We woke to a beautiful morning yesterday --- it started snowing, enormous - HUGE flakes that drifted down past the front windows. They clung to all the trees so naked from the winter cold and clothed them in fabulous arrays of flakes that looked almost like leaves and blossoms. Definitely the stuff pictures are inspired by.
There is still quite a lot of snow this morning. I would say probably 5-6 inches but as the morning is warming I can already hear the steady dripping of it as it melts.
Last week temperatures were in the 40's and 50's. Spring in Montana............
We had a marvelous blessing. A former home-school mom from Butte contacted us a few months ago and offered us two hives and some beekeeping books for $20.00. FABULOUS deal but Butte is about an hour and a half away. Not a typical jaunt in our schedule. Our friend was headed to Butte this last week and picked them up for us. Thank you Tina!!!!!
There are a few missing pieces which Tim will have to replace (build) and we will need to get a few things from our supplier prior to any new colonies inhabiting them but there are almost two complete hives, including the supers that store the honey we will harvest. AND..... most of the frames that the bees build on are already covered in comb!!!! Some of them will have to be disposed of but probably at least half of the frames will be ready to make a home for our new bees. My friend called it a beekeepers dream. We were excited and mightily blessed by her generosity!!!! Hives easily run upwards of $200 each by the time you purchase all the pieces and parts. Bees ship in late April or early May. Hopefully we can get everything in order in time to fill our new hives this spring!!!
Gabrielle had the opportunity to learn how to crochet last week. The PEARLS group had a woman who came and taught them. It always blesses me greatly when women will invest in the lives of our daughters!!!! Grandma Oakley and Auntie Marilynn used to crochet all the time -- such beautiful pieces -- afghans, hats some of them characters for the little kids with eyes and ears (too cute!!!), doilies.... I remember lace that Grandma Oakley made. Unfortunately I have a complete ineptitude at crochet. Auntie Marilynn tried diligently to teach me but my ambidextrous nature kept me switching directions and making knots more than anything beautiful or useful. Gabrielle has been perseverant. She is coming along; she is learning tension and counting of stitches to get things really nice. She has been working on a scarf and although there is still room for improvement you can see her ability rapidly improving from the beginning of the scarf into the area she is working now. She laughed that she is going to finish it and hide it away but she asked me to buy her some more yarn yesterday so she can try again. It has been marvelous to see her in the last couple of months really desiring to learn some of the traditional and rapidly disappearing skills that I grew up watching. She has decided she enjoys sewing and now crochet. I am blessed. The PEARLS group started sewing baby quilts yesterday. They got the tops done and next week plan to learn how to bind and finish them. The girls are going to donate them to the local Pregnancy Resource Center to be given as gifts to the new moms that the center ministers to. I love seeing the girls learning and ministering. Too, too fabulous.
I hope your day is marvelous!!!
