Modern conveniences

We installed one of those automatic washing machines in the house. It's quite a trip. You just load the clothes into the metal drum and add soap, and the machine does all of the washing, rinsing and even wringing out; the clothes emerge halfway to dry. It's quite astonishing, and I have spent some time in recent days just sitting on the floor watching the laundry go round and round inside the machine. A remarkably soothing pastime, that.

After hanging a load or two out on the line to dry only to have the rains return and re-soak them, we also reclaimed the dryer from the mice and installed that, too. Achieving clean, dry laundry is suddenly all but effortless; why has this not somehow resulted in large quantities of free time?

Transporting appliances into the house was not soothing at all. The washing machine was conveniently located on the front porch, but the dryer, range and refrigerator, which we also put in, were three hundred feet away. After considering the mechanics of transporting them across the still-open trench between the shed and pickup truck, we opted instead to haul them down the path on a handtruck.

The path, it turns out, is not at all level, and it is, furthermore, decorated here and there with holes dug by the ever-enterprising terrier. The less said about that adventure, the better. But we didn't drop any of the appliances on anybody, not even the refrigerator -- which had, of course, to be transported upright, which was damned awkward and difficult -- and nobody murdered anybody else. Not that anybody was considering such a thing. Ahem. 

Meanwhile, the seedlings have continued to grow and demand ever more space and they filled up the cold frame and spilled out into the garden. When I began complaining about not having enough room to protect all the heat-loving crops like tomatoes, DH stepped in to help, and we built another, slightly larger one that more than doubles the available space. Then, as I have also been complaining about lack of pots for  transplanting, we took the sawzall to a large pallet that had arrived at some point under a load of wood and had since been doing nothing but occupying space and looking attractive.

It was conveniently made of one by four-inch lengths of wood nailed to supports, and once freed from pallet duty, they were handily repurposed into wooden plant trays. Well, one wooden plant tray thus far, the rest await sawing and nailing. But it's beautiful and I can't wait to make more.

My tray-building enterprise was interrupted by the arrival of a load of wood for building kitchen cabinets and stairs, all of which had to be carried indoors, and all of which was, of course, not only tremendously heavy and awkward, but also terribly fragile.

Fortunately, DH had acquired some plywood carriers that made the job much easier, although they were, as we observed to each other over the course of an exhausting afternoon, very hard on the wrists. And the elbows. And the shoulders. But other than that, they made the job a breeze.

"There," he said, as we stood around panting after staggering in with the final sheet of maple plywood. "Wasn't that a bit of fun?"

This was a generous take, since we'd had to redistribute the weight so that he carried more of it than I did, after I cried uncle three sheets into the job, and threatened to start dropping them. Poor DH has to make do with a very inept and wimpish assistant who is, moreover, a foot shorter than him, making for some very lopsided loads.

Then we went out and carried in all the lengths of wood for the stairs and molding. But at least  they were reasonable sizes, not nearly as tall as I am.

Tomorrow, carpentry commences. Tonight, we sleep.

Floor reveal

The great floor reveal; here it is!

From the kitchen, looking toward the pantry and living room.

And here:

In the living room, looking toward the pantry.

It is beautiful, and we love it.

A bit less thrilled that there is still the downstairs bedroom to floor, and the entire upstairs...

Ah, well. Onward.

Meanwhile, we opened the new bee hive yesterday, to put in the five foundation frames we had left out of it, in order to fit the swarm in.

First, DH prepared his equipment, including the smoker, which has been sitting in the shed for the past year or so. While he was off fetching this item and that, the ever-helpful terrier was wrestling the smoker up and down the path.

"Stop that," DH told him, exasperated. "There are no mice in there."

He picked up the smoker and opened it, removing the old burlap still tucked inside, and then he yelped in surprise and dropped it. A mouse poked its head out to inquire about all the rude handling of its nice, snug house.

There was a brief interval required to escort the mouse out of view of the terrier and remove its pantry full of seeds, and then DH proceeded with the hive opening. 

Little hiccup there; they have been busy bees, and they simply built their own combs to fill in the gap. Five of them. In a week.

Attached to the lid.

Whoopsie.

So next on the agenda is to cut those loose, use cotton string to tie them into wooden frames with the foundation removed, and reinstall them. I can just imagine how much the hive is going to appreciate that little exercise.

Well. Onward with that, too, I suppose. But not just yet, because we have to first order this cotton string, and it's supposed to rain for awhile. So the bees have a reprieve. By then they'll probably have built an entire new hive box. And god only knows what the mice will have found to climb into.

It really is never dull around here. 

  

Bees are really space aliens

Thanks to the wonders of technology, I have finally discovered the following: Bees are really space aliens. No wonder no one's been able to find them; they're hiding in plain sight.

Seriously, look at these freakish things:

Don't they look exactly like something out of a sci-fi movie? Something plotting to get you?

And this one:

Beware the overseer!

DH took some photos of the hive today, with some difficulty, since weary bees kept landing on his hand to rest. They are working their little bee tails off, and you do not want to get in their way. They will just run smack into you, and then yell at you. They often land on top of each other, and there seem to be a lot of crash landings going on.

From this fascinating exercise, we learned not only who the real residents of Area 51 are, but also that, apparently, sometimes they just shut their eyes and go for a landing blind! This may explain some of those crash landings. (Click on the photo to enlarge).

This one collected all the pollen! 

Oh, no, I think she's seen us! RUN!

A few more, clearly showing the two different types:

Those two on guard at the bottom look exactly as if they have been assigned to keep out the riffraff. I wouldn't tangle with them.

Another one: 

Sweet dreams, tonight...

My god, there must be thousands of them in there! Tens of thousands!

Of shoes and socks and sealing wax

I'm sitting up late tonight baking cookies, because I don't, there will not be any cookies to eat tomorrow, and apparently the unfortunate quarantine cookie habit I've developed carries a higher priority than sleep. My little terrier has already had a few words with me about it -- he firmly believes the entire family should go to bed at the same time, with the possible exception of the cat. It seems a little odd, since he enjoys sleeping in later than everyone else in the morning, but apparently evenings are different.

He's delighted with my new work-from-home schedule, partly because he loves having company and partly because it means he can sleep as late as he wants to in the morning, without me poking him to get up and go pee so I can leave for work. He used to be ready to start his day at the crack of dawn, but my little bear is getting old. No more levitating effortlessly straight up, to fly over barriers; now every jump is an effort. He still loves digging holes, though, and I know spring has arrived because yesterday I had to rescue the first garter snake of the season from him.

The bees are still with us; they have stopped milling around looking like a crowd waiting for a big announcement, and have begun bringing in nectar and pollen. DH opines they have decided to stay.
Curiously, they appear to be two different breeds, one larger and darker, and the other smaller and lighter red-brown. DH said he thinks they are Carniolan and Italian. He also informs me they are not different sizes.
Before it died out, our first hive sent out at least one swarm, and we find ourselves wondering if it is their descendants who have now returned.

House work has been continuing, despite my recent lack of attention to the topic, and Thursday, DH finished installing the Douglas fir flooring in the kitchen, pantry and living room. It is beautiful, but his knees may never be the same.

We had ordered a flooring nailer via the great retailer Amazon, in March, but it never shipped, and DH eventually simply canceled the order. So DH made do with a regular nail gun, held at an angle and applied while kneeling. By the third or fourth day, he was starting to question just how much we want wood floors in the rest of the house.

Yesterday he used a sanding machine and spent the entire blessed day sanding the floor. He told me that evening his bones were still vibrating. I suppose, at least, it was a changing from kneeling down shooting nails? The freshly-sanded floor smelt beautifully of fir wood, and the entire house benefited from a fine coating of wood dust.

Today we applied the first layer of the finish; a sealant that turned the pink-blond wood a lovely warm gold. I would show you a picture, but I have been forbidden to post any until the finish is complete.

Warned by the oracle of YouTube, DH made plans to start in the living room and progress through the house to end at the bathroom door, to ensure that if the last of the stain went on poorly, it wouldn't be the first sight to greet us on entry.

This, of course, left us trapped in the bathroom, but DH was undeterred. He set up a ladder outside the bathroom window.

Cleverly, we left our shoes and socks on the front porch, on the opposite side of the house.

We wore fresh, clean socks in the house, to keep from tracking anything onto the raw wood, and progressed along our way, with me pouring on sealant, and DH using a roller on a lethally long handle to roll it into place.

Eventually, we made it to the bathroom, whereupon DH nobly climbed out the window and winced his sock-footed way over the gravel and mud to retrieve our shoes. Never a dull moment in this adventure of ours.

To bee or not to bee; the adventure continues

We were digging post holes for a clothesline this afternoon, when the bees from the newly-hived swarm suddenly boiled out the hive and left, apparently in quite a hurry. I followed them through the upper meadow and then they crossed the neighbor's oat field and were gone, headed east.

We were sad to see them go, and so were a couple dozen or so forlorn bees left behind. We opened the hive and saw they had started drawing out comb. We were puzzled, but chalked it up to the mysterious ways of bees, though we continued to speculate about possible reasons.

We finished putting up the clothesline, and then I started some laundry. I had just managed to wash exactly two socks -- non-matching -- when a neighbor to the east called.

"Hey, she said, "we've got a swarm here, and it's settled on a low-hanging branch. We thought you might be interested."

We abandoned the laundry, located a cardboard box, a saw and some clippers, and hopped in the pickup. Our neighbor was waiting next to the tree. The bees had settled on a branch not more than a few feet off the ground, and their weight dragged it down. An easier location one could not ask for; not a blackberry cane or wood rat nest in sight.

The bees were not pleased to see us. I can't reasonably say I blame them.

They are polite bees, however, and so despite making their feelings clear in song, they refrained from stinging. This was a relief, since DH is still sporting a horribly swollen hand and wrist from a sting received Thursday evening. He has another one right under his chin, of all the awful places, and was not looking forward to more.

This did not deter him; it never does. He held up the branch while I tipped the box and slid it in under the swarm, and then we cut the main branches they were sitting on, while bees swirled around us singing their insults.

"Can I run away now?" I asked.

"Sure," he said, and so I backed off and watched him finish carefully clipping more small branches, gathering as many bees as possible, even scooping up a mass that had fallen on the ground in his hands and adding them to the box, too.

A brave man, my husband. Me, I'm a proponent of that famous Milton quotation, "They also serve who drop things and run quickly away." Or something like that.

We rushed the bees back to their abandoned hive, leaving behind, I was very sad to see, another collection of those still flying around in circles. This hiving is a brutal business.

DH poured the bees back into the hive, and this time, the ones left outside gathered around and then marched inside, as it was too late in the day to resume their rudely interrupted flight just then. We will see what tomorrow brings.

Deciding the laundry could wait, we went home, washed the dishes, and made supper. Afterwards, I picked up an old favorite book to read; "The Art & Adventure of Beekeeping," by Ormond Aebi, who grew up not too far from here, and his father Harry.

And in the pages of his book, I found a possible answer. Do not, he wrote, look inside the hive of a newly-caught swarm before six days are up, or they may take offense and leave. We had looked inside; it took us a bit of time to get the hastily-assembled hive properly aligned and covered. So here's hoping that if we refrain this time -- the hive now being properly covered and weighted down -- they will reconsider their decision.

Aebi had other practical tips, too -- like sliding a sheet of cardboard under the swarm first, so that any bees who fall will land on it, and can be gathered up with relative ease. Why didn't we think of that?

And so, the adventure continues. What will happen next? Will the bees stay? Will they fly away at first light? Will they get so exasperated they decide to sting us to death on their way out? Stay tuned for another installment of As the Bee Swarms.

A bee-yootiful day

A swarm of bees on a wood rat's house

Homesteading adventures have been happening here on Foggy Mountain Farm.

Thursday dawned a beautiful sunny day, and was further enhanced by a breakfast of eggs and homemade raisin toast, before we headed off to work, by which I mean I sat down in front of the computer and logged in, while DH walked down to the house to continue installing the kitchen floor.

Raisin cinnamon bread

Released from my labors in the afternoon, I converted my office back into a domicile, collected my trusty terrier and skipped off to enjoy the hot weather.

Trusty terrier

After some puttering about, I decided to plant out lettuce, calendula and broccoli starts in the garden, and went to collect the flats from in front of the house.

Walking back up with a flat on each arm, I suddenly realized there were an inordinate number of insects flying around -- a massive cloud, in fact, whirling around in such numbers they made the meadow shimmer with movement -- and they were humming.

I carefully set my flats down and ran for the house. I didn't have the patience to take off my shoes, find my husband and resume shoes, so I clapped loudly and he appeared out of the bedroom/workshop, looking a trifle demonic in respirator and ear muffs. There was no talking to him through all that, so I jumped up and down and urgently waved at him to follow me (bees aren't the only ones who can communicate through interpretive dance!)

He followed me outside and I pointed to the whirling cloud. "Those are bees!" I told him. He squinted at them for a minute, and then comprehension dawned.

"It's a swarm! Follow them, and see where they go, while I get the camera," he said. A swarm, I should say here, is one of the great miracles of nature, and it is a sight to behold, and to hear. For awhile, I just stood watching in wonder.

All the tiny dots in this photo are bees

DH collected the camera, and returned the terrier to the trailer. That was the end of my gardening plans for the day. He wanted to hive them. Plan A was to use our old hive, which tragically died out during a hard winter, so we walked up to retrieve it from the upper meadow. Surprise! It was occupied, and crowded, since, unaware of the new tenants, we hadn't been adding boxes. DH thinks this is actually where the swarm came from; they were moving from that direction, west across the fields.

The swarm settled into a massive fir tree not far from the house, about 15 feet up, and conveniently located between the tree and a field of re-growing blackberry canes, directly above a wood rat's house.

Bee swarm in a tree

We located our second hive in the shed, and brought it down to set up not far from the swarm. Not far, at least, unless you're carrying a large mass of bees.

DH climbed up the tree with a saw, while I stood below equipped with a plastic box. He planned to cut the branch, which would tip the swarm down into my box.

Nothing went as planned.

When the branch was jarred, half the swarm tumbled off onto the wood rat's house. If you have never seen one of these impressive constructions, it is a very large dome built of woven-together sticks. I've seen them more than four feet tall, but this one isn't more than two or three feet tall.

DH cut the branch anyway, but it didn't cut all the way through. So he shook bees off it, and thousands of them rained down over my arms and hands. They're furry, and harder than you might think, and they go crawling all around.

I registered a verbal objection, but my loving spouse just shook the branch again, raining down thousands more.

It was an amazing experience, but, for the record, I'm not a great fan of having bees dropped on me, even if they are docile swarming bees. They didn't sting, though, or at least I thought they didn't. I did find one this morning, when it swelled and began itching.

We took the box of bees and shook it out over the hive. Walking back to reconnoiter the situation at the wood rat's nest, my husband looked at me and said, "I have never heard you squeal like a girl before."

"You've never dropped bees on me before," I said.

I am sorry to report that he was not finished dropping them on me. The third time he did it, I gave serious consideration to not telling him about the next swarm I run across.

Husband, shaking the swarm off their branch

We were unable to get all the bees because by this time they were becoming a trifle irate about all the rough handling. So half of them, including, we think, the queen, burrowed into the nest and spent the night there.

In the morning we went back, and DH used a spading fork to lift the mass of sticks and bees into the box. He carried it to the hive and poured it in.

DH, pouring bees into hive

By evening, they seemed to be settling in and their song sounded contented. We hope they will stay, and be happy.

We had three hive boxes, so we took one up and put it on the old hive to give them a bit more room. And, just like that, we have bees again! An astonishing adventure in homesteading.

Despite all the interruptions, DH finished installing the flooring in the kitchen and pantry. It's beautiful. Tomorrow -- chance willing -- we will begin on the living room.

Hive full of bees

Construction, and housework, in the time of COVID-19

A trip back in time

Sunday, March 29, 2020
I called up my aunt a few days ago, and during the course of our chat, mentioned that our washing machine had died, and I might be doing the laundry in the bathtub, with a washboard.

"Oh," she said, "We used to do that. We had a machine -- you had to change out the tubs of water -- but it died and during the war [World War II] they weren't making any more. So my mother would wash the clothes in the bathtub. Now sheets -- when you get them wet, they're heavy! So my father would do those, and then my mother would do all the rest."

It transpired, she told me, that one day -- either during or immediately after the war was not clear -- my grandfather was walking about the town when he came upon an appliance store, with an automatic washing machine for sale.

"So he asked the guy, 'how many machines have you got in there?'" my aunt said. "And he told him, 'just the one.' Well, he figured that, by the time he walked home, told my mother about it and walked all the way back, he might have sold it. So he bought it, right then. And then when he got home, he said to my mother, 'Guess what I did for you today. I bought you a washing machine.'"

It was delivered the following day.

It was, she told me, their first automatic washing machine, a front-loading Bendix. The first time they loaded it, she said, "we didn't know what we were doing," and during supper, were surprised to see water running into the kitchen, from under the door. Upon checking the washing machine, they found bubbles coming out the top, due to putting in too much soap.

After that initial mishap however, they loved the machine.

"That must have saved a lot of time," I said.

"Oh, yeah!" she told me emphatically. "It was all automatic; you didn't have to change out the tubs of water."

Having now completed a load of laundry in the bathtub, with a washboard -- and no sheets -- I can appreciate my grandfather's point.

We have also purchased a new washing machine, via mail order (I so wish I could say, "from the Sears & Roebuck catalog," but alas, it was from Lowe's) --  but since it won't arrive until mid-April, there will be more washtub scrubbing in my future. My husband nobly offered to take all of the laundry to the laundromat, but I declined. I'd rather he didn't take the risk -- and there's something meaningful to me about echoing my grandmother's wartime making do, even if only temporarily.

You will apprehend, from this intelligence, that we have now installed the bathtub. We have also had baths -- real, immersed in hot water, lovely soaks, such as we have not enjoyed these two and a quarter years. Divine.

In other housework news, I have just baked my third batch of cookies in three weeks. Ridiculously indulgent, but I have decided I do not care. To paraphrase James Taylor, my body's aching and my mind is fried, and if cookies can help me through, so be it. I might not make it any other way.

Though I might think differently, when none of my jeans fit anymore, and I can't go clothes-shopping.

On the construction front, work continues, somewhat hampered by the present circumstances. Gone are the days of nearly daily trips to the hardware store, and we order what we can online. Online orders are hit and miss- some things ship immediately, and some -- well, the floor nail gun we ordered some two or three weeks ago still hasn't shipped, though they did, helpfully, send us the nails for it.

The original plan was to rent one, but instead we'll probably do without, for the ground floor, at least.

We presume that it will arrive at some point, hopefully in time to assist with at least some of the flooring.

There are, however, some things we cannot obtain by mail order and so once in awhile I have ventured forth to procure them -- practicing my decidedly un-ninja-like avoidance skills dodging down side aisles and leaping through floor displays to avoid customers and store employees bent on approaching within six feet of me. Strange times these are, and all of America -- or at least this corner of it -- has overnight acquired a new social nicety. There are no more polite "Have a nice day," wishes, instead, "Stay safe out there," we all, even strangers, say emphatically to each other in farewell.

Stay safe.

Tuesday, March 31, 2020

Another laundry day; I've gotten better at it, I think. In the afternoon, I put laundry to soak in a bucket of sudsy water, and after logging out from work in the evening, set to scrubbing.

Our little terrier has been in sore need of a bath for the last week, so he went into the tub first, to be sudsed clean of the yellow tinge he had acquired, and restored to his usual snowy white. His little face was very dirty, due to his habit of sticking it into gopher holes, and so I took a warm wet washcloth and gently scrubbed it, too. He loves having his face washed.

After being dried off and gobbling his treats, he lay on a towel on the warm bathroom floor while I scrubbed the laundry, and DH rinsed it and hung it on the drying rack. Quality family time. Finally, when everything else was clean, I climbed in the tub and scrubbed myself, too.

It occurred to me today, as I knelt there scrubbing, that it has been just about 80 years since my grandmother knelt in front of her bathtub, doing the same thing. I am in awe of her ability to keep her entire family in clean laundry. There must have been, in that particular period, four or five of them.

Did she do her washing just once a week, fitting it in around her job as a seamstress? How many hours did it take her? And was it as hard on her back and knees, as it is on mine? How on earth did she manage to do that and also cook the giant meals I'm told she served?

 A tough woman, that tiny Italian peasant girl. I seem to be spending a good deal of my life attempting to emulate her.

 It is too rainy to hang a clothesline, and so I am washing only enough at a time to fill the drying rack. It is a workout. Perhaps it will burn off some of the cookies.

And heavens, does this technique use up soap. I wonder if she knew some tricks for that. It's far too late, now, to ask her about all the skills she developed over the course of her long life.

DH today began working on the flooring; the first job is stapling down an underlayer of heavy paper, or felt, or whatever it is. So naturally, the staple gun promptly turned up its metallic metaphorical toes. A month ago, that would have occasioned a trip to Lowe's, which used to eat our paychecks like candy. Today, it occasioned a trip to Amazon, which is now the one receiving a great deal more of our patronage than I would like. For a fairly detestable company, it has certainly made itself indispensable. What a tiresome godsend, and how weary I am of endless moral quandaries.