Need Ideas for Decorating this Christmas?

It's beginning to look like Christmas at Camp Kreitzer

The holidays are upon us and I decided this year I wanted to promote even more the message to keep Christ in Christmas. So I ordered a nativity from a U.S. firm and it's now up and lit for nighttime viewing. It's true we don't get hundreds of cars going down our road, but those that do will see the Holy Family nestled in our yard. I hope to expand the scene in the years ahead. This will likely be the first decoration that goes up every year and will be left up throughout the ENTIRE Christmas season. Come see it and stop in for an old fashioned tea party!

Teaching Survival Swimming to LIttle Ones

It's that time of years when little children fall into swimming pools. We have a Kreitzer family tradition. Aunt Alice teaches the little ones "under-bubbles-kick," a survival swimming method. Little ones, even tiny ones, learn to swim to the wall and pull themselves out. They are discouraged from swimming to a person. If the baby turns back, he's redirected toward the wall. This method is no replacement for vigilance, but it adds extra security and the sooner children are made water safe, the better.

A big thank you to our daughter Alice for helping one of the youngest of the grandchildren be safer in the water. Good job, Charlie!

Music for Walking

I like to Walk with Leslie, but listening to her can get pretty boring, especially when I do the same routines over and over so I thought, why not put up some of my favorite music and do my own routine using her four basic steps (walk in place, side steps, kick, and knee lifts with a few variations like side step/knee lift combinations). So here's my routine with warm up music followed by fast music, followed by cool down.

Warmup: Play Once

March 16th: Feeding the Bees

March is the starving month for bees. There's no nectar yet and the queen is laying the Spring brood so the need for food is up. We fed our five active hives sugar syrup on Friday, March 16 when it got above 50 degrees. Since then it's been pretty cold so we are waiting for a 60+ degree, calm, sunny day to do a full inspection.

We also took down the hive that collapsed last fall. It had two boxes of capped and uncapped honey, 18 frames which we'll use to feed the bees when we split hives in April.

When I took the frames out of the bottom box I found the small cluster of bees who remained in the hive and couldn't survive the winter. They were huddled in a corner. There was plenty of food in the hive, but there weren't enough bees to keep warm. I showed the bees to the grandchildren and we all agreed it was sad.

They are wonderful little creatures of God. Isn't it tragic that in our crazy culture people are more likely to lament the loss of this little cluster of a few hundred bees than the 1500 babies ripped apart every day in surgical abortions?

We live in sad times. All you saints and angels, pray for our return to sanity!

Taking a Winter Break in Florida

We spent a delightful three weeks in Florida -- two weeks at Fort DeSoto Park near St. Petersburg and a week in Leesburg north of Orlando. The weather was cool on the water with most days very windy, but we still did a lot of bike riding and walking, bird-watching, and shelling along the beach. We found a dozen intact sand dollars which we've NEVER found at the Outer Banks except in the shops. We also found two little starfish and a wide variety of other shells: scallop, clam, oyster, little conchs, and tiny cats paws, etc. If I could find my shell book I could identify them, but alas it's not where I thought it would be. Maybe I gave it away in a purge. I tend to do that.

We had a Great White Egret in our campsite almost every morning and could look out on the boat channel at the White Pelicans and the Great Blue Herons. One morning a Snowy Egret graced us with his "golden slipper" feet giving me a smile.