happy easter

swallowtail on lilac

ghost hive

neither staal nor i had seen any springtime honey bee activity around the hive in the north wall of the mill office so we decided to have a closer look.  staal pulled nails and removed the board where the hive entry was and then peeled back the tar paper.  the hive was abandoned.  it was kind of eerie.  ghostly quiet and still and empty where it used to be literally buzzing with life.

it was quite beautiful too---honeycomb is one of those amazing things that's hard to get your head around---a natural wonder.

there were a couple of dead bees still clinging to the comb.

ghost bee

there are a lot of honey bees (as well as many native bees)  buzzing around the gardens so maybe the mill office colony just decided they were due for some new digs and are still in the neighborhood.

clark's sphinx and the orange tips

i let the weeds grow up
and the radishes go to seed
it wasn't forgetfulness
or neglect.
today the sphinx moth and the orange tips
had something to eat on a sunny afternoon
and there were delightful and dainty wingbeats in the world.

 

my morning

did an inventory of squash, melon, cucumber, and pumpkin seeds in preparation for sowing today (in the greenhouse). 

seeds, seeds, seeds

another tank

staal found us a barely used and reasonably priced 1500 gallon water storage tank.  this morning we took a little drive out to ponderosa basin to pick it up.

loading up in ponderosa basin

an excited staal, happy to be home with the new tank

not sure exactly how we'll put it to use but between the two of us we'll figure out something clever.  i'd like to see the thing full of rain water collected from our roof---we always get more roof runoff than we can capture in the barrels under the downspouts.  it would be great supplemental water for the gardens and i'd feel better having 1500 gallons of water we don't have to pull out of the wells.

my new pet

had a lovely outing at the nursery yesterday.  staal bought me a beautiful little sage plant---it's so woolly and soft it's almost more like an animal than a plant.

silver sage

potato planting

a couple of days ago i cut up my seed potatoes in preparation for planting.  they were nicely calloused today so i stuck them in the ground.

preparing 'german butterball' seed potatoes

i had enough seed to plant two 4'x8' beds with 2 trenches per bed and a partial third bed which already had some greens in it so i sneaked the taters in around them. 

soil analysis for the orchard garden called for rock phosphate, a natural rock dust that supplies calcium and phosphorus to the soil (the whitish dust in the pictures)---i've been amending as i go this spring.

once i got all the spuds situated in the trenches (eyes/sprouts up) i covered them with a few inches of soil and a little straw.

dreaming of mashed potatoes.