Goodness, where have I been the past two weeks? Well, that is in part due to the dreaded stomach flu that my children had and in part due to the fact that my camera USB cord bit the dust. What’s a blog post without photographs? Not too interesting in my opinion, despite the fact that one of my favorite blogs has never posted a picture. However the new cable is here and my spring growth photos are ready for sharing!

: :  This week marks FIVE years of blogging for this Sonoma garden. Amazing that so much time has passed. I’m going to celebrate, so stay tuned!

: :  I cracked open the hives for the first time since late October and I had expected to find little honey and lots of brood in the top box. I was surprised to find full top boxes full of new honey! I didn’t feel it was warm enough to break apart the hive down to the brood boxes quite yet. So I took some frames of honey and moved them up into a new box on top to entice them up. Beekeeping is such a fascinating hobby, as you don’t just learn about bees, but so much more about the local ecology, such as what is blooming at the moment. Thank you eucalyptus, willow, bay, manzanita, mustard and wild radish for that new honey & pollen!

: :  We got brave and planted a whole slew of new seedlings about three weeks ago. Lettuce, radishes, chinese mustard, broccoli rabe, cabbage and the such. Last year when we did such a thing our seedlings got eaten to the ground. We suspected birds or maybe pill bugs. Maybe flea beetles, we didn’t know who was to blame. So this year we covered a section with row cover. They too got nibbled on. The culprits? Pill bugs! They got my pepper box poppy seedlings too, the buggers!

: : Have you seen Floret Flower Farm’s new blog project? She’s pairing with another flower farmer/florist on the opposite side of the country to post an arrangement each week. Sort of reminds me of the old 3191 Evening/Morning posts, remember those? Anyway, to die for creations! We have so many flowers growing here, but arranging is certainly not my gift, not like these ladies.

: : I have been scheming of how I can get myself to the Taproot Gathering next autumn in New Hampshire. One of my closest friends of 20 years just moved to New Hampshire. I have to make this happen, but how?

: : My friend and neighbor, just took a workshop from from Tumbleweed Tiny Houses and had me over for tea to talk about it and show me the books she got. And now I have tiny houses on the brain. Which is ridiculous because our family of five just moved out of a relatively tiny house and I’m quite enjoying stretching our legs out in this larger house. But wouldn’t they be fun to build? What a great little retreat or guest cabin. Then the idea of building led me back to Riana’s photostream, which I’ve been following for years. And now I have plastering and milk paint making on the brain. Which of course led me to straw bale building, which is what Scott and I really want to do some day. In the meanwhile, let’s all encourage Michelle to build a tiny house!