Author Archives: Maria

Growing up!

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Yesterday, the light of my life turned 2!!! We threw a wild bash in her honor and invited everyone we knew! K and her friends played in her kiddie pool, ran around the yard, swung in her chair, ate lots of food (brownies, cookies, carob balls, ice cream cake and chocolate-zuchinni cake, udon noodles with almond sauce, avocado salad…). She ordered people around, made sure everyone had a fake tattoo (she put 8 on her little body). She showed people around our garden and stayed up until the last person went home at ~10:30pm!! Then, she crashed hard! We all slept until 8:30 this morning and all took a 3 hour nap this afternoon! I wanted to be able to post some pictures of the party fun, but I can’t. See, K was nudie for the whole party!!!! She put on her “big girl panties” (she’s potty training) for about 5 minutes and that was it! But, Toby and I agree that wearing your birthday suit on your birthday is the only way to go and think we might start a new tradition. 🙂

Right now, we are listening to the present daddy gave her, the Muppets 25th Anniversary Music CD, a must-have for everyones music collection!

Where is Sesame Street going??

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Have you heard?? The House Appropriations Committee just approved a spending bill that would slash spending for public television and radio nearly in half!! And the first to be hit by this spending cut??? The ..ady to Learn..rograms for producing children.?shows, like ..same Street..”Reading Rainbow”, ..tween the Lions..and ..agon Tales…strong> We can’t let this happen!! In this crappy TV world full of sex, violence, ‘reality’ tv and just more crap, PBS is the only thing my daughter can safely watch! And it is the only TV where you aren’t bombarded by advertising telling kids what they ‘need’ and ‘must have’ because they won’t be cool with out it! Here is an article about the spending cut. And here is where you can speak up about it! Please, please write to your congresspeople!

Farm School

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Well, I helped my friend Trudy with her first day of farm school this morning. The kids (19 4 to 7 year olds) were supposed to be there by 9:15. But, their driver decided to take a tour around UNC and didn’t get the kids there until almost 10! The kids all listened to “farmer Trudy” while she talked about cows and their anatomy. And then she used a surgical glove and some whipped cream to explain udders. (I wasn’t there for this part so I’m not sure what she did, but I heard it was the hit of her talk:-) Then the kids split up into two groups, the cows and the horses. Half of them came with me to hear about plants and herbs, and the other half went with Trudy to learn about the miniature horse. So, needless to say, I had a lot of competition. Who wants to hear about plants when there is a horse around? Most of the girls were very attentive and loved answering my questions (what is a plant? who can name a weed?), but the boys… “When are we going to get to see the horses?” “I’m hungry!” “Is there cow poop around here??” We talked about how you can make a wish on dandelions and how you can chew up plantain to put on bee stings. They really liked to look at my press book of flowers and smell my herb soaps. All in all, everyone seemed to have fun. Next week will be 8 to 10 year olds. They will probably be a little more interested in the plants. I’ll have to look up more fun facts though, ’cause I think that will make it more interesting for them

Catch up!

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We had a wonderful past 4 days in Charleston, SC visiting with Toby’s dad and some friends. K had a blast playing in the sand and waves. We ate great meals from the garden, lots of squash, salad and stuff. (But, I countered that with about 5 hundred cookies!! No, seriously!!) Toby and I got to see Batman Begins on IMAX big screen!! It was pretty cool! Definitely the best of the Batman series so far. The ride to/from Charleston was pretty long, so we sang lots of songs for K. As a result, she has learned most of her ABC’s. Except she skips “K” and thinks LMNO are “ella” and “menna”, two entirely new letters 🙂 We ran out of songs by hour 4 in the car and started singing things like “clap on…. clap off…. clap on, clap off…. the clapper!” She loved it!

Now, I am playing catch up. I am going to be doing a small talk for k-2 graders (then 3-5 grade next week) on herbs. A friend of mine owns a farm and has started doing farm school for kids. There are ducks, chickens, small horses, cows, flowers, veggies. It will be fun. I think I will talk about what an herb is (‘weed’/food/medicine) and take them on an herb walk. It’s only going to be 20 minutes so I can’t get too indepth. Plus, I imagine they are going to be a little excited about the horses and cows. 🙂 Wish me luck.

What kind of pagan are you?

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a href=’http://quizfarm.com/test.php?q_id=11726’>What kind of Pagan are you?
created with QuizFarm.com

You scored as Shamanic Pagan. A shamanic pagan’s roots are generally found in Native American faith. A true love and respect for the earth and all that it yields is central to their faith. Wisdom is most often found in spirit guides or totems, who can be animals, ancestors, or spirits. Pagans who follow this path tend to be far more aware of the delicate web that interweaves the lives of every person and thus move within that web accordingly. They’re usually deeply insightful, friendly, loving people and excellent friends and parents. Mysterious and strong, as well, they are often the protectors of their friends and family as well as the moral compass for their friends and loved ones.

Ecclectic Pagan
55%

Shamanic Pagan
55%

Roman Pantheonic Pagan
40%

Eastern Pagan
35%

Zoroastrian Pagan
30%

Kabbalistic Pagan
30%

Celtic Pantheonic Pagan
25%

Egyptian Pantheonic Pagan
25%

Greek Pantheonic Pagan
25%

Catholic (Pagan?)
20%

Sumerian, Babylonian, and Mesopotamian Pagans
0%

Norse Pantheonic Pagan (Asatru)
0%

K’s Birthday Dress

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I got this for K for her 2nd bday. Isn’t it adorable. It’s great cause the shoulder straps are looped through to make a bow in the back that is adjustable. So, she can wear it for many years to come!! My friend Tina made it for her. She has a business making fantastic things for little ones!

I’ve been tagged!

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Thanks Rue! I was going to go take a nap, but now I can’t sleep! I have a task to go count my books!! 🙂

Number of Books I Own: ~150 (that’s just mine. K’s and Toby’s probably brings the total to ~400. We use to have a lot more, but we are trying to get rid of half of what we own in an attempt to simplify our lives)

Last Book I Bought: Entertaining and Educating Your Preschool Child – an Usborne Parents Guide, 365 Days of creative Play for Children 2 Years and Up – Sheila Ellison, et al, Homeschooling for Dummies – Jennifer Kaufeld. I ordered all three at the same time. Obviously, I am trying to get a little bit of a clue as to what I am doing homeschooling K.

Last Book I Read: Well, I can’t remember the last one I finished. I am currently trying to finish three: The Village Herbalist – Nancy and Michael Phillips (really great book! I wish I had more time to devote to reading it!), If You Like My Apples: A Simple Guide to Biodynamic Gardening – Clue Tyler Dennis and Luke Miller (Way too basic so far! I hope it gets better!) , and Home Learning Year by Year : How to Design a Homeschool Curriculum from Preschool Through High School – Rebecca Rupp (haven’t read much yet, but it seems good so far).

Books That Mean A Lot To Me: 1- I have an old copy of The Prophet – Kahlil Gibran that I really like. I remember seeing this book on my dads bookshelf when I was a kid. Then, when I was a junior in high school one of the lunch ladies gave me a copy and told me I should read it well. I did and was very thankful for her. It’s a great book with a beautiful message and I have to open it every now and then to remind myself about being a good person. 2- Some of you may agree with me and some of you may think I’m a looney, but I really love my Harry Potter Series J.K. Rowling. They are such fun books to read, but they also remind me not to forget about the magic out there. I wrote a letter to JK to thank her for sharing her gift with the world and she wrote me back!! So, I keep her letter in one of the books.

OK Time for the Tag!: Have any of you done this yet??
Stella
Toby
Kathy
Jamie
There are many more I would like to tag, but I will stop at four. If any of you non-taggies would like to join in, please do! 🙂

Lavender Festival

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Today we headed out to the local lavender farm, Sunshine Lavender Farm, for it’s annual lavender festival!! (Every town should have one!!) There were foods made with lavender, lavender wand making, pick-your-own lavender, even artists there drawing the scenery. And, it smelled so good!! Here are a few shots of the day:



Check out this white one!!

I think I heard her say they had ~3000 lavender plants!! That is my idea of heaven 🙂

Beekeeping, garden making and land searching

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OK, there are going to be lots of pictures in this one!

First, the bees. They are doing well. Though one hive still has a moderately high mite count, both hives are growing rapidly!! The queens are laying really well and the population is just exploding, which is great! They are bringing in lots of nectar and pollen, too. So, you would think that they would stop drinking the sugar syrup and just fill up on the food they are bringing in. But, they are scarfing it down, which makes me think they need it (or maybe what’s in the syrup). To help decrease the mite population we are adding HoneyBHealthy to their sugar syrup, as well as 15 drops of Bergamot Essential Oil/quart of syrup (some friends of ours totally got rid of their mites using bergamot!) We are still doing weekly mite counts to make sure the level doesn’t go up. So, here are a bunch of great pictures (well, some aren’t so great, but I had to post them!)

This one show a great capped brood pattern in the middle with lots of white capped honey on the edge.

Here’s a great one of pollen and capped brood.

Here is a queen. It’s fuzzy, but she is the long bee in the middle.

This is a pic. of brood (baby bees) being capped over.

And this one I was so upset that it didn’t turn out!! We were witness to a bee birth 🙂 This baby bee is just about to come out of the comb. Here is his little fuzzy head!

And one of our girls hard at work.

Now, on to K’s garden! We put in our new/used sink this weekend and put the old one in the garden for K. This morning, K and I filled it with pineapple sage, chocolate peppermint, purple basil, hyssop, chamomile, zinnea, lambs ear, calendula, and a tomato. I tried to put things in there that she could smell, taste, and feel. But, it’s a little crowded. So, I may move the hyssop to my herb garden 🙂 She really likes it! And everything is very well watered!

Here’s one of the garden.

And my little helper.

And my little helper practicing her best sad face.

So, as far as land search… well, we have been a bit disheartened. To be able to have the sustainable homestead that we would like, we are really hoping for more land than we will be able to afford in our current area. Land prices around here (and back in Asheville) are so inflated that we can barely afford an acre! We did, however, just find out about the possibility of buying some land from a family member. This would be great! My biggest worry though, is that we would be surrounded by many people who have very different beliefs than us. Plus, one of my herby friends and I have just started to talk about opening up an herb school here. If we moved, I couldn’t do that. (Well, it’s not that I couldn’t, but I don’t think there would be the desire for an herb school where the family land is.) I wish there were some overwhelming factor to push us somewhere. It would make this decision so much easier… do we spend more and have a higher mortgage, or by less, have a smaller mortgage and less land to work, do we spend more and buy less land to be near a town we love, or spend less and buy more land, but be near a town that doesn’t have such a supportive community for alternative living? I don’t know! Anyone out there got an answer??

Busy bees

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We have been staying really busy here! After delivering my order to Weaver Street, I got 3 more orders through my website and wiped out my stock. So, I have spent the last 3 days making soap, ordering supplies, labeling, etc. Toby went out of town for work, and I would have been sunk trying to do all this stuff without a hand with watching K. But, my mom-in-law came to town for a visit and a little relaxation, and she was my savior! She and K played all day and they both slept like logs at night 🙂

I also got a sink (cast iron, enameled in great condition!) off of Freecycle. So, we are going to take the old one and plop it in my garden, fill it with soil, plant some flowers, fast growing seeds and such and let K run free with it! She will get her own watering can and shovel and if she ‘destoys’ everything, that will be fine with me! I have some squash and tomato seedlings without a home. I will get some flower seedlings for her to pick and lots of seed for her to plant. It will be packed with stuff, or not. It will be her own space. Hopefully she will be as excited about it as I am 🙂

Advice from Gardening Mamas

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K is an amazing child! She is fun, clever, very happy, usually in a really good mood, she’s extremely verbal, so we can already have detailed conversations. I have a hard time remembering that she is not even 2 yet. But, these last few weeks K has not been listening so well. I say “K, leave the bread on the counter, we are going to make sandwiches” and in an instant the bread is gone. “K, will you put your sippy on the table please” and it goes flying across the room. But, the place that I lose my temper the most and seem to be having the hardest time with is my garden. When I use to ask K to be gentle to the plants, she would pat them nicely. Today, I asked her to let the flowers grow so they can make food for us… she ripped up some eggplant, picked 2 flowers and almost ripped up another. I know that she isn’t 2 yet, but since she use to listen when I asked her not to do something, it is very hard not to raise my voice when she is continually disobeying now. I’m sure it is confusing for her since she knows that what is in the garden is edible. How do you guys handle it with little ones in the garden, or anywhere for that matter? I guess this is the ‘testing the limits’ of the terrible/terrific twos. But, since talking it out and giving her ‘quiet time’ isn’t working, I am looking for other suggestions.

That being said, the amazing brainiac told me that yesterday Suki (our dog) begins with S

Bees and Garden

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We did our 3rd and mite treatment for my hive yesterday. The girls are looking great! Lots of pollen and nectar stored, some capped honey and lots of worker brood. We also spotted the queen, which is always a plus since we are looking in a hive of about 50 thousand bees! My 24 hour mite count is down to 55, which is 1/3 of what it was when we started (it was 161 just after the first treatment!)!
We went into Toby’s hive today to check and everything looks good in there too.

Here is a picture of the beautiful pattern they have drwan out of this 4.9 foundation:

But, here’s another frame that they got a little lazy on 🙂 I’ve also heard that they draw the comb out larger when there is a honey flow on… which there is right now.

On this frame you can see lots of capped over brood (baby bees) and some nectar drying out and getting ready to be capped over (see the shiny stuff in the open cells?).

How does my garden grow? Very well thank you! I am having some flea beetle problems with my eggplant, but not too bad. I go out there once a day and just squish them by hand. I also made a spray of 4 cups water, 6 cloves garlic, 2 slices onion, handful of basil, and ~10 drops peppermint essential oil blended up really well!! It seems to get rid of the flea beetles. But, I have to put in on after each rain. My beans are looking pretty pale too, so I added some dried blood for nitrogen. Hopefully that will help. Otherwise, some tomatoes, squash, zuchini, beans, and even a pumpkin and cantaulope are starting to develop flowers! These warmer nights have really helped things take off.

Which Beauty Icon Are You?

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HASH(0x8cefab4)
You are Sandra Bullock!

Which Beauty Icon Are You?
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That’s funny! I met her once. Ok, when I was 16, I landed a job doing warpaint for the indians during the filming of Last of the Mohicans. My roommate during the filming was this great lady who actually was a professional make-up artist. We stayed friends after the movie and when she was in town a few years later for the filming of 28 days with Sandra Bullock we all met up at a local pub for some drinks. I thought it was kinda funny that they were shooting a movie about alcoholism and they were all hanging out doing shots at a bar 🙂

Spiral Update

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I’ve been filling in my spiral garden and it is looking nice. It’s going to be stuffed with plants! So far it has Comfrey, Motherwort, Bee Balm, Johnny-Jump-Ups, Chives, Marjoram, Thyme, Magenta Lambs Quarters, Yarrow, Lemon Balm, and Zinnea. I moved the Jeruselem Artichoke and Bay Laurel to another bed once that was set up so they have lots of room to spread out.

We also did the 2nd sucrocide treatment on my bees today and they are looking good. Lots of worker brood and even some capped honey!

Bee update

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We checked on the bees this afternoon and they are doing great! Both hives are drawing out the new foundation and storing lots of nectar and pollen. We also found lots of capped and uncapped brood and spotted the queen in both hives. In my hive, I didn’t see any bees without wings this time! We will do another mite count and treatment #2 of 3 in a few more days. Hopefully that will take care of it!

The Call of the Wild

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This morning, I went out for my walk. When I got to the end of our gravel road, the air was filled with the sounds of roosters, sheep and other farm animals, as usual. But, there was this other sound. It was kind of like a coyote, a long drawn out note with a down note at the end. As I walked along, the call got louder and was repeated over and over. Then it got a little lower, and I starting thinking that there might be some wild animal giving birth in the nearby woods. There was no one else around, no people or cars, so it was a little freaky. The sound kept getting louder and then it took an up turn and started getting higher and higher, and then went faster and faster. I felt like I was in some horror movie, that’s how weird it sounded! Then, it went staccato, and that’s when it finally hit me!! The poor animal giving wild animal birth in the woods this spring morning, was one of my neighbors practicing voice lessons!! Keep on practicing, baby! Keep on practicing!

Herb Spiral

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I’ve been trying to make another raised bed for some poor little herbs that are in desperate need of a home. But, I seem to keep finding reasons to put it off. Well, I have finally been inspired by Stella and Steph to build a spiral herb garden. I needed to build something more creative than a rectangle. Thanks for the advice ladies!!

Here is the bed before the dirt and plants:

And after:

So far, there are only comfrey, chives and jeruselum artichoke in the bed. But, I will be getting a bunch more from another herbalist this weekend!! Yay!

And just because I am so proud of myself for taking a fairly decent picture with my camera, I have to post this. It is the flower of the pitcher plant that is in the ‘pond’ in our back yard. Cool, eh??

And just because I am so proud of myself for producing something so damn scrumptous I have to post this, too. She likes to pose for the camera and squints because she know the flash will go off. So, this is what happened when I said, “don’t squint, open your eyes.”

And after a little practice…

I could just eat her up!!

Lessons Learned

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Lessons Learned From Our First Round Of Varroa Mite Treatments:
1- Start treatment when the day light is increasing, not decreasing. (It might be easier to treat the bees if you can see them!! Don’t start your treatment regimen at sundown like us idiots!)
2-Suit up well! (Spraying your bees with sucrocide, though it will kill the varroa mites, will also piss off your bees. Next time we will wear full beekeeping garb instead of just our veils. Then maybe we won’t both be freaking out and going “Hey! Can you brush this bee off of me??? Fast!!! Please?? Honey?? Please!!”
3-If you just dropped a frame of bees on the ground and knocked some of the bees off, don’t step in that same spot. The bees will crawl up your pant leg and seek revenge.
4-Don’t wear gloves that are wide open around the wrist. Bees like to see what is in that glove!

All in all we came out of it with only one sting, amazingly! Since we are currently using Sucrocide for treatment, we will have to repeat the process of spraying every bee 2 more times. But next time, well will do it in the morning.

We actually put white sticky boards under the hives last night so that when the mites fell off we cound count them. Toby’s hive had 1 mite in 24 hours. So, we didn’t even treat his. Mine had a count of 53 in 24 hours. The threshold for treatment in 10-15 in 24 hours. SO, my hive is really pretty sick. I hope this treatment helps. They looked pretty bedraggled and sticky when we were done. Hopefully they will pull through it ok.

Happy

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Just a little tidbit that I thought you might like to know… According to the May 2 Newsweek, if stay-at-home moms were compensated for all the hours they work, their net would be $131,471/year!! It’s nice to know I’m worth 6 figures… now where are my benefits??

What did I get for mother’s day?? Breakfast in bed, time to garden, laundry done, litterbox emptied…!!! And, a sting on my head from one of our bees. To be fair, it was really my fault! I was watching the bees fly around the hives and had just gotten out of the shower, so my hair was loosley bunched up on my head. One of them landed on my head and got caught in my hair. Of course, the more she tried to get out the deeper stuck she got. So, she finally stung me on the head. Well, at least I know I’m not allergic to honey bees. After Toby sifted through my hair to get the stinger out, I headed to the back yard for some plantain. The Herb Of The Week! 🙂 I chewed some up to get it good and macerated and then put it on the sting. Soon, the pain was gone and there is no swelling at all! So, aside from imagining this stinger burrowing deeper and deeper into my head and poisoning my brain with stinger juice, it really wasn’t a bad experience!

Varroa Attack

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Well, we had one of the state bee inspectors come out yesterday and go through our hives, show us how to spot problems, look for the queen, etc… Unfortunately, he found evidence of varroa in one of the hives. There were many bees without wings (a sign of varroa infestation) and we even found a few mites on worker bees. SOOO, it looks like we will begin our beekeeping experience learning how to treat varroa mites, do mite counts, etc… The MiteAwayII was just approved by the FDA for use in the US and has been approved for us in NC also. So, we have it on order. We have also put a rush on Sucrocide and should have it by Sunday. Both are classified as “organic” treatments. I’ve not even had them for a week and I feel so helpless that my little bee ladies are sick!!

The Current State Of Bees

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Here’s a recent post in the NY Times about the crisis we are in to save the honeybee. Until this year, I never thought about the hit that the farming industry would take if we lost the honey bee… pollination of the blueberries, almonds, everything would decrease dramatically, availability of foods would decrease and food costs would increase! If any of you have ever had the slightest interest in beekeeping, now is the time!

The ladies are finally here!

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Well, 3 weeks after we were supposed to get our bees, they are finally home and getting settled in! (We had a few miscommunication issues with the guy we bought them from, but it all turned out fine ) So, we lit our smoker and opened up our hives for the first time. I have to say, I am so very proud of myself for not feeling freaked out. It was actually really neat to be able to handle the bees and not have them all mad at me. We just had a little talk about how I was here to keep them healthy and happy and they listened well:-)




Full up to here!

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For this mornings snack time, we had strawberries. Then, for lunch, we had more strawberries. For afternoon snack, we had fresh strawberry muffins. For dinner, we had fresh strawberry pie! Can you guess what K and I did for our morning activity?? You got it – Strawberry Picking at a local organic strawberry patch! And after all that strawberry eating, we still have a quart in the fridge and 1 1/2 gallons in the freezer!! Yahooooo.

K and her cousin enjoying the harvest!