Brains melting. Bees hived.

It used to be that I'd have all of these random rants or sometimes more constructive things sort of banging around in the empty space in my head so that when I'd sit down to write a blog post, I'd just tap into that empty banging space (whoa, what?) and pour it out onto the keyboard.

BAM - Blog post. Plus swearing and alienating of different ethnic groups and also people who decorate their houses for the holidays as though they have a severe mental deficiency.

Now though, no empty space remains. I mean - hardly anyway.

My brains are so filled with STUDY FOR ALL OF THESE TESTS SO THAT WE CAN CONTINUE OUR STRAIGHT A GETTING STREAK and WORK ON THAT BUSINESS and TAKE CARE OF THE PLANTS and Hey try to spend some time with the lovely Bubba and let's go running and...yeah - the empty space is no more.

So, when I sit down to write a blog post, I am drawing blanks.

For reals.

Like where my brain goes..."Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh...what are we doing here? Shouldn't we be studying?" and then I say out loud (because I'm that person now who talks to herself and inanimate objects and also NPR like I'm an old woman), "Yeah. I need to study." and then I don't blog.

And I hate that.

So, rather than not blog because what I'm going to write about isn't all pre-crafted out in my mind, I'm going to try something new.

That something new being just the first thing that pops into my head.

So, yeah - let's see how this goes...

I hived my new package of bees yesterday and the horrors of previous bee installs did not recur.

OH THANK YOU SERIOUSLY.

I had the install just lingering out there at the end of a busy weekend and, I'm not going to lie to you people, I was semi-dreading it.

For the first time in probably months, I was going to spend the day of Sunday with Bubba just doing whatever it was we used to do on our weekends when I hadn't filled my days with studying and garden coaching and growing a billion plants and things.

Not that I don't love those things - I do - but it hasn't left a lot of time for Bubba and I to piss away hours in the garage and riding bikes to tacos and things.

And I really like those things. And also Bubba. He's very cute and makes good jokes at other people's expense which I enjoy muchly.

So anyway, at the end of this weekend that was half BUSY and half making cruel jokes, I was to install this buzzing package of bees and it was sort of stressing me out because of the way I left the beehive last year.

Specifically, shit did not end well.

And then over the summer, after my hive was empty and sad for a few months, I cleaned all of the comb off of all of the frames and put the whole hive away where it couldn't remind me of my shame every time I went to the garden.

But I totally missed my buzzers.

Like, the garden seemed sorta lonely without them and I felt like a failure and lots of other fun emotions that I won't go into so I totally went ahead and ordered another bee package over the winter while we were sitting in the cabin in Steamboat.

Because isn't that what everyone does on a ski vacation - order bees?

Knew it.

Anyway, they arrived on Friday and then sat in my kitchen buzzing up a fucking storm for a few days so that Bubba could get nice and nervous about what if 10,000 bees get loose in the house and hey I think I'm going on an all day bike ride tomorrow like last time you did this. It was kinda not the best for him, frankly.

"KEEP AWAY FROM BUBBA LEST HE SWELL UP"

And then, after zero getting loose in the house and a certain amount of preparation wherein I hunted about for marshmallow to jam in the queen's cage, I set out to install the hive during the hottest day of the year so far.

Thanks for that, Mother Nature. You're a peach.

Thankfully, it took all of 10 minutes to get rigged up with the camera and get the bees installed in the hive so that I could remove the sweat-makingest garment in all of fabric and textiles - the coated polyester beekeeper's jacket and veil.

Sweet fucking shit, friends, I should wear THAT next time we're skiing -54 temps. I'd probably break a sweat.

But the bees are hived and the queen is safe in her candy-stuffed cage awaiting the diligent rescue courtesy of her new dedicated workers and I can take a break from playing about in that soul-sucking jacket during what is turning out to be Heat Wave #1 of 2013.

Welcome home, bees. Please enjoy your poppy forest and the sweaty woman lingering nearby.

In April.

Dudes. It's April and it's 90 degrees. That is not right. Global warming is upon us. I must make SO much of The Best Iced Tea Ever and then sit in the house and try not to think about how 3/4 of my labs this week have me working in the greenhouse at school.

OH THAT SOUNDS FUN NO.



So - does this new approach work OK or do I need to go back to trying to craft coherent rants and stories? I suspect that it's fine and seems a lot like my old ways of just spilling my brains out onto the keyboard and if I hadn't said anything you'd have been all, "This post seems like all of her other posts except maybe not *as good* because clearly she's exhausted and we should all just cut her a break and then ship her a case of gin." and I'll take that, too.