"Don't Kill The Bees!"

A Few Bees....

Last Monday we started noticing a few honey bees crawling in and out of the small hole in the city's water meter box in the parkway strip between the sidewalk and the street in our front yard.

There were enough of them flying around for us to conclude that a swarm was forming a hive in the box.

We knew the city would just kill them if the water meter reader reported the hive in the box; they have to look out for the safety of their workers.  But we felt that since we've planted flowers and shrubs to attract pollinators, we should try to keep the bees alive.  Cindy would like to have a hive, but we couldn't just move this hive to the back yard because they have to be moved at least five miles or they will go back to the original hive location.

So Cindy called a fellow Master Gardener who keeps bees.  She agreed to come out and move them to one of her hives, so we put up a sign to warn neighbors to leave them alone.  So now we're codependent to bees, as well as caterpillars, I guess.

We were fascinated by the whole process of removing the bees and, judging by the number of neighbors who drove past to watch with their jaws dropping, so was the whole neighborhood.  We're hoping that if the neighbors find a swarm on their property, they'll call the San Diego Beekeeping Society and get a beekeeper to remove the swarm, rather than just calling an exterminator to kill the bees.

After donning her protective suit and hood, the beekeeper gently brushed the bees and decorative bark off the water meter cover, then lifted it off.

We were stunned to see how many bees there were inside the box--there were hundreds of them, a great, crawling black mass of them attached to the honeycombs they had started to form on the underside of the lid of the water meter box.  We had no idea there were so many in there.

The beekeeper carefully detached the honeycombs crawling with bees and lifted them into a bucket appropriately titled "Scoop Away".  The beekeeper told us that the white color of the honeycomb showed that it was still a very new hive.

Once she had the queen and the honeycombs in the bucket, the beekeeper backed off to let the remaining bees settle down a bit.  Fortunately, these were not Africanized bees, they were just nice gentle honey bees.  Otherwise I would have had to retreat to the house and take pictures from inside, but they didn't bother me at all.

Then it was a matter of collecting as many of the rest of the bees as possible.  The beekeeper explained to us that some of the bees that were left behind, including those that were still out foraging, would simply die, but that most of those were in the last week of their six to eight week life cycle anyway.

They Know The Queen Is In There

That was sad to hear (see "codependent" above), but we were glad to know the hive would be going to a good home.

Finally the beekeeper put the cover back on the water meter box, covered the box with a black plastic trash bag and put bark over the bag to keep foraging bees from trying to get back into the box.

Clean Up

A final spray with some soapy water to change the scent of the area and take care of the few remaining bees, and the hive was on its way to its new home.

How We Almost Lost Ansel

Ansel in 2007

We had the furnace ducts cleaned Monday, which meant a lot of noise and upheaval in the house.  Herding our five cats during the process was pretty complicated as we tried to keep them from getting into the open furnace vents.  Ansel was shut in the front bedroom during the process and didn't like it very much.  He hates being trapped.

We adopted him in 2007--he had appeared in our yard about eighteen months before, hiding in the shrubbery and eating food we put out for him.  He was ragged and unkempt and very, very shy--he would bolt if anyone got too near him.  We thought he was feral.

We named him Ansel after our favorite black-and-white photographer.

Ansel At Home

We didn't see him for several months and we thought the coyotes in the canyon had gotten him.  Then on Labor Day 2007, he turned up again, skinnier than ever and with a big wound on his forehead over his right eye.  We had been talking about trapping him, and with help from our friend Val, we decided to do it.  We put a plate of food in the Tomahawk cat trap and set it, but Ansel had trouble figuring out how to get at the food, so we had to push it closer to the door; once he figured out where the door was and began to follow the food, we pushed it back toward the back of the trap so we could get the door closed.  He wasn't happy about being trapped, but we took the opportunity to get the wound cleaned out and get him "fixed", too.

Because of the wound we had to keep him in a cage in the house for several days.  When we opened the cage to clean it out, he strolled out, came over to me, jumped up on my lap, and settled in.  Not feral after all.

But he evidently still remembers those days of being trapped.  Monday, after the duct cleaner left with his huge, noisy vacuum, Ansel bolted out the back door, hopped over the driveway wall, and disappeared into the thick shrubbery before I could catch him.  Just a little further and he would have been down into the canyon.

Fortunately, Cindy remembered Ansel's weakness for kitty treats and grabbed the can of treats before she went out; when she shook the treats can, he hesitated long enough for her to grab him.

If we hadn't put in all that work cutting back the shrubbery behind the fence last year, she wouldn't have been able to get close enough to get him.   So that was a garden project that has paid a huge dividend.  Anyway, we're glad he's back home--and he's been cashing in on kitty treats ever since.

Is This Harry Potter's Pumpkin Juice?

We had some pumpkin juice left over after Cindy made the soup the other day.  Since I'm a huge fan of Harry Potter, who is always drinking a (presumably non-alcoholic) pumpkin juice beverage, we decided to see what it tasted like.

Answer:  it tastes like.... pumpkin.  What a surprise.

It was interesting to taste it once, but it wasn't the kind of thing I'd want to drink every day.  It was drinkable, but without any spices or sweeting, it was a little bit raw or unfinished.  I suppose you could acquire a taste for it without too much trouble if you wanted to try that.

So Cindy added a little apple juice and some spices:  cinnamon, ginger, coriander and nutmeg, and then it tasted like.... pumpkin pie.  It was very good and the spices made it much more drinkable.

We tried it out on some friends who are also big Harry Potter fans; they've been to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter and had some of the version of pumpkin juice they use there.   It looks from the description as if that version of Pumpkin Juice would be somewhat sweeter than ours because theirs includes apple juice and sugar, as well as some apricot juice, so I'm sure it tasted a good deal different from ours.

Our version was good, and much more drinkable that the raw pumpkin juice was, but I'm still waiting to see what Butterbeer tastes like.

Pumpkin Soup

Herman & Minnie Seegert 50th Anniversary

Cindy made pumpkin soup for dinner last night, and it was delicious.

Thinking of making pumpkin soup reminded Cindy of her childhood, watching her grandmother, Minnie Seegert, making pumpkin soup, so she decided to try to duplicate Minnie's recipe as closely as she could.

Recipe:  Pumpkin Soup--3 large servings

If pumpkin juice is not available, use an additional cup of chicken broth, reducing Chicken soup base to 1 1/2 tsp.

Ingredients:

1 small onion, chopped
1 Tbsp. butter
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1/4 cup rice, uncooked
1/2 cup finely shredded fresh pumpkin
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2 cups chicken broth
1 cup pumpkin juice (from drained pumpkin puree)
1 Tbsp. Chicken soup base
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1 cup pumpkin puree
1/2 tsp. ground coriander
1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp. white pepper
salt to taste
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1/4 cup whipping cream
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freshly grated nutmeg for soup garnish

Instructions:

1.  Sauté onion in butter until soft.

2.  Add rice and finely shredded pumpkin, stir until mixed.  Sauté briefly, approximately 30 seconds.

3.  Add chicken broth, pumpkin juice and chicken soup base.  Bring to a simmer and cook, uncovered, until rice is tender, approximately 15 minutes.

4.  Add pumpkin puree, coriander, nutmeg and white pepper.  Add salt to taste.

Heat until soup returns to a simmer.

5.  Add whipping cream, stirring to combine.  Taste and adjust seasonings.

6.  Serve, topped with a sprinkling of freshly grated nutmeg.

Plethora of Pumpkin

Cinderella Pumpkin

One of the vegetables Cindy planted this summer was a Cinderella Pumpkin, supposed to be one of the best pumpkins for making pies.  She thought that meant the pumpkins it produced would be small, like most pie pumpkins are.  Instead, the plant only produced one pumpkin, but it was much bigger than expected.

Cindy picked it several weeks ago and it's been sitting in the garage maturing since then.  But it couldn't stay there forever, so she cut it up the other day.

The final tally was 5.5 pounds of pureed pumpkin for pies and pumpkin soup, and 1 pound of roasted pumpkin.  That's a whole lotta pumpkin.

There's also some pumpkin juice that will go into the soup.  I'm a huge fan of Harry Potter, so I'll have to see what pumpkin juice tastes like, although I think my potion of choice would probably be Butterbeer.

We may have to do some experimenting with this.

Mom's Favorite Garden Tree

Japanese Maple

Mom and Dad planted a Japanese Maple tree in the back yard many years ago, after we moved into the house in Oregon in 1959.  They planted it in a bed under the canopy of the English Walnut tree, which protected it, but may also have kept it from reaching its full growth.  The blazing red tree provided a pop of brilliant color in an otherwise dark part of the yard.

When I was a kid, I used to love sitting out in the back yard in the summer, reading a book under the walnut tree, watching whatever breeze there was ruffle the delicate leaves of the Japanese Maple.

Through the years Mom enjoyed watching the tree's leaves change colors through the seasons; it started out red in the spring, turned a greenish bronze during the hot Oregon summers, and with the first frost began changing back to the full glory of a deep, vibrant scarlet.  In the years after the walnut was finally taken down, the maple spread out and grew even more beautiful.

Fall Foliage

The maple continued to be a favorite part of the garden over the years for both Mom and Dad.  Dad used to sit beside it to paint some of his watercolors.  In Mom's later years, as her eyesight diminished and her connection with the world began to fade, the Japanese Maple remained the one thing that kept her interest.  It was her way of keeping in touch with the change of seasons; she always enjoyed telling me about its constantly changing beauty.

That's the great thing about planting a garden:  it does grow on you.

The Flower Thieves

Plumeria Flower

Our neighbors across the street, Bob and Maria, have a spectacular Plumaria bush in their yard.

The flowers are gorgeous; so perfect they almost look like they're made of wax.  The aroma of the masses of flowers is stunning.  It's so distracting it's hard to pay attention to anything else when you're near these beautiful flowers.

What's Missing?  Flowers!

The problem, as you can see from this picture of the bush, is that so many people who pass by the bush feel they just must take some of the flowers home with them.  The result is that the middle section of the bush is almost barren of flowers.

We've seen women pushing strollers or people walking dogs stop and pick flowers off the bush.  Bob says he came around the corner one day and found a woman ripping a branch off the bush; she jumped into a waiting car and burned rubber in her haste to leave.

I guess you just don't expect to have to make a Bonnie and Clyde type getaway when you're picking flowers... unless they're not your flowers.