bee creative

hands are for making

 

Affirmation (sometimes defined as an oath):  I made someone laugh, made someone feel safe, made someone happy.  I made dinner.  I made part of a sock. 

red bird, white thread

It rained most of the day so I spent a good part of the day working on the blanket I've named "Mending Heart."

The white thread I am using is what one of my great grandmothers for making lace. 

I thought a lot about responsibility today.  About how I feel a sense of responsibility for the things I've brought into my life.  For example, that I find a way to use all the scraps of fabric that I've collected.  For "Mending Heart" my goal is to cover the surface of a blanket that I made with all the red scraps that I can gather from my collection.

  Today in that process a friend appeared...

Certainly inspired by Jude's beasts.  This one is just being hatched...

 

another garden project: herbs for lotions and potions

 

           The recipe for the lotion is from Growing 101 Herbs that Heal by Tammi Hartung.

currently knitting and thinking about color

                                                              Continuing the seed-stitch blanket. 


                                             Sock made of a bit of this and a bit of that...

Thinking about the same yarns used in a large way (blanket) and a small way (sock).

Scarf with hand-spun alpaca and sheep's wool and another sock.  This sock is a study in what happens when yarns are in the same colorway (2 balls of yarn that are the same mix of colors) and are alternated every other row.

The scarf continues to be an experiment about undyed colors and soft colors.  Colors that might come from mixing the ocean, woods and fields with fog. 

lost in the garden...

This time I found baby peaches... 3 of them.

 

discoveries that make me happy

                                                            The indigo yeast vat is still working! 

There are two green apricots on the tree.

I feel like standing guard until they are ripe.

 

ragged things

For some reason my hearts always end up ragged...

I'm okay with that. This will be a patch for one of the blankets. 

Today I also...

planted beans in the rain and rescued a few peonies that had collapsed. 

And watched the rain fall from the covered porch.

And made nut bread with whole wheat flour, raisins, hazelnuts, walnuts and prunes.

The recipe was from Betty Crocker's Cookbook.  Mine is the 1978 edition.  A gift from one of my great-grandmothers on my 12th birthday.  It's a bit ragged too, but that just means it's well loved.  

in the garden...

I am currently reading The Vegetable Gardener's Guide to Permaculture by Christopher Shein and it has inspired my newest experiment.  This area is right next to the water and receives 6 to 8 hours of full sun. 

*The containers are where the root crops are growing.  My garden has very rocky soil which can make root crops difficult to grow directly in the ground. 

*The one gallon containers in the wash tub have radishes, carrots, beets and lettuce.  Once they have sprouted I'll move the containers out of the wash tub and plant more seeds in the containers below.  I'm hoping in this way to have a longer harvest of these crops.  After I harvest from the containers I'll mix in some compost with the potting soil and plant something different. 

*The strawberries and cucumbers are being grown in the buckets that are hanging from the hooks (pest prevention).

 *The summer squash will not just be a crop to harvest but also "living mulch" for the area around the pear tree. 

*This is also  a budget experiment.  All the seed was purchased last year and have grown enough produce to have paid for itself.  The same is true of the strawberries and pears.  I'll have about 16 dollars for potting soil,   a tomatillo as a start ($2.00), and $6.00 worth of seed potato.   I'm going to keep track of the total harvest from this area so that I can make some comparisons.

 

this week's ingredients

  The primary ingredients for the week...

Plus broccoli from the garden, pork (2 pork chops cooked in slow cooker with vegetable broth), and risotto (made with remaining vegetable broth made last week).

I've been thinking about how May is a transitional month for eating local.  There are still things that have been canned, frozen, dried, or keep well in the refrigerator that need to be eaten and then the foods that have just been harvested...

Radish and pear for salad or sandwich.  The pears have been stored in the refrigerator over the winter.  I pull one out a few days before I want to eat it. 

Green salad with pickled vegetables and feta.   

 

collecting color from the garden

This was a suggestion from Jude and I'm giving it a try...

One crocheted basket made of wool

That will collect leaves, berries and flower petals from the garden over the summer.  And that will be watered as needed. 

Hopefully by the end of the summer it will be a variety of colors and patterns.