fall at home

honeycomb 
honey cat (18.5 years and skinny, but still goin')

summer vibes at home

mint chip 
green tomato 
striped

vallejo: outside | inside

 martha sings around the bend

outside and inside

light and shadows

strangely beautiful days despite political madness 

moments of muddle and moments of clarity. sadness, anger, frustration, despair, love.

as many have said, this is a call to action. listen to more music, read more poems, make more art, take care of one another. stand up for each other. here we go.

september light

more summer pies!

(to be exact: key lime with graham cracker macademia nut crust, blueberry pie, and not pictured: peach/nectarine galettes and another blueberry/lemon verbena pie) 

and a window cat 

and macademia nut chi chi drinks at forbidden island 

grateful

summer peaches

the best

dose of pinky leon

pancakes with pinky

last weekend

critters

my springtime sweethearts

cat meditation

nother view

winter light

happy holidays!

sweetness ❤ ❤ ❤

around the house

olivetti 
PL figurine amelie gave to me years ago 
hand/paw holding cuteness

november light

mexican marigold gnome 
pepper bright 
pinky light

november

 pinky leon and sötnos honey and salve (soon to be on etsy at Sotnoshoney)

introducing sötnos honey!

my first honey harvest went great (i think—not really sure what i'm doing).

joan helped, and it was so much easier to handle the boxes/frames together (though i'm sorry to say, some bees still got smooshed). we only collected three and a half frames (yielding 14 small jars of honey), but we'll do another round soon, and that will be it for this first year of beekeeping! the bees will need the rest of the honey in the hive to get them through the winter. i hope the bees make it through. i only have one hive, and a lot of beekeepers lost about half their hives last winter.  

we used the crush and strain method (instead of the centrifugal extractor thing) since we are just doing small batches. (thanks for the tip, jean.) there was very little crushing though. more straining. i'm hoping we didn't add too much uncapped honey. apparently the honey can ferment if one includes too much uncapped honey. (honey is deemed done when it's been capped/sealed by the bees. it has then reached the right water content.)

the honey will be called sötnos honey. sötnos is a Swedish endearment that means sweet nose. label coming soon.

 

 

pink and red

had to add some color pop! for 42.


around alameda

biked this crazy delicious peach galette home from the farmers' market today. it's from crispian bakery, opening very soon, too close to me.

teenager chickens playing with their food.

midsummer PL

glad midsommar! | happy midsummer

some of the animals

1. jessie; 2. pinky leon; 3. chicks (so far: miss ohio, charlie brown, one i'm calling penguin, nebraska, and honey); 4. bees!

that last photo is from a video of the bees in action. you can see the pollen pants on a couple of the returning bees! you can also hear the yard.  

nyc and alameda

back in alameda after a trip to nyc. always nice to come home. (bee homes now in place and ready for bees!)

some photos from the lovely highline park in ny below. and more.

also loved this tom fruin house along the water by the brooklyn bridge.

more

from the glorious weather weekend

morning sun with PL, fika with a friend, and a walk in the afternoon down magnolia- and jasmine-scented streets. pretty great.

i survived my first no-phone distraction day today. wasn't that hard, really. though i did find myself bargaining with myself at one point. "no dice," i had to tell myself, and kept reading. and, maybe more importantly, i had a conversation with an old acquaintance and introduced myself to the stranger i've been sitting next to at work for over a month. (crazy, really. though in my defense, he hadn't introduced himself either.)