The news from over here, a big-bee-wiggle away... : )

I'm the secretary for our town's historical society, and have been for years.  It keeps me from having to be president, a job which no one really wants to do and to which, if you show the least vulnerability at any moment, you might suddenly be elected...  : )  Anyways, it's a good thing that I'm the secretary, really, because I never think I'm going to enjoy the meetings as much as I do, and if I didn't have to go, I'd miss all kinds of interesting lectures!  We have the meetings, with lecturers and sometimes with performers, once a month during the summer, and last night was the first one of the year.  It was about beekeeping, and it was fascinating.  I remembered some things I had learned about bees when Dad kept his hives, but they are just such amazing little creatures.  I didn't know that the worker bees do different jobs, first working inside the hive when they are younger and then graduating on to "field bee."  The field bees have different jobs, too - some collect pollen and nectar, some fetch water, and some bring back tree resin to use as glue.  Although I did remember that a bee does a dance to communicate the direction of a tasty find to the other bees, I did not remember that she wiggles her abdomen during the dance to communicate the distance - a little wiggle for something close, and a big wiggle for something far away!  She also gives the bees observing the dance a taste of what she's found, so they know what they're looking for.  Clever critters.  I've always wanted to read The Superorganism by EO Wilson, about insect societies; I think I'll have to move it up on my list.

In other wildlife news, we've been seeing a fox in our fields a lot lately.  With no chickens to worry about, we just enjoy watching him.  Molly likes him, too - she barks and barks to tell him so, although I've told her to play hard to get.  She just says, "He's so...wild."  *swoon*

Sandeep has been working much too hard lately, but he has the next two days off-ish (no scheduled work except one meeting, but lots piled on his desk).  His parents, and Sunny, Rupali and Rhea, are coming to visit in mid-June - yippee!  He has been having fun on iTunes, finding old Indian music and really - noisy - rock to exercise to.  Would you believe that he likes a song called "Pulse of the Maggots"?

Our very nice carpenter is working on our upstairs bathroom this week; the downstairs shower is finished, so we're still nice and clean even though everything upstairs is ripped down to the beams and joists.  Someone at one point in our house's history had taken some liberties with a really important beam, which we discovered just the other day, so I got to watch the carpenter and four helpers wrestle a huge new beam in through the window.  It's in place now, so our second story is no longer in danger of falling into the kitchen.  Happiness!

love, Jess