I Had Nearly Finished
But you'll have to wait.
With all my creative energies going to a clean-up draft of The Big Beautiful Manuscript and trying to figure out how to make grassy textures on a collagraph plate, I have diminished capacity for stringing sentences together in coherent order.
So I’ve decided not to subject you to a garbled essay. I had nearly finished, but then the blasted shower onslaught of additional ideas hit me. Efforts to rewrite, weaving in these new bits of brilliance resulted in a…mess.
So, just an update for now:
WIP:
So far I’m keeping the pace that will have a readable draft ready for Beta Readers in early July. Most of my day is spent here, unscrambling about 3000 words/day. Bum in chair. This is tough because I want to slow down and polish, but I need to let that go for now.
Studio:
See above re: grassy textures. I’m pushing this process hard to see how much control I can gain, but it is unpredictable and frustrating. There is the constant temptation to just pick up a stinkin’ paintbrush and do what I know how to do. But what’s the point of that? If I’m going to learn this skill, I need to keep fighting it for a while yet.
Bees:
After USPS neglected four hives to their deaths, after our epic journey to Kentucky for replacements, James is three steps forward, two back. I’m not sure of the current hive count. I know wax moths got one of the big older hives out on the cattle farm. I also know a replacement queen—sent overnight UPS this time—made it to Jacksonville, but no one at the local depot can find her. And now it’s the weekend.
Gardening:
Just kidding. I’ve given up. My COVID gardener days are over. The bagworms, lubbers, aphids, pickle worms, rust, whiteflies, leaf miners, blight, drought—they can have it. I’ll garden with paint.
Memorial Weekend:
We’ll spend Monday visiting with family, eating James’ gumbo. Otherwise, just the regularly scheduled program here. All of it good. Blessed. Thankful.
How about you?
Happy Weekend!
—Lausanne
Oh no, wax moths are a nightmare! That's what got my hives in the end and I haven't had bees again since. I got a bad batch of package bees in the mail when I started a second hive (they came with varroa) and it was downhill from there. Beekeeping can be so tricky starting off. I hope you have better luck going forward!