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After my reaction to the sting Saturday inflicted by the Mad Bee from Hell, I am well on my way to recovery today.
My good bloggy friend, Lisa, over at Shady Grove Journal, commiserated with me and offered a whole boatload of suggestions as to precautions I need to take. She, too, suffers unpleasant allergic reactions to insect stings and bites so she knows of what she speaks. She so well described the feel that takes over my body after being stung. As she said, it's "kind of like a general malaise of sorts" for a couple of days after being stung. Yup, that's it, for sure!
When I got up yesterday morning with my hubby, I felt so crummy that I went back to bed and slept for 2 more hours. Then in the afternoon, I took another nap for a couple of hours. It felt like the thing to do to me, but I think I caused some sorry to Papa Pea because it was such an unusual happenstance that I should nap during the day.
Glad to report the swelling is much less today and rest assured I shall survive. But I also realize I need to stock up on some antihistamines and probably should finally cave and get an Epi-pen to have on hand.
I probably would have been totally safe from another bee attack, but couldn't get up the courage to venture out into the garden today because of the overcast weather . . . just the kind of conditions that make for cranky bees. I'm hoping tomorrow I will be feeling back to normal and the sun will shine down on me and those sweet bees of ours. (See, fuzzy little honey-making friends, I still do like you.)
I sincerely appreciate all the care and concern I received from all of you. Next time I have a losing argument with an angry bee or wasp or hornet, I'm going to keep mum about it. I feel I'm coming across as way too much of a wimp in this department!
In a previous post I mentioned that a couple of days ago, Papa Pea was mowing near the bee hives and got nailed in the forehead by one of our honey bees.
Yesterday he worked in the bee yard splitting an over-crowded hive into two hives. Even though the day was sunny and the bees should have been in a good mood, they were not. Papa Pea was decked out in his full bee suit and he used his smoker which usually calms them down and makes them sluggish, but it didn't. He reported they were wild and crazy and very upset with him when all he was doing was trying to help them out by alleviating their congested living conditions.
This morning I was sitting out on the front lawn giving some loving to Maisy, one of our granddogs who hasn't been feeling very good, when a bee started buzzing my head. It was a mad bee. A very mad bee. What was his problem? I did nothing to him. He apparently drank cranky juice for breakfast because his buzz was that of a bee on a kamikaze mission. Once you hear that particular sound, you always recognize it and know you are in trouble.
Being around the bees has never bothered me, but since my sensitivity to their sting seems to be increasing over the last few years, I gotta admit to feeling a little more panic than a big, strong homesteading gal should when in the situation I found myself this morning.
Trying not to lose my composure completely, I thought if I got up and went in the house, the bee would stay outside. Wrong.
By this time, he had tangled himself in my hair and I knew it was just a matter of time before he found a tender spot in which to plant his ringer-dinger of a stinger.
Running through the house and out the door to our attached garage, I yelled, "I need help. I've got a bee caught in my head!" Well, he wasn't IN my head, but hubby got the message. As I tried to hold still and Papa Pea tried to remove the bee without getting stung himself, Mr. Bee's butt made contact with my scalp at the back of my head and he let me have it.
Now, I'm not a wimp and happen to have a very high level of pain tolerance but, holy macaroni, did that hurt!
After hubby extracted the stinger, we immediately put the cut side of an onion on the site (the onion juice supposedly draws the bee venom out of the skin) and I took the homeopathic remedy, Apis, which counteracts the effect of the venom in one's system. Then Papa Pea made a poultice of baking soda and water which I've worn all day.
Betcha would have a hard time figuring out what this was a picture of if you didn't know, huh? (Kinda looks like I got shot with a caulk gun. Splat!)
When hubby went out to close up the poultry early tonight, he reported he was chased back into the greenhouse by an angry bee who, by all rights, should have been tucked into his hive and settled down for the night at that hour.
I don't know what's gotten into our normally mild-mannered, well-behaved bees but I sure hope they get over their current hissy-fit but quick.
I tell ya, life on the homestead can be dangerous. If it's not Father Goose being overly protective and taking a chunk out of your leg, it's bees who are becoming down right dysfunctional!
I can totally understand how these "remodeling" posts might be as interesting as a box of rocks to all of you, but each one chronicles a step closer to having the remodeling completed to me. And at this point of the game, every little step toward that goal feels good and I'm thrilled to have this particular piece in place.
While putting the last coat of finish on the TV/stereo/bookcase unit this morning, it felt like it took me ten times as long as the first two coats. Seriously. Wonder why that was? Maybe it was because we were actually getting close to finishing it and I wanted to have it DONE and be able to install it.
So here it is . . . in place. I love the way it ties in with the book boxes above it. Now hubby has the not-so-easy job of rerouting the wires for the TV hook-up the whole length of the house (in the crawl space . . . never a nice place to have to do any work) in preparation for moving said TV out of our bedroom (yay!) and into the living room. Maybe tomorrow?
Right now, I'm pleased as punch to have this unit designed, built, polyed and finished. Cross it off the list! One more step toward completion of our living room remodeling.
Even though I got a late start putting the finish on the top shelving unit to go in the living room, I got two coats done today.
One more coat early tomorrow and we should be able to bring it in and set it in place by the afternoon.
We had glorious sunshine all day today. Not real warm but very pleasant. And no bugs! We're blessed in our particular location in that we don't seem to get nearly as many bugs here as a lot of other places nearby. (Thank you, thank you, thank you!)
Papa Pea mowed in the poultry yard today since 1) it wasn't raining, and 2) the chickens had taken to carrying three-foot high orange flags so they didn't get lost in the high grass. At one point, I heard the mower stop and hubby came running into the garage (where I was painting) at a trot asking me to take a bee stinger out of his forehead. I'm not sure it was one of our normal honey bees that nailed him (although he thought it was) because the stinger looked like a small dagger and had half a bee butt attached to it. Luckily, he's not bothered by insect stings and/or bites like I am so once I extracted the stinger, he was back out and at it again.
My late start on the polying was due to a desperate need for some housekeeping chores this morning. There comes a time when I just can't stand it and have to do some basic cleaning and cooking of good food for us to have on hand.
I also took my started tomatoes and peppers out to the cold frame so they could start to harden off.
The other plants I took out a couple of days ago are loving being outside and look really healthy. As you can see, the broccoli in the picture above is more than ready to go in the ground but I don't have the supplies yet to make the protective tunnels over the raised beds to keep out those dratted little white butterflies that lay their eggs in broccoli, Brussels sprouts and cabbage.
We were warned of possible frost last night but when I got up at 5:30 this morning, the temp read 36.9 degrees and I didn't see frost anywhere. Now if we can just make it past the full moon on the 4th of June, we should be home free for the season and the serious gardening can begin.
Early on this morning I was up in my hubby's office to use the copying machine. I looked out the window and saw this almost perfect mirror image of the trees reflected in our small pond.
No wind and the rising sun was blasting forth. Now a few hours later, it looks as though we are actually going to get a whole day of sunshine. Boy, can we use it!
I considered titling this post, "I'm Suing the Weather Forecasters." We were promised a sunny day today with temps warmer than they have been. Ain't happenin'.
It's true, it's not raining, but boy-howdy, is it cold, dark and damp out there. A wise person once said that it doesn't have to be sunny to be a good day. And I know that's true. (Somebody needs to give me a whop upside the head and make me shape up.)
The main reason I wanted a sunny, warm day was to start putting the coats of polyurethane on this piece B made yesterday. It's the new top for the unit that will hold the TV, stereo, etc. in the living room. It may not look like much sitting here in the garage, but it looks fantastic when mounted on the base cabinet. I can hardly wait to get the finish on it and put permanently in place.
I may go to Plan B and work on it in the garage today. It could be August before we see the sun again. The sooner I start, the sooner it will be done. (I think somebody else came up with that profound statement a while back, too.)
While she was here, we also coerced B into putting up the brick facing on the side of the TV cabinet nearest the wood stove. She slapped it up in no time and we are officially done with all the bricking. Hooray! (Ain't gonna do that anytime soon again.)
We got the paint chips in the mail yesterday for the high-temp paint to spiff up the wood stove that will get reinstalled back in the living room. Dang and drat, after much deliberation hubby said he really didn't care what color we chose and that I needed to make the decision. I said, "So if it turns out looking like h-e-double-hockey-stick, it will be my fault?" "Right," he replied.
If I can talk Papa Pea into helping me heft furniture from various and sundry places in the house where it's been stashed, I may even get the living room put back into halfway usable order this afternoon. Wouldn't that be somethin'?
Two days ago the majority of my seedlings I'd started inside simply N-E-E-D-E-D to go outside. However, I hadn't hardened any of them off yet . . .
. . . so I put a cold frame on top of one of the raised beds and transferred everything lock, stock and barrel (or rather plastic pot, cell pack and peat pot) onto the top of the soil in the raised bed.
Now I open the cold frame lid a bit during the day so the plants don't over-heat and have to remember to close it each night to avoid giving them chilblains.
I really thought it would be such an early gardening season with the unseasonably warm weather we had in March but then cold weather returned to the Northwoods followed by a spell of very dry weather.
When it warmed up enough that I could have planted seeds, the soil was so dry I didn't. Now it's been raining almost steadily for two weeks, a cold front has moved in and the soil is soaked. I think I can hear pitiful little voices coming from my seed packets saying, "Please don't put us out there in that freezing, wet soil! We'll mold for sure."
My last gardening season, my peas had been in the ground for two weeks come this date. I did go ahead and plant my potatoes this year (all six rows of them) right before the rain began. Now I'm concerned that they are going to rot before they can start to grow.
Seems that no matter where we gardeners are located, each climate presents its own particular set of obstacles to deal with. I can't help but think back to my very first gardening years and how foreign and complex it all seemed to me. Now that I have years and years of experience under my belt, it's easy-peasy, right? Hahahahaha!
Our temp is supposed to get down in the 30s tonight with more rain so this sure isn't weather to be setting plants out in the garden. Matter of fact, I maybe should think about a small wood fire (just kidding) inside the cold frame to keep those tender, little plants out there comfy-cozy.
Okay, let's see if I can stay awake long enough to get this written and posted.
Today was one of those days when we got 403 little things done, but there's no BIG progress to show for it.
Yesterday I put three coats of poly on the baseboard moldings for the living room which got installed today. It rained all day yesterday, but we fired up the wood stove in the garage and with the big exhaust fan running on low, working in there was no problem.
We had to take some of the trim around doors off to get the flooring on so that got trimmed to the new correct size and put back on today.
It was Monday so, of course, I had to get the laundry done. A basketful of ironing is still waiting for me though.
B was here and we talked over the final plans for the new top portion of the above unit which will hold our TV, stereo, DVD player, etc. She was planning to build it in her shop, but now is thinking she may build it here. It will go from the top of the unit up to meet the book boxes (shelves) above and fasten together as one unit. This might be kinda tricky building it off site since the measurements have to be exact.
We want to put the fireproof brick on the left side of this same cabinet since it will be closest to the wood stove.
Oh, yeah, I don't think I ever mentioned that the extra brick we had to order did arrive, well packed and not one brick broken, and that corner is finally finished.
Hunh. Looks like a big shower stall, doesn't it?
But back to the side of the cabinet . . .
After (a gourmet) dinner (of scrambled eggs) tonight, Papa Pea and I bit the bullet and even though we sure didn't feel like it, we got all the brick for that area measured and cut and ready to be put on tomorrow.
We've been living with living room furniture . . .
. . . (and various other things) in the kitchen for about two weeks now. I wonder if we'll ever get any semblance of normal order back around here?
