I think I'm going to have to get over my box building frustration sooner rather than later. I seem to have filled my first box right up! I'm feeling a little greedy, and want to grow everything! I planted some seeds, but also went on a little shopping spree at my favorite nursery. They had so many varieties of tomatoes. I had space for four, but the selection was so overwhelming that I ended up with a yellow (Lemon Boy), a purple (Cherokee Purple), and two red cherry tomatoes (Sweet Million and Red Currant), but I think I really ought to have a couple more reds, oughtn't I? And maybe a green. I want to be able to can some for the Winter.

Peppers are posing the same problem, I got a jalapeno, a bell pepper, and a cherry red, but there are so many fun varieties, and those three seem rather ordinary. I'm very excited about the French Sorrel, which was a complete impulse buy, but I tasted a leaf and love the citrus-y tart taste. It's a perennial, so hopefully it will spread a little, maybe into two square feet, from the one it's now it. It can be divided, as well, so if it does like the conditions here, I'll definitely spread it around.

Here's the view from our back fence. As you can see, I have plenty of room for a lot more boxes. I'd like to grow some berries against the fence to the right, and maybe put in a few fruit trees.

Nothing has happened yet in my potato cans, no signs of green, although most of the potatoes definitely had sprouts in their eyes, so I'm expecting to see something soon. I also planted a green globe artichoke next to the potatoes. I love artichokes! For prettiness, I planted one square of my box with candy cane zinnia seeds, and another with a tiny dianthus from the sale table. I planted some basil seeds, but also brought home a flowering basil because they were filled with bees at the nursery. I can't seem to find the tag for it, but I think it's cinnamon basil. There's also a Japanese eggplant and a couple zucchini plants. Other seeds I planted include peas, two kinds of beans, two kinds of cucumber, radishes and cilantro. And yet I need more. I think it's already too hot for any sort of lettuces or greens, but I have seeds for all sorts of kales and chards and lettuces that I might start toward the end of Summer for Fall planting.

Who else is working on a vegetable garden? Share what you're growing, I want to know!

I got myself good and worn out doing all that planting on Saturday, not to mention dirty and sweaty after weeding along one side of the box. I plan to lay down weed cloth and mulch and possibly some stepping stones this week. I think I need a chair or two out there, to sit and enjoy the plants in the evening. If only this one wasn't sold out everywhere.

After all that activity I did a lot of resting today, and did a little hand sewing while watching Last Chance Harvey this evening (it was sweet, but I love Emma Thompson, so I like everything she's in). I am trying to come up with some more pincushions, and I think I'm on the right track, but it needs just a little something more. I used the same fabric I used for my headscarf, but maybe I need to stick to smaller prints? I'm going to have to think about it, but I really want to get some things in my shop, it's looking so sad and barren at the moment.

I also decided to start un-picking and re-stitching the latest quilt top from my mother-in-law. She said that her mother started it when she found out she was pregnant with her, but she wasn't much of a sewer or quilter. I love these fabrics so much, and the yellow solid is so nice, and unusual. As I was getting started and looked at the back I realized that she must have used paper to piece it, there are all these little bits.

As I'm unpicking I can feel the frustration and impatience the seamstress must have had. There are places where the sewing machine was obviously acting up, and she seems to have just plowed on through. None of the points are anywhere near meeting, and the seam allowances are 1/8" in some places and well over 1/4" in others. So she may not have had much skill for needlework, but she did at least have an eye for color, I hope she won't mind my re-doing and finishing her quilt.

Read More

I think I've figured out this comments situation. I won't bore you with the details, but as of today I'm back to responding regularly. If you ask a question and I think others might like to see the response as well, I'll reply in the comments, but I'll also reply directly, so you should get an e-mail just like in the past.

Now for some (hopefully) more interesting stuff. I started working on a vegetable garden this past weekend. I've only been wanting to do this for the past five years. The promise of excellent pollination by the bees helped motivate me to finally just start. Thanks to the recommendation of my sister, I've decided to try square foot gardening. I'm starting with a 4×8 foot box, and I hope to add a couple more before the year is out. The book talks about how easy it is, and that may well be the case, but building the box was a little trickier than I expected. There was way too much cursing on my part, and I may have damned my drill to hell once or twice. Poor little drill, I didn't really mean it. With the help of Mr. HeyLucy, however, we worked it out and the next time should be a little easier. It turns out that redwood is really, really hard (doh! That's why it's suggested for use in outdoor projects), and my starter holes were not long enough or wide enough, and the screws just would. not. go. in. I kept stripping them. It's a good thing I have no plans to disassemble it any time soon.

I also planted some potatoes in trash cans. I don't remember where I first read about growing them that way, but the day after I planted them I got a link to this handy little video in my inbox. I had four kinds of seed potatoes, so I put two in each trash can. There are French fingerlings (a small, long, skinny red potato), Burbank russets, All Blue (also small like the fingerlings, but they have the prettiest purple flesh), and Yukon Golds.

This is not too impressive, but I'm swallowing my pride and showing you a picture of my weed-filled yard. Just remember that this is a before picture. I hope that an after picture by the end of Summer will show vast improvements. I labeled the important stuff. You might have to view it larger to read everything.

I'm excited to get planting this weekend.

Read More

See the big bee with the green dot to the left, in the center? That's my queen! I did my first solo hive inspection this morning. I was a little nervous about doing it, and kept procrastinating, but once I got out there, lifting up the frames and talking to the bees, all the apprehension just left, and I felt amazingly calm.

A couple years ago, I read quite a bit about beekeeping, and thought I had a pretty good idea what to do, what to expect. With the arrival of the bees, however, I realized that I had forgotten nearly everything, and so have been feverishly re-reading everything about the subject I can find, combing (bee pun, sorry!) bee forums, actually reading all the e-mails from beekeeping lists (which, oh my goodness, the organic beekeepers list I subscribe to? Those are some seriously opinionated people. I didn't think there would be so much drama on a beekeeping list), and referring regularly to my stack of books. They say, ask five beekeepers what to do in any given situation, and you'll get six different answers, and I can confirm that this is true.

Back to the inspection. I could probably go on for paragraph after paragraph about bees, but I'll try to just stick to what I did while inspecting my hive. I was all decked out in my veil, jacket (an old Nautica scuba windbreaker of Mr. HeyLucy's-bright blue and green) and orange wellies. It's quite an outfit. My gloves have not yet arrived, so I used a pair of yellow rubber gloves-the kind you probably have under your sink, for doing dishes. I just thought you might enjoy the visual of my ridiculous outfit. The neighbors can all see me too, and I would love to know what they thought about my get-up. I filled my smoker with pine needles, lit it up, and gave it a few puffs from the bellows to get it going. I took my newly assembled hive body (more on that later), just in case they had filled the frames in their current box. I also had a bee brush and a pry bar, since my fancy Italian hive tool has also not yet arrived.

When I got to the hive I took the cinder block off the top (placed there to keep the lid on in case it gets windy), and set it next to the hive. I sat on it for the duration of my visit, since the hive is only one box so far, and quite low to the ground. I puffed a little smoke in the entrance, which sent everyone hanging out there inside the hive. Then I lifted the lid slightly, and gave them another good puff, lowered the lid and waited a few moments. It's important to work from  the side of the hive, rather than looming over it. I noticed a change in the hum of the hive as I moved around and over the top of it-it's truly a hive mind, and they are all constantly communicating. There were a few bees clinging to the underside of the lid, so I gently brushed them back into the hive, where they went without a fuss.

The whole time I was working there was only one bee who was really bothersome. One of the roles played by the workers is that of guard bee. There are usually a couple guard bees at the entrance. Their job is to ward off any danger, let everyone know if there is a threat, and check the bees returning from their nectar/pollen/water gathering flights, to make sure they are a part of the hive and not robber bees come to rob them of their honey. I think I had a somewhat over-zealous guard bee, trying to chase me away. She buzzed and buzzed and charged my veil. I just kept talking to her, to let her know I wasn't a bear, and I wasn't there to hurt anyone. She wasn't buying it, however, and kept right on buzzing at me until I left.

One by one I lifted out the frames to see what progress the bees had made this week. This is a 10-frame hive, but I only have 9 in it at the moment. The beekeeper who brought me this hive included some empty frames and added some comb to others with rubber bands to get the bees started. Here's an example of tied comb. Mine have rubber bands wrapped around the frames vertically, holding the comb, rather than horizontal string like that one, but the principal is the same. Typically, you can add plastic or wax foundation to your frame, but I'm keeping everything as natural as possible, and letting the bees build their own. Some say using the foundation is faster, some say foundation-less is faster, and there's all sorts of controversy about the size of the cells on the foundation being larger than what the bees make on their own, which has led to larger bees, which in turn is a contributing factor to colony collapse disorder. I told you, there is all sorts of drama in the beekeeping world. Still, I'm going with the natural comb. I'm going to try giving them some strips to start building off of, but I'll talk more about that another time.

During my inspection I pulled out one frame at a time, and examined it front and back. I returned each frame to its same location, in the same position as I finished examining it. I was looking for a few different things:

• Were they building new comb? Yes, there was some new comb, although I had hoped for more, and most of it was empty-they haven't been filled with eggs, pollen or nectar.
• Was the queen alive and active? She's there, and was moving around busily
• Are there eggs/larvae/capped brood? Yes, but I didn't see a ton of new eggs and larvae like I saw last week. Some of the brood cells seem scattered, but I don't know if that's just because bees have hatched and left the empty cells, or if the queen skipped them, or if they just didn't develop. You can see the caps below, and the new, light comb they've built, to the right.
• Are they building up pollen and nectar (to become honey)? One of the frames had lots of pollen in the cells, but I didn't see nectar, which has me concerned. I think I may need to feed them some honey as they develop. I'd guess there are somewhere between 10,000-20,000 bees in there now, but to get strong they should build up to 60,000-80,000 bees. Plus, more bees=more honey :o) 

So, I'm not too worried, but a little concerned about a couple things. I think I'll feed them some honey this week, and see if their productivity increases. Up here in the mountains, blooming is really just getting started, so they should have more resources over the next few weeks. Right now the poppies are just starting to bloom, and I saw some mustard blossoms this morning for the first time this Spring. They've been in the rosemary, but there's only two bushes in our yard, not nearly enough for a whole hive.

When I was finished with my inspection I carefully and slowly slid the lid back in place, making sure I didn't crush any bees in the process. And that was it! It didn't take too long, and it was so fascinating to watch them all hard at work. I will have to get my camera all set up before I go out next time, it's not too easy taking picture through my veil, and I couldn't change the settings. I wish I didn't have the aperture set so low, all the pictures I took are have lots of bokeh around the edges, which is cool most of the time, but not for this. I am also going to need to do some beekeeper accessorizing, I think. An apron or box for my tools would be very handy. I sense some sewing coming on this weekend.

I hope that was interesting, feel free to ask questions, I am loving talking about bees. Also, if you want to learn more, but not necessarily take up beekeeping yourself, I highly recommend Robbing the Bees, by Holley Bishop. It's a fascinating history of bees, honey, and beekeeping, definitely worth reading.

Read More

Preparations are underway for the arrival of the beehive (in case you missed it, that mysterious implement a couple posts ago was a smoker, to use on bees when you inspect the hive). I've been re-reading all the bee-related books I've collected over the past couple years and I think I'm ready. The beekeeper arrives with my hive on Saturday morning. I found him via craigslist, and sent him an email asking if I could buy a hive from him. He's re-queened a nice hive of very calm bees just for me.  I might need to get this hive and make the bees move eventually. How cute would that be once it's painted white and the copper top has developed a nice patina? I am also weighing my options and trying to select a hive tool. I could go with the standard, economical, and utilitarian model, or I can get the cheery yellow, flashy Italian model for twice the price, which looks like the Ferrari of hive tools. It's a dilemma.

In other minor, daily news, chicks are being fed, watered, held and smooched morning and evening, and games of fetch are played with the adorable dogs. Lest you think it's all cute fuzzy chicks and teddy-bear like dog noses around here, this is the state of the living room as of this morning.

I have strategically not captured the carpet close up. I suppose I should be happy that the surest sign of Spring-the prolific shedding of dog hair-is apparent in clumps and handfuls everywhere I go. I really should get that vacuum out tonight-there was that whole vacuum more often goal I set at the beginning of the year. But that will cut into my chick cuddling time. Also my Buffy the Vampire Slayer watching time. Also, I still need to hem my curtains and slipcover my chair. I just thought I'd keep it real here at chez Lucy. That morning light sure is pretty though, don't you think?

On the last visit to my mother-in-law I brought home not only a mandolin, but also another quilt top. This one was made by her mother when she was expecting. My mother-in-law has always said that her mother was never very good at sewing or needlework of any kind, and I have to say, I kind of agree. I may have to take this one apart and re-assemble it, but I love the big yellow pinwheel shapes, and all the sweet fabric prints.

I'm all over the place tonight, but one more thing, because I need your opinion: You may have noticed that I switched my comments to the new Typepad system. About the same time I made that switch I finally figured out how to connect my heylucy.net email to my gmail account. I think this is all good stuff, but it's taking me awhile to adjust to this new workflow (sorry for the technical term, but I do have this job, you know, where I sometimes have to use that office-speak). Before all these changes I would get comments in my email, which was web-based. Unfortunately, the company I use has a really crappy webmail service and I would have to load the messages every time I logged in. That would often take a good 5 minutes because their spam filter was completely useless and so my inbox would be full of 90% spam and 10% actual mail. Half the time the whole thing would just lock up and I couldn't even get to my email. So that is much better, now that it just goes straight to gmail. This is kind of boring, sorry about that. I never know if anyone cares about these long explanations, but I do have a point, so please bare with me!

Previously, when I would get a comment, I could just reply to the email notification I got. I really like responding to comments as much as possible, because I think this is really a conversation, not just me talking at you. Now, however, when I reply to a comment email, the reply is posted directly under the comment for everyone to read. I mostly like this, but I would like it if the reply was also sent as an email to the person who left the comment. I will have to investigate to see if that's possible, because otherwise you have to keep coming back here to see replies to your comments and I don't think anyone has the time to do that very often. The whole point to this uninteresting and long-winded explanation is that I want to know your opinion! Do you like the comments like this, or did you prefer the old way? As a reward for sharing your thoughts I give you another cute chick photo:

Read More

My final birthday giveaway plan has worked out, so you'll have to read all the way to the end to find out what it is! I'll draw the first three birthday week winners tomorrow night, and then the last three on Friday, so you'll have a little time to enter this one (as well as the last two). That way I can try and get everything shipped on Saturday.

Saturday mornings are all about breakfast around here. I love my yogurt and fruit breakfasts during the week, but Saturday is for something hot and hearty. I was feeling a little adventurous this past weekend and decided to try a little scrambled goose egg. I should have included a fork or something for reference, but that is one big yolk.

While beating it, it seemed heavier somehow and creamier, it's hard to describe, but it was quite good. I had it on top of my favorite potato hash (of which I make many variations-this one had lots of onion and some leftover pot roast). It was delicious, but that was a lot of egg.

A little story about something I learned this weekend:

The worst part about having chickens is cleaning out the chicken coop. Once I start raking all the shavings and poop up it gets quite dusty in there and I have to take frequent breaks to get some fresh air. It's not stinky, just dusty. I recently had the brilliant idea to get a dust mask to make the whole task easier and probably much healthier. I tend to do these dirty chores first thing Saturday morning before showering or anything, which is logical, right? But I also went out there with my dust mask just after finishing breakfast, but before brushing my teeth. And here is what I learned: do not ever wear a dust mask when you have nasty onion and cheese breath. Boy was that stinky. Now you know.

Lest you think I'm a complete idiot with poor hygiene habits I noticed today while at the bank that I have a real talent for pulling up nice and close to the drive up ATM. I laugh at the people who pull up and then have to open their door to do their banking (only in the most affectionate way, not mean-spirited). I love discovering hidden talents.

Have you seen the cover of Better Homes & Gardens April issue? It not a magazine that I usually buy, but I was completely charmed by this image:

So I've blatantly copied them and made my own version (it was pretty darn easy, so don't be too impressed. I also may have gone a little overboard with the little chick and the mushroom):

 

The pale pink violas are in a goose egg, and I used the ceramic egg carton my friend gave me for Christmas.

And now for the final birthday week giveaway! I wanted to find some more moss to share, but it's been dry lately, and while on my Sunday afternoon walk I only found little dried up bits of moss. The good news is that the dogs were very well behaved and didn't knock me over this time.

I wasn't about to give up, however, so I went to a favorite nursery on my lunch hour, and found a couple fun little mossy plants. The tag says one is baby tears, so maybe it will grow taller, but for now it's quite compact and flat, and the other is a creeping thyme, which I think is pretty hardy, so I hope it can take the high humidity of a terrarium. So I put together a little terrarium kit. You'll have to provide your own jar, but I'll send everything else! I think it will be so fun. There will even be three little mushrooms, because you know how I feel about mushroom-less terrariums.

Let's talk about breakfast for this giveaway. What's your favorite weekend breakfast? Do you cook? Or go out? We used to live in Mission Beach and The Mission was my absolute favorite breakfast spot. I loved the zen breakfast or the roast beef hash. I don't usually care for really sweet breakfasts, but their french toast-made from thick slices of cinnamon bread-was also always tempting.

I love violas, in large part because that was my grandma's name.

Read More

How come I didn't know about this Shannon Lamden fabric? I'm so glad I asked about fabric, I'm getting some good links, thanks you guys!

This picture has nothing to do with anything, I took it several years ago with my old point & shoot Olympus, but I still like it. Actually, it does have something to do with today's post, since these are Spring flowers (see the first question below).

Now seems like as good a time as any to do a little meme that I was tagged with recently. Both Robin (check out her terrific terrarium, and read about how resourceful she was finding the plants for it. I love that she has a little terrarium resident, too!) and Alice (look at her beautiful photos! I'm a little envious that she gets to live in Oxford. I spent a rainy Fall day there once and loved it so much) tagged me, and these are some fun questions, so here you go:

1. Cut and paste the questions into a new blog post and respond to the questions.
2.
Replace one question you dislike with a question of your own invention
– and say which one you added.
3. Tag other untagged folks.

What is your current obsession?
Spring flowers. There are wildflowers blooming along the freeway as I drive to work, and of course you know all about the daffodils and grape hyacinth. I also have birthday flowers all over my desk. There are a big bunch of baby pink and white roses (courtesy of Mr. HeyLucy), sunflowers from a friend, my annual Lily-of-the-Valley from Trader Joe's, and a bunch of blooming forsythia branches I bought last week.

What are you wearing right now?
black & cream striped jeans, long sleeved pink t-shirt, 3/4 sleeve black sweater, black ballet flats, new earrings that I won from Pamela Susan (more on those later)!

Who was the last person you hugged?
It was either Mr. HeyLucy or Winston. I guess Winston is not exactly a human, but they both get hugs every day.

If you were a tree, what tree would you be?
A cherry tree. or maybe a fig tree.

What’s for dinner?
Mr. HeyLucy put a giant pot roast in the crock pot this morning, so I guess that's what we'll be eating.

What was the last thing you bought?
Jamie at Home
(I had a birthday gift card for Barnes & Noble)

What are you listening to right now?
My Pandora station is playing Rocco Deluca & The Burden. I do not know them, I haven't decided to give them a thumbs up or thumbs down.

What is your favourite weather?
Sunny and 70 degrees, although I do appreciate a nice rainy day. I hate windy days, they make me cranky

What’s on your beside table?
Lamp, an orchid, photo booth picture of my grandmother, a bird-shaped dish holding earrings and stitch markers, a pretty handkerchief, a vase full of daffodils and a tiny box with some new earrings  and dust.

If you could have a house totally paid for, fully furnished anywhere in the world, where would you want it to be?
A little village in England. It would have to have a thatched roof. I hope the locals wouldn't mind me moving in.

What would you like to get rid of?
30 lbs around my middle

Favourite vacation spot?
All my vacations are usually spent visiting family. I would love to go back to Italy someday

Name the things you can’t live without.
My laptop, sewing machine and knitting needles. And also Mr. HeyLucy and all the animals, of course.

What would you like to have in your hands right now?
A big stack of money would be nice, but if that's a little much to ask, then I would be happy with my knitting needles

What is your favourite tea flavour?
Peppermint, but I'm also loving Yogi Tea's Classic India Spice right now too.

If you could go anywhere in the world for the next hour, where would you go?
I would probably want to visit my parents in China, to see how they're doing and meet some of their students.

What is your favourite snack?
Chips and Salsa, no question, unless I want something sweet, then it's definitely cookies and milk.

I'm going to add this question for today's giveaway:
What is your favorite, can't-do-without beauty product?
I'm not a big 'product' girl, but I love my MAC Sequin Lipstick. I've been wearing it for at least 12 years. I experiment with other colors, and I have a nice pink right now, called Hot Gossip, but I always go back to my Sequin. It's neutral but with a little sparkle, and it blends with whatever else I'm wearing. I also love the lack of scent in MAC products. I like wearing perfume and certain smelly lotions, but I'm very particular about the scents, and I hate make up that smells. Here's a swatch from the MAC site, which is looking a little pinker than it really is on my monitor, it's definitely got a bit of a brownish undertone:

So that's today's giveaway, your very own tube of Sequin Lipstick, it's one of my favorite things! Just share your favorite beauty product in the comments, it's always good to get opinions on these things. Oh, and I'm terrible about tagging people, so the first three commentors with blogs, consider yourself tagged!

Read More