show me the way to go home, I'm tired and I want to go to bed

A bright spot in last week was the arrival of my new bees.  Bees!  And five days later they are still here, although they may abdicate tomorrow because of the way I inadvertently manhandled them today.  I think I squished a couple.  In my defense, I want to say that Kurt the Bee Guy, as he is listed in my contacts, said that you don't buy bees to just leave them alone and never learn anything, so you should get in and look at your bees whenever you want.  And I didn't mean to knock off a big chunk of the brand-new comb which they have been laboring frantically to make.  Sun!  I blame the sun for making the comb all soft and weak. 

But to back up:  you may remember that all my bees left last year, and perhaps you even heard that while they were here they built their comb across multiple bars of our top-bar hive design, which would make honey harvesting a royal pain in the butt.  So we (by which I mean the Tituses, fellow participants in our Grand Experiment) retrofitted the hives.  There is now a board across the bottom which can be opened during hot weather and closed during cold weather.  Gordon routed a channel into the bars and I glued popsicle sticks into the channel and rubbed them with beeswax to help them figure out how to build straight.  Then Brian (of the Magic Neighbors) brought over two full, straight frames from his bees to provide even more structure. 

I put the hive on the east side of the milking shed, so it gets afternoon shade.  It might not be enough even so, and I'll probably have to put a makeshift awning over it, a real pretty one made from a raggedy old tarp we don't use anymore, or something similar.  I'll for sure tie it down with orange twine, maybe tie it to a rock or a tree stump to make it foxy.  Oh, you guys.  My yard. 

I really don't want to lose my bees again.  When I get the video of the install from John's phone I will show it to you.  I have beekeeping gear and everything.  Aside from my ruination of their painstakingly constructed comb, everything is going peachy and I have high apple pie in the sky hopes. 

I told you about the rabbits, and here is what it looked like:

After the $70 trip to the vet. 

Let's be honest, we all know it was Martha.  Martha, who tricked me by being docile and sweet at the co-op, and then turned into hell on four feet once we got her home.  She bites all the time.  She is, like, the worst rabbit that was ever made.  I regret buying her. 

You know the thing about Martha?  She's got lifeless eyes.  Black eyes, like a doll's eyes.