Bee Redux
3:19 p.m. - 2007-03-29


The weather here is amazingly fabulous. I have started the seeds for this year, starting out with the tomatoes, peas, cuks, squash,and some marigolds. I will probably start a new flat of seeds every other day or so until I have no more room to put the plants. In addition, I have been weeding the front flower bed because, though that is usually his job, it is tax season and he is extremely busy. I tell myself that I will pull 100 weeds, and then I can give up and go in. Usually the day is so lovely that I keep going until I get too tired. I am in a hurry to weed the front bed because the sweet williams are getting ready to bloom, and since they are biennials and I have been waiting a year to see them bloom, I do not want their beauty obscured by crabgrass.

I was in the garage doing the laundry, when I noticed that there was a bee in there with me, and I remembered that there had been a bee in there the day before too. So, with great foolishness, I took a stick and tapped loudly on the paneling-covered wall over the back garage door, and the bees who were setting up housekeeping in the wall poured out angrily and buzzed around the door. Thank goodness they poured out on the outside of the garage and not the inside where I was, and that I had cleverly left the door closed. Well, this is the third bee infestation in two years and I have had it, so I got my humane (to me, anyway) non-poison, nature's neurotoxin stuff out of the cupboard and snuck around the side of the garage. The bees milled around for awhile, but finally two or three went into a small perfectly round hole in the side wall which I had never seen before. I got out a ladder, climbed it and squirted the miracle substance into the entryway to the hive, then went into the garage and squirted it behind the paneling. Then I went inside and waited. Today there are no bees and I can go out the back door again. I also found three hornet nests under the eaves (very small beginning ones) and knocked them down with a broom. Then ran like heck.

Considering that we have visits from racoons, hawks, other people's cats, and runaway dogs, I think nature is already well represented in my yard, so time for it to leave me alone already.

So far so good with the new washing machine. One good thing about it is that it really spins the load almost dry. I hadn't noticed especially but the old machine had lost a lot of power in its spin, so it took a long time for towels to dry on the line, but now they dry in a matter of a few hours. Speaking of which, time for me to go hang up a load of towels.