Category Archives: Garden

Bees, Garden, permaculture

Beesy Morning

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Spring                                         Awakening Moon

Checked on the bees today.  They needed syrup so I put in two pitchers full.  They also needed another pollen patty. The colony looks healthy.  Lots of bees hard at work.  No stings.  I have a few things to check on in terms of what I need to do now.

Got all the mechanical detritus out of the soon to be honey house.  Next is a good sweeping and a washing, then organizing a table and the rest of the equipment.

(honey bee head under an electron microscope)

General clean up.  Getting ready for spring, which has sprung on us with some surprise.  Bought the seeds for early stuff and I’ll plant the onions tomorrow morning after I plan the rest of the vegetable garden.

We need rain.  If it fits in your faith tradition, please do a rain dance for us up here in Andover.

Art and Culture, Garden, Myth and Story

Burn your bag, boy?

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Spring                                          Awakening Moon

Two stories from the world around us.

Michele Yates, a docent colleague, toured a group of second graders last week.  At the James Ensor expressionist piece, “Intrigue”, a little boy raised his hand, “Look, you can see the paint.  It’s still wet.”  Turns out this young art connoisseur believed we had a basement filled with producers of art, crankin’em out every so often for the delight of the viewing public.  A time when it would have been delightful to be inside his mind and see the imagined works underneath the museum.  I see trolls and gnomes and dwarfs hard at work.  How about you?

(Frejya and the dwarfs)

An l.e.d. sign for onion sets drew me off  Highway 35E and put to Beisswinger’s Hardware Store.  Beisswinger’s is a great old style hardware store with lots and lots of stuff cared for by employees who actually know how to use it all.  When I took my brown sacks of red, yellow and white onion sets inside, it occurred to me that I still need a fence tester for our electric fence; the high voltage pulse knocks out ordinary voltmeters.  I know.  I did it.

Anyhow, he’d never heard of one, but agreed to look it up.  Both of us were surprised when he found not one, but two.  On the way to the electric fence tester aisle, he started this story exactly like this:

“So, Charlie Brown and I were in New Hampshire on my uncle’s farm.  He’s an old guy, over 70, but wiry.  We’re going out hunting [I’m thinking this is a joke, so I’m preparing to laugh whether it’s funny or not.  He seems like a nice guy.] and the old man scrambles over an electric fence.  Charlie Brown steps over it, but gets a jolt.”  In his red Beisswinger store shirt, this guy seems believable.  He goes on,  “The old man hollers back over his shoulder, ‘Burn your bag, boy?”

I had students from Eau Claire and New York Mills today.  Both groups were fun, interested and engaged.

Aging, Family, Garden, Great Work

This Day, So Far

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Spring                                       Awakening Moon

As the awakening moon wanes, its work done, life has begun to take on its growing season rhythms here at 7 oaks.  I’m hunting for weed free straw, leek transplants and onion sets.  Gotta lay down some bulb fertilizer because bulbs need extra help as they blossom.

It’s been a productive day.  Kate and I finished our budget work for 2011–retirement budget.  It has lots of unfamiliar factors in it:  COBRA for me,  Medicare part B for Kate, shifting to checks from our retirement account, social security.  Some unknowns.  But, we look pretty good right now.

We had lunch.  Now.  A nap.

Garden, Great Wheel, Great Work, Minnesota

Important Document? Read While Driving.

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Spring                                                 Awakening Moon

Warning:  Rant ahead.  Not texting, not brushing teeth, not combing hair, not eating cereal or drinking coffee, no, this young woman I passed on my way to the MIA yesterday read while driving.  By reading I do not mean look down, then follow the road, but eyes glued to page, peripheral vision guiding her used buick down Highway 252.  I encountered her three times on 252, each time her head and eyes had the same position, eyes on the page, head tilted down.  Each time.  Then, after I had put her out of my mind, as I drove on 94, the last stretch of the drive in until city streets, she passed me on the left.  Yep.  You guessed it.  Still reading.  At this point I honked several times and pointed.  Exasperated, she looked at me, then put the several page document on the seat beside her and drove on.

I have a clump of daffodils in bloom, tulips with broad leaves and iris beginning to peak back above the ground.  I put cygon on the iris yesterday.  This is my one remaining chemical. It kills the iris borer which lives in the soil and wrecks havoc on iris rhizomes.  If you’ve ever lifted iris rhizomes after an attack of iris borer’s, you will know why I continue to use this one pesticide.

The parsnip and the garlic look good.  I poked into the carrot patch where I left the carrots in past ground freeze last fall.  Sure enough I have carrots composting in the soil already.  Very mushy and yucky.   The garden and my spirit for it are gradually coming to life.  I hope we get some rain.  The plants need it.

Cooking, Garden, Great Work, permaculture

Healthy, Huh?

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Spring               Mostly Full Awakening Moon

Drove out to Hopkins, through it on Excelsior, then made a left on Shady Oak Road and apparently crossed the line just into Minnetonka.  Rothburg Distributing, who are the manufacturer’s rep for Sub-Zero, Asko and Wolf kitchen appliances, open their kitchen classroom up to the UofM once a year and Brenda Langston teaches a three evening course on healthy eating.  This is fancy digs for quinoa, tofu and various other healthy dishes, but there they were, boiling and getting chopped and sauteed by none other than the proprietor of  (formerly) Brenda’s and now Spoonriver.  (pic:  Brenda cooking at Spoonriver)

40 + of us sat in tiered seating watching Brenda work, assisted by the chef who has worked with her for 23 years.  She says, Oh my gosh a lot, usually when referring to some food horror, like the genetically modified grapeseed used to make canola oil or the quality of non-grass fed, non-free range beef.  Her cooking approach is pretty pragmatic, though it leans toward ingredients that most Americans don’t use often.  Tonight’s examples:  quinoa, tofu, sesame oil, parsnips, a huge radish (tender heart?), burdock and Arrowhead pancake mix.

She suggests making a particular dish, like a pot of grains, early in the week, then using them as an entree by themselves, the next night with pasta and the third night in a soup.  A good idea.  She also makes up items ahead like croquettes of tofu, walnut, garlic, green onion.  Surprisingly good.

This course costs $285 for three nights.  It includes a cookbook, the presence of Brenda, a breakfast, lunch and dinner with menus prepared in front of your very eyes and the inspiration that comes from being with other upper middle class people who can afford the course, probably know how to eat healthy but have a tough time doing like you do.

Definitely worthwhile.  Will there be a sea change at Chez Ellis-Olson because of it?  Stay tuned.

Here’s a few items from the dinner menu at Spoonriver:

entree
Fresh Seafood • Vegetarian Specials
Sunshine Harvest Grass-Fed Beef • Daily Special, Vegetable Open
Broiled Salmon Okisuki • Savory Japanese Ginger Broth, Fresh Udon Noodles, Vegetarian Option with Tofu 22 / 15
Slow Roasted Minnesota Lamb & Vegetable Stew • Cous Cous Pilaf, Minted Yogurt 22
House Made Ravioli • Indian Spiced Potato & Sweet Pea Ravioli, Thai Green Curry, Vegetables. Vegan Option 16.5
Warm Duck Confit • Salad Greens • Fruit, Stewed White Beans • Fennel 15.5
salads and light entrees
Udon Chicken Salad • Sliced Free Range Chicken, Udon Noodles, Greens, Vegetables, 15
Peanut • Lemongrass Dressing. Vegetarian Option with Mock Duck
Greek Salad • Greens, Cucumber, Olives, Tomato’s, Pepperoncini, French Sheep Feta, Red Onion 9 / 12
Greek or Caesar available with Free Range Chicken Breast + 5
Caesar Salad 9 / 12
Local Charcuterie Plate • Bison Sausage, Fischer Farms Ham, Wild Acres Duck & Chicken Liver Paté, 15
Prairie Breeze Cheddar, Pickled Vegetables
Spoon Burger • Minnesota Farm Lamb, House Ketchup, Corn Chips / or substitute salad + 2 13
Mahi Mahi Sandwich • House Tartar, Lettuce, Tomato on Bun. Corn Chips / or substitute salad + 2 13
Bread

Art and Culture, Bees, Dogs, Faith and Spirituality, Garden

A Light Week Ahead

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Spring                                                    Waxing Awakening Moon

Out the door to the grocery store.  It must be Saturday.  Finished revising the presentation for tomorrow morning and I’ll post it later today.

Kate’s off at work, a now unusual Saturday for her.  She’s begun experiencing the old aches and pains, the ones from before the surgery that were brought on by too much physical effort over too long a time.  The good news is that when she slows down the aches and pains do, too.

I have a quiet week coming up. No legcom meeting since the Legislature is in recess and no tours on Friday.  I do have a night meeting on Monday with the Sierra Club, something called strategic communications, whatever that is.  I’ll find out.  The night after that I start a three evening course on healthy eating taught by Brenda Langston, former owner of Cafe Brenda.  This is yet another stab at the great goal of eating only as many calories as I need.  I’m looking forward to it.

The lighter week means I’ll have time to get in some work outside like cleaning up the yard outside the orchard and the vegetable garden.  It has a plethora of sticks, plastic objects, wire, fence posts that have been moved around over the course of the late fall, winter and early spring by Rigel and Vega.  They remain eager and energetic, digging deep holes here and there, running, jumping, barking, having a good doggie time.  But what a mess!

I also have to get some work done on the beehive, not a big deal but I need to check it and feed them.  Note to self:  use smoke and wear bee suit.  I also need to get the old machine shed completely out and prepped for its conversion to a honey house.  All that can happen while we wait for planting season to begin.

Bees, Garden, Great Wheel

A Warm-Blooded Insect?

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Spring                                         Waxing Awakening Moon

Sunny, but cool though warm weather seems fated to come our way.  Ice out has advanced on Round Lake though there is still rough, weak ice over most of its surface.  Many daffodils have speared their way up through the leaves and other detritus from last falls end of the growing season.  I’ve seen a few hosta roll-ups, too.  I put in my last order of bee stuff yesterday, bringing seven honey supers, 70 super frames and 50 super foundations, a copper hive cover and 75 frame and foundations for the deep hive bodies.

The old machine shed, now to be the honey house needs a thorough cleansing which will be an early task once the weather moves away from soggy and I have some time for outside work.

Today, in just a couple of minutes, I have a call about Matt Entenza’s gubernatorial campaign.  They want my thoughts on environmental issues.  They can have every one of them.  After the call, on to the language of ancient Rome.  Later in the day I may revise Liberal II.  That novel just sits there right now.  Waiting.  Meanwhile my promiscuous creative spirit entertains other guests, a new project, a big project, that will follow After the Hawthorn Wars.

Here’s another jaw dropper that I learned about bees during my bee course.  Over the winter the colony becomes a large cluster with all the bees hanging, literally, together, shivering.  The shivering produces heat and keeps the colony alive during the temperature drops of winter.  This means, said Marla Spivak, that in winter the colony, the whole colony, acts like a warm blooded animal.  The colony is a super-organism that gathers food, births larvae and nurses them, takes diseased and deceased members, defends itself and takes up a lot of time with architecture as well.

Since the cluster happens inside the hive boxes, it is difficult to picture.  I’ve chosen a swarm in the picture here, to show you a cluster, but not like the one I had in my first colony this winter.

Commentary on Religion, Faith and Spirituality, Garden

Liberal II

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Spring                                    Waxing Awakening Moon

A writing day.  I put in several hours in a row on Liberal II:  The Present.  I was going to include the future, but in the end it took all I had to finish with the present.  The story, the present, is a difficult one to tell to liberal audiences like Groveland UU because the reality is that liberalism is victorious.  We live in a modern world that has liberal ideas as commonplace beliefs:  individual liberty, equality, the rule of law, government by the people, an openness to change, a market economy.  When I finish editing Liberal II, I’ll post it, but the hard to convey message is that more folks are not Unitarian because the worldview we embrace is widely shared.  Strange, huh?

I also worked a bit on Latin.  During this time Kate got outside and pruned the fruit trees in our young orchard.  She’s in charge of pruning and assembling woodenware, so I went out later in the day and complimented her on her work.  She did Latin in the morning.

I love these kind of days where a focused task gets completed.

After I finish the first draft of Liberal II, I also took on trying to get my networked computer in the study to share a printer with the other computers, like a nice computer should.  It took a while, but I got them all clicking together. Felt like a victory to me.

Faith and Spirituality, Garden, Great Wheel

Spring

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Spring                                  Waxing Awakening Moon

Today is the spring equinox.  We’ve made it through another winter.

The bees have already begin to buzz and plant life has pushed light green shoots through the soil.   The days have begun to warm and yesterday I felt the warmth of the sun on my neck.  What a treat!

Spring, more than anything else, presses us into realm of fertility and abundance, the efflorescence of mother earth that feeds us all.  Birds come back from their winter homes.  Gardener’s start plants for their gardens.  Some folks lift their house, an expression I heard first in Minnesota.  It means spring cleaning.  Or spring cleaning means lifting the house.  Whatever.

This is a good day to consider the things that are tender shoots in your life.  Maybe’s its that new package of bees on the way from California, that novel you finally set down to write, that language you finally got started on.  Maybe it’s a redesign of your living space, your occupational space, your own, internal space.  Remember that tender shoots require care, yes, but also remember that those tender shoots have power behind them, power rooted in the part of you that made them surface.  Some of those shoots, most of them, the best thing you can do, let them flourish at their pace.  Don’t force them.

Watch for baby birds, puppies, infants, kittens, new plants.  They are the concrete hope out of which we make not only this world, but the future one, too.  They are reason you exist, to care for them, to provide a nourishing environment for their growth.  Those tenders shoots in your life are the same.  They are the concrete hope out of which you will make these moments in your life and the future ones.  So, be kind to them.  Let’em grow.

Art and Culture, Bees, Faith and Spirituality, Garden, Great Work, Our Land and Home, permaculture

Birds Sing, Sun Shines

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Imbolc                                             New Moon (Awakening)

Since last Friday when I had two tours through this afternoon around 5 (when I got stung), I’ve been on high intellectual alert touring museum goers, learning about Apis mellifera, doing Latin homework, going over the Latin with Kate, teeth cleaning (OK, that’s anti-intellectual), having a tutoring session and using all the faculties I possessed to fend off various small creatures intent on driving a food bearer away from their home.  I’m tired.

But.  Boy, I’d rather have this kind of exhaustion in my life than be sagging toward 75 with a remote in one hand and my putter in the other.  So to speak.

From a gardening perspective this is a time when the sun and the greening and the weeds returning make working outside seem very attractive, but it’s still about a month early.  Even the early veggies normally don’t go in the ground until the first of April or even a bit later.  The birds sing, the sun shines, the moist air smells of soil and the bees sting.

The Grout Doctor has replaced the tiles that had become loose over the shower door.  Now he has to seal the grout once, then come back and seal it one more time.  At some point in here the new door gets installed and then I can get back to my steam baths after my work out.  I’ll be glad to have it functional again.