The Gifts of a Garden is available on Amazon

My latest book, available on Amazon in three formats: e-book, hardcover, and paperback. 

The Gifts of a Garden: De Angelis, Paula Mary: 9798435180572: Amazon.com: Books

(front and back covers shown; design by Paloma Ayala) 

Late summer garden--photos

As promised, some recent photos of my garden (August and September). Autumn is approaching here in Oslo, and gardening season is winding down. I went to my garden today after having been traveling for almost two weeks. The summer asters are in full bloom, the climbing rose bushes have bloomed for the second time this summer, the coneflowers look beautiful (see photos), likewise (some of) the gladiolas (see photos). The giant sunflowers grew very tall while I was away; their height is impressive, at least eight feet (see photos). The other photos were taken during mid- to late-August, when gooseberries, red currants, black currants and raspberries were harvested. The Folva potatoes were harvested at the beginning of September. 

yellow coneflowers

coneflowers and gladioli

giant sunflowers

the (mostly) perennial garden

garden project for this year--assembling and painting a garden bench

a lot of zucchinis (as usual)--they're easy to grow

a good year for gooseberries

pumpkins 

a lot of potatoes (one type--Folva)

Just about sums it up (the work world, that is!)

 

Autumn is almost upon us (saying goodbye to the bumblebees)

The garden has an autumn feel to it these days. Outdoor temperatures are still around sixty-five degrees or so during the early to mid-afternoon, but once evening comes, it's chilly in the garden. And it gets dark much quicker now. I had my annual garden party for my friends/former colleagues this past Wednesday; it was a lovely sunny day but after 7 pm it got very chilly. We had a very nice time, and when they left, I cleaned up and headed for home (around 9:15 pm), at which point it was very dark in the garden. I kept expecting to meet the badger family that lives somewhere in the vicinity of the Gamle Aker church; I can always tell when they've visited my garden because they dig little holes in their hunt for insects and worms to eat. I don't find them bothersome, but they have been known to kill and eat chickens, which is exactly what happened recently to another allotment gardener who kept hens. We are not allowed to have hedgehogs in the garden for the same reason--badgers. 

Autumn is also the time of year when dead worker bumblebees are more visible, I assume because their lifespans are so short (about two to six weeks). That means many of them have been working beside me in the garden since late July/beginning of August. I have grown to love bumblebees; I call them the jumbo jets of the garden, as I've probably alluded to before. They are so bulky compared to honeybees and their buzz is louder. You hear them coming. There were many more bumblebees than honeybees this year, probably because the garden no longer has honeybee hives. Bumblebees are great little pollinators, and I love seeing my garden flowers covered with them. 

Last night, near my greenhouse, I came upon a rather disoriented bumblebee on the ground. She was clearly struggling to walk and fly. I picked her up carefully, put her in my palm and patted her gently. She clung to my fingers for dear life. I knew she was dying, so I found a pumpkin flower and placed her gently inside it and placed the flower under some larger leaves so she wouldn't be disturbed. I gave her a few drops of water and left for the evening. Today I came to the garden hoping against hope that she had only been tired and had flown away, but that was not to be. She had died. All part of the natural cycle of life and death, I know, but the death of this little creature tugged at my heart. I buried her in the pumpkin flower in the coral bell patch. I wish it wasn't so sad to lose them. Bumblebees work so hard collecting pollen that they bring back to the hive, they do their jobs, they don't live long, and they often die alone outside the hive. Not much of a life really. Perhaps that's why my heart goes out to them. I am always gentle with them, and I love watching them flit from flower to flower. Their little lives are precious to me, as are the lives of honeybees and most of the other insects in the garden. 

Who knew that having a garden would change me the way it has? I am sure other gardeners feel as I do. I don't want to kill insects for no reason. I don't want their needless deaths on my conscience. I know there are some readers who will ask me if I feel the same way about hornets and wasps. I don't know, honestly. I do know that I don't kill yellow jackets if I can help it. I swat them away but I don't kill them. They are irritating, but they are also little lives. They buzz around in search of food, and it's not their fault that nature outfitted them with a taste for barbecued meat. Trying to peacefully coexist with nature's creatures is the best policy in my opinion, although I know that it isn't always possible to do so. But we can do the best we can to not destroy their habitats, and in the case of bees and other insects, to create gardens that are inviting to them. Gardens that welcome their presence. 

Garden update--August 2022

June and July were busy months in the garden. I wasn't there as often as I would have liked due to vacation and family get-togethers (all enjoyable), but when I was there I was efficient. My project for this season was to rearrange/transplant many of the perennials from the main garden to other locations because they have grown so much in the past few years and need more space and increased air circulation. The hostas especially had grown quite big, but they were almost not visible because they were located at the back of the main garden behind some taller plants. Since I had to take up all of the strawberry plants this year to plant new ones, I decided to allocate some of the 'strawberry patch' space (two patches separated by the entrance path) to the hostas. When I took up the four hostas, they naturally split into three plants each, so that I was able to plant twelve new plants, six in each patch. They are doing quite well and are flowering. I also bought eighteen new strawberry plants and divided them between the two patches; I planted them below the hostas. They too are spreading out and doing well. I also transplanted an astilbe (false goat's beard) as well as a forsythia bush, and both are doing well. Online gardening sites don't recommend transplanting in the summertime, probably because temperatures are too warm. They suggest the autumn for such activities, but here in Oslo the summer temperatures have hovered around 70 degrees Fahrenheit. That is an optimal temperature to do transplanting; warm enough without being stifling hot for the plants. I water well before and after transplanting and for at least a week following transplanting. We've also had quite a bit of rain during early August, so that helped the plants to adapt and thrive in their new locations. 

The crane's bill plant had also become quite large and was starting to crowd the nearby Phlox and peony plants in the main garden. So I took it up and divided it in half, planting both halves along the street fence. The other crane's bill plant was transplanted from its location at the entrance garden arch to a place further along the path fence. All of them are doing well. 

I bought two new Phlox plants, a new astilbe, and a new coral bell plant--all perennials--and filled in the empty spaces with them. I really like Phlox plants; they come in many colors and have a lovely mild fragrance that you can smell when you get near them. I divided the summer aster plant in two and planted both in the main garden where the hostas used to be. One of them is flowering and the other is on the verge of doing so. 

Of six pumpkin plants, three have produced pumpkins of a good size. A fourth plant has just started to grow a pumpkin, but the growing season is winding down here, so I'm not sure how big this pumpkin will be. It was a banner year for raspberries, gooseberries, black currants and red currants. Ditto for the zucchini plants--how many zucchinis they produce--it's amazing! The cucumber plants have given us some nice-sized cucumbers, and the tomato plants are loaded with ripening tomatoes. My string bean plants did not do very well and I'm not sure why. Likewise my gladiolas; some have flowered, most have not. Those that have bloomed have 'faded-looking' flowers, white at the edges. Strange. I've never seen that before. I googled it and the online info said that the corms could be too old. Or that thrips may be a problem (but I haven't seen any sign of these bugs). My blackberry bush is not productive either, but it doesn't appear to be suffering from any infestation. Only one of my two American blueberry bushes produced berries, which I don't understand and have to read more about. The Norwegian blueberry bushes both produced berries. Both yellow coneflower plants are big and beautiful; I love them. The rhododendron bush has also grown larger this year; it's been more or less the same size since we rescued and planted it in the garden back in 2016. The magnolia tree is starting to grow taller. But the true beauty in the garden this year was my wisteria--it is growing and expanding like crazy, and flowered early on. I cut it back a few weeks ago and it still keeps on keeping on. My pride and joy. 

I have grown very fond of ground cover vegetation--pachysandra and hostas, for example. Pachysandra grows so well in my garden and is a hardy plant. It's also lovely to look at. Hostas likewise. The bumblebees love the hosta flowers, as do the honeybees. There were a lot of bumblebees in the garden this year and that was good to see. Some honeybees as well, but not as many as in previous years since the hives were removed from the garden. The bumblebees do a great job of pollinating plants, so there's no worries there. 

My final project for this gardening season was to assemble and paint a chemically-impregnated pine wood bench that I bought from an online garden store. I painted it a forest green color and am happy with the results. Both the impregnation and the paint are designed to withstand all sorts of weather conditions, so I'm hoping that bears out. August is nearly at an end, so it's just to enjoy the rest of it, which I plan to do now that most of the heavy garden work is done. Put my feet up and read a book!

Gardening season is winding down. Of course there will be a lot to do in the garden to prep it for the winter months, so I won't be out of work during the autumn months. I've cut down the old raspberry canes already because for some reason the new cane growth for each plant has been vigorous this year. I'm not the only one who has commented on that. 

The beauty of gardening is that from one year to the next there is always something new and different to tackle, understand, accept, and work around. There's never a dull moment in the garden. There's always work to do, and when you sit down to relax, the sparrows fluttering around and spraying water here and there in the birdbath will entertain you, as will the jumbo jets of the garden (my pet name for bumblebees). Watching them land on and take off from flowers will make you smile. If I am in a bad mood before I enter my garden, I leave with a better mood, a grateful heart, and a smile on my face. Nature has a way of centering me and making me realize what is important here in this life. And what is important is not what society says is important, that is for certain. 

I'll post some photos of my garden in my next post. 

Do as I say, not as I do

Maybe I'm paying way too much attention to the analyses of the current political situation in the USA. It seems to me that no matter what the orange-haired man says or does, it has null effect on his supporters, who believe just about everything he says and continue to defend him. How is that possible? I wish someone would give me an answer, stat. In the meantime, he continues on his merry way, doing what he does best--double-talking and behaving exactly as he wants. But the rest of us should just do as he says, because of course he knows what's best for the country. Anyone who disagrees with him is out to get him. 

My closest friends and I attended Catholic grammar and high schools. We were taught that hard work pays off, that doing your best leads to a job well-done and satisfaction all around. We learned to tell the truth, that lying was bad and counterproductive, likewise cheating on exams. We learned that honesty was the best policy and that having personal integrity was important. We were taught to honor our parents and older people generally. We learned to respect authority. We were taught not to pick fights, and bullying was frowned upon. Our parents told us to try and make peace with the bullies, and if that didn't work, to ignore them. It usually worked out.

Over a long lifetime, I've witnessed many different kinds of behavior, both good and bad. My work experiences during the past forty years have shown me that doing your best does lead to personal satisfaction for a job well-done, but it is no guarantee that management will be satisfied. Management plays by its own rules. Giving your all is not necessary (or even desired) in order to get noticed or promoted; cutting your efforts to fifty percent can guarantee the same results as one hundred percent effort (I have tried this once or twice and it's true). Why is that? The answer is politics. Who you know is more important than what you know or how much effort you put into something. That is what Catholic schools and parents should have taught us, but didn't. Because they wanted us to make a difference in the world. I understand that. Take cheating on exams, for example. Cheating is anathema to those of us who grew up under Catholic educators, but in the modern world, many students would tell you there is nothing wrong with cheating on an exam in order to get good grades. Because good grades will give you leverage. Good grades will guarantee that someone will check off the box 'does well in school' and that opens doors for the cheaters down the road. But in the end, getting into some ivy league colleges (if that's your thing) also comes down to how much money daddy and mommy donated to the university of choice. Something else we weren't taught in school. Think of some of the recent college scandals where celebrity parents tried to buy off universities and individuals so their children could get into good schools. Thankfully they went to prison (albeit short prison sentences) for their unlawful behavior, but what kind of example does this set for their children? I'd wager that the only thing that bothers some of these parents is that they got caught. Nothing else. Because again, who you know and what college you went to trumps most everything else. 

Why do I bring these issues up now? Because it appalls me that we as a nation are going down the road toward re-electing a man whose amorality knows no bounds. It scares me to think that the potential end of democracy as we know it lies in the hands of a reality television persona and his family. It appalls me that everything in the world comes down to greed and grifting. Lying and dissembling are rampant--in politics, in the media, in churches, in schools. We don't react as a society anymore to bad behavior. We accept it almost apathetically as long as it doesn't impact us personally. But when we don't stand up to politicians like Trump and his cronies, we tell our children that it's ok to behave like he does. When we don't stand up for what's right, for how we were taught, we hand over power to the bullies. The entire GOP can't manage to find their collective balls in order to stand up to him. It's a sad commentary on what our society has come to, how low we have fallen. It's even sadder when the Catholic church defends and promotes a man like Trump, a man that fifty years ago they would have vilified. The priests preach from the pulpit about the importance of voting for a man who presents himself as anti-abortion. Whether or not he is against lying, cheating, grifting, and bullying is unimportant to his constituents and supporters. Anti-abortion trumps all, and Trump trumps everything and everyone. How low we have sunk. 

Updates on Freya the walrus

More online articles about the killing of Freya the walrus, which has more or less been unilaterally condemned internationally. There are many voices in Norway who oppose it also. Additionally, as my friend Jean pointed out, this killing was not euthanasia, which is normally defined as mercy killing. This was no mercy killing, it was a premeditated killing (she was shot) of a wild animal that certainly did not deserve to die at the hands of callous and cruel humans. She was killed because she was 'perceived' as a threat to human life, not because she actually was one. 

Freya, Hvalrossen Freya | Europeiske dyrevernere raser etter Freya-avliving: – Vi kan ikke bare drepe alle som er til bry for oss (nettavisen.no)

Dutch marine experts condemn killing of walrus Freya - DutchNews.nl

Norway PM Defends Walrus Killing Amid Global Outrage - Life in Norway

Did Freya need to die? Why euthanizing its celebrity walrus was ‘Norway in a nutshell’ (nbcnews.com)

Backlash to killing of Freya the walrus who made home on Shetland | The Scotsman

Photographer Who Befriended Freya the Walrus Outraged at Her Slaying | PetaPixel

Freya the walrus: Photographer who befriended animal condemns her ‘murder’ by Oslo authorities in Norway | The Independent

Freya, a Famous Walrus, Is Killed and Norwegians Are Divided - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

And a short info article about walruses:

Walrus - WWF Arctic (arcticwwf.org)

Photos from Oslo-Dalen-Utne-Rjukan-Oslo trip

As promised in my recent post (A New Yorker in Oslo: Oslo-Dalen-Utne-Rjukan-Oslo (paulamdeangelis.blogspot.com), I'm posting some photos from our recent trip around Norway, with overnight stays at Dalen Hotel (one night), Utne Hotel (two nights), and Rjukan Admini Hotel (one night), with a one-day trip to Rosendal. 

Unfortunately, since Freya the walrus was killed by Norwegian authorities, I am ambivalent about promoting tourism in Norway. It's a beautiful country, yes, but not one that is friendly to visiting wildlife. 

Dalen Hotel

The grounds of the Dalen Hotel, facing the Telemark Canal

The Haukelifjell mountain area

Haukelifjell mountain area

Utne Hotel from 1722

The picturesque town of Utne 

Hardangerfjord

Hardangerfjord

Baroniet Rosendal Manor House and Gardens 

The grounds of the Baroniet Rosendal

Leaving Utne by car ferry

Rjukan Admini Hotel

The lovely town of Rjukan 

The killing of Freya

Much has been written about the murder of Freya, the young female walrus who made the fatal mistake of entering Norwegian waters. It has been uplifting to read that many Norwegians absolutely do not support the needless and cruel shooting of an animal that brought joy to so many. The authorities who made the decision to shoot her are callous and should be held accountable. But they won't be. Because this is Norway anno 2022, where no one is held accountable for anything they do. I saw and experienced that often in my former workplace. If you try to get the name of a person 'responsible' for a particular policy, action, or statement, you won't get it. You'll get the names of people in the department that made the decision, yes, but you'll never get to know who actually made the decision to do this or that, in this case, to kill Freya. This is done to 'protect' the person who made the decision from hate mail, threats, and so on. Understandable? Unfortunately, yes, because in our day and age there are so many nutcases that walk the streets looking for someone on whom they can vent their aggression and craziness. But it never had to come to the point of killing Freya, and someone should be held responsible. There were so many other alternatives available, and the authorities settled on the easiest one--pick up a gun and kill the animal(s) causing the problem. That is often the alternative that is chosen in Norway. It is not a nation that opts to learn how to coexist peacefully with wildlife. 

My husband calls me 'dyrenes venn', which translated to English means 'friend of the animals'. He says it affectionately when I tell him about the bumblebees that died in the garden flowers, or the cat that takes a nap in my greenhouse, or the birds that take a communal bath in the birdbath. He knows that my interests lie in preserving life of all kinds to the best of my ability. I am not their literal friend, rather a protector of some sort. I sometimes feel like I am channeling my mother, because she used to behave the same way. That doesn't mean that I am able to prevent them being killed all of the time. I do step on (and kill) ants and other insects, but I don't do it intentionally. Every time I see an ant on a city sidewalk scurrying across the pavement, I step around it because I know that it's on its way home to the anthill after a busy day. Not so different from us humans. My garden has revealed the connection to all life that exists, no matter how small and insignificant, from the tiny ants to the larger brown slugs (which the garden board would like us to kill but which I cannot bring myself to do any longer), to the large crows and magpies that frequent the garden. I have a particular fondness for the light brown spiders that scurry around on the greenhouse floor when I disturb them in my hunt for a rake or other tool. They are harmless, more afraid of me than I ever could be of them (I'm not afraid of them). My husband likes spiders as well; he does not kill them and actually welcomes them in his boat because they do the job they were put here on earth to do and don't bother anyone. Even yellow jackets, as annoying as they are, have a job to do. I'm not always sure what it is, but I am not interested in killing them for no reason. And that is the crux of the matter--killing any living thing for no reason is just plain wrong. Doing so places you in the realm of the psychopaths. 

Reverence for life. I have that reverence and perhaps have always had it, but it is full-on now, I think because I am getting older. Our lives and the lives around us--human and animal alike--are short. It makes no sense to end lives needlessly. It's just cruel and shows that we lack empathy for living beings of all kinds. In that respect, I am beginning to consider the use of animals for food. We still eat meat, but much less than we used to, because I see that animals suffer at our hands in the meat industry. I saw that last summer when we stayed at a historic hotel that also raised chickens 'humanely', as the owners proclaimed. I didn't think the conditions for the little chicks were so humane; thousands of them were packed into a huge sunless garage with small windows, and fed and watered there. They never roamed outdoors, never felt the sun on their bodies, never foraged for insects and food on their own. I thought that if this was humane treatment, what does inhumane treatment look like? Perhaps I don't want to know. 

I want to live in a world that doesn't kill beings like Freya, who seemed to like being around humans. Whenever we establish any sort of bond with animals, birds, and insects, we are responsible for how we treat them. That means that we should not pursue those bonds if we are not willing to step up to the plate to protect the beings in question. It means that we don't encourage dangerous wildlife to become human-friendly. It means that we do not kill them unless our lives are actually threatened by them in a one-on-one confrontation as sometimes happens. I am not advocating for the anthropomorphization of animals (attributing human characteristics or behavior to an animal). I am simply saying that learning to coexist with them is the best policy. Let them go about their business as we go about ours. 

Freya's needless death, her murder, has been news now for the past few days. The media will move on from her and her death will be forgotten or relegated to the back burner in the relentless quest for more important stories. But I will not forget her, nor will I forget how Norway treated her. The way a country treats animals has a lot to say about the country. The lack of empathy for Freya tells me all I need to know. 

--------------------------------------

I'm adding a postscript to this article, an update as to what the authorities have done with the body of Freya. They transported her body from Sandvika harbor to Ås, where the veterinary institute on the Ås university campus autopsied her. The distance from Sandvika to Ås is about 26 miles. God knows when and how they transported her; no one even knows at what time they shot her. Transport probably happened at night when no one was around to protest. That would be appropriately cowardly for these types of authorities. So to be completely clear: they had the money to move her dead body 26 miles so that she could be autopsied, but not the money to sedate her and to move her further out to sea, which probably would have cost far less. They took the easy way out as I wrote in my previous post about Freya. I hope their consciences plague them for the rest of their lives. 

Not one of Norway's finer moments--rest in peace, Freya

Image taken from https://images.app.goo.gl/yUjWbQmKC8owbqVH7

The Oslo fjord has had an unusual visitor since June, a young female walrus that was given the name Freya. The name Freya means 'the Norse goddess of love and beauty'. Unfortunately for the walrus Freya, there was no love shown for her when authorities ended her life (shot her) a day ago because it was easier for them to do that than to sedate her and move her to a safe place, away from the gawking humans who endangered her life, not the other way around. But the reasons given for euthanizing her were that she posed a threat to people, those wonderful human beings who gathered to watch her swim around and sunbathe on boats in different Oslo harbors, who gawked at her and did not leave her alone. Who swam in the water in the vicinity of where she was. Who harassed her. Idiots. She seemed to like being here and didn't seem to be in a hurry to leave. But she would have left eventually. Of course she would have.

Atlantic walruses, of which Freya was one, make their home in the icy waters around Norway, Greenland, Canada, and Russia. Freya had apparently been on a bit of a world tour, visiting the UK, Scotland, the Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden. Photographers posted many photos of her over the past months. She chose to spend part of the summer in Norway. Norway shot her. Norway killed her. No other country ever considered that possibility. Norway did. Even the prime minister supported the decision to kill her. Shame on Norway. Shame on this country. Shame, shame, shame. 

What this country did to Freya breaks my heart, and has changed my view of Norway for good. I don't trust the authorities anymore to make good decisions concerning wildlife of any kind. After all, this is a nation that still kills whales and like Japan, defends the practice. This is a country that shoots first whenever wildlife encroach on human territories; the solution is always to shoot them (wolves, for example) and to show the carcasses of the dead wolves on television. I've always wondered why the media allow that. Why do we need to see the bodies of dead animals? To convince ourselves that they are really dead? The authorities also killed an entire rabbit population on the island of Gressholmen in 2004 (Alle kaninene kan bli skutt (aftenposten.no); the reason given was that they were destroying the native vegetation. But the rabbits had been there for years and the vegetation grew back every year, as native vegetation usually does. Seeing the rabbits was part of the attraction of visiting the island. The authorities never listened to other alternatives. They always know best, these bureaucrats. They are arrogant and callous. 

Other countries take different approaches to such visitors. San Francisco in California allowed Pier 39 to become a home for sea lions when it was clear that they were using it to camp out. Food (fish) was plentiful and the marina area was protected. It became a tourist attraction, yes, but at a distance. You are not allowed to walk among the seals, and that wouldn't be a good idea anyway. The sea lions live there but also migrate to the Channel Islands during the summer months for breeding season. I remember seeing them when we lived in the city in 1993; it didn't take a doctoral degree to understand that one should stay a safe distance from them. Most people seemed to respect that. The city didn't consider shooting them as far as I know.  

I understand protecting yourself and defending yourself if confronted with an aggressive and dangerous wild animal. Freya was neither; she was a wild animal, yes, but she did not go after human beings. The opposite was true; the human beings hounded her. She paid for their idiocy with her life. We have not learned to coexist peacefully with wildlife. We say we want wildlife around us, but we don't, not really. It's a lie we tell ourselves. The death of Freya merely highlights that. 

The international reactions to Freya's death have not been positive for Norway. I'm glad to see that. You are free to disagree with me about this story; it won't change my feelings one iota. Here are some links to media articles about Freya's death: 

Walrus that attracted crowds in Oslo fjord euthanised: officials (france24.com)

Freya, the 1,300-pound walrus sinking boats in Norway, euthanized - CNN

Walrus Freya who became attraction in Norway's Oslo Fjord put down - BBC News

Walrus named Freya that drew crowds in Oslo euthanized by Norwegian authorities - CBS News

Norway Kills Freya, a 1,300-Pound Walrus Who Delighted Onlookers - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

Bee rescuer and bumblebee butts

I have officially become a bee rescuer in the garden. Specifically, I rescue them from drowning in the birdbath, which they frequent often when the weather is very warm, as it has been for the past week. They land on the rim of the birdbath to drink the water, but sometimes they slip into the water and don't seem to be able to swim back to the edge. It doesn't happen often, but when it does, I am usually able to push them to the edge with my (gloved) finger or a short stick so that they can crawl up the rim right to the edge and dry their wings off before they take flight again. I've rescued mostly honeybees, but today, I rescued a yellow jacket as well by pushing it to the edge with my (gloved) finger. It did not need to dry off its wings before it took flight the way honeybees need to. The wings of a yellow jacket seem to be longer and more slender compared to those of bees, which are shorter and wider. It's only my observation, but bees use a much longer time to dry their wings, fanning them at intervals as though to get rid of any excess water droplets that may still be present. 

I've also noticed that bumblebees like to take naps in flowers. Sometimes when I think they're dead, I find out that they're only resting. They work hard enough, so that a nap perhaps is what they need to keep them going. The lifespan of bees varies quite a bit from what I've read online. The worker bumblebees' lifespan is from two to six weeks, whereas queen bumblebees can live for a year on average. The lifespan of worker honeybees is between 6 and 7 weeks in the spring/summer and 4 to 6 months in the autumn; queen honeybees live for 3 to 4 years on average (Bee Lifespan: How Long Do Bees Live? - AZ Animals (a-z-animals.com). 

There are a lot more bumblebees than honeybees in the garden this year. I have come across several dead bumblebees, and I always feel a tinge of sorrow when I see them. Such short lives, such industrious little creatures. I am no longer afraid of bees as I was when I was younger. But of course it goes without saying that I respect them and have learned to coexist peacefully with them, I let them go about their business and they let me go about mine, They do protest a bit when I water the garden, especially the flowers that they frequent, and they let me know by buzzing about me. But it all returns to normal after a minute or two. 

I saw a cute photo the other day on Facebook of a bumblebee that had fallen asleep in a flower. Its little butt was sticking out of the flower, and the person who posted it made a cute comment about bumblebee butts. Here are similar photos that I found on this website, Tired Bumblebees Who Fell Asleep Inside Flowers With Pollen On Their Butts » Design You Trust. I did not take these photos, so please credit the website if you use them. I think they're adorable. Enjoy! 

Water by Golda May

Water, sung by Golda May, is the ending song to the movie The Weekend Away, now showing on Netflix. The movie was a pretty decent thriller starring Leighton Meester, and the ending song seemed appropriate for what the movie was about. I'm including the lyrics: 

Water 

I hear water in my dream

Lapping at my feet, talking to me

All red shoulders in the heat

So I step into the sea, floating softly

It's tryin' to say somethin'

A warnin' or maybe nothin'

Oh, this water keeps on showin' up

Oh, I'm a daughter drownin' in a cup

It's filling my lungs up

Dripping from my tongue now

Oh, this water keeps on showin' up

In deep, sister by my side

These waves are twice our height in the high tide

In life I usually despise her

But here she saves my life, I don't die

It's tryin' to say somethin'

A warnin' or maybe nothin'

Oh, this water keeps on showin' up

Oh, I'm a daughter drownin' in a cup

And It's filling my lungs up

Dripping from my tongue now

Oh, this watеr keeps on showing up

(Oh, this water keeps on showing up)

It's filling my lungs up

Dripping from my tongue now

Oh, this water keeps on showing up

Ah ah ah ah

I thought I could hеar you

I thought I could hear you

When you came to me every night

I thought I could hear you

Source: Musixmatch

Songwriters: Brian Brundage / Ariella Golda Sosis

Water lyrics © Bad Ponjo

Real change in the workplace

I got the chance recently to tell a former leader what I thought about my former workplace when it came to attitudes toward research and the politics it practiced. We were together at a garden party hosted by another former colleague who seems to have managed the workplace politics better than I did. It's not that I didn't try; it's just that at some point I refused (inside myself) to compromise my beliefs and how I view dealing with employees and the jobs they do. I am totally uninterested in micromanaging employees or in forcing them to accept change just for the sake of change. I am interested in engaging them in useful and productive work and in listening to what they have to say and to teach me. The latter is important, and more leaders should try to listen better and to learn from their employees, rather than preaching to them that they are 'resistant to change', ineffective at their jobs, or treating them as though they are little more than a budget post on an accounting sheet. 

The interesting thing was that my former leader agreed with mostly everything I said, which was not the case when I was still working, and said further that attempts have been made to get current leadership to see new points of view when it comes to research policies, to no avail. Current research leadership thinks it knows best, and has thought that way for the past fifteen years. And they talk about resistance to change. My opinion--start at the top and work downward. Get rid of the heavy weight of too many leaders at the top (six levels of leadership) and focus on using the salary money saved to employ truly professional individuals who actually do useful and productive work. I reiterate, as I've done so many times in this blog before--leadership is not a career in and of itself. Being a leader in one specific area does not necessarily qualify you for all leadership positions. Current management in many places seems to think it does, and it is one of the biggest mistakes ever made during the past twenty years. How one could believe that being a top-level company executive entitles you to run a hospital department with no prior medical experience is beyond me. But tell that to the politicians who leave office and are appointed leaders of boards and companies. What experience do they have that qualifies them for these positions? The worst thing that ever happened to academic research science was giving these bureaucrats the power that they now have to wield over ordinary scientists, many of whom have simply given up and left for the greener pastures of industry. The same is true for many of the pathologists I know, who simply cannot abide the understaffing (a perpetual shortage of necessary professionals) and inefficiency of many public hospital workplaces. 

Things need to change, and if that change entails admitting that current leadership trends are simply 'the emperor's new clothes', then so be it. Admit it. Just do it. Get rid of the dead weight at the top. Hire the people needed to do the necessary jobs, who actually do the work. Stop micromanaging. In short, listen to your employees and respect their expertise. You hired them for a reason. 

Turning off the lights

It's been nearly a year since I left my workplace for the freedom of retirement. I met a former colleague for coffee this afternoon, and we ended up chatting about our former workplace. She has since moved on to greener pastures, as have I. She filled me in on the recent gossip--who has retired, who quit and where they work now, and so forth. As usually happens, we talk too about former leaders, leadership styles and bad leadership. The latter is rampant, and not just at my former workplace, that I understand. It's just that while I worked there, I was always hoping to witness good leadership in action, and I rarely got to see it. It was immensely disappointing. It always seemed as though most leaders were interested in worrying about how satisfied the leaders above them were, rarely about how satisfied the employees who worked for them were. I call it kissing ass up over in the system, a not uncommon phenomenon. 

While I was en route to my coffee meeting, I reflected upon my one year of retirement and leaving the work world behind. Do I miss it at all? No, I don't. I thought about leaving my office, which was the size of a prison cell for two people, for the last time and turning off the light switch. It's a good metaphor for retirement. I turned off the lights--on my job, my career, the perpetual anxiety, the having to deal with arrogant leaders, the stress, and the feeling of never measuring up. How good it feels to have turned off those lights in that old life. And how good it feels to have turned on new light switches in other places; how good it feels to have a new life, one that is totally unencumbered by negative feelings, negative people, and negativity generally. And if I meet negative people in any capacity, I am free to walk away from them, and I do. I am not interested in listening to them or adopting their world views, or adapting in any way to having to deal with them. 

I am free. Whenever I say that to former colleagues, they look at me in surprise. So many people tell me that they never would have thought that I would have retired early. I rejoice inside when they say that. It means I kept my poker face for the last five years I worked there, and never told people about my plans. I could plan my exit well, and I did. I could visualize the next stage in my life, and I did. I am free. It's a wonderful feeling. 

Oslo-Dalen-Utne-Rjukan-Oslo

We decided to visit several of the historic hotels in Norway this summer, and settled on Dalen Hotel, Utne Hotel, and Rjukan Admini Hotel. If you'd like more information about the historic hotels in Norway generally, you can visit this informative site: Historic Hotels & Restaurants in Norway (dehistoriske.com). We drove from place to place as we normally do; my husband maps out the routes he wants to take beforehand and some of them are roads we've never driven before that take us through parts of Norway that we have not seen before. Our route this year is mapped out here: 

We started from Oslo, drove southwest to Skien, and then westward along the Telemark Canal to Dalen where we stayed one night at the Dalen Hotel. We've been there before and it's always nice to come back to this hotel with its unique architecture and lovely grounds. 

The following day we drove northward on our way to Utne, passing through Haukeli and over the Haukelifjell mountain area and mountain pass. Haukelifjell partially overlaps the Hardangervidda mountain plateau and is located in the Vinje municipality in the county of Telemark and Odda municipality in the county of Hordaland. Utne is located at the tip of the Folgefonn Peninsula where the Sørfjorden and Hardangerfjorden meet. We passed through Odda and Tyssedal on our way to Utne, where we stayed for two nights at the charming Utne Hotel, which is the oldest hotel in Norway (built in 1722: it was celebrating 300 years of operation this year). The hotel offered a five-course dinner each night, which we barely managed the first night; the second night we opted to eat three of the five courses before we gave up. Utne is located in the apple and cherry region of Hardanger; we were offered an apple cider package with dinner that we enjoyed, with different types of cider that accompanied the different courses, instead of wine. 

While we were in Utne, we managed a day trip to Rosendal (home to the Baroniet Rosendal), making our way there along a very narrow winding scenic road that I have no wish to drive on again--too narrow and too winding. There are spots where it would be impossible to pass an oncoming car or truck. But it was a scenic route, I'll attest to that. The visit to the Baroniet Rosendal was well-worth it; it is a  manor house from 1665 with beautiful gardens and landscapes (Baroniet Rosendal Manor House & Gardens). On the day of our departure, we took the car ferry from Utne to Kinsarvik (a half hour trip) and then drove eastward along the north end of Hardangervidda to Geilo where we ate lunch at the Hallingstuene restaurant that serves very good traditional Norwegian food. We then drove south to Rjukan and stayed overnight at the Rjukan Admini Hotel. We've been to Rjukan before, in 2015, at which time I wrote a blog post about this historic town (A New Yorker in Oslo: Oslo-Rjukan-Heddal-Notodden-Oslo (paulamdeangelis.blogspot.com). This time we stayed at the charming Admini Hotel, which we did not do the first time we were in Rjukan. This hotel offered a three-course dinner as part of the package, which we enjoyed. 

Overall, definitely an enjoyable vacation, although I will say that as I get older I have less and less desire to drive on narrow mountain roads. There can be sturdy guardrails, speed limits, mirrors and the like on those roads, it doesn't matter. I no longer enjoy winding our way high up into the mountain areas or descending from them, although the latter is preferable because I know we'll soon be back on flat ground. I prefer plateaus, farmland, and valleys. But of course you don't get the gorgeous views if you never go into the mountains, that I understand. So I compromise, but there will come a day very soon when I will simply not do it anymore. It makes me too nervous. 

In my next post I'll include some photos of this trip.