Sarah Palin ~ She Just Won't Go AWAY!

Enough already. Please move out of Alaska. We're tired of the embarrassment!

G Street Artist Fair

Saturday, August 15th, I'll be selling my work at the G Street Artist Festival. This is a cooperative venture with the Anchorage Downtown Partnership & the merchants on G Street. It's "juried" (sort-of) in that the Downtown Partnership asks artists to apply & provide images of their work. These are reviewed & artists invited to show & sell if their work meets the expectations of the merchants & the Partnership.

In the real world "juried" means that there's actually a panel of individuals who review the artist's work & choose quality work based on innovation & technical skill. The reviewers are known & respected. That rarely happens in Alaska ~ here, it's usually a who you know type game or a privately run event & the promoters invite friends & keep out enemies. That's called an invitational & there's nothing wrong with it....just don't call it a juried event. More on this later because it's a fascinating topic with widely held opinions.

I've already participated in a couple of Saturday Fairs & it was a nice experience. A little local traffic, a little tourist action, & unpredictable weather. The weather is always dodgy when doing outside events in Alaska & this summer is no different. Outdoor events are not my forte'. I really don't have the constitution to chase my tent down in the wind & sit in pouring rain or blazing sun for over 10 hours in a day. I'd rather be in my studio or puttering around the garden~ even in the rain.

Maybe it's something that my shop boy can help with in the future?

Monday Accordion Night!

The Anchorage Accordion Club meets tonight! August 3rd at BP from 6 to 8 pm!

Who is that Masked Man??

What can YOU make from a cereal box?

Shop Boy

When I'm in production mode I'll take help from where ever & who ever I can get it. Here's my shop boy who will work for chocolate milkshakes. That is until I made the mistake of offering him a dollar. That was a mistake because the next day his rate had gone up to $3 & he was writing his time on the hot shop calendar! We've negotiated that Friday's will be his payday.


Yep, I think the economy is in recovery. :)

A Summer Swarm

Every summer I worry about my bees swarming. This occurs when the hive becomes congested with too many bees, no room for the queen to lay eggs, over heating, or a multitude of other reasons. This year I ordered a "nuc" which is sort of a mini hive that is used to catch swarms or to do a split with a hive that is growing too big so the beekeeper "splits" it into two hives.

So a couple of weeks ago I set up the nuc in my garden area. It's located about 75 feet away from the main hives. It's usually recommended that a nuc or swarm trap be set-up close to existing hives if you want to catch a swarm from bees outside the area & away from existing hives if you want to catch bees that may be from your own hives. It seems that if bees are going to swarm they will not set-up a new home close to the original hive but will travel a short distance (usually 75 to 100 feet) away to find a new home.

Then I forgot about it.

Until today when I was checking the progress of my raspberries. Wowie-zowie! There were bees all over the nuc! The picture above doesn't really do justice to the buzz of activity around the entrance to the nuc. There was a cloud of bees!

Very exciting & satisfying. I'm hoping one of my existing hives didn't swarm but if they did I'm glad they found a new home in the neighborhood. Welcome home!

First Honey Harvest of the Summer!

Yesterday, William & I harvested our first honey of the summer. We pulled 3 full frames of honey from the hive. We're harvesting using the "crush & strain" method. It's self-explanitory; the honey is cut from the frame, crushed & then strained through filters into a large 5 gallon bucket. The bucket has a latch on the bottom so you can easily fill bottles.

It's very easy but sticky! Here's across section of a section of filled honey comb. You can see how full the cells are & the variant color. After filtering it's a beautiful golden color.

Of course it tastes delicious too!