carrots and I didn't read about this in the books!

We picked our carrots! They went into a delicious chicken pot pie.



The interesting thing - since I was a kid, raw carrots have made my mouth itch terribly when I eat them. We planted both traditional carrots and rainbow carrots (the only one that sprouted from the rainbow is the white one). Cooked carrots don't create the same reaction, and I love the taste of raw carrots. I tried a piece of the white carrot, raw, to see if I got the reaction, thinking maybe the orange pigmentation could be the cause. No itch, yay! More curious now, I ate some of the orange carrot. No itch!!! So something in conventional farming / handling is causing the reaction. Oh yeah, carrots are going to be part of the garden from now on!


And yes, there was a rude carrot. We took it to Father's Day in the salad. Clearly, it is a powerful totem for fatherhood!

(also, I'm not the only one growing rude veggies.)

On a bee related note - I came home from yoga tonight a little before 10pm. I paused at the small table near the hive to reattach my tire pump to the bike for tomorrow, and realized the bees were middle of the day loud, not tucked in for the night loud. After hanging up my bike I brought the headlamp to the side of the hive and then around to the front. What I saw made me go in for the camera.

Not great photos, the entrance is turned into the corner of the fence, and the girls are pretty territorial.
!!! I've heard that the guard bees may be joined by a few others to fan the hive with their wings as a cooling mechanism. Tonight is one of the first warm nights of the season, but it is maybe 60F outside now. I heard one bee give the angry buzz, I was wearing a black sweatshirt and figured it was time to back off. I am hoping this is normal, cause I'm a bit shocked! I think this may be a drawback to having the hive so close to my front door. If it was far out in a yard, I wouldn't see it at 10pm. Crazy bees! Urania is celebrating the summer solstice and new moon!

Over the weekend, we went to Webb Ranch to pick blackberries. 27 pounds of blackberries have been juiced, sugar and raisins added, and is now sitting in a ten-gallon container in the other room awaiting the addition of yeast this evening to make wine. The first wine of the summer!

The yeast is expired, but on the hope it's still good I've got it in a mason jar with sugar, yeast energizer and yeast nutrient to make sure it's up and running before inoculation. If I don't see bubbles and pressure in the jar, then the blackberries will wait a couple of days.