Sick and Salads

No, not sick of salads! The recent sunny days interspersed with rainfall have made the lettuce do what it does about this time every year -- bounce into glorious, ruffle-headed life. If it weren't so sandy-muddy from the rain and the shovel-wielding children, I'd eat it standing in the garden. Maybe. . . mulch next year? anything to keep the splashy sand out of the inside of my beloved Tom Thumb headlets. I had to toss the Tom Thumb from my book club salad because I just couldn't get it clean:


So I wash carefully and have a salad for lunch, but often not one for dinner because I'm wiped out, because I'm not sleeping because sick children still wake their parents up at night even when they're getting to be big little kids.


He looks to me as though I've set him out for recycling. A lot of today was spent asleep, and he seems to still need it. I have my fingers crossed that there are no sore ears or throats tonight, and I will make enough salad for two meals tomorrow.

Handsful of help

Remember last summer, when the soil was not holding water for anything? And wasn't it funny when I didn't have an irrigation system and pretty flabby soil?

Well, what a difference a few months, a few loads of horse manure, and a whole lot of imported soil can make.


They were so big they looked like snakes in her hand.

All tucked in, they filled up her hands.

And when set free, they almost ran away. Each worm, at one point, was as thick as my little finger. They left visible tunnels when they pulled themselves into the newly-turned bed. Between these guys and the other work on the soil, at least this bed is going to become more fertile.

And I'm going to have Tat Soi seeds if the weather holds -- the rain had me wondering if the bees were going to get out there to pollinate.

First snow pea blossoms. If I had found my seeds today, the bare spots in the garden would be filled. Without them, we'll still get peas, and maybe even enough to have "extra" rather than eating them all at once.

Am I the only one hearing spring murmuring around the corner?

Making do

I'm not done with even one of the three baby sweaters that I need to do pretty much right now, if they're going to get here before the babies' arrivals. Maybe I need to let go of (in two cases) finding The Perfect Baby Sweater and realizing that "finished" trumps "ideal and still unrealized" almost every time!

That attitude helped me get out and run today. Raining -- again, and I wasn't feeling overly motivated, but it just doesn't matter. Since I'm not running for time, except in the "more time to live" sense, I can just call it discipline practice, and it counts.

That whole idea of discipline is relatively new to me -- I didn't get it, really get it, until I started having children. Along with some other shifts (hey, I do need some time alone or I go crazy! Who knew?), I began to deeply appreciate the beauty of just doing the work at hand, just showing up over and over and over. So in my world, that ends up looking like running in the rain. Even though I claim to be capable of regular exercise without concomitant increase in fitness, it's not true. Three miles wasn't terrible today. So. Something works sometimes.

I felt a little tight when I got home, so some yoga poses seemed called for. There's only one problem in my house:


Fred thinks that anyone on a yoga mat needs repeated "bonks" from his very hard (and possibly empty) head. Nothing quite as relaxing as easing into a deep Down Dog, hanging your head there, eyes closed, focusing on breathing, when "Bonk!" right against my forehead, my elbows, my legs. Between him and Caterina doing yoga under me, well, it was enough just to show up.

Bees and tomatoes and beauty

Before the weather remembered that it was February, I did get over to my friend's beehive. She's been very patient with me, but would like to actually get some honey from her hive. If this hive doesn't step up, I may be reduced to sneaking filled frames over there to "find!"

One picture first -- this is how you can tell that a hive has been robbed of honey.See how the edges of the cells are rough, as though some little mandibles have nibbled the cappings away?


That was from one of my hives, the "dead" one.

In front of my friend's hive, there were a couple of drones dead -- I couldn't tell if there was anything disease-wise wrong with them, but they didn't look right. Perhaps they'd been preemptively pulled due to Varroa mites.


Inside, the hive looked relatively quiet:


I found some really wonky comb, and cut it off, but then saw that most of it looked pretty good. This is comb that was tied in (you can see the remains of the rubber bands in the picture above) from the top-bar hive last summer. Flat caps are worker brood, raised ones are drone brood:


There was enough brood to make me think the queen is doing well. I would have liked to reverse the hive bodies, but right about then I felt what I was pretty sure was a bee in my bra. That's a phrase I've never really wanted to use! Anyhow, that took the starch all out of me, and all I wanted was to get inside and disrobe.

So we put a honey super on, and I'll go back another day and switch the lower boxes. After it warms up, that is.

(And yes, it was a bee, but she didn't sting me before I managed to get her out of me. I was very very pleased by that.)

Tomatoes in February?


A front-yard volunteer has decided that it's time to bloom. I hope the weather holds. It's going to be fun to find out what variety is lurking under the lime tree. (Cue horror movie music.)


Lastly, while I'm all about the edible (I sort of get pretty gardening, but not enough to want to do it), I don't think a garden is enough without flowers. These happen to be edible Johnny Jump-ups, but I'm still excited about them.


It's going to be a pretty spring.

Change of the guard

Last year, I grew Japanese Indigo in my garden, and did some dyeing experiments with it on Sheep Shed Studio mill ends.

The first filled bobbins are now all plyed -- 295 yards of about sport weight three ply:


The lighter side is probably truest to color; it's cloudy today.

Because I am not the kind of person for whom details work out, one bobbin finished before the other two. And they looked so even! Anyhow, once I wind those two off to make another one again, I'll finish plying and end up with a bit over 300 yards. I spun this as worsted as I can, and it's crisp -- no bounce, lots of shine. It should make something nice and intricate. Now, if I can only think of an appropriate pattern. Maybe Koolhaas? But who needs another hat?

The really exciting part about finishing this yarn is getting to switch from my Lendrum's stock slider option to the Woolee Winder that Eric gifted me for Christmas. I can't wait to just spin without stopping. And it fulfills my weird flat filled bobbin mania. There's some orange fiber with my name on it upstairs. . .

Running around

After my injury hiatus followed by enthusiastic holiday reading, training starting at the beginning seemed like a good idea. Now I'm at the end of the beginner 5k training, and doing okay. I'm not setting any land speed records, but since the real prize I'm heading for is "middle aged discipline," I'm doing great.

Next, speed work! Sprint until you want to throw up! So. Much. Fun.

Something else that came from discipline (and redoing until it was right)? That's right!! The ribbed sweater is done, done, done.


I got to indulge in Extreme Blocking (which should so seriously be a spectator sport). The teeny tube of ribbing that was this:


Had a date with some water, soap, and pins:


And opened up to fit quite well:


It's an "Action Sweater" (apologies to Mr. Izzard) -- I can run the obstacle course that's the yard:


I like how curvy it looks from the back. All in all, I'm really satisfied.

Chitting and Kitty

It's about time to put potatoes in the ground here, once I figure which bed should be potato ground zero. Sitting in a nice sunny windowsill ought to make them sprout up nicely. Of course, potatoes aren't the only thing that likes to bask in the sun.


Caterina and I even lay on the ground in this sun puddle for about 20 minutes today - a rare island of peace and stillness. I've got some way to go before I'm up to housecat level, though.