stairs, and other progress · 22 August 2010, 17:25
Clint and I watched (standing close by) while Josh climbed up four steps this morning. He likes pulling up on things and trying to climb them, if he can, more than he likes crawling.
Caleb has figured out screw-top bottles.
Nothing, and nobody, is safe.
— Jennifer
Comment [1]
more teeth · 19 August 2010, 08:44
Josh has his second tooth — the other bottom middle incisor.
Caleb has two more molars on the bottom.
— Jennifer
bee diary: 8/15/2010 · 15 August 2010, 14:06
I opened up the hive today to check for eggs. Actually I saw a number of larvae — both very tiny and some larger ones — and a tiny handful of capped workers. The bees were extremely docile, so although I didn’t see the queen herself, they are certainly acting queenright. Oddly, the larvae and capped workers were scattered over several different combs. (A good queen lays eggs in a tight pattern, filling up the cells in an oval pattern without skipping very many.) A new queen takes a little time to get warmed up and in full production. I wonder if I’ll be able to tell if the character of the hive changes as the old ones die off and the new queen’s progeny replace them — who knows who she mated with when she went out on her mating flights. I know of three beekeepers within a couple miles of here, so she could have mated with the drones from this hive, or drones from one of their hives.
I saw a good amount of capped honey, as well as uncapped honey toward the back of the hive, which was great.
The small hive beetles continue to be uninterested in their trap; I made a different sort — a container covered with a screen that beetles but not bees can get through. It has oil in it, so that beetles that try to hide in there will drown. We’ll see if it works any better.
I went to the local beekeepers’ association meeting yesterday. It was great — this one was only two miles from my house, so I rolled out of bed around 8:30 and got up and left. Unfortunately, because I was still waking up, I didn’t think about proper footwear and put on my sandals. Naturally, my big toe just happened to overstep the bounds of the sandal right where a bee was, giving me my fourth sting this season. It was a great meeting, though. I was getting pretty discouraged about my hive — I still feel dumb about the swarm that took off the day before I was going to split the hive. Being among other bee enthusiasts was very heartening. Opening up the hive and finding a decent amount of new capped honey and newly gathered nectar was even more encouraging. Maybe they’ll make it through the winter yet!
If the hive remains queenright, and she can lay a decent population of bees by mid-September or so, those will be the bees that the hive will go into the winter with. I’m pleased with the amount of nectar that’s been brought in lately — since there hasn’t been a laying queen for a little while, the workers aren’t being replaced yet, so the population is slowly dwindling. The good thing about living closer to the city is that the dearth doesn’t hit the bees quite as hard, since people tend to keep gardens with a variety of flowers, and water them when it gets dry. Out in the country, bees do great when the particular crops nearby are blooming, but once those crops are done, there isn’t nearly as much of a variety or amount of flowers to find.
— Jennifer
orchestra · 13 August 2010, 20:24
Time again for my annual youth orchestra concert write-up. Nothing beats live music, especially chamber music that isn’t amplified in any way other than by the room’s acoustics.
This has become one of our two annual dates (the other one being the high school madrigal Christmas program). We celebrate six years of marriage tomorrow!
This time, we got a sitter for the kids, and enjoyed a night out by ourselves!
The concert, as usual, was held at a church and started off with some solos and ensembles, and then several orchestra pieces after the intermission. The concert started off with a bang: our friend’s son played the ever-famous Toccata in D Minor by Bach on the church’s pipe organ.
Overall, the level of polish was the highest we’ve seen yet. Another highlight from the ensembles was Bagatelle No. 5 by Dvořák. It was a fun piece to watch as well as hear — the first violin would play a little theme, echoed by the second violin, and by the cello — and it was fun to watch it get bounced around by each of them in turn.
The last one was the longest of the ensembles, Mendelssohn’s Piano Trio No. 2 in C Minor. I really appreciated hearing the explanation of its context in Mendelssohn’s life.
The four orchestra pieces were two movements from a Concerto Grosso by Handel; The Death of Aase and Anitra’s Dance from Peer Gynt; “I Can Hear Ya Knockin’”, an upbeat swing-y piece; and Danse Bacchanale from Saint-Saëns’ Samson and Delilah. They were all really good in their own way.
Some Saint-Saëns trivia: The theme music from the movie Babe (yes, the one with the pig) is from a Saint-Saëns’ symphony.
The pieces I was most familiar with were the ones from Peer Gynt. I actually didn’t know a whole lot about the Peer Gynt suite — apparently Henrik Ibsen (every English major has read The Doll House at least once) wrote the play and asked Grieg to write the music for it. They did an absolutely beautiful job with The Death of Aase. I will admit, my eyes got watery.
Aah. What a great time.
— Jennifer
too noisy · 13 August 2010, 08:31
I was getting an onion to chop up this morning, and I dropped it on the floor. Caleb looked over and said, “Mah-ee dop ai — doo noi-ee — ‘da-‘deep” (Mommy dropped onion — too noisy — Josh asleep)
— Jennifer