Micky and I are taking the week off to do tasks around the house to prepare for the baby. And before I started today’s adventures, I decided to sit at the back window and watch the backyard.<\/p>\n
There’s a male hummingbird who lives in a tree two houses down. He loves our yard. He zips in and out. Always at the speed of sight. When the sun hits him just right, his red neck shines in the light like a neon Las Vegas sign. <\/p>\n
The bees agave made for themselves a home. They’re carrying in pollen, drinking the sugar water, and building their combs. <\/p>\n
A family of turtle doves sits at the base of the hive. I don’t know if they’re waiting for drops of honey or errant bees to make a snack out of. Either way they sing while they wait, and the harmony is beautiful. <\/p>\n
Spiders build webs. <\/p>\n
Along the fence evidence of skunks, rats, and raccoons are many and evident.<\/p>\n
The artichoke plants are larger than life, with small artichoke hearts starting to make their way into the world. The grasses are growing. The bushes are blooming. The lemons ripen. <\/p>\n
Out of my window, in area code 94122, I have my own urban jungle. And a little sunshine to go with it. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Micky and I are taking the week off to do tasks around the house to prepare for the baby. And before I started today’s adventures, I decided to sit at the back window and watch the backyard. There’s a male hummingbird who lives in a tree two houses down. He loves our yard. He zips […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[4,1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pQyAq-oO","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1505,"url":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/2015\/03\/24\/beekeeping-update\/","url_meta":{"origin":1538,"position":0},"title":"Beekeeping update","date":"March 24, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"The bees are ordered!They arrive on April 11. There will be a queen, and her newly adopted family of 10k bees.\u00a0I have 2 more frames to paint. I have an entire stand to build. And then the infrastructure to support the bees will be finished.\u00a0This weekend, I got to go\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Adventures in beekeeping"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1549,"url":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/2015\/04\/24\/dont-teach-fear-teach-respect-instead\/","url_meta":{"origin":1538,"position":1},"title":"Don't teach fear; teach respect instead","date":"April 24, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"The bees are drinking as much sugar water as the kids are drinking milk. It's amazing how quickly two sets of little ones can consume these liquids. And so yesterday, I went to refill the sugar water for the bees so I wouldn't have to do it this morning. Mornings\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Adventures in beekeeping"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1555,"url":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/2015\/04\/25\/talking-about-bees\/","url_meta":{"origin":1538,"position":2},"title":"Talking about bees...","date":"April 25, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"We are on week 2 of bees.\u00a0 I've reduced the hive down to one super (the technical term for the boxes). It started off as 3 boxes - 1 to house the bee transport box, 1 with frames (the technical term for where the bees build comb), and 1 to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Adventures in beekeeping"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":995,"url":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/2014\/03\/11\/introducing-bug-hikes\/","url_meta":{"origin":1538,"position":3},"title":"Introducing bug hikes","date":"March 11, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"So it turns out that having a yard, and being by the park, has inspired a whole new activity for the kids... bug hikes! The kids went out yesterday, and found a mole in the woods. They look for spiders, ants, bees, and anything else that crawls. Genevieve is totally\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Fatherhood"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1591,"url":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/2015\/05\/16\/beekeeping-update-video-of-the-action\/","url_meta":{"origin":1538,"position":4},"title":"Beekeeping update - Video of the action","date":"May 16, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"I promised my dad I would make a video of an inspection with all of the action. Here's the intro video: Today's game plan was to fill up the sugar water, and then make sure that the hive is queen right. Queen right is just terminology to mean that there\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Adventures in beekeeping"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1475,"url":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/2015\/01\/31\/my-beekeeping-adventure-begins\/","url_meta":{"origin":1538,"position":5},"title":"My beekeeping adventure begins","date":"January 31, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"And so it begins... Last week I went to a beekeeping class. The teachers were hilarious. They just kept making fun of each other. Some of them do it for fun like I will. One of them does it as a side business. It's pretty amazing to see how into\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Adventures in beekeeping"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1538"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1538"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1538\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}