These Two Hands

I spent this past Memorial Day collecting our first-ever honey harvest! Click the video link below to see an explanation of how it was done.

Honey flow is over so I went to check the bees yesterday on the advice of the incomparable Nathan, my bee mentor. Darjeeling, the most populous hive, went first. Now that’s what a hive should look like – never seen that many bees up top before. Looks like her queen’s doing a good job! I […]

We’re getting so close! Today I finished patching over the old medicine cabinet hole , primed everything (there was oil paint), and then had time to paint both the wainscoting and walls. Luckily I’d remembered to measure and drill holes for all the accessories before painting (can’t count the number of times I barge ahead […]

I love these bathrooms. From decorpad: By Erik Johnson: Also from decorpad (love this lighting!): And Pottery Barn: It seems I like open, lifted vanities, pale neutral colors, lighting to the sides of the mirrors instead of above, and old-fashioned fixtures with clean modern lines. Things to think about as we near the home stretch […]

Our strawberries, while small, are plentiful enough that in two days we had collected enough for a big batch of jam. Plain strawberry seems a bit boring though; I was thinking maybe of adding vanilla or lemon. So when I saw rhubarb in the store I knew just what to make, because strawberry-rhubarb flavor ties with apple for my […]

We’re making progress on the bath remodel! Yesterday I mixed up some extra-strength joint compound our contractor recommended, and Sofía and I gave the walls a nice skim coat. This is not for prettification, it’s purely because the adhesive that holds on the future wainscoting won’t stick well to exposed plaster. So thankfully we don’t have to […]

The perennials in the orchard promise a good harvest this year (if the deer don’t get there first!) The gala apple tree was the only one of the apples that flowered this year. I don’t know if the other two varieties are younger, or just in poorer soil. Millions of peaches! A groundhog (I think) […]

Certain parts of the garden are starting to mature and become more like what I had in mind for them. For instance, remember what the pool bed used to look like? I ripped out the ivy only to find that the beds had been filled with rock. I opted to layer good soil on top […]

Chipmunk laid an “oops” the other day! It may have been tiny, but it was still tasty.

While tile demolition is half over, no remodel is complete without its own set of problems. Nothing ever goes by the book – at least for me! I ran into our first problem during the very first step, removing the toilet. The bolts had rusted so badly that I had to bust the toilet bottom […]