The pleasure of a sting

January did some thawing out at the beginning of this week. Temperatures had climbed all weekend until Monday Jan 14, the day burst into an almost spring in the high 50's.What I had dared to hope was true- the bees were alive. They cleaned out the dead bees and flew around near the hive. That morning when it was still chilly I had seen a few venture out. I wasn't sure if they were just dead bees or live ones too cold to move. Then I felt something in my hair and reached up to see what it was and was surprised at the sharp pain in my finger. I pulled out the stinger and then was happy to see more bees moving around. The sting really hurt; my finger swelled up and stayed hard for several hours but I was so happy to have live bees that it was a good feeling after all.

Good Garbage*

I've been composting my whole life. My father was an organic gardener (not his profession, just his great love) and so we composted all food scraps except meats. They were put into a large garbage can in the kitchen which held about a month's compost so by the time my father took it back to the compost pile (no one else could lift it) it was pretty well on its way to being compost. Our bucket is not that big so it fills up pretty quickly. In fact I have it in my head that the more often I have to empty the compost (I seem to have inherited the job) the healthier our eating habits. All those carrot scrapings and cucumber peels mean we're eating fresh whole foods. In the summer, it can fill up in a day with carrot tops, watermelon rinds (cut into small pieces)and tomato innards.I think the more colorful the compost the better. Orange cantaloupe , green lettuce and purple cabbage leaves all mixed together in a kaleidoscope of composted material ready to help create a new batch of vegetables. *from Tom Chapin's excellent song, "Good garbage smells bad to your nose."