Saturday, Sunday

The Callery pears are starting to bloom, especially those with good strong sun hitting them. The top of the American Radiator Building was all light up in gold yesterday morning, too. Spectacular; you can see why Georgia O’Keefe was inspired by it. I’ve seen or heard crows most days this week; Friday night a pair were sparring with a jay off Riverside Drive. Foul with the odiousness of doing my taxes (a needlessly complex process) Saturday, I saw a peregrine circling Borough Hall, and that lightened my mood considerably. There were bare legs and even bare shoulders out Saturday. And then today it was time to bundle up again. Looked like rain all day. I headed into the Inner Borough early this morning for some beekeeping, but it was too cold to open up the garden hives; we’ll try again next week. Came back to Brooklyn and went around the Prospect Park Lake and saw the pair of pintail ducks: beautiful. Also new this rather quiet afternoon; black crowned night heron (five of them), tufted titmouse, hermit thrush…and this chicken at the south end of the lake by West Island:
I’ve been reading LL Langstroth’s classic beekeeper’s manual, written a century and a half ago. Langstroth was the man, the guy who came up with the movable frame hive which is standard today (but not universal; check out Gerry on the top bar hive). Although the book is old, it’s still very informative. Unfortunately, LL was a religious man; he honestly believed God made the world for Man. An example of his monotheist egotism: “the instincts of the honey-bee have been devised with special reference to the welfare of man.” The damage that kind of thinking has lead to!
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Passed this on the way to the garden. 249.5 East 13th St: the studio of Bitter & Moretti Sculptors. I used to know a couple who lived there, but they never invited me over. Grrr. Karl Bitter was a sculptor in the great epoch of public sculpture. His Pomona across from the Plaza Hotel, and the four continents at the US Customs House at Bowling Green are some of his most obvious works. Symbolic Women; you can count the actual woman memorialized in statues in one hand in this city: Eleanor Roosevelt, Gertrude Stein, Joan of Arc; can you think of any others?