Upcoming visit by Big Rog!!!

[beemaster]

Hi Everyone:

All is well here, I'm feeling better and even enjoyed a 4 day weekend near Cape May, NJ (about 2 hours from home) with some friiends and coworkers who met us there in their RVs. We got to play some poker and enjoyed each others company away from the pressures of our work enviroments.

The count down has started and I'm awaiting NEXT WEEKS visit by Big Rog, who will be coming up to visit with me and my family, tour Lakehurst Navy Base and take my C3 (swarm hive) home with him - I know C3 will be in great hands.

I just checked all three hives yesterday and all are doing really great. C2 could have better honey stores than it does, but I see lots of larva, so I think I'll keep this queen and just wait out the Fall nectar and pollen flow.

C1 and C3 are weighing about 120 pounds and C2 about 90, but all in all they are doing great!

It's gonna be great to meet someone from the forum - we have a few NJ members but I haven't met them, but all good things in time :)

Our motorhome "The Bus" www.beemaster.com/bus.html was a big hit with our friends at the campground, none of who saw it before, not even in photos. We hung out Sunday night watching DVDs and enjoying pizza that my wife made for us.

Thanks to my coworker Mike who set us up with fire-wood from his parents RV site right there at the RV Park. It was great meeting his parents and I even had some wood left over to use on our NEXT RVing trip.

More updates on me....

I'm temporarilly working for a great boss in the Transportation department at Navy Lakehurst: he needed someone with some computer skills to enter a great amount of data into a new software package that the Feds are using worldwide. Its mostly inventory and billing related stuff, but it's good to get away from the Power Plant for a month or two while dealing with a bout of sickness.

I'm hoping that this will lead into a FULL-TIME JOB if one can be created. My boss is swamped with work and has ZERO help to accomplish a job that similar bases have 8 people handling the data. It would be a raise and a move into the white collar world for me, so keep your fingers crossed. I don't see it happening very soon, but I think eventually they will have to give him assistance, at which time, the job will be announced and I'll apply for it - as I'm sure many other people will apply too, but I'm the only one with actual experience ( 5 weeks so far, with about 6 more weeks to go) so hopefully THAT will make a difference when selection of the new position occurs.

Healthwise, right now, I think I may be avoiding surgury. The antibiotic treatments and other meds seem to be helping and I'll know in about a week what the "Plan" is concerning my infection in my skull.

So keep busy with your families, your bees and the forum - I have been catching up with my reading in here slowly and I'm really glad to see nearly 270 members. Great work moderators, you have been a great help here and to the members It's great to see you so active posting and sharing your knowledge and questions with the group!

Talk again soon all.

[Anonymous]

John, so glad to hear your doing better. I read that you are also enjoying life with a rv which is great also.
We have 3 Hibiscus in bloom now and I got to wondering how yours is doing this year.
One of your first post when the garden section was here was about your Hibicus not blooming last year.They are sure big beautiful blooms and my girls seem to like crawling inside the buds before they are fully open.
We bought another Dark Knight Spirea for the bee garden Last Friday as they cover the blooms on the one we had so thick they knock each other off. They are also on the Autum Joy Sedum some but it isn't fully in bloom either. I'll be putting pictures on soon to continue the bees favorite foods soruces.
 :D Al

[Archie]

Hi John,

It was really wonderful to read your post this morning.  Though I have never met you  and a member for only a short time, your words of wisdom were greatly missed.  Stay on the road to recovery.  Your wife's pizza sounds like a good start.

Archie[/b]

[Sting]

It's great to read your note (above).  It is clear from your tone that you are doing better and for that I am grateful.  We're all pulling for you.  You've done a great thing here.  Best wishes from the Great White North! :lol:

[beemaster]

Thanks for the nice replies gang :)

I was so pleased to get away for that 4 day weekend that I just about cried - the time that Tracey and I have had lately dealing with these health issues truly have worn us down and this get-away was EXACTLY what we needed.

I will add though that my memory loss has not gotten any better. I've learned a few tricks to take Short Term Memories and PLACE THEM into long term places in my brain, so I'm getting better at remembering stuff which I MAKE A POINT to remember, but I still forget simple things, like going to the store for milk (I'll literally go and get it, put it in the fridge) and then and hour later go get milk again, as if I had never gotten it - scarey stuff huh?

But, I'm alive and functional and I'm told that I'm not a candidate for early onslaught Alshiemers disease - the Lymes/Mennegitis (although it has caused "Stroke like scars" on my brain isn't a trigger or catalyst for other mind related diseases - thank God! Of course now I got this infection in my skull - ugh. Been one thing after naother since July 2001 and frankly, I wish it would stop messing with me.

Funny (strange is probably a much better word) how I have gotten to know so many of you in here, yet we have never met. I think of Beth as a "OLDER SISTER -lol (she'll read that and flip) cause I think I have her by quite a few years and Trail Twister is a closer friend to me than many people I know in my daily circle of friends. Honestly, I care for everyone here in the forum - you have all voluntarilly joined this forum and shared so much about yourselves, it's always great to know that the MOOD of the forum is always friendly and helpful and THAT reflects each and every member greatly.

I think of Big Rog as the "Jack Reacher" a character in a series of books I truly love written by Lee Child which are read (on audiotape) by the best reader on Earth - Dick Hill. Reacher carries a tough outer shell, huge in stature, solid in his beliefs and with plenty of muscle and skills to back it up, but has a spirit as kind and gentle and moral as any human on Earth.

I could go on and on, the young wisdon of Bee Boy and Buzz who are always around, even when school and girls are part of their daily lives. Sherryl who is the most out-doorsy person I have ever known (and someone I would yell "UNCLE" to in a thumb-wrestling contest before the ref yelled GO!

You guys are great and deserve recognition for your contributions. I'm sorry to the hundreds of folks I have not mentioned above - to the newer members, forgive me for NOT writing you welcome letters which is something I did for every new member until I had a relapse a while ago. I hope you understand that you are all welcomed in the forums and I hope you checkout the other forums available on my home page at www.beemaster.com - we have a Christian Forum, Gardening Forum and Cookbook forum, all using the same software you are using in this forum - so sharing your thoughts and wisdom in the other forums are VERY MUCH welcomed.

Thanks again and yes, I do feel a lot better than a month ago. For a week or two I was confused and feeling as if every muscle was weak and achy. Now, I've been mowing the lawn, got that great 4 day trip in and very soon I'll start getting Big Rog's C3 Hive ready for transport.

When he is here, I'll be giving him the Tai Chi of Beekeeping experience of handling the bees without all that added gear, search out and find larva and eggs, spot some queens, taste some honey and get him packed up for a safe trip back home where C3 will be renamed I'm sure to C1 or something similar and we'll all get to follow it through the Fall and it's first Winter.

Talk again soon. I guess you can tell I'm feeling better, I get typing and I never hush up  

[buzz]

I sure am glad your doing better, Beemaster. I've really been missing having your advice on all the new threads :lol:

[Beth Kirkley]

John!!
So good to see you. I've got so many things to tell you! So be prepared buddy, I've got a long PM coming your way. :)

Beth

[Bee Boy]

JOHN! Nice to see you back! The forums just weren't the same with out ya!

[beemaster]

After calling BETH my "Older Sister" I'm a bit affraid of WHAT could be in that Private Message - lol.

PS.... Thanks Bee Boy, good to be back. I'm outside today power washing two supers to transfer frames into for Big Rog when he comes Thursday. I want him to go home with a brand new looking hive and that should be a great start for his entry into the wonderful hobby of beekeeping!

I even took the power washer to the rear end of the motorhome, when you drive in the rain, all the muck that collects on top dribbles to the rear leaving STREAKS that could permanently stain if you aren't careful.

It's a short visit, but Rog and I will surely have a good deal to talk about and share during and after the visit. I hope he likes the accomidations as much as I do - lol. I think he'll be fine :)

I'm feeling good enough to plan our NEXT two trips with the motorhome. I got an offer by my temporary boss to go to his place in the poconos where he has a ton of firewood we can cut and I can bring home to take camping NEXT Summer with us. The other trip is back to Lancaster, PA to see the other play Abraham and Sarah at Living Waters Theatre or (if not there) then we will be going to New Gretna, a slightly off shore RV park about an hour from here with friends and coworkers on Columbus Day weekend!

Either way, it's good to make plans - for about a month and a half I couldn't concentrate enough to type two logical sentences back to back so planning months ahead seemed an impossibility.

Talk again soon all :)