The lovely Ms. Smith and I went to the horse races at Eureka Downs, Sunday. We met her parents there and enjoyed a lovely afternoon of horse racing, square dancing futile gambling. Her parents used to raise and race horses. While we were there her dad tried to showed me how to read a racing form and how to bet. He might as well have been trying to teach me french.
No money was made, but the weather was excellent and the races were very exciting.
Well, it’s been almost two months since my last post. I’ve been busy, but haven’t we all.
When last we spoke, my hive had swarmed – twice. I was pretty upset, because I knew that this would effectively dash my hopes of harvesting any significant amount of honey this year. I was also worried that I had not gotten the queens into the boxes when I recovered the swarms. I checked at one and two week intervals, and found no new eggs or larvae.
I was seriously considering buying a couple of queens and trying to save them, or recombine them into the original hive. None of these alternatives really appealed to me.
Finally, about two weeks ago, while doing a routine check of the hives, I found that both new hives had babies. Not just babies. They had lots of babies. They were flourishing. Even the original hive, the one who’s brood chamber I had to reorganize, was going gangbusters. The picture below is a frame of brood from the original hive. Life is good.
Today my son came with me to the Fire Station and rode out. It’s been a fairly quiet day today. We’ve only made two alarms so far today. Smoke coming from a chimney and a small grass fire along 21st. street. This is in stark contrast to last Sunday. The last time he rode with us. Last Sunday was quite a bit busier. We made seven medical alarms. The most significant alarm came in around 3:00 AM. My son was sleeping on the floor in my room when the alarm came in. He partially sat up, but I could tell he was still asleep. I decided to let him sleep, because in the majority of overdose calls, we stand off until WPD clears the scene, and then the subject typically is strapped crying to the cot and whisked away. This time however, the subject was code blue and we performed CPR on him for 25 minutes before they pronounced him dead. My son was pretty upset that he missed it.
So far, the only exciting thing about today is that it is Saturday, and that means we start all the power equipment on the machines and tilt the cabs to check the oil and belts. Not too exciting, but it looks kinda cool.
Just thought I’d say a little more about the cutout we did last August out at my dad’s. It was all an experiment, with nothing to lose, so there was no pressure. There are some things I would have done differently, and some things I still don’t know how we got away with. But, all in all, it was a very valuable learning experience. And, it was a lot of fun.
I introduced a possible future beekeeper to some of the wonders of their world. I know he had a good time (even though he got stung five minutes into the cutout).
And, if the bees don’t make it, which seems like a pretty safe bet, there were still some pretty sweet benefits.
Saturday night was Haz-Mat Response’s Christmas party. It was held at Argosy Casino in Kansas City. I was accompanied to the gala event by the lovely Ms. Candi Vogt.
We feasted on prime rib, salmon, chicken breast, and assorted other taste tempting treats. My favorite of the night was bacon wrapped scallops. They were delicious.
After the feast, we tried our luck at the casino. Being mindful of the danger of being accidentally bumped up into a higher tax bracket, we gambled conservatively. We played craps for just over two hours and actualy came out $134 ahead. We were very pleased.
A USD 259 truck rolled off a driveway and crushed it’s transmission oil pan. Haz-Mat Response was on the job. We absorbed fluid off the concrete and cleaned it with “Simple Green”. Then we removed a drum of soil that had soaked up the oil. Two wreckers lifted the truck and put it on a flatbed truck and then all was well.
Posted via Pixelpipe.
A busy shopping day and, apparently, a busy alarm day. E16 made 11 calls (mostly medical) all through the day and night. Calls ran from a child locked in a car, to a roll over accident in the cowskin (see below), to a code blue that evening.
The only highlight of the day was the 50″ plasma TV that the station bought. Runyan stood in line at the Walmart at 3:30 in the morning to buy it. Nice picture, even though we didn’t get to watch it too much.
A very good Thanksgiving this year. The whole family was there. Mom did her usual fantastic job (with Lilly’s help). I meant to take a picture of the food, but I got sidetracked and forgot until it was too late.
I got the pleasure of replacing the starter on my pickup today. I was really apprehensive about it, but like most things, the hardest part is starting. Once I got going, it was really pretty easy. All except the part where I fork over $200 for the new one.
Today I went out to my dad’s to cut some wood. He had a couple of hedge trees that he had cut down last year.
So we spent the day with chain saws and log splitters. I’ve got a big pile of hedge split and just waiting to help me through the long cold winter.
We also ate some persimmons that grew in town, but I didn’t get a picture of that.
