Spring fling

Things started off a bit slow in the gardening department.

I had to replace a few cucumber plants because they just up

and died on me.   And pretty much all the tomatoes I had

started from seed bit the biscuit.  

So I went out and bought new ones.

I'm not sure what the heck I did but 

oh well...live and learn.

The temperatures are finally steadying. But like most years

now, we need the rain.  I remember back in the day, springs

were  so wet.  Like they're supposed to be.

Not anymore.

But thank goodness for our new well...(see last post )  

It's also lupin season in Southwest Nova Scotia.

I find they're lovely. When I was younger I didn't

like them all that much. 

I guess my tastes are maturing as I 

get older.

Well for the 8th straight day, Nova Scotia has no new cases

of Covid-19.  There are only 2 active cases in the province. Both are in

the hospital.  I hope they recover soon.  It's bad enough the deaths

we have already had. We don't won't more families suffering

the loss of a loved one.

And yes, I remember a few posts back saying I wouldn't mention it.

But it's hard not to when it's the  only thing happening.

It's rhubarb season!! My patch did well, but I didn't harvest too 

many because  we don't eat it all that much. So I picked a bit  

and froze it for desserts this winter.

If  things keep going well like they are, we are going to have 

a ton of blueberries, strawberries, plums and even a few cherries!!

The bees have been doing their job. Wowsers! 

Speaking of bees....we picked up our new nuc a week and a half ago.

They seem to be  settling  well.  We are feeding them

sugar water at the moment, so they can concentrate

on setting up housekeeping instead of foraging for food.

Here's Dave putting them in their new home.

Saturday was a beautiful day. So we went to the Annapolis gardens.

They have opened  their doors  and lowered the entry fee.

It's a beautiful spot.

The rhodos were in full bloom.

Friends met us there and they took our picture.

Since restaurants can now serve at half capacity

we ate at the German bakery in Annapolis Royal.

Oh my word! You gotta eat there!

It was so good!!

I love my province and I love my municipality. I'm a proud Acadian.  

Yet I usually only put pictures of our property or places we visit.

I've been walking a lot on the local beaches lately, especially ones

that most people don't go to. 

So I thought it was high time to show you guys a few pictures of

our great municipality of Clare! 

We have awesome beaches.  Some are sandy, some are rugged.

All are gorgeous.

This is Saulnierville Beach at low tide.

Most of you don't realize that we have the highest tides in the

world in this neck of the woods.

But from now on I'll be adding pictures of our area. Just to tempt

people to come and visit when things get better.

Check us out!

Municipality of Clare

Well I guess it's time to go put the chickens to bed and weed a garden or two.

Have a blessed day!

Lisa

The beekeepers

Well it's that time of the year again.

Well really it's our first time.

Time to check to see if the bees made it 

through the winter.

First of all we took off the insulation from the outside

It's not really necessary to cover your beehive.

But we would rather be safe than sorry.

In our area it's not really the cold that 

will kill the bees because it honestly

doesn't get all that cold here.

It's also very windy here. But like the cold that's not a killer either.

The killer in these parts in the winter is the lack of snow 

for insulation.

So we make sure that we insulate the hives so it'll

act like the snow would have done in

normal parts of the world. 

We have strong winds here in Nova Scotia and it burns plants in the 

winter and can make the temperature feel like it's a lot colder 

than what it really is because we also have the humidity.

But if we had some snow for insulation it wouldn't kill 

the plants with the wind.

A friend of mine used to live in Nanuvut where it gets f-f-f-freezing.

Yet he said here in Southwest NS it feels  a lot colder 

than it did in Nanuvut.  Go figure!

The humid cold goes right through your bones. You can't warm up.

It's strange.  It rarely gets colder than -15 Celsius  here.  I mean hardly

ever.  But it feels a heck of a lot colder than that.

Brrrrrr

So anyway, enough with the weather forecasting. 

We took the insulation off, 

cleaned out the wet straw and started taking apart

the frames, one by one.

We had never seen the queen.  So that was our mission.

I took pictures of every frame Dave took out for closer 

inspection later.

This frame still had capped  honey on it!

We were very happy to see this.  That meant they could

have handled a longer winter.

Very proud of our girls!

And there she is!  Right in the middle, circled.

The Queen bee!

We both had on our full suits.  When you do an inspection 

like this you need full protection.

And you can see why from this picture.

We were halfway through the inspection when I asked Dave,

" We forgot the smoker, didn't we?"

Whoops.

Well if we can do a full inspection without smoking the bees

I guess we are either pretty good, stupid or very docile bees.

The jury is still out on that one. 

We are waiting for another nuc to come in.

But with the coronavirus and the travel restrictions

we're not sure if they will come in or not.

They come from New Zealand.

And no planes are coming in and out yet.

I'm hoping that they will let them come into the country soon!

So here's to hoping we'll have a fruitful honey season!

This girl was already coming in with pollen on her legs!

Have a Blessed Day!
Lisa

oh and btw...

I love reading your comments and I would love it more

if I could answer them.  Unfortunately either google or

blogger won't let me log in to answer them.

Rest assured that I read all comments!

So keep them coming!

I've got sunshine....

It was a beautiful day today.

Birds are chirping away

I was able to go outside in just a light

spring jacket.  

And....

It's time to plant the seeds in my basement

grow-op.

Ya ya...don't worry the only thing I 

grow in there are tomatoes, peppers, 

pumpkins, flowers and squash.

This year I decided to try my hand at Echinacea.

A few years ago I saved seeds from my

flowers outside.  I knew they needed

stratification so I stuck them in the fridge

and promptly forgot about them till

last week.

Baby echinacea!

I planted the seeds and read in my seed book 

The complete guide to saving seeds which I 

recommend highly, if I did the correct thing.

Well I guess I didn't.  For echinacea I guess

you have to stratify the seeds, like I did,

but also plant them at a certain temperature for

two weeks, then another temperature

for another few weeks, howl at a waxing moon

while Haley's comet is in it's third orbit in the middle of

a snow  storm.  

Needless to say it's a snowball's chance in hell these are

going to germinate!

Well low  and behold!!  4  are popping out! I'm beyond

ecstatic and over that waxing moon I was supposed

to wait for.  

There's nothing better than whipping out a brand new pair 

of garden gloves. I recommend these ones

highly.  They are tough as nails.

The weather is so nice that the fan is going in the greenhouse.

So I figured that I'd give the greenhouse

a cleaning also.  We tried to get the water going

but it sprung a leak. There was probably a spot that

didn't drain and froze last winter. Dang.

One thing I did discover in the greenhouse

is if you plant marigolds, please take the seed heads

off the plants before the winter.

I don't think I'll  have to plant marigolds

this year...whoops.

Going to need some dirt in them thar beds.

Today was the  last sapping day.  We had a good run

but it's time to stop so we pulled all the splines out of the trees.

It was so nice today that I did a walkabout in our

backyard. My Hellebores is gorgeous, I'm so proud of them.

The goldfish all survived the winter except for one.

And I think Mr. and Mrs Duckworth are back!

Every year we have a mated pair of mallard

ducks that stay in our back yard  for a few  months

I chose to believe that it's the same 

pair  year after year, but since

they never show us their passports I can't be certain.

I tried taking a picture, but they were a bit camera shy.

If you look closely you can see Mr. Duckworth.

The bees are just a buzzing around and a bit cranky. 

So we're not bugging them too much these

days.  We need to give them some

pollen patties for a few weeks. 

The silver you see on the hive is insulation.

That will be coming off in a few weeks.

 Garlic is growing well. I hope we don't have the same problem as last year.

We had some type of bug chew little holes in most of it.

Didn't hurt it any,but it was unsightly

and we sell it. So we don't sell

products unless they're perfect

so we had a lot of left over garlic.

Well it's been a pretty productive day.

Tomorrow is chicken coop cleaning day

if the weather holds.

Have a Blessed evening

Lisa

Long lost soul!

Things have been crazy busy around here the last year.

I didn't think it possible.

I'm not sure where to begin so I'll probably jump back and forth 

and here and there. Hopefully I won't confuse any of you.

First of all I no longer work at Home Hardware.  I had been working there 

for 13 years!! Wow!

It was very hard to leave because I loved the people that 

I worked with.  Yes, we got on each other's nerves

but that's what families do. And after 13  years of spending 

most of your waking hours with someone that's how 

you start to think of them.

But it was time to go. My health was getting worse. My heel spurs 

from standing for long periods of time and my tennis elbow

from doing repetitive movement (plus other physical issues I had that I won't mention) were getting worse and worse. The doctor didn't want me to lift

more than 15 pounds and that was my job!

I started looking for work.  I prayed on it a lot! and I wanted 

the perfect job if there was something possible.

In early November my manager at the radio station was moving.

I thought to myself..."hmmm...can I do that?"

So I thought, what the heck! I love the station, I love my community

I love being Acadian and all that it stands for and I had

more ideas in my brain than I knew what to do with!

So I applied...

and I got the job!

I am now general manager of Radio CIFA  104,1FM (check it out online)

Who would have thunk it?!

I love it! I meet new people constantly, always on the go shmoozing,

thinking up of new plans, radio shows etc...

BUT...all jobs have their down sides and this one has them 

also. Like the stress of keeping up a non profit community

radio station going and other things.

But no job is perfect. As long as the goods outweigh the bads

then it's all good!

The funny thing is that when I was told I had the job all I could think of

was Mr. Carlson the general manager of WKRP. Remember that

show?  The turkey drop?

As God is my witness I thought turkeys could fly!

Well I promise never to drop turkeys out of a helicopter. 

What a weird thing to think of.

I'm done my third semester of the master gardener. Only one more to go.

Phew! I'm still writing gardening articles for the provincial french

newspaper. Dave and I are busy in the garden club.

Dave and I have also been asked to help a family of refugees

from Burma plant a garden this summer. 

Needless to say, I don't have part-time jobs like I did the last few years.

One is enough!

But I did start volunteering with Eastlink Community TV. 

I interviewed the cast and crew in a play.And they're thinking of having a 

french talk show and I'd be the host. 

How cool is that! It's volunteer, but it's so much fun!

On the farm things are going well. I have a few bantie hens and a rooster.

Just a few. I missed my hens but I didn't really want

an entire big flock, so these are really just pets, but they lay well.

I have always wanted to tap trees for maple syrup but we didn't have trees

on our property. Well we bought a piece of land on a tax

sale last year and it's full of maple trees. So for the last 2 weeks

we've been collecting sap and boiling sap. We only

tapped 19 trees, but we ended up with almost 13 liters. 

I'd say that's pretty good. I was hoping for a liter or two.

Our stash!

I'm now getting my beehive ready.  I gave it a coat of primer tonight and

I'll paint it tomorrow. The bees are ordered and expected in May.

Soon they'll be here and it's not

something you can just put on the shelf

till you're ready.

Can you believe that this young whipper snapper is graduating this year!

Well I think that's enough for now.

Have a blessed evening!

Lisa

Spring has Sprung!

Ok, well one can only hope that it's shown up.

This winter has been super mild compared to last year's.

I can actually see the lawn.  Ok, the brown lawn.

But it will become green in due time.

Green and with two other raised beds...

heh, heh, heh.

Yes, it didn't take much convincing for hubby to agree to put two more.

Not after the horrible veggie prices this winter.
And it's planning on getting worse. 

From what I've heard, it's not only here but everywhere.

Oh well, it's just a bit more work, but the taste and quality is better.

I'll be planting the regular things this spring.

Things like dill, carrots, beets, yellow beans, pumpkins etc...

But this year I'll also be planting...

Cucamelons!!!

Or Mouse Melons  I always try something different in my veggie gardens.

Sometimes it works...sometimes it don't.

I remember planting dill was something weird for me.

Well it does so well here, that it's now a staple in my garden.

Then again I've planted things I'd rather forget...as a matter of fact, I have forgotten it.

I can't remember it.  Oh! Potatoes.

Might seem like a normal thing to plant, but for the life of me, we cannot grow potatoes on our property. Which is a shame really. Since we eat so many of them.

So soon, hopefully my garden will look like this.

Something else I'm putting new in my garden this year...

a bee hive!!!

Woot!! Woot!

I'm taking the plunge.

I've ordered my bees and they should be ready for pick up late May or early June.

I'm excited and nervous.

I wanted to wait another year, but I say that every year.

Finally hubby said, "Just do it!"

So he called and ordered the bees.

No turning back now!

I really want to steer away from using sugar in my cooking as much as I can.

But buying honey for cooking is too expensive. And I have no maple trees to tap.

The answer...Voila!
Bees!

I want them to be as healthy as possible so I won't be taking their honey the first year and probably not even the second year.

I've got a lot to learn and I might even regret my bargain.

but I doubt it.

So stay tuned to see how this spring pans out.

Have a Blessed Day.

Lisa