Monthly Archives: June 2014

Lewisburg and stuff

June 23, 2014Adventure, WVAdventure, Fun, Lewisburg - it IS a pretty cool small townwarren

A few weekends ago, Emily and I were without kids so decided to take a trip to Lewisburg, WV. Lewisburg was voted “America’s Coolest Town” in 2011 so we figured we should check it out. There is a lot of beauty across WV, but some of the best of it is collected in Greenbrier county and the counties that surround it. We had a perfect weekend for walking about town and that was exactly our plan.

There are numerous small shops in Lewisburg that very clearly cater to tourists, but are still very cool regardless. In particular, we found a place that was sort of a health-food, earthy, new-age-almost place, called Edith’s Health and Specialty Store. Normally I don’t care much about that sort of place, but we planned to check out every store in town. What I especially liked about Edith’s was the bulk food area in the basement. They had a barrel of the finest dates I have ever eaten. I know, dates aren’t a thing most people care about, let along spend time writing into a sentence, but these dates were so fresh and wonderful, I can’t wait to go back and get more! Dates…who knew?!

Emily at lunch - Stella's — Emily at lunch – Stella’s

There were trinket stores and an outfitter and bakeries and antique stores and even a pecan store. We hit all of the shops and had a really cool time talking about, you know, adult stuff. The kids would have been crazy, but we had a great time eating dates and talking about…whatever we wanted! Lewisburg is sort of what small towns used to be I suppose. From the time before there were big box stores, when people went to the local whatever shop for…whatever. The downtown was alive with people…likely tourists, but still, people wandering around, chatting and enjoying the weather. It reminds me somewhat of my hometown before it hit against hard times.

Near Lewisburg, there are a number of other sights…we took a tour of Lost World Caverns. It was a cave homecoming for Emily as she had gone on a guided tour of the cave when she visited on an elementary school trip when she was a kid. Since we were adults, we got to do a self-guided tour which was cool. It’s nice spending extra time staring at any old dang rock we pleased as opposed to speeding through a tour guided by someone else.

I was especially surprised, as Emily is not a wine drinker, that we visited a winery/vineyard and did a wine tasting. Watts Roost Winery ferments wine onsite, but unfortunately, is closing as soon as they run out of their stock. I guess the owner prefers sheep farming to wine making so is expanding one business and closing the other. Too bad, as the wine was pretty good…we bought 10 bottles of various sorts.

Back to Lewisburg, we walked around and saw Carnegie Hall, one of four Carnegie Halls in the world. We didn’t go in, but we did walk the grounds a bit and get to say we licked Carnegie Hall…who else can say that?!

Old Stone Presbyterian ChurchOld Stone Presbyterian Church — Old Stone Presbyterian Church

Across the road from Carnegie Hall is “The Old Stone Presbyterian Church“, an old…stone…church. What did you expect? Anyhow, it has an old cemetery attached as well. It was striking that there were a number of tombstones there that had birthdates before the US of A was the US of A. It’s hard to even think about that for me for some reason…to wonder what the area was like before the area was a state, let along a country. It must have been thrilling and terrifying and amazing and terrifying (again).

All-in-all, it was a great trip to see a cool small town. It was fun to hang with Emily and see some neat things and to sip a little wine, eat some rich food and act like adults!

Confirmed…he’s a rooster

June 17, 2014ChickensChickens, Get in my belly!, That one "hen" had an Adam's applewarren

So I mentioned the other day, that I have a bunch of chickens, one of which I thought might be a rooster. He runs the hens around and very clearly is the boss of the coop. He has pointy saddle feathers and he’s huge compared to the other birds. Still, I was sold hens so I held out hope that “Licorice” was just a bossy hen. I mean, each bird has her (or his) own personality so I thought I might still be ok.

Of course, the kids are out of town with my folks, so Emily and I have enjoyed quiet sleep. On Monday morning, however, at almost exactly 6 am, we heard a sort of ill-formed warble that turned into a rooster-like sound. He practiced a few more times and finally let out a few real rooster crows. By 6:15, he was done. I was able to visibly catch him in the act at one point because I didn’t want to mistakenly pin maleness on Licorice if it were really Beatrice doing the crowing.

Licorice, my "hen" that isn't a hen — Licorice, my “hen” that isn’t a hen

Emily didn’t hear him crow another single time the rest of the day or evening. Tuesday morning, he was at it again from 6 until 6:15 am and then he was quiet. That wouldn’t really bother me, but we do live in the city and have neighbors fairly close-by. I will definitely talk to them and make sure they aren’t terribly inconvenienced, but city ordinances do stipulate that while hens are legit in the city, roosters are definitely not.

I talked to a few friends who could have roosters but neither needed him so unless someone else turns up who needs a rooster, Licorice will make us a fine dinner this weekend. I hate to see him go as he is a pretty bird and really pretty gentle with humans, but I do not want trouble from the city or my neighbors. Ultimately, all of the chickens will be eaten as well so this is not a huge deal…just a little sooner than I had planned.

Ah well, I guess this is the life of an urban chicken farmer. I guess you can never truly know whether you have males or females until you get proof…noisy proof…

Honey moon

June 13, 2014NatureHoney...it says honey in the name, it's spacey!, Nature, Yes I did walk around my neighborhood in boxers and gum bootswarren

So last night at 12:11 am, we witnessed the first honey moon (also known as strawberry moon) that happened to fall on a Friday the 13th, in almost 100 years. I stayed up until around midnight to try to take some pics of the moon hoping to see its yellow tint, the reason it is called a honey moon.

The full moon nearest the Summer Solstice is at its perigee or the time when it is closest to the Earth and lowest in the sky. Since it is low in the sky, it appears to be much larger than normal, due to a trick that our brains pull on us…it’s called the moon illusion (see possible explanation here). Add to that the effects of pollution and dust in the atmosphere which reflect light differently, and you end up with a larger-than-normal yellow colored moon.

So I wandered out late last night in my boxers and gum boots to take a few pics. They aren’t high def amazing shots, but I think they came out pretty neat in a creepy-cool kind of way.

The other fun fact is that today, Emily and I are taking a sort of get-away weekend to celebrate (a little early) our 20 year wedding anniversary…so we have a honey moon kicking off a second sort of honeymoon! It must be a good omen!

MANKs

June 12, 2014Family, FunFamily, Fun, I'm not wearing pants for 12 days!warren

This week, Emily and I are MANKs….Married Adults, No Kids! The kids went home with my parents last weekend after a visit here in WV. We have done that several summers but this year is a good bit longer…all told, they will be in PA for 12 days! Emily and I do not know what to do with ourselves!

Of course, we love the kids and love being with them, but we have had very little time for just the two of us. It seems like there were just two of us when we got married, but that was a long time ago so it is hard to remember! It’s a little weird, but it sort of feels like when we were first married! We went out to eat a time or two, saw a late movie, stayed up too late, went grocery shopping in peace, ate without breaking up a fight, took walks, and talked about whatever we wanted to, whenever we wanted to.

While it is fantastic having kids and being with the kids, I gotta say, being a MANK again is a nice change…but just for a little while…

Almost as good as a day at the beach…

June 9, 2014ChickensBok Bok!, Chickens, Family time, I really need to paint that ugly chicken coop!warren

We have had chickens for a little while now. They aren’t quite old enough to lay eggs so really they are free-loaders at this point, but they are some of the most hilarious freeloaders I have ever seen. If you have never seen chickens behave, you are missing a true treat!

We have a coop that is apparently adequately sized for holding the number of birds we have. They do seem quite happy inside and are safe and healthy. Still, we especially like to let them roam about our fenced yard. I cannot leave them there all the time as the neighborhood cats are ferocious hunters…they leave dead stuff on our doorstep all the time. So we let them out often to roam about but we sit with them all the time. Abigail and I dragged a couple of lounge chairs over by their coop so we can watch their antics a few weeks ago. We go and sit with the birds pretty much daily. At least one of us gets their daily, but it is so much fun that we usually hang out together.

We were talking the other day as they birds pecked and scratched about…Abigail declared that watching the birds was relaxing and, “Almost as good as a day at the beach.” Indeed, sitting on a lounge chair in the back yard with one’s daughter watching chickens is a great day!

One day in the somewhat near future, I expect that we will get eggs so the chickens will get out of freeloader status. Until then, they get marked in the budget solidly as entertainment and team building expenses!

A weekend of swarms! – Part II

June 3, 2014Bees, NatureA swarm on the ground is worth two in a tree, Dang natural behavior, Honeybeeswarren

I mentioned last time that there was more swarm news over a very busy weekend. Of course, the first swarm settled itself in a tree and I captured it in the usual fashion. During a part of the process of catching the first swarm, I witnessed two other swarms leaving two of my other hives simultaneously!

A swarm in a pine tree — The pine tree swarm. It grew quite a bit as the bees settled later on

Rats! I failed in preventing uncontrolled swarms! I had looked in on each of the colonies several times in the weeks prior to the fateful weekend and saw no clear evidence of crowding, queen cells, lack of new eggs…the stuff that sort of signals that a swarm is eminent. I supered up the hives with extra honey supers and went on my way without splitting the hives that eventually swarmed. You see, a split is a sort of controlled swarm where I take a number of the bees, brood, honey and pollen and start another colony. Typically, a split will open up some room and avoid wild swarming. I usually have pretty good luck in catching the right conditions and avoid swarms…but not his year.

So, as I trudged across the yard, I watched as two hives poured forth bees in great number. A swarm coming out of a hive is pretty impressive. Imagine 10-20 thousand bees per colony in what appears to be flying chaos! I watched as the swarms buzzed around and settled nearby and low.

Swarm Movie — Click to see a video I took of the swarm starting to collect on the pine tree

The first swarm settled in a pine tree 20 feet from the apiary in a pine tree about 4 feet off the ground…easy-peasy. The second swarm was just a few feet from that swarm, but they were far more gravity-challenged. It’s fairly weird, but the second swarm plopped right down on the ground under a bush.

Now I have talked about getting swarms out of trees by shaking them into a hive box and that’s how I handled the pine tree swarm, but how does one shake a colony off of the ground? Well, I didn’t…luckily I had a screened bottom board with large screen in place such that the queen and bees could crawl up through the bottom board (floor of the hive) and into the typical white box. I just set the empty hive right over the swarm-on-the-ground and let them be for a week. When I returned, the swarm, queen and all had migrated upward into the hive body!

So, while I am not thrilled that three colonies swarmed, I am always delighted when I get a chance to catch swarms and I would rather catch one of my swarms than let it get away. Assuming they do well, I will have more colonies than I have ever had before which may make things interesting…and may make a lot of honey…next year!

Other bee stuff

My Home Among The Hills

Life in WV!