Mouse Guards

I love reading all my friend's blogs about Halloween and potty training. I am happy to have a diverse group of friends because that is so not my life anymore. While many others were preparing for parties and buying value sized boxes of diapers, I was putting on mouse guards.

My daughter, nearly 6, checked out the hives this weekend for the first time. Unfortunately, she's still too small to see over the top of the boxes very easily as they are set up now, but she was so calm and moved so gracefully. I can see her keeping her own hive in a couple of years.

Naturally she has a fondness for Pink's hive and here's a picture of Pink's girls emerging from their inner cover opening. This is inside a box where I put honey for them to eat now. I am hoping that all three hives take some honey from me (that I robbed from them this summer when they were honey bound!) and put it up for the winter.

I also put mouse guards on two of the hives. These are metal gates that fit across the front of the hive that, as you guessed, keep out mice. Mice LOVE to overwinter in a hive where it is nice a warm and they can make a nest with the wooden frames and wax.

I have another guard on the way from one of my favorite bee equipment companies, Brushy Mountain.

So while my kids remain potty trained and we had no behavior problems at our big harvest dinner, I was so happy for our milestone: how joyous my daughter was to see the bees close up.

Fairness

Yesterday I was reminded of a lesson I have struggled with my whole life and even more intensely since having my second child.

Fairness is about giving everyone what they need, not about giving everyone the same.

I struggle with giving my kids the same - yet they are wonderfully individual people with their own separate strengths and struggles. My youngest is heading out to kindergarten this fall and is very excited. She has gotten such a different slice of my undivided time by having that time while she is four and five rather than like her brother who was an only child until two.

I feel like it wasn't fair to me! I want that same delicious time with my son where we can actually -do- things together. When my son was a baby we were very active but the quality is wholly different. My daughter and I have created a shared space that is impenetrable and joyous. I want that with both my kids.

I want the same!

The birds and the bees

Yeah...I mean the birds and bees, not honeybees. I was talking with a handful of moms who all have kids about my kids ages. One was relating a story about a teacher who was showing her class squirrels in the school yard. She felt compelled to pull the shade down when ...well love was in the air and they squirrels started mating. One student asked what the squirrels were doing and another answered her correctly tho maybe a bit too graphically.

What shocked these moms was that it was a third grade classroom. Huh? Don't third graders know what mating is? I don't expect them to understand the nuances of human mating rituals, but not know what mating is? Yikes is my thought.

Me, being a tree-hugging dirt-worshiper that I am, have pointed out when birds or dragonflied mate to my two nature-loving kids. It isn't the focus of our explorations in nature, but it is there, expecially this time of year.

I was surprised to find that none of my friends knew what it looked like when birds mated.

After some rather funny starts, I explained how birds mate and dragonflies too. It was the first time I've come across something called Nature Deficit Disorder in adults. Environmentalists and traditional educators have identified an innate craving people have to be in nature - to explore - to experience the outdoors. Some experts suggest that it is this disconnect from nature that so many youth are experiencing that is the root cause of many behavior problems.

I am not sure I'd buy in to ADHD being cured by a walk in the woods, but I do believe we all have a primal need to spend time with the sun on our faces, open spaces around us, and nothing particular to do but be.

And watch the birds mate.