Blind Date

Valentine's Day is at the end of this week and our library has the cutest display ever!

 

It is encouraging you to go on a blind date with a book. 

 

 Each book is wrapped in plain paper creating the "blind" part of the set up,  but each one has an ad from the "personals" to help you choose your date wisely.

 

 

Inside each book is a "Rate Your Date" form to fill out and return to the library.  The  form enters your name into a drawing for a box of chocolates or a dining gift card.

 

 

Kudos to the library staff and their lovely Valentine promotion.

 

                                                  Love ya'll,

                                                                  Shelli

 

Oh, if it be to choose and call thee mine, love, thou art every day my Valentine!

~Thomas Hood

 

Bee Keeping

beneficialbugs.org

My husband, James, is a little suspect of the Master Gardeners.  He knows that I was "garden crazy" before I retired, and now that I have time on my hands and am part of a "garden crazy" group like Master Gardeners, there's no telling what kind of projects and undertakings are headed his way!!!

On the morning of the MG's February meeting, I was babbling on about the speaker for the day and his topic - bee keeping.  Before James left for work, he apprehensively asked, "So when are we getting bees?"  Bless his heart, I guess I can get a little carried away!

Well, much to his relief, we are not getting bees any time soon.  But the presentation given by Aaron Jennings of Jennings Apiaries was really fascinating.  Aaron has fifty hives located around the Ruston area, and sells honey as well as other products.  At his website, www.jenningsapiaries.com, he states:

     From the beginning I have been dedicated to raising my bees in a truly sustainable and ethical manner. To demonstrate my dedication to the honey bee and providing the highest quality honey and bee products, I joined the Certified Naturally Grown movement.

Here are my notes from his presentation:

Apiaries are places where beehives of honey bees are kept.  The name comes from the scientific name of the honey bee, apis mellifera.

There are three ways to get started in bee keeping -
     1. catch a swarm
     2. buy package bees
     3. buy an established hive, or nucleus hive

How to attract bees - rub bees wax inside an empty box

Initial start up cost for bee keeping is about $400

You get no honey the first year of bee keeping

Hive maintenance takes about one hour a week

Bees regulate the temperature of the hive at about 94 degrees in each season of the year

Life span of a hive is about 5 years

Hives are referred to as "hot" when the bees are "mean".  Inserting a gentle queen into a mean hive can mellow the atmosphere of the hive.  This is commonly called "requeening a hot hive".

Bees have short tongues, so they like wide, shallow flowers.

Bees will fly 2-5 miles from the hive searching for nectar.

If a bee stings you, removing the stinger is necessary.  The stinger is barbed and difficult to remove from your skin. Therefore after the sting, the bee actually disembowels itself trying to wiggle free, leaving the glands that pump the venom behind on your body.

Apitherapy is the medical use of honey bee products.  Honey bee venom is anti-inflammatory.

You can rent hives!!  (James will be so excited to hear this.)  The bee keeper gets the benefit of varied nectar from your site and you get some of the honey.  The bee keeper provides all of the hive maintenance.

OK, so all of those things were very interesting, but as gardeners the most important information Aaron emphasized during the presentation was our responsibility toward the honey bee.  Colony Collapse Disorder is believed to be caused by commercial agriculture.  Gardeners must be very careful about using pesticides and fungicides. 

Pesticides containing neonicotinoids are systemic chemicals. This means they are absorbed by the plant, making the plant itself poisonous to bees.  Neonicotinoids have been banned in Europe, but are still in use in the US. 
 
Fungicides are also dangerous because, as Aaron explained, honey bees have a natural fungus on their foreheads. This fungus is used in the packing of pollen within the hive.  Use of fungicides in our gardens can interfere with this process.

For more information on protecting honey bees, visit http://www2.epa.gov/pollinator-protection. 

                                                                                                         Happy Gardening,
                                                                                                                     Shelli

How doth the little busy bee
Improve each shining hour,
And gather honey all the day
From every opening flower!
~Isaac Watts, "Divine Songs

 

 

What do you suppose?
A bee sat on my nose.
Then what do you think?
He gave me a wink
And said, "I beg your pardon,
I thought you were the garden."
~English Rhyme

                                                                                                                  

Meditation

Katherine stopped by for lunch yesterday on her way to a ten day meditation retreat.  She will wake up each day at 4:00 A.M. and meditate for four hours.  Then breakfast will be served followed by housekeeping, because this is how each person pays their way at the retreat.  There will be mid-day meditation and a late lunch.  Afternoon  and evening meditation is observed, but supper isn't served because when you are sitting all day your metabolism slows down so much that three meals aren't healthy.  Oh, and did I mention - speech is prohibited!  That's right...ten days without talking!

As she was telling me about the retreat, I was reminded of the  Brother Cadfael books by Ellis Peters.  Brother Cadfael was a twelfth century monk who solved murder mysteries.  Interwoven into the stories was the life of a Benedictine monk observing the liturgical hours of prayer :

       6:00 am - First Hour (Matins / Lauds / Orthros)............................. Psalm 5
        9:00 am - Third Hour (Trece)........,..................................................The Lord's Prayer
        Noon Prayer - Sixth Hour (Sext)......................................................23rd Psalm
        3:00 pm - Ninth Hour (None)...........................................................Psalm 117 
       6:00 pm (Vespers / Evensong)..........................................................Psalm 150
       9:00 pm (Compline)......................................................................... Psalm 4
       Midnight Prayer..............................................................................Psalm 134

The definition of meditation is a practice in which an individual trains the mind or induces a state of consciousness, either to realize some benefit or for the mind to simply acknowledge its content without becoming identified with that content, or as an end in itself.  Key words for me are "state of consciousness".  Meditation is a method for heightening your consciousness.

Last week, our Sunday School lesson was about fasting, another way to heighten your state of consciousness.  During the lesson, our teacher recommended a book entitled Celebration of Discipline by Richard J. Foster.  He divides the spiritual disciplines into three categories:

The Inward Disciplines - Meditation, Prayer, Fasting, Study
The Outward Disciplines - Simplicity, Solitude, Submission, Service
The Corporate Disciplines - Confession, Worship, Guidance, Celebration

I've only read the first chapter, Meditation, which was timely for Katherine's visit.  The chapter  opens with these words:

         In contemporary society our Adversary majors in three things: noise, hurry, and crowds.  If he can keep us enraged in "muchness" and "manyness", he will rest satisfied. Psychiatrist Carl Jung once remarked, "Hurry is not of the Devil, it is the Devil."
         If we hope to move beyond the superficialities of our culture, including our religious culture, we must be willing to go down into the recreating silences, into the inner world of contemplation."

During lunch, Katherine shared a meditation practice she had learned.  As you meditate, you categorize each thought that enters your mind as a past event, present event, or future event.  This meditation exercise helps you learn to live in the present. (I love the saying, "If you are depressed, you are living in the Past.  If you are anxious, you are living in the Future. If you are peaceful, you are living in the Present.")

Another practice she told me about was labeling each meditative thought as positive or negative.  Again, the purpose is to recognize your true thought patterns and begin to regulate them.

In his book, Richard Foster shares this mediation technique for beginners, like me.  It is called "Palms Down, Palms Up".  He explains it like this:

     Begin by placing your palms down as a symbolic indication of your desire to turn over any concern you may have to God.  Inwardly you may pray, "Lord I give to you may anger toward.......I release my fear of ..........I surrender my anxiety about ........... I release my frustration over........."Whatever it is that weighs on your mind or is a concern to you, just say, "palms down". Release it.  After several moments of surrender, turn you palms up as a symbol of your desire to receive from the Lord.  Perhaps you will pray silently, "Lord, I would like to receive your divine love for ......... your peace about........... your patience..........your joy...........". Whatever you need, you say, "palms up".

What I have learned from talking with Katherine, our Sunday School lessons, and Celebration of Discipline is the importance of taking time out of our busy days to set aside a moment for quiet solitude in which to clear our minds so that we are able to hear the workings of our spirits.

                                                                                                                 Happy Meditating, 
                                                                                                                                    Shelli

You should sit in meditation for twenty minutes a day, unless you are too busy.

Then you should sit for an hour.

 ~Zen Proverb

Spiritual meditation is the pathway to Divinity.

It is a mystic ladder which reaches from earth to heaven,

from error to Truth,

 from pain to peace.

~James Allen

Meditation is the most significant because it opens the door for all other significant things: love, prayer, God, light, music, poetry.

 ~Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh

Meditation applies the brakes to the mind.

 ~Ramana Maharshi

In meditation, you are calm and receptive.

You are like an open door providing a kind of cross ventilation

 so that the air of divinity can move through you.

~Gurudev Shree Chitrabhanu

Orion's Belt

On these clear winter nights when I take the dogs out to put them to bed in the shed, I have been enjoying the constellation Orion.  It is one of the most easily recognizable constellations, second only to the Big Dipper.  Teaching this constellation to my students was always one of my favorite lessons during the school year and I loved having excited kids come back to class to tell me that they found Orion. Of course, part of the fun is knowing the myth that explains the origin of the constellation. Here is the version that I like best.....

Apollo and Artemis were brother and sister as well as children of Zeus.  Apollo was the god of prophesy and healing.  Artemis was the goddess of the hunt and childbirth.  In addition to their many responsibilities, Zeus added the marking of day and night.  Each morning Apollo put the sun in a golden chariot and drove it slowly across the sky.  In the evening his sister, Artemis, took over by putting the moon in the chariot for her drive across the night sky. 

One night, as she was driving across the sky, Artemis caught sight of a handsome young mortal man out hunting in the moonlight. Loving the hunt as she did, she spend the night watching him wield his club, shoot his arrows, and bring home his prey.  As time went by she became obsessed with watching this hunter.  On the night of the new moon she parked the chariot near one of his favorite hunting grounds and waited hoping to meet him.  

The hunter was taken by surprise when beautiful Artemis stepped into the clearing and introduced herself.  He told her that his nane was Orion.  They spent the next hours discussing hunting, prey, and weapons.  As the night drew to a end and Artemis prepared to leave, they made arrangements to meet again the following night at the banks of a large lake, this time to hunt together. 

Soon their nightly meetings at the lake had become a habit and Artemis and Orion found themselves deeply in love. But the humans on Earth began to complain to Zeus that they could no longer travel or hunt at night because there was no moon to light their way.  Zeus called in his son Apollo and told him that his sister was shirking her responsibilities and that Apollo needed to investigate and solve the problem. Anxious to please his father and "tattle" on his sister, Apollo eagerly agreed.

At the end of the following day, after turning the chariot over to Artemis, Apollo hung around to follow her and find out what she was doing all night. He followed her to the lake to meet Orion and realized what they were up to.  Now as in any sibling relationship Apollo knew that if he just confronted his sister and told her to stop this foolishness, they would end up in a big fight. He wanted to take care of the problem quickly and permanently, so instead he began to hatch a plan.

The next night Apollo was waiting at the lake when Orion arrived.  The mortal was awestruck at the sight of this mighty god.  Apollo struck up a seemingly innocent conversation full of compliments for the strength and prowess of Orion.  Orion was innocently  lured by the complements into accepting a challenge from Apollo to prove that he was strong enough to swim to the opposite shore of the lake and back.  Orion dove into the water and began the task.

Immediately after Orion's departure, Artemis arrived on the scene only to be stunned that her brother, Apollo, was there.  Thankful that Orion hadn't shown up yet, she set about trying to get rid of her brother as quickly as possible.

"What are you doing here?" Artemis asked her brother.

"The question is what are YOU doing here.  Why aren't you in the chariot carrying the moon across the sky?" Apollo replied.

"Tonight is the new moon. I don't carry the moon tonight so I thought I might get in a little hunting."

"You and your hunting!  I am a better shot with a bow and arrow than you are!"

"That's ridiculous!! I simply never miss no matter what the target."

"Really....even on a dark night like tonight?"

"Any night!!  Choose a target now and I'll prove it!"

"OK...out on the lake I can hear something swimming even though it is too dark to see it.  Can you hit it with an arrow?"

In response Artemis pulled an arrow from her quiver. Swiftly and surely the arrow shot straight for the sound of the swimming Orion. 

"You ARE good!!" laughed Apollo, "but I've got to run.  See you later."

Puzzled by her brother's actions, Artemis sat down on the bank of the lake to wait for Orion.  Time passed and she was about to leave when she noticed something washing up on the bank. Something large with what seemed to be an arrow.......one of her arrows........

She ran into the water and pulled Orion's body to shore where he pledged his undying love for her with his last breath.

Grief stricken and knowing that she could not go on without him, Artemis lifted Orion's body and threw it into the sky where it would be with her always as she drove the moon across the sky each night.


What a story!! The kids loved it and I do to!  If you want to find Orion in the night sky, go outside about 8:00 tonight.  Turn to the southeast.  Look for Orion's belt, three stars neatly lined up in a row.  Here are some pictures that will help.

Orion...myth version

dot-to-dot version

Actual night sky version

Now for some science!  Betelgeuse, the reddish star in Orion's upper left-hand shoulder, is red because it is a dying star.  A star's color is a clue to it's age.  In contrast, Rigel, the bluish star at the lower right-hand corner of Orion's tunic, is a relatively new star.

And now for some trivia. Bellatrix, the third most well known star in the Orion constellation, was used by J.K. Rowling in the Harry Potter series for the character Bellatrix Lestrange. 

                                                                                             Happy star gazing,
                                                                                                                      Shelli

Be glad of life

because it gives you the chance

 to love, to work, to play, and to look up at the stars.

 ~Henry Van Dyke

Prepping For Spring

The last day of January!!!! 

 

 A wake up call to gardeners......Spring is just around the corner!!!

 

 Get yourself in gear!!!!

 

It is way too early to plant summer veggies, but it is time to get your soil prepared.  I prepped three of my vegetable beds back in the fall and have been growing cool weather plants in them, but this week I prepared the rest of the veggie beds. (And wasn't it wonderful to have this glorious, unexpected warm weather to work outside.)

 

 

I removed the pine straw and tilled in ammonium sulfate and potash.  I also added a little cotton seed meal.  These beds will be ready for spring transplants in late March.  My neighbor is much more organized than I; all of his beds have been prepped since early fall.

 

James and I have been eating kale and spinach salads from the garden all winter and have pretty much over harvested those plants, so I planted more spinach (from seed) and kale (transplants) to carry us through springtime.

 

It is also time to plant Irish potatoes. I've always heard that you plant them on Valentine's Day, but the LSU AgCenter says you can plant them from January 20 through February 28.  One of their recommended varieties is Norland Reds which we find at Lowes every year.

 

By the way, the AgCenter website has the Louisiana Vegetable Planting Guide that lists planting times, recommended varieties, and everything else you could possibly need to know about planting vegetables.

 

 

In spite of all the tilling and prepping going on in gardens this time of year, it won't be time to transplant many warm weather vegetables and flowers into the garden until the threat of late frost is past, after mid-March.  In the meantime, seeds are a gardener's late winter obsession.

 

I shared this obsession with the gardening girls at the junior high.  They were excited to hear that we were going "shopping" and loved pouring over the catalogs choosing the plants we will now try to germinate in the school greenhouse.

 

I emphasize the word "try" because I am a novice at starting plants from seeds. I have experimented a few times at home with disastrous results, but this year I have the guidance of the Master Gardeners!  They have a huge plant sale in the spring and met two weeks ago to start germinating seeds in the Louisiana Tech greenhouses.

 

 

I thought starting seeds would be fairly easy - dig a little hole, stick in a seed, water, grow!  Through the MGs, I have learned that there is so much more to it!!  Some seeds need light to germinate and aren't covered with any soil.  Some seeds require partial coverage, while others must be completely covered. (A bit of Internet research can get you this information for the plants you want to grow.) And you don't use soil at all; you use a potting mix formulated just for germination as the base of your seeds and do the covering with vermiculite.

 

Working with Louisiana Tech gives the Master Gardeners the ability to use their misting room where the seeds are treated to the perfect amount of moisture and heat, but our "propagation leader" says she used simple containers to start her seeds at home...
 

 

I know!  I was so inspired!  She said that she pokes holes in the top and bottom and then puts these "mini-greenhouses" in a sunny spot. I can't wait to try some! I ordered some Profusion series zinnia seeds that I will be experimenting with. The seedlings are transplanted when they have their first true leaves, but I will have to work in the greenhouses with the Master Gardeners before I can pass that information on to you! 

Love ya'll,
Shelli (The Seed Novice)

 

In every gardener there is a child who believes in The Seed Fairy. ~Robert Brault,

 

 

 

Fenced In and Out

Remember when your new baby learned to crawl and for the first time when you left a room she might not be exactly where you put her when you returned?  Well that's how it was when the Garden Friendly Dogs started to roam.  As puppies they were quite content to stay on the porch, but soon were old enough to play out in the yard without us around.  That meant it was time for a fence.

We wanted an invisible underground fence, but they were too young to be trained to it.  So we put up the Ody fence.  Ody is our daughter's dog and when he came to visit us the first time, James and I made a temporary fence that gave him lots of room to play.  We made it out of metal stakes and that orange plastic netting you often see around construction sites.  It was easy to put up and take down.

So the Ody fence was put into good use while the puppies were getting old enough to train.  Meanwhile we had a representative from Invisible Fence come out to the house and give us an estimate.  We didn't want to take in the whole two acres as that would give Fred and Ethel access to the garden and the areas where all of my daffodils are planted, so instead we wanted to include a little less than one acre.  We were totally shocked when the man told us the cost would be $2500. Holy smoke!!!

After doing a little research, we found out that all underground dog fencing is made by the same company, PetSafe, and they offer a self installation option for only $500.  What a difference!!   We bought ours at Lowes.  Online reviews suggested 14 gauge wire instead of the wire included in the package and we used orange flag stakes that we also bought at Lowes instead of the white ones that came with the system.

It took us an entire Saturday to install, but it was very easy to do.  The training guide was very easy to follow and now, two weeks later, Fred and Ethel have a healthy respect for the "static correction zone " and are enjoying roaming their new territory.

However, being garden friendly dogs, measures had to be taken to keep them IN the yard, but  OUT of the flowerbeds.  So James, who is a saint, spent this Saturday installing a long term temporary picket fence around the main flower beds at the back of the house.  The GFDs had already dug up some of the roots around the sweet bay magnolia and standard gardenia. In a couple of months all the day lilies will be coming up and the hydrangeas will be blooming, so it was time to pitch them out of those areas. It is not the most attractive solution, but I am hoping that if they grow up unable to get in these beds, then these areas won't even register on their radars in future years.  We'll see! 

In the mean time, they are happier dogs and we are happier owners.

                                                                                                                   Love ya'll,
                                                                                                                              Shelli

 

Properly trained, a man can be dog's best friend. ~Corey Ford

I Catch 'em, God Cleans 'em

We are lucky to have a wonderful singing group called Cornerstone in our church.  They are a quintet of older men with great harmony.  Yesterday they sang a song that I got a kick out of entitled "I Catch 'em, God Cleans 'em". I can't find out who wrote the song, but the Gaithers have several videos of it on youtube.  Here are the lyrics:



I was driving around down south Louisiana
Stopped in a town called Galliano
I saw a sign on a church that said, "Fish fry tonight"

A little old Cajun preacher was preachin'
Reminded me of an old camp meeting
It brought Saint Matthew 4:19 to life

He said, "I catch 'em, God cleans 'em
I bait the hook with the love of the Kingdom
I've been called to be a fisher of men"

"I catch 'em, God cleans 'em
Heaven knows He saves every soul that believes Him
I reel 'em in and He washes away their sin"

Yeah, it didn't take long for Him to catch my attention
He was long on grace and short on religion
He said a prayer and that was all that she wrote

He said, "Amen!", and God as my witness
I fell in that big ole net of forgiveness
And before I knew it we were all in the same boat

He said, "I catch 'em, God cleans 'em
I bait the hook with the love of the Kingdom
I've been called to be a fisher of men"

"I catch 'em, God cleans 'em
Heaven knows He saves every soul that believes Him
I reel 'em in and He washes away their sin"