--- /dev/null
+Title: Weekend Update, May 12, 2019
+Date: 2019-05-12
+Category: misc
+Tags: beekeeping, gardening, devops
+
+
+## Bee Journal
+
+Saturday we opened the bee hive for the second time since they were introduced
+two weeks ago. The first inspection was expected at one week, which we did, but
+we didn't see eggs as we'd hoped, so we opted to try again this week. The queen
+did not disappoint! Comb has been drawn out from the fourth to the eighth frame.
+According to my notes, this is to be expected. Within that comb we have many
+plump, white larvae, loads of capped cells along with plenty of brood honey. We
+weren't able to locate the queen, a skill we sorely need to develop, so we'll
+have to be content with the signs we've seen.
+
+It's been rainy, snowy and cold all week, so activity outside the hive has been
+way down. The last two days has been warm and sunny so the bees have been out in
+force. During the warm part of the day you can see bees constantly
+criss-crossing the airspace above our yard. Watching the entrance you can see
+them returning laden with pollen in colors from white and yellow, through rich
+oranges and even the occasional red. It is beautiful to watch.
+
+I don't expect to open the hive again for at least two more weeks, during which
+time we hope to see 70-80% of the frames full in this first super, and perhaps
+we'll try again to find the queen. These goals met, we can add a second deep
+super full of frames to extend the brood.
+
+I'd love to put up pictures of what I'm describing, but until I can automate
+stripping EXIF from my photographs, well, you know. More to come here.
+
+## Garden Planted
+
+Well, we put seeds in the ground anyway. Being Mother's Day, the Mrs. wanted
+simply to hang around the yard, clean it up a bit for guests who will be
+visiting in the next week, and put more effort into the gardens. We'd already
+added a small amount of sulphur on all three gardens after the Mrs. found we
+were a bit low. After some debate and further reading we decided to add manure
+again this year. There had been some doubt: last year's yield left much to be
+desired, and we'd been speculating all winter what had gone wrong. My theory was
+that our soil's nutrients had been depleted. We agreed that we hadn't been
+watering enough, and research supports this assumption. Manure and/or compost
+seem to be important for soil building every year, so we made the trip out for 7
+bags between the three gardens.
+
+My best friend lives a few blocks away and he owns a small tiller that we borrow
+when needed. He'd complained that it wasn't running well. I started it up to see
+thick blue smoke and yes, it was running poorly. I drained some of the oil, he'd
+over filled it, and replaced the gas. Ran fine for me and we tilled the manure
+into the gardens in short order. Being such a nice day we went ahead and put
+seeds into the ground: the usual pumpkins, squash and cucumbers in one garden
+and kale, carrots, cilantro and dill in the garden nearest the bee hive. There
+is one garden yet to be planted, but this will be live plants from the nursury,
+tomatoes and chilis. That we won't do for a couple more weeks.
+
+## API Gateway/Proxy Evaluation
+
+This past week at work I've continued to evaluate API gateway and proxy options.
+We already have [NGINX Ingress Controller](https://kubernetes.github.io/ingress-nginx/)
+in place, which our SREs are already quite fond of, but we've extended our
+exploration to [Kong](https://konghq.com) and [Ambassador](https://www.getambassador.io)
+as well. There are things I like about all of them, but I'm interested in
+building upon what we have if we can. We have specific authentication needs for
+a couple of our applications for which it doesn't seem to matter which proxy we
+choose, some custom code will have to be written. Look for an article here soon
+that will go into some of the problems I have to solve, and how I'm using some
+powerful features of the NGINX Ingress Controller to reframe the conversation.
+
+## Current Media Consumption
+
+I read a fair amount of science fiction and I'm particularly a fan of pulp
+novels from the 50's through the 70's. This week I'm reading [Rendezvous with
+Rama](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/112537.Rendezvous_with_Rama) by Arthur
+C. Clarke. This is the six novel by Clarke I've read, and I appreciate his brand
+of "hard" science fiction.
+
+We watched and enjoyed [Hanna](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6932244/), though I
+understand the ratings weren't that good. Two lead actors came from The Killing,
+the first season I liked. The lead actress was great and it had a decent
+soundtrack that I might be able to code to.
+
+[Cory Doctorow's](https://craphound.com) new book was great as always, though I
+don't care to write a review here. As he does to support his books he's been
+doing the interview circuit. Many of his interviews end up on his
+[podcast](https://craphound.com/category/podcast/). The themes tend to repeat
+but bear repeating, give them a listen.
+
+That's enough or too much for now. More later.
projects / letters.git / commitdiff