It's a gorgeous Saturday morning here in Asheville.  BUT I left my camera at home so I thought I'd search through my old pictures and show you some of my favorites. 

 

Sometimes there is not enough room to show all the pictures I take.  Our bakers make cookies every day, as you know.  And, if we have a special catering request that includes dessert, they do that too.  Did you know that they also make sweet temptations every day, following their whim, the weather, the season and who knows what else?

 

Speaking of medical miracles, Henry is coming along very nicely.  He's obsessed with fire engines but I guess that's a fairly normal little boy thing.  If you're ever interested, he's pretty good about knowing which fire trucks have a ladder (#1 and #5).  I, for one, did not know that.

 

Here are our dinners for this coming week.

 

Monday, February 21

* Ricotta and Ham-stuffed Chicken 8.95

 

Tuesday, February 22

Portabella Mushroom “Wellingtons” 7.50

 

Wednesday, February 23

Pot Roast with Homemade Dumplings 8.50

 

Thursday, February 24

Shepherd’s Pie with East Fork Lamb 7.50

 

Friday, February 25

NC Trout with Beer Braised Lentils 9.50

 

Order by noon and we'll have your dinner ready to pick up by 3. Our new winter hours are in effect so we're now closing at 7.

 

Salad and bread are now a la carte (not included.) Let us know if you'd like to add them. Salad is 3.25 and bread is 1.25 per person.

 

We make a special casserole and a special lasagna each week.

 

Order by noon or so. Order a half if you have around 4 folks. If you have a bigger group, or you just like leftovers, order a full-sized one.

 

Then come pick up between 3:00 and 7:00.

 

The casserole this week is:

 

Wednesday, February 23

Chicken Pot Pie

Whole: 35

Half: 17.50

 

The lasagna, for Friday, February 25 is:

 

Local Italian Sausage and Pepper Lasagna

Whole: 59.95

Half: 29.95

 

And then there are the bees.  The more I do this the more I am amazed at it all.  It's almost spring here and the warm days are bringing out the girls who are searching for pollen and nectar.  This is the time for colony buildup, for hive assessment, for putting things in order. 

 

I continue to be delighted by the number of children who come here.  Sure, they bring their designated drivers with them (someone has to pay, after all) but it is very heartwarming to see them eating real food. 

 

Ooh these warm temperatures are getting us all astir around here!  In this past week I've had conversations with a whole lot of people about spring gardens. 

 

Yesterday I brought some big wooden boxes home, filled them with dirt, stirred in some composted gold, and stood back to admire my handiwork.  I'm going to plant my own garden this year! 

 

February 19, 2011

 

G’morning!

 

It’s a sunny and beautiful day here. I am itchy to be outside. Each day for the past few days I have gone home and cleaned out one or two garden beds at my house. I’ve cleaned my home too, and I even dug into some of the nooks here in my office and cleaned them.

 

Spring cleaning fever?

 

Last week I was home during a warm afternoon and finally got to open up my bee hives. A week before that I had seen a lot of activity around them, with bees flying in and out of hives # 1, 2,and 4. There was not activity at hive # 3, which made me curious, but that hive had been added late to my apiary and, when I had examined it in the fall, it had not looked very robust.

 

The other day, when I went out with my gear, I saw bees around hive # 1 but none at any of the others. I started my exploration at Hive #4. When I opened it I found no living bees but, much to my sadness, a cluster of bees, all dead, and a whole lot of dead bees on the bottom of the hive. This hive had gone into the winter with a pretty strong colony. I had wondered if it would make it, and had felt fairly confident that it would. I was wrong.

 

Hive # 3, the one that had gone into the winter with a weak colony was completely dead too. Though this one did not come as a huge surprise, it was sobering. I’m trying, as you know, to be a good beekeeper. A good beekeeper, in my definition, does not continue to have dead bees and only dead bees.

 

Hive # 2 was all dead.

 

What is going on? What had I done wrong?

 

I would have felt completely devastated if Hive # 1 had had no bees but, much to my delight, it was LOADED with bees, humming and working and going about their lives with vigor. Hive # 1’s bees came from a local fellow and are “survivor stock,” meaning they have survived a winter, they have a strong queen who is, it appears, resistant to the diseases that are plaguing the bees. (Hive # 2’s bees were from the same source which was confounding, but hive # 3 and 4’s had come from other places and were less reliable in terms of being resistant.)

 

Anyway, after cleaning out the dead bees and congratulating the vibrant girls in Hive # 1 I spent a good deal of time thinking about bees and life and the affect they have had on me and what I might be able to do to help. I have no proven conclusions and I am certainly a stumbling beginner, not an expert, but it really seems that the environmental pressures are extraordinary and it will take a concerted effort to change things enough that bees (and all the rest of us) move away from this precipice.

 

It's almost bike time too.  When I finish my work today (before I get going on the book proposal) I might just dust off my bike and head out for a spin.  And if not today, then tomorrow for sure.