Prairie Pantry

Funny squirrels. We needed to use and rearrange the compost in the bins. This is the first year they have decided to stash their winter stores in the compost. The squirrel that used the center bin peeled the husks first, and the squirrel that used the right-side bin expeditiously stored them still in the husks. We were wondering what was making those big holes in the compost. All the game camera captured was squirrels. We'll give (most of) these back to them. They worked way too hard.

Celery! When we grow it ourselves we get so many dark-green leaves. Here is about a third of this year's harvest. The leaves are chopped and frozen - ready for smoothies. (Mine only - the guys can't take the flavor.) The stalks are also frozen for use in broths and soups. It's one of the greens we can grow locally and save for the off-season.

Whew. Eighty feet of raspberries trimmed and tied. So this is why raspberries are so precious i.e. expensive! It’s not all just about harvesting. There’s also fertilizing, watering, thinning twice a year, trimming out this year’s fruiting canes, and the trips to the dump (since we’re not supposed to compost brambles).

Yesterday was basil walnut pesto day. We like to freeze it, and I eat it year-round by the spoonful or mixed into hummus. Yum.

One of our bee colonies swarmed last Wednesday but we were able to catch the bees and put them into a new hive box. (This is how bees reproduce.) It's the first time we needed to gather a swarm off a trunk. Kim made a special collection box that would fit around the trunk - shown in the last pic. I climbed the ladder and brushed them into the box while Kim held the box up below the cluster.

The first picture is the full swarm. There's also a picture showing how many re-gathered on the tree after the first brushing - so we did it a second time. The most important thing is to get the queen; and we knew we had her when the bees started fanning at the entrance to the box to tell the stragglers to come on in. Since the swarm was near our other hives, we only waited about an hour to put them into a hive box. Any others remaining on the tree could return home.

The original hive is making a new queen for themselves. So now we have two smaller colonies that can grow in size, instead of one huge colony.

This is what happened to the compost bin today. So pretty! Catching up on deadheading the zinnias.