Ramblings...

Argghhhh, rain again, and again, and again. My garden and farm need sun! Food is growing, but ever so slowly...stunted by the continual rain with only a day or an afternoon of sun. I am calling the sun...can it hear me? Hellooooooo...

An update on the bee situation. I happened to be looking out my front window the other day and noticed a truck pull up at the neighbours' house. In ten minutes bee hives were loaded on the truck and driven away...hmmmmm. I dashed out to my garden and lo and behold, only four bees were to be found...FOUR! My neighbour had 'hired' bees to pollinate his blueberries, and they were visiting my cedar mulch. Bye bye bees.

Cosmos, lillies, dahlias and marigolds were planted all around the garden at home this past week. I cannot stand the smell or look of marigolds, but they are supposed to help the pest population, so they're here working for me (hopefully). It's looking prettier and prettier by the day and I hope to entice at least a few bees back (not the thousand that were here before!)

A visit out to the farm to water and check on things last weekend resulted in me being distracted by this beautiful butterfly which I thought was a Monarch until I was corrected. An internet search leads me to think it is a Painted Lady Butterfly or West Lady Butterfly...what do you think?
It was enjoying the dahlias that I planted to attract bees and sunning it's wings for at least the twenty minutes I spent taking pictures. Beautiful. What a wonderful opportunity to be mindful.

Also, I put a row cover over the broccoli to try and deter the white moths from laying their eggs on my tiny plants. You can see I underestimated the length of the row; guess the ones not covered will serve as an experiment to see which grow better, stronger, and if pests actually appear. The radishes, cucumbers, beets and quinoa planted from seed are all up at the farm. Waiting on the second row of potatoes, pumpkins, and carrots to make their arrival--perhaps this week.














Then I was distracted by this intricate pattern of water droplets on a web overtop of weeds. The second picture is a close up of the water droplets in the first picture, with my camera on the macro setting and I having stepped out of the way of the sun so that it could illuminate these little glowing balls of beauty.

You see, I know I go to the farm to grow food; however, there are so many interesting and pleasing things to look at enjoy. This was one of those days. Needless to say my beans and peas did not get planted and so I will need to trek back out there this weekend to get this important task done.