Today (or tonight actually, at 11:09) we in the west mark the Autumnal Equinox, when the length of night and day are exactly equal. Since it is the sun that determines the length of the day we could consider this a solar 'festival'. The solstices and equinoxes occur at about the same day every year. In China festivals are calculated by a lunar calendar, which means they are movable feasts, as is the Christian Easter. The most important date in…
All last week I watched the leaves turn, more brilliant, more gold, every day. But this Monday Record is late, not only because my husband and I returned to Vermont to the scenes of my youth, and to help my aunt and uncle celebrate his 85th birthday and their 30th wedding anniversary, but because I had to return to Bellows Falls again today. I left my purse with my camera at Fat Franks, The Wurst Place in Bellows…
The honeybee hive is an amazing community. Most of the population, about 99%, are worker bees who are all female. They have many jobs to do from cleaning the hive, building honeycomb, feeding the larvae and foraging for nectar and pollen. Some will live only a few weeks, others will live several months to carry the hive through the winter until spring allows bees to forage once again. There are a few drones, male bees, whose sole purpose…
Gloria Pacosa can arrange just about anything, dinner parties, events, wedding flowers, pie baking, but when we got together the other day to shoot a TV show for Falls Cable in Shelburne Falls, I wanted her to arrange flowers. She had begun gathering material before I arrived. She had raided the flower garden for these dark scabiosa, the last of the sweet peas and gomphrena, as well as zinnias, sunflowers and . She said just…
I wasn't going to miss another Three for Thursday hosted by Cindy over at My Corner of Katy. Right now I have three pink natives blooming in my garden. I might be stretching a point to all this bee balm pink, but it is not brilliant scarlet so I am including it. Bee balm, Monarda, is native to North America as are the other two pinks in my garden. Bee balm is in my herb garden in front…
If Alma Potchke is blooming it must be September Bloom Day. I thank Carol at May Dreams Gardens for thinking of this wonderful way to keep a bloom record of my own garden, and to see what else is in bloom over this land. This beautiful achillea has bloomed beautifully all summer. It is at the end of the lettuce bed in the new Front Garden which means it has gotten watered along with the lettuce, including the…
Someone was talking about colchicums, autumn crocus, the other day and this morning I went out to look at mine. I stepped out onto the piazza, pulled out an armload of lemon balm and moved the inevitable shoots of wisteria, and there they were. Palely loitering in the shade, through no fault of their own. I planted the autumn crocus bulbs at the foot of the wisteria years ago when the herb bed was not yet full. Of…
Last week I set out the sprinkler to water the vegetable garden for 45 minutes. I have not NOT watered anything else for weeks. Then I turned on the hose to water the chickens. I heard the phone ring and ran into the house. When I got back to the hose - it was dry. I turned off the spigot, went into the house and turned on the taps. No water. We have a drilled well, and have…
Lots of sowing was done in the last two years to bring about the harvest of a strong renovated Roundhouse at our wonderful Franklin County Fair. I was glad to be present for the re-dedication - during which many people were thanked, too many to list here, but I was glad that one of my colleagues at The Recoder, Irmarie Jones was thanked for all her help promoting the renovation and fundraising. While the Fair is 162 years…
Dan Conlon, co-owner with his wife Bonita of Warm Colors Apiary, President of both the Massachusetts Beekeepers Association and the Franklin County Beekeepers Association, began keeping bees when he was 14 years old. He lived at the edge of a Dayton, Ohio suburb, close enough to farmlands that he got a summer job helping a farmer with haying and whatever needed to be done. “The farmer kept a few beehives, because many farmers did at that time, knowing…