This morning, while we were counting chickens (and coming up short), Jordan surprised a fox heading across our driveway into our woods.
So, now we know: it's a fox who has taken our birds. The death toll is four: Sparkle,
Buffy, Squeak, and Copper. Copper was killed in the twenty or so minutes between when Jordan opened the coop this morning and when I woke up at seven am. She was a good layer of green eggs and a personable hen.
As I fell asleep last night, I felt a little sad about the two old ladies, but they were very old, after all. It wasn't until I saw Darkle, Sparkle's sister and lifelong companion, standing off by herself and calling (they make a sound that is very much like, "yoo, hoo!") that the sadness hit me. Poor old Darkle! and then a head count came up short of Squeak and Copper. After that it was a weepy morning.
As it turns out, foxes will often kill more than they need immediately, and store the rest by burying. We probably only found the bodies of two hens because something startled the fox away before s/he could carry them off. This fox has apparently been lying in wait for the coop to open in the morning and the old ladies to start their commute--which, I hasten to point out, they have safely done for at least 4 years.
In the past, we would take the dogs out early in the morning, at the same time we open the coop and feed the chickens; but lately, our doggies are feeling their years and enjoy a little extra snooze in the early morning (and afternoon, and evening). Another reason this fox feels safe marauding our flock.
We've experienced a rash of predation before, usually in the spring, and usually only for a few weeks. It's worse if the weather is very dry. It's baby time: cubs and kits and chicks, and all hungry. Our plan to preserve the rest of the Sweetgum flock is to delay opening the coop until it's good and light out, and the fox has retreated to her den. And of course there are the five new babies I couldn't resist bringing home this year.
We won't, unless things get much worse, try to trap and relocate the fox. It might have pups who wouldn't survive minus a parent. And while I might consider shooting into the air to scare it, we won't be shooting it. The wildlife was here first.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Long Live the Chickens
It's really loud under our tin roof when it rains. Loud enough that it's preventing me from wasting another evening watching tv, which I suppose I appreciate!
Something has started preying on our chickens. The last couple of days, we've lost two of the old ladies, Sparkle, and Buffy. Squeak is also unaccounted for at this point, but she's a wild'un anyway and could be in a tree. The disturbing part is that we're finding their bodies pretty much intact, so whatever is killling them is not eating them.
Sparkle and Buffy were at least 9 years old. I've kind of lost track, to be honest, but I think they were in their third summer in 2004, when a tree took out my doublewide. They hadn't laid eggs in years, and they weren't especially friendly. They were pretty cute, though, all fat and fluffy and set in their ways like old ladies should be (I certainly intend to learn from their example). For the last 4 or 5 year, they spent their days at my neighbor's, waiting for her to fill her bird feeders and taking dust baths under her storage trailer. I'd hoped they would die in their sleep and I feel sad their last moments were frightening.
99.999999% (that is a scientifically proven percentage that I just now made up) of all chickens live less than a year, and the chickens people eat mostly live less than 4 months. So I take some comfort in those old ladies living a free and comfortable life for most of a decade.
We're debating what the predator might be. I'm inclined to think dog, since there was some apparent chasing, and then no eating. Buffy was missing only her head, which though it may be unkind so speak so, was abnormally tiny. Jordan thinks it was a bird, an owl or hawk, who found out too late she couldn't carry a nine pound hen back to her nestlings. Spring is always the worst time for predation. The wild critters all have hungry babies and, well, there's not a predator or even an omnivore under the sun who can pass up a chicken. Wondering whether I should keep the birds in their coop for a couple days. They hate that, but I'd hate to lose Darkle (Sparkle's sister and our last remaining old lady) the same way.
We opened the hive this evening for our weekly inspection. There are a s-ton of bees in there, and they are building a lot of comb. The bar I pulled out (added two weeks ago) was fully drawn with comb and surprisingly heavy with honey. We added just one bar this week, since they hadn't done much work yet on the two we put in last week.
Adios, Sparkle and Buffy. It was good having you around all these years.
Something has started preying on our chickens. The last couple of days, we've lost two of the old ladies, Sparkle, and Buffy. Squeak is also unaccounted for at this point, but she's a wild'un anyway and could be in a tree. The disturbing part is that we're finding their bodies pretty much intact, so whatever is killling them is not eating them.
Sparkle and Buffy were at least 9 years old. I've kind of lost track, to be honest, but I think they were in their third summer in 2004, when a tree took out my doublewide. They hadn't laid eggs in years, and they weren't especially friendly. They were pretty cute, though, all fat and fluffy and set in their ways like old ladies should be (I certainly intend to learn from their example). For the last 4 or 5 year, they spent their days at my neighbor's, waiting for her to fill her bird feeders and taking dust baths under her storage trailer. I'd hoped they would die in their sleep and I feel sad their last moments were frightening.
99.999999% (that is a scientifically proven percentage that I just now made up) of all chickens live less than a year, and the chickens people eat mostly live less than 4 months. So I take some comfort in those old ladies living a free and comfortable life for most of a decade.
We're debating what the predator might be. I'm inclined to think dog, since there was some apparent chasing, and then no eating. Buffy was missing only her head, which though it may be unkind so speak so, was abnormally tiny. Jordan thinks it was a bird, an owl or hawk, who found out too late she couldn't carry a nine pound hen back to her nestlings. Spring is always the worst time for predation. The wild critters all have hungry babies and, well, there's not a predator or even an omnivore under the sun who can pass up a chicken. Wondering whether I should keep the birds in their coop for a couple days. They hate that, but I'd hate to lose Darkle (Sparkle's sister and our last remaining old lady) the same way.
We opened the hive this evening for our weekly inspection. There are a s-ton of bees in there, and they are building a lot of comb. The bar I pulled out (added two weeks ago) was fully drawn with comb and surprisingly heavy with honey. We added just one bar this week, since they hadn't done much work yet on the two we put in last week.
Adios, Sparkle and Buffy. It was good having you around all these years.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
This morning's observations:
I was awake but reading in bed when a thunderous double boom rattled the house. Last time I heard such a noise, some doomed fool took a lit cigarette into an empty tank up at the natural gas refinery, 4 or 5 miles away, thus ushering himself and three others into the next world. No sirens followed this boom, so I'm hopeful that's not what happened this time.
I poked my head outside just to see if I could hear or see anything further, but heard nothing but crickets--literally. The natural noises soon resumed, though, and I carried my coffee out to the chair for my morning commune with nature (it's getting addictive).
Two ruby throated hummingbirds, a pair!
Cardinals galore
Red-bellied woodpecker
Off in the field, a turkey gobbler.
Beedicca is bustling today, very curious about me in the chair, and the new waterer I set up, and the relocated hummingbird feeder. I moved the feeder a bit away from the hive to see what would happen. The bees found it quickly, but seem a little less possessive, so the hummers were able to get some nice deep drinks.
Watching the light change as it comes through the leaves, hearing the myriad bird calls, the crickets, the hens singing their egg song; watching Binky turn his vigilant orange eyes to the treetops, calling out a cautionary"Scree!" when he spots a hawk (prompting all nearby hens to bolt into the underbrush and lie flat--they're survivors, these girls)...it's enough to make your soul dissolve into bliss.
Which brings me to a thought I've been having: chickens and bees have a lot in common. Both have partnered with humans for thousands of years, and we've all reaped both great rewards and terrible affliction from the association. Think, a snug coop and daily food in exchange for fresh eggs--benefit! and then think of a factory farm prison: the poor short-lived, tortured, genetically crippled birds ending up in fast food fryers--an arrangement that does enormous harm and no one good. Likewise with bees, who have long thrived in partnership with humans, exchanging a snug home, protection, and care for their surplus honey, wax, and medicinal royal jelly, but who are now, because of human activity, on the edge of catastrophic collapse--and they just might take us with them.
In my mind it all comes down to scale. Once the scale goes beyond the personal, that is to say, what one household can well and truly care for, things get screwed up. I'm sure I don't need to rant about factory farms to either of the two people who read my blog (*wink*), so instead I'm going to wax poetic about why I love living with chickens, and now, bees.
First of all, both bees and chickens pretty much know what to do with themselves. We build them an house, fend off possums and raccoons--enlisting the help of yet another species, the dog--and make sure they have food when they need it; and then we turn them loose. They know what to do and where they live, and they reside with us of their own volition (or not, as in the case of Darkle, who moved in with my neighbor when we had some young roosters around. She couldn't be having with that, at her age). The flock--or pride, as I like to call them--ranges as far as 2 or 3 acres away, although when there's a person around, they are more likely to stay close to home (people frequently toss food).
Second, they feed us. They forage forest, pasture, and swamp, eating things we never would: bugs, frogs, lizard tails, dead moles, cow flops, rotting fruit...) and every day (almost), deliver us a perfect, delicious package of nutrition, the egg. It's magic.
Bees are much the same. We set them up in a nice house, support them when they need it, and they comb the forest, gathering tiny pollen grains and infinitesimal mouthfuls of nectar, and bring it all back home to make honey, quarts and gallons of sweet, lovely honey. Both bees and chickens are kind enough to make more than they need, and we humans get the honor of collecting the surplus. And it is an honor, is it not? A symbiotic exchange of trust and sustenance?
If you forget it's an honor and start thinking of it as your due...down that road lies all the bad decisions that lead to factory farms, with all their brutish cruelty and devastating pollution, and large scale apiculture: carting your bees all over hell and gone to pollinate crops, exhausting your hives by taking too much honey, then destroying them at the end of the season because it's too expensive to feed them all winter.
Instead of breeding chickens and bees to be smart, tough survivors, we've bred them into idiotic food machines: to paraphrase the Gunslinger, we've forgotten the face of our Mother. Even if you live in a city, even if you only have an apartment, even if you work too much, even if you don't have any money: you can live sweetly with the natural world and the creatures, like chickens and bees, who have come so far with us.
Third, even if they didn't feed us, they are fascinating to watch. A pride of chickens is an intricate social structure, with factions, generations, alliances, and territories; they're chatty, and have a pretty big vocabulary. I understand a few words of chicken: 'here's something good to eat'; 'get out of my face'; 'that's not your egg'; 'I just laid the biggest egg'; 'she just laid the biggest egg'; 'are you going to feed me?' 'where are you?' 'snake!' 'hawk!' 'owl!' and 'unidentified disturbing thing!' I haven't lived with the bees so long, so I'm just getting to know them, but already I can tell there's a lot to learn. Like, are some bees in charge of pollen, and some assigned to nectar, or do they glean one particular plant at a time?
Enough for now. Time for an omelet.
I was awake but reading in bed when a thunderous double boom rattled the house. Last time I heard such a noise, some doomed fool took a lit cigarette into an empty tank up at the natural gas refinery, 4 or 5 miles away, thus ushering himself and three others into the next world. No sirens followed this boom, so I'm hopeful that's not what happened this time.
I poked my head outside just to see if I could hear or see anything further, but heard nothing but crickets--literally. The natural noises soon resumed, though, and I carried my coffee out to the chair for my morning commune with nature (it's getting addictive).
Two ruby throated hummingbirds, a pair!
Cardinals galore
Red-bellied woodpecker
Off in the field, a turkey gobbler.
Beedicca is bustling today, very curious about me in the chair, and the new waterer I set up, and the relocated hummingbird feeder. I moved the feeder a bit away from the hive to see what would happen. The bees found it quickly, but seem a little less possessive, so the hummers were able to get some nice deep drinks.
Watching the light change as it comes through the leaves, hearing the myriad bird calls, the crickets, the hens singing their egg song; watching Binky turn his vigilant orange eyes to the treetops, calling out a cautionary"Scree!" when he spots a hawk (prompting all nearby hens to bolt into the underbrush and lie flat--they're survivors, these girls)...it's enough to make your soul dissolve into bliss.
Which brings me to a thought I've been having: chickens and bees have a lot in common. Both have partnered with humans for thousands of years, and we've all reaped both great rewards and terrible affliction from the association. Think, a snug coop and daily food in exchange for fresh eggs--benefit! and then think of a factory farm prison: the poor short-lived, tortured, genetically crippled birds ending up in fast food fryers--an arrangement that does enormous harm and no one good. Likewise with bees, who have long thrived in partnership with humans, exchanging a snug home, protection, and care for their surplus honey, wax, and medicinal royal jelly, but who are now, because of human activity, on the edge of catastrophic collapse--and they just might take us with them.
In my mind it all comes down to scale. Once the scale goes beyond the personal, that is to say, what one household can well and truly care for, things get screwed up. I'm sure I don't need to rant about factory farms to either of the two people who read my blog (*wink*), so instead I'm going to wax poetic about why I love living with chickens, and now, bees.
First of all, both bees and chickens pretty much know what to do with themselves. We build them an house, fend off possums and raccoons--enlisting the help of yet another species, the dog--and make sure they have food when they need it; and then we turn them loose. They know what to do and where they live, and they reside with us of their own volition (or not, as in the case of Darkle, who moved in with my neighbor when we had some young roosters around. She couldn't be having with that, at her age). The flock--or pride, as I like to call them--ranges as far as 2 or 3 acres away, although when there's a person around, they are more likely to stay close to home (people frequently toss food).
Second, they feed us. They forage forest, pasture, and swamp, eating things we never would: bugs, frogs, lizard tails, dead moles, cow flops, rotting fruit...) and every day (almost), deliver us a perfect, delicious package of nutrition, the egg. It's magic.
Bees are much the same. We set them up in a nice house, support them when they need it, and they comb the forest, gathering tiny pollen grains and infinitesimal mouthfuls of nectar, and bring it all back home to make honey, quarts and gallons of sweet, lovely honey. Both bees and chickens are kind enough to make more than they need, and we humans get the honor of collecting the surplus. And it is an honor, is it not? A symbiotic exchange of trust and sustenance?
If you forget it's an honor and start thinking of it as your due...down that road lies all the bad decisions that lead to factory farms, with all their brutish cruelty and devastating pollution, and large scale apiculture: carting your bees all over hell and gone to pollinate crops, exhausting your hives by taking too much honey, then destroying them at the end of the season because it's too expensive to feed them all winter.
Instead of breeding chickens and bees to be smart, tough survivors, we've bred them into idiotic food machines: to paraphrase the Gunslinger, we've forgotten the face of our Mother. Even if you live in a city, even if you only have an apartment, even if you work too much, even if you don't have any money: you can live sweetly with the natural world and the creatures, like chickens and bees, who have come so far with us.
Third, even if they didn't feed us, they are fascinating to watch. A pride of chickens is an intricate social structure, with factions, generations, alliances, and territories; they're chatty, and have a pretty big vocabulary. I understand a few words of chicken: 'here's something good to eat'; 'get out of my face'; 'that's not your egg'; 'I just laid the biggest egg'; 'she just laid the biggest egg'; 'are you going to feed me?' 'where are you?' 'snake!' 'hawk!' 'owl!' and 'unidentified disturbing thing!' I haven't lived with the bees so long, so I'm just getting to know them, but already I can tell there's a lot to learn. Like, are some bees in charge of pollen, and some assigned to nectar, or do they glean one particular plant at a time?
Enough for now. Time for an omelet.
Monday, April 19, 2010
The last couple mornings, I've woken up early enough to have a little time to spare so I've been drinking my coffee in the observation chair. Yesterday, the hive was so quiet first thing in the morning I got a little shivery, realizing what a potentially bad thing silent hive would be.
I pressed my ear to the side--literally--and reassuringly, heard them humming along. Then I spent several minutes intently watching a bee drink water, from very close up, which why I jumped a foot when the hummingbird chose that moment to kimakaze my head. Vroom!
Yesterday we opened the hive for our neighbor, who is really interested in getting some bees for herself. Originally we had thought we might put our hive in her pasture, where our shared garden is, and where the bees would be in full sun. But when Neil surprised us with an early bee delivery and we were rushing around to set up the hive, we decided we really wanted them close to the house where we could get to know them. I think K. was a little disappointed; she loves bees, says she always has. I still think her place would be an excellent spot for a hive, so maybe if Beedicca grows enough to split we'll set up a new box over there.
It hasn't quite been a week since we last visited, but the new bars already had comb, and the bees seem just incredibly numerous--every bar we pull up is jam packed with bees. We added two more bars. Watching the workers fly in and out today, I observed many of them coming back so laden with pollen they seemed to arrive home exhausted. They would scrabble for a foothold on the side below the door, and sometimes slip and fall to the ground, where they would rest a minute or two until they recovered enough to fly back up into the door. It has me thinking they might appreciate a little more textured surface on the hive near the door, or even a landing strip--Neil's assertions about anthropomorphizing aside.
I'm thinking of making a couple minor design changes to the hive, like some sort of landing strip, and adding some structure to the roof so we can anchor it good and solid in case of a bad storm. What to do with your hive if a hurricane threatens? Something to think about!
There is a bumper crop of dewberry blossoms this year, the star jasmine is starting to bloom, and the neighborhood citrus trees fill the air with that sweetest of scents. Probably a good time to be a bee.
I pressed my ear to the side--literally--and reassuringly, heard them humming along. Then I spent several minutes intently watching a bee drink water, from very close up, which why I jumped a foot when the hummingbird chose that moment to kimakaze my head. Vroom!
Yesterday we opened the hive for our neighbor, who is really interested in getting some bees for herself. Originally we had thought we might put our hive in her pasture, where our shared garden is, and where the bees would be in full sun. But when Neil surprised us with an early bee delivery and we were rushing around to set up the hive, we decided we really wanted them close to the house where we could get to know them. I think K. was a little disappointed; she loves bees, says she always has. I still think her place would be an excellent spot for a hive, so maybe if Beedicca grows enough to split we'll set up a new box over there.
It hasn't quite been a week since we last visited, but the new bars already had comb, and the bees seem just incredibly numerous--every bar we pull up is jam packed with bees. We added two more bars. Watching the workers fly in and out today, I observed many of them coming back so laden with pollen they seemed to arrive home exhausted. They would scrabble for a foothold on the side below the door, and sometimes slip and fall to the ground, where they would rest a minute or two until they recovered enough to fly back up into the door. It has me thinking they might appreciate a little more textured surface on the hive near the door, or even a landing strip--Neil's assertions about anthropomorphizing aside.
I'm thinking of making a couple minor design changes to the hive, like some sort of landing strip, and adding some structure to the roof so we can anchor it good and solid in case of a bad storm. What to do with your hive if a hurricane threatens? Something to think about!
There is a bumper crop of dewberry blossoms this year, the star jasmine is starting to bloom, and the neighborhood citrus trees fill the air with that sweetest of scents. Probably a good time to be a bee.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
So this is what "slow food" means.
It 's been about a week since we last peeped into the hive, so we opened it again this evening. I suited up in my long sleeve shirt and tucked my pants into socks, but Jordan went in a la t-shirt. I think he's taking some pride in his family heritage--apparently, his grandfather kept bees for decades, something he never knew until the subject came up when we got our hive.
I forgot to buy a fresh smudge stick today, so we dug into our box of majick supplies and found some sprigs of white sage and a charcoal tablet for burning incense. You know, these things make so little smoke I don't know why we even bother. Jordan futzed around with getting that old bit of charcoal to light while I got dressed. Honestly, I'm not that scared of getting stung. It's just that after having bees fly all the way up my pants leg, I'm afraid of getting stung there. Can you blame me? (my beloved has already asserted there are some body parts he will not suck venom out of...)
There comes a point almost every time we're about to do some beekeeping that I start getting excited. Sometimes I'm still on work time, bustling, hectic, and the bees are just so cool, i can't wait to--and I get right to the verge of saying to Jordan, hurry up, it's getting dark, or c'mon, stop fucking with that---and then I realize. I'm rushing with that hectic no-time-to-lose energy out to the hive, where it can only bring doom and destruction, and that Jordan is doing the right thing: moving with deliberate slowness, bringing his breath to the center, grounding.
Then, I slow down. I remember to breathe, open my mind to the forest around us, and once I can feel the air moving, smell the fresh leaves, hear the birds, I say, "Hello bees." And this is one of my favorite things the bees are teaching me: slow down.
This time we found lots and lots of brood cells and fat grubs, and the bees had already built significant comb on the two new bars. If you want to see what a top bar honeycomb looks like, check out the Barefoot Beekeeping link (sorry, we are still camera-challenged). We added two more bars and spent a little time cleaning out debris a house wren carted in when she decided the hive looked like a great nesting spot. Bad idea, wren! Even if the bees turned out not to mind, we'd still need to open the hive from time to time, disturbing her. It made me want to set up some bird houses, though, just like watching a hummingbird navigate getting a drink of syrup without upsetting the bees makes me want to set up some hummer stations.
I've cut back offering sugar water every day, alternating syrup plain water in the feeder, since it hasn't rained much the last couple of weeks. They're only taking maybe a pint of syrup a day, even when it is out there, so I think the timing is right to wean them. They seem to appreciate having the water close by: there are always a handful of workers on water duty.
On a different note, writing the Pollen post yesterday made me realize something. I don't talk to my friends and family much about herbs and nutritional healing, because that's what I do all day and I don't want the store to essentially become my whole life. It's not like it's my store...I'm not a doctor, I just play one at work.
But that means even though I spend all day counseling people about their health issues, I'm not helping the people I love. Which hardly seems right. I don't know what I'll do about it yet, because I still don't want work to become my whole life. For now, I at least want you guys to know I'm here to help if you need it.
I forgot to buy a fresh smudge stick today, so we dug into our box of majick supplies and found some sprigs of white sage and a charcoal tablet for burning incense. You know, these things make so little smoke I don't know why we even bother. Jordan futzed around with getting that old bit of charcoal to light while I got dressed. Honestly, I'm not that scared of getting stung. It's just that after having bees fly all the way up my pants leg, I'm afraid of getting stung there. Can you blame me? (my beloved has already asserted there are some body parts he will not suck venom out of...)
There comes a point almost every time we're about to do some beekeeping that I start getting excited. Sometimes I'm still on work time, bustling, hectic, and the bees are just so cool, i can't wait to--and I get right to the verge of saying to Jordan, hurry up, it's getting dark, or c'mon, stop fucking with that---and then I realize. I'm rushing with that hectic no-time-to-lose energy out to the hive, where it can only bring doom and destruction, and that Jordan is doing the right thing: moving with deliberate slowness, bringing his breath to the center, grounding.
Then, I slow down. I remember to breathe, open my mind to the forest around us, and once I can feel the air moving, smell the fresh leaves, hear the birds, I say, "Hello bees." And this is one of my favorite things the bees are teaching me: slow down.
This time we found lots and lots of brood cells and fat grubs, and the bees had already built significant comb on the two new bars. If you want to see what a top bar honeycomb looks like, check out the Barefoot Beekeeping link (sorry, we are still camera-challenged). We added two more bars and spent a little time cleaning out debris a house wren carted in when she decided the hive looked like a great nesting spot. Bad idea, wren! Even if the bees turned out not to mind, we'd still need to open the hive from time to time, disturbing her. It made me want to set up some bird houses, though, just like watching a hummingbird navigate getting a drink of syrup without upsetting the bees makes me want to set up some hummer stations.
I've cut back offering sugar water every day, alternating syrup plain water in the feeder, since it hasn't rained much the last couple of weeks. They're only taking maybe a pint of syrup a day, even when it is out there, so I think the timing is right to wean them. They seem to appreciate having the water close by: there are always a handful of workers on water duty.
On a different note, writing the Pollen post yesterday made me realize something. I don't talk to my friends and family much about herbs and nutritional healing, because that's what I do all day and I don't want the store to essentially become my whole life. It's not like it's my store...I'm not a doctor, I just play one at work.
But that means even though I spend all day counseling people about their health issues, I'm not helping the people I love. Which hardly seems right. I don't know what I'll do about it yet, because I still don't want work to become my whole life. For now, I at least want you guys to know I'm here to help if you need it.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Pollen
A few years ago I read Jeff Noon's cyberpunk novel, Pollen. There was lot going on in there that I won't get into--but one of the primary premises was that plants had gotten tired of taking human abuse and evolved dangerous pollens designed to take us out. And this spring feels a little like that. Life imitating art.
Although I have learned a great deal about managing my allergies in my life, still this morning I woke up with "rivers of yellow snot" (thanks, Anna). It's because I felt pretty good when I got home yesterday, and didn't neti. Allergies are like horses, they only hurt you if you're careless--no, no; sorry, I won't use that phrase again.
There's a lot of big grained, visible pollen around these days. That icky yellow scum on your car, and your roof, and lawn furniture, and in puddles--and you , if you stand still too long--that's from pines, and although it can cause some issues, most experts seem to think it's the tinier laurel oak and live oak pollen that our systems can't handle. Pollen is a plant's male generative element: yep, plant sperm. It's largely protein, which is why bees collect it. Every plant's pollen grain is a different shape, and color. Sometime, our bodies react to the presence of foreign proteins as if they are deadly: the allergy cascade. It's much the same reason viruses make our nose run, only pollen isn't actually dangerous. With unrelenting exposure, your mast cells make more and more antibodies for that specific pollen, and your symptoms get worse and worse. Over time, your immune system may commit so many resources to the pollen fight it has no time left to take care of that virus that is now embedded in your warm, mucousy, swollen sinuses.
Remove the allergen, and the allergy cascade subsides. Gradually, your body becomes less and less reactive--as well as less prone to infection--as your immune system stops wasting its time on oak pollen and can turn its attention to infectious microbes.
If you look at Gainesville from the air, you won't see many buildings. We live under one of the best tree canopies in the state. Living here, surrounded on every side by a fabulous jungle, there's no escaping pollen. Which is where the neti pot comes in.
Neti is an ayurvedic tradition of nasal irrigation. I'll get into some particulars later; basically, you use a small "teapot" to wash your nasal sinuses with warm salt water. and in seasons like this one, you do it twice a day.
I used the word "gradually" above, and I meant it. If you've been allergic for years, it's going to take time for your body to make some biochemical changes. For me, allergic apparently since birth, it was about two years before I got real sustained relief.
First of all, if you're suffering, take a claritin. It won't kill you. Just don't stop there: with easy natural therapies, you can help your body stop reacting so badly to the environment.
There are a number of herbs that can help you on your path to the land of no allergies. Primary among them are milk thistle and turmeric. Those two, you should take daily, faithfully, for a long time. Six months to a year, if not forever. They work to control inflammation and clear your liver so it can filter irritants and threats like it's supposed to.
Quercetin is a bioflavinoid found in onions that can interrupt the histamine cascade. Always take it with bromelain and vitamin C. Stinging Nettle, contrary to its name, calms allergic attacks.
Don't buy your herbs from CVS or Walmart. Those are the unregulated charlatans the FDA gets all worked up about: their herbs are inappropriately harvested and processed, of dubious origin, even more dubious potency, and may not even be the right species of plant. If you email me privately, I'll recommend some brands (or, visit the store, where I stock the best of what I've found in 16 years). Better yet, visit an herbalist who grows and harvests her own plants.
Take your herbs every day, even if you feel better. This isn't about symptom relief, that's what drugs are for. This is about healing your body, which drugs can't do. This is me on my high horse!
The other leg of this is the nasal irrigation. Personally, I didn't like the syringe style irrigator when I tried it--the water shot up into my forehead sinus, painfully. Neti pots are designed to be gentle and easy to use. You can get brands made in the USA of porcelain that look nice, stay sanitary, and will last you forever; I don't recommend the plastic ones except possibly for traveling. So--choose your neti pot. If you can't afford a neti pot, you can improvise with your cupped hand--just hold one nostril closed and snuffle up salt water with the other! This is low tech, people.
In challenging times, such as tree pollen or ragweed season, or when I encounter a lot of people with colds and flu, I will rinse my nose twice a day: once in the morning, and once when I take my after-work shower. I also use the salt water to wash my eyes and throat, especially after work. In recent years, I've stayed well in the throes of seasonal plagues while all my co-workers fall. This is a lot of progress for someone like me, who who used to end up in the emergency room two or three times a year with allergies that chain-reacted into bronchitis.
You can buy expensive preparations and special salt just for neti pots, but you don't have to. If you presently have an infection, you might get help from one of the herbal rinses with zinc, but salt water on its own is antibacterial, anti inflammatory, and will heal you almost as well. Salt for your neti pot should be JUST SALT. Not iodized, no excipients, no silica, etc. I use fine ground sea salt mixed in equal parts with baking soda (with a reluctant nod to Dr. Oz: using straight salt dried my nose out too much and resulted in occasional nosebleeds; adding baking soda to the mixture solved that problem). I use 1/2 teaspoon per pint of warm water. The rinse water should taste pleasantly salty, not harsh, and the water should be warm, not hot or cold.
Many of us have terrible memories of being forced to gargle very salty water as children, and choking horribly. That stops a lot of people from trying a neti pot. When you mix your solution, you are thinking, pleasant. Pleasantly warm, pleasantly salty, like the ocean on a particularly lovely day. If you can swim without breathing water, you can use a neti pot. If you doubt me, try holding some water in your mouth without swallowing. Easy, right? There ya go.
The intention is to allow water to flow gently into one nostril, through your sinuses, and out the other nostril, carrying with it all the dust, pollen, mold, mildew, yeasts, pollutants, and germs your poor nose has encountered that day. You turn your head forward and to the side, to let gravity gently do its job. If all goes well, the water will emerge in a nice full stream from your lower nostril. But, especially at first, things rarely go that well.
At first, you may only get salt water into your nostril, and no further. Be patient. Try again later. At least you have washed a little bit of your breathing equipment. As you begin to clear, you may get water to flow into your nostril and down the back of your throat. That can be startling, but just close your throat like a dolphin and spit out the water. Be patient. It can take a while to get the knack, and even longer for your inflamed and clogged nose to open. Stay consistent, keep trying, and little by little it will get easier and better. For me, it was more than a year. For the first six months I just kept going on faith: if this is a thousand year old tradition, it's going to have to work sometime!
Pour half the neti solution through one nostril, then blow gently (think dolphin), and go on to rinse the other side. Don't blow hard, or you may drive bad things higher into your sinus cavities. After you neti, stay upright for at least one hour to let the water fully drain so gravity doesn't pull it into your ears. Keep a hankie handy: when this process starts to work, the drainage can be impressive.
There you have it: my diatribe on neti pots. I hate to hear about friends and family suffering allergies, so this is my offering to you. You can get better.
Now that you have your awesomely clean nose, go outside and use it to filter the beautiful air. Breathe!
Although I have learned a great deal about managing my allergies in my life, still this morning I woke up with "rivers of yellow snot" (thanks, Anna). It's because I felt pretty good when I got home yesterday, and didn't neti. Allergies are like horses, they only hurt you if you're careless--no, no; sorry, I won't use that phrase again.
There's a lot of big grained, visible pollen around these days. That icky yellow scum on your car, and your roof, and lawn furniture, and in puddles--and you , if you stand still too long--that's from pines, and although it can cause some issues, most experts seem to think it's the tinier laurel oak and live oak pollen that our systems can't handle. Pollen is a plant's male generative element: yep, plant sperm. It's largely protein, which is why bees collect it. Every plant's pollen grain is a different shape, and color. Sometime, our bodies react to the presence of foreign proteins as if they are deadly: the allergy cascade. It's much the same reason viruses make our nose run, only pollen isn't actually dangerous. With unrelenting exposure, your mast cells make more and more antibodies for that specific pollen, and your symptoms get worse and worse. Over time, your immune system may commit so many resources to the pollen fight it has no time left to take care of that virus that is now embedded in your warm, mucousy, swollen sinuses.
Remove the allergen, and the allergy cascade subsides. Gradually, your body becomes less and less reactive--as well as less prone to infection--as your immune system stops wasting its time on oak pollen and can turn its attention to infectious microbes.
If you look at Gainesville from the air, you won't see many buildings. We live under one of the best tree canopies in the state. Living here, surrounded on every side by a fabulous jungle, there's no escaping pollen. Which is where the neti pot comes in.
Neti is an ayurvedic tradition of nasal irrigation. I'll get into some particulars later; basically, you use a small "teapot" to wash your nasal sinuses with warm salt water. and in seasons like this one, you do it twice a day.
I used the word "gradually" above, and I meant it. If you've been allergic for years, it's going to take time for your body to make some biochemical changes. For me, allergic apparently since birth, it was about two years before I got real sustained relief.
First of all, if you're suffering, take a claritin. It won't kill you. Just don't stop there: with easy natural therapies, you can help your body stop reacting so badly to the environment.
There are a number of herbs that can help you on your path to the land of no allergies. Primary among them are milk thistle and turmeric. Those two, you should take daily, faithfully, for a long time. Six months to a year, if not forever. They work to control inflammation and clear your liver so it can filter irritants and threats like it's supposed to.
Quercetin is a bioflavinoid found in onions that can interrupt the histamine cascade. Always take it with bromelain and vitamin C. Stinging Nettle, contrary to its name, calms allergic attacks.
Don't buy your herbs from CVS or Walmart. Those are the unregulated charlatans the FDA gets all worked up about: their herbs are inappropriately harvested and processed, of dubious origin, even more dubious potency, and may not even be the right species of plant. If you email me privately, I'll recommend some brands (or, visit the store, where I stock the best of what I've found in 16 years). Better yet, visit an herbalist who grows and harvests her own plants.
Take your herbs every day, even if you feel better. This isn't about symptom relief, that's what drugs are for. This is about healing your body, which drugs can't do. This is me on my high horse!
The other leg of this is the nasal irrigation. Personally, I didn't like the syringe style irrigator when I tried it--the water shot up into my forehead sinus, painfully. Neti pots are designed to be gentle and easy to use. You can get brands made in the USA of porcelain that look nice, stay sanitary, and will last you forever; I don't recommend the plastic ones except possibly for traveling. So--choose your neti pot. If you can't afford a neti pot, you can improvise with your cupped hand--just hold one nostril closed and snuffle up salt water with the other! This is low tech, people.
In challenging times, such as tree pollen or ragweed season, or when I encounter a lot of people with colds and flu, I will rinse my nose twice a day: once in the morning, and once when I take my after-work shower. I also use the salt water to wash my eyes and throat, especially after work. In recent years, I've stayed well in the throes of seasonal plagues while all my co-workers fall. This is a lot of progress for someone like me, who who used to end up in the emergency room two or three times a year with allergies that chain-reacted into bronchitis.
You can buy expensive preparations and special salt just for neti pots, but you don't have to. If you presently have an infection, you might get help from one of the herbal rinses with zinc, but salt water on its own is antibacterial, anti inflammatory, and will heal you almost as well. Salt for your neti pot should be JUST SALT. Not iodized, no excipients, no silica, etc. I use fine ground sea salt mixed in equal parts with baking soda (with a reluctant nod to Dr. Oz: using straight salt dried my nose out too much and resulted in occasional nosebleeds; adding baking soda to the mixture solved that problem). I use 1/2 teaspoon per pint of warm water. The rinse water should taste pleasantly salty, not harsh, and the water should be warm, not hot or cold.
Many of us have terrible memories of being forced to gargle very salty water as children, and choking horribly. That stops a lot of people from trying a neti pot. When you mix your solution, you are thinking, pleasant. Pleasantly warm, pleasantly salty, like the ocean on a particularly lovely day. If you can swim without breathing water, you can use a neti pot. If you doubt me, try holding some water in your mouth without swallowing. Easy, right? There ya go.
The intention is to allow water to flow gently into one nostril, through your sinuses, and out the other nostril, carrying with it all the dust, pollen, mold, mildew, yeasts, pollutants, and germs your poor nose has encountered that day. You turn your head forward and to the side, to let gravity gently do its job. If all goes well, the water will emerge in a nice full stream from your lower nostril. But, especially at first, things rarely go that well.
At first, you may only get salt water into your nostril, and no further. Be patient. Try again later. At least you have washed a little bit of your breathing equipment. As you begin to clear, you may get water to flow into your nostril and down the back of your throat. That can be startling, but just close your throat like a dolphin and spit out the water. Be patient. It can take a while to get the knack, and even longer for your inflamed and clogged nose to open. Stay consistent, keep trying, and little by little it will get easier and better. For me, it was more than a year. For the first six months I just kept going on faith: if this is a thousand year old tradition, it's going to have to work sometime!
Pour half the neti solution through one nostril, then blow gently (think dolphin), and go on to rinse the other side. Don't blow hard, or you may drive bad things higher into your sinus cavities. After you neti, stay upright for at least one hour to let the water fully drain so gravity doesn't pull it into your ears. Keep a hankie handy: when this process starts to work, the drainage can be impressive.
There you have it: my diatribe on neti pots. I hate to hear about friends and family suffering allergies, so this is my offering to you. You can get better.
Now that you have your awesomely clean nose, go outside and use it to filter the beautiful air. Breathe!
Monday, April 12, 2010
I've pulled a chair up close to the hive so when I come home from work in the evenings, I can sit for a while and observe Beedicca. I'll make a circuit of the yard before I settle: check the baby chick (one of them is almost definitely, unfortunately, a rooster), check the progress of the herbs, seeds, and veggies I've set out this year, collect the day's eggs, pull a weed here and nibble a weed there. One of my favorites is coming up every where this year, passionflower. The young leaves are succulent as lettuce and are a sovereign remedy for tight shoulders, sore eyes and busy mind.
From a couple feet away, I can hear the steady warm hum from the hive, and watch the workers arriving with their loads of pollen and nectar, then departing. Sometimes a scout arrives and tickles antennae with someone who's leaving. Our cat Peanut, a certified xenophile, usually hangs out with the chickens, but these days he likes to loll about in the pools of sunlight near the hive, purring as if to match their buzz.
The sound of the hive is simultaneously challenging, like a snake's rattle, and calming as a mantra. It calls to mind the sound of Buddhist monks chanting prayers: sonorous, unintelligible and holy. The hive is at once racketing with activity and perfectly ordered. After a day of chaos and interruptions at the store, it's medicine.
In the forest that is our yard, chickasaw plum, dogwood, azalea, poisonous jessamine, and wisteria blooms are giving way to dewberry, huckleberry and satsuma. A Florida maple seed winged down to sprout in my bonsai juniper's pot, which seemed to me an invitation to try my hand at bonsai from seedling. The transplant went well, so I'm hopeful. Just outside the back door, our towering swamp magnolia is preparing new leaves and flower buds, scattering those mysterious velvet furred husks and broad yellow leaves over the forest floor.
This time of year all is promise and lushness, all flower and new green. The air is hazy with pollen. Later, in August, that haze will be heavy, dusty humidity, and it will be hot enough to see shimmers in the air. By then my new tomatoes will be wizened, diseased stalks, and I won't be able to sit outside for the mosquitoes. But there's a little time yet, before summer closes over north central Florida like a mouthful of bad breath, and I'm heading outside to enjoy it.
From a couple feet away, I can hear the steady warm hum from the hive, and watch the workers arriving with their loads of pollen and nectar, then departing. Sometimes a scout arrives and tickles antennae with someone who's leaving. Our cat Peanut, a certified xenophile, usually hangs out with the chickens, but these days he likes to loll about in the pools of sunlight near the hive, purring as if to match their buzz.
The sound of the hive is simultaneously challenging, like a snake's rattle, and calming as a mantra. It calls to mind the sound of Buddhist monks chanting prayers: sonorous, unintelligible and holy. The hive is at once racketing with activity and perfectly ordered. After a day of chaos and interruptions at the store, it's medicine.
In the forest that is our yard, chickasaw plum, dogwood, azalea, poisonous jessamine, and wisteria blooms are giving way to dewberry, huckleberry and satsuma. A Florida maple seed winged down to sprout in my bonsai juniper's pot, which seemed to me an invitation to try my hand at bonsai from seedling. The transplant went well, so I'm hopeful. Just outside the back door, our towering swamp magnolia is preparing new leaves and flower buds, scattering those mysterious velvet furred husks and broad yellow leaves over the forest floor.
This time of year all is promise and lushness, all flower and new green. The air is hazy with pollen. Later, in August, that haze will be heavy, dusty humidity, and it will be hot enough to see shimmers in the air. By then my new tomatoes will be wizened, diseased stalks, and I won't be able to sit outside for the mosquitoes. But there's a little time yet, before summer closes over north central Florida like a mouthful of bad breath, and I'm heading outside to enjoy it.
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Boca de Bruja
Universe,
Please forgive me for so recklessly claiming that I am immune to this year's massive pollen crop. Love,
Itchy Sneezyhead.
Please forgive me for so recklessly claiming that I am immune to this year's massive pollen crop. Love,
Itchy Sneezyhead.
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Note
Today the hive only consumed about 3/4 of a quart of syrup. Last night I did a lot of homework, searching beekeeping sites for specifics about how to tell when to stop feeding sugar. Some commercial operations apparently feed all the time, and not just sugar, but corn syrup--even HFCS! No wonder bees are having trouble--imagine the nutritional difference between a diet of high fructose corn syrup and soy flour, and their natural diet of pollen and nectar. Inconceivable!
Anyway, I finally found this great site:
http://www.bushfarms.com/bees.htm
which has clear and basic instructions for beginning beekeepers. According to this information, when the bees think they have sufficient stores, they will start capping the honeycomb, and that's when you know they are ready to be independent. When we opened the hive yesterday, we saw some capping. That plus the lower syrup consumption makes me think we're right on target.
I was going to start a long discussion about pollen tonight, but I'm too tired to get too deep. It was a long day in front of the computer, at work today. One of my customers is dying of lung cancer and I spoke with her this morning, my first call. She had just had a breathing treatment and was calling to check on her special order of herbs. She's undergone two surgeries, and chemo, but even at this late stage, she is trying to avoid taking steroids! Crazy woman...she was delighted just to be able to talk, so she told me a lot of things. She sounded so content, even happy. She said she was just enjoying being able to be at home watching her garden, and she was glad that her last weeks could be this beautiful time of year. What's that quote? "April is the cruelest month..." After that call, which was sad and sacred at the same time, things got mundane and hectic real fast...but back to pollen.
Following the prolonged cold this winter, all the plants are just producing masses of pollen and people are practically dying from hayfever--almost literally in some cases, like my co-worker whose allergies turned to sinus infection which developed into bronchitis. Curiously, I'm not suffering at all, and pollen season has historically been my most at risk time for serious asthma trouble. I'll write more about pollen, and bees, and how to stop being allergic in my next post.
Anyway, I finally found this great site:
http://www.bushfarms.com/bees.htm
which has clear and basic instructions for beginning beekeepers. According to this information, when the bees think they have sufficient stores, they will start capping the honeycomb, and that's when you know they are ready to be independent. When we opened the hive yesterday, we saw some capping. That plus the lower syrup consumption makes me think we're right on target.
I was going to start a long discussion about pollen tonight, but I'm too tired to get too deep. It was a long day in front of the computer, at work today. One of my customers is dying of lung cancer and I spoke with her this morning, my first call. She had just had a breathing treatment and was calling to check on her special order of herbs. She's undergone two surgeries, and chemo, but even at this late stage, she is trying to avoid taking steroids! Crazy woman...she was delighted just to be able to talk, so she told me a lot of things. She sounded so content, even happy. She said she was just enjoying being able to be at home watching her garden, and she was glad that her last weeks could be this beautiful time of year. What's that quote? "April is the cruelest month..." After that call, which was sad and sacred at the same time, things got mundane and hectic real fast...but back to pollen.
Following the prolonged cold this winter, all the plants are just producing masses of pollen and people are practically dying from hayfever--almost literally in some cases, like my co-worker whose allergies turned to sinus infection which developed into bronchitis. Curiously, I'm not suffering at all, and pollen season has historically been my most at risk time for serious asthma trouble. I'll write more about pollen, and bees, and how to stop being allergic in my next post.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
We Peeked
We've had the bees since Thursday the 25th of March--just under two weeks. From outside they seem to be thriving, numerous and active, and certainly tucking away plenty of sugar syrup. (I actually hurt myself, pouring large batches of syrup into jars, and now have a stubborn case of tendonitis in my right elbow. I know what Neil would say--bee therapy! but I can't bring myself to commit apicide...) This evening, we took a peek inside the hive.
First of all, the weather has turned nice and warm. I've had a few days off to hang here at the house, planting veggies and herbs and observing Beedicca's habits, and I've noticed the bees get decidedly more active during the long hot afternoons. When we approached the hive tonight, they were all over the place. Our plan was to pull some of the bars to see if the bees had filled them all with comb, and if so, were they raising brood yet. We started at the last bar in the back. It had a large, beautiful comb built and partially filled with honey and pollen, but no brood. We eventually found a comb with larvae toward the front, not a lot but enough to let us know the queen is alive and well, although we never got a look at Beedicca herself. We ended up pulling out 5 or 6 combs; the first bar had no comb, the second only a small one; next, one of mostly honey and pollen, then a large but mostly empty comb, partially capped, and then the brood. We left the centermost bars undisturbed--we surmise that's were most of the brood probably is, and thought it best not to disrupt the nursery. Altogether, we found substantial comb on 8 bars, and everything just full of bees. Absolutely covered in bees. All the combs were sturdy, and straight, and gracefully symmetrical, with an interesting series of buttresses tying the whole thing securely to the bars. In addition to the uncapped larvae, we saw some capped cells and a few cells from which new bees had already emerged. We inserted two new bars at the back so the ladies can expand, and closed everything up.
Despite the hive's bustling activity and a lot of bees in the air while we messed about--and a smudge stick that's burned down to twigs and not smoking very much--again, neither of us were stung. I have slightly mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, that single sting on my earlobe actually ended up hurting for several days, with aches and swelling down my neck that persisted nearly a week (and still itches!). On the other hand, a keeper needs to be stung ten to twenty times a year to develop an immunity to the venom. These bees are so pacific, we'd have to do something terribly rude and unwise to get stung that much.
Everything I've read about establishing a new hive suggests feeding sugar syrup for two to three weeks. It keeps the hive from starving while they learn their territory, build comb, and start stashing honey and pollen. Beedicca has been eating a substantial amount of syrup, up to a peak of about 2 quarts a day, but yesterday and today a quart has lasted all day. After opening the hive today, it's clear they are prospering--they've drawn a prodigious amount of comb, and they seem more numerous. I'm hoping the slower syrup consumption means everything's working as well as it appears: the hive has found some good nectar sources and will soon be self sufficient.
A book I have renamed the Incomplete guide to Beekeeping for its failure to answer many questions says we should expect a bit of a die off around three weeks, as one generation gives way to the new. It takes 21 days to hatch a worker, so the larvae we saw today are about two weeks from maturity; meanwhile, the hard work of establishing the spring nectar flow means the bees I brought home may only live a month. Those original bees will begin to die in a week or two, just as the new bees, Beedicca's first children, begin to emerge.
First of all, the weather has turned nice and warm. I've had a few days off to hang here at the house, planting veggies and herbs and observing Beedicca's habits, and I've noticed the bees get decidedly more active during the long hot afternoons. When we approached the hive tonight, they were all over the place. Our plan was to pull some of the bars to see if the bees had filled them all with comb, and if so, were they raising brood yet. We started at the last bar in the back. It had a large, beautiful comb built and partially filled with honey and pollen, but no brood. We eventually found a comb with larvae toward the front, not a lot but enough to let us know the queen is alive and well, although we never got a look at Beedicca herself. We ended up pulling out 5 or 6 combs; the first bar had no comb, the second only a small one; next, one of mostly honey and pollen, then a large but mostly empty comb, partially capped, and then the brood. We left the centermost bars undisturbed--we surmise that's were most of the brood probably is, and thought it best not to disrupt the nursery. Altogether, we found substantial comb on 8 bars, and everything just full of bees. Absolutely covered in bees. All the combs were sturdy, and straight, and gracefully symmetrical, with an interesting series of buttresses tying the whole thing securely to the bars. In addition to the uncapped larvae, we saw some capped cells and a few cells from which new bees had already emerged. We inserted two new bars at the back so the ladies can expand, and closed everything up.
Despite the hive's bustling activity and a lot of bees in the air while we messed about--and a smudge stick that's burned down to twigs and not smoking very much--again, neither of us were stung. I have slightly mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, that single sting on my earlobe actually ended up hurting for several days, with aches and swelling down my neck that persisted nearly a week (and still itches!). On the other hand, a keeper needs to be stung ten to twenty times a year to develop an immunity to the venom. These bees are so pacific, we'd have to do something terribly rude and unwise to get stung that much.
Everything I've read about establishing a new hive suggests feeding sugar syrup for two to three weeks. It keeps the hive from starving while they learn their territory, build comb, and start stashing honey and pollen. Beedicca has been eating a substantial amount of syrup, up to a peak of about 2 quarts a day, but yesterday and today a quart has lasted all day. After opening the hive today, it's clear they are prospering--they've drawn a prodigious amount of comb, and they seem more numerous. I'm hoping the slower syrup consumption means everything's working as well as it appears: the hive has found some good nectar sources and will soon be self sufficient.
A book I have renamed the Incomplete guide to Beekeeping for its failure to answer many questions says we should expect a bit of a die off around three weeks, as one generation gives way to the new. It takes 21 days to hatch a worker, so the larvae we saw today are about two weeks from maturity; meanwhile, the hard work of establishing the spring nectar flow means the bees I brought home may only live a month. Those original bees will begin to die in a week or two, just as the new bees, Beedicca's first children, begin to emerge.
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Nothing says Spring like Zucchini
For weeks since the frost we've only had Mexican zucchini at the store. Nothing against Mexico, but we try to eat local, and I confess that I love zucchini, considering it the most versatile of vegetables. So I was elated to find Florida zukes back on the produce aisle. To celebrate, we made these pancakes for breakfast. Somewhere between fritters and crepes, these are delicously eggy and savory.
Zucchini Pancakes
1 medium zucchini, grated
1 medium yellow squash, grated
1/2 vidalia onion, sliced in very thin half moons
1 green chili, minced
sprinkle of sea salt
grind of fresh pepper
1 tsp curry powder
1/2 cup stone ground cornmeal
2 tbsp pine nuts
3/4 cup other flour ( I used Bob's Gluten Free all purpose flour)
4 eggs
1/3 cup water or other liquid
olive or coconut oil for frying
a little cheese for topping (we had some creamy farmer cheese from a small grass-fed dairy)
Preheat skillet to medium high, or until a drop of batter dances.
Grate veggies into a big bowl. Mix in the seasonings, pine nuts, and cornmeal until blended, then the flour. Let that stand a few minutes while the skillet heats, then blend in the eggs and water. Scoop by the cupful into your skillet, and cook on one side until set. Flip carefully--may spatter-- and brown the other side. Sprinkle with cheese while the second side cooks so it will soften.
Zucchini Pancakes
1 medium zucchini, grated
1 medium yellow squash, grated
1/2 vidalia onion, sliced in very thin half moons
1 green chili, minced
sprinkle of sea salt
grind of fresh pepper
1 tsp curry powder
1/2 cup stone ground cornmeal
2 tbsp pine nuts
3/4 cup other flour ( I used Bob's Gluten Free all purpose flour)
4 eggs
1/3 cup water or other liquid
olive or coconut oil for frying
a little cheese for topping (we had some creamy farmer cheese from a small grass-fed dairy)
Preheat skillet to medium high, or until a drop of batter dances.
Grate veggies into a big bowl. Mix in the seasonings, pine nuts, and cornmeal until blended, then the flour. Let that stand a few minutes while the skillet heats, then blend in the eggs and water. Scoop by the cupful into your skillet, and cook on one side until set. Flip carefully--may spatter-- and brown the other side. Sprinkle with cheese while the second side cooks so it will soften.
Livin' in the trees
Maybe it was the unusually cold winter, or maybe it's just me, feeling better than I have in years; whatever it is, I think this is one of the most beautiful springs ever in our woods. The azaleas we put in two years ago have finally settled enough to bust out in full glory this year, and everywhere you look there's something just exuberantly budding or blooming, in a million luminous shades of green.
Yesterday I spent a good portion of the day outside in my new observation chair with Pop-pop's binoculars, looking over the back of the property where it falls away into the Santa Fe flood plain. It's a lovely, long view across an open space populated by devil's walking stick and elderberries, then over the seasonally flooded swamp, through a stand of old pines (old enough some still wear the marks of the turpentine harvest, that petered out in the forties), and out into a rolling cow pasture that eventually meets the Santa Fe, about three quarters of a mile north, as the crow flies.
The chickens come by to check on me periodically, and Audrey- -the first (surviving) hen actually hatched and raised by our flock --even hangs out for a while, napping in a sunny spot next to Peanut, the cat. The woods are positively vibrating with activity: during the afternoon we hear or see red tailed hawks, a turkey gobbler, pileated woodpeckers, cardinals, and plenty of lbbs (little brown birds) I can't get a good look at. Not to mention at least three different frog calls, from back in the cypress pond. I can see the bee hive from my chair, and they are rockin', sucking down two quarts of syrup a day, now, and busy, busy.
When I wasn't chilling in the chair, I spent a little time planting some herbs and watering. This year I moved a bunch of gladiolas and daylilies to the back of the house, where it's a little more sunny. They seem to be doing well, so far. I dug the glads from a hill adjacent to a highway, a couple years ago, just before new road construction destroyed the area, so I think if I find the right spot they will naturalize and flourish.
When I stopped at Earth Pets for a fresh bag of layer feed last week, I couldn't resist picking out two new peeps: second generation organic Rhode Island Reds. If I chose well and they're both hens, that will make eleven hens, three of whom (Sparkle, Darkle, and Buffy)are too old to lay, and one of whom (Squeak) is too canny to let me find her eggs. Right now we have six hens who are laying almost daily: Natasha, Ghostface Killer, Audrey, Copper, Starboard ( a possum took her twin, Port, last fall), and Black-headed chicken (she deserves a better name, I know...). And of course, there is Pinky, our gentlemanly rooster and one of the nicest chickens I've ever met, now going on four years old and quite the impressive specimen.
It's a bit late now, but I'm feeling a strong urge to get a garden started. I'm going to try a couple tomatoes and peppers along with the usual tropical pumpkin, out back by the hive, and see what happens. Hopefully Jordan will be up for a trip to the hardware store for some supplies today--he's the brawn of the operation.
Yesterday I spent a good portion of the day outside in my new observation chair with Pop-pop's binoculars, looking over the back of the property where it falls away into the Santa Fe flood plain. It's a lovely, long view across an open space populated by devil's walking stick and elderberries, then over the seasonally flooded swamp, through a stand of old pines (old enough some still wear the marks of the turpentine harvest, that petered out in the forties), and out into a rolling cow pasture that eventually meets the Santa Fe, about three quarters of a mile north, as the crow flies.
The chickens come by to check on me periodically, and Audrey- -the first (surviving) hen actually hatched and raised by our flock --even hangs out for a while, napping in a sunny spot next to Peanut, the cat. The woods are positively vibrating with activity: during the afternoon we hear or see red tailed hawks, a turkey gobbler, pileated woodpeckers, cardinals, and plenty of lbbs (little brown birds) I can't get a good look at. Not to mention at least three different frog calls, from back in the cypress pond. I can see the bee hive from my chair, and they are rockin', sucking down two quarts of syrup a day, now, and busy, busy.
When I wasn't chilling in the chair, I spent a little time planting some herbs and watering. This year I moved a bunch of gladiolas and daylilies to the back of the house, where it's a little more sunny. They seem to be doing well, so far. I dug the glads from a hill adjacent to a highway, a couple years ago, just before new road construction destroyed the area, so I think if I find the right spot they will naturalize and flourish.
When I stopped at Earth Pets for a fresh bag of layer feed last week, I couldn't resist picking out two new peeps: second generation organic Rhode Island Reds. If I chose well and they're both hens, that will make eleven hens, three of whom (Sparkle, Darkle, and Buffy)are too old to lay, and one of whom (Squeak) is too canny to let me find her eggs. Right now we have six hens who are laying almost daily: Natasha, Ghostface Killer, Audrey, Copper, Starboard ( a possum took her twin, Port, last fall), and Black-headed chicken (she deserves a better name, I know...). And of course, there is Pinky, our gentlemanly rooster and one of the nicest chickens I've ever met, now going on four years old and quite the impressive specimen.
It's a bit late now, but I'm feeling a strong urge to get a garden started. I'm going to try a couple tomatoes and peppers along with the usual tropical pumpkin, out back by the hive, and see what happens. Hopefully Jordan will be up for a trip to the hardware store for some supplies today--he's the brawn of the operation.
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