“52 photos” – Grongar

52 Photos ~ Criss Cross

Nest

I walked out, and the nest
was already there by the step. Woven basket
of a saint
sent back to life as a bird
who proceeded to make
a mess of things. Wind
right through it, and any eggs
long vanished. But in my hand it was
intricate pleasure, even the thorny reeds
softened in the weave. And the fading
leaf mold, hardly
itself anymore, merely a trick
of light, if light
can be tricked. Deep in a life
is another life. I walked out, the nest
already by the step.

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This photo and post are in response to this week’s theme for the 52 Photos Project. You can see a gallery of everyone’s photos for this week’s theme here. To see a list of all my blog posts for this project, go here.

52 Photos ~ Fire

To approach the beehive, beekeepers light a smoker.

A bee smoker is a little lidded can with a built-in bellows. You start with a piece of crumpled newspaper, light it, and drop it to the bottom of the smoker, then use the bellows to puff puff puff until you get some good licking flames, and then you add the fuel (dried pine needles, dried grass, wood shavings, fuel pellets, what have you), keep puffing and, in minutes (in theory), you get a strong plume of cool-to-the-touch smoke.

In fact, this process takes some practice. It’s easy to get a flame, and then it’s easy to kill the flame. You can get hot smoke and sparks fairly easily, too. But getting the cool, thick, lasting smoke is the trick and we’re finally getting the knack of it. Almost.

When you’ve got consistent smoke, you don the bee suits and head to the hive. Puff the hive entrance where the guard bees are keeping watch, let the smoke seep in. You and the bees are quieting. There’s smoke in the air and it’s the sunny part of the day.

Let the smoke swirl. Lift the lid of the hive. Spread the smoke around the lid, down into the frames. Thousands of bees, busy but calm, focused on their jobs.

And we just can’t look away.

Every time we visit the hive I want more time. There are so many details to absorb, beyond merely tending to the needs of the hive (refilling sugar syrup feeders, removing extraneous comb, checking for eggs and larvae).

Every time we visit the hive we come back with more questions. For instance, do bees sleep? Yes, we read, they do. In fact, you might come across a bee napping in a flower. Imagine that.

We’ve yet to see the queen. Did I tell you we named her Elspeth? She’s marked with a green dot so we have a prayer of seeing her, but so far she’s been hidden, doing her work, surrounded by her attendants.

We check the hive only every three to five days so as not to disturb them too much. And we need to wait for the weather to cooperate; it’s no good to open the hive on a blustery, rainy day.

On hive-check days, I go to bed with the smell of smoke in my hair. The same as on a camping day, or after an evening by the fire pit, roasting marshmallows, watching for meteors, and musing about the dreams of bees.

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This is my first photo in the new series of 52, running from May 2014 to May 2015. If you’re interested in joining (it’s never too late!), check out the 52 Photos Project blog.

These photos and post are in response to this week’s theme for the 52 Photos Project. You can see a gallery of everyone’s photos for this week’s theme here. To see a list of all my blog posts for this project, go here.

52 Photos ~ An old film photo

Once upon a time, in the first years of our marriage, M and I lived in Pittsburgh, PA. I was working on my master’s degree at the Cathedral of Learning, and M was working at paying the bills and keeping us housed and fed. When the stress of either of those occupations got to be too much, we’d head over to Kennywood, an old fashioned amusement park, and ride the coasters.

I never much liked roller coasters until Kennywood. They scared me to death. I hated the way my stomach lurched when we plummeted down that first major hill. Our first trip to Kennywood, I avoided those rattling carriages of terror.

But there was this one wooden one to the side. It looked quaint. And not too big. I could see the scope of the rises and plummets and they looked bigger than a kiddie coaster, but not that scary. “Let’s try it” we decided, and got in line.

It wasn’t until we were buckled in that we realized the trick: That Kennywood was built over a series of ravines. That there would be no first big clicking climb. That the entire thing was powered by one stomach churning drop, just as the coaster cars left the platform. That the best part of the ride was the part you couldn’t even see while you were waiting, appraising the size of the ride, deciding to tackle it.

There’s no time to prepare or worry. Just plunge, remember to breathe, raise your arms, scream, and laugh while the tears are making horizontal streaks across your cheeks.

The photo above was taken four years before I learned to love that roller coaster (that’s me, second from the right), and two years before M and I became a couple. Most of us in that picture were recently out of college, just embarking on our careers and lives. We were in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, at the trail head at the start of a weekend of backpacking. We had a trail map with a couple possible tent pitching locations circled, a few hours’ walk in. And that’s about all we knew. We didn’t know at that moment that it would start to drizzle, then to rain, then to pour for the rest of the weekend.

We didn’t know about the rises and ravines ahead of each us, the loves, the losses, the jobs, the babies, the miscarriages, the accomplishments, the disappointments, the adventures. We set out, laughing, wholly unprepared and excited for the ride of our lives.

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This photo and post are in response to this week’s theme for the 52 Photos Project. You should participate, too! Read about how it works here. You can see a gallery of everyone’s photos for this week’s theme here. To see a list of all my blog posts for this project, go here.

52 Photos ~ Chopped

He brought home a watermelon.

I was craving fruit and he brought me a whole watermelon.

A whole watermelon isn’t an extravagance in the scheme of things. But if feels extravagant. And somewhat like that old joke where eternity is defined as a ham and two people.

But I took to carving it up and made a big fruit salad that lasted for days.

And while I was at it, I peeled the rind and chopped that up, soaked it overnight, simmered it until tender, simmered it in spiced syrup, and put it in jars.

It won’t last until eternity, but maybe at least until midwinter. Which, at this moment, feels a blissful eternity away.

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Watermelon Rind Preserves

I got this recipe from the gorgeous book, The Glass Pantry, which I don’t use anywhere as often as I ought to.

Yield: 2-3 pints

Ingredients
1 pound watermelon rind
5 quarts water
1/2 cup salt
2 cups granulated sugar
1 lemon, thinly sliced, seeds removed
1 cinnamon stick
1 teaspoon whole cloves

Method

Peel the skin from the rind and scrape the rind free of any flesh.
Cut the rind into 1/2-inch pieces.
Combine 4 quarts of water with the salt in a large bowl, and stir to dissolve the salt.
Add the rind to the salt water and let soak overnight at room temperature.
The next day, drain the rind.
Place the rind in a stainless steel or other non-reactive saucepan with 2 cups of the remaining water and bring to a boil over high heat. Lower the heat and simmer until the rind is just tender when pierced with a fork. Depending on the thickness of the rind, this will take anywhere from 20-50 minutes.
Drain well and set aside.
In a saucepan large enough to hold the rind eventually, combine all the remaining ingredients (sugar, lemon, cinnamon stick, cloves, and remaining 2 cups of water).
Bring the mixture slowly to a boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Boil until the sugar dissolves and a syrup forms, about five minutes.
Add the rind to the syrup and cook over low heat until the rind becomes transparent, about 20-30 minutes (timing will, again, depend on the thickness of the rind).
Remove the lemon slices and cinnamon stick.
You can now pack the rind and syrup in jars and process in a boiling water bath for 30 minutes, or put in jars and keep in the refrigerator for shorter-term keeping.

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These photos and post are in response to this week’s theme for the 52 Photos Project. You should participate, too! Read about how it works here. You can see a gallery of everyone’s photos for this week’s theme here. To see a list of all my blog posts for this project, go here.

52 Photos ~ Uncommon Shapes

52 Photos ~ Waterdrops

52 Photos ~ Crop It

Crow’s Fall

When Crow was white he decided the sun was too white.
He decided it glared much too whitely.
He decided to attack it and defeat it.

He got his strength up flush and in full glitter.
He clawed and fluffed his rage up.
He aimed his beak direct at the sun’s centre.

He laughed himself to the centre of himself

And attacked.

At his battle cry trees grew suddenly old,
Shadows flattened.

But the sun brightened—
It brightened, and Crow returned charred black.

He opened his mouth but what came out was charred black.

“Up there,” he managed,
“Where white is black and black is white, I won.”

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Note: The photo above is a cropped (and black and white, and fiddled with) version of the original, which you can see here.

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This photo and post are in response to this week’s theme for the 52 Photos Project. You should participate, too! Read about how it works here. You can see a gallery of everyone’s photos for this week’s theme here. To see a list of all my blog posts for this project, go here.