Arcadia!

Queen Echo to the left, Queen Artemis to the right! Nucs are installed now and it went well. I went slowly and am giving them today to settle in all the way. 

November Hill farm journal, 76

We’re in the middle of a heat wave - 6 days now of temps 92 and up. Yesterday afternoon we hit 96 degrees. This is the thing about summer I dread and really dislike. The farm is beautiful this time of year, lush with tree foliage and green and growing things, but when it gets this hot, keeping horses happy and keeping up with the chores becomes a burden.

Meanwhile my amazing farm helpers pushed on yesterday, working from 6-2:30, to continue the fencing project. Thankfully most of their work took place beneath the shade of two huge oak trees so they said it wasn’t too bad. I encouraged them to wait for a break in the heat, but they wanted to go forward and get this done.

I’ll post photos once I can get out there at the right time of day to get good ones. It’s so nice already having the gates mid-way the fence line between the barn and the outer fence of the property. The fencing looks beautiful and when my garden space is complete it will be a nice little oasis at the end of the dirt paddock. I can garden in the midst of the horses and am thinking it might be nice to plant a couple of apple trees out there.

With this heat we have had two small rainfalls, enough that I didn’t need to water before leaving for Bath last week, but not enough to wait until this Saturday for the next one, so I’ve watered the pollinator beds by hand and yesterday evening my husband helped me roll the wheelbarrow water bag down to Poplar Folly to give the hollies, the Virginia sweetspire, the persimmon, and the redbud babies a good drink. They all look terrific.

The bees are coming Saturday morning! I’m naming the apiary Arcadia and one queen will be Echo - not yet sure what the other will be. Their area is behind Poplar Folly in a spot that will get morning into afternoon full sun and then some light shade toward evening. In the winter they’ll get full sun most of the day when the leaves are off the trees, so I’m hoping this spot works for them. It’s away from the house and the horses, and since I no longer have plans to try to get lots of honey from them, I think it will work okay for me as well, in terms of not having to haul supers up the hill. We’ll see how it all goes.

Today I’m going to the feed store in town to look at a whisky barrel water garden that I can put by the hives so they have water right there. There are ponds and rivers and a lake nearby but I want them to have water close by for cooling the hive easily, plus a little water garden will be fun.

Photos when things are set up!

Meanwhile I’m just trying to get things done without sweating too much!

When your screenplay nearly gets the best of you - DEEP WORK

Last night I was so confused by my own plot line I nearly exploded trying to explain it to my two writing friends. I wrote this trilogy of novels several years ago, and the plot is definitely complex, hopefully in a good, marketable way.

However, the writer of said work has to be able to get it clear in her own head before adapting it for the screen.

I ended up re-reading the first novel in this trilogy, read a chunk of it out loud to my feedback team here, and got the feedback that it wasn’t confusing when they heard it. This morning I jumped back in and did my best to wrap my brain around the thing my brain previously created. What a hoot!

This afternoon I had made progress but hit the truly complicated part and some resistance. I got up from the work space, decided to do some reading instead, and then Cal Newport’s voice rang in my head. “Deep work. Not distraction.”

Guilty as charged. I turned on a dime and sat my butt back on the red bar stool and forced myself to dig back in. Fifteen minutes later I had sorted out the central issue. This time around I charted the information in the novel manuscript AND on my screenplay outline and also repeated it out loud to my friends in an effort to truly cement it in my brain.

My agent told me years back that I didn’t back away from writing complex material and this is definitely the most complex plot I’ve ever attempted.

Thanks, Cal. Thanks, writing women. I’m back in the saddle and my outline is nearly done!

Writing retreat in Bath

Desperately needed time away to write and dive deeply into the structure of a TV series adaptation... I found this cottage on Airbnb and booked it, then learned it is owned by the mother of a woman who lives in the same town as I do and who has been instrumental in bringing some great things to our county, including the local food co-op. The cottage is lovely and three writing women are here typing away. Heaven!

Homeschooling the hounds