Monthly Archives: April 2007

Well, didn’t that weekend make you feel good?  Sunny and warm.  Makes you feel like spring might actually be here for good, huh?  We had to decide early on whether to cancel the Herb Fest, and we cancelled the vendors.  Then the weather changed, so we reinstated the event, without the vendors, and without the hot dogs.  We hope those of you who did come were not disappointed.  We had lots of herbs for sale, and tastings of the herbal dips and other specialty foods.  Good feedback over all.

We had our first cookout of the season this evening.  We made a marinade with our own home-grown garlic to brush on portobello mushrooms.  You just can’t beat the flavor of home-grown herbs and vegetables.  Much better than store-bought.

Written by Lynn on the slope of Teasel Hill, where the temperature is still in the 70′s and Spring feels like it is here to stay.

It’s 35 degrees outside and here I am worrying about honey bees.  It seems there is a strange phenomenon happening called “Colony Collapse Disorder.”  When bee keepers inspect the hive, they may find that the honey bee colony has only a few bees remaining, the queen and a few others, but the worker bees that carry the nectar to the hive are missing.  Not lying outside the hive dead, but just missing.

You may say, “Why should I care?  That means less bees to sting me and my children.” That is true.  Also less bees to pollinate your flowers.  And less bees to pollinate the fruit trees, vegetables, and other food crops that you rely on to feed your family.  Less pollination means less yield, and less yield means, you guessed it, higher prices for food. 

Commercial bee keepers raise their bees for the sale of honey, as you know, but also to rent the hives to commercial farmers for pollination of crops.  As colonies die off, it means less income for the bee keeper, as well as less pollination for the farmers.  This may well be the agricultural crisis for 2007 and beyond.

Washington has become aware of the problem finally, and hearings are taking place to determine what, if anything, can be done to discover the cause and hopefully the solution to this potentially devastating problem.  I’ll tell you more as I learn about it.

Written by Lynn on the slope of Teasel Hill where it is still 35 degrees and no end in sight.

I’m looking at the weather forecast, and seeing snow (there is a reason “snow” is a 4-letter word, you know.)  And Sunday is the middle of April, for Heaven’s sake!  The taste of Spring we had a couple of weeks ago was a nasty tease.  After we got to thinking that Spring might actually be around the corner, Winter said, “Oh, yeah?  Says who?”

Written by Lynn on the slope of Teasel Hill where the weather is cold, and Spring is playing hide-and-seek with us.

The tulips, daffodils and hyacinths in my yard are frozen solid.  Just last Friday we had our first cook out on the patio, and the grand-boys were complaining about it being too hot!  I could have filled vase after vase with daffodils, but I chose to leave them in the perennial beds because they were so pretty and cheerful.  Not so cheerful now– down right sad, if you ask me. 

Written by Lynn on the slope of Teasel Hill where the gardens are frozen and the temperature is 20 degrees. 

The folks who are supposed to know, tell us that the weather is about to turn from the 70′s today to the 20′s on Thursday.  That means that the wind will have to blow in a cold front tomorrow that will really get our attention.  And some trees and shrubs are flushed out with new growth, and some are blooming.  This won’t be good.  Let’s hope the weather folks are wrong this time, huh?

Many of our trees and shrubs have arrived, and some of our perennials.  Onion sets and plants are in, and the early vegetable transplants (cabbages, lettuce, kohlrabi and such.)  We have some really unusual evergreens this year, trained to look like flowers and clusters of stars.  And we have many landscape sized pom poms and spirals for a formal look.  Stop in and see them!

Written by Lynn on the slope of Teasel Hill where it is still 60 degrees and the air is calm.