Happy, Happy New Year!

From happy, happy us. Here's to a wonderfully crazy busy 2011 - let's hope 2012 will be even better, filled with more adventures I will share with you all here. I hope to be able to do a better job posting to this blog - that's my one resolution! :) Meanwhile, be careful out there and be safe. Meet you back here in 2012, my friends.

Meowee Christmas!

 
Merry Christmas, everyone! Hope you all have had a wonderful day filled with love, laughter and peace.

Fall in Our Lil World

As I got in the car this morning, I was struck by the beautiful coloring of our peach tree. I love having the bee boxes in the yard.

2nd Annual Gretchen Bee Ranch Holiday Open House

Sorry I've been busy - it's the holiday season so you know what that means! All sorts of events to get our name, honeys and beeswax products out on the market. We're having a great time meeting folks and sharing information along with our products but our favorite event is tomorrow. That's because people get to come to the Bee Ranch and check out the honey house - we'll have food, good music and a lot of fun. Hope you can swing by to visit and shop. Or if you're done with your Christmas shopping, you can just pull up a chair and chat. We'd enjoy that. Off to bed I go. We have class in the morning (10-12p) before the Open House; I'm going to need some energy! Goodnight.

Gobble Gobble

Hopefully you are baking, relaxing and/or spending time with loved ones...and I don't mean Best Buy. As much as I like BB. :-)

Game Stop Crew

I went with a friend to Game Stop so she could pick up the newest game out - MW3. I didn't even know what that stood for at first. And I had never been to Game Stop so I wanted to tag along. These two cracked me up! They were so funny and enthusiastic about their work, which I think is great. If it wasn't for them, then the rest of us would have to keep up with all the games and names and scenarios and tips for getting to level 4,506...and who can remember all the Pokemon names! I know Pikachu and Jiggly Puff. They had me laughing so hard, I knew I had to post about them. And as soon as I asked them for a shot, they had their poses ready. I loved that! So, if you need a game, go see the friendly guys at Game Stop in Seguin. :)

Boo!

Hope everyone's had a good Monday and a safe and fun Halloween today. I never got around to a bee costume but I did see it was a popular costume this year! Go bees! I ran to Walmart in order to shop for our neighbor, who's not able to get out and about easily anymore. To balance out the fact that it's challenging to shop for someone else, I had two really funny conversations --- this couple parked next to me and they were so fun and sweet, trying to explain to me who they were (I still am not sure) that I told them I would blog about them. They were really polite young kids. Then I ran to pick up some dinner and the server gave me my order and he had a face mask on...said it was an evil pumpkin. lol, made me laugh on both counts and I needed to laugh. I love it that people are able to enjoy life. It is a good feeling.

Beep-beep, Road Runner!

 
When I was growing up, Saturday mornings were the only days I eagerly got up without wakeup calls from my parents or siblings. Cartoons were on and we got to watch all morning until Kung Fu Theatre came on at noon. After that, the TV was turned off. :-) I loved the Bugs Bunny, Road Runner Show. I mainly just loved Bugs Bunny. I was often irritated by how futile the Coyote's efforts were to capture Road Runner. When I moved to Texas, I learned the Road Runner was called a Chaparral. Hmm. And it was not tall with long legs. And it did not run around, going "Beep, beep." :-) Bummer. But every time I see a Chaparral, I hear the beeps in my mind. And it makes me smile. When I go with Mark out to Deadman Creek bee yard, I get to see lots of Chaparrals so I get to smile often. Have a SUPER week, friends!

Revitalizing Rains

 
It's been a couple of weeks since our last great rainfall but we continue to see how alive the landscape has become with just a touch of rain. No amount of hand-watering can work the magic that real rain provides. It's wonderful! Things are green again and we even have flowers blooming, which is great news for our bees as well as for us. The color bloom we are seeing most is yellow - blooms of all sizes, large and small. The bees are loving it!

The Palace, A Goat & A Turtle

This evening we actually had time to rest and work on things around the house and prepare for our bee class tomorrow morning. Then we drove around town to see what was happening here and there - the Palace was nicely lit. We wish it could be a current run sort of theatre - would LOVE that! But any time it or the Texas Theatre are lit up it's beautiful. Below is a shot from a friend of ours when he wandered around the fairground last weekend when he came by to visit us at the GBR booth his honey was working with me at the time. I love turtles and I think goats are cute when they are small. This picture just cracked us up! Crazy goat! They do the funniest things ever. Like one minute they'll be standing there and then the next minute they kick up and trot around. Hilarious. Makes me laugh every time.

 

The Biggest Pecans Ever!

Recently my wonderful friend, and roommate of several years during college, came to visit. It was so awesome! We talked non-stop and Mark couldn't even interrupt our flow at some points, poor man. LOL. We also got to show her the bees. AND we took her to see the big pecan on the square. I sat in the back so she could have a good view of the sights of Seguin and I watched as we neared the square to see if she'd do the same thing I did when I was first introduced to the World's Largest Pecan. She did. She looked up, into the sky. She was looking for the World's Largest Pecan the same way I did fifteen years ago. I laughed so hard! And then I told her to look down! I love that. And she loved the pecan. And then we had to take her to see the new World's Largest Pecan (For Real). :-) We had a lovely weekend together.

 

Rain vs Fair

Well we are sitting around with all the other vendors, blogging, listening to music or a football game, checking the rain and the parking lot, and wandering around. Rain doesn't help to get folks to visit our honey booth but we'll take it over sales right now :-). We sure needed this rain.

I finally loaded Blogger on my 'company phone' (GBR) so hopefully you'll see more posts more regularly.

It's nice someone is enjoying the great, hot outdoors. See the green grass? We pay a nice price to keep it going for our bee classes. Who wants to learn about bees or light a smoker when the grass is brown and crunchy. I get scared just thinking about it.

Beware the Bike Cop

 
Beware - they are out in full force now that school has started! I have seen two officers on bikes but luckily they haven't gotten me! :-) I've been wanting to snap a shot of them in action for a while but I'm always driving or without the camera. Plus it's tricky trying to discreetly snap a shot while they are stopping someone. This is a favorite spot of theirs on Cedar near Guadalupe. So be careful and you won't have a problem. There's a school zone right around the corner and people often don't slow down.

Rain Gutters & a Dove's Nest

 
You never know when we'll get rain but you do know you want to be prepared. We've neglected the gutters for a while now so Mark took advantage of the 80-something degree weather to clean them out and guess what he found!?! Dove's nest! The mama flew off and managed to avoid Smokey's clutches (thankfully). I did yell at Smoke and throw sticks at him to distract him from hunting the poor mama dove. :-( I was just wondering the other day where this shell came from and what came out of it. Now I know. 

 

Hello Clouds

 


I am writing on what we hope will be the LAST 100 degree day of the year! That's right; I wrote it. Let's hope it comes true despite my putting it to writing. We have had either 52 or 53 days of 3-digit heat this year and we are eagerly awaiting an unusual 54F degree night tomorrow. WEIRD to go to such extremes but I'll take it. I believe this week should only be in the mid 90s. I can't wait for even cooler temperatures. But until those days get here, we are happy to see clouds in the sky so that we get a touch of cover from the intense sun.

Pigeons' Watering Hole

Today we had a TOUCH of rain but we'll take it. It was enough to create a few good puddles here and there and to green up things a bit. Maybe that's because the dust was washed off things and so things looked like the popped a bit more than they have been as of late. Sure wish we could get a little Hurricane Irene action.

This is a shot I took with Mark's iPhone this morning as I watched the pigeons through the back door - explains the weird coloring in the picture. The birds are taking turns watering from the dish we use to put rocks in when we collect them during travels. I had watered the lawn in that spot last night and I guess some water collected in the dish. I'm glad it provided them with a bit of relief. You can also see how brown our garden is - I gave up on trying to keep it going. Too hot. Too dry. Maybe next year we'll get more done in the garden.

Dublin Dr. Pepper for Friends

This special Dublin Dr. P is just for my special friend Down Under - hope you are well, friend! :-) Thanks for continuing to check on me.

And another special shout out to my other special friend Little Jess - thanks for bringing us some special Dr. P! Love you.

In the Year of the Drought

You know it's a bad rain year when the prickly pear is looking like this. :-( We need rain! And some relief from 3-digit heat wouldn't hurt either. Just saying...

Here's how lovely the prickly pear can be -

Drink, anyone?

We have a new liquor store in town, in case you haven't noticed it (if you live here). It's where the Blockbuster used to be - that's right. No more Blockbuster video rentals! I haven't been inside the new store but when we drive by there in the evenings, I am always drawn to the beautiful and colorful glass bottles on display. Unlike most other beverage stores I've ever see, this store has the bottles displayed quite nicely against the clear glass windows. Nice design. Snapped this with an iPhone - doesn't do the colors justice but you get the drift.