Dogs in Spring

It looks vicious but it's all in play. They had a great time.
Practically in flight. I wish that I had that energy!

Snow

According to the news, yesterday was the latest that is has EVER snowed here in the Portland area.

All day, snow, sleet, heavy rain

It's difficult to photograph snow. It moves.

Clivia

First flower. Grown from seed taken from a "Belgian Hybrid" clivia. It took 6 years to first flower. In person, the color has more red tones.

I played honey bee and applied pollen from the Yellow Sahin's to these flowers. And vice versa - pollen from these flowers was added to the Yellow Sahin's. We'll have our own hybrids now, in about 7 years!

Compost and earthworms

Stirred up the compost. This is probably 1/3 chicken droppings + straw bedding, with generous amounts of poodle wool, yard trimmings, kitchen scraps, and coffee grounds.

This compost will need a couple more months before it is ready. Right now it's not 'done' enough.

No worms were added - these find their way up from the soil.

When I remember, I've been bringing home coffee grounds from work. I weighed them, it's about 1 pound 7 ounces daiy. Over a month, that's a lot of garden supplement.

New Bee House (Orchard mason bees)

Yesterday a few Orchard Mason Bees(Osmia lignaria)were out flying around, and a couple looked like they were in need of new houses. The choice is to spend about 20 bucks for a new house, or use scraps and make one for free. So I used scraps and made one for free.

It's not rocket science. The best book that I have seen on the topic is "The Orchard Mason Bee" (clever title, huh?) by Brian L. Griffin. This book details their interesting life cycle, and ecological role, as well as rationale for promoting them (decreased viability of honey bees, so can't take fruit pollination for granted). Washington State University also has this site and the extension service has this site, about Orchard Mason Bees. North Carolina State has this site, for an East Coast perspective. This site has more information than I can digest so I'll mark it here to refer back to it.

The main issue is how big the holes need to be. The answer is 5/16th of an inch. Mine were made from 2 2X4 scraps nailed together to create a 4X4, then a little sloping roof added to keep rain from soaking into the wood. The roof is probably not needed since it's under the eaves, but not much trouble.

Here is the result.

Just finished

Date added, so that I know which ones are the oldest and need to be disposed of.

Next to an older bee nest.

I need to set out a dish with some mud for them. I better go out and do that now.