Easter Monday

The bees were much more organized today. I could see fewer of them on the outside of the hive and more of them bringing pollen in. I've got a busy week coming up so I will be unable to go see them, so they're going have to do it themselves without my guidance. My wife says that I shouldn't bother them so much, that my very presence beside the hive stresses them out. I don't think so. I'm like their Guardian Angel. Besides, I don't even bother them not much, I just observe from the side, I'm not even in their flightpath.

I planted my tomato plants out in greenhouse today. I had some peppers that had to be planted as well, only I had more of them than the tomatoes. I have planted them outside and put them underneath pop bottles - trying to give them a little protection. Olivia planted her sunflower seeds in her pocket she got for Easter, and she also helped me plan a lot of the tomato plants. She was very good at bringing water to the plants and covering them up with moist earth. It was nice spending time with her just me and her in the greenhouse. Olivia was listening to me right now and wants to tell you that there were lots of worms in the dirt. We found dew worms, earthworms, little tiny earthworms, and I think some red wigglers, there were all kinds worms out there which is great to see.

I then transferred my seedlings that I started with seed fromGarden's North supply into the Rubbermaid lid I that I've been holding the tomato and pepper plants in. The cranberries did not do so well, but the high bush blueberries did. I also have some open pollinated peppers going: Jimmy Nardello and Belgian Carrot. Both of them are orange and red I believe, so they will add a little variety to our summer diet. They were purchased from Terra Edibles in Foxboro. They have done very well.

The other day was so beautiful that I tried my hand at some grafting. I grafted some fruited mulberry branches onto our wild Mulberry tree that's going, I also grafted some of our cooking cherry tree onto the wild cherry tree stock that's growing in our fence rows. I tried a variety of grafting techniques - I used a plugger tool from Lee Valley Tools. It was easy to use but I wanted to also explore more conventional methods of grafting as well. I also grafted some Macintosh apples onto some wild apple stock from a tree we had here. It is a real sense of power that comes to you when you increase your collection of food products through such a simple method. I want to see how they make out. I was missing grafting wax so I do hope they will be ok. At least one of the graft must take!

I am also trying to grow sweet potato slips. This is proving to be very difficult. Anna, a coworker at my school, gave me some potatoes with which to try. She got them from an organic farmer at the Peterborough Farmer's market. The first batch I got, I decided to soak in water after seeing several YouTube videos that use this method. After a short period of time they became very funky smelling and I decided to throw them out. The second batch, I placed in potting soil based on the advice of the organic farmer that Anna had talked to. They are in my incubation box (which is really just any old honey hive box with a light bulb) and they are at approximately 72°F. I think they need to be in the 80s in order to germinate so I am going to change the light bulb tonight and increase the temperature.

I read a post this morning by Stuart Staniford, that gave me a new way to look at Saudi Arabia's oil production. They have recently decreased production even though oil is at a relatively high price and they promised to make up the lost production from Libya. there are two possible scenarios, one is Saudi Arabia is unable to keep up with the production of oil as promised or two they are using their power on the world stage to restrict the flow of oil and thus increase the price and allow them to pour money into social programs to prevent civil unrest within their country. The second scenario had not occurred to me until this morning when I read Stuart's post. Either way, this is not good for world oil prices and probably will see us reach 2008 prices this year.

What does the future have in store for us? It is unclear to most people, but I think we must work to build resiliency within our communities and learn to power down our lives.

Thanks for reading,

Bee Stoic

Mark