Tuesday, January 28, 2014

I Jinxed It....

















...Here I said it felt like Spring was deep in the ground, waiting to come out, and then this happens. Mother Nature must be following my blog. When she saw my post before last, she must've laughed and gone, "Watch this! No Spring for you!"

Ah well. It's beautiful, and I shall enjoy it while its lasts. Even if that means I'm trapped on our little mountain here.

...Hopefully we'll be able to get the car back soon. It's still trapped on the hill in a pile of snow and ice.

Be safe and enjoy whatever day off this snow has afforded you (if you live around Georgia)! ♥

It's Snowing!

Bit intense today. School was canceled AFTER I was dropped off, making for a rather awful trip for my mom. We rode together today to save gas, so she was out shopping. She turned around when she heard the college had closed, came and got me, and then we began our 20 mph trek down the interstate. In one place we slid down the center of the highway between semis and a lane full of cars...sideways. That was a bit of fun...Not really. Now the car is stuck on the side of the mountain leading to my house, and it looks like AAA will get here in about 5 hours to help us. So we just hiked to the house, down to the car to get groceries, and back again. In three inches (and growing!) of snow. So with our car about a five to ten minute hike away from our house, we can only sit and wait and hope that no one else slides down the hill and slams into the car....If we tried to move it anymore, we'd be in a deep ditch. So, we'll see. Sitting and praying, thankful that God protected us on our dangerous way home. Aside from worrying about the condition of the car, we're snug inside admiring the fluff that is acumulating rather quickly now.

Took some pictures to share! Hope you're all safe in this winter weather! 

 

Monday, January 27, 2014

Spring is Alive












There are moments in the dead of winter when it feels warm. The wind may be cold and chapping your lips and the ponds may still be frozen solid, but the skies are clear and the sun is shining brightly. Everything seems to be fresh and new bathed under the ever-nearing sunlight, and it is refreshing to the soul! Spring shall come yet!

Monday, January 20, 2014

Honeycomb, Honeycomb!







After a grueling 5 hours straight of working on math homework, my brain was not only a bowl of mush, but craving outdoor air. I indulged in just that.

Turns out, my timing was great. My mom was already outside with my little brother, readying the bee yard for spring. There is a lot to clean up, as winter has made quite a mess of things. Even though we lost two hives to the insane cold (even after attempts to keep them warm), we still have five strong hives that are starting to bring in the first traces of pollen. Where they're getting the fluffy yellow stuff, I have no idea, but the girls are finding it! Something is blooming somewhere, and you never know just how early some plants start waking up for the spring until the bees bring pollen back in the time you consider to still be winter. But they're very healthy and were flying about like crazy on this warmer day.

Bee hives are pretty much boxes stacked on top of each other, hollow boxes that are then filled with frames that are lined up on the inside. The bees will then build their comb on the frames, making it easy for the beekeeper to check the frames and extract the honey from them later in the year. Well, one hive got a box...but no frames. So the bees, being the honest-to-goodness perfect creatures they are, wasted no time utilizing the space they had been given. So instead of building the comb onto a wooden frame, they attached their comb onto the inner lid of the hive, creating stalactite-like rows of comb for themselves. This comb was then filled with honey and brood (the babies), then removed by my mom when they had stopped using it. The results are what you see above. Perfect and sturdy hexagonal chambers that can prove in and of themselves through their intricate perfection that only God could have created them!

"Eat honey, my son, for it is good; honey from the comb is sweet to your taste." Proverbs 24:13

"Pleasant words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones." Proverbs 16:24

""I have kept my feet from every evil path so that I might obey your word. I have not departed from your laws, for you yourself have taught me. How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!" Psalm 199:101-103

Have a wonderful Monday, everyone! I'm at class all day tomorrow, and I am tired right now as it is. Gotta get up early! ♥ 

Saturday, January 18, 2014

Passing the First Week of Classes

So, my friends, it has been a little while since I last wrote here, and a new semester in college is to blame for that one. While the amount of classes I am taking is normal, the schedule has been crammed into two days, making me unavailable then, and then loaded with homework for the next several days, especialy Wednesday, which is my day in between classes AND church activities all smunched into one. Oi! But, regardless, I am sruviving quite well, it seems, and am keeping ontop of everything. I seem to have some great professors, and the classes are fun and right up my alley. I'm doing more creative writing for this English class, which thrills the eloquent side of my mind to no end, and my Humanities class encouragest being artistic, too. In fact, I've been placed into a literary group there. We're to make a magazine as a class project based off of something that stands out to us in each chapter. Fun things ahead there, I do believe.

As you can tell, I've been pretty busy. Very busy, to say the least. I'm hoping to get a hold of this schedule and find out soon if it would be possible for me to apple for a part time job in a salon, but looking at everything from now, I may not be able to. It could end up meaning I sacrifice my grades...which wuld hurt, seeing as I would like to hang onto that 4.0 I got last year.

So it is certainly a time for prayer, and I have been working on that very much as well. Trying my hardest to finish a prayer and not fall asleep in bed at the end of the day like I have done a few times so far. I'm trying to start praying earlier and earlier so that the chances of me falling asleep while I'm talking to God will slim down...but then everyone wants to be around me because they haven't seen me all day, so there's that. I'll get that balance worked out soon.

No pictures today, I'm afraid. I haven'lt had anything exciting to photograph, save for a few selfies taken in a slaphappy moment between me and my sister. I could write pictures worth a million words about what I see at school between classes, but that would freak people out. It freaks me out. It's very odd, very odd.

I can't think of anything else to update you all on at the moment. I'm on my tablet, so excuse any odd typos you find. The keyboard is significantly smaller than what I'm used to, so an extra key may slip in here and there. This should come in handy for English class, though, since the classroom has no computers in it to write on. Haha!

Dinner seems to be getting close to being done, so I'm off to feed the younger mouths!

Have a great Saturday, everyone! <3

Tuesday, January 7, 2014

Good Sparkling Buttons!




I have recently adopted these little beauties. My mom found them in a plastic bag and considered tossing them out, but I quickly ran up and, like the pack rat I am, offered to take them instead with plans to use them in my crochet work. I can see broaches and button-up satchels in the future...and I shall do it, too! These little things are elegant and have just the right about of glam to work with even the most rustic of projects. I tend to see a use for anything everything (hence my hoarding of bottles and ribbons), and these screamed of usefulness to me. So now they're in my room, about to be sorted into my bead box...even though they are, in fact, buttons.

While I was deciding how to present this unique story of adoption to you all, I was playing with the settings on my new camera. Turns out, there is a special effect that puts sparkles into your picture. The results are lovely, and I was greatly amused and inspired to sparkle-fy everything. If it weren't quite so cold outside, I'd go take pictures of frost and ice and make them sparkle like a winter wonderland!

Ah, I digress. Enough rambling for now! I just wanted to show off my beads and sparkles, ha!

Wishing you all a great Tuesday, even if you are all frozen over....like we are here. We have to leave the faucets running so the water pips don't freeze again, and there are heaters under the house and in the bee yard.

Stay warm and avoid the ice on the roads! ♥

Sunday, January 5, 2014

The Life of Winter
























Many people think winter is a dead time of year. Next to nothing is green. The grass goes brown, all of the crowned deciduous glories of spring and summer have shed their leaves, and delicate blossoms of various colors shriveled up and dropped away into the leaf litter. Nothing but the towering pines, relatives of trees that almost symbolize the winter season itself, are left in their "forever" dim greens. Vegetable gardens shrink away into oblivion, and vines and shrubs go dormant. With the cold, sunless air, the feeling of loss and death seem to be all around.

But, clearly, this is not the case. Nothing has really died (unless it happens to be a neglected houseplant that was set out on the front porch and forgotten). Life is everywhere still, shooting beneath bark and soil, glimmering invisibly like fairy dust in nature's veins. Under the layers of cold is a life that cannot be extinguished by the nature surrounding it. It only sleeps or moves more slowly, more carefully, during this time.

This life was very clearly evident as I wandered about the property today, clutching my very own camera this time. It was the calm before the storm, slightly warmer than usual, but still chilling to the face. I was bundled up enough to keep the bite out, taking care to make sure the cold air didn't get into my lungs too quickly and worsen the cough that seems to be staying with me for a winter vacation. It's been some time since I was last let loose among the nature of our yard, and this trip was magical for me. The first photo shoot of the year and the first time I have really been able to go outside since the last half of December (due to the flu).

Of course, I was not disappointed by my "dead" findings. My parents were outside planting our baby blueberry bushes where fruitless trees once stood and quickly informed me that there were deer bedding down near the blackberry patch. The smashed grasses I found there were clearly made by such dainty hooved creatures, and I smiled as I imagined their slim bodies coming so close to the house to stay warm, and that we were able to provide them with some place to go during the icy nights. Goodness knows how many are there, but I have unknowingly come close to one that was near the front deck in late fall when I went outside. It jumped up loudly and bounded down the yard and across the street in a brown smear. I would guess it was a doe, but I didn't get a good enough glance to tell for sure. But there are undoubtedly deer living or at least spending significant time on our property, leaving their footprints about the soft earth.

I stopped to watch my parents plant a pink lemonade blueberry bush later, laughing with my mom at the fact that the entire root ball was frozen as she tried to pry the compacted roots apart before she settled the plant into the freshly dug hole. And frozen it was, though the bush didn't seem to mind in the slightest, standing tall and healthy even though it had no leaves.

Near the edge of the yard where the woods technically start were these little fluffy, twiggy plants. I'm not sure at all what they are, but they are...well, fluffy. Quite photogenic, too, and very fairy-like. Just the most fragile, soft looking tufts of softness I have ever seen. I like them quite a lot.

I headed for my next love moments later: a big patch of moss behind the greenhouse and under the pear trees. It looks a little worn and, honestly, fried, but there was a lovely ol' rock, pretty thing, surrounded by the spongy green stuff and deserved a picture. I'll never miss an opportunity to look for some moss. I'm surprised I haven't gotten some to put in pots here in the house. I ought to do that when it's warmer out.

It's been cold here, too. Very cold, and it's supposed to get even colder. This means that anything that collected the rain we had back in December has frozen over. Most of these containers have branches, leaves, and plants in them, making for very interesting photo opportunities. The ice in the fire pit attracted me first. It's full of branches and leaves that had been tossed in to burn sometime back, now resulting in a unique arrangement of preserved greenery and trapped air bubbles. If I could keep ice in a jar for decorative purposes, I would do it without a second thought....I may even put moss in the bottom of it! Next I saw that my mom's bog plant barrel had also frozen over, and the beautiful pitcher plants were sticking straight out of the ice. It was quite beautiful in a simple, frozen way, and I was glad I could capture it.

Random other little pretty things caught my eye as I wandered about. After a while, I eventually turned my eyes to the darkening sky. A winter storm is on the way, and in the distance I could see the cloud warning of upset. The way they bubbled, darker than the rest of the skyward blanket of cotton, spoke of snow, something we don't get much of around here except by freak accident. Time to settle in for the night and wait out the ice and very freezing temperatures.

At the moment, I am snuggled down at my computer with a hot cup of tea, still feeling inspired from finding the life still in winter.

Have a happy Sunday, everyone! Stay warm and safe, especially with it getting so cold! ♥