Bees

September 18, 2011

Partly Cloudy

I was expecting sunny skies this weekend – had big plans to break out the cyanotype supplies…but yesterday was partly sunny and I held out till today thinking it would be mostly sunny (and a better choice for my plans).

But I was mistaken.

The forecast was incorrect.  Gee..that’s never happened before.

Oh, well.  Another day…

But because the weather wasn’t cyanotype-worthy I ended up getting rid of a whole lot of stuff  indoors (that had been piling up in the corner of one of the spare bedrooms which I’m now using as an office) – which worked out better anyway…now when the weather is sunny I won’t feel guilty about playing when I should be cleaning.  Yay!

I did take advantage of the nice light and grabbed a few shots this evening as I was wandering around the yard – so it ended up being a very nice weekend.

Hope you had a nice one too!

September 6, 2011

The Latest Buzz

At O’Hare Airport, Unused Land Is Going to the Bees

Did you hear this story?  Here is an article I found a couple of weeks ago…

That buzzing sound you hear at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport could be a jet taking off. Or maybe it’s coming from the 1.5 million bees that call the airport home.

In May, the Chicago Department of Aviation partnered with a community group to start a 2,400 square foot apiary on-site. Now 23 beehives are up and running and are scheduled to yield 575 pounds of honey this year.

The project offers a creative, sustainable, and productive way to use otherwise wasted open space at mega-airports like O’Hare. The bees’ new home on the east side of the airport campus had long stood vacant, so it was a natural spot for the bee program to begin. And if that’s not enough benefit, the beehives provide employment opportunities for formerly incarcerated adults (similar to other projects that teach prisoners beekeeping).

‘Sweet Beginnings’, the offshoot of the local economic development agency that’s managing the project, trains felons in the art of beekeeping and the process of making honey, candles, and lotions, which are sold under the brand Beeline. O’Hare’s shops intend to start selling the hyper-local honey products soon. “It is the perfect example of a green business operating and growing in Chicago, while also providing opportunities to those who need a second chance,” said former Chicago mayor Richard M. Daley.

The “airport beekeeping movement” has been growing in Germany since 1999, when scientists realized honeybees could be helpful for monitoring air quality, but O’Hare is the first American airport to get an apiary. In a way, it’s a return to the airport’s agricultural roots: O’Hare was founded on a former apple orchard, which lives on in the three letter airport code “ORD.”

Now, isn’t that a cool thing to do?!

 

August 22, 2011

Oh, Tallulah!

I was there in the South of France When Zelda [Fitzgerald], poor darling, went off her head. She had gone into a flower shop and suddenly, for her, all the flowers had faces. Of course, some flowers, such as pansies, do have faces.    Tallulah Bankhead

I planted a backyard full of sunflowers a couple of summers ago.  They grew like crazy.  I had about twenty different varieties – all colors, shapes, and sizes.  I filled up a 4G memory card in about an hour photographing them.  There were bees everywhere!  Probably hundreds.  They didn’t seem to mind me being there at all though.  I guess they were too intoxicated by all the sunflower-goodness and the warm summer sun made them too lazy to worry about me.

A lot of my favorite images are the ones I’ve taken in familiar surroundings – like my back yard – and not necessarily while on vacation or visiting a scenic place. I’m not sure why this is.  Maybe its because we can relax enough to ‘see’ what we’re looking at and are not rushed to capture every moment on our vacation itinerary.  And it probably helps being alone so there isn’t anyone impatiently waiting for you to set up your shot – hypothetically.

The point is…beauty can be found just about anywhere.  Sometimes it’s right under our noses!

This image was manipulated in Photoshop by adding a filter and a soft blur.