Wednesday, June 30, 2010

happy wednesday

Some cool shots of the herb garden and our center garden. Also two not very good shots of two new paintings that I'm happy with. Water color and ink.

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

sketches

Sketch ideas for upcoming paintings.

Monday, June 28, 2010

some long over due photos

We now have two honey bee hives. Our original, the one we inherited with its beautiful camouflage paint job is named Maria after the women who recommended us as worthy parents. Our newest is named Fiona. The girls picked this after seeing the latest Shrek movie. Our original - Maria, not only came with the hive and bees, but 60 LBS of honey that needed to be extracted from frames. We had quite a good time with the process, although we can still find sticky spots everywhere around the house from it.

Besides honey extraction, we have had a crash course in bee keeping. This spring, the Maria hive decided to swarm. Bees swarm when their hives become too crowded or the conditions go bad. Ours was an over crowding issues. The bees create a new queen, half going with her, half staying with the old one. It is an incredible thing to see and the sound is really loud. Once you get over the shock of your yard covered in bees and convince your neighbors everything is fine, the bees settle onto a branch into a calm ball. Very cool. This is when you call the local bee group you have recently joined and try to sound calm yourself. Through this process we have met many incredible and wise bee people who have taught us quite a bit. Denver has had a really active swarm season, and besides our own swarm, we have had two more settle in our yard. Once again, call the bee people who we have come to know quite well and they take them away to house in a new hive.
As our friends say, we are a little strange. I would have to agree with them.