Swarm Caution

Just another warning to be careful out there with all the bees. While most are gentle, when disturbed, they may become agitated. The wonderful weather means food galore for the bees this year. That's wonderful, but it also means there have been a lot of swarms. This evening we went to check out some bees (not in a swarm) that had colonized in the wall of a garage. Mark was trying to be helpful but that is likely the last time we do that sort of bee collecting. They sure got unhappy with us. Bee careful!! ;-) (couldn't resist)

Sky Watch

Well, I'm a little late on the Sky Watch for the week so sorry about that. Was feeling under the weather most of the week so I just didn't have the energy to post.

This is a view of the countryside where we're going to have bee yard #4 soon. I love this area and right now, the weather's been pretty perfect for south Texas. Not too hot yet and the flowers keep blooming like crazy. If I'm this happy, then I can't imagine how happy the bees must be.

Flower Explosion

This spring has been one of the best flowering springs I have experienced in my 15 years living here and I am happy I stayed here long enough to enjoy such a sight! Every time I drive somewhere, I am truly amazed at the new flowers that have appeared that weren't there a week ago. And many of these I haven't seen here before. It's wonderful!

Currently, it seems there are a lot of yellow and purple flowers of different varieties blooming. BUT...there are also these beautifully delicate white flowers (anyone know the name) along with the Indian Blanket shown below. By the way, the bees LOVE Indian Blankets. They were all over these as I was photographing at a friend's home out in the country this evening. We ate dinner before heading out to see Jim, who had contacted Mark about a swarm. I guess we took too long for they were gone when we got there though Mark said they were likely nearby as they were buzzing the flowers pretty well. Thanks for showing us around, Jim!

Spurs Fever in Seguin

It's playoffs and you know what that means! The noisy clappers and banging sticks come out as we support our awesome Spurs. Tonight's win puts us up on the Dallas Mavericks 3 games to 1. One more and we move to the next round. :-) GO SPURS GO!!!!!!!!

Gorgeous Day after a Cloudy Week

(These are tiny blooms from our bush but they are packed with sweet fragrance!)

Today was absolutely gorgeous here in Seguin after what seems like two weeks of mostly to all cloudy days, one after another. And there was a ton of activities in the community I noticed as I drove around on errands. We had a fundraising BBQ plate event at church and I know friends whose church is also having a festival this weekend. Then there was the Trade Days event along with Farmers' Market and we think an Earth Day event, too. All at one time. BUT...I still made time to enjoy sitting on the deck for a bit with Smokey, who was snoozing. It looked so comfortable I plopped down next to him but in the sun to soak it in. The breeze was PERFECT - no humidity. Gosh, if we had this sort of weather more often, then I'd never dream of another state with four seasons! :-)

Good Eats - Grain Bin on Hwy 123

On my way home from work, a friend called to say that there may be a swarm out in her area so we got our boots and gear together and headed out there to check out the area. While we did not see the swarm (too bad), we did enjoy the lovely evening out in the countryside. We also decided to stop at a restaurant called The Grain Bin on Highway 123, just past Geronimo. This is about 15 minutes from Seguin, headed north.

We had a burger and shared onion rings. And dessert. It's a treat since we've both been working out pretty regularly and dropping some pounds. The food was delicious, the staff wonderfully friendly and the environment clean. Can't ask for more. Oh wait! You can...there's a shop in the front area of the restaurant sort of like The Cracker Barrel. Nice! Check them out if you are traveling between Seguin and San Marcos.

Rain, Rain, Rain, Boots

Well, if you've been in the area, then you know exactly why I am posting these pictures. We have had rain, rain, and more rain. I'm not complaining because it means a lot of food for our bees which translates to happy bees and more honey for everyone! It also means rainboots are really needed if we want to check on the bees without worrying about our shoes getting muddied, which is what's happened in the past.

Two weeks ago, Academy stores had tons of rubber boots on their shelves. Now, however, the shelves were pretty picked over and we had difficulty finding what we liked in our sizes. After checking three different stores and Dick's (btw, they do NOT carry rubber boots other waders for fishing folks), we finally found some options! I love the patterns - very fun. But in the end, I went conservative. No leapard spots for me.



As a side note, I loaded these boot pictures on my Flickr and was then totally amazed at how my views spiked in one day. I think it was a record for me...something like 700+ total views in one day! The bottom picture has over 200 views. LOL...really? Who knew rubber boots drew such attention!?

In other news, my sweet friend Tammy is celebrating her 700th post! That's right...700! She's one of the nicest people I have ever met and we'd both love it if you visit her site and check out a chance to win one of her paintings. :-)

Sky Watch Friday

Happy Friday, everyone. Today I was told that I seemed more invigorated, energized and happier. I think it had to do with the fact that I was at the Texas Library Association's Annual Conference yesterday with Mark. He's manning his publisher's booth this year at the Exhibits. It's so much fun! Especially since neither of us work in libraries any longer. Got to see friends and make new ones. Anyway, I am feeling very contented today and that makes me feel good.

Here's a happy sky watch shot for you - sunset sky with more Mesquite trees and a little bee. Do you see her? They've been enjoying the fair weather of recent weeks though the past couple of days have been rainy on and off. This will really give the trees, grass and flowers a real boost! The Mesquite trees should be blooming soon and the bees love that. You know what that means - good honey!

Have a great weekend! And for you San Antonians - HAPPY FIESTA!

Swarm Season

Normally this picture would likely go on our bee blog, but I felt you should know that we are expecting an active season of swarming this year. Mark has spoken with our fire chief and he is ready for it and so are we! The other day Mark got his first call to go out and see about a big swarm of bees at a local business. I was able to join him during lunch and I caught a few snaps of the swarm capture. Then I got a great lunch at Shrimp Barn on top of the excitment. It was so much fun to tag along for that!

Just so you know, most of the time during swarms, bees are actually pretty gentle. You should NOT panic and assume they're going to attack because more than likely they won't. Mark taught me that. If you want to see just how gentle they are, be sure to see the video we put on our bee blog where Mark's about a foot away from a big swarm out at one of our bee yards. Just call the authorities and if you're in town, they'll probably call Mark. Then we'll get to meet you!

Good night! :-)

Miniature Donkey & "Quotation Marks"

I didn't even know there were mini-donkeys!!! Poor little thing. If you can help them, please do so. Otherwise, isn't this just a great way to kick off the week? I love great signs. :-)

That reminds me, I need to check on one of my favorite blogs - the "blog" of "unnecessary" quotation marks. If you have not read this and you want a GREAT laugh, then go there. It's hysterical!!!

Happy Friday

I hope you all have a really wonderful weekend! The past week has seen some cloud coverage but yesterday and today were fairly sunny and crisp. It's been wonderful to get out and see all that nature has to offer us lately. This is a shot of a tucked-away pond out at one of our bee yards. This was the first time I explored beyond the immediate area of the yard so it was a really sweet treat. The air was soft as it was dusk and I could hear the nearby buzz of the swarming bees we went to capture. It's nice to get away from work and man-made noise once in a while.

Mesquite at Dusk

Also enjoying the spring sunshine are the mesquite trees. Today Mark saw the first bloom coming out.

More Spring Blooms

Things continue to bloom all around town and out in the country. This is a yucca plant and when they are in bloom, they are so gorgeous - I just want to stop and stare at them. The blooms are huge and abundant as you can see but for some reason, the bees don't seem to be interested in them. Not sure why.

You'll also notice the mesquite are finally coming out now. Mark was a little worried about them since they seemed a little late but we're happy they are catching up just fine. The flowers are amazing around here - full of color and vibrancy. We went driving Sunday evening and I had a lovely time soaking in the variety of blooms in the countryside. Flowers make everything look beautiful...even a dirty ditch!

Hoppy Easter!

Hope everyone had a wonderful Easter weekend with family and/or friends. I miss having little ones around so that I can make baskets for a hunt. The last time I did that was when nieces, nephews and sisters came to visit us several years ago. Those are very fond memories of a fun, fun time.

I am currently in love with Lily's Cookies. They are so yummy and so cute! Check them out if you are in SA. I'm glad some of the treats ended up in our baskets. :-)

Hope you all have a WONDERFUL week!

Good to be off on Good Friday

Looks like Caterpillar's new plant is coming along very nicely in town. I sure hope they give tours when it's done. I'd love to get an inside look. All along IH10 as well as in town, you can see plenty of construction happening which may surprise some of you. It surprises us quite frequently.

Spring Flowers

More loveliness of spring blooming all around us.

Fields of Color

Today we went driving on Hwy 90A towards Gonzales in order to check on the bee yard out there. It's gorgeous along the way! If you haven't seen enough wildflowers, then you need to go out that way. I love how the blue and the red flowers are mixing in this area. Last time we were out that way (a couple of weeks), the Bluebonnets were not even around yet. This time, you can find many fields of blue. And yellow, purple, lavender, violet, white and so on. It's a great spring so far with the bright sunny days after a good dose of rain.

The Mockingbirds are back!

Now I am sure spring is in full swing because the mockingbirds are back and they are likely to start prepping their nest in our Crepe Myrtle again out front. I love it when they come back each year. Most of the nest is still there but I'm sure we'll start seeing the pair of them rebuilding and stabilizing their nest for a new batch of eggs to come. I love spring!

Red Wildflowers

The flowers are starting to really pop around here and I can't wait to see how they develop over the next month. The rainy winter should really be just what they need to shine this year. I love looking at all of them! I have not seen these red flowers in such quantity before this year. If you know what they are, please let us know. :-)

It's Spring!

Well, guess who's busy running around the yard being a nuisance? No, not Smokey. The squirrels!!! LOL. This guy has a weird sort of smile, in my opinion. After I snapped this, Mark threw a rock at him and actually hit him! That was sort of funny. Not to worry animal lovers, he was FINE. He just moved and resumed staring at us. Smokey was with us and was not amused whatsoever.

Hope you guys have a wonderful weekend. I hear tomorrow will be wet and chilly! Yay! A good day to snuggle on the couch with a book, knitting or your love. Enjoy!

Redbud Beauty

Yes, I realize there's a theme going here but who can blame me when there's a million blooming beauties all around town now?? This redbud is right in our front yard but as you drive around town, you will see this along with other gorgeous blooms. Today I even saw my first batch of Bluebonnets along Interstate 10 on the way to San Antonio.

In this shot, the female bee is checking out our redbud and she already has pollen on her hind legs, which she'll take back to a hive. That hive isn't in our backyard so I wonder where she's from. The entire tree is abuzz with bee activity! We have another redbud in the backyard and that's full of bees also.

More of Spring in Blooms

Another shot of spring for you this week. The peach tree in our backyard bloomed and we were very happy to see bees on the tree! In past years, the bees simply didn't do the job for our little tree, sadly. Maybe this will mean good peaches this year for us. :-) We don't have our hives in the yard anymore (moved to another bee yard), so I'm not sure where this little gal came from this day.

It's been really great weather lately with spring in full swing it seems. Flowers are everywhere and trees are putting out little leaves. I enjoyed our nice winter this year but I am also enjoying the spring. Tonight we are to have some rain and tomorrow will be in the upper 50s but after that...more sunshine! That's great for lifting spirits I think. We could all use a lot of that, right?! Hope you all have a great week.

Spring in Bloom

The past few days have been a bit on the dreary side but last weekend, we did enjoy an absolutely gorgeous day that beckoned us out. So, out we ventured to visit our bees, which was just awesome! And...NO stings! Yay! That makes like seven or eight straight visits without a sting so that is awesome to me. :-)

Isn't this beautiful? It's flowers on bok choy that is growing at My Father's Farm. Normally, they would not get to "flower" since they'd be harvested before that point. We are so lucky and so are our bees - the farmer let these go to flower so they'd have food! And boy, were they enjoying the bok choy. It was really fun to visit there.

Nice Napping Weather

Hi everyone. I hope you had a chance to enjoy the lovely weather of the weekend since we are now cloudy and cold again. What strange weather. This is Smokey's idea of how to work with a beautiful sunny day. He got tired of sitting at the door, hoping Mark would let him in to hang out in the bee house. The next time I looked out the kitchen window, he was napping. He's a riot. But not very bright at times as he chose a terrible spot for a snooze.

I haven't posted lately because I haven't had the heart. Last Friday, we had a big round of layoffs at work and it was very sad. I lost my entire team of trainers and I miss them so. Please send positive thoughts and prayers out to all the families affected by this round of layoffs. It wasn't our first there but it was a very significant one, especially for our IT department. If you are local, you've probably been hearing about the layoffs already. We are all still a bit stunned by all that occurred Friday. :-(

Don't Recollect Their Names

Hi everyone. I have been down with some health issues lately so I'm not publishing regularly but I just had to share this bit of news with you in case you can join us tomorrow night at the local library. This is Mark's second presentation and it ties in with the book #2 he's been working on about how to use different types of records to confirm the identities of individuals being researched. He's presented this one already in Corpus Christi and San Antonio and those went very well. It's always exciting for me to see how he helps other researchers find new avenues to explore in order to get beyond roadblocks they may have encountered.

I'm feeling better and plan to be at this event so I hope you will be there, too! If you are, please be sure to introduce yourself if we haven't met. I love to meet new people who follow the blog. Well, I just love to meet new people anyway, even if they don't read the blog. :-)

Sky Watch

Thank goodness it's Friday tomorrow. The week has flown by and I sure feel tired so I'm just going to say goodnight. But before I do that, here's a shot of a sunset I shot while visiting another potential bee yard with Mark recently. What a great sky we saw that night.

For more of this week's great sky shots, be sure to visit the Sky Watch page. Good night folks!

Kolbe Flower Shop

Did everyone survive the crazy weekend? I hope you had a nice one with the beautiful weather! For Valentine's Day, I received a beautiful arrangement of flowers from one of the nicest flower shops in town - Kolbe Flower Shop on Austin Street. I love their quaint shop and the service is awesome there. They also did an arrangement for our wedding and Mark's gotten me numerous gifts there (thanks honey!). Below is one of the pretty flowers from my special gift. :-)

Valentine Preparedness

Are you ready for tomorrow? If not, you should get in your car and head over HEB on Court Street. Along the way, you will see vendors selling flowers, perfume, gift baskets, balloons and who knows what else. I saw all of that as I drove to HEB to pick up some groceries and flowers for Tet tomorrow. These are shots at the store - there were a lot of folks looking and buying Valentine's Day goodies. I liked the orchids they had (right side of the top shot). Cupid was good to me and brought my flowers early :-). Thanks hon!

Beautiful Birds on a Beautiful Day

Does anyone know what these birds are called? I don't recall ever seeing them here in our yard before last weekend and I am fascinated by them. They're gorgeous. And they provided me with my first photography session in a long while. I saw a bird commotion while looking out the kitchen window and after a few shots from inside, I went out, accompanied by Smokey. That was interesting.



Got some great shots and a cool video of them (on YouTube if you want to see it) doing their bird thing, whatever that was. I couldn't tell if they were drinking or eating. I have never seen birds gather like that in that hole in the pecan tree. I have, however, seen squirrel activity up there. Perhaps the birds got into a stash hidden by the squirrels. Not sure and it's too high up for me to check. Darn.

The beautiful blue sky day last just Saturday. It's been cold, gray and rainy since Sunday and we are all ready for some sunshine. The great news is that the rain will hopefully mean gloriously rich fields of color as the wildflowers bloom this year. I'm hoping for millions of wildflowers. I miss them so and our drought last year meant very few flowers. It was so sad. Here's to a better year this time around.

Speaking of starting off a new year, guess what Sunday is? NOT just Valentine's Day. Guess.

Goat Sighting

So here's a sight you just don't see everyday, right? Well that's what I thought last week when the goats had gotten out from a nearby field and were grazing on the luxurious field across from our mill. At that time, there was too much traffic to stop and get a shot. THIS week, they are at it again! And since they were right next to the road, I just stopped at my stop sign, lowered my passenger window and snapped a shot or two. It made me laugh to see them. Reminds me of that Brady Bunch episode with the goat in the attic...

Durango's Mexican Restaurant

If you haven't been to our new Durango's, then I would recommend it. Very yummy breakfast, great service with a great smile and a very inviting environment in which to enjoy your food. Mark took me to breakfast this morning before we both went our separate ways to our separate work.

This is located near HEB, behind the Baytown restaurant, which we haven't been to yet but a friend of mine said he and his wife enjoyed the food there and recommended it also. I'm beginning to think I am turning this into a tour of food/restaurants. :-) But that's part of the fun of exploring our little town. Now, if I could just see a great Thai or Vietnamese place...

Local Office Depot

Today we had a gorgeous day though a bit on the nippy side. Check out our gorgeous blue sky! We had a lovely lunch with wonderful friends at a Mexican restaurant I had not tried before, Casa del Sol (very good chicken flautas, great service and clean environment). Afterwards, we stopped by the office supply store in town to pick up some organization tools - hanging folders, folder bins and a label maker! Isn't it cute?



Technology and the convenience it affords us these days continues to amaze me on a daily basis. This gadget was pretty affordable, compact and required no special software to be loaded on your computer. Very nice. I don't like bogging down computer performance with a ton of applications on the hard-drive. Anyway, it was so easy to use! You plug it into the USB port and it pops up a window and you start typing your labels. Though not a fancy model, you can still edit with simple graphics and font styling. Amazing. We are now organizing like crazy. Well, Mark is. :-)

I SHOULD be organizing. Instead, I am making soup! One of my favorites that I have not made in a while - lima bean and pork riblets soup. I'll let you know how it goes. I posted about it in January 2008 on La China blog if you would like to see what the soup looks like.

A Friendly Friday Face

Happy Friday everyone!! :-) I was a bit under earlier this week but thankfully it was just a 24 hour bug and not that yucky stomach virus going around (knock on virtual wood). Yikes. That one sounds bad though a friend of mine said he lost six pounds and used it as a launching pad for his purge and the beginning of hardcore dieting. What a great way to look at a stomach virus, right? lol

Here's a sweet new friend I made while I was photographing Mark out at the bee yard at My Father's Farm. I've seen this horse from afar but last week he actually came over and let me say hi and pet him a bit. He seems very calm and peaceful and he comes over to check us out now and then when we are looking at the bees.

This is one of the wonderful things about living in a small town like Seguin and being very near "the country." You can drive a few minutes and see some great landscape and all sorts of farm animals. And wild ones here and there. It's very peaceful and I enjoy it despite missing San Antonio and other cities of my past. But I only miss them occasionally. :-)

The Shrimp Barn

I've been meaning to post about this restaurant for about a month now! My friend Hope had told me about it and raved about the delicious food so I went with some girlfriends for a Christmas lunch and gift exchange. We loved it!



This is the plate I got. I can't recall the number or name but I believe it's the seafood combination, which includes shrimp and crabcake. It was yummy though I still feel no one has matched my mom's crab cakes. Still, this was a great lunch. The salad bar includes gumbo, which is awesome. Just the right amount of okra - it's always disappointing when you get gumbo and there's only two pieces in there.



And these rolls are baked fresh everyday we were told! The restaurant is SMALL so when you go, go early, late or plan to wait. It's worth it, however. The facility was very clean and the staff was super nice! It's the kind of restaurant that makes our small town awesome and welcoming. Go try it out!

Welcome Back!

To us, that is! Hi everyone. I wanted to get a quick post in before I head to bed. It's been a busy week and an even busier day as we spent most of it tending to the bees at the farm location. That was a lot of fun. I had not seen any of the bees in over a month since Mark checks on them during the week typically and I'm at work those days.

We've been traveling quite a bit lately to get supplies and equipment ready for this year's beekeeping activities. This last trip took us to Georgia but we took a detour to visit my side of the family in Florida. It was wonderful to see them even if it was just for an evening and the next morning. This is a shot from my parents' front yard and in the shadows, you can make out Lake Louisa. Very pretty. So yea, I know it's not Seguin. But since I wasn't in Seguin this week, I've got to share this one with you.

I hope you all have had wonderful weeks and that your weekend will be even better! :-)

A cold, cold January

It's been a while and I realized I had not written since the first of the year! Sorry folks! It's just been busy I guess and time got away from me. I hope everyone's year is getting off to a GREAT start! Our year is wonderful so far and we can't complain.

The weather's actually been rather exciting this winter. For one thing, it's actually COLD. I've been here almost fifteen years now and my body feels it more than when I first got here. It's okay, though, because I love cold weather since that means I get can all layered up and wear my favorite hat and scarves. This week was mild but before this we actually were in the 30s quite a bit with several nights in the 20s. Wind chill lower than that. Cold for south Texas for sure.

The second thing about the weather is that we've been getting plenty of rain! Woo hoo! You know what that means after a brutally hot, dry summer. WILDFLOWERS this year! Last year I was so sad that we had barely a wildflower in the area due to the drought. :-( So let's hope this year will be gloriously lush with blooms! Some of the trees and plants seem to have been hit a little hard by the freezing temperatures while others seem okay. I planted some potted plants recently and luckily they seem to be holding up just fine.

Welcome 2010!

Hope everyone had a wonderful day on this first day of 2010! Did you party hard last night? :-) Hope today found you safe and sound and happy for a fresh new start.

Now don't get too excited...Apple's not in Seguin (unfortunately!). I'd be happy if we could start with getting Target here in town. Who knows, maybe with Caterpillar and its affiliates coming to town, we MIGHT be able to finally get more high end retail in town. We'll see.

Anyway, we rolled into the new year by having an absolutely marvelous day together on a gorgeous day! The sky was blue as can be and the temperature was wonderful in the 50s. Mark's sister came and hung out for a while and brought a wonderful lintyl soup for us all and then we ran into SA to celebrate a very early birthday for my love. This has been an Apple sort of holiday season for us both. We both now have either an iTouch or an iPhone and LOVE them. Technology can be so darn cool, it is totally amazing! I love it. And the service is pretty darn impressive at the Apple Store. That's just so hard to find these days so it's refreshing.