A Day in the Life

Happy Cactus

Burst into bloom with all this heat we've had - early Summer in late Winter!

Crazy Cat

Calyx doing his thing.

Brave Spider

In the bee hive, surrounded by propolis.

Wild Dinner

Harvested from the yard - free food full of nutrients and organic!

This rainy day has determined that my scheduled landscaping will be done another day, so Mathieu and I worked more on house designing; we have come full circle over the past year and are looking into yurts again.  I checked on my new bee packages that were just installed a week ago today.  They're doing well:  producing lots of comb, bringing in pollen, and doing their "purr" buzz.  They even started building comb on the queen cage:

Each hive had constructed 10 times this much comb in 5 days.

I went into my other hive (Monkey is her name); I have 3 total now.  Monkey has made it well through her second winter; no need for sugar water.  A thunderstorm suddenly started to come in, so all I could do was get into the top super.  I noticed 2 spiders inside the cover, one of them a Black Widow - both of them the type that stay put in their web nook - not hunters.  I wonder what they do in there and if there might be symbiosis.  If not, why wouldn't the bees kill them?  and what are the spiders eating?  Bees?  other insects?  I'm guessing other insects and the bees leave them alone because they aren't bothering the bees.

I harvested some wild greens to saute for dinner, above, clockwise from bottom left:  Redbud flowers, Garlic Mustard, Plantain, Wisteria flowers, Smilax shoots, wild Chives, Chickweed, and Violet leaves and flowers in the center.  You'll notice I pulled up the Garlic Mustard by the roots.  I did this because it is an invasive non-native and it is prolific.  I want to weed it out, but even pulling it up all the time does not get rid of it.  The roots too are edible if it doesn't have a flower stalk.  Throw the roots away if you don't eat them; don't put them in the compost.

Here is the finished product, with humane, local, organic Chicken. I simply wilted the greens in a little olive oil in a skillet and added the flowers later with a little salt.

Listening: