Turn, Turn, Turn

                     Karen

Jan. 14, 1940 - Nov. 21, 2020

I buried my sister today

     From fifteen hundred miles away

     Yet I thought I was okay...

But I’m slipping out of phase,

    Floating from place to place

    Lost in time and space...

Turn, Turn, Turn

To everything, turn, turn, turn

There is a season turn, turn, turn

And a time to every purpose

Under heaven

A time to be born, a time to die

A time to plant, a time to reap

A time to kill, a time to heal

A time to laugh, a time to weep

A time to build up, a time to break down

A time to dance, a time to mourn

A time to cast away stones

A time to gather stones together

 A time of love, a time of hate

A time of war, a time of peace

A time you may embrace

A time to refrain from embracing

A time to gain, a time to lose

A time to rend, a time to sew

A time for love, a time for hate

A time for peace, I swear it's not too late.

Pete Seeger, from a Biblical verse

To Mask or Not to Mask

Everyone has an opinion on this subject. Everyone has found an “expert” to back up their opinion. It’s a hot topic in conversations and online. Strong feelings are expressed; people are exasperated at those who steadfastly refuse to agree with their stance on the subject. The heated debate goes on... and on... and on...

The mainstream news anchors, Federal and Provincial top doctors, and numerous scientists are recommending the wearing of face masks in all public places where physical distancing is not possible. Those sitting on this side of the argument agree - because you may, unknowingly, be an asymptomatic carrier, a mask worn properly may be an effective tool to protect others from you. 

On the flip side of this issue stands the strong individualist. The government, they say, is using the pandemic to control the people, to restrict our freedoms! It’s a hoax. COVID-19 is no worse than the annual flu and no more deadly. Masks don’t work. The whole thing is overblown. Those in power are afraid to admit their pandemic strategy has needlessly caused economic hell and a state of fear for the public. They’ve made a colossal error and are at a loss for a real solution. 

COVID-19 is serious and often deadly for the elderly and those with compromised immune systems and/or pre-existing medical conditions. Infected healthy people generally recover and many have only mild symptoms. So why shut the economy down!! Why don’t we protect the vulnerable and let the rest of us get back to normal? Great idea. Tell me, how are we going to accomplish that? Vulnerable people do not live, nor thrive, in isolation. Someone who thought they were virus free carried COVID-19, directly or indirectly, to every vulnerable person who contracted it.

Sadly, there’s one thing this pandemic has brought to the forefront - grandmothers, grandfathers, elderly parents, the sick or immune compromised, the poor, the homeless, and the druggies seem to be pretty much expendable in the eyes of our hedonistic society. The mismanaged nursing homes across the country certainly attest to that.

Regardless of where we stand on the issue, I think Canadians should go along with the government’s guidelines and wear a mask, mandated or not, without griping or causing a fuss. Why? Only one of my reasons addresses the effectiveness of masks - it’s easy, not all that uncomfortable, and IT MAY HELP!

Other reasons... just as important.

Wear a mask: out of respect for those who are in any way vulnerable; in order to alleviate some of the fear in the eyes of those who do not think this is a hoax; to lower the level of anxiety in those who take COVID-19 seriously because anxiety can lower our immune response; for the essential workers in the stores where we shop whose employer is trying to keep his business open and is complying with the rules laid down by the parent company; for nurses and doctors, cooks, custodial staff in our hospitals and care homes - people who are directly in contact with infected individuals at their workplace and stressed on a daily basis; so smaller businesses can open their doors once again; to honour all those directly affected by the loss of someone they love.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

So many gods, so many creeds, So many paths that wind and wind, While just the art of being kind is all the sad world needs. - Ella Wheeler Wilcox, poet (5 Nov 1850-1919)

The Winter Blanket

Yesterday I pulled our winter blanket out of the upstairs closet, brought it down and retired the summer blanket, a light weight down quilt. This semi-annual blanket exchange is a constant in my life. It signals either the acceptance of colder weather or the welcoming of warmer. Our unseasonably cold October has forced me to admit the inevitable - time to perform this simple seasonal ritual, one of many repetitive actions that mark a path through my life.

Our winter blanket is an uncovered quilt, several inches thick, filled with wool batting. It came our way from a friend who no longer needed it, more years ago than my memory serves. It’s heavy, super warm, cozy and yellowed with age. I wrestled it into a duvet cover. Done. Winter’s arrival accepted. Too cold, too early. 

The light and spotty layer of snow now on the ground will soon be replaced with nature’s winter blanket. We will adapt, do wintry things, add layers of clothing, get out the snow shovels and roof rakes, scrape layers of ice from our windshields... 

After what may seem to be a terribly long time the warm weather will quietly push away the cold, spring will return, the summer blanket will be returned to the bed, and I’ll be planting the garden once more.

You Can Feel It in the Air

Autumn has arrived. The sunlight has a different glow, the air is crisper, the Aspen leaves have turned to gold, and our driveway has become a yellow brick road. But, in the 45 years I have lived on this farm I have never experienced a longer summer! Normally I would expect a killing frost around the 20th of August. Not this year. Today I still have a healthy tomato plant popping out ripe red cherry tomatoes sitting on the garden’s edge. It’s cool overnight, +4 or 5, but not freezing. 

Nevertheless, we have completed our harvest.  The potatoes and carrots are stored in the root cellar, tomatoes are ripening under a blanket upstairs, onions are braided and stored in the shop, canning (except for the tomatoes) is all done, the garden has been manured and tilled and is ready for next year, lambs have been sold, honey has been harvested. Ahhh, what a good feeling! 

Welcome Autumn, my favourite season, you may be short but you are so beautiful!

Wrapping up the Honey Flow Season

The sunflowers have finally bloomed!

August 14

Today the Flow Frames were set aside after extracting the remainder of the honey - another 10kg+. Our total yield from this one producing hive was 33.55kg (74lbs). All I can say is WOW! It has certainly been a very good summer for honey. Thanks to the bees for all their work. Now it’s time to add Varroa mite medication and, even though there are still flowers, we’ll start providing the bees with a steady supply of sugar water to aid in the production of their winter stores. When it gets cold we’ll add an insulating wrap and a wind tarp on the north/west fence wire.

This is the Flow Hive with  the flow frames removed. The bees still in the box that held the frames will gradually move back into the hive and then the empty box will be used to house the sugar water dispenser (an inverted 2 quart jar with tiny holes in the lid) until it’s no longer needed. The 2 remaining bee boxes need to weigh about 70lbs each (bees and honey) to maintain the hive during the winter. Less and starvation can result.

Smoking the bees to settle them so that the Varroa mite medication strips can be inserted. 

Honey Harvest Time

This is what the flow frames look like when they are full of honey.

So they say it takes 3 years to establish a good bee hive. I guess that’s right because this is our 3rd summer and our bees have given us 23kg of honey - so far. One more harvest then we’ll remove the Flow Hive and let them finish preparing for winter. So we finally answer the question - does a Flow Hive work in the centre of Alberta? It certainly does!

Harvest is easy. Open a frame with a special key after attaching a spout leading to a jar and the honey simply pours out. The  clear wrap on the top of the jar is to seal it off so  bees don’t fly into the jar during the process. The resultant honey is clean and requires no processing of any kind. The bees are not disturbed, damaged or killed during the process. No equipment is required. It just can’t be any easier than this!

We transferred the honey into one kilogram containers using a small weigh scale. All DONE!

Having successfully over-wintered our bees for three winters now (and we had quite a number of -40C days this last winter), we decided it was time to get another Flow Hive. We at first planned to split the original hive. Our bee friend brought us a new queen intending to introduce her into the new hive which would be made using a few frames of bees from the old hive. But when he had a good look at our original hive he determined the queen was not doing her egg laying job as well as she should. So, instead of placing the new queen in a new hive she was used to replace the queen in the original hive. A few weeks later he brought a new box of bees and another queen which we transferred into our new Flow Hive when it arrived in the mail and my husband assembled it.

Here’s my husband removing a frame from the transport box. 

Shaking the bees off a the last frame by the new hive. The Flow Hive has 8 frames and the transport hive had 9 so one had to be eliminated. 

The transport box still had quite a few bees left inside. They are gently brushed off in front of their new home.

Official photographer 

First Remove the Ropes

First Remove the Ropes...

Eight years ago, give a take a few months, we purchased our yurt. Over time we replaced the horse hair ropes on the exterior, and at another time the top cover (urgh). We also attempted to remove the goo that had built up on the exterior by the proximity of the Aspen forest and its seasonal distribution of seeds by using a pressure washer. It helped, but slowly the exterior canvas began to show its age and some wear where the ropes attached to the top cover (urgh) had rubbed. We had no leakage, but this year we decided to give our yurt a facelift and take advantage of Groovy Yurts’ 30% discount on the exterior canvas (brezent) for those who had already purchased a yurt.

Last time, to our amazement, Mr. Groovy Yurts (Yves Ballenegger) brought his huge truck down our driveway which is 1/4 mile long and resembles a 2 track overgrown logging trail into the bush. This time (new and bigger truck) we met him and his helper Pedro (spelling?) at the end of the driveway in our pickup. We were pleased to see Yves and even more pleased to here him say, “Would you like us to help you put it up?” 

 

So, first they (Richard helped, I chronicled) removed the ropes and the decorative skirt (hayavtch).

Then the outer layer came down. At this point a discussion was needed regarding the added layer of house wrap that goes under the canvas in wetter climates. Our climate is definitely proving to be wet, and wetter, and wetter. Although it was in pretty good shape and could have been repaired with tape, it was sure a handy time to replace it, which we decided to do.

Then Yves said, “Does it bother you that the door leans outward a little bit?” 

“Well, it bothers me a bit, and my son has noticed it too,” I said. 

It turns out you can fix that. I was amazed to watch them remove a few of the roof rafters (huns) by the door and simply push the wall up straight. Then Yves cut a couple inches off those rafters so they wouldn’t keep pushing that wall out and put them back! Magic, a perfectly vertical door!

Some of the felt had sagged a bit so it was pulled up and also tucked into the door, then the new house wrap went on.

And then on went the new exterior canvas and the new horse hair ropes. All completed in less than 2 hours. We are ever so grateful to Yves, Pedro and Groovy Yurts for doing this work for us. Had we done this project it would not have been done as well and would have been fairly stressful for us, since both of us are on the second half of our 70’s.

One last project I did was to wash the decorative skirt (hayavtch) in my washer, then scrub it with bleach and detergent to brighten it up - mostly grass stains from mowing. It looks much better but maybe next year we’ll get a new one.

We use our yurt for a guesthouse, winter and summer, a music room, a party room and a place to chill. I highly recommend yurts for this and even for living in. They are not only beautiful, but the history behind the Groovy Yurts’ company, the people in Mongolia that they employ, the philosophy and respect for Mother Earth that almost oozes from its pores... Well you can’t help but feel the energy.