As of April 28, 2012, I am a beekeeper! We have two hives. Within the next week, I will be harvesting and extracting the honey from at least one super, a large wooden box that holds frames for honey comb. I'll be taking the frames to a honey house and using the extractor to remove the honey from the comb. The frames then go back into the hive for the bees to clean. On each hive I have one deep brood box and two shallow supers. The brood box and each super have nine frames in them. The bees excrete wax and build the comb on the foundation, which is held in the frames. The queen lays eggs (her sole purpose) and the brood is raised by worker bees in the brood box. The extra honey, the honey to be harvested, is stored in the supers. I use a queen excluder to keep the queen from going into the supers and laying eggs there. Though I have shallow supers, the fullest one ways approximately already weighs fifty pounds right now!

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Whether you have kids, enjoy throwing parties or want to beat the summer heat, having a backyard pool may be the perfect amenity for your home. However, pools can come with some major drawbacks such as the large amounts of chemicals required to keep the pool clean and germ-free. An alternative to chlorine, salt has proven to be both cost effective and eco-friendly. Many people do not realize that the chlorine used as a pool disinfectant is widely recognized as a health hazard. Chlorine increases the risk of developing allergies and asthma. For adults, chlorine has been linked to bladder and rectal cancer and is believed to also increase the risk of birth defects in pregnant women. Although it may not be for everyone, saltwater pools offer many benefits when compared to chlorine pools.

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A Crash Course in Ecotourism
 By Lorilei Stierlen

 Ecotourism was officially defined in 1990 by The International Ecotourism Society (TIES) to mean "responsible travel to natural areas that conserves the environment and improves the well-being of local people."   It is meant to bind together conservation, local communities, and the principles of sustainable travel. The goal is to improve and encourage both environmental and cultural understanding and respect, while at the same time furthering and fostering the local involvement in conservation and the benefits from those efforts. The ecotourism philosophy is a holistic approach to sustainability applied to travel. Ecotourism promotes the belief that it is our duty to practice responsible stewardship toward the earth at all times. When we travel, not only should we do no harm to the ecosystem or the indigenous peoples, we should strive to improve the area and benefit the local people in a meaningful manner. By engaging both visitors and locals in the welfare and care of natural areas, the conservation of these will be advanced and improved. Including the local population in the positive benefits of conservation efforts fosters a generational desire to protect and preserve them. 

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 We all know that everything's bigger in Texas, but at what point in driving a bigger car or living in a bigger house or staying in a bigger hotel or shopping in a bigger mall do we finally say, "Okay, enough. I think we're good here'?" So asks Sarah Wexler, the self-identified former hippie and author of Living Large: From SUVs to Double Ds - Why Going Bigger isn't Going Better. In the book's eleven detailed chapters, Wexler thematically tackles the supersizing of subjects as diverse as houses, jewelry, churches, stores, and breast implants, among others. The author questions the long-held American notion of "bigger is better" and challenges us to consider not only the environmental, but also financial and psychological impacts of our choice to go bigger.

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