My new colony is doing great – the population absolutely exploded! In fact it boomed so much that the last week when I checked, every single frame in a two-deep was full of brood. I happily put on an extra box and walked away. You’d think this would be a good thing, right? Except I […]
Everyone has their talents. Keeping houseplants alive is not one of mine. I don’t think these guys are going to bounce back from this one….
I knew I had to check up on my bees, but I dawdled and dawdled all day. It seems like it’s never good news when I go out there, so I was dreading it. I’ve never been so delighted to be wrong! I didn’t have my camera with me when I was inspecting individual […]
I’ve always wanted to make some of my bigger pots out in the garden into self-watering pots – the kind where you fill a reservoir in the bottom of the pot and the water slowly wicks up into the soil so you can go way, way longer between having to water. In fact this spring, […]
My first homegrown cherries! They were more or less underwhelming, sigh. I wonder if too much water can make fruit taste bland? (I hope not. Nothing I can do about that.) It was their first year, though, so we’ll give them a pass. I hope for a better (and bigger!) harvest next year. Anyone got […]
The ducks and their chicken friends seem happy in the duckyard. Every night I tuck them into the old chicken tractor (which never will be mobile again, sadly) and check their feed and water. Which inevitably need refilling, which means I get to crouch down to chicken-tractor height and squelch through all that …not so […]
Sometimes it’s fun to take a little break from all the hard work and make a few things just for fun. So I threw a little baby shower at my house. Since the mama loves the beach, I made it all about the ocean. Sofía helped with the labels. We learned that when Koolaid is […]
The little ducklings are now a bit more than 6 weeks old, and already they look like plain old full-grown ducks! I’ve finished fencing their pen in the swampiest, muckiest quadrant of the garden…. just in time for us to begin experiencing an early drought. Sorry, ducks, only tiny ponds for you. (I’m trying to […]
We had a sweet little surprise this weekend: Three fluffy chicks under our first broody australorp. It’s a long story – there were some problems at the beginning with her not keeping her eggs under her – she kept kicking them out by accident as she turned around, some broke and made the nest dirty… eventually […]