Sunday! Spring! Sunlight! Things that are golden: the daffodils, the hearts of the evergreen clematis, the bright straw spread over the garden beds (and the dog), sunset after a day of work.
Golden days
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Tag Archives: garden
Bee loved
Here’s my new little friend, sitting on my desk with me while I write tonight. I think she is Apis mellifera? I’m sorry to sayĀ I don’t know my bees as well as I should.
I found her half drowned in a rain-filled bucket. I have a bird and bee bath with a nice piece of driftwood they can walk up and down to the water safely, but of course this one found the slick-sided bucket š¦ Since it was almost dark and kind of cool, I wasn’t sure she’d get warm and dry enough to fly home before night. So I picked her some alyssum and put her in a whiskey tumbler. (Everybody knows real writers drink whiskey!) She wasn’t looking good earlier, but I blotted her dry and stuck her next to my gecko’s undertank heat pad, and she’s perked right up.
I’d read on the internet some weeks ago that you can revive exhausted bees with a bit of honey. In the picture, you can see she’s eating a drop of local wildflower honey off the tip of a toothpick. Thanks for some true info, internet!
Tomorrow morning I’ll release her back into the wild.
Bees are having a rough time of it these days. With the now rectified exception of the watery bucket of death, we try to keep a good bug-friendly garden. We don’t spray chemicals. We save the cutworms for the gecko. We live peacefully with the predatory wasps under our eaves. Spiders are relocated to the side of the shed near the compost bins. The aphids… The aphids I crush like the vile monsters they are! Mosquitoes and fruit flies also get swatted. But other than that…
As a gardener, I try to bee the bloom I want to see in the world. I hope this fuzzy little cutieĀ has a fruitful seasonĀ of pollinating ahead of her!
Lineup of likely perps
Which of you bastardsĀ is makin’ Ā me sneeze? š”
Happy Easter Sunday!
The dogwood in the front yard is pretty in pink today against a semi-blue sky. Enjoy your Sunday!
Colors of late October
Been putting the garden to bed for the winter, but there’s still a bit of color left, here and there. Reds and yellows turning to brown, but still lots of green. Especially the kale. I suspect nothing will kill the kale.
The apple was from the last day of the farmers’ market near me. I’ve never eaten a pink-fleshed apple before. Of course I promptly forgot the name, but it’s crisp and fairly sweet with a bit of dryness. Quite tasty in salad.
I also ate a strawberry and a raspberry from the garden. Silly fruits, there’s not enough sunlight to make sugar. Go to sleep and I’ll see you in the spring.
Jessa Slade 