May 12, 2003
To Bee or Not to Bee
Apparently a colony of bees has set up housekeeping in my compost bin. I discovered my new tenants when I took the lid off the bin and what looked like a pile of damp, inert, decaying leaves and twigs started making a sound like a buzz saw. I put the top back on, and the noise stopped; I took the top off, the noise started again. I continued to do this until the thrill wore off and then, lacking any more scientific method for figuring out what was making the noise, I kicked the bin. Hoo-boy! Unhappy bees, some sporting tattoos, military hair cuts and steel-toed boots, shot out of every hole in the bin. Since the last bee sting I received landed me in the hospital, I decided that perhaps I was being a little too incautious and retreated to the safety of the flower bed I was weeding. Now, anyone who knows me will tell you that I am an animal fanatic, to the point of ludicrousness. I save every spider in my house and put it out, no matter how ugly or large. I save every worm I come across as I garden (see addendum below). I have been known to dangle precariously off my spiral staircase to rescue a hornet that is braining itself on a skylight. This particular colony of bees, however, reduced me to my five-year-old-boy-in-knickerbockers mischievous worst and, I must confess, I went back quite a few times to kick the bin. The first two or three kicks, the bees swarmed just as they had the first time, all atwitter; the next two or three, they just buzzed, no swarming; the last kick, they just let out a loud, collective “HEY!” and subsided instantly. Apparently they had formed a committee and decided that I was just a trifling annoyance, not a threat to their entire civilization. I feel quite slighted.
Addendum: My insistence upon saving every frickin’ worm I come across frustrates Miss K to no end because it makes me a veeeeerrrry slow gardener. While she’s busy weeding, spading, raking, fertilizing, seeding, watering, composting and staking an entire bed, I’m picking up my fifteenth worm, digging a hole for it in a safe place, putting the worm in the hole, filling the hole with dirt, and gently patting the dirt down. One day we were discussing a new flowerbed she was going to make and a look of consternation must have crossed my face when I realized she was going to be using her ever-so-sharp cultivator to till up the dirt. She patted me consolingly on the shoulder and said, “Don’t worry about the worms. I won’t be cutting them up, really. I’ll just be making them lots of new brothers and sisters!” Oh, yes, and she’s got this bridge in Brooklyn I might be interested in buying…
Knitting Knews
Finally, a picture of the Lorna’s Laces Gold Hill sock (Numero Uno) for K. As I mentioned before, this Fibertrends “Railroad Tracks” pattern is mahvelous. It has ribbing from cuff to toe so it fits snugly, has a tailored unisex stitch pattern, is easy to knit, and the pattern contains instructions for fingering through worsted weight yarns.
Dye Garden Dyegest
Our list of dye plants does not include the dyestuffs that are freely available to us without our having to plant them. These "other" items include black walnut trees (two beautiful specimens of which can be found in K’s mother’s yard), madrona trees (which are found in abundance around here) and alder trees (one of which K has growing in her yard). Earlier this year, I gathered up about three cups of alder cones from K's tree. They will be the first item we will try to dye with. That is, once I manage to remember to buy the &*^%$# alum!
Below, a picture of the alder cone stash. (The color of the plant the basket is resting on is pretty much spot on. Is that chartreuse amazing or what? Oh, K says I have to tell you what it is, preferably using the foofy Latin name. Okay, here goes: one foofy Latin name — Euphorbia rubra).
