Maintenance

I was planning on finally treating my bees evening before last. The chilly rainy weather had moved in before I got to it last week, and Wednesday was the first warm sunny day. Bees don't like to be messed with when it's cloudy, chilly, and damp. I was even composing my journal post about it in my head as I got ready for work. I've been getting off work early lately because the call volume is down, so timing was good. At 8:30 am I got a call from Paul and Dan. Seems Dan had the same idea with his bees, and decided he would come over and do mine, too. I weighed my past history of putting off working the bees, as I'm sure the two of them already had. So, I said I would appreciate it. I took some good natured ribbing from Paul about needing to be taken care of, then I went down to the hive and put the supplies where Dan could get to them. My other two packages of bees are due April 14. I need to get over to Paul's and put together some equipment beforehand. I'm sure the fact that I hadn't called him to do that yet is part of what prompted the decision by Dan to just stop by and take care of my hive for me.

Yesterday was another short day at work, so I came home and changed into jeans and a tshirt and headed over to Beaman Park to hike. As usual, I hadn't eaten enough, but it was a nice upper 70's cloudy breezy day. I put my heavy wool socks on over my thin dress socks I'd been wearing all day for work, and hiked in my running shoes. I just took a day pack with some things in it to give it a bit of heft, and a little bit of water that I already had in my platypus bottle. There were several others there taking advantage of the nice weather.

Fist thing that happened is that the new hiking poles I had traded for at REI because one of my previous poles would slip randomly wouldn't open up. No matter what I tried (short of a wrench which I didn't have with me) I couldn't get the twist lock to open so I could extend the pole. So, I put the hiking poles back in the truck. I'll go back to REI and trade them in with some extra money and get a pair of Leiki poles. Next I remembered when I tried to fasten the hip belt on the day pack that I had caught the strap in the truck door and shattered the plastic buckle on it. I tried just tying the belt, but it didn't work well. So, I was just on the shoulder straps.

Soon I realized that the day pack sits heavy on my back. Now that the temperature is warmer, this means that my back was soon wet with sweat. So, that is the last hike with that pack. I will try to get the buckle fixed, and just use it as my gym bag. Next I realized that I really, really should have eaten. I was feeling the hike mostly in my abdominal and side muscles. This is a good thing if it is really working these muscles and not just that I was that hungry. I also was starting to get hot spots on my feet for the first time since wearing running shoes to hike. The jeans were hot, too. I need to get some inner soles for my shoes and stop wearing heavy socks for the padding effect I guess. And, I need to get over the need to hike in long pants, or at least dig out my nylon hiking pants. Since summer hiking concerns me more than issues with cold weather hiking this is a good time to shake down all of this.

I didn't do as much as I had planned in the hike. I maybe hiked 3 miles. But it was nice to get out in the woods. I need to figure out something to carry with me in the truck to eat besides the uncrustable peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I have got to start eating more...