Montana some more and The Ugly Librarian Sweater goes nigh-night

OK - I'm, like, one hundred posts behind y'all, and it's because I don't have dick for time and HEY! school just started back up again, I have events for Indie Farms going on and I'm desperately trying to get out on The Big Boss Lady whenever possible so my time having is slimmer than ever.

BUT - I don't feel right having all this stuff clogging up my brain all unshared with you guys because, you know, you're my people.

So, my people, I'm just going to share everything with you right now.

ALL OF IT.

Prepare thyself...

MISSOULA.

I fucking finally went to Missoula and I saw Dig and her fam and ALICE! (Oh how I've loved Alice from afar and hooray she's just as face-cuddle-friendly as I'd hoped) and oh my god I swam in Dig's river just like I'd been threatening to do for a really long creepy time.

Friends, my people, I think I got kinda creepy with my river swim wantings.

But whatever, because Donk and I took our yearly travels to Missoula this year and LO did we swim/soak/dangle our faces off in that fabulous Montana river.

Too cold to get in?

SHUT YOUR FOOL MOUTH.

I got right in. And then smiled my fucking face off.

Also my feet. They are clearly smiling here as you can plainly see.

People - my people - Missoula is badass. I love it there. Frankly, I pretty much love all the parts of Montana I've seen and every time I go (all three times), Bubba convinces me evermore that that this is a future home for us.

They have local breweries. Score one for Bubba.

They have roof patio bars with awesome food that you can eat while shielded from the approaching thunderstorm in a cozy nook just off the patio. Score one for both of us. We miss real weather - is that weird?

They have farms. Score one for me.

They have a long enough growing season for heirloom tomatoes. Score one for me.

They have the "Fuck the fucking farmers' market" with its ridiculous elbowy crowds but also delicious food and friendly vendors, which is score-one-for-me in a bunch of ways.

But I think Bubba is only thinking of one thing when he envisions our future life in Montana.

I happy Bubba.

Bubba likey Montana.

It snows here year round, right?

Yeah - I'm willing to let him think whatever he wants if that means I get to move here.

Meanwhile, Donk and I had a badass ol' time in Montana.

Just drinks in Dig's yard. That's all. IT WAS ONLY GREAT.

Kelli got to hug the kiddos.

I ate this chorizo burrito two days in a row.

The Missoula Art Museum happened and was ah-mazing.

Fabulous drinks were had.

And did I mention that I swam in the river for two days? Because I did. MY ASS OFF. Also, I got that visor from some random DirecTV vendor under the guise of "I'll wear it all around and show everyone how much I love DirecTV" which was a total lie because I hate DirecTV since they totally jacked their rates every year without offering any new programming and also were dicks that one time I called regular "customer support" instead of the "Premium Customer Support" that came with my monthly rape fee of $5.99 so HA! I wore this visor to the river where there weren't any people and then I left it in the hotel room for the sexy Mexican maid so fart on you, DirecTV. Wow. This is a long photo caption.

I also hugged Dig, though not here in this photo, and wandered her garden.

 I also let Margot run free with my camera and sunglasses, resulting in these very nice SUPER CLOSE UP photos.

And I played with the pancake machine at our hotel.

I guess you could say that I had a pretty fucking awesome time.

Then I came home and made all my man's dreams come true.

In the sense that I cleaned out my dresser (which has nothing to do with his dreams, only my nightmares) and *GASP* decided it was high time I donated the Ugly Librarian Sweater.

Oh yes, my people, The Ugly Librarian Sweater is on its way to the Salvation Army truck sometime next Tuesday whenever they swing by my front porch.

Farewell, old friend. We've had many ugly good warm times together.

See, lovies, Bubba gave me a bunch of great gifts for my birthday and one of those things was a big gray hoodie with a fun bike graphic on it and it's cuddly and soft and OH MY GOD IS THIS MEANT TO REPLACE THE UGLY LIBRARIAN SWEATER I see what you're doing here, Bubba and I won't fall for it or will I?

As it turns out, I will.

Because, as it also turns out, he fucking hates the Ugly Librarian Sweater.

It's ugly, he says.

It's SUPER ugly, he says.

I HATE IT SO MUCH, he says.

And when I ask him if he really hates it and wants me to get rid of it...he says nothing.

So, my thought is that if he went so far to gift me a really nice substitute sweater woobie (because this sweater has been my winter I'M FUCKING FREEZING woobie for a dozen years), I should probably wise up and ditch the old one, wear the new one and then score this winter as I prance about in the woobie HE gave me, even though it's just as shapeless and gray as the old thing that he apparently hates.

What? Is this not hot? Oh.

So, here's to hoping that by giving up the object of his apparently textile hatred, I will score this winter while wearing its substitute.

Admittedly, I do love it. 

Though I'm failing to see how this new gray sweatshirt is more attractive.

Perhaps it's the bike that makes it hotter?

I  wonder how he'd feel about the ULS if I drew a bike on it?

What? No go? Less hot somehow? Yeah. Agreed.

So, yeah, the new winter woobie sweatshirt will be on my body constantly as soon as the temperatures drop below HELL HOT and it's somehow blissfully sweatshirt weather again.

Go on. I'll wait.

Oh and geez, I have a lot of gardeny stuff to share with you guys, like my first ever BLOW THE DOORS OFF pepper year (including habaneros - woo!), seed saving like a fucking maniac and all the fall and winter stuff I'm putting in but...well, you chew on this mess for a minute and I'll see what I can do about rounding up some decent photos since I still haven't been able to reset my camera to pre-Margot settings.

Bees in a box

Hint: it's not shaped like a pineapple.

So, I know I promised you a new queen bee strutting around in a bikini laying thousands of eggs after her flight over from the Hawaiian Islands, but I'm afraid that absurd fantasy is not to be.

Firstly - there are only a few Hawaiian bee yards that rear queens and of those bee yards, one is sold out until June and one requires a minimum purchase of 25 queens.

Um, I'm not trying to repopulate the Castro, I'm just trying to get my beehive running again.

Sheesh.

Worse news than that was that mated queens are just non-existent in the continental US this early in the year because they're still rearing up for shipping in April.

So, no queen in my hive, no single queens in Hawaii, no queens on the mainland.

What to do besides freak out and cry?

Call my friend Steve, of course.

Do not even tell me that you don't remember Steve.

Steve who saved my effing bacon when I lost my first queen when installing my first colony by talking me through The Rapture I'd brought upon our home and yard?

Yeah, you remember Steve.

FYI: New beekeepers of the world - get yourself a Steve. They're the best and always help and sometimes help at really inconvenient times but are always so super awesome and accept tomato seedlings in exchange for brood frames (frames with babies in them) that you should cultivate this friendship with all your might.

So, I emailed Steve. I told him the woeful story of how I'd bonked the supersedure cell while I was checking the hive and how there weren't many babies left in the hive and no eggs and no queen in the whole wide world and uh oh.

To which he said, "Let me check my hives for a queen cell and I'll give it to you."

Oh really now? Your awesomeness continues a year later when I'm back asking for more help?

REALLY.

Unfortunately, none of his hives had queen cells, but he did have a nuc frame full of babies at various stages of growth, so he packaged it up with some attendants in a styro cooler to keep them warm and set them out in front of his house to pick up within the hour.

Which, of course, was at 2pm on a weekday which meant that yours truly was at the office and getting ready to go to a meeting.

Um, crap.

UM, CRAP.

To make a long story short, I'm now the weirdest person that all of my coworkers know. I'm probably also on the bubble with my manager because I had to pull the, "I have a hard stop at 4pm and MUST leave." thing when our meeting started, which is never the way to get into the good graces with people.

I also had to bribe my carpool buddy to leave work early, too, because I NEED TO GET HOME FOR A BEE EMERGENCY.

We're ready to rumble.

Thankfully, she is well versed in not only my weirdness, but also my beekeepingness.

Bless all of these forgiving and only-judging-me-behind-my-back souls.

So, after racing down the peninsula to Steve's house, gathering up the cooler from his front yard, transporting it to my house in the backseat of my friend's car (thankfully none escaped - that would have been DONEZO for our future carpooling) and smoking out my own hive - I've now managed to install the frame of babies into the hive with all my girls and HOPEFULLY they're in there making a new queen right now.

See that bit of comb between the 4th and 5th frame there? That's the smushed queen cell. Sad.

I even plopped on a fresh new feeder of syrup this morning, so they'll be well fed and won't even have to leave the house to get started on this queen.

You gotta love a queen carrier made from an old cooler.

Which is what I'm assured they'll do. Assured by Steve. Knower of bees, fixer of bees.

That's the frame I removed in order to put in the Baby Frame. EVERYONE - GET IN THE HIVE.

And in return for this enormous, if not ill-timed, beehive saving act - all he asks is that I let him know how it's going when I check it in 10 days and, hey, if I end up with a Pink Brandywine tomato seedling from my massive seed sowing fest, he'd sure like one.

Only one?

Oh, and if I have a few vegetables lying about this summer, he'd love whatever I've got.

See? Get yourself a Steve, beekeepers. They're the best.

Remains of summer [+Adopt a Crop Winner]

I know I'm not the only one who takes a million pictures of shit and then never posts the pictures or talks about them, even if just to say Look at the awesome s'mores that I made in my backyard fireplace.

Good thing I didn't start avoiding sugar until fall.

Because there's definitely some added sugar in these.

Though there may just be more "Added other stuff" since it's more sugar than anything else. You know what I mean.

So, I'm doing a little fall cleaning of the summer photos to show you some of the good shit I shot while it was still warm enough for shorts around the firepit at night and naked butts in the high mountain lakes.

No. I will not be showing you naked butt photos.

Pervs.

This is close though. Go Lake Tahoe Derby Dames!

And here's a high mountain lake.

So, you can pretend I had a naked butt when I took this if you must.

And for those of you who just scrolled down to see who won the Adopt a Crop prize this season - you're in luck - I'm feeling generous and have bolded the winner: Mom Taxi Julie!

Shoot me your mailing address and real name (unless you like mail showing up as Mom Taxi Julie, in which case, right on) to finnyknitsATgmailDOTcom and I'll send you some randomness PLUS we get to be seed saving buddies next spring and summer. If you want. I mean, you don't *have* to. But - it'll be cool.

Come oooooooooooooon.

OK, back to the remains of summer.

I took approximately 100 photos of this volunteer sunflower. It was the prettiest. And the volunteeriest.

There were lots of bearding events with the bees and this wasn't even the half of it.

See those dots? Bees. All bees. Like the sky was vibrating. Awesome.

Volunteeriest sunflower some more.

All those wildflowers we saw while hiking in Tahoe. *wolf whistle*

Remember Kauai?

Yeah. Me too.

Oh, how I remember.

And then we had a bunch of BBQs.

Which double as dog parties. Obviously.

I'm sure there are a few photos I'm leaving out, but you get it - summer around here was short, sweet and we are lucky that we don't weigh a metric ton due to the eating frenzy.

So, with that, let's all give Fall a big hello while hoping it doesn't end up in our hair.

*Shiver*

The Death Clock of free time is at 18 days...

You may never get sleeves.

Friends, shit's been busy.

Which, obviously, otherwise I'd be posting here a lot more often because HELLO I have things to tell you about.

Like the fact that we harvested honey from our work hives last week and that my hive is about to go nigh-nigh for the season and that the garden is about to come down and that I made an awesome potato and kale soup without a recipe but just from my own pea brain and also I nearly snapped off a toe during a drunken descent from my Adirondack chair on Girls Weekend and...

We harvested one million jars of honey. It was glorious.

White Trash Dinner Season is upon us.

I blame the champs for my unscheduled dive off the patio.

Potato Kale Leek Sausage soup. I'll have to give you the recipe sometime. Except that's basically it.

Yeah. But then this pesky thing called work/life/100 hobbies got in the way and so here I am.

I've begun knitting a thing. A thing that, in a few weeks' time, will likely end up sitting unmoving in its lovely WIP bag (as seen above) until December.

Because in a few weeks' time, NaNoWriMo begins. Specifically, 18 days, 16 hours, 36 minutes and ... seconds from now.

That countdown is like the deathclock of any remaining free time.

Yes! That's right! I'm still planning to carve out enough time on a daily basis to write 1600 or so words during November and, in a month's time, 50,000 or more words all pressed together in what is my new NaNoWriMo machine.

Sticker is not enormous - machine is just real small.

I wouldn't say I'm getting *too* serious about the NaNo business, but with Scrivener on Mac only (although I just saw something about it being available on PC soon - oh.) and us traveling back and forth from the mountains regularly and me needing to be able to AT ANY MOMENT write a word, I figured I needed a buddy.

So, a buddy I got. And thank you to a very good and nice friend of mine who loaned me her Apple discount so that this buddy could be 15% less wallet sucking.

Anyway, what I'm trying to say with all this is that even though I've been quiet-ish around here lately, I don't *mean* to be, but in a few weeks - if it gets quiet again - I *do* mean to be. Because I'm using all my words elsewhere.

In a novel that, for once, even has a vague outline and - TEE DAH - some research applied to it.

Weird.

Also, seed saving. I've been doing that. But won't be. In 18 days, 16 hours, 36 minutes and...