddy they all are? Think of how excited I get about gardening season kicking off, then multiply that times twenty or thirty. That’s how excited beekeepers are right now. You could feel the trembling energy in the room last night, and it was contagious.

I toted my Papa Joe’s apiary journal to the meeting last night and let it circulate through the group, just not sure if anyone would be interested but still happy to share. They totally were interested! Of course Chuddie remembers Papa Joe and issued another solemn nod when I mentioned his name, and last night I learned that Chuddie’s wife remembers Papa Joe, too. This is so cool!

This is Chuddie, one of the "Old Timers" of our club. He claims to be older than dirt and has a knack for storytelling that almost makes me cry. Except that I am laughing too hard to bother.
This is Chuddie, one of the “Old Timers” of our club. He claims to be older than dirt and has a knack for storytelling that almost makes me cry. Except that I am laughing too hard to bother.

 

Another gentleman read through the notebook’s yellowed pages and told me afterwards that one entry in particular grabbed his attention, because in it Papa Joe had described a wax moth problem that he too had endured. “Me too!” I answered with too much intensity, and we laughed. There is something eye-opening and deeply comforting about seeing common challenges and universal conditions. It makes the problem seem less bizarre, more natural. Destructive wax moths in your bee hives are in this particular life category.

Here is a snippet from a journal entry Papa Joe made in early March, 1972. It could almost have been written here in Oklahoma, this past week:

 

Apiary Journal, Early March 1972
Apiary Journal, Early March 1972

 

Now it is early March and a few warm p.m.’s in the sixties, and bees are coming in loaded with a cream-colored pollen which is from the elms. The maples bloomed early in February. How long now till the first flow of nectar? The apricots which are often caught by frost are budding! showing pink… This & the wild plum will bloom in one week followed by apples, pears, and peaches. Dandelions & dutch clover are also very early to bloom. This is a very important time as early nectar & warm days help to determine the colony’s ability to build up strong for the big nectar flows.

The coming weeks will be busy and lots of fun for our Frontier Beekeepers’ club. We have a two-day class planned. We have at least one, maybe two additional field days planned for exploring commercial and private apiaries. And of course all the work and creativity that gets poured into individual colonies…. For me that is where the magic happens.

Here at the Lazy W I have a little more construction and painting to do for new wooden-ware, then I am relocating all of my hives to the back field, where my girls (my human girls) used to have their playhouse “fort.” Our bee yard will be near the pond still and well guarded by the llamas, but further away from the vegetable garden and mowing areas.

 

Dulcinea's trustworthiness with the honey is dubious at best. But I am taking my chances.
Dulcinea’s trustworthiness with the honey is dubious at best. But I am taking my chances.

 

Happy month of March, friends! Enjoy the changes big and small, the thrilling renewal. Celebrate the flow of nectar, however it looks in your world.

“They whom truth and wisdom lead,

 can gather honey from a weed.”

~William Cowper, 18th century English poet

XOXOXOXO

 

 

 

 

Anticipating Blooms & Miracles

The clouds are gathering, and we can smell the rain. The morning’s bright sun has already cooled, but we don’t mind. Not even a trace of wind is bothering us. Birds are singing constantly. Roosters are crowing. Barn cats purring. After a long, hard packed work week Handsome and I have landed exhausted but safe, together at home on one of the most restorative Saturday mornings we’ve enjoyed in a long time. All of our farm chores today are pleasurable, fun, satisfying. The sights, sounds, and smells here are all new life and constant love. Mouth watering stuff.

I cannot help but think all over again about the cyclical nature of life and about how much better we appreciate the springtime after a brutal winter. Like flower bulbs, we gather strength in the cold, dark months. If we survive the hard times, then we reemerge with more beauty than ever before. We greet the longer days with open arms and open hearts, eager to bloom. Our dormancy is put to good use by the Master.

If you’re still waiting for your miracle, please keep waiting and do not be discouraged by the passage of time. Be brave enough to abandon the need for instant gratification. Then on that day when you finally see the first sprouts of your miracle appearing, you’ll be overjoyed! You’ll know that all of the waiting was not in vain. You’ll have built more strength than you even thought you needed. And the bloom will be robust. Miraculous.

Bring on the rain. Gather the clouds. Send the cold, even, if that’s what we need. I’ve planted my seeds and trust You with them all. I’m willing to wait.

 

Seeds sown like prayers, each one growing at its own pace, to its own fruition.
Seeds sown like prayers, each one growing at its own pace, to its own fruition.

 

Handsome has finished his shed organizing project now and is happily tending a midday bonfire just as the rain begins to fall. I’m lounging nearby with a cup of strong, hot tea and a very cuddly barn cat. My face is half cool and damp from the weather, half warm and taut from the flames. In my mind  I see every seed planted this morning soon bursting into heaps of delicious, beautiful food or flowers. In my heart I see every prayer, uttered or silent, answered in unbelievable ways. It’s already happening.

“Miracles are a retelling in small letters of the very same story which is written across the whole world in letters too large for some of us to see.” 

~C.S. Lewis

XOXOXO

Mystery Egg

Howdy! So very glad you’ve stopped in one more time. Are you hungry?

Mama Kat has invited us to share a photo from this past week’s Instagram fun, and this one sprung to mind:

 

The chicken from whence this egg came might need a day off and some aspirin.
The chicken from whence this egg came might need a day off and some aspirin.

 

It’s basically… an egg. A ginormous, heavy as a boulder, almost the size of my perfectly normal sized hand, egg. I collected it still warm from beneath the feathery hiney of one of our youngest hens. She’s a little white and brown girl named “Other Chicken.” Because on that naming day I was sorely lacking in creativity. Odds are she wasn’t the poor soul who laid it, but I cannot guarantee that. As Other Chicken was doing that day, hens often sit on a whole clutch of eggs that do not belong to them. It’s like they all read Hillary Clinton’s It Take s a Village or something.

Anyway, my online friends all made guesses about whether it was a goose egg or a double yolker chicken egg, and I let this glorious package of protein and miracles sit in the glow of admiration for a couple of days. Honestly, though, I was  disappointed nobody volunteered the possibility of dinosaur egg. Come on you guys! Let’s think outside of the nesting box for a sec.

Then a few days later I was starving to death but fresh out of my staple food, which is off brand tortilla chips. So I heated up a skillet with a little real butter and cracked open that dinosaur egg. I’ll spare you the suspense. It was definitely a chicken egg, double yolker. It was deep orange, too, not anemic yellow, and it was dense and fresh and perfect. I ate it scrambled up with spinach and mushrooms.

And it was delicious.

The End.

 

Grow Your Own This Spring

Straight line winds. Cold mornings, warm afternoons. Thick new flower leaves elbowing their way out of the packed earth.  Budding fruit trees. Shedding horses and amorous buffalo. Hens sitting faithfully on their eggs. All sure signs of springtime in Oklahoma, and they have only just begun.

I just came inside from working another raised veggie bed, thrilled to see the decomposition progress there. Horse and llama manures rotting together with dried leaves, chicken litter, and shredded paper. Sand has transformed into deep black, crumbly magic stuff. A vast universe of possibility for food growers.

What are you growing this early part of the season? What is your last average frost date, do you know? Are you working seeds early, indoors with fancy equipment, or waiting for a week later in the season to plunk it all down into the sun-kissed earth? So many wonderful decisions to make. All of it makes me deliciously light-headed. Drunk on chlorophyll and loam. So I hope you will forgive me for a slightly disjointed garden post tonight.

Grow your own food. Go ahead, you really can do it!
What do you love to eat? Grow your own. xoxo

 

My sweet, smart, sassy friend Stephanie gave me this flat-out perfect dish towel for my birthday. Don’t you love it? I sure do. Steph is also growing a veggie garden of her own this year, right here at the farm. I am hoping she’ll bring her nieces to learn, too. Once kids see for themselves how fun it is to design and tend a personal garden, they are often hooked for life. Then, once they taste that incredible fresh food, well… Let’s just say that for every fresh carrot a teenager eats, a bag of potato chips dies.

So, here’s what I am planning to grow this month…

  • spinach
  • kale
  • leaf lettuce
  • head lettuce (butter crunch)
  • mesculun
  • radishes (both crimson and French breakfast)
  • carrots (both scarlet nantes and a rainbow blend)
  • snow peas
  • potatoes (both reds and Yukon golds)
  • cilantro
  • asparagus
  • strawberries
  • garlic
  • parsley

Five times as much edible beauty is on the books for May and beyond, but the foods listed above are classic springtime faves. The Lazy W is happy to honor the tradition.

Deep breath… Inhale all the new life. Listen to how many new bird songs you can hear. Walk around barefoot and peer into the naked trees and rosebushes for specks of bright color. Get tipsy on the details around you.

Tomorrow I have nowhere to go and a long list of happy farm  chores to tackle, mostly centered on the gardens. Cuffed up jeans and a wide brim straw hat all day long. The only thing that could make tomorrow lovelier would be starting it with Hot Tub Summit and a few mugs of perfect coffee with Handsome.

Grow Your Own. Ok, I think I will.

“The care of the Earth is our most ancient and most worthy, and after all our most pleasing responsibility. To cherish what remains of it and to foster its renewal is our only hope.” ~Wendell Berry
XOXOXOXO

Marathon Monday: Longest Yet

Good Monday morning friends! How was your weekend? Mine was pretty spectacular. From a productive day of work at the farm on Friday to a really fun “surprise” birthday party that night… complete with a MOON BOUNCE… then romance all day Saturday and dinner with friends Sunday night… Yes. My fortieth birthday weekend was just great. Throw into that delicious mix a heaping dose of sunshine and my longest run to date, and I feel deeply satisfied. Sore, tight, and exhausted, but so satisfied.

 

This may look like featured fun for a nine year old girl's birthday party, but no. Because apparently forty is the new nine.
This may look like featured fun for a nine year old girl’s birthday party, but no. Because apparently forty is the new nine.

 

Yesterday afternoon my new friend Carrie, who is an old friend of my dear friend Marci, and who also went to high school with Handsome, invited me to join her for a long run, twice around Lake Hefner in Oklahoma City. I have needed a really good stretch out run, something deeply challenging, for a while. With unpredictable late winter weather and even more unpredictable life circumstances this past month, I was beginning to fall behind on my mileage for marathon training and had started to wonder whether it was even possible to be ready in time for the late April race date.

Well, yesterday’s run answered so many questions for me.

Carrie and I struck out early Sunday afternoon, and after about three hours and forty minutes we clocked 18.75 miles. (Yes, I am slow. I had to walk a few times, too.) My running buddy, who smelled fresh and shampoo-y the entire time, had to hold back to let me keep up with her and had tons of energy to spare. She rounded out her miles to about twenty after I had stopped at my Jeep, stretched against its steel push guard, then curled up in a fetal position on the sidewalk. She is amazing. I could write all day about that how she inspired me. Anyway, here are some things I learned on my long run yesterday:

  • Yes, a full marathon is totally within my grasp. I have about six and a half weeks left to prepare, and I feel super confident after yesterday. I’m ready to fork out the mulah to be part of OKC Run to Remember.
  • But from now on I will ramp up to those long runs a bit more slowly. Because 18.75 miles is exponentially more challenging than 8 or 9 miles, which before yesterday was the most I had run since the Half last April. Yikes, you guys, it didn’t seem like that much of a difference in my brain, but it is. Carrie pointed out with measured concern in her voice that it was an increase of 100% in one day. Maybe not my smartest move.
  • I need new shoes. My super cute white-and-turquoise Brooks which have carried me so faithfully around a zillion west pasture laps… Well… They are breaking down quickly. Also, running on concrete and asphalt is a far cry from running on sand and grassy hills, so that’s even more reason for new shoes before the Marathon. Ouch. More mulah forking over to do. Yay for birthday money! 

 

Since I run mostly here at the farm, in our red dirt and sand back field, these cute shoes aren't so white anymore.

 

  • Starburst candies make me sick to my stomach but those little sports beans are so good. I plan to stock up. The tiny dose of electrolytes made a noticeable difference when I was ready to quit. Which, by the way, is a pretty hilarious concept when you are running twice around a lake. There is no quitting unless a helicopter comes to rescue you. Which would be really embarrassing. Thank you for sharing your sports beans, Carrie!
  • I am a music runner for sure. I thoroughly enjoyed chatting with Carrie and getting to know her as we jogged, but my brain is so geared toward zoning out with music that without it I was acutely aware of every single step I took, not to mention my microphone-loud breathing, and I think that made the mental journey much longer.
  • Apparently I care about my speed more than I have wanted to admit, but at this point in the game I am just going to focus on finishing my first Full. Maybe in the future I’ll work on speed. (LOL Yeah, right. Maybe I’ll give up Diet Coke and chips and salsa, too.)

 

lake image run

  • Running isn’t always fun, and it’s okay to be emotional. Until yesterday, running was lots of fun. Now it is mostly fun. I had at least three moments when I was questioning my motives. I had to articulate them to myself all over again just to keep going. Then, between miles thirteen and sixteen, I started having bizarre mood swings which ranged from minor irritability to full-blown ticked off. I do not know who I was angry at. On top of the Lake Hefner dam is a rock retaining wall where several people were sitting, just gazing at the water below them. I felt like pushing them off, over the edge, just real fast and mean. Why aren’t you running?? I wanted to scream. That’s terrible! I’m sure they’re all nice people and didn’t deserve that. In fact, everyone on the trail was so nice, especially Carrie. Then the last two miles I was on the verge of tears the entire time. Suppressing those tears probably required as much energy as moving my legs. So next time I will probably just allow them to flow and give all my energy to moving forward and not pushing random people off of rock ledge retaining walls. (For the record, it was a violence-free day. Everybody please calm down.)
  • Recovery snacks should be light and controlled. I was famished after running that far and especially after passing the row of luscious lake front restaurants serving pasta, steaks, and other amazing, fragrant foods. After stretching for a while and collapsing in a fetal position on the sidewalk, I crawled pathetically up the passenger door of my Jeep to excavate the snacks I had brought: a banana, a tiny can of pineapple juice, and more water. That is where I should have stopped. But instead I ate my emergency food, a single piece of wheat bread smeared with a little peanut butter. Then I sat there for a while, cooling down, and when I felt steady enough to operate the stick shift tank, pulled away from the lake and stopped at a convenience store for a Diet Coke and salty almonds. MISTAKE. I felt super queasy right away. This over-snacking totally ruined that light, buoyant feeling of having depleted myself so well, but at least I had the bodily fuel to drive forty-five minutes to the farm. Anyway, lesson learned. Eat slowly and eat light after those long runs.  And maybe plan for someone else to drive you home. As with everything else in this discipline, pace pace pace.

 

I think that’s about it. I could really talk about this experience and this goal all day long, a fact to which Handsome will eagerly attest. But I know you have things to do and so do I. Thanks for stopping in at the Lazy W! If you see me running around Lake Hefner soon, send for a helicopter.

Training gives us an outlet for suppressed energies created by stress and thus tones the spirit just as exercise conditions the body.

~Arnold Schwarzenegger

XOXOXOXO