Things couldn’t get any better at this moment: the Red Sox are on the radio while I type at the kitchen table and they aren’t losing. Youngest son is doing his math homework right next to me (I am so very glad I no longer have math homework) while oldest son is hopefully not freezing at Fenway Park while the Sox hopefully pick up their third win of the season.
Clearly it’s been a slow start to 2011.
I really don’t know what to say about it except I deserve to eat my pre-season gloating words about the pitching, hitting and the acquisitions. My stoic demeanor now speaks of looking into the long haul of the season and a steely reserve that they’ll drastically improve by the next game, the series and the month. I curse Sports Illustrated for bestowing the 2011 World Series Championship upon them with 168 games to play. SI has a rotten record for it’s World Series predictions and more often then not, the chosen team ends up with a worse than expected performance on the season. Talk about a curse.
Fortunately it’s not all baseball gloom around here! It’s been appreciably warmer and there are definite signs of permanent spring: more flowers, greener grass, longer days and a move to brighter clothes. The beehive is growing and the bees are bringing in a ton of pollen so today’s bee activity was putting on the first honey super.
The super is the smallest box on the top. I’m using a queen excluder, which is a wire screen that allows the smaller worker bees to move freely from top to bottom but keeps the larger queen in the two bigger bottom boxes. It keeps the queen from laying eggs in the combs of honey that we could take if this hive is successful and (this is a really important and) it helps keep the hive manageable. Two years ago I didn’t use the excluder and had an enormous, aggravated hive that was ready to swarm right into my nervous neighbors hair and her children’s beds. Really. The lessons of bad beekeeping are the toughest.
I’ve been working of changing a few of my winter bad habits starting with the worst: Lying on the couch all day. It did nothing for the mood or the girth so I started running again. I am slow, very slow so I avoided wearing a watch, believing it’s best to get out and run instead of getting upset that I’m running at a 10 min/mile pace. I’ve been at it for over a month and felt like I’d picked up the pace so today I wore my timex and ran 5.3 miles in 46 minutes–less than a 9 minute mile! It’s enough to keep me running and thinking about training for summer races and a fall half marathon.
Finally a terrier update. They are fine despite the severe neglect they suffer. Last night the little Bad Dog was let out at 10:00 p.m. At 3:00 a.m. I woke to what I thought was a bark. I listened for a while but didn’t hear anything for a while. Unable to fall asleep, I started to read and heard another little bark. Oh boy, someone left their dog out all night! I thought, That poor dog. Then I hear another bark. It sounded familiar so I went to check on the terriers. There was Artie and there wasn’t Honey. I ran down stairs and found her waiting at the back door. She was very happy to see me, a bit aloof around someone who shall not be named and spent most of the day sleeping which allowed Artie some free time to peruse his many interests on the internet.