The Pink Moon, not entirely full (it will be tomorrow), but I took advantage of an opening in the clouds. Photograph taken through a double-paned window. Eerie, how the moon in the middle is in front of the tree branches, like it is on “our side” of the world.
Author Archives: kaat
Full House, with Seedlings
On this rainy, chilly day I find myself alone in the house for the first time in over a week. My in-laws are here, and over the weekend we had a crazy house full of friends and family – eight adults and two kids, all sleeping over. I love extending the dining table to the …
Coltsfoot in My Garden
The other day Amie and I admired a pretty yellow flower with a scaly stalk in what we fondly call “The Pitt”: Â the front part of our garden that is mainly bramble. A friend of mine identified at as being Coltsfoot (Tussilago farfara), also known as cough wort. This was very exciting. Here I am …
Goings On
Spring mode! It was 72 degrees today and sunny with a light breeze. I was in the garden as much as possible these last two days. I planted two paw paws in a corner of the garden that previously held a leaf pile. What gorgeous soil I found there! From now on: leaf piles all …
Chirp Chirp
That’s the sound in the house again. Cheep cheep. Today I surprised Amie when she came out of school. The feed store called, they have the chicks we want! We went to pick them up: two Ameraucanas, the cutest things, day two of their lives. Technically they’re not ours, but belong to Amie’s friend and …
Dissection of Two Dead Colonies – and Hive Box Cleaning
Having discovered that two of the three colonies have died over the winter, I dismantled them to have a closer look at the cause. For Hive 2 my first assessment that there were next to no dead bees in it was correct. I counted 55. Here is one frame that was a good tip-off: …
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Riot – February and March 2013 – Months 52-53
OVER FOUR YEARS OF RIOT! This is the Riot for the months of February and March 2013 for the three of us. My summary of our first three years is here. Edson fixed the calculator: all go tither to crunch those numbers! Gasoline.  Calculated per person. 9.3 gallons pp. 22.6% of the US National Average Electricity. This …
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Other Goings On: Racking the Wine, Painting Earth Day Signs
I see it only now, at the end of the day, how much was accomplished: cleaned out the chicken coop, Â collected four eggs (we’re back to four!), inspected the beehives, painted the last of the signage for our town’s Earth Day, and racked the wine. Â Four. Amie paints her own sign in the new basement …
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Bees: Some Alive, Some Dead
I had been feeling rather starved of bees. Usually, by this time, I’ve done a short hive inspection or two, but with this extended cold period, I’ve not had a chance to work the bees. Until Monday. My friend K picked up her two bee packages in the morning and I met her at her …
Sewing – a Lesson in Delegation and Giving
Amie sewed this! I am very terribly awfully bad at sewing – any kind of needlework, actually. I blame it on a tyrannical needlework teacher I had in secondary school. Also, I don’t have the patience. So I am happy to delegate the learning and practicing of this skill  to my daughter. She took a sewing class …
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