The garden is so awesomely fucking weird right now.

This was totally going to be a post where I bitched and moaned and felt all sorry for myself because WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON WITH MY POOR BEES, but you may be glad to know that it's not.

Anymore.

Because #1 - the bees are probably fine.

Quit worrying about us, lady. We've been doing this for thousands of years.

I mean, I found a small hive beetle bastard when I went in to check on them the other day and that sent me into a minor meltdown because HOW COME EVERYTHING GOES WRONG ON MY HIVE but then I ordered a Beetlejail and have some vague confidence that it will work.

Plus, I took the one beetle I found aside and have him sitting in a jar in the yard (lid ON) thinking about what he did and also acting as an example to the other beetles lest they get the wild idea to go rooting around in my beehive because NO. (You may recall previous incidents like this and I promise you, they are very effective. It's the garden equivalent of a severed head on a spike.)

Then, while I was out there doing the hive check, I added on a second brood box (big deep hive box in which babies are hatched) full of frames and moved the feeder to a shallow box (which will act as a honey super one far off day) in the hopes that this act would inspire them to work on more babies.

Baby factory. Creepy when you say it like that.

Even though there were some frames in the bottom brood box without any action at all.

Well, I went out there this morning to check on the feeder and found what I thought were two dead bees and no activity whatsoever on the feeder which was weird.

I was sure the whole hive was doomed. I thought they'd swarmed overnight (uh, not likely) and left me destitute. I was ready to throw in the towel and drown myself in gin. At 7am.

Except that NO AGAIN since I came home from work today and they were buzzing happily in and out of the hive and the feeder was active and the "dead" bees were "gone" in the sense that they woke up and went about their day.

They do this, the bees. They sleep so completely that they totally look and act dead.

You can even take them and, say, throw them inside their shipping cage into a trash can and close the lid, meanwhile feeling all suicidal for having killed beautiful sweet bees, only to find that when you lift the can lid the following day to fish out the queen cage you suddenly REALLY need that OH MY GOD they're all not dead at all and actually buzzing right at your face, like, "What the hell, man? Was it YOUR idea to lock us in here overnight with the kitty litter bag because NOT COOL."

I just realized there are a lot of caps in this post. Apologies.

Because all of that was not the reason that this post is not suicidal but instead totally fucking YAY and HOORAY and ALL IS NOT LOST.

No - this is why:

Small things can be VERY exciting to me, which you should be OK with by now.

Yes. That's the #1 Tomato and he was just spotted after my post-work hive and garden check and he is a Better Boy and I love him and he's saved me from suicidal thoughts.

I need a beer.

Hooray for tomatoes. The life-savingest of all the home garden produce.

There's also another garden surprise keeping me from running headlong into traffic and it is called a Surprise Pair of Tomatillos.

Surprise. We are here. Yes, I just said WE.

I thought they were sunflowers at first, growing all volunteer like between the tomatoes, but no. They are tomatillos.

And when I noticed one and got all excited for one second but then remembered that I'd have to have two in order for them to tango me up some actual fruits and then became sad because I only had one - I suddenly realized the other "sunflower" sproutling was, in fact, a tomatillo, too and became SUPER THRILLED.

Now, get to tango-ing.

It was a roller coaster day in the garden, let me tell you. And the fact that my day can become a roller coaster because of such things makes me feel very fucking strange as a person, but you've already accepted me so it's too late now.

Just love it and go with it.

So yeah, I relocated these two beauties to a more spacious and sunny location where the tomatoes won't try to smush the ever loving crap out of them and so we'll just see if, by some miracle, these two volunteer tomatillos can actually be productive.

We now have our own house as protection from the marauding tomatoes. Phew.

I suppose stranger things have happened. In my trash can, for instance.