My friend Michael White is a fantastic songwriter, and, although I am quite late in getting the word out about one of his recent projects, I hope you will check out his “It’s a Wonderful Life” video. It is really well done and worth your time. Here is a shot of Michael looking all songwriter-y. . .

Anyway, his lyrics have a way of getting stuck in one’s head. At least they get stuck in mine. This bit — from an entirely different song of his — is one of my very favorites:

The broken glass in the road,
cuts you deep but you know …
they may be diamonds in available light.

–S.

Happy Halloween. . . Check out our great pumpkin (carved by the King of SusanLand, in fact!) What I like most about it is that, while one person might see it as a glowing recommendation, someone else might view it as terror personified.

And it looks like we weren’t the only ones with the election-y pumpkin idea. There is even a Sarah Palin version. Now that is spooky.

Incidentally, I’ve already voted, I’m working the polls, and, if you know me well enough, you know that I’m firmly planted on the side of glowing recommendation.

–S.

Every time I come across a new artist (or, at least, a new-to-me artist) whose work is just really remarkable, I am grateful that I was able to find out about them at all. I think that ours is such a noisy, cluttered, distracted world, that, often, what really deserves attention goes unnoticed. I wonder, what else have I missed until now?…

Well, election year or not, I hope you’ll turn down the talking heads for a minute, take your eyes off the road, and check out the watercolor illustration work of one Bonnie T. Gardner. Here is a taste.

Lovely, no?

–S.

Not that any of us need another way to put off that which must be done, but I am pretty intrigued with Fantastic Contraption.

It’s touted as an online physics puzzle game, and, really, it is for those more spatially gifted than I. My brainy Brother, in particular, would love it, but he is not one given to procrastination. (At least not yet…) It doesn’t cost anything, so you can give it a try yourself, but you can’t say I didn’t warn you!

–S.

So this guy I knew wayyyyy back in college recently resurfaced. He was quite a talented musician, but last I knew he was giving that up to pursue another (I think less adventurous) path. I was pleased to hear from him, and, best of all, to discover that he’s writing and releasing his music again. He is a one-man operation, laying down track after track, until what is in his head makes it out into the world for the rest of us. Go listen, and, if you like what you hear, by God, buy it!!

Some of us worry more than others. For my part, I do it a lot. So much, in fact, that I’ve taken to wearing a rubber band around my wrist, and, when I catch myself borrowing trouble from the future, I give my wrist a wicked snap. I have gone through four rubber bands so far. They start out nice and stretchy, but, eventually, they become slack with overuse.

 Anyway, one of my favorite people has had some extra things to worry about lately, so I made her the Worry Man above. To employ his services, you simply scrawl your worry du jour on a tiny scrap of paper, fold it up, and pop it into the Worry Man’s creepy, gaping maw. There is no way to retrieve your worries, by the way. They remain permanently in the Worry Man’s guts, and I made sure he has space enough for a few years’ worth of worries at least. Once they are in him, the burden of your worry has been transfered to him — leaving you free to come up with some new worries, I suppose.

–S.

First, Happy Fourth to those who celebrate it! (This calls for jam!!) Allow me to explain.

Last year wasn’t a good berry year, but this year, well, I’ve never seen anything like this. The king and I have been picking black raspberries from the hedge I installed to keep trespassers away from the honey bees. We’ve been mashing them into jam and canning said jam. It would appear that we have enough to keep ourselves in jam for the next 10 years

By extension, everyone we know will be receiving jam, no matter the occasion. It’s your birthday? Jam. Your anniversary? Congratulations! Here is some delicious jam. New baby? Jam is the perfect gift for an infant boy or girl, no? . . .

Sure. As long as they aren’t too spooked by the labels we made for the jam jars, that is. What began as a play on words came to life as a disturbing nod to the bubonic plague. Good times!

So it’s like this. I just got married. Thought I never would, but there it is! Anyway, we hardly told a soul and had a teeny “wedding” in a romantic courtroom. And now I am really in the doghouse with some people for not sending out fancy invitations, for not alerting them to our plans, for not having a “proper” wedding in the first place. The funny part is, we’d hoped to minimize the drama often associated with weddings, but, in the process, I guess we made it worse? Hey, at least we tried.

So I have a new holiday to celebrate: June 13 marks the Coronation of the King of SusanLand. Here’s the best our imaginary wedding photographer could come up with. . .

–S.

I just finished the manuscript for my next book, which is slated to come out in the spring of next year. It’s all about the mercurial world of honey bees and beekeeping, and, as such, I’ve really had bees on the brain lately!

But, before I get too far into that,  I wanted to let you know that I should be here a lot now, and I could use your help with something. Namely, I really miss having the old Lost Soul Companion forum, and I think it would be a shame not to reinstate it. So, weigh in, if you don’t mind, with a comment — or send me an email behind the scenes to let me know what you think. . .

So, back to bees. Besides my honey bees, I have become quite interested in all of the wild pollinators out there — feral bees of many stripes, bumble bees, solitary wasps, and so on. As such, I’ve joined the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation, and I grabbed a copy of Kenn Kaufman’s Field Guide to Insects of North America. I’ve been snapping some good photos around the place and trying to identify the beneficial bugs when I am able. Here is someone I caught in the act:

I initially thought she was some kind of tiny bee,  but Father Knows Best. This is more likely what’s known as a Toxomerus hover fly. Here is an especially lovely one.

–S.

It’s been pretty quiet in here because I am finishing up a new, non-fiction book on bees and beekeeping. And when I’m not working on that, I’ve been messing in the garden. I’ve also been thinking quite a bit about The Lost Soul Companion Project forums. I miss having them, and I wonder if others don’t miss them, too. If I could find some iron-clad software, I would happily launch them again. Does anyone out there have any suggestions for me on that front? Let me know. . .