Warning: Fr. Frank describes using a model how abortionists kill and remove the baby in second trimester abortions and quotes the abortionists themselves; it is rightfully disturbing.

http://www.youtube.com/v/us_y9GP_-DA&hl=en

http://www.youtube.com/v/QBOAPleF1t0&hl=en

Fr. Frank started Priests for Life, a group of priests and lay persons dedicated to ending the abortion holocaust; he explains the purpose of these videos and the call to take action in the upcoming election here.

If the German people knew what was happening in the “work camps”, would they have allowed it to continue? I pray not, and neither should we allow this horror to continue in our country.

Women deserve better than abortion.

I am now a registered walker in the Texas Alliance for Life annual Walk. My personal goal is $500, which means that I only need 50 people to donate $10 each. We can totally raise that, right blog readers?

Please consider sponsoring me here. Thanks!

Our friend Amy sent us this unusual story about a man making his beehives in the shape of monasteries because “bees have souls, too”.

Well, technically they don’t, but this story is still funny.

Now, before I arouse the hopes of any of our blog readers, I’m only referring to gardening here, not to new Rosebuds. We’re still waiting on Our Lord for that one.

However, as the title suggests, Devin and I are enjoying the fruitfulness of our backyard farm. Everything’s growing wonderfully! I’ve taken a number of photos which Devin will post soon, and I promise to narrate when they’re posted. Enjoy!

Sweet potato vines–my first time sprouting them.

Volunteer red potato; our potatoes last fall died, so I’m going to give this one a chance.

The new grape arbor Devin built.

Dev’s vines–they sustained a little damage from my weed killing with vinegar last Saturday but have bounced back. Sorry, Devin!

Dill going to seed–it continues to be my favorite herb, giving a home now to lots of lady bugs.

The first berry on our new bushes–we’re not sure if this is a dewberry or blackberry.

Corn is up! We have about 14 sprouts now.

A view of the damage wrought by the vinegar. I used pickling vinegar, which is 9% acidity, with a little dish soap added. Our goal is to kill all the grass in this garden area and cover the ground with gravel. I used vinegar because I didn’t want to add weed-killer to the soil, which might harm our earthworms and helpful soil bacteria, as well as the water table.

Giuliani received our Lord in Holy Communion during the papal Mass, and Cardinal Egan is standing up and saying that it was wrong for him to do so because of his persistence in promoting abortion, among other grave matters.

Via American Papist and LifeSite News.

Katie about to go to the festival and teach cross-stitch:

Katie and I ordered two new queen bees from B. Weaver apiaries and had them sent to us via express mail, and they arrived last Thursday!

We searched through the Ambrose hive but could not find the queen, even after 20 minutes of looking, so we decided to introduce the new queen and take the risk that the Ambrose queen was still alive, which would cause them to fight to the death.

Augustine, the hive we cut out of my mom’s house, we gave brood to raise its own queen, and sure enough, they did! The new queen had already laid many eggs and there was capped brood in the comb; however, we had to kill her to introduce the new queen to the hive, so I squashed the Augustine queen, who is only a month old or so, and put in the new queen.

Why did we re-queen the hives? Well, in the case of Ambrose, the queen we had was now over a year old, and as queens age, they run out of bee sperm from their mating flights and emit less queen pheromone, which is what keeps the hive together.

This is a natural process; when the queen gets old enough, the hive either supersedes (replaces) her with a new queen they raise (offing the old queen), or they swarm, roughly half the hive leaving with the old queen to find a new home, while the other half stays in the hive and raises a new queen.

Neither of these scenarios is best for the beekeeper, usually, because you end up with a queen with unknown traits or half your hive gone, putting a big dent in honey-making. In the case of Augustine, it was a double whammy: Half the hive swarmed with the old queen and they raised their own queen of unknown genetics.

What we did know about the Augustine queen was that the bees she produced were pretty mean and aggressive, so we really wanted to re-queen this hive with a known good queen, bred for gentleness and honey-making.

We will find out this next week whether the hives accepted their new queens; sometimes they get mad at them and kill them right away. But hopefully they will welcome them as their new monarchs!

The Libertos were kind of enough to tag us with this meme, 7 random things/habits/quirks about yourself:

1. I am a horrible back-seat driver, no matter how good the driver is

2. My parents thought I had obsessive-compulsive disorder growing up because of various compulsive little things I did

3. My parents also thought I was becoming a pyromaniac because of how much I loved fire

4. I played soccer my whole life and suffered a broken nose from a head butt and two broken arms from taking some spills while playing

5. I loved the cafeteria food growing up in public school

6. My last years playing baseball in Pony league, around 8th grade, though I hated playing pitcher, I had to pitch and had three different pitches: fastball, change-up, and knuckle-ball; I was the only kid that age who threw the knuckle-ball. Batters on the other team were either bewildered by it or smacked the heck out of it (when it didn’t properly “knuckle”).

7. I won the checkers championship at my school in 3rd grade (only to be beaten in checkers by Katie on our first visit together) and I won the chess championship at my high school my senior year (only to be beaten by Robert, who didn’t play much chess growing up, in college a few years later)

I tag all of our blogging Amigos!

My friend Dave sent us this video made by a young father during the 99 days of his son’s life, who was born with Trisomy 18:

Makes me want to be a dad again!

The National Catholic Register has a great interview with Monsignor Georg Ratzinger, who is Pope Benedict’s older brother.

Here are some of my favorite excerpts:

Q. Has something changed on a personal level after the election of your brother as Pope?

A. No. My brother was already 78 years old when he was elected Pope. Our personal relationship had already lasted 78 years by then.

Q. What practical benefit is there for you when your brother is the Pope?

A. Obviously, I see its practical benefit when I visit my brother in Rome: I get very quickly from the airport to the Vatican–and if you know the traffic jams around Rome then you know that this is not easy.

There is also an important dimension in the Eucharist: Here is the Vicar of Christ celebrating Mass. There is a special atmosphere around that.

Q. What plans or desires do you have for the evening of your life?

A. At our age, life is fulfilled. One has reached his aims, or missed them. One tries to the live the last months or years, the days there are, in a way that does not cause problems, creates peace–to do one’s tasks as well as one can….Dreams or desires? No, I do not have them now.

I really like how Monsignor Georg answered the last question: Like St. Paul, he has run the race, kept the faith, and now he awaits the crown of glory in Heaven, the joy of seeing Christ face to face at last.

Either you have achieved your aims in a life well-lived, or you have not.