Category: Saturday Snapshots

Good morning!   Saturday morning here and I am enjoying my coffee this morning and contemplating my day.  We are due for rain today… but currently the skies look they could go either way. 

Last weekend my college son and I took a trip up North to our cabin, I thought for Saturday Snapshots (Hi Alyce!) I would give you a few pics from that trip…

 

 

 

 

 

and just for another little twist of “only in Minnesota”, my friend Heidi and I were hitting a few garage sales yesterday and on our way back from one on a side road, we seen this in the road in front of us:

 

 

So a full week of fun events AND my best purchase of the day yesterday was this awesome patio set for $55.00:

 

Ok…. now you know too much about me….LOL.  For more pics from around the world… stop over to Alyce’s at At Home With Books and check out Saturday Snapshots.

Good morning!  Happy Saturday!  😀 

The past two weekends I have had bike rides, and in honor of Alyce’s Saturday Snapshots I thought I would post a few pics I took from these rides.

 

 

 

 

 

We finished that 50 mile ride without a drop of rain on us.  No idea how that happened – we just missed it. 😀 

 

Then last Saturday I drove to meet us with my MS team for a 50 mile ride in the Cities.  This time the weather was awesome!

 

 

I did not take a whole lot of pics on this ride -f or some reason when I rode I felt awful – I ached, my neck, my legs, my arms…. the total opposite of the weekend before when I felt great.  A friend (ex -friend) of mine said, “Well Sheila, as we get older our body does not recover as quickly….”

*fingers in ears*  LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA

LOL.  So that is what I have been doing these past two weekends when not enjoying a good book.  😀 

 

This weekend, my College Son and I are heading up to our cabin on the North Shore.  We are both looking forward to this.  It is about a 3 and 1/2 drive from our home. but we will stop in Duluth for lunch, maybe Barnes and Noble… and then continue on up. We are planning some biking, hiking, board games, movies…  and we are not coming back until Monday afternoon. 😀 

 

Stop over to Alyce’s At Home With Books and see what everyone else is posting for Saturday Snapshot!  😀

I do have posts prepped…. so please stop and see me – I will totally catch up with ya all early next week 😀

Good morning.  😀

By the time you read this I should be on my way to the cities to join my friends for a bike ride this morning for MS.  I left town at 5 am, and the ride starts at 8 am. 

Last Saturday I had the wonderful opportunity to go and hang out with my friend Amanda who has just started Bee Keeping with her husband.  I can not lie, once I seen her in that bee- outfit… I knew I had to go and check this out.  Lucky for me, she understood my crazy thirst for knowledge and invited me into the hive…

literally.  😛

The had just bought more bees and would be moving them into their new homes.  I came over to help. 

This is a picture of me (left) and Amanda (right).  There are the bees they had just purchased.  They had bought four of these boxes and we were going to place two of them in their new homes.  Amanda says each box contains around 10,000 bees.

SSSQQQUUUEEE!!!!

This is the boxes that the bees will be placed in. I am sure there is a better name than “boxes” I just do not know it… 😀  The smoker thing in the background helps to mellow the bees as soon we will be letting them out of the boxes you seen in the first picture and dumping them in their new homes. 

Inside the boxes are these slats where the bees will make the honey.  The section to the front with the two holes is for a liquid we pour in that the bees will drink and it keeps then from getting ill or infected by mites and dying.  (I hope I am remembering this right).  This is a new unused bee box, that is why it looks so clean.

 

In each of those boxes you seen in the first picture is a Queen in her own little box.  Crazy right?  She has to be protected at all cost.  Amanda here will now replace the wooden cork in the end of this little box with marshmallow.  Yup, you read that right.  Then, once placed in her new home… in about three days the worker bees will eat the marshmallow enough to set her free among them.  All hail the Queen!

 

After Amanda and I thoroughly spray the bee boxes with a sugar water that makes it hard for them to fly… we pour them into their new home. 

 

After the bees are in the box, Amanda carefully replaced the slots where they will go to work making the honey!

Just playing with the camera… I feel like an Oompa Loompa.  😀

 

Before the lid goes back on this big hunk of food goes on top and I can not remember what it is called.  😀  This will feed the worker bees, who in turn feed the Queen for the next several weeks.  When the weather warms up the bees will produce their own food.

 

This is one of the bee homes that they started several weeks ago… you can see on the central grids that work is being done. 

 

 

Amanda says that every few weeks you need to check these for a couple of things.  1.  You want to remove these little sacks you find on them which I am told is the worker bees making a new Queen.  Rude right?  Apparently if the bees feels that the hive is too full they will attempt to create another Queen and then take the existing Queen and leave the hive to make a new one.  By scraping off these sacks you are assisting in preventing that.

2.  She checks for the Queen.  You want to make sure she is within the box somewhere.  This is easier said than done.  As the bees fill up these grids, another box of grids is added to the existing one on top.  Amanda says by August (harvest time) the boxes should be stacked so tall she will need a step-ladder to get into them.  Currently these older homes have only two stacked so not too deep… still, we are looking for a single Queen bee among the 10,000.  😯

How do you pick out the Queen?  She is larger and longer than the others, has longer wings and is more of a buttercup coloring .

Looking for the Queen….

The experience was incredible.  I was not nervous at all.  When we started working with the older bee homes they were more aggressive, not liking to be disturbed.  Several went for my face mask, which was kid of like 3D as they hit the mask in “attack” mode.  Before we left the area we had to wipe each others outfits down, Amanda said I was covered with bees. 

That is my contribution to this weeks Saturday Snapshot.  Stop on over and see Alyce at At Home With Books to see what others are taking pictures of around the world. 😀

Good morning and happy Saturday!  My FAVORITE day of the week.  I have had (I didn’t finish this post before I had to leave) a commitment this morning so need to get to the point today  so I am really late putting this post up this morning.  D

I want to participate in Alyce’s Saturday Snapshots but have not really thought of a theme or event of current interest so thought I would give you just a splattering of life happenings in the past two weeks or so…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Please stop by and say hi to Alyce, the host of Saturday Snapshots and see who is else is showing pictures of their corner of the world today.  🙂

In other news… I am joining the Meg Cabot read a long because it sounds like good summer time fun! 

As for this cold breezy day in Minnesota, I think I will spend part of it under the above lovely throw reading a bit of the afternoon away, and finishing the audio books of The Snowman and Home Front, both of which are on their last cd.  I may see if hubby would like to go out to dinner or something tonight. 

How are spending your Saturday?

Good morning.  Yesterday was a dreary wet day, gloomy and overcast, cold and windy.  A perfect day to read and write.  Today…. looks to be a little different.

I was on the deck at 6:30 am this morning and the air was not unpleasant.  I am thinking it is going to be a gorgeous day which in my Saturday world means:  bike rides, fresh air, and probably a little more reading as weekends that are not over booked are rare and will get rarer as the weeks go on… bike rides, cabin weekends, and events will soon fill up my luxurious low-key Saturdays.

This morning for Saturday Snapshots (*waves at Alyce*) I thought I would show you some pictures of my world from the back deck this morning.

Let me set the scene…. this is Brainerd Minnesota.  Currently the temp is 42 degrees.  (Yesterday it didn’t even touch 42 degrees).

 

 

 

 

 

Stop over to Alyce’s At Home With Books to find more pictures posted for Saturday Snapshots.

 

Tonight we are going to dinner with friends.  That will be nice.  As for this morning and afternoon I am going to spend a little time writing a review, read a little and hopefully a bike ride. 

What are your weekend plans? 

 

Good morning!  Happy Saturday.  I have coffee brewing and outside, it looks a little gloomy out and that for once, is actually ok… I have some indoor things that need to be done and have been neglected as the  weather has been pretty awesome this week and I have been biking!  😀

Yes the 2012 maiden bike voyage happened on Tuesday of this week and it was a glorious 14 miles!  On my way back to my car I seen something BIG in a tree:

Mmm hmmmmm… WHAT is that?

At this point, I determine it is a beaver.  There is some wetland near the bike trail in parts and I was near that now.  In fact as a couple of rollerbladers  passed by while I was taking pictures I pointed out the beaver in the tree.  They were not as impressed as I was, they smiled politely and kept on blading. 

It was kind of cool, his little paw would reach out for some of the leaves and I watched him for about ten minutes.  He started to climb down and I thought I would video that but he sensed my presence and FROZE and finally I waved him good-bye and good luck getting out of the tree, and moved on.

 

Coming home Wednesday evening I had this vision close to my house. 

That’s common, but I still like to look at them.  That night our dog Bailey was going nuts around 3 in the morning.  He was on the bed with us and staring out our big bay window we have in the bedroom.  Of course it was pitch black aside and I had no idea what he was seeing so I got up and went and stood by the deck doors that look over out back yard.  I could see two large darker shapes so I stepped out on to the deck and it was two deer.  I wondered if they were the same deer…

 

Now back to the other thing in the tree.  On Friday my awesome friend Amy (awesome as she agrees to do CRAZY things with me!) and I decide to go on a bike ride to the town of Nisswa, a 36 mile loop.  It’s a straight stretch on the trail and she will be doing some rides with me later this year so this is good training.  About a mile in, I see out friend in a tree again.  We stop, try to decide what it is, and eventually I start calling it a Bechuck (beaver woodchuck combo) and eventually that lead to Bebird (beaver bird combo).

When I got home last night I Googled if beavers could climb trees.  You probably already know this, the answer is no.  (I flash back to Tuesday when I told those rollerblading girls it was a beaver in the tree… no wonder they kept on blading… they probably thought I had something stronger in my water bottle than water.  😳

The verdict is….

a groundhog.

 

So there you are boys and girls.  Out wildlife lesson for today.  😀 For more fun pictures around the world be sure to pop over and see Alyce with her awesome Saturday Snapshots meme.  I love to see what people ate taking pictures of!

My day is going to consist of some household duties,blog visiting, a couple calls to friends, audio books, and some reading.  I have a few books going that I need to finish, one being the 19th Wife that is our book club read and we are discussing this coming Tuesday. 

Thankfully our weekend here is pretty quiet.  College son has to work so will not be coming home for Easter.  That is a huge bummer… but we understand.  I don’t mind quiet holidays, my life seems to go extreme so often that time to just hang is always welcome. 😀

How about you?  Any awesome plans for the weekend?  Fun traditions?

Oh!  One more thing – This weeks Monday What Are You Reading is going to have a special bonus to it.  I thought we would have a little fun since we are celebrating Easter!  Really, you are going to want to participate so be sure to plan on connecting what you are reading this week if you are a regular to the meme, and if you are new to it, stop on by Sunday evening and check out what I am talking about. 😀

Good morning!  I think after a sluggish day yesterday that included a late nap in the recliner, watching The Descendants, and really nothing more… this morning I feel… good.

Last week I missed out on Alyce’s Saturday Snapshots which I love to do, but I was out of town and not that organized prior to leaving.  As I thought about this past week and what pictures I could post this morning, I realized my week really had a strong theme to it.

Friends.

Last weekend I was in Fargo North Dakota with three friends.  We shopped, hung out, talked, went out dancing and laughed.  It is about a 3 1/2 hour drive from where I live but it was a blast!

Last Sunday, when we arrived home we had to all quickly change as three of the four of us who went away for the weekend play floor hockey and so after a quick change, there we were:

That game was followed by a quick shower and then I went to a friend’s birthday party that evening. (Sadly – no pics!)

On Thursday as I blogged about, was the library sale and while hanging outside and chatting it up with new friends and old, I had a blast.

Thursday afternoon I had a lunch date with Julie, Key, and Sandi, it was for my birthday (that was last month) and for Julie’s which is this coming Sunday. Julie picked me up a CUTE bag that I told her I wish I would have had earlier that day for the book sale, Key gave me an awesome book, and Sandi a beautiful necklace.

Thursday evening was the midnight showing of Hunger Games and Wendy, Heidi, Amy, Dee, Jodi, and myself all attended.  We ordered pizza from Dominos while waiting in line (because that was funny!) and had a great time!

Then a very tired version of me that had come home at 3 am on Friday, worked at 8 am to noon and then met Heidi, Cindy and Sara at my home at 12:30 to celebrate…. you will never guess…

Christmas.

Life… had been busy, yes we had got together these past few months but we had other agenda’s – so finally… we met for lunch (mmmm Chinese takeout) at my home yesterday afternoon, talked, caught up, laughed, and exchanged Christmas presents.  I have the cute moose in an outhouse for the cabin, a few gift cards, a purse hanger, and a fun ornament.

All in all the week was busy, but looking back… I am blessed for a person who has very little family, I am surrounded by a lot of great friends.

Stop by Alyce’s Saturday Snapshot and see what everyone else is taking pictures of.  😀

I have a commitment this morning and not sure about this afternoon yet.  I may go for a bike ride, or to a movie, I may just come home and read.  😀

Good morning! 

The sun is shining here in central Minnesota which makes me happy in so many ways!  We are supposed to have a week of 50-60 degree weather so by next weekend I am thinking we will be pretty much snow free.

Last night my cousins and their hubbies and my hubby and I all got together for an evening out.  There are five of us girl cousins that try to get together once in a while and that I think is kind of awesome.  Last night we brought the guys too and ended up grabbing some dinner and good conversation.

I did not take pictures, I should have I know… but today since my boys are on my mind (and apparently my theme is family today) I thought I would post pics of them for Alyce’s Saturday Snapshot…

A little back ground history of these two… Justin is the younger, at 21 and goes to College in Mankato.  Brad is the older and is in the Navy.  Growing up they were complete opposites but now they have this cool friendship.

 

 

Brad currently is stationed in Florida and Justin, at this time is in Honduras on his 5th Mission Trip.  So proud of them both.

As for myself today, I think I am pulling the plug on all activity.  I woke up early and made some tea and have been engrossed in pandemonium by Laure Oliver ever since.  I plan to read and catch up on a couple of reviews I need to write and a couple of bonus posts I have been working on. 

I look forward to a day of much reading and just letting the “to do’s” hang tight while I take a day of real relaxation. 😀