Newbury Street

You never know what you'll run into on Newbury Street. On Saturday the School of Fashion Design had a sidewalk trunk sale--selling samples, drawings, mannequins and hand painted silk scarf "seconds."

Eat Local: Concord Grape Jelly

The smell of Concord grapes always reminds me of the fall and Sunday visits at my grandparents. This quintuple batch of jelly was made with Concord grapes from an arbor on the patio at the Masters' Residence in Pforzheimer House. We didn't even make a dent in picking them, so I'm recruiting a new batch of jelly makers for this Friday afternoon.

I should mention that jelly making is a full contact sport. But it went quickly--with Alex, Amy and Felicia, we made 36 pints (plus some extra) in less than 3 hours!

Great Night at Fenway!

Blackbird Nest

On my trip to Peterborough, Ontario back in June, we discovered a blackbird nest in the charcoal grill. There was really no way to move the nest--it filled the whole grill. After our short disturbance, the mother never returned. I collected the nest and brought it back with me with the idea of creating something like this. It's crocheted from two strands of 100% wool, with some of the original nest materials woven and tucked inside. To finish it, I felted it in some hot soapy water.

The Fruits of their Labor

Nancy came by this weekend to help me figure out why I have a "beard" of bees at the hive entrance every night. It's like there's not enough room in the inn-- even though I added a shallow "honey super" a couple of weeks ago. By taking the hive apart and looking at the frames, we found that the bees haven't built out a bit of the comb in the shallow super at the top, and have instead been storing the sugar syrup below. (The idea of this was to feed the young bees who do not yet go out an forage for nectar and encourage them to focus on building wax.) Apparently it has been too hot this week for my plan to work. Upon inspection, we found lots of brood, so the queen is strong and doing good work, and a full frame of honey on each end. We'll just leave them to work out the space issue on their own. There were two full frames of honey in that box--one on each end--so I harvested one.

Extracting the honey was an unbelievably sticky mess--clearly a once a year "hose down the kitchen when you're done" job!
The full set of photos are here.

Francestown, NH wildflowers

1. heal all, 2. goldenrod, 3. white and purple phlox, 4. cardinal flower, 5. wild geranium,
6. spotted touch me not, 7. bull thistle, 8. rose canpion, 9. joe pye weed, 10. wild aster,
11. blazing star, 12. queen anns lace, 13. birds-foot trefoil, 14. rose hips, 15. blue vervain,
16. common tansy, 17. red clover, 18. harebell, 19. boneset, 20. orange hawkweed

These are all flowers I photographed last week on a short walk around Jim & Sue's farmhouse in Francestown, NH. I've included the common names--please let me know if I have any wrong.

Lemon Beehive Cake

I don't think you can go wrong with lemon and honey. Last week when I was out with Debbie, I found this cake pan at Williams-Sonoma.
The recipe that came with the pan is excellent.
In fact, I think I'll use it for the cupcakes next time.

Photo credit: Thanks Felicia!