elliemoon

A MOTHERS DAY MIRACLE

the miracle? no puke. my wish was granted! yesterday was the most wonderful mothers day to date. and a beautiful day in general. hope your weekend was just as nice, mother or not.

flowers, flowers everywhere. a little bundle from three out of the four peanuts (the fourth is still not 100%, but is at least off the couch for an hour or two here and there)::

the seasons first watermelon. so sweet::

baby bees. not very appetizing, i know, but exciting nonetheless. can you see them in there? this means our queen is hard at work. and so are the girls. life is good and healthy in the hive::

big b worked all day and our garden has gained some considerable square footage::

and the first dip in the lake. for the kids. i don't brave it until mid june at the earliest. i'm a pansy::

but perhaps most exciting of all::

an ipod touch! i've been mourning the loss of my old ipod for over a year. i had had it for so very long. apparently the hard drive crashed. so said the geek squad. since then i haven't wanted to spend the cash for a new one. i've been cooking to the muted sounds of my itunes library playing from the computer in the next room. and its been a long and difficult road running errands to the sound of local dj's and loads of commercials and horrible music. although "cape cod's classic rock" and i did have a pretty decent run.

last year i upgraded to what i thought was a high tech and fancy cell phone. the one with the flip out keypad for texting. now all at once i'm learning about "facetime" and researching routers, trying to figure out how to get some "wifi". the world is new and exciting. a few more apps and this thing might be cooking dinner next week. i just used "apps" in a sentence! i'm here 21st century!!

 

OUT OF ORDER

it's looking like the domino effect is officially in effect with the stomach bug that found its way into our house. one almost back to normal and another one drops. hope to be back by monday.

happy mothers day weekend to all of you. drink some wine for me. or maybe vitamin c would be more appropriate. 

 

 

KNITTING FOR MOTHERS DAY

is it really this coming sunday? how did that happen? lets hope i can pull it all together by then::

one almost down. nine more to go. seven at the very least. better get back to the clacking. 

 

GREEN THUMBS

with three straight days of rain incoming, we took full advantage of the sun yesterday::

the girls did their own transplanting. little lu taking special care with a plucked dandelion flower::

and something for the table::

i hope my enthusiasm for weeding will last through the summer this season. only time will tell.



 

THE BITTERSWEET HARVEST

we lost another hive over the winter. it was quite a disappointment. especially considering how mild our winter was and how much honey the bee's had stored. everything looked ideal for success. recently i had the pleasure of running into tamar haspel whose blog, starving off the land, is one of my favorites. she and i joined the barnstable beekeepers at the same time and are both entering our third season of beekeeping. neither of us has seen a hive last the winter. she recently wrote a very interesting post on the matter. i hope for the both of us, that this year will be the year. i'm not sure how many more hives i can loose. it is more devastating than one would think.

now for the sweet side. this time around, and as previously mentioned, the girls had a very ample amount of honey stored for the winter. this group must have perished early on, before depleting their entire honey store. the bottom deep was pretty well emptied out, but the top was frame after frame of this::

the new colony will need about 75% of the frame open and available for brood. at least 5 of the top deep frames were either straight capped honey or down to about 20% available space. meaning, we had lots of honey and needed to clear some out to make room for the new girls to do their thing. yes, it was time to harvest honey for the first time in our beekeeping career::

from here it was slow and steady drippings, aided in part by a few hours in a slightly warm oven to help quicken the flow (thanks for that tip claire). in the future, when we're working with our honey supers, i will most definitely be using an extractor. the honey, even when warmed, doesn't really want to leave those cozy little combs. but when it does? oh boy::

some for sharing::

and some for storing::

this years bee package was right on time and is already installed and buzzing about::

these girls should be all set and secure by the time the real nectar flow begins (around the end of june). i'm hopeful. and happy to have the buzz back!

 

MARK YOUR CALENDARS

the big day is coming! yes, a new wes anderson film! moonrise kingdom, expected release date: may 25th!!

 

oh how i love wes anderson. can't wait!!

THE BUNNY BAG

i saw this super cute bag worked up on the stellar sewing blog nikkishell. i quickly invested in the pattern and then, when it arrived, quickly freaked out before starting it. but thanks to some helpful emails and moral support from nikki herself, i decided to just start stitching. and i realized that, just as with knitting and crocheting patterns, i can't read through a sewing pattern and visualize the results. i need to work through it and it all starts making sense. now i know. and now nikki knows the craziness behind the blog posts::

this bunny bag pattern can be found on etsy in the makers journal shop. and pamela and jo-anne are not only super talented but also super sweet. i got a really helpful email from pamela when i reached out in my pre-production jitter mode. thank you pamela!

i love, love, love this pattern. this bunny bag was specially made to be gifted, but i can see many more of these in my future. they would make perfect little nature hunting bags for the girls. i wouldn't mind having one of my own for holding smaller projects like socks or just special trinkets. toss in your sunglasses, your phone, a snack and some sun lotion and you're ready for the beach! and they take so little fabric you could probably make one from your stash right now! 

 

BIRDS OF A FEATHER

this would be the reason i ordered the dolls eyes. a cute and relatively quick project i've had bookmarked for a while. once i got to this point here i was sold and knew i would be making a little friend to accompany::

such a cute face, i actually had to wrestle it away from little lu who kept snatching it and smothering it with kisses. the pattern is from that special edition crochet magazine. i altered the colors and the wing texture to give it a more "snow owl" feel::

for the friend i went more traditional::

two little lovebirds for luca, our favorite owl-lover!

happy may everyone! beach days are on the horizon!!