Sunday Fun: It Didn't Feel Like Servile Work!

It occurred to me while we were making bee boxes today and filling bee frames with wax foundation that perhaps that is "servile work" that shouldn't be done on Sunday.

On the other hand, when something is so much fun it brings a smile to your face, how can it possibly be classified as work?

 Especially when you are doing it with two little girls who think it's the most fun on the face of the planet?

Whenever we go into our bee hives I tell people I'm going out to "play with the bees."

So, what do you think? Did we do servile work today? Or celebrate Sunday joy with our two little granddaughters?

Sometimes Lent is Literal

Well, it's been a challenging winter and the Lord apparently is not finished with me yet. I took a fall last November (off a skateboard - don't ask) and ended up with a massive right rotator cuff tear. After doctor visits, an MRI, and more doctor visits I ended up with surgery at UVA on January 20th to repair the tear. Another surprise turned up during surgery. My biceps had shifted and had to be cut and reattached. After several weeks I went into PT and have been doing well at regaining my range of motion and strength. Then about a week before Ash Wednesday I started having slurred speech and ended up in the emergency room at Shenandoah Hospital with them thinking I might be having a TIA (mini stroke). So they sent me for a CAT scan - no bleeding in the brain thank God. And then off in an ambulance to Winchester where they did an MRI - no active stroke, but couldn't rule out the TIA. So home again and a search for a neurologist to find out what's going on.

The neurologist wasn't sure so she ordered some tests. This was the day before Ash Wednesday and on Friday we left for our daughter's in Zelienople, PA to see one granddaughter play Auntie Em in The Wizard of Oz and enjoy a piano recital with our other four granddaughters. Over the weekend I started having blurred vision and a drooping eyelid (fortunately the day after the play). Oh joy!

So when we returned to Virginia I called the neurologist and she had me come in the same afternoon. The new symptoms gave a clearer diagnosis and a shifted direction in tests and treatment. After a neuro-muscular test with shocks and needlepricks the next morning the diagnosis was confirmed. I have an auto-immune disease called Myashenia Gravis. (What a mouthful!) It is a disease of the junction between nerves and muscles. For some reason my body is attacking the chemicals that send information to the muscles to do their thing. Antibodies gobble up the chemical causing muscle weakness which explains the drooping eyelid, the slurred speech, and the double vision. In retrospect I can identify some minor muscle weakness in my legs making it a little difficult to get up out of a chair.

In some ways it was a relief to get a diagnosis, but I can hardly call it good news to hear that you have an incurable disease, especially when the doctor told Larry it would be prudent to take a course in the Heimlich maneuver. Fortunately, while I've had some difficulty chewing, swallowing hasn't been an issue. And as the doctor said, "Don't hang up the crepe." So I'm working on being optimistic and cheerful.

I confess, though, that Stations of the Cross last evening was difficult. To be saying, "I embrace all the sufferings You have destined for me until death," takes on new meaning when one's in the midst of real sufferings rather than offering potential ones. To say, "I will not refuse the cross as Simon did: I accept and embrace it," is an easy proclamation when all your sufferings are minor, but can I do it? I want to. So I cling to the plea, "I beg You, by all You suffered in carrying Your cross, to help me carry mine with Your perfect peace and resignation." I think  I will pray that often.

I read recently that St. Jose Maria Escriva would lament on a day he had no serious suffering, "Don't you love me anymore, Lord." I know Mother Teresa told suffering souls that Jesus was kissing them. And St. Therese of Lisieux often said she preferred the vinegar of suffering to the sweetness of consolation. I hope to walk in their footsteps; I'm not there at present. But I know Jesus and His sweet Mother are walking with me on the road of trials  along with my guardian angel and patron saints. So I've decided to consider my disease, called MG for short, as "my gift from God." Please help me, Lord, to embrace it with joy and use it for your glorification, through Christ Our Lord, Amen.

Life is Full of Disappointments...

...some of the biggest are those that happen to loved ones. I just found out that our long distance running daughter who was looking forward to running the Boston marathon will not because of an injury last summer that has never healed properly. So instead of training for Boston she's heading in for surgery later this month, then six weeks in a cast, and then into a boot before she can begin regaining what's lost. The doctor says she will be able to get back to long distance running but it's still a big disappointment for her especially since she will have to requalify for Boston. Please pray for Tara's surgery and recovery. We're praying through the intercession of Fr. Hardon whom we depended on for my own recent rotary cuff surgery. If you have any challenges of your own, I recommend this holy priest as a powerful intercessor!

Almighty God, You gave Your servant,
Father John Anthony Hardon of the Society of Jesus,
the grace of religious and priestly consecration after the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

Through Father Hardon,
You provided for your Flock an extraordinary teacher of the faith.

You entrusted Father Hardon into the loving
care of the Blessed Virgin Mary
whose counsel, "Do whatever he tells you" (Jn 2:5)
he faithfully followed and whose intercession he unceasingly invoked.

If it be Your holy will, please grant the request I now make,
calling upon the help of Father Hardon,
so that his heroic sanctity may be recognized in the whole Church.

I ask this through Your Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ, Who
with You and the Holy Spirit, is one God forever and ever.
Amen.

Where are they now? A Walk in the Twilight Zone with Jim Verrecchia and Jim Haley

The Lamberts in happier days

In 1998, a scandal boiled at All Saints Catholic Church in Manassas, VA. The pastor, Fr. Jim Verrecchia was giving "spiritual" direction to a parishioner, Nancy Lambert, who spent more and more time with him. They walked, they danced at church functions, they hot-tubbed and nuzzled together in full view of the entire parish. Meanwhile, Nancy's husband, Jim, became more and more concerned, confronted the pastor, and tried to convince his wife to stop, if not for him, for the sake of their four children. The behavior of the two "lovebirds" grew so egregious and so open it made the pages of the Washington Post and the Washington Times particularly after Jim Lambert, the aggrieved husband, sued the diocese which aided and abetted the adultery. To make a long story short: Nancy got pregnant, divorced her husband, married Verrecchia, and, with the help of Fr. Steve Leva, who testified for the adulterers at the custody hearing, got the couple's four children. Jim Lambert got a heart attack.

What a Country!

I've seen very little of New England so a trip to the northeast was very appealing. Larry and I started in Auriesville, NY at the Shrine of the North American Martyrs. What holy ground! To walk where men were actually struck down and killed for the faith is to be linked directly to those saints. The ravine at the shrine is just such a place and like Rene Goupil and St. Isaac Jogues who prayed the rosary there, so did we. Rene was killed by an Iriquois brave because he had made the sign of the cross on the head of child and the superstitious Indians thought it was sorcery. Fr. Jogues held him as he died fully expecting to be the next victim, but God had work for him to do still and he was spared.

Rene Goupil instructing an Indian child

One of my favorite spots on the grounds was "Theresa's rosary." Theresa was a young Indian girl who learned the faith from the Ursulines in Quebec. She was captured along with Fr. Jogues and his companions and Indian guides. Theresa was staunch in her faith and when her captors confiscated her rosary, she made another from rocks so she could pray it walking alongside the "beads." She later married one of the braves from the tribe, but never abandoned her faith. Like Kateri Tekawitha, she was one of the beautiful Christians baptized and taught by the blackrobes.

Theresa's rosary

First chapel at Auriesville

We also visited the Shrine of Kateri Tekawitha in Fonda. Kateri was born in Auriesville, but was raised in the Indian village located in what is now Fonda. The shrine includes the excavated site where metal posts mark the actual double stockade and the outlines of the long houses where Indian families lived. Not far from the site is "Kateri's spring" where she would have gone to get water for washing and cooking. Our two days in Auriesville were an opportunity to begin our trip as a pilgrimage. We prayed the 20-decade rosary both days and attended Mass at the second chapel built on the grounds in the 1800s. The first chapel is tiny, like a small gazebo, but it is lovely and reminds one how eager people were to honor the martyrs even when they could only build a tiny shrine. 

From Auriesville we visited Vermont and Maine passing through the White Mountains of New Hampshire. What a testimony to the glory of God. If Auriesville was like being with the saints washed clean in the blood of the lamb, driving the highways and byways of the northeast was like watching "the word" creating in all his glory. I'll post just a few pictures to illustrate. The glories of God's world made me pause often to sing How Great Thou Art! 

Sailboat on one of Maine's "ponds"

Scene from an overlook in Jamaica State Park, Vermont

One of the amazing examples of Vermont flora

Nature "reflects" the glory of God!

We met this German biker who visits the U.S. twice a year to bike around our wonderful country with friends. (There were half a dozen of them.) He said his favorite trip was following the Lewis and Clark trail from St. Louis to Portland. 

A New York honeybee collects nectar from asters. Beekeepers say aster honey is terrible, so the bees can have it! LOL!

Honey Harvest and I Forgot My Camera!

Sometimes I wonder why I bother having a camera at all. I always forget it when we are doing something interesting. We joined in the honey harvest on Saturday and were the first ones there so we did our eight frames of honey first and got about 25 pounds and several pounds of beeswax.

The setup was great. There was a wax melter with a big hot knife that was used to slice down the frame to uncap the honey. Then we put the frames in the extractor a centrifugal drum with a handle for turning. There are electric extractors but this one was manual so we took turns revolving the drum to spin out the honey. The honey is spun out on one side, then the frames are turned and the second side is extracted. The honey then passes out a spigot into a bucket that has a double strainer. When the honey fills the bucket enough it's moved over to a counter where we filled the jars by opening a tap at the bottom of the bucket. It was really fun.

We stayed another hour after extracting our honey and just visited with the other beekeepers. We're talking about starting a bee club here in Woodstock and I'm looking forward to it! There is so much to learn from the experienced beekeepers and even those who've only been doing it for a few years.

Here's a video that describes what's involved in the harvesting process. It was a great experience and we just took the box with the frames and put it back on the hive for the bees to clean up. They will too!

Wow! The Bees Have Gone Honey Wild!

We never expected to get any honey this season since the bees need to have plenty of food to winter over, but our mentor who has about 45 years of experience, just came over today and he said we can harvest an entire super from one of our hives. For those who don't know bee jargon, a super is a box of ten frames where the bees build honeycomb and store nectar which becomes honey when capped. After capping it loses a large percentage of moisture. That's when it becomes thicker and more syrupy. Among the sources of nectar our bees were visiting we can confirm one for sure. The little gal in the picture is gathering nectar from my lavender. During the entire blooming period we had dozens of busy bees flitting about gathering for the hive.

Today when we went into the hives with Gordan and Tom (after two weeks) the bees had already worked so much and filled one of the supers so much that we needed to give them another entire box. Most of the frames were filled with capped honey and most of that work was accomplished in the past two weeks! Everything they gather from here on out will be saved for the winter, but the capped honey they have made up til now we will harvest. Yum!

I wish I had taken some pictures today because the bees had filled the box so much they were building extra comb and storing nectar in a space at the top. We took that comb out, I squeezed out the nectar which is delicious, but it wasn't capped so it will ferment if I don't use it up quickly. I already put some in my iced tea and will probably mix it with maple syrup for french toast. Yum!

We also got a big chunk of wax and I will be making some lip balm sticks out of beeswax, coconut oil, honey, and a few drops of clove essence. I already made one batch a few weeks ago and poured it into two little jars. I gave one to a granddaughter and have the rest in a little jar to my bed. I use it every night and, oh, it feels lovely on the lips and smells like ginger cookies. Maybe that's why I've been sleeping so well.

When I went to the bee store yesterday, I picked up little plastic chapstick-style containers and will pour my next batch into them.

What a great hobby! I love playing with the bees. They are the most amazing little creatures on the planet and our mentor said, our "girls have a great disposition." I said they are mirroring mine. After all, I may not be the queen bee, but I'm the bee yard mom!