Today I covered my camera strap with cute fabric.

 

It was a vintage wool Liberty of London tie I had squirreled away, waiting for just the right project. I really love it.

 

I was feeling like I haven't been very productive lately, but I actually have been working on some things. I'm just a little scattered right now.

 

Two little softies will be on their way to Australia this week for a new book, and I've finally figured out a pattern for the pink and brown quilt I need to make.

My new little layer, on the other hand, has been very productive. One of her very first eggs was a double yolker

 

And two last words: Greek Nachos. Yum. Okay, that was three words. 

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While last Saturday may have made me feel like a failure as a farmer, things are not all bad around here. Despite the  fact that the chickens continue to think my vegetable garden is their own personal dust bath spa, a few things are growing quite nicely. I harvested my first radish this week.

This is a salad rose radish, they are, obviously, a long variety. This one was about six inches. I left it for Mr. HeyLucy to eat, because radishes are one of his favorites. He pronounced it delicious and very spicy. The chickens did a bit of damage to my radish section, so there are only three others there. They grow so quickly, I'm thinking of filling in a few squares with more radish seeds, so we can enjoy a few more harvests. I'll also be adding some chicken wire covers to the garden, and hopefully that will keep those rascals at bay.

I also discovered that what was burning my plants was actually a freakishly late frost (we had frost until June 22!), so I lost my beans, a couple cucumbers, and the cinnamon basil. I thought that three of my four tomatoes were goners, but only one actually died, and the other three are looking good. My red grape tomato is huge, and there are even a few tomatoes ripening. The other two tomato plants have a ways to go, but I'm hoping we'll still get a few by the end of Summer.

Here's the whole garden, it looks pretty nice:

The sorrel is doing really well, I've trimmed it a couple times to share with friends, and I'm going to try and make some sorrel soup this week. I'm not sure if my peas are going to do much more than they're doing now. They're the four right front boxes. As you can see, they have no interest in climbing the poles I've rigged for them, but there are quite a few pods. It may be getting too hot for them, so once the pods are ripe, I think I'll harvest and pull them out and replace them with something else.

Here's what I'm discovering: when it comes to gardening, you can read and study and plan all you want, but the only way to really learn how to garden is to…garden. I know, that's so deep, but if you want to plant a garden, and you have even a little bit of space, I say go for it! You'll never be more ready than you are now, and some things will not work, and some things will be amazing. I think it helps to be out there in the dirt, as much as possible, too, and even just pulling a weed here and there is progress. It's so easy for me to look at my big garden area, where I want to plant berries and fruit trees and make about 8 more boxes and get overwhelmed, but I just keep reminding myself to be patient and just do a little at a time, and eventually I'll have my little Eden out there. 

Enough about the garden, remember how I started making a sleeve for my laptop? I finished it and used it while traveling last week. It worked out just great.

 

My laptop is my primary computer, so it's a big 17" one. I don't travel much with it, sand I have a case, but it's heavy and ugly, and it wasn't very practical. So I got myself a little rolling carry on bag, and filled it with a bunch of stuff, leaving room for the computer on the top. So much easier!

 

And it's cute!

One last thing, back to the garden. I decided to have some pretty yogurt for breakfast this morning. I picked a sprig of lavender and a sprig of mint, and added them to my Greek yogurt and raspberries. There's also a sprinkle of raw sugar for sweetness. It's quite tasty (I'm eating it right now!) and it smells so good.

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I don't even want to write this post, but I just have to do it anyway. It's going to start out bad, I'm just warning you. I'll try to end on a happier note, though, so I hope you stick with me.

Saturday I came home from visiting my family in Idaho. It was lovely, but earlier in the week Mr. HeyLucy called and said that something was wrong with Sally, she wasn't eating and was mostly just sitting on the nest she made to lay her eggs earlier this Spring. He was bringing her water and setting her in her little pool regularly, and she would drink, but wouldn't even eat apple slices-her very favorite food. This continued the rest of the time I was away. When Mr. HeyLucy met me at the airport he said she was in her pool when he left, and had even gotten in all on her own, so we were hoping that she was improving. Sadly, by the time we got home she was gone, we found her body still in her pool. I was glad that she was at least in one of her favorite spots, but so sad that I wasn't there for her at the end.

 

Good-bye little Miss Sally, we're going to miss you!

We're not sure what was wrong, but it could have been one of several things: 1) I was gone, and she was really bonded to me, so she felt abandoned. She followed me all over when I was outside, and she didn't particularly like being held, but would let me pick her up any time I wanted. I really hope this wasn't why she stopped eating. 2) She and Bear had a rather rocky relationship. She would often pull on his tail, and he knew he wasn't supposed to hurt her, but sometimes he just couldn't take it and would pin her down between his front paws and really growl at her. He might have unintentionally hurt her internally. Or 3) She nibbled on something poisonous. I can't think of anything that she might have found, we don't keep any plant food or weed killer around, but who knows what could be out there, she wandered all over the whole yard.

As if this wasn't enough to spoil my homecoming, I went and checked my garden and found two little hens having the time of their lives out there. Apparently a four-foot fence is not enough to keep a couple determined chickens out of the garden. I suspected chickens were the mysterious diggers, but I hadn't ever seen them out there. I guess I should be glad that mystery is solved.

Of course, while I was there I had to check on the bees. I noticed that they had pushed another rubber band out the front door, but not all the way, so I thought I'd help them out, and pulled it out the rest of the way. Unfortunately, there were a few bees hanging on to the other end and they were not happy about being yanked out of the hive. A couple of them were mad enough to sting me, one on my calf, just below my knee, and the other, through my pants on the front of my thigh on the other leg. I got the stingers out right away, and went straight to the house where I took a Benedryl and crushed up some aspirin, making a paste with a little water to put on the sting sites. I read about these treatments on one of my beekeeping lists, and I have to say, they worked brilliantly! Of course the Benedryl put me to sleep, but the aspirin got rid of the pain within minutes, and I didn't have any swelling at all. Now there are just small red blotches and they itch about as much as a mosquito bite, but that's it!

How about some better news? Remember these little creations? I got to see them modeled on this pretty little girl. My brother had a portrait session with the new family, and I got to be the lighting assistant. I have more photos to share from my trip, but it was really nice, and a lot of fun, and I'm still recovering at the moment, so the pictures will have to wait a few more days.

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I've been a little stressed out lately. Not from any one thing, just little things here and there. The grey, grey weather is not helping, and now there's something digging in my garden and I've lost some plants (again!). I feel a little discouraged. So the best thing to do in this situation is focus on the positive, right? So I'm that's what I'm trying to do.

Sometimes when I gather eggs from the coop there will be a soft little feather attached. It's a nice little bonus.

I moved the bees to their new hive last weekend, they seem to have settled in nicely. Here they are coming home in the evening, after a hard day's work. I was surprised to see them still up, I took this photo at about 7:30 p.m. and there was a steady stream of bees returning.

It was a fun little adventure to move them. The new hive is just about a foot over from where they were, so I don't think I messed their orientation up too much. I set it up and then opened the old hive and moved them over one frame at a time, keeping the order and direction all the same. I saw Queen Maria for the first time in a few weeks. She does still have her green dot, so I'm not sure how I've missed her until now. There are definitely more bees in the hive.That smudgy paint is going to bug me for a long time, I should have fixed it.

One more cheery, stress-reducing, good thing: Luna bars come in a new flavor-white chocolate macadamia nut. Holy Cow they are good. Luna bars are my 3:00 p.m., I want something sweet and crunchy, right now snack. They're better for you than cookies, and they do the trick for me.

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It's time for a beekeeping report. I'm glad there's so much interest. When I first decided I wanted to keep bees a couple years ago, I searched all over for beekeeping bloggers, and didn't find much. Now it seems there is a plethora of beekeepers out there. It's so great!

I don't know if I mentioned that my new hive finally arrived, and I've assembled everything that wasn't already assembled, and painted all the exterior surfaces to protect the wood from the weather. The inside doesn't get any paint, because those fastidious little bees would likely chew it all off. They are a very tidy bunch. My hive has some frames with comb tied in with rubberbands. Since they're a new hive, the beekeeper gave them some pieces of comb to get started with, and they break off those bands just as fast as they can, and shove them out the front door. Sometimes they remove the bands faster than they can get the comb firmly attached to the frame as I learned on my second hive inspection, when all that fresh new wax just fell out of a couple frames as I lifted them up. I had to re-band them in place. One fell straight down into the hive, and it was quite nerve-wracking to stick my hand down in there to retrieve it. I did it, though, and they've since started building it out even more.

I'm still cracking myself up every time I think about my hive name, so I blatantly stole this idea from Leigh of Burbs and the Bees, and stenciled my queen's name on the front of the new hive. I'm too lazy to fit the entire "Von Trapp Family Stingers" on the hive, so that will remain my own little joke. I'm quite pleased with the results. I just got the alphabet stencils at Michael's, and made my own crown stencil. I also added the little medallion up top. I think I'll move everyone over this coming weekend. Better to do it now, before the hive gets too big. Excuse my messy shed.

I've been inspecting my hive most weekends, and it's growing slowly. I just hope they'll be strong enough by the end of the Summer to be able to make it through the Winter. Because we're in the mountains, flowers bloom later, so until there's a good nectar flow, I won't see a lot of growth. I'm also watching what is blooming, and noticing what the bees seem to like. I thought they would be all over the lavender, but so far they've just ignored it. Maybe it needs to open more? They loved the rosemary, but with only two bushes, there wasn't much there for them. I took a bunch of rosemary cuttings this past weekend, and am going to try rooting them and planting them around the yard so there will be more for them next year. They weren't interesting in the lilacs, and I haven't seen them in the honeysuckle, which surprises me. We have mustard all over the place, and I've seen a few bees there, but not many. There are wild flowers blooming around the valley, so maybe they're just foraging elsewhere.

There is nectar and pollen in most of the frames, with brood cells in the middle. I've been seeing lots of eggs and larvae, although I haven't actually seen my queen the last couple inspections. It's likely that her attendants have cleaned the green dot off her back, but as long as I see eggs in various stages of development, I know she's there.

If you look at the last picture full-sized, you might be able to see the tiny rice-like eggs.

Twice now I've witnessed them doing an orientation flight. The first time it happened I freaked out a little bit, and thought my little colony was going to swarm, but it turns out that it was just a bunch of new bees getting ready to start going out to gather nectar, pollen and water. On a nice afternoon they will go out and hover in front of the hive to get their bearings. It looked like a traffic jam to get in the hive. I went back to check on them a little later, and everything was back to normal. Here's a good video of bees on an orientation flight.

Oh, and I didn't want to forget to share this helpful tip. Be sure to toss your cat in your purse before leaving for work. You never know when you might need to have a cat handy. I personally prefer a calico-tabby mix, but you have to decide what works best for you.

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Pincushion, take two. Progress, but still not quite right. I'll keep trying.

Two things I don't want to forget to tell you about:

1. I've been enjoying Kingdom on hulu. I'm trying to stretch out the
   six episodes to last as long as possible. I've already added the
   second season to my netflix queue. I love these British dramas set
   in small towns (Monarch of the Glen, Ballykissangel), where the
   scenery is as important as any of the characters. Just lovely.
2. Mary Jane's Farm magazine is now bi-monthly. The last three issues
   are dog-eared and well-read on my nightstand. Every issue has lots
   of helpful information, recipes and patterns. If you're a wannabe
   farm girl, don't miss it!

Well, I played chicken with Mother Nature, and she won, of course. The last frost date in our little town is Memorial Day weekend. I had no patience, and went ahead and planted lots of things a couple weeks early, as you know. Memorial Day weekend approached, and the weather stayed lovely and warm. And then Sunday night, Memorial Day eve, it was as frosty as can be. I thought maybe most of my tomatoes and peppers would make it, but then, for the second night in a row we had frost. That was the end of them. Next year I'm going to try planting at the same time, but covering the tomatoes until the end of May. Last Saturday I went to a beekeeping class at City Farmer Nursery, and afterward picked out some new tomatoes and peppers. They're larger than the original plants, so I'm not really behind.

Lots of seeds are also coming up, and I have to say, there's something so fulfilling about growing from seeds. Beans and cucumbers are all sprouting, and three out of four squares of peas are coming up too. Basil and cilantro are very slowly growing, but only one radish out of sixteen sprouted, so I'm trying again and I replanted more seeds yesterday. The potatoes are doing well, and I added another layer of soil to their cans. They've already sprouted through, and I'm going to have to add more again soon.

I also built a trellis, I just followed instructions in the Square Foot Gardening book, it was pretty easy. I used electrical conduit pipes and some tomato netting. We'll see how sturdy it is, one of the bean plants is just about ready to start climbing.

All my beans sprouted, so I had to pull a couple out:

The lavender is starting to bloom, and I found some feverfew that had reseeded itself from a plant I planted several years ago. I think they are so sweet. Roses are blooming too.

 

I visited with the little chickens in their rusty pen for a bit today too:

They have that nice little house to sleep in, and what do they do? The curl up on top of each other in the farthest corner in the pen, out in the open. Silly little pea-brains.

Coming soon: cooking news and beekeeping news!

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