wildlife
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The First of This Year’s Honey: Beating the Bear
We pulled four frames of honey today. They were capped and we are so afraid that the local bear will defeat our electric fence and get to the hives again that we decided to pull some honey as soon as possible. Those of you familiar with our bear escapades will remember that last year the Continue reading
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Shrooms!
As though bags of cucumbers and bushloads of tomatoes aren’t enough to deal with the week before heading back to school, we just discovered some amazing gourmet mushrooms growing along our driveway. These aren’t the cute little morrels that John found where the ginko trees used to grow. These babies are enormous. The first is Continue reading
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Berries and Bugs
It took a couple of weeks for the Japanese beetles to discover the blueberries. For those couple of weeks I blissfully picked a daily supply of berries, rejoicing in the amazing abundance of them. After three years of waiting, the bushes were loaded with fruit and every day or so just enough of them ripened Continue reading
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Gobble, gobble
There’s more gobbling going on at Maywood than just me eating up the Easter candy. It’s turkey hunting season. For the first time, Maywood Man is taking on the turkey. We’ve lived here for…gulp…twenty years and the first turkey John saw was last year. I was dumbfounded when I saw a couple of wild turkeys Continue reading
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First frost and fingers crossed: winterizing the hive
The temperature has dipped low enough to zap the basil, which I did not snatch in time. So much for making pesto. A more pressing issue is getting the bees ready for winter. Saturday was a delightful day with crisp sunny weather and crunchy leaves underfoot, but it was still warm enough for the bees to Continue reading
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Plodding and Stomping Toward Spring
The clocks are set forward and my sleep schedule is skewed. The delight of coming home to hours of sunlight will not have me springing forward into my day. I will be staying up too late for the next week and then feeling morose when the sunbeam that had finally started coming in my window to wake me delays Continue reading
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Charcuterie:an alternate way to spend time–and money– on the links
The aroma of freshly grated ginger, minced sage and garlic has my mouth watering for the sausage that John is preparing. The man-cave, where John works his culinary magic while watching Rise of the Planet of the Apes, smells amazing. This is serious aroma therapy. This can waft through the house any time. As for the Continue reading
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Not a bee, not a yellow jacket, and why is it out at night?
Enormous “bees” bounce off the glass of our front door. Dozens of them. Unlike moths, which flit annoying around light, or June bugs, which bump clumsily against the glass, these look threatening, like mutant yellow-jackets. They are so big they make a wasp look like a mosquito. They scare me. Yes. They scare me. Me, beekeeper wife, who takes a cocktail down to the bee-yard Continue reading
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What’s bugging you?
Which is worse–a three-day power outage or seeking refuge in the Hereford Zone where bugs are a fact of life? Temperatures in the 90’s led daughter Julie to choose the Hereford Zone. She walked in the door to a warning from Dad. “There’s a big spider on the kitchen counter, but don’t worry, it’s dead.” Ok, Continue reading
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The Home Stretch
After a visit to the bee yard to watch the take-offs and landings of the honeybees, we noticed that bumblebees were all over the wild raspberries Sunday evening. They have been busy pollinating and there looks to be a nice batch of raspberries this season. Saturday morning I took a stroll down to the blueberries Continue reading
Slightly Off the Grid 