Lazy W Marie

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

lazy w honey maker update

You guys, this is gonna be “the year” for beekeeping at the W. I feel it. I feel it in my belly and my bones, and the stinging ladies whisper it to me every time I walk downhill. They dance in the sunshine and crawl between the clover blooms and beat their wings in a furious but happy Morse code message that says, “We like it here. We will stay. And if you get your hobby farming act together we will even make you some honey.”

I think that’s what they’re saying, anyway.

They’re probably Italian bees, and I barely remember my Spanish lessons from high school.

Let me introduce you to our three royal majesties who are each overseeing a completely unique colony, each acquired in a very different way too:

At the far left, nearest the pond, we have Princess Grace. She and her bees are building up their population at an incredible rate since last Spring, when my friend and fellow beekeeper Terry brought that swarm to the Lazy W. With Grace we enjoy gentleness, calm, and elegance, plus important lessons about leaving too much space in the hives, lest industry takes over and the bees one day explode with burr comb. Ahem.

Princess Grace, from a captured swarm… xoxo

Near the center of the middle field is Queen Shakira: So named because she and her ginormous family literally never stop dancing. Ever. And she can be a little spicy, but oh how beautiful! How dangerous and mesmerizing! I want to draw your attention to Shakira’s upper box, painted as a tribute to the 1980’s. Here we have Mr. T as well as a “Bee Box” instead of a beat box. Ha! Get it? There’s even more on the unseen sides. I have my talented and hilarious husband to thank for this treasure.

This was a “package” of bees I purchased at the 2016 spring conference, delivered from the vendor a couple of months later while I was visiting Jocelyn in Colorado. In my absence, my friend and mentor Maribeth and our (now mutual) friend Amber cared for this small group of stingers until I returned home. Handsome took charge of assembling and painting the wooden ware, and by the way he is the best hive artist ever.

Since then, month by month, Shakira and her fuzzy humming clan have grown like gangbusters. They have more than filled up the first deep box, overflowing out of it really, to the point that I recently added that second box you see. The concern was that the bees were so overcrowded they might swarm out on a warm spring day. I waited until winter weather had passed (specifically, until we had 24+ hours of temps above 55 degrees) then supplied them with new frames sprayed down with sugar-water (to encourage them to draw out the comb) and am continuing to feed them heavy syrup infused with drops of “Honey Bee Healthy” for their guts and immune systems. So far so good! They are still here, and they are voracious.

So, Shakira now has an upper story and deserves it. She has a bottom deep stocked with brood and honey and pollen, and I could not be happier. She and her bees seem to be draining their syrup supply faster than the other two hives. I suppose all that dancing? No pests yet, hallelujah.

Queen Shakira on the left (a purchased bee package one year old) and Queen Anne of the Damned with her Las Diablas on the right (cut out colony from this spring). That is my running trail in the back ground.

Nearest the Pine Forest you see the new home of Queen Anne of the Damned, matriarch to all of her Las Diablas: This queen got her cool name because the kids in charge of naming her originally suggested “El Diablo,” the translation and literary connection for which was too good to resist. Shout out to our fellow Anne Rice fans! Her drones, of course, shall henceforth be known as Los Diablos. Love it. Ha!

This is my brand new colony, the result of my first “cut out” supervised and assisted greatly by Maribeth. An old friend of my husband’s (my friend now too) contacted me several weeks ago reporting that while cleaning out a shed, he and his brother discovered honeybees. He asked whether I might want them then sent photos. It was an established hive, tons of gorgeous comb, not a swarm, so we were in less of a rush than we might have been.

This is me painting the shed with mouthwash, where we had removed honeycomb. It is supposed to discourage bees from returning to that spot.

I basically could not say yes!! fast enough and scrambled together a plan. About a week later (holding our breath through some risky wintry weather) Maribeth and I performed the cut out, photographed almost the entire time by our friend’s brother Eric. LOL He was super chill!

Thank you for documenting the fun, Eric!

He wore an extra bee jacket but no gloves and was right up there with us, just quietly admiring nature. I had the best afternoon! Then Maribeth and I installed the bees here at the farm, with a classic Oklahoma sunset lighting it all up. Magical. 

Since that exciting afternoon, things have gone remarkably well. Queen Anne and her Diablas have acclimated to their new surroundings, happy I am sure to still have so much of their native comb. These bees came with loads and I mean loads of capped brood, dozens of baby bees already hatching, pollen in colors ranging from pale yellow to crimson, and a little honey. Maybe enough to feed on during the dry weeks ahead of nectar flow.

I am so very thankful to our friends for thinking of us and letting us wait a week to fetch the bees safely! Eric and Erin’s mom Lynn gets first dibs on Anne’s honey harvest!

The only hurdle I have so far noticed for Queen Anne is that Meh the llama, or possibly my horse Chanta, has been happy to knock the lid off in search of that sweet syrup. Which is so dumb! Because often we have looked outside to see one or more of the three bachelors running away and rodeo kicking in objection to (most likely) a sting.  They were doing this to both Anne and Shakira.

Dumb, the narrator said darkly, shaking her head.

Anyway. A few strips of duct tape and two ratchet straps later, the problem seems to be solved. I am just so thankful that at each disruption, the bees were nonplussed. 

Maribeth answers my questions tirelessly and offers complicated but useful guidance every time something changes. I love and appreciate her so much for this. Beekeeping is nuanced, and my learning curve has been a roller coaster for sure. I also love that she makes a point to ask about my Papa Neiberding often. I also also like that my bees tend to sting her a lot more than they sting me. That’s funny. I’m sorry but it is. 

Okay, that’s it for now! I could talk about this cool stuff all day, but I don’t really know what you guys think of beekeeping, or how much you want to read about it, ha! So if you have any questions feel free to send em!

“Plumbers get wet
and beekeepers get stung.”
~Maribeth Snapp
XOXOXOXO

 

rest in peace chunk-hi

So many memories.

We brought him home in 2009, a wobbly, golden-fleece baby with the biggest, blackest eyes you have ever seen. His square nose was wet and leathery even then, his shiny hooves narrow and tentative. We fed him enormous bottles of warm formula twice a day for more than ten months and touched and cuddled him constantly. He needed very little time adjusting to the farm and quickly learned that we meant only love and treats, never harm. Barely bigger than a large dog, he ran to us, circled our legs, jabbed his woolly head toward our ribs for extra milk, and welcomed vigorous face scratching and long-distance French kissing. (Have you never tongue-kissed a buffalo? Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it.)

chunk-baby-trailer

He loved graham crackers the most, then vanilla wafers, and of course slightly stale Chips-ahoy cookies. He loved to run and play with the other four-leggeds and probably thought he was a horse. 

In fact we often had him in the same pasture as Daphne, our black mare, and he sought after her maternal affection daily. She granted it when she thought no one was watching. You might remember his stunning display of love and mourning for her the day she was dying.

Chunk chased away mean spirited geese. He nibbled acorns from the trees. He swam in the red dirt pond and carved wallows in the sandy front field. He was gracious to every single farm visitor and never once broke out to roam the neighborhood. He was sweet to our rambunctious puppy despite having been attacked by our older dogs years ago.

Once my husband painted Chunk’s horns, and I will never forget that. The striped adornment lasted a couple of weeks, making him possibly the most festive buffalo ever in history.

buff painted horns

 

If ever we provided this big boy a large bale of hay and sat it down in the wrong direction, he took great pleasure in unrolling it, just like a giant cinnamon roll, diagonally across his field. Then he would lay in the thin exposed layer and just kind of spread the hay all around himself, like a huge buffalo nest. He would chew some cud and look at us like, “What are you gonna do about it?” 

Nothing, baby. You enjoy.

In recent years, at sunrise it was crucial to feed him first, before the chickens and noisy geese, certainly before the horses and llamas (both his friends and competition), because as soon as Chunk noticed signs of life from the house he started ramming that wide forehead against the metal cattle gate, not really trying to get out, just letting us know that breakfast was a fantastic idea.

He once got inside the house; have you heard that story? He was a youngster. He trotted right through the open front door, slipped all over the wood floors, ice skating on those pointed split hooves, then made quite a spectacle of himself getting collected back out through the same door.

chunk tiny horns with me

He has never ridden in a topless car like in that famous video, but he has done his share of damage to pickup trucks.

And four-wheelers.

And buckets.

And wheel barrows.

And lawn furniture. (My gosh that was quite an afternoon.)

And barn doors.

But he never once hurt a person.

His name is a purposeful distortion of what we had originally named him, Chunk-shi,  which is Lakota for daughter. We had thought we were adopting a little girl, and by the time we realized the mistake the name had stuck really well. So we easily dropped a consonant and anyway everyone just called him Chunk.

chunk dusty ibaka caption

During basketball season we yelled in our best NBA announcer voices, “CHUNK HIII FOOOOR THRRRREEEEEEE!!!!” Not for nothing that the OKC Thunder mascot is Rumble the bison.

Beautiful Boy

Every winter he built up a massive coat of thick, wiry hair around his shoulders, a mane of epic proportions which he shook wildly when it snowed. He clothed himself in the thickest, most beautiful coat of velvet, impenetrable and tightly woven against his beefy midsection. His legs boasted giant pom poms of buffalo fluff that always made me think of Native American dancers and New Orleans parades.

chunk-boys-ice

In the coldest weeks of winter when the water troughs froze overnight, he helped break the ice with his horns and skull. I clearly remember the first time I saw him do it. I had carried a sledgehammer outside, planning to drop it vertically from a small distance, smack onto the surface of the ice to bust it apart and reveal the cold water, but he beat me to the task. He raised up that massive, gorgeous head, twisted it sideways, and smashed it with impressive force just twice until ice blocks flew and frigid water splashed, beading on his face and eyelashes. I swear he looked me right in the eyes and said, “I got this Mom.” From then on we heard him smashing ice regularly, like he was happy to take on that farm chore. Or maybe it was just for fun. His equine companions were only too happy to enjoy the fruits of his labor.

For every winter that Chunk grew that spectacular coat, he had a summer for shedding. He would scrub his body against every tree that still had bark. He allowed us to gently drag a plastic garden rake against his back and belly. He would stand still to see if you could get a grip on that velvet and pull hard enough. That coat was remarkably devoted to staying attached to his body until the temperatures outside were just hot enough. Then we knew summer had finally arrived because suddenly he was nekkid and the farm was a snow globe of buffalo fluff.

crazy eyes chunk april 2014

Echoes of Chunk-hi

After he left the farm this past February to live on a gorgeous, 300-acre ranch with his new ranching family, I continued to hear his voice. He had a deep, bellowy voice, a snorting baritone that sounded a lot like howling wind and also like Tibetan meditation bowls. Otherworldly sometimes. For weeks I heard him every morning when I fed the other animals, and a few times I also thought I saw him in a sand wallow, peeking around an oak tree. He was big, huge even by bison standards, but he had a talent for winding himself up small like a baby and tucking into the shadows, just chewing his cud.

We miss him so much. We have missed him every day of every week since he left the Lazy W, and we have been deeply conflicted about the decision to find him a new home. But our reasons were sound, and the family who took him on are wonderful ranchers, smart and loving.

Chunk was given the opportunity to roam almost free, just like a wild buff, and he also had a girlfriend named Molly. After a period of acclimation, they enjoyed a long honeymoon toward the close of summer, and for this we are so grateful. 

Horrible News

One day recently his new caretakers discovered Chunk badly injured, his back broken, probably from a fight with another bull or from vigorous love making with Molly. We were shocked and heartbroken by the news but held onto hope that he might heal or that their vet might find a solution.

Unfortunately, with medical attention and prayerful observation, his caretakers made the decision to take away his suffering, so as I share this Chunk is no longer with us.

Days later, reading those words is a fresh stabbing pain. I still cannot believe it. We had thought he might leave the W to live out his years on the Oklahoma prairie, maybe start a herd of his own which is what we envisioned back in 2009 when we first brought him here.

Our shock and heartbreak now are not all that much different from the excruciating decision to first say goodbye, and of course, in that awful bittersweet way, we feel some relief that he is no longer in pain. Because surely a broken back would have been so very painful. 

Perspective

Trying to boost my spirits recently, my husband laughed through his own tears and said, referring to the idea of Chunk breaking his back during lovemaking, “What a way to go!” Ha. I guess so.

After being rescued from a hunting lodge, Chunk spent more than seven years living a really full, healthy life. He touched the lives and hearts of dozens, maybe hundreds of children and adults, most of whom would never have otherwise experienced an American Bison up close and personal. He was part of our family and identity. An absolute fixture at the Lazy W, where he has been recently missed by people and animals alike. 

I doubt any bison has ever been so loved. 

Hope and Love

As always, of course, there is a glimmer of hope and a need for love outpoured.

The long summertime honeymoon Chunk enjoyed with Molly gives everyone the idea that she could bear his calf next spring. My hope is to stay connected to the ranchers there and share the good news with you guys if it happens. Chunk was such a beautiful boy, so sweet and good in every way. I know his baby will be special. 

Please send some loving energy to the folks who took on the burden of caring for Chunk in this chapter of life. They are in pain too, having had to make the decision no farmer or rancher wants to make. In just a few months they had bonded tightly with our big boy, which is no surprise to me. And of course, they are caring for Molly, who could bring Chunk’s herd into the world after all. 

Thank you for reading, friends. I know many of you who never met Chunk still feel the loss. (Thank you Suzanne for saying all the right things last week.) And if you ever visited the farm and kissed or fed Chunk-hi a cookie, thank you for that too. You helped give him a life brimming with love and affection. You made him love people and you enriched our home.

chunk-bw-eyes

Rest in peace Chunk-hi.

You are the prettiest one my baby.
XOXOXOXO

brothers gotta hug

We are enjoying some very special company at the farm this week. Lincoln, one of Klaus’ brothers, has come for a two-night slumber party and all of us here with the possible exception of Natasha the black cat are pretty happy about it.

Also, can we all pause briefly to celebrate this magical weather in Oklahoma? Summery but not Dante’s-Inferno summery? Yes. Love it. Perfect for playing outside.

This is second time Lincoln has been here. The first was for the pups’ one-year birthday party this past spring. This is also the second time they have stayed overnight with each other since being adopted to different homes. The first for that was when Klaus stayed at Lincoln’s house while Handsome and I were out of town for a few nights.

By all accounts and evidence, these two are best buddies. As I type this fun update, they both are napping. Fully exhausted. They have been awake since dark-thirty playing super hard. Chasing butterflies, supervising chickens and geese, digging mud holes, swimming, twisting me in a leash trick that appeared to be accidental but I have my doubts, trading threadbare toys, wrestling with and without teeth, and getting (somewhat) groomed. They have crashed happily on the cold tile floor of our front entry, having decided the plush couch with a chenille coverlet was just not the thing for summertime brother adventurers. A few minutes ago Lincoln did silently approach the bench when I woke them both up with a snappy fly-swatting (it must have been concerning), but now he is asleep again.

This is a lot like having highly energetic toddlers napping in the afternoon: I don’t want to break the spell. Like, I want to refill my iced coffee, but do I dare stand up and walk in the kitchen? No. Also, I guess it’s a lucky day to be a fly in this house.

Lincoln on the left and our sweet boy Klaus on the right. They fairly dominate a couch. xoxo

 

Just for fun, here are some differences and similarities between these two gorgeous German Shepherds:

Same:

  • They both love face cuddles and lots of physical contact.
  • They both love to eat. Perhaps especially dry salty popcorn.
  • They both are enraptured by butterflies.
  • Neither of them understands why Natasha the black cat is so adverse to being sniffed intimately.
  • While relaxing, Klaus tends to crook his front left paw under at a sharp angle, and so does Lincoln! Like, exactly the same way.
  • Both pups dismount a couch with the same long-and-lean back leg stretch, like they are preparing for an Olympic high dive.
  • Brushing? Yes please! Times two.
  • Their stranger-danger bossy barking voices are so similar it’s hard to tell them apart, except that Klaus can take his up to a bit of a screech, and that’s pretty unmistakable, ha.
  • Mud hole digging is a common hobby. But our daughter’s pup Bridget could teach them a thing or two about it.
  • Both of these magnificent dogs love rides in our farm truck. 

Different:

  • Klaus likes to either charge ahead or walk directly behind me outdoors, shepherding hard. Lincoln is mostly an against-your-thigh kinda guy, and he alternates between his companion’s left and right sides.
  • Klaus wants to kill the chickens, although he doesn’t know it’s killing. So far Lincoln is still trying to figure them out.
  • Klaus is bigger in stature and Lincoln has bigger eyes.
  • Lincoln is still curious enough about Pacino to poke his substantial snout into the parrot cage, whereas Klaus learned that lesson months ago. Respectable distance is the name of their game.
  • You all know that Klaus loves Meh the llama, right? Well it’s hard to say exactly what Lincoln thinks of this creature, but I can tell you that Meh is actively campaigning to intimidate our guest. Of course, Meh has been copping the same attitude with the horses lately, so. Who knows.
  • Lincoln saw fresh water going into the plastic wading pool over in the dog pen and immediately hopped in for a leisurely soak. Klaus was utterly confused and delighted by this, because to him that’s drinking water. He prefers to swim in the big chlorinated pool. 

Okay in the last few minutes these sweet dogs have stealthily relocated to continue their very important nap beneath the dining room table, curtained to the floor with a heavy tablecloth. This is where I am seated, typing to you fine people. It’s like they are in a very secret  fort. And they both are making sure to touch my feet, which I don’t hate. They are breathing out little puffs of air just like kids and groaning gently when they adjust and re-cuddle each other. I am basically in heaven. 

XOXOXOXO

 

 

farewell to chunk

What I’m not going to write is one more piece on love and loss and the importance of keeping our eyes on the silver lining. We’ve had so much of that here on this blog, because my husband and I have had so much of it in real life. It’s all a worthy lesson, no doubt; but today we just need to rest a bit in a new reality here at the farm. I am writing to ask you for your best loving energy. Your prayers, good vibrations, kind words, or just you quietly nodding head as you read. Handsome and I will appreciate your embrace from a distance.

Just the facts, ma’am.

Okay.

Today we are saying goodbye to a beloved farm-ily member, Chunk-hi the buffalo. Our bottle baby-turned cuddle bug for nearly seven years, our cookie-loving, face-scratch-begging, engine-racing, tractor-tire flipping behemoth is moving on to his next life chapter. We are caught in that all too familiar brackish water where salty tears mix with fresh starts and past meets future face to face.

buff BW face

Chunk is alive and well, don’t worry, just going to live on another ranch. Thankfully, that ranch is here in Oklahoma and owned by the parents of some friends of ours, so it’s possible we can go visit Chunk in his new digs. We could see his new girlfriend. Maybe next year meet his little golden calves. (We could become bison grandparents!!) This ranch happens to be in Stratford, so we can also stock up on peaches when they’re in season.

Those are all silver linings, Marie, stop.

Sorry.

This decision is not one at which we’ve arrived easily, and the factors have been many and building in intensity. During angry, bitter moments we find people to blame (new neighbors usually, the Turnpike Authority also). In tender moments we see that maybe this was always meant to happen, eventually. Our bison dreams way back in 2009 were big, and life has taken so many unexpected twists and turns since then. Whatever you believe about fate and bad luck, these last six and three-quarter years have just evaporated with our sweet buff. He quickly became part of our farm-ily during those early summer bottle feedings. He has etched himself into our identity at the Lazy W (how many children have visited to feed him cookies and scruff his wooly face?). He will always of course own a slice of our hearts.

I promised not to wax too poetic about this. It’s just such an emotional thing.

Chunk is being picked up today around Noon, and it will be only his second time in a trailer. He will be arriving at only the third place he has ever seen on this beautiful earth, and besides his mother (moments before she was hunted, I feel the need to point that out), he will soon meet his first adult American Bison. Word on the prairie is she’s quite a looker and feeling amorous.

Wink-wink…

We are not heart broken, exactly. We are heart-aching. We know this is the responsible thing to do and that Chunk-hi will be safer (uninvited attention from passersby on our road has been a huge problem this year), and we even believe he will find a whole new level of happiness in his new life. Of course that last part stings a bit, but gosh. We have survived a child leaving the nest and finding happiness. We’ll survive this too.

It’s all for the best.

So please keep us in your happy thoughts, and for sure keep Chunk-hi in your happy thoughts. Hope for him wide, green pastures, abundant fresh water, excellent romantic companions, and just enough human interaction to help him remember us fondly. Believe in these hopes and we will too, and no doubt he will be okay.

To Robbie and your family, thank you from the bottom of our hearts. Knowing that good people love Chunk is such a comfort. We reminisced this morning that it was Robbie who helped us feed Chunk grass clippings when we were neighbors. It was Robbie who held off a dog attack before Chunk had horns to defend himself. And it has been Robbie all along who watched Chunk grow just as both our families’ kids were growing. As poetic full circles go, this is a lovely one.

Friends of the Lazy W, if you have ever visited our farm and shown love to our buff, thank you too. Thank you so much. Thank you for your cookie generosity, your inquisitiveness, your sense of caution and bravado. We have enjoyed it all. We would really love it if you took a moment to share a Chunk-hi memory with us.

We love you Chunk! We already miss you, sweet boy.

Oh give me a home
Where the buffalo roam..
XOXOXO

 

deep sleep, blackbirds, & some magic

We slept so late. More than nine hours in bed. Our smooth new slate-colored sheets must have chamomile leaves woven into the cotton.

We creep outside well past daybreak. The morning is warm and absent of any breeze but overcast, as gray as our magical sleeping sheets. Perfect coffees in hand and one hundred-pound puppy bouncing around our ankles, we start the day already simmering in affection and buffered by safety. Hot Tub Summit. We plan our day.

An hour later we are outside again, this time dressed and sitting at a round metal table next to the barn, facing downhill. We are still wrapped by the warm woolly air, no technicolor sunrise today. Our four-leggeds eat their breakfast contentedly. So fat and beautiful. Hens tease roosters, darting seductively across the middle field, scratching at horse manure, chuckling in the dormant flower garden. The birdsong is exceptional. We hear and scout for cardinals, blue jays, doves, and woodpeckers. Then it happens.

Out of the southwest corner of the farm, a dense flock of blackbirds, half as wide as our property and trailing twice that length, swoops up over the sand hills, maybe from the forest or maybe beyond, and speeds across the farm. They are too high to touch but low enough to force the air down in whooshes with their energetic flight. The birds are massed together into one quilted black flying carpet, undulating and speeding between the sky and the earth, slicing through the moment.

They race toward one tree with one purpose and land on an oak just past my husband’s car shop. Its branches dip and dance from the burden. Every twig now is dotted with a round black bird, the whole mass still twittering and vibrating. Handsome takes photos of the spectacle.

When they eventually hush, the regular birdsong resumes. I cannot tell whether the cardinals, blue jays, doves and woodpeckers were quiet during this stunning display or just out-sung. Either way, the heartbeat of the farm returns to normal.

Chickens laughing again and roosters crowing on every side. Geese preening with soft honks down by the pond. Horses snuffling and bison knocking around a fallen tree with his massive horns.

I have one more cup of perfect coffee to sip before deciding between work and play. But on days like this, when the magic here is so thick, it’s hard to know the difference.

Happy Valentine’s Day friends
Enjoy some magic
XOXOXOXO