Honey for your honey…

April 29, 2008 Savvy Spoonie 3 Comments

This year for Mother’s Day, do something a little different. Rescue some bees. You can get your mom some bee friendly flowers for her garden, donate to a bee worthy cause, or help her make bee friendly hives for her garden. Honey Bees have been vanishing from all over the U.S., and with them our way of life.

Carrot Cake, Apple Strudel, Blueberry Scones, Cherry Tarts, Pumpkin Pie, Guacamole, Broccoli Quiche, French Onion Soup, Butternut Squash with Cinnamon, Almond Butter. These delectable foods and desserts are an example of some of the foods that will disappear from our diet if we can’t keep the bees healthy and put a stop to Colony Collapse Disorder. These foods, Carrots, Apples, Blueberries, Cherries, Pumpkins and Squash, Avocados, Broccoli, Almonds, and Onions, simply won’t grow without the help of pollinating bees, specifically honey bees. In fact, $15 billion worth of U.S. crops are at risk because of the disappearance of bees.

Why are the bees disappearing? Beekeepers noticed odd behavior in bees and sounded the alarm when seemingly healthy bees began abandoning their hives in 2006. An estimated one third of all honey bees in the U.S. have disappeared. Poof. They have simply flown off.

Scientists attribute the vanishing bees to a number of different factors, including inadequate food supply, pesticide use, and a new virus. The inadequate food supply is due to human activity, building homes in previously open spaces, planting gardens that don’t provide bees the resources they need to survive, spraying pesticides specifically targeted at bees. We might like their honey, but most people don’t like having the bees buzzing about their backyard BBQ. Sadly, our dislike has parlayed itself into acts that damage Bee habitats, and therefore ourselves. Bees play a critical, and irreplaceable role in our food supply, and we should do what we can to help bring them back. But what can we do?

The National Resources Defense Council has a few ideas:

Bee Native: Use local and native plants in your yard and garden. These plants thrive easily and are well suited for local bee populations, providing pollen and nectar for bees to eat.

Bee Diverse:Plant lots of different kinds of plants in your yard. Plant diversity ensures that your garden attracts many different varieties of bees and gives them a range of flowering plants to choose from throughout the year. Make sure your yard plants vary in:
Color: Bees have good vision and are attracted to several different colors of flowers.
Shape: Different species of bees are better suited for different shapes of flowers. Give your bees some variety!
Flowering times: Having a sequence of plant species that flower throughout the year helps sustain the food supply and attract different species of bees.

Bee Pesticide Wary: There are many natural methods to control pests in your garden. Researchers believe pesticides are a contributing factor to Colony Collapse Disorder. Moreover, some insecticides are harmful to bees and wipe out flowers that provide bees with food. If you must, use targeted pesticides and spray at night — when bees aren’t active — on dry days.

Bee a Hive Builder: Building your own bee hive is easy and fun. Creating a wood nest is a good place to start — wood-nesting bees dont sting! Simply take a non-pressure treated block of wood and drill holes that are 3/32 inch to 5/16 inch in diameter and about 5 inches deep and wait for the bees to arrive.

For more ideas on helping the honeybee, you can visit HelptheHoneybees.com, this Haagen-Dazs supported website offers articles on the Bee Crises, links to ideas on how to help, and more. You can also visit and support the PennState Bee research and UCDavis’s research. To be more personally involved in the solution join The Hunt for Bees at The Great Sunflower Project. Check out the articles at The Daily Green for more ideas.

The N.Y. Times provided this map tracking the bee disappearances, along with some well written articles on the issue. Click on the map for a link to one of their articles.

The time to act is here, losing the bees will have a direct effect on your lifestyle. No more strawberries on a hot summer day, or piping hot slices of All American apple pie when it’s cold outside. We need the bees. Plant a bee garden, get a hive going, donate to organizations that are trying to make a difference, do something.

This year for Mother’s Day, help your mom be a source of change, and save a few bees.
What better way to celebrate Mom, than to save the world’s fruits and veggies?

Otter

The big baby…

April 28, 2008 Savvy Spoonie 2 Comments

Otter is one. Just one, he hasn’t even hit thirteen months yet. Despite his youth, he is big, huge really. His last stats were:

Weight 30 pounds 6 ounces
Height 31 1/2 inches
What does this size mean beyond increased muscle gain in my arms? (All right, my arm, I am really bad at alternating, so I end up with a muscular right arm, and a measly left.)

It means I have a one year old, who sometimes acts like a two year old. He reaches up and opens all the doors and he can hold my hand when walking without me stooping to reach him. He pulls furniture down on himself, and can reach onto all the surfaces in my home, except the kitchen island. Last night for dinner he ate a serving of meatloaf, as in, the same size serving I ate. Then he nursed for an hour. He is a big boy, destined to be a linebacker, or wrestler, or an interior decorator (What? He will be able to better reach the draperies for improved artistic arrangement). He can also get himself down off of the bed and couch, without hurting himself.

Don’t believe me? Luckily for you this whole diatribe is a thinly veiled excuse to show you more baby cuteness… so here it is:

Note how he is taller than the tall kitchen garbage can in our bedroom.

Thank you for sharing in my Otter’s accomplishments with me. I am going to start strength training to deal with his increased weight, but I don’t think I will be needing much of an exercise plan after he gets through with me.

Otter, parenting, sleeplessness

Something a little stronger?

April 28, 2008 Savvy Spoonie 4 Comments

I don’t think coffee is going to get me through the day. I need something a little stronger, like tequila, with a lime, and large grain kosher salt, or maybe Speed.

Otter was awake playing “crawl thru diner” most of the morning. (By morning I mean the hours after midnight.) Now, of course, he is wired for sound, taking things apart, running through the house, sucking on butcher knives and sticking his fingers into light sockets.

Me? I am barely conscious as I drink my first cup of coffee in what promises to be a very, very long day.

Why can’t he be, oh I don’t know, TIRED on the days when neither of us get any sleep? It’s not as though I was out all night clubbing while he slept away in dream land. No, I was in bed, cursing the day I decided to pop a tit in his hungry hungry hippo mouth! I was desperately trying to sleep while he twisted my skin between his fingers, kicked me in the stomach, groin, and thighs, and nursed all night long.

Is he tired? No! Otter wants to pull all the magnets off my office filing cabinet, so he can suck the magnetized metal bits out of the large plastic covers and choke on them before he determinedly eats the papers they were pinning to the cabinet. He wants to dig through my drawers and spread printer paper all over the floor! He wants to open the front door and wander out into the street!

Otter wants to climb the stairs, up and down, up and down, holding tightly to my fingers with his chubby baby hands. On a quasi rested well adjusted day I would console myself with thoughts like “at least I am getting my exercise today” or “Who needs a stair stepper when you have a one year old?”, but today the only thought in my mind seems to be “are you frackin’ kidding me?! I want to lie down and watch ER reruns until I drool!”

But no, he is not tired today. His new motto is “sleep is for the weak”. He is an unstoppable force of pint sized determination.

I, however, am the thick dull sludge left in the bottom of the coffee pot when the burner has been on all night.

Update
He fell asleep not too long ago, snuggled warm with me on the couch. I tried to sleep, lay there for an hour listening to the traffic, the birds, the neighbor’s loud oompa loompa polka music. No sleep. None. Finally got up before going stark raving mad.