Been Busy Beeing

This is my first Spring in the South and my wife and I are experimenting with all the backyard space we have like it's going out of style: we are growing potatoes out of used tires, broccoli in storage containers, worm composting, and building things with free bamboo we picked up off craigslist. The next logical step was to beekeep, and we happened to run into Ian at our bee class, interestingly enough. Anyways, beekeeping is very labor and time intensive, last weekend we had to put together our hive, this weekend we went to the bee yard and we got our bees. I installed them fully dressed in my bee suit today, it was crazy, scary and exciting all at the same time. I may have not released my queen from her cage properly, and I will know soon enough because if she was released and not accepted I will find her carcass laying in the pile of other discarded bees that they chuck out their front door as they get settled. Bees are pretty hardcore. So that has been my last two weekends aside from schoolwork.

Grants, funding and what not...... I am having some reservations about the funding I found regarding the indigenous organization I was planning on working with. I called the office and spoke with a woman who somewhat spoke down to me and said things like "we don't fund individuals who want to go help the poor Indians.". So, that kind of made me mad and even after I told her how I could coordinate a fiscal agent from a 501c3 non-profit organization she told me that "strategies for sustainable development" doesn't include economic development, as my project involves a collective enterprise composed of community members with the goal of achieving socio-economic upward mobility for the entire community, what is more strategic, sustainable, and results in development than that? Whatever. My wife also had a point, my relationship with the NGO I intend on working with isn't the strongest and I wouldn't want to jeopardize the future interactions due to a potential grant. So, I will have to figure something else out, and this way I won't have to deal with that rude woman, someone should tell her the age old phrase "You attract more bees with honey.". Which is true, those critters will rob you clean of your honey.