My Beeswax Is Your Beeswax

So what have we been up to? Here's Sam helping his dad check and feed the bees.
They're getting sugar syrup right now. Here's hoping for Spring flowers to feed them soon.
Hard to believe there's anything alive in these snowed in boxes. But they're still kickin'.

Mark also cleaned some beeswax. It was the wax cappings from when he extracted honey, the top wax layer that enclosed the honey in the comb. I didn't get a photo of the first step of boiling the jumbled ball of honey covered wax bits being simmered in water to clean it. Mark boiled it in the water til it melted, then let it harden and changed the water to repeat the process. I think it was the 3rd cooking that he then poured the melted wax through this painters cloth to filter out the dead bees and junk.

Then it looked like this. But it still wasn't clean enough, so wash rinse repeat. It smelled so beautiful, like Summer, while it was cooking.

Then finally you get...what looks like a nice wheel of cheese. But it's beeswax, o' course.

So, what else? Um, homemade haircut:It actually turned out pretty well. About 6 or 8 inches of hair gone. Done in my own private barber chair, except you have to stand because it's the bathtub.

It came about because Lily was complaining about brushing her hair, something she's not all that great at. So when I told her we'd have to cut it all off if she didn't properly brush it, she became very excited. That's what I've been wanting all along! So. I figured why not. And she's been pleased about it ever since. And we also celebrated our sweet Agnes' 11th.Mawsi's homemade birthday cake, of course. Oh! And her gift? A cell phone. I know. I'm caving all over the place. But, she was one of the final few in her grade without one, and it's just how they keep in touch these days. Not like when I was her age, where you jumped off the school bus and on to (land line) telephone to talk to the friend you'd been talking to all day long. And it was free with the rebate and she wasn't whiny for it (we surprised her, so it was very unexpected,) it wasn't much more than Sam's phone on its own and....well, it was a little over the top for us, but that's not all. We got one for Lily, too. I know how ridiculous it is, believe me, but she looooooves to text. Loves it. Funny, witty little texts. Big long texts. And it is such leverage for me, you know? She loves the phone. It is her Precious. Which is probably more crappy parenting, but there it is. The phone isn't going to leave the house much and I like to think it will be great spelling and punctuation practice. And it keeps her in touch with her grandparents to boot.

And let's see, there was one other thing this weekend, hmmmmmm, what was it?

Oh ya. I'm pregnant. Two forms of birth control later and I'm knocked up. So, so not in our plans.

Three days later, some weeping, gnashing of teeth, 7 hours in the emergency room, and we've moved on to reluctant but real joy and excitement. We thought the kids would be put out, but they're having fun with it so far. Sam calls it (sorry for calling him/her "it") "Pellet" because it's only the size of a BB. Aggie is pitching real names. Lily is thrilled to be upgraded from baby of the family. And that's about all I've got so far.

Announcing pregnancy on my blog. Is it cheesy? Maybe. But 'round these parts, my beeswax is your beeswax.