spring | The Practical Dilettante

Spring Comes, Eventually, With Birds

Posted on June 1, 2011 by Seonaid

We’re just going to pretend May didn’t exist, ‘k?

I might talk about it sometime, but suffice it to say that it was a month of profound imbalance, lived largely in vehicles and including an astonishing number of grabbed meals on-the-run, and the gaining of 10 pounds. I’m cranky, irritable, and generally not much fun to be around after that. Also, it felt like it lasted 3 times as long as normal. Let’s put it this way: The most recent weekend included four parties and a school event, on top of swimming classes, spontaneous house guests and a stomach bug. That would be the nature of all the not-writing I’ve been doing for the last 4 weeks.

Ctrl-Alt-Del. Kill processes. I think I need to take the week long workshop on balance that I taught last summer.

***

Spring is finally here (ish) on the east-er coast. Although we had to light a fire in the woodstove this morning, and the plants have stalled out due to an entire month of overcast skies, there was sun yesterday and the black flies are out in force. Also, the new chickens arrived! I am told that they are unsexed Ameraucana and Araucana chicks, so half of them are likely to be roosters. These are astonishingly pretty birds, which look like wee chickens dressed in hawk costumes. They also have green feet, which are super-cute. (And yes, I’m becoming quite mad for chickens.)

They are currently about three weeks old, and are living on a tarp in the corner of the office. They will be moved to the coop tomorrow, we plan, as long as nobody else gets too sick to help with the coop modifications. (Here’s hoping.)

Pictures!

Did I mention that they lay blue eggs? Mad, I tell you. Quite mad.

***

And a quick moment I captured that I wanted to share. When my two children got off the bus yesterday, they both were reading as they came up the driveway. (The younger one is reading The Hobbit. Take that, school, for scolding our family reading habits on report-card day. “Needs to read daily,” indeed. Try and stop them, I say.)

Filed under: Day-to-Day, Family, Rural Living | Tagged: chickens, children, photos, PostADay2011, spring | 9 Comments »

Eat Those Dandelions

Posted on May 15, 2011 by Seonaid

Tonight we foraged in our yard. At least partly.

The menu this evening was quiche made with dandelion greens, fresh basil that has been growing in a pot in our living room since February, and eggs from our chickens. Thanks are due to one of my friends, who recommended blanching the leaves. Last time I tried this, they were so bitter I couldn’t eat them. The keys to dandelion greens are:

Gather your greens from a location that isn’t sprayed.
Pick the smallest leaves, preferably from plants that doesn’t have flowers yet.
Wash them really well.
Blanch before stirfrying or adding to any recipe that you would make with spinach or other bitter greens.
You might want to taste them first, as my husband just looked over my shoulder and said, “I still thought that they were too bitter.” Taste being what it is.

We also had a pot of dandelion coffee with our meal. (The link goes to the directions we followed to turn a weed into a coffee substitute.)

We also had the last rhubarb out of the freezer for dessert, just in time for replenishing. Spring is a’comin. I even was so brave as to plant pepper seeds in the coldframe this afternoon and weed around the (wee baby) asparagus shoots. I may have eaten one of them directly off the plant. Shhh… don’t tell my family.

In about two weeks, the dandelions will have completely taken over the front yard, so it’s a good thing that we have learned how to turn them into a food source. As it happens, they are also the most important early food source for the bees. We have attempted to make wine from them, but we haven’t had success in recent years, largely due to neglect of the wine-making. I’m hoping that someday, when my bees become plentiful and productive, and I’m making honey wine, I’ll be able to try the dandelion wine again.

And in the meantime, a song about dandelions! (I *think* it always plays the Dandelion song when the page loads. Otherwise, you can pick it from the dropdown list on the left side. Also, she’s on tour right now, check the listings!)

Filed under: Day-to-Day, Rural Living | Tagged: food, garden, PostADay2011, spring | 5 Comments »

Weekly Photo Challenge: Ocean

Posted on March 26, 2011 by Seonaid

Oooh! Ocean! I have one of those! (You know, the same way that one can have a sky, or a constellation, which is that I can look at one with a reasonable expenditure of energy)

Our ocean is moody and cold:

There is honesty in naming in action, at the Polar Bear Beach. I didn’t get a better shot because it was too windy and cold to go down the cliff face to the beach:

In the distance, we can see the highlands on a clear day… covered with snow for at least a few more weeks of “spring”

Closer to home, we see the result of a winter of spray up the side of the cliff:

And on the off chance that you didn’t believe that this harbour is REALLY the ocean, I turned to the right and saw:

Filed under: Day-to-Day, Rural Living | Tagged: cape breton, ocean, photo, PostADay2011, spring | 3 Comments »

Weekly Photo Challenge: Spring Cleaning

Posted on March 20, 2011 by Seonaid

It is the time of the year when young beekeepers minds turn to thoughts of honey. Not harvesting honey, not honey for people, but… whether there is going to be enough honey left in the hive to keep the bees alive until the flowers are in bloom. It is a great sadness to get the hive through the winter only to lose it to a late spring.

So we take precautionary measures, and we feed! This is a sugar syrup made in a volume ratio of 2 sugar:1 water. I heat it on the stove over a low heat until the sugar all melts and I am left with a nice solution:

It's that colour because it is (fair trade) organic sugar cane. Nothing but the best for my girls.

The first time I did this, the holes in the lid were too large and the syrup just ran out when I inverted it. This is what they look like now that I have some practice:

Very sophisticated technology. Wood screws make the best holes. Nail holes are always too big to keep the syrup from pouring.

Unfortunately, one of my two hives petered out somewhere near the end of the fall. I had done a 50/50 split and the new colony either didn’t raise a queen, or something happened to her. Anyway, I don’t consider this a winter loss; I’m pretty sure that it was a failure last season. It was late in the year and cold, so I didn’t disassemble it at the time. That made it another task for today.

First, I was very excited to see such beautiful, yellow drawn comb:

Isn't it pretty?

As I made my way down through the hive, though, I discovered that a fair amount had (unsurprisingly) gone moldy through the winter:

Not so pretty

So everything is getting a good airing while I come and ask the internet what I should do with moldy comb. (Edit: I found an answer and a spectacularly good website about bees over here.)