A Little Bend in the Road

Things have really slowed down. Slow not by choice but because the healing process has to be allowed to take place. This has turned into a very unexpected and interesting bend in my road.

The fracture is in the radial head - the inside bone that goes up the arm. 40% of the top part is cracked and slipped down. But reports are good that it's healing well. And each day it's a little less painful.

It was really the third day when I finally mentally complied and gave up my spring plans--except for the honey bees that is.

It was really hard to accept that my plans were being changed for me, like it or not. So, no gardening this spring--it's just too hard to do it properly with one arm, and the left at that.

So I took some time on nice days to sit on the swing and read and I made a mental shift to this thing called "relaxation". I hadn't done that for so long I realized I had forgetten how.

So somehow this broken arm has turned into a kind of gift. It slowed me down. I realize now that I needed to slow down a little. Yes, I stopped to view the flowers, but I wasn't hanging around long enough to enjoy their fragrance. A big important part of life - the enjoying it part - was getting away from me. The garden was getting away from me too.

It's happened before. Years ago there were busy or difficult springs and I didn't get in the garden and you know what? It survived without me. Unlike grass which demands to be cut, the garden can often forgive you if you can't get in it.I rely heavily on wood chips to keep weeds down and I adopt the concept that the more tightly packed the plants, the less weeds will grow.

On those occasions when I culled plants to create space I found weeds would quickly move in, despite the wood chips. I do still cull plants but not too severely.I feel I've now refocused and I'm looking forward to more relaxing days. Of course it's always easier to enjoy when the weather is great.

The garden is exploding this time of year. It rained the other night and I swear the next morning all the plants had grown more than an inch!

All that life and energy in the plants is just bursting to be set free.

It's a wonderful time of year. I think spring is my favourite time. Why? I believe it's seeing the beauty come up from all the deadness, seeing life spring forth from what looks so utterly dead and hopeless.

I took photos of the front yard every few days to try to create a time lapse effect. I planned on doing a slide show but that got interrupted with the arm thing, but I did manage a few photos.

In early spring the garden is scary. There's no better word for it - it's just ugly. People walk by and those who are new to seeing it look digusted. It looks like a trash heap. But what they don't know is that there's life there, under the surface and it's about to come forth.

In fact, I always thought that if I could take a couple months off work, I'd choose to be off in May and June.

That's when the garden is the most fun as it takes off and plants bloom.

You can also enjoy the outdoors then too because it isn't too hot yet.I always tour the garden every day to see what new plants are blooming.

I especially love watching poppies and peonies flowers crack open from their buds.

At the moment, bleeding hearts, Siberian Bulgoss, Candy Tuft, phlox and a few irises are in bloom along with tulips.

The Kings Solomon's seal are in bloom but the bells haven't opened up yet. I've been watching the bumble bees as they try to get inside. The weather's been cold the last couple days too - too cold for honey bees I think.

I consider my garden to be a cottage garden. My interpretation of that is that people take their divided plants to their cottage where they plant them and then they're ignored after that and allowed to grow naturally. My garden is much like that. Not a lot of control, just a bit of tweaking here and there. Sometimes I think it looks like a tossed salad.

I've put off getting my honey bees until June which will give me a couple more precious weeks to heal.

Let's hope the sun comes out soon so I can watch the bees in my garden while I'm relaxing on my swing.

But where will they live and have their bee-ing?

Months have literally gone by. Months and months and I had not yet established where my hives would be.

I had yet to determine that very important factor. Where would my bees live and have their bee-ing?

I would love to have them on my property but our bylaws must have a certain footage away from adjoining properties and my place isn't big enough.

I was hoping for a place fairly close to home so I could visit often, not only so I could manage my hives but also because I wanted to observe the bees as part of my research for my book. This created a little bit of a dilemma. If I had the hives at a friend's country place, then I'd be there most weekends, just hanging around with a camera or my water colours or sitting on a lawn chair making notes. I knew that I'd wear out my welcome really quickly and I didn't want that to happen.

I live in southern Ontario which is the corn growing area - all the ethanol now going into gas is mostly grown in this area. The problem with corn is that it gets sprayed a lot and bees don't normally forage in corn but they do drink the water droplets that collect in it. So I didn't want my hives on a farm with lots of corn crops. (I'd be at work too, so if the sprayer was doing his work and my hives were close by it'd be complicated to get out there to cover the hives).

I'd read in newsgroups and books enough about hives to conclude that hives would probably be safer in a neighbourhood than in the country but I couldn't think of a place in the city that would work.

Then my Mom reminded me of 50 acres of swamp land that my grandfather gave to his nephew.

Years ago my grandfather would come to his swamp for cedars. The cedars would be cut to make fence posts on the farm.

Now with modern farming fence posts of cedar aren't used any more.

That swamp land was still in the family and just sitting there. I called my cousin and he readily agreed to let me keep bees there.

There's about 200 acres of swamp there, 40 of it belonging to my cousin. We made arrangements to meet there to see if we could find some suitable high ground.

So we planned a drive out there on Saturday to have a look. I was told it wasn't so swampy the last few years so we could walk on it with boots on.

I was concerned about water levels once the hives were set up so I made plans in my mind for some kind of platform (maybe made out of skids) to raise the hives up off the ground.

There was a laneway adjoining my cousin's section of swamp and the other person's which gave us easy and dry access.

We walked quite a ways in looking for high ground.

It has been a very wet spring with lots of flooding. The swamp was very wet and full of water.

My cousin said that normally it was dry enough to walk on. I was glad in a way to see it at it's worst. That way I'd know how high the water could come up.

We did find some high ground farther back the lane that would work. There was great sunshine from the southeast and the ground was flat enough for a few hives. The only downside will be how far back it is from the road. But I'll try it out and we'll see.

(Photo - Mom, Dad and my cousin Ross - this is the spot we chose for the hives).

So after our trip I went home and then asked my sister to take me to the hospital.

You see, the day before (Fri) I'd fallen down the stairs at work. I landed really hard on my knees and palms, nearly doing a face plant. But my right arm took the toll to save my face. I broke it--at least by midday on the second day it was still pretty painful and I had to consider that it might be more than a sprain. A couple hours later and some x-rays and it was confirmed to be a broken radio head (w broken elbow). So I type this with my left hand. I'm right handed so this is bothersome. I am somewhat left handed too and I expect I will become a lot more so over the next while.

The doctor said it's a messy break and I might need surgery. I will wait to hear from a specialist next week.

That photo is me wearing my bee shirt. The strap is my sling - no cast yet. I've opted not to show my scowling face.

I can't (won't) begin to express my frustration over this major inconvenience except to say I regret losing my arm to save my face~!

(that's not really true because I could have broken all my teeth but a frustration nonetheless because I've got big plans underway!)