Every day, hubby and I take a walk. We aim for 4 miles and enjoy walking outdoors when the weather allows. If it is rainy, we do have a 1/9th mile track in the local gym, but 36 laps gets boring quickly. Generally, we walk one of several sections of the Huckleberry Trail, a rails to trails paved path that covers about 15 miles in the county adjacent to ours. One of our walks takes us through part of the Virginia Tech campus and through the Hahn Gardens on campus. The gardens have been beautiful with flowers, shrubs, trees, and art displays that can be voted on, some sculptures, some hanging banners in the trees. When there isn’t an event going on in the gardens, the Pavilion is open with restrooms and a water fountain.
Today while crossing the creek in the gardens, this display of mushrooms was found beneath a tree.
And just on the other side of the creek, a display of ceramic mushrooms.
The bees are being fed 2:1 syrup to help them prepare for the upcoming winter. Two quart jar feeders were placed in each hive about a week ago and today a gallon of syrup was carried down to refill the jars. Three of the jars were mostly empty, one still had a few ounces. The bees were very active around the feeders, but these are the most gentle bees ever. I did wear my veil and gloves, but didn’t remember to put on my boots with my pants tucked in, yet there was no aggression.
While refilling the syrup feeders, I added the sugar trays which give the jars a little extra room, they are the narrow box just below the top boxes under the lids. When it gets too cold for the syrup, sugar bricks will be placed on the sugar trays on top of the top box of frames to give them more help through the winter. If we end up with a week of single digit weather with sub zero temperatures like last Christmas, I may take a couple of kid size sleeping bags we have stored and wrap the hives. So far they are successful this year and it would be nice to keep it that way.
This evening, I had the opportunity to teach a hand’s on soap making class at the museum where I volunteer. Five folks worked to learn to make traditional Lye soap, of course with a bit of history on Colonial soap making and we even melted the lard in a cast iron spider pot on a small fire in the yard.
Fun, a new skill, and great folks enjoyed the evening.