Making Pot Pies

Fall                                                       Waxing Autumn Moon We had our final straight from the garden meal last night.  Roasted potatoes, onions, fennel, carrots and a lone beet.  Raspberries for dessert.  Marinated chicken for protein, not from here. Today I cut up the leeks, cooked some chicken breasts, carrots, celery, peas and corn (none of these ours), and cooked […]

Read the rest of this entry »

Bee and Garden Diary

Mid-Summer                                                                                          Waning Garlic Moon Today I performed partial hive box reversals in all three colonies.  The second hive box of three gets rotated to the bottom and the first or bottom box rotates up to take its place.  This means that all the hive boxes have to be moved, so it is a labor intensive […]

Read the rest of this entry »

A Garden, Some Latin, Ai Weiwei

Beltane                                                     New Last Frost Moon The potatoes are in the ground.  The lettuce has two leaves, as does the spinach, a few beets have emerged.  The leeks look a bit droopy, but they’ll pick up.  The garlic is well over 6 inches now as it makes the final push for harvest in late June, early […]

Read the rest of this entry »

Workin’ Outside

Spring                                                                Waning Bee Hiving Moon The bees buzzed around their new homes while Mark, Kate and I worked in the garden.  Mark cleaned up a bunch of junk that always seemed just a bit too much after finishing up other work.  Place looks less like we’re the poor cousins of the Beverly Hillbillies.  I finished […]

Read the rest of this entry »

Week’s End

Spring                                                          Waxing Bee Hiving Moon Kate and Annie (her sister) are off to Omaha, Kansas City and various quilt shops in between.  When asked what they do on the bus (she’s done this before), she said, “Talk.”  Me, “No singing, no poker, no beer?”  Nope. Brother Mark is here, decompressing from a tough six months, […]

Read the rest of this entry »

Garden Diary: April 10, 2011

Spring                                                                Waxing Bee Hiving Moon The outside gardening season has begun.  Kate and I worked in the vegetable garden together this morning.  She (I’m in destructo mode) cleaned out beds, cut down raspberry canes, weeded and  pruned.  I worked more composted manure into the beds, then planted American Spinach, Golden Beets and Lettuce.  I also […]

Read the rest of this entry »

Another Northern Summer Day

Summer                             Full Strawberry Moon The full strawberry moon, evocative.  Our strawberries have wound down  for this season, but we enjoyed them while they ripened.  I had blueberries on cereal this morning, blueberries from our patch.  Finished the  planting for a third harvest:  beans, spinach, swiss chard, beets:  golden and detroit red and carrots. Kate has […]

Read the rest of this entry »

Queens, Vegetables and Latin

Spring                                         Full Flower Moon Under the full flower moon I inspected my new colony of bees.  In this instance I checked the frames for larvae.  I couldn’t tell if they were there or not.  This is important because it indicates the presence or absence of a laying queen.  I’ll check again on Saturday.  The queen […]

Read the rest of this entry »