Hello from Long Lane Honey Bee Farms.

Today, we're taking a pause from our lessons and thought we'd have fun showing you what it's like in the real world of beekeeping because there's not a perfect hive at the bottom of every rainbow.

Most people's picnic tables don't have a beekeeping hat and veil, a nuc box and 10 queens ready to be shipped. This is what everything seems to look like around Long Lane Honey Bee Farms. There are beekeeping items everywhere, and I do mean everywhere!

Bees are our business and there never seems to be enough of us to go around. I find myself doing what I tell you never to do, work hives in the rain or late in the evening. Even though Jesus is perfect, we still live in a fallen world. Nothing is always perfect in beekeeping either.

The other morning I woke up and noticed a queen bee on my wife's desk, just walking around. I guess the queen emerged from her cell, escaped out of her cage and walked out of the incubator. Or maybe by accident I left a queen cell laying around. Which gives me a good opportunity to share with you something my wife mentioned to me the other day.

My wife mentioned that we do not want to give the wrong impression to people, that we have some huge, multi-building business with hundreds of employees and lab technicians walking around in white doctor coats in a bee lab. As I have said in previous posts, we are a family business, simple folks and that our operation is a functioning bee operation. The pictures probably make it look better than it really is. Probably all beekeepers who have a lot of hives are usually short on time to get everything accomplished. Certainly that is our situation.

More than an occasional queen walking or flying through the house, my wife puts up with much more! Though she thoroughly enjoys bees and our bee operation, I'm sure she feels the bee business has invaded and taken over her home.

We are currently revamping our old garage into a store/lab/learning center. Since it is only our family doing all the work, it is going slow. Any carpenters in Central Illinois that want to volunteer some work? But until that building is completed, most of our queen rearing operation is in our kitchen/dinning room.

There is an incubator on my wife's desk, a fax machine and telephone system in my children's rec room and my basement is full of bee stuff, stuff like canning jars for feeding bees in the spring, entrance feeders and anything that needs to be kept out of the rain.

Usually queen cages are scattered throughout the house.

Cell bar frames lay around the kitchen counter and we are constantly trying to clean up propolis and honey drops.

Queen cell cups in the window next to my baby's rubber ducky. Oh, there is more, but you get the picture. And if I show anymore, I will embarrass my wife and myself.

Before every meal, we have to clear away comb, frames, beekeeping magazines, grafting tools, flashlights, order sheets and a bunch of other beekeeping stuff.

By the way, the frame in the picture is for banking queens until mating nucs are freed up. It just so happened that the bees took advantage of only 4 queen cages and put comb everywhere else.

My wife does great chasing around after, Christian, our 10 month old and keeping our house clean and straight. (Here's Christian after sliding down a plastic slide which gave his hair quite a strong electrical charge.) But clean and straight still means that I have to graft queens, and leave cell cups here until tomorrow and I can't move this or that until I'm ready to put it in here or there. If I were a rich man, and I'm not, I would buy a house somewhere else, and move there and drive over here to do all the bee work.

Now the outside is even more of a challenge to keep everything organized and straight. There is bee stuff laying around everywhere. Don't get me wrong, it is important bee items, like feeders, queen excluders, feeding jars, bottom boards, lids, inner covers, tie-down straps, smokers, hive tools and on goes the list. Trust me it's EVERYWHERE!! But I really do use it and need these items on a regular basis. I even have much of the equipment stored in a storage facility.

And then there are the active hives, hives and more hives! Hives surround my shed where we make hives. Queen rearing nucs are sprinkled throughout the yard.

A row of queen rearing nucs take away from a beautiful spruce. I could move them further away on our 3 acres, but then I would have to walk further to work them.

I have around 10 of these nucs which receive either virgin queens or queen cells and house the queens while they mate and until they are laying well. We recently had a bad thunderstorm knock down our power line, broke a power pole, and downed a large maple tree but these nucs withstood the storm just like they appear here, with no rocks, no tie-down strap or nothing! We praise God for protecting our queens!

The yard! We have a real nice John Deere riding mower, but I can't bring myself to mow our yard because of all the clover! So we have some areas that look real pretty and other places look like no one has lived here in 5 years.

My wife works hard to help me keep everything going and so do our children. My wife worked a full 8 hour day Saturday finishing the dry wall and painting our honey processing room. Wow, she did a great job, just in time for me to crank it up that night.

To me, our honey room is a honey plant! I've rebuilt a Cowen uncapper that uses motors, gears, chains and hot water to uncap honey frames. It can uncap both sides of 10 super frames in 60 seconds.

Seriously, can you imagine uncapping both sides of 10 medium super frames in 60 seconds? I rebuilt a 33 frame, motorized extractor.

Here's my middle son, Seth, helping extract our first run of honey for 2008!! YEA!!!

My oldest son and I have made some plumbing changes each year to improve the operation. This year it is working better than ever.

So, I just want to bust your bubble if you think we are more than we are. We are a small, family operation, slowly trying to expand. Until we do, we are making do with the resources that God has give us for the moment.

Having said that, let me say we are proud of our humble operation and we do take beekeeping serious. We work hard both in physical labor and in research and development.

For example, in trying to come up with a better way to produce comb honey, which is really popular now, my father-n-law came up with the idea of building a frame with wooden pieces throughout the middle. The bees loved it and in one week built this nice comb. I am not going to run it through the automated uncapper. I just placed it there for a picture. These frames are just empty frames, with no foundation and the bees make their own. Isn't that neat. We've thought about selling these and we have had people request them.

Last year, we had some people with arthritis claim that our honey and our honey comb had greatly improved their arthritis. I would not, nor cannot make such a claim but a lot of people do say that about honey. Nonetheless, more and more of our customers are requesting honey comb, they kind we had back in the good ole days. Comb honey is mentioned in the Bible. "Pleasant words are a honeycomb, Sweet to the soul and healing to the bones" (Proverbs 16:24). The Bible does seem to imply that honeycomb brings healing to the bones.

So when you visit our honey bee farm, just remember that we're hard workers doing the best we can to keep up with the ever growing demand of helping more and more people enjoy beekeeping!

Finally, I'm really proud of my youngest daughter, Karee (pronouced like Marie only with a K). Karee is 17 and has really done well with the queen business. She goes out, cages up the queens and hand picks 4-5 young nurse bees to ride along with the queen to tend to her every need during shipment. She is faster than I am at this. She doesn't get stung at all! One day, she wore no hat or veil either. Way to go Karee. I keep telling Karee that she can continue to make queen rearing her lifelong business. Especially starting so young.

Our next lesson will be on how to manipulate your frames to help your hives expand and get those two deeps built out and that honey super filled up. See you then.

Please visit our web store at: http://www.honeybeesonline.com/

And if you don't see what you need on our website, just give us a call, as we sell anything you need related to beekeeping! Call us at 217-427-2678 and don't forget to sign up for our upcoming classes. See our last blog entry for info on the classes.

Remember to Bee-have yourselves! David & Sheri Burns

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Yes, I have a difficult time justifying this article on a science & religion blog. But then its by Steve Mirsky, whose articles in Scientific American are quite funny (yes, he often provides a full dose of geek humor).

Anyway, I was channel surfing recently and happened on a listing for one of the lesser works in the fly chronicles, the 1965 Curse of the Fly. (Which starred Brian Donlevy. Who in real life was the stepfather of Bela Lugosi, Jr. Which is mixing apples and oranges. If by apples you mean flies and by oranges you mean bats.) And I became intrigued by the short description of Curse of the Fly that appeared on the screen when I hit the info button on the remote: "A mad scientist tries out a molecular disintegrator on people but cannot get the hang of it."

It occurred to me that other sci-fi and fantasy movies also require terse synopses for the channel-surfing community. Here then is a selection of such possible descriptions:

2001: A Space Odyssey
A slab of onyx and a singing computer get two astronauts in hot water.

Alien
A feisty cat survives tense times onboard a spaceship.

The Day the Earth Stood Still
A drifter helps an old man with his math problems.

You should explore the full list of movies in his article. But here are the last few films he mentions:

Iron Man
An arms manufacturer finds himself neck-deep but gets a leg up and heads home.

The Matrix
A man discovers his true destiny.

Star Wars
An adolescent discovers his true destiny.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
A boy discovers his true destiny.

Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
A hobbit discovers his true destiny.

Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed
A sad sack seeks a way to turn back time so he can live in the Dark Ages.

Ha! Can't be more accurate than this...and the last film provides a perfect cover for this article to be included on this blog.

Read the full article here.

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When it comes to religions, there are no copyrights. It is no surprise that the surrounding cultures, religions and prevailing customs provide much of the foundation material for new religions (for example, 20th century religions, Scientology and Raelians, have their religious narratives rooted in modern popular culture and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence). Turning back 2000 years, here is an interesting article about an ancient tablet that shows that the idea of a Messiah who will rise from the dead after three days may have pre-dated Jesus:

A three-foot-tall tablet with 87 lines of Hebrew that scholars believe dates from the decades just before the birth of Jesus is causing a quiet stir in biblical and archaeological circles, especially because it may speak of a messiah who will rise from the dead after three days.

If such a messianic description really is there, it will contribute to a developing re-evaluation of both popular and scholarly views of Jesus, since it suggests that the story of his death and resurrection was not unique but part of a recognized Jewish tradition at the time.

The tablet, probably found near the Dead Sea in Jordan according to some scholars who have studied it, is a rare example of a stone with ink writings from that era — in essence, a Dead Sea Scroll on stone.

It is written, not engraved, across two neat columns, similar to columns in a Torah. But the stone is broken, and some of the text is faded, meaning that much of what it says is open to debate.

It seems that the text on the tablet is from the late first century BC, and perhaps refer to the political climate after the death of King Herod in 4BC:

Mr. Knohl is part of a larger scholarly movement that focuses on the political atmosphere in Jesus’ day as an important explanation of that era’s messianic spirit. As he notes, after the death of Herod, Jewish rebels sought to throw off the yoke of the Rome-supported monarchy, so the rise of a major Jewish independence fighter could take on messianic overtones.

In Mr. Knohl’s interpretation, the specific messianic figure embodied on the stone could be a man named Simon who was slain by a commander in the Herodian army, according to the first-century historian Josephus. The writers of the stone’s passages were probably Simon’s followers, Mr. Knohl contends.

The slaying of Simon, or any case of the suffering messiah, is seen as a necessary step toward national salvation, he says, pointing to lines 19 through 21 of the tablet — “In three days you will know that evil will be defeated by justice” — and other lines that speak of blood and slaughter as pathways to justice.

And here is where it connects to the larger picture:

Mr. Knohl said that it was less important whether Simon was the messiah of the stone than the fact that it strongly suggested that a savior who died and rose after three days was an established concept at the time of Jesus. He notes that in the Gospels, Jesus makes numerous predictions of his suffering and New Testament scholars say such predictions must have been written in by later followers because there was no such idea present in his day.

But there was, he said, and “Gabriel’s Revelation” shows it.

“His mission is that he has to be put to death by the Romans to suffer so his blood will be the sign for redemption to come,” Mr. Knohl said. “This is the sign of the son of Joseph. This is the conscious view of Jesus himself. This gives the Last Supper an absolutely different meaning. To shed blood is not for the sins of people but to bring redemption to Israel.”

Academically, this is an interesting story and reminded me of the discovery and the translation of The Gospel of Judas, that challenged the standard narrative about the betrayal of Judas. But I can see why it may also ruffle some feathers.

Read the full story here.

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Break out the bomb pops and the sparklers. It's the fourth of July.

Here's the latest citizenship test. How well do you know our nation's history and the markers of its making?
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Ok...so we are at a stage now that if you are a physicist with origins from a Muslim country, you have to be careful in what you say in the US (phew...I'm glad I didn't go into supernovae research - "what? You are studying the biggest explosions in the universe...AND you are from Pakistan??"). So here is a news item about a lawsuit filed in response to a move by the Deprtment of Energy to revoke the security clearance of a nuclear physicist:

An Egyptian-born nuclear physicist who worked in a government-financed laboratory here for 18 years filed a lawsuit on Thursday saying the Energy Department had revoked his security clearance because of his ethnicity, his Muslim faith and comments he made criticizing the war in Iraq.

The physicist, Abdel Moniem Ali el-Ganayni, 57, lost his job shortly after his clearance was revoked in May by Jeffrey F. Kupfer, the Department of Energy’s acting deputy secretary, who cited “national security” in refusing to reveal what led to the revocation.

“Our contention is that the reason the D.O.E. invoked national security here was to relieve themselves of the responsibility of having to tell us what’s going on,” said Witold Walczak, one of Dr. Ganayni’s lawyers and legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania.

Dr. Ganayni became a naturalized citizen in 1988, eight years after coming to Pittsburgh to get a master’s degree and a doctorate. His former employer, the Bettis Laboratory, has said it would rehire him if his clearance was restored.

I don't know any details beyond this news story, but here is the claim from the lawsuit:

In the lawsuit, Dr. Ganayni, who has been married to an American woman for 26 years, claims violation of his rights to free speech and religion and to equal protection and due process. He asks that he have a chance to contest the revocation of his security clearance before an impartial hearing officer.

In a statement on Thursday, the Energy Department said, “This is a personal security matter as to which the department has no public comment.”

Dr. Ganayni’s clearance was first suspended, and he was assigned to a lower-paying job, in October 2007, after an interview with an Energy Department agent and a security officer at the laboratory, which works on nuclear propulsion projects for the Navy.

He said that during that three-hour interview and a four-hour interview with the F.B.I. two weeks later, he was asked about his religious beliefs, money he has sent overseas and comments he made in 2006 at a local mosque criticizing the Iraq war. But he said he was never asked about any security breaches at his job as a senior scientist at Bettis.

“What I said about the Iraq war, many Americans have said, and many senators,” he said, “But when I said this, I became like a traitor. That’s not right.”

Yikes - if the claim is accurate. Read the full story here.

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We took Ava to the B&O Railroad Museum on Saturday. Our good friend Courtney is the Executive Director; he and his wife Leslie have been great friends to us. It's an incredible museum that Courtney has done a remarkable job of renovating. You can read all about it here.

Ava L.O.V.E.D. the trains.She did not want to leave and we'd been an hour and a half by the time we did, in 90+ degree heat. We'll be going back soon. She told me she misses the Caboose.

::

I can't make it out yet, but a message is making its way to me.

It's July by the way. Summer's first full month. To me, July always feels like a fresh start more than January does. Time to revisit those goals and see how they're coming, what needs shifting, tossing, and a little bit of attention.

Back to the message.

In June my husband spent two weeks in a leadership class. It was an experience (I'm obviously inferring here) that seemed pointless while in it, but with distance has proved priceless.

For starters, while attending the class he learned he'd been selected to interview for a new position--one with, you guessed it, bigger leadership responsibilities. I'll spare the suspense and let you know that not only did he ace the interview, he got the job. The two weeks he spent reflecting on leadership styles he'd observed in the past and anticipating the style he would employ himself only helped. (Because, of course, he'd have gotten the job anyway. :)

Beyond professional enhancement though, this leadership class has done wonders for our communication as a married couple. I think Pete spent as much time analyzing his own personality type as he spent trying to figure out mine. :) We are completely OPPOSITE. I wasn't sure how to take his reaction to Myers-Briggs' validation of what we always suspected, "It'll be okay. The speaker today told us he and his wife are total opposites too and they managed to stay married for 35 years." He was unclear as to whether or not they were still married, which my personality type would've asked about but his took at face value.

Truthfully, though, understanding ourselves has helped us to understand each other. For instance, I learned that a slight acknowledgment from him is equivalent to a rooftop shout from me. I learned that when he comes home to sit in front of the TV, it's not because he's lazy it's because he's transitioning. (As I write this, I'm feeling like I've been schooled here). But seriously, over the past three weeks we've both made an effort to extend beyond our own comfort zone to spend a little bit of time in the other's.

Then, today, my mom called me with a thought completely out of the blue. I hadn't shared with her all of the personality analysis that Pete and I had been engaged in, either, by the way. Anyway, she thinks that engaged couples ought to go through activities like pitching tents together and putting up Christmas trees to train for marriage. Activities that companies and businesses pay a ton of money for their employees to do so they can work better together. Apparently, that's what she and my dad spent the afternoon doing and she was quite proud of how they came out the other side. Researcher me added another layer...actually, I was thinking of my parents while I said it, "and I wonder how their interaction with each other would change and evolve over the years...say from engagement, to third year, to eighth year, to fifteenth, and so on."

If divorce weren't something you declared and needed a lawyer to do, but instead was something you were eligible for each year on three specific occasions: putting up the Christmas tree, driving home from vacation, and pitching a tent in the dark, then my parents would've been eligible A LOT in the first 15 years, less for the next ten, and pretty much not at all at 35 years of marriage.

At any rate, as couples, as children, as friends, and as parents, we all have a lot to learn about each other, from each other, and with each other. While it gets darn frustrating at times, love wouldn't be love otherwise.

As I said, I'm not sure what the message is, but it's resonating love and learning and patience. I'll let you know as soon as the decryption is complete--but then again, maybe simple awareness is the message.

::

So are you dying to find out your personality type? Thanks to my husband's find, you can do it here, for free, and you don't even have to sign up for it.

Here's a peak at my personality type. I need to find the person who wrote this because I have a lot of questions. Like, how did they know? and...what do I do!?

::

I've been working on a personal essay for a week or so and when I read my profile today, I got chills up my spine at the points it raises, which are almost entirely included as actual experiences in my essay. God always finds a way to talk to us, even when we're listening-resistant.

Go Slow

I'm really trying to quiet my mind again. It's been a little cluttered with things that don't matter much and, as my profile points out, are related to my inability to be at complete peace with myself--there is always something I should be doing.

I've gotten away from my ten minute prayer and quiet time in the morning. It's a 2008 goal that I've neglected for about three months now, right about the time the clutter worked its way back in. This month, that's what I'm focused on. Ten minutes in the morning and getting to bed a little earlier at night.

Splurges

Oh my gosh. You know how much I loved Juno. Well, guess what? The fella who wrote and sang the opening song to that movie (Barry Louis Polisar) is performing tonight at the park I run at nearly every day. For free. For kids. Ava and I are packing a dinner, throwing a blanket in the car, and heading over for some dancin and dreamin. You can read more about him here.

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First Spain won the Euro Cup, and now their parliament is calling for rights to life and freedom for apes. This is very cool!

Spain's parliament voiced its support on Wednesday for the rights of great apes to life and freedom in what will apparently be the first time any national legislature has called for such rights for non-humans.

Parliament's environmental committee approved resolutions urging Spain to comply with the Great Apes Project, devised by scientists and philosophers who say our closest genetic relatives deserve rights hitherto limited to humans.
...

The new resolutions have cross-party or majority support and are expected to become law and the government is now committed to update the statute book within a year to outlaw harmful experiments on apes in Spain.

Read the full story here.

And of course, Bill Dembski, the brave protector of human uniqueness is not too happy:

Here is one consequence of evolution being used to justify strict continuity between humans and other forms of life. Discovery Institute’s persistent stress on humans being made in the image of God and that not being a privilege extended to the rest of the animal world makes more and more sense. This action in Spain may for now seem benign, but I sense lunacy around the corner.

Oh no. Stop this madness. Evolution is making us see that all life on Earth is connected to one another and that is making us sensitive to other species.

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I had earlier posted two very positive reviews of Kauffman's Reinventing the Sacred: A new view of science, reason, and religion. But the reviews were not satisfying and something was bothering me that I couldn't really put my finger on. So here is a review by Massimo Pigliucci that addresses the issue that was bugging me:

Now why would any rational individual wish to propagate the whole idea of “the sacred” to begin with? For something to be sacred, according to the Merriam-Webster, means to be “dedicated or set apart for the service or worship of a deity,” or alternatively to be “worthy of religious veneration.” This is not what Kauffman means by the term, but the whole idea of “sacredness” seems to me to be the sort of baggage that humanity ought to do without by now.

At any rate, Kauffman wants to “use the God word, for my hope is to honorably steal its aura to authorize the sacredness of the creativity in nature.” Wow. First off, the concept of “honorably stealing” is something that is rather questionable, especially when what one is attempting to steal is nothing less than god’s aura. Second, nature is not creative, it just is. Creativity is something that conscious beings do, and to use the term in association with nature is misleading to say the least, and invites of course precisely the sort of quasi-mystical thinking that science is supposed to discourage. Third, there is nothing sacred about nature, either. Again, nature is what it is, and while Kauffman is tapping into the sense of awe shared by so many scientists when we approach the natural world, there is nothing to be worshipped, as worshipping is antithetical to understanding and appreciating, which is what science is about.

I think this is a better approach to the book and the review gets to the heart of the problem. Read the full review here.
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I was away for the past couple of days so I'm still catching up on relevant articles. Here is a review from Science (June 20) of Stuart Kauffman's book, Reinventing the Sacred: A new view of science, reason, and religion:

He builds his case step by step, first developing powerful arguments against reductionism. Not only is the world in some sense inexplicable at its lowest level (does anyone really understand quantum mechanics in the sense in which we can say that we understand Newtonian mechanics?), it is also necessarily historically unique in its development at higher levels. There is "ceaseless novelty" in what Kauffman calls the "adjacent present" that cannot be anticipated, just as it would be impossible to anticipate all the future uses to which a new invention might be put. So biology cannot conceivably be reduced to physics. Laplace's calculating demon would not be able to foresee all the future because he would not even be able to specify all the relevant variables.

It is from this phenomenon of "ceaseless creativity" in nature that Kauffman develops his case for reinventing the sacred. His argument is partly based on underlining the awe and humility we must feel at contemplating nature and partly a neat sidestepping of the "ought-is" argument in ethics. For him, ethics have emerged from evolution. They are part of the facts of the world we live in.

Okay...but part of the message of his book is to reclaim "God":

Another part of reinventing the sacred comes from the author's conviction that we need to find a new way of expressing human spirituality: "Seeking a new vision of the real world and our place in it has been a central aim of this book--to find common ground between science and religion so that we might collectively reinvent the sacred."

But why should we call any of this "God"? Kauffman's God is not even given the power that the Deists recognize. It is not a prime mover. He feels that "we must use the God word, for my hope is to honorably steal its aura to authorize the sacredness of the creativity in nature." I am sympathetic to this view and, as Kauffman himself notes, there are religions (notably Buddhism) that do not postulate a Creator God and for whom nature is sacred to a high degree.

I don't know who will be convinced by using "God" in this manner. As the reviewer aptly picks up on this point:

So, could his concept of God as nature's ceaseless creativity be convincing? As he expects, believers in a Creator God will strongly disagree with him, whereas humanists are not likely to adopt aword they have expunged from their language.

I'm not sure what is point of going through all of this to reclaim the notion of God. Read the full Science review here.

Here is another review by Michael Shermer in Scientific American, and it roughly has the same tone:

In Kauffman’s emergent universe, reductionism is not wrong so much as incomplete. It has done much of the heavy lifting in the history of science, but reductionism cannot explain a host of as yet unsolved mysteries, such as the origin of life, the biosphere, consciousness, evolution, ethics and economics. How would a reductionist explain the biosphere, for example? “One approach would be, following Newton, to write down the equations for the evolution of the biosphere and solve them. This cannot be done,” Kauffman avers. “We cannot say ahead of time what novel functionalities will arise in the biosphere. Thus we do not know what variables—lungs, wings, etc.—to put into our equations. The Newtonian scientific framework where we can prestate the variables, the laws among the variables, and the initial and boundary conditions, and then compute the forward behavior of the system, cannot help us predict future states of the biosphere.”

This problem is not merely an epistemological matter of computing power, Kauffman cautions; it is an ontological problem of different causes at different levels. Something wholly new emerges at these higher levels of complexity.

and it also ends with a note of skepticism for the success of such a notion of God:

He is one of the most spiritual scientists I know, a man of inestimable warmth and ecumenical tolerance, and his God 2.0 is a deity worthy of worship. But I am skeptical that it will displace God 1.0, Yahweh, whose Bronze Age program has been running for 6,000 years on the software of our brains and culture.

Read the full Scientific American review here.
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Menegur dan menasihati serta mendakwahi orang lain itu sememangnya tanggungjawab kita. Namun bukanlah tanggungjawab kita untuk menjadikan mereka berubah dan mendapatkan hidayah. Firman Allah :

Bukanlah kewajibanmu menjadikan mereka mendapat petunjuk, akan tetapi Allah-lah yang memberi petunjuk (memberi taufik) siapa yang dikehendaki-Nya.
[Al-Baqarah, 2:272]

Nabi sendiri tidak mampu mengubah dan mengislamkan bapa saudaranya yang tercinta, apalagi kita. Bersyukurlah, sekurang-kurangnya keluarga kita masih Islam, masih mengaku Allah sebagai tuhan, Nabi Muhammad sebagai nabi. Insya-Allah, mereka akan menginjak syurga juga akhirnya.

Namun perlu diingat, kita perlu terus-menerus mendakwahi mereka, kerana itu sememangnya tanggungjawab kita yang tidak akan pernah berhenti. Firman Allah :

Dan (ingatlah) ketika suatu umat di antara mereka berkata: "Mengapa kamu menasihati kaum yang Allah akan membinasakan mereka atau mengazab mereka dengan azab yang amat keras?" Mereka menjawab: "Agar kami mempunyai alasan (pelepas tanggung jawab) kepada Tuhanmu, dan supaya mereka bertakwa".
[Al-A'raf, 7:164]

Lihat di hujung ayat itu, "supaya mereka bertakwa". Maksudnya tujuan dakwah kita perlulah agar mereka bertaqwa. Jadi, kita perlu berusaha dengan cara yang terbaik. Pelajarilah fiqh dakwah, bacalah buku-buku dakwah, cara-cara mendakwahi keluarga dan mintalah pendapat murobbi@murobbiyah dan naqib@naqibah. Insya-Allah akan berjumpa caranya. Yang penting, kita perlu terus menerus menasihati, namun menjadikan mereka beriman itu tugas Allah.

Beberapa tips:

1. Sentiasalah menunukkan akhlaq yang baik kepada mereka. Dekati mereka dengan baik. Jadi teman yang rapat buat mereka. Tunjukkan kita mengambil bereat terhadap mereka. Lama-kelamaan pasti mereka akan mendengar nasihat kita.

2. Jangan sekali-kali berleter kepada mereka. Ini akan membuatkan mereka menyampah dan lari daripada kita.

3. Banyakkan bersabar. Amalkan sikap ini; bersama dengan mereka apabila mereka tidak melakukan larangan Allah, tinggalkan mereka @ tidak bersama mereka apabila mereka mula melakukan larangan Allah. Firman Allah :

Dan apabila kamu melihat orang-orang memperolok-olokkan ayat-ayat Kami, maka tinggalkanlah mereka sehingga mereka membicarakan pembicaraan yang lain. Dan jika setan menjadikan kamu lupa (akan larangan ini), maka janganlah kamu duduk bersama orang-orang yang lalim itu sesudah teringat (akan larangan itu).
[Al-An'am, 6.68]

4. Berdoalah bersungguh-sungguh kepada Allah agar mereka diberi kefahaman tentang agama. Tanda Allah ingin memberikan kebaikan kepada seseorang hambaNya adalah Dia akan memberikannya kefahaman tentang agama.

5. Akhir sekali, bertawakkal kepada Allah, sambil terus berusaha.

Dan kepunyaan Allah-lah apa yang gaib di langit dan di bumi dan kepada-Nya-lah dikembalikan urusan-urusan semuanya, maka sembahlah Dia, dan bertawakallah kepada-Nya. Dan sekali-kali Tuhanmu tidak lalai dari apa yang kamu kerjakan.
[Huud, 11:123]

Wallahua'lam...

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Google public relations
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You've heard my two primary maureenisms by now:

Go Slow to Go Fast
Progress not Perfection

But there's a third (actually, there are probably fourths and fifths and sixths)--and it's one of the originals

Flexibility within Structure

I was student teaching when I came up with it. After my second lesson plan for teaching Julius Caesar to tenth graders, I decided my approach wasn't working for every kid. And it needed to. I liked the structure: 10-minute warm-up, reactivating what we knew so far; 5-minute preparation for the scene (or two) of the day; 20-minute scene interpretation; 10 minute reflection, what we now know or are still confused about.

So I kept the structure.

Then added some flexibility. For example, instead of using a written prompt for the warm-up, we used a verbal one. After we discussed what we already knew about the play (e.g. what already happened) then the kids synthesized what we discussed in a list to be used for an outline at the end of the unit. Instead of reenacting the entire scene, I'd isolate its crux and together, we'd modernize it. You get the idea.

I use this approach with my running and especially with my mothering and especially in my role as teacher to the little love I mother.

The structure remains the same every day: wake, eat, activity, lunch, nap, activity, dinner, quiet activity, bed (with a whole lot of "read" interspersed)

I've employed it with her as soon as my feet landed back on the ground after having her and I had a minute to sort out what just happened (the most wonderful thing in life happened: life) which was about when she was four weeks old.

The structure remains in fixed, but the activities, the menu's, the stories do not.

It's not rocket science, that's for sure. We all operate on our own flexibility within structures each day, but I think that sometimes the awareness of what "it" is helps the mind to relax a little bit.
What are your structures? What are your flexibilities? How do you operate?

::

I was reminded of this maureenism this week, as I was feeling a little scattered about this blog. Check back soon to hear more about it.

::

Going Slow to Go Fast

I'm up early early early every morning, either to work or to run or both. I love getting up early--I get a lot done. But it is very easy for "getting a lot done" to become a fixation. So much so that if I'm not getting something done, I feel unproductive and anxious. And that, I know, is ridiculous. So, I'm working on it.

Usually, I eat breakfast while I write email or think about the work-related tasks I need to get done that day. It's a total no-no, I know. Again, sometimes I feel like every minute needs to be productive and my sense of productivity becomes skewed. (Eating breakfast mindfully and having a minute to let the brain waves settle is, afterall, productive). So this morning, I didn't turn anything on. It was just me, my oatmeal, and some quiet, quiet air.

::

Splurge of the month

Husband paid the bills last night and whenever he pays the bills, there is a cloak of silence that falls heavy throughout the house. Don't get me wrong, it's totally self-imposed. I pretend I'm working on something when really, I'm zeroed in on his body language and his silence like it's keeping me alive.

I think about all the things I've bought this month that I probably could have done without and all the things that I could still return. Where does this guilt come from?

I must say, it's gotten way better since we've put the brakes on superfluous spending (which was never all that bad) and we've agreed to make the time to sit down together to pay those darn things. We both decided that my anxiety stems from my uninvolvement in the process.

So we're going to start making a date of it. A bottle of $10 wine and the bills. Could be a disaster, but I think it will be fun :) I'm counting on it.

In the meantime, no splurge for me!

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We love honey bees, also known as Apis Mellifera. Apis Mellifera is just the scientific name which means honey carrying bee, which technically is incorrect, as honey bees do not carry honey. They carry nectar and turn it into honey in the hive. So let's just call 'em honey bees!

Honey bees swarm. They swarm for several reason, and for some reasons we'll never understand. Here I am watching a swarm from one of my hives land in my near by tree. You can click on the image for an enlarged view.

My wife and I clapped our hands, rattled a metal sheet around the swarm and believe it or not they went back into the hive they swarmed from. Either what we did worked, or for some unheard of reason, they just went back home. I know bees cannot hear, but they do "hear" by sensing vibrations.

Beekeeping comes with many challenges. During May and June our biggest challenge is keeping our hives from swarming. I run my hives tight and full because I believe bees like to be crowded--not congested, but crowded. This year, I've only had 2 of my hives swarm. This one was high up so I put an empty hive on top of my truck and climbed up the ladder and shook the swarm down into the box on the truck. Imagine going through a fast food drive up with that on top of your truck! When a colony swarms, it loses a large number of it's population. Most agree that if a colony swarms, the remaining bees probably will not produce honey that year. So, no one wants to see a swarm unless it is someone elses. :)

Another beekeeping challenge is failing queens. Has your queen gone feet up on you? Maybe she's deformed, like this one which has lost an antenna. Or like this queen in the picture, maybe she needs wound up again. Sorry, when the queen runs out, there is no winding her back up. She will not mate again. Time for a new queen. This is another challenge we beekeepers face...failing or missing queens. None of us want to find a bunch of queen cells in our hives when the queen is doing great nor do we want to find that our queen is gone. We must have strong, young and great laying queens to keep our hives striving.

Here's a queen cell in my hive. For those of you who have never seen a queen cell and have always wondered if you could identify one, here you go. Queen cells on the top half of the frame means they are replacing their old queen for some reason. And queen cells on the bottom of the frames mean they are preparing to swarm. Excessive swarming can be a trait within the queen's genetics. But it can also be environmental such as the hive is congested.

So, all of that being said, I want to wrap up my lessons on queen rearing for now with some final comments.

You are most likely going to keep buying your queens from reputable queen providers probably from the sunshine belt, where the weather is warmer longer so queens are easier to raise and can be raised earlier in the spring. And, we sell packages and queens from the south, so I don't want to shoot myself in the foot. But there are a few things we should consider about queens from the south.

First, they have to travel a long way to get to northern states. Shipping can be hard on bees and queens. It shouldn't be, but sometimes it is. Data recorders have shown that some queens were exposed to cold and hot temperatures that could effect the overall health of the queen. Delivery centers spray for insects. Could that spray residue effect queens as well? Not to mention that some states in the deep south are known to have Africanized bees. Great efforts are being made to keep the Africanized genetics out of the pool, but for open air mated queens, who can be sure, right?

I've heard farmers say you should buy your animals from the north and move then south but never buy them from the south and bring them north. Which brings us to the idea and consideration of whether a southern queen may not be able to survive a northern winter. That's hard to make a case around. Bees are bees, right. They are going to work and do what bees do. However, it makes sense to me to obtain a queen that is bred in the area of your own climate. For years people in the north have successfully over wintered hives purchased from the south. However, winter die outs are on the rise.

That being said, if you live in a northern state which has harsh winters, it just makes sense to purchase queens that have proven successful in northern climates. Here's why: First, you avoid shipping stresses. Secondly, you are obtaining a queen that has survived your unique climate. Thirdly, you know that your queen is from hives that have survived pests and diseases that are common in your area. To me, this makes sense. And with a near by queen breeder, you may be more apt to replace your queens regularly.

Come on! Would you buy a queen from a hive that is known to have CCD or is Africanized? Of course not? Even though she may not carry or transfer the cause of CCD, no one would want to do that. Then, why would you buy a queen without knowing anything about her genetic track record? Usually because we get desperate to have a queen, and most queen breeders are desperately trying to sell queens and can no longer carefully monitor the genetics that governs the overall success of queens. This isn't the case with all southern or western queen breeders, yet the reality of the stress placed on queen production can sometimes cause shortcuts to be taken, in my opinion. I know for a fact that last year queens are sold as this year queens. Again, not everyone does this, but money does talk, and the bottom line governs business.

Our long term goal is to raise queens from survivor hives, which are hives that have survived at least two northern winters, have gone untreated for all pests and disease for at least two years and have not been hindered by pests or diseases. And a hive that has other good qualities such as minimal swarming, gentleness and maximal honey production. That's a long term goal and will take years to improve this stock. For now though, we are achieving success along the way.

But remember, we can't always point the finger at our queens. There are some great coaches that just don't have the player skills to win games. Some queens may be great, but may face tough Springs. Is it fair to blame the queen for a tough spring? The older bees seem to be the ones that call a lot of the shots. Should we blame the queen when the older bees make poor decisions? Or, this is one none of us want to admit, but should we blame the queen for our poor management and poor manipulation of a hive? For example, some medications in the hive have been shown to reduce the queen's performance. Is it fair to blame the breeder or the queen because we poisoned her?

So be patient with the queen! We can all get a dude, but let's be sure before we give up on her.

This is why you should consider raising your own queens. This year introducing my own young, freshly mated queens has made a huge difference in the overall performance of my hives. I realize it is impractical for every beekeeper to raise their own queens. That's why we need more and more local beekeepers to form regional queen rearing programs.

We have a limited number of queens we are selling this year. If you'd like to try one, please give us a call at 217-427-2678. We ship queens on Monday and Wednesday. By purchasing your queens from us, we are able to use that profit to expand our queen stock improvment program.

Also, if you are planning on becoming a beekeeper next spring, then please order your equipment and hives from us this summer or fall. It becomes very difficult for us to keep up with all the orders between February-June. Plan ahead!!

That's all for now, and remember...BEE-have yourself!

David & Sheri Burns

Long Lane Honey Bee Farms

217-427-2678

EMAIL: david@honeybeesonline.com

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Even if it doesn't always turn out to be true, its still fun to read about the possibility of actual astronomical information in ancient texts. And of course, its great when the text in question is Homer's Odyssey:

That Odysseus took his time, 19 years, getting home to Ithaca from the Trojan War is the story Homer engraved in the “Odyssey.” But exactly when did he rejoin his Penelope, who had been patient beyond belief?

Plutarch thought a crucial passage in the 20th book of the “Odyssey” to be a poetic description of a total solar eclipse at the time of Odysseus’ return. A century ago, astronomers calculated that such an eclipse occurred over the Greek islands on April 16, 1178 B.C., the only one in the region around the estimated date of the sack of Troy. But nearly all classics scholars are highly skeptical of any connection.

An analysis of astronomical references in the epic has led two scientists to conclude that the homecoming of Odysseus, usually considered a fictional character set in the context of a real historical event, possibly coincided with the 1178 solar eclipse. If, that is, Homer indeed had in mind an eclipse when he wrote of a seer prophesying the death of Penelope’s waiting suitors and their entrance into Hades.

The new interpretation of the eclipse hypothesis is reported in this week’s issue of The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by Constantino Baikouzis and Marcelo O. Magnasco, scientists at the Laboratory of Mathematical Physics at Rockefeller University in New York and at the Astronomical Observatory of La Plata, in Argentina.

And here is the slightly problematic bit:

Although an eclipse is not mentioned anywhere in the story, there are omens and what Plutarch inferred was a poetic description of a total solar eclipse. Odysseus has arrived home, disguised in beggar’s rags and in hiding before revealing himself. It happens that, when Penelope’s persistent suitors sit down for a noontime meal, they start laughing uncontrollably and see their food spattered with blood.

At this strange moment, the seer Theoclymenus foretells their death, ending with the sentence, “The Sun has been obliterated from the sky, and an unlucky darkness invades the world.”

There are reasons to think that the darkness of a total eclipse had just fallen on Ithaca. It was close to noon when the 1178 eclipse occurred over the Ionian Sea. It was, as mentioned several times in the story, at the time of a new moon, which the scientists point out is “a necessary condition for a solar eclipse.” And what better atmospherics to accompany a prophecy of doom than a total eclipse, which was considered an ill omen?

Experts on Homer have previously discounted such conjecture. For one thing, the earliest verified eclipse records are in the eighth century B.C., about the time Homer was writing but long after the action in what is known as the Trojan War, around the early 12th century B.C. Scholars say there is no evidence supporting a view at the time, widely quoted, that “a solar eclipse may mark the return of Odysseus.”

Hmm...okay. Thats a lot of cold water. But how did they figure out the specific eclipse in the first place?

The two scientists derived a possible chronology from astronomical references in the story, including the stars by which Odysseus navigated, the sighting of Venus just before dawn as he arrives at Ithaca, and the new moon on the night before the massacre of the suitors and the presumed eclipse.

On the basis of their analysis, the scientists said, these three “references ‘cohere,’ in the sense that the astronomical phenomena pinpoint the date of 16 April 1178 B.C.,” adding, “The odds that purely fictional references to these phenomena (so hard to satisfy simultaneously) would coincide by accident with the only eclipse of the century are minute.”

Well? Solar eclipses are indeed quite spectacular. So there is a possibility that this eclipse may have made enough of an impression (or to have scared the heck out of them) to have been made part of the story that carried this scientific information for five centuries - before it got to Homer (or the collection of bards known as Homer). True or not, its a fun investigative story.

Read the full article here.

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Sahabatku...
Aku membaca luahan hatimu kepada kekasihmu,
Luahan yang kauabadikan di blog milikmu,
Kau luahkan segala perasaanmu kepadanya,
hingga kaukatakan,

"~~sungguh, hanyalah dirimu yang aku cintai.. dan sungguh, kukan disisimu hingga kumati~~"

Kukira kaumahu semua orang mengetahui,
Bahawa kau amat mencintai kekasihmu itu.
Kau ingin berbangga memilikinya sebagai kekasih,
Lantaran segala pengorbanannya yang mengharukanmu.
Sehingga kuyakin,
Sesiapa sahaja yang membacanya pasti merasa,
Bertapa dalamnya cintamu kepadanya,
Dan tiada siapa yang mungkin mengingkarinya.

Tetapi...
Terharukah aku membacanya? Terharukah aku?
Lalu mengapa air mata ini mengalir?
Mengapa?
Namun hatiku membisikkan,
kau bukan terharu..
Sebenarnya kau sedang terkesima umairzulkefli..
Terkesima melihat cinta seseorang yang diletakkan bukan pada tempatnya yang sebenar...

Sesungguhnya aku akan hanya terharu...
Jika yang kauucintakan itu adalah Rabb-mu...
Jika yang kau sayangi itu adalah tuhanmu...
Pencipta dirimu...
Yang menciptakan segala yang ada pada dirimu,
Keluargamu,
Ibumu,
Ayahmu,
Kekasihmu,
bahkan PERASAAN yang kau rasakan saat ini...
Kerana aku yang hina ini melihat...
Kau tidak meletakkan Allah sebagai cinta terATASmu...
Yang lebih kaudambakan hanyalah cinta dia,
manusia biasa...

Walaupun dia Amat MenCintaimu..
Tapi ingatlah..
ALLAH LEBIH MENCINTAIMU...
kerana DIA yang memberimu kebahagiaan yang kaukecapi kini...

Namun kerana cintamu kepada dia,
Seakan-akan kau melupakan DIA,
Kau lebih mahu memenangi hatinya,
Daripada memenangi diriNYA,
Kau lebih ingin menyenangkan diri kekasihmu,
Tetapi kau telah mengingkari kasih KEKASIH sebenarmu...
Kau lebih ingin memenuhi kehendak dirimu serta kekasihmu,
Tetapi kaumeninggalkan kehendak KEKASIH sebenarmu.
Kau amat takut andai kauterguris hati kekasihmu.
Tetapi sedarkah kau yang kau telah menoreh-noreh KEKASIH SEBENARMU,
dengan melakukan larangan-laranganNYA...?

Satu analogi mudah buat situasimu ini...

Bayangkan jika kaumencintai kekasihmu itu,
Lalu kauberikan segalanya kepadanya,
Dan kaumendapati dia turut mencintai dirimu,
Dia juga memberikan segalanya kepada dirimu,
Namun akhirnya kausedari,
Cintanya padamu hanya kerana rupa parasmu yang anggun,
Suaramu yang lunak-merdu,
Hanya itu!
Hanya kerana fizikalmu!
Dan seandainya fizikalmu hilang,
Cinta kekasihmu buatmu turut hilang...
Lalu kaumenyedari itu bukan cinta sebenar,
Kaumenyedari bukan dirimu yang dicintai dan dipuja selama ini,
Kau menyedari yang dirimu terasa dikhianati...
Bagaimana perasaanmu ketika itu?

Dan itulah analoginya,
Ketika tuhanmu menyintaimu lalu memberikan segalanya padamu,
Lalu yang kaukembalikan,
Hanyalah cintamu kepada hambaNYA yang biasa,
Kau rasa bersyukur,
Hanya kerana memiliki hambaNYA,
Kau rasa gembira kerana layanan hambaNYA kepadamu,
Bukan sebenarnya kepadaNYA...


Kaumerasakan kekasihmulah ang menghilangkan deritamu selama ini,
Tetapi sebenarnya DIAlah yang menghilangkannya.

Kaumerasakan kekasihmu memberimu semangat untuk bangun kembali mengharungi hidup ini,
Tetapi sebenarnya DIAlah yang meniupkan semangat kepada jiwamu.

Kaumerasakan kekasihmu itu yang membahagiakanmu selama ini,
Tetapi sebenarnya DIAlah yang meniupkan kebahagiaan kepadamu.

Kaumerasakan kau sangat bahagia apabila dicintai dan dkasihi kekasihmu,
Tetapi siapakah yang menciptakan perasaan cinta dan perasaan kasih itu?

Siapakah sebenarnya yang meniupkan perasaan cinta itu keadalam dirimu dan kekasihmu?
Juga yang meniupkan sifat pengasih kepada ibumu,
Juga kepada sesiapa sahaja yang mencintaimu.
Siapa?
Siapakah Ar-Rahim itu?
Siapakah Yang Maha Penyayang itu!?
Siapakah yang sebenarnya mencintaimu itu?
SIAPA!!??
DIAlah ALLAH!!!
ALLAH....
Ya...DIAlah ALLAH..
ALLAHlah yang menyintaimu sebenarnya,
ALLAHlah yang menyintaimu selama ini...
Lalu mengapakah kau tega melukakan diriNYA,
Dengan perbuatan-perbuatanmu,
Hanya kerana dikaburi cinta kepada kekasihmu itu...?

Sahabatku...
kau hanyalah hamba ALLAH,
kekasihmu juga hanyalah hamba ALLAH,
aku juga hanyalah hamba ALLAH,
hambaNYA yang sangat hina,
mungkin sahaja aku lebih hina daripada kalian,

namun...
Cinta kita kepadaNYA perlu melebihi segalanya,
Bukan setakat lafaz di bibir,
Tetapi dengan pembuktian pengabdian yang nyata,
Melakukan yang diperintah,
Meninggalkan yang dilarang...

Tidakkah kaumerisaukan,
Tibanya suatu hari,
Di mana kau dan kekasihmu berseteru di hadapan ALLAH,
Saling menyalahkan antara satu sama lain,
Masing-masing mengatakan diri sendiri tidak bersalah,
Kau sehabis mungkin mengatakan bahawa kekasihmu itulah yang menjerumuskanmu,
Menjermuskan dirimu kedalam lembah kesilapan ini,
Dan ketika itu pasti dia menjadi orang yang paling kaubenci sekali.
Tidak risaukah kau?
Sanggupkah kau?

Kerana inilah yang difirmankan oleh KEKASIH SEBENARMU,
"Teman-teman akrab pada hari itu sebagiannya menjadi musuh bagi sebagian yang lain kecuali
orang-orang yang bertakwa."
[Surah Az-Zukhruf, 43:67]

Sahabatku...
To love somebody is nothing,
To be love by somebody is something,
To be love by somebody you loved is interesting,
But...
To be loved by ALLAH is EVERYTHING...

Remember always my friend...
ALLAH LOVES YOU...
MORE than you yourself...
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We chose Ratatouille for the beginning of Recipes to Rival. It's a great recipe to have for this time of the year as these vegetables are starting to come into season.

Ratatouille - Definition
A popular dish from the French region of Provence that combines eggplant, tomatoes, onions, bell peppers, zucchini, garlic and herbs --all simmered in olive oil. The vegetables can vary according to the cook. They can be cooked together, or cooked separately and then combined and heated briefly together. Ratatouille can be served hot, cold or at room temperature, either as a side dish or as an appetizer with bread or crackers.
---Epicurious.com

There are several versions of Ratatouille out there but we thought we would go with the recipe that the movie, RATATOUILLE used. According to Revolution Health the following recipe is the official recipe of the movie.

CONFIT BYALDI
from NY TIMES

INGREDIENTS
FOR PIPERADE
1/2 red pepper, seeds and ribs removed
1/2 yellow pepper, seeds and ribs removed
1/2 orange pepper, seeds and ribs removed
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1/2 cup finely diced yellow onion
3 tomatoes (about 12 ounces total weight), peeled, seeded, and finely diced, juices reserved
1 sprig thyme
1 sprig flat-leaf parsley
1/2 a bay leaf
Kosher salt

FOR VEGETABLES
1 zucchini (4 to 5 ounces) sliced in 1/16-inch rounds
1 Japanese eggplant, (4 to 5 ounces) sliced into 1/16-inch rounds
1 yellow squash (4 to 5 ounces) sliced into 1/16-inch rounds
4 Roma tomatoes, sliced into 1/16-inch rounds
1/2 teaspoon minced garlic
2 teaspoons olive oil
1/8teaspoon thyme leaves
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper


FOR VINAIGRETTE
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oi
1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar
Assorted fresh herbs (thyme flowers, chervil, thyme)
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper.

METHOD
FOR PIPERADE
1. Heat oven to 450 degrees. Place pepper halves on a foil-lined sheet, cut side down. Roast until skin loosens, about 15 minutes. Remove from heat and let rest until cool enough to handle. Peel and chop finely.

2. Combine oil, garlic, and onion in medium skillet over low heat until very soft but not browned, about 8 minutes. Add tomatoes, their juices, thyme, parsley, and bay leaf. Simmer over low heat until very soft and very little liquid remains, about 10 minutes, do not brown; add peppers and simmer to soften them. Season to taste with salt, and discard herbs. Reserve tablespoon of mixture and spread remainder in bottom of an 8-inch skillet.

FOR VEGETABLES
3. Heat oven to 275 degrees. Down center of pan, arrange a strip of 8 alternating slices of vegetables over piperade, overlapping so that 1/4 inch of each slice is exposed. Around the center strip, overlap vegetables in a close spiral that lets slices mound slightly toward center. Repeat until pan is filled; all vegetables may not be needed.

4. Mix garlic, oil, and thyme leaves in bowl and season with salt and pepper to taste. Sprinkle over vegetables. Cover pan with foil and crimp edges to seal well. Bake until vegetables are tender when tested with a paring knife, about 2 hours. Uncover and bake for 30 minutes more. (Lightly cover with foil if it starts to brown.) If there is excess liquid in pan, place over medium heat on stove until reduced. (At this point it may be cooled, covered and refrigerated for up to 2 days. Serve cold or reheat in 350-degree oven until warm.)

FOR VINAIGRETTE
5. Combine reserved piperade, oil, vinegar, herbs, and salt and pepper to taste in a bowl.

TO SERVE
6. Heat broiler and place byaldi underneath until lightly browned. Slice in quarters and very carefully lift onto plate with offset spatula. Turn spatula 90 degrees, guiding byaldi into fan shape. Drizzle vinaigrette around plate. Serve hot.

Yield: 4 servings

Quotes from the Forum:

My boyfriend now wants to go vegetarian because of this dish
Robyn of Culinary Adventures

I think the piperade would be good just on a sandwich as well, instead of putting slices of peppers and tomatoes on it. YUM!
Debyi of Healthy Vegan Kitchen

When I gave a lil' plate of it to AJ (hub) he said, "All that work for this? It's like steamed veggies!" hehe then he tasted it. He didn't say much else after that except how yummy it was.
Belle Boulangère of Delightful Delicacies

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Yesterday I saw a fantastic and completely insane film, The Fall. The preview for the film is below. Its a visually stunning film with a charming off-beat story. But why am I mentioning it on this blog? Well, it has Charles Darwin and Wallace in it - but both are very very unusual (especially true in the case of Wallace). Follow this link to see the place in the movie when Darwin and Wallace are first introduced. I'm sure that without context, it looks even more bizarre. But I think Darwin looks good in this pink pimp coat (this reminded me of Daniel Dennett's attire in the MC Dawkins video). If you like good unusual films, then definitely check out The Fall while its still playing in the theaters - its a big screen film. If you need more prodding, then here is the opening of Ebert's review:

Tarsem's "The Fall" is a mad folly, an extravagant visual orgy, a free-fall from reality into uncharted realms. Surely it is one of the wildest indulgences a director has ever granted himself. Tarsem, for two decades a leading director of music videos and TV commercials, spent millions of his own money to finance "The Fall," filmed it for four years in 28 countries and has made a movie that you might want to see for no other reason than because it exists. There will never be another like it.

and here is the trailer:

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