2022

 Hey! So much has happened. I would like to start this again. Unfortunately, I have forgotten the how-to details. So my restart might be a little slow.

first trip to the bees in a year

It has been one year since I worked the bees and it has been one year since I have written on this site, so it is time to restart! Yesterday at the bees, I was stung on my head. Hurt like hell and I have a Klingon bump on my forehead. Not a pretty sight. No picture though--I've forgotten how!!!

Wombats

Wombats are a mix of teddybear( soft to the touch with an adorable face), groundhog(diggers extrodinaire) and baby pig (all muscle and tiny legs). They are hated by the farmers out here in the bush because they dig extensive burrow systems in paddocks.Since they are nocturnal the only ones I have seen in the wild have been late at night as we move bees or dead and swollen by the side of the road. They are marsupials, but with a twist! Their pouch is backwards, so as they dig the babies don't get dirty. Plus they poop is squares. Yes, cubic feces, like briquets.

Back Home in Narrandera

This is the busy time in the bee world! Here is our newest toy! I would call it a forklift, but Stevie calls is an Avant which is a one ton articulated loader made in Finland. Eventually I will be the one loading and unloading beeboxes with it--but that is a few steps ahead of me. I want him to paint "Robyn Rover" on it.
As far as breast cancer news, I have an oncologist in Sydney, Dr. Gavin Marx ( he has an excellent reputation and he is soooo cute!) and I will be part of clinical trial comparing Tamaxifin to Arimidex. So that is a good thing.

last day of radiation

Last Tuesday was the end of the radiation experience. It was really difficult the last few weeks,but it is over and I am healing.

challenges in ohio

( Warning! I can't spell, I can't type, and I never reread what I have tried to express--so this will be riddled with errors!) here we are at the cancer center. Em and June have come down from Chicago to go to my first radiation treatment and of course sweet Jess is there too!
this is a wonderful story full of blessings and good people. Had the regular mammogram on june 1, and got the call for a SECOND BECAUSE BAD THINGS HAD BEEN FOUND ON OOPS. bad things had been found, so I returned june 8. God Bless Dr. Havey--had some of his children in school and they were precious too, Dr. havey found the very small, easy to miss-- spot, and spent a good deal of time looking at my old pictures to confirm. First operation to remove it was June 15. the results were back in june 18. God Bless and lots of hugs and kisses to Dr. Moore--my GP,
who showed up at our front door with the report in his hand--so very kind. He stayed with us over an hour explaining what was ahead. Second operation to take just a little more was july 8 .
and now we have come to the picture!!!! today I had my first radiation treatment. It was a piece of cake--beautiful facility, lots of kind people. no problems.
Only one sad note, Stevie had to leave Saturday. Spring is coming in Australia and we have pollination contracts that must be met. Now that was hard. My tears, when they flow, are more about our geographic separation than my breast cancer--so schedule your mammogram today please.

the bees and I or me and the bees

This is a picture from several weeks ago . We are at Jindabyne, in a charming paddock with a little group of adorable horses. Notice how our beeboxes are multi-coloured ( Australian spelling)--you see, Stevie believes in the WPIOS (what paint is on sale) method of hive box painting.

Reading at Tumberumba

I read- Her Fearful Symmetry-, by Audrey Niffenegger, here under a wonderful applebox tree.

after a long day's work

Goodness! Hard work is bad for the hairdo!!!

Paddy's Falls

We have been to Paddy's Creek to camp while we work the bees 3 times so far and we had gone past the sign to Paddy's Falls at least a dozen times before we drove down the mini-mountain to see them.

Tea Time

Our bee hives here on the edge of the Snowy mountains are really well. Stevie is having his morning tea. We never skip morning tea and

bickies, although I usually have coffee.

Gnome tree in Rosewood

On the way to our bees in the mountains, near Tumberumba, we passed this gnome tree in Rosewood. It is the only gnome tree I have ever seen.

Posting lots of pictures

New experience! Picking oranges, 6:00am to 10:ooam with 4 adorable dogs( Rolly was my favorite), Barb and Graham. They have an orange grove with 80,000 trees--Barb has been a sweetheart, she's the one who got me to try golf. Narrandera has oranges, rice, corn, canola, lucerne, potatoes and wheat crops all fed by the Murrumbidgee River where giant 100 pound cod swim.

Reading spot, Jinderbyne

Jinderbyne is in the Snowy Mountains. It's here our bees played/worked while we traveled 16 hours to the future (the US). I loved reading here--the sunset was spectacular. My Kindle has a reading light, so I was still reading as I glanced up to my gone-with-the-wind backdrop.

Plus (one added, free, amazing, delightful detail) the roos were slowly bouncing away as we rolled onto this paddock.

Back to sunshine, back to Australia

As soon as we got back , we needed to see, move and doctor our bees ( "the girls" as Stevie says).

The truck ride is bumpy. We have terrible hours, moving the bees only in the deep dark and the wee hours of the sleepy mornings, but the joy is in my reading spots. This is where I read for a few hours. I think that the best way to show my love for this place( meaning Australia, in general) and to demontrate my new documentation project, is to photo the places I sit and read. My sweet mom is afraid I am working hard, but really I am reading soft.

Sketchfest 2010, chicago

Stevie and I, with wonderful help from Jan, were able to surprise Emily and see her perform with her comedy partner, Hilary at Sketchfest.

They were so funny, so cute, so adorable.

Back is the USA

We went back to Ohio for Christmas. Actually, we went to Ohio,

Florida , Indianapolis and Chicago for ourHoliday break.

Our guides at Uluru

this is Robert. He was adorable!

Stevie is fantastic to travel with because he does it right. When we were to take a tour around the Rock he said we will get aboriginal guides. And so we did. There were 6 of us "whitees" and a wonderful family headed up on this tour by Jenny the mother, telling us the story of 2 serpents, one male and one female, and showing us the Rock features that corresponded with each detail. This, by the way, must have been a non- secret story, because so many of the Aboriginal myths are never repeated to outsiders. Robert, their son was a regular 5 year old , I would guess, interrupting, running around, smiling for the camera. Cameras--pictures, interesting footnote.

We were advised that taking pictures of aboriginals was rude and unacceptable. Jenny, at the start of our time together, said we had paid for our tour ($116 per person -3 hours) and we were welcome to take pictures. As we walked around the Rock, other tourists would snap a picture of her and she was warlike--stop! we are not animals! --

Uluru (Ayer's Rock)

Uluru (Ayer's Rock) stands by itself, out of no where, about 4 hours out of Alice Springs. It changes colors red to purple, white to gray.

the Aboriginals have complex stories that relate to all the features of the Rock. Most are secret. The men and women go through a Masonic-like stepping stone system, only learning the next story after they have completed the ritual and initiation of the one before it. they ask visitors NOT to climb on the Rock, since it has a spiritual significance ( most fat americans couldn't do it anyway--39 people have died climbing the "stairs"-- mostly heartattack or heat exhaustion) but the Australian government/northern territory park service have not taken down the chained steep path although signs are everywhere asking you not to climb. We didn't. ( I wouldn't have been able to do it, though I am not that fat-- I didn't want to.)

the red center of Oz