Water, water, boil and trouble

Pond water. This is what we’re drinking. Guppies not included.

Are they celebrating my bread?

I will admit to doing a little happy dance over how well this crusty chewy yummy loaf of bread came out. But why am I hearing fireworks? Is that real? The weird thing is this is not the first time I’ve heard mystery fireworks this week. But fireworks again? Really?

Re: The Leafsmith in Love

One of the great things about attending writing workshops is they give you hope. When you meet other writers, the hope feeds off each other. As you help each other write better, the hope grows stronger. When you meet other alumnae, the hope bubbles like crazy. And one of the ways the hope pays off […]

Simple wheat bread

Now that I’ve settled into a couple of bread routines that work for me, I’m starting to do variations. Like this wheat bread. Nothing to it.

Mining for miner bees

When I was digging up some of the swallow-wort yesterday, I got an unexpectedly close-up look at one of the little brown bees I’ve seen darting around down on the ground and up in the fruit trees. Plus this was near an area of ground that stays bare and hard, and in the summer I […]

Weed patrol: Black Swallow-wort again

These are weeds. Evil, evil weeds. Black-hearted Black Swallow-wort. Working their way up to becoming the army again of last year.

Unweeds: Violets

Not all uninvited plants are weeds in my yard; some are welcome guests. The violets that pop up on every patch of cool bare earth make a lovely groundcover. They flower well into summer. They only grow a few inches tall. (No way do I ever mow.) And if I want to claim the space […]

Weed patrol: Trees?

For all the griping I do about the evil swallowort, right now all the maple shoots seem almost as bad. Those things pop up everywhere, every year. No matter how many you pull, the next thing you know, the shoots you missed are turning into seedlings, the seedlings you missed are turning into saplings, and […]

Feasting bees

I’m not all that fond of the grape hyacinth. The color is nice, but plant one and the next thing you know, you have thousands. Not only do they flop over at the end of spring, but resprout in the fall with more messy leaves that flop over. On the plus side, the blue seas […]

Apples tame and wild

This wild fruit tree is getting into the flowering act, too. The flowering and handful of fruits this little tree produced last year is part of why I ordered two domestic apples last fall.