My week in review!

Last Sunday evening we had the boys I used to watch and their parents, along with my parents, over for dinner.  Their Mom told them to put their arm around each other for the picture.  Some things never change!

On Tuesday, I played cards at my parents house.  They play every Tuesday evening.  Growing up, us kids had to stay away from the card table, therefore, we suck at card playing.  But they get desperate sometimes and use my sister or me for a sub.  Tuesday they needed both of us.  Top pic is my sister, Dad, Mom.  Bottom pictures is Uncle John and Vickie.  My Mom's side of the family has played cards forever.  We used to get together on weekends and all of us cousins would play together while our parents would play cards. I miss those days.Oh yeah, you see money on the table because they play for 50 cents a game!

I spent one day getting my beehives ready for winter.  I put entrance reducers on the openings and I'm feeding them some of the honey that didn't pass quality control!  I thought it was too dark and thick.  Apparently a drought can do that.  Not enough moisture in the flowers (nectar)..so I was told.  The reason you make the entrances smaller, as you can see from the pic below, the regular size of the entrance is big enough for a mouse, vole,  mole, chipmunk,  to get in and hide out and eat honey.  Raccoons can stick their arm in a hive and they will eat the honey and the bees. So we have to reduce the size of the entrance in the winter months, to help the bees survive.

I went to a Rotary meeting/luncheon.  These are people I worked with at Purdue.  The guy on the left was the director and the guy on the right was our speaker.  He is an ex-FBI agent.  Very interesting person.  It was so nice to be with these people again.  Us ladies still get together once a month for breakfast.

 My nephew (yes I have a nephew!) came over and helped me pack up the potting shed.  We worked hard all day long.  It was sad for me.  I love my potting shed.  We built it on concrete foundation with the intention of never moving.  I have to leave it behind.  It was kind of nice having his help.  He is so tall (6' 5") that I didn't need to get a ladder to take stuff off the walls!  I spent a lot of hours in that shed.

Dad came over one day and brought me a latte'.  We sat on the porch and enjoyed the view at our new place.

Friday night, as you know, I made slippers at a party at Groovy Girl Yarn.

Saturday, I didn't get any pics, but it was a fun day.  Went out for lunch with family and friends.  Apparently, tenderloins are a mid-western type of food and my cousin had family from the East coast visiting.  There are about three places in Kokomo that have really good tenderloins.  We went to one of them.  Then afterwards the ladies went downtown shopping while the guys went on back home.   After having such a busy week, I was glad to have a relaxing day.  Stay safe John & Elizabeth. That Frankenstorm looks pretty scary!

Cindy Bee

Building bee frames and a potting shed tour!

When My Shug and I bought our house, we knew we would never move. We loved the house and the neighborhood, and it's on a double lot, in town, close to everything. The double lot was a bonus because we both love gardening. And he built me a potting shed. Then...we started talking of moving to the country....on this land that we fell in love with. As you know, that's another story. And I said, "the only way I'll ever move is if I get another potting shed." I love my potting shed.

It's a bit messy right now because it's full of stuff that I always take in during the winter months. Statuary for the gardens and such. But this year, I'm not putting that stuff back out. I'm moving it.
In the last few days I've been in my potting shed making bee frames.

This is how the bee frames arrive.

In about 6 pieces...and you have to nail each piece together, just so.

And I have a lot of frames to make, and get on my hives, before my trip. I need to give my bees something to do in hopes that they don't swarm. Everything is about a month earlier than normal this year, in regards to the weather, which affects the bees.

So I decided to go to my potting shed, for one last season, and build frames.

And before you ask, I cannot take it with me, it's on a permanent poured concrete foundation. We were never going to move. The windows came from our house, when we replaced them with new windows.

My roses are blooming right now, outside the window where I build my frames.

This is the doorway leading into the greenhouse. The potting shed is two rooms. The actual shed part of the building, and the greenhouse.

I've randomly put mementos on the walls from trips we've taken.

I bought the plaque from a fellow gardener friend, Patti Beck. I usually put it on the garden fence during the summer months.

This picture looks huge, but it isn't. It's a seed packet from the Grand Hotel, Mackinac Island, Michigan. We did not stay at the Grand Hotel, but we did have a drink on the porch, and walked all over the grounds...another story.

More seed packets from the Biltmore Estate, Asheville, North Carolina.

A poster from Savannah, Georgia. (Have you ever read the book or seen the movie, "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil?"

A poster from the market in Charleston, South Carolina. One of my favorite places, but not our gardening zone, so I can't really use the guide to garden.

My messy greenhouse...

I can watch my beehives from my greenhouse windows.

which reminds me, I gotta stop goofing off...and get busy building more frames for my bees!

Hope you enjoyed the tour.

Cindy Bee