Saturday, July 27, 2013

Buddha Bees

Buddha Knob
Before
This lovely Saturday morning, we got up at 5 AM to rescue bees.  Apparently we've given up being night owls by any stretch and instead find our thrills in that golden dawning light trying to beat the bees to consciousness.  With Joey's newly installed Buddha gear shift, we drove the hour and a half to the retreat, Odiyan, which looks like a mandala from a satellite perspective but is surrounded by tall fences and razor wire on the ground.  The bees found a perfect location in a wooden hose box in the garden.  Someone lifted the lid recently and caused their comb to collapse on itself, but the bees persevered regardless.  They were grumpy to be disturbed again, but we removed their comb into our frames and guided the bees back into our box with smoke and without too many stings (except through the veil!).
After- All the comb is inside our box even if all the bees aren't.. yet
  We decided to leave them there for the week to give them time to repair the comb and move into our box completely.  On the way to the bathroom, we passed a pond where I found my newest inspiration, the coot: well named and even better footed.  I never before noticed the odd lumps so different from a duck's webbing.  This may be another creature I end up decorating my own house with because I find them more fascinating than apparently anyone else does (like the dragon wrasse, the juvenile drum fish, the unicorn fish....) but I will persevere with yet another form of reckless abandon and paint coots!  Hope someone else out there loves them too!


 My new subject matter (conveniently in black and white) : The Coot.  You have to love those crazy feet!

1 comment:

  1. Awesome feet indeed; I saw one of those birds for the first time in Berlin.

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