Saturday family dinner in grandpa and grandma's garden.
Fresh raspberry pie with whipped cream garnished with Milo's rasperries.
Sea Holly, favorite plant of bumblebees.
Rabbit tail grass laden with pollen.
A female hummer sits on one wire and a male sits on another on the opposite side of the yard. She silently sips fuschias. He squeaks and sucks the bergamot.
Cherry Lane Farm is a very low key operation. It took me three visits to notice this bell all but obscured by grape vines.
Farmer's friend?
The vegetables are coming along nicely and the apple tree branches are bending with the weight of their bounty.
I discovered that a few raspberry bushes had survived the flooding. Sadly, no-one had been picking the fruit and much of it was just falling onto the ground. It broke my heart. Miles generously allowed me to take some home along with some beans and zucchini. But no beer.
After scraping and toasting some frames we decided to take a look inside two hives. "Let's go get stung," the Beekeeper said. "Speak for yourself," I replied, and zipped myself into a full suit. We were able to take off about six frames full of honey and a bit of extra burr and comb.
The second hive we examined was very aggressive compared to the first one. The Beekeeper has very gentle bees of his own, so he was unprepared for the cantankerous assault. I felt badly every time he got stung. Next time he'll wear a full suit and I will have two smokers going so I can get those bees gorging on honey instead of stinging.
One of the hives was lacking a frame so there was extra space in the hive. The bees built comb between frames, which we harvested and I took home to pick out what we call "hive debris." Miles gave me a pyrex dish and the honey leaked out of some of the uncapped comb into the bottom of the bowl. It's a very light, delicate spring honey. Thanks bees! Now go out and make some more honey.
If you get a chance, you should really pop into the Archive City Show at the Richmond Art Gallery. Details are on the Rag's website and Loiszing's blog."Richmond Art Gallery is pleased to host a project by Archive City, “a memory collection agency” composed of three Vancouver based artists, Lois Klassen, Cindy Mochizuki and Jaimie Robson."
I saw the show on Saturday when the trio of artist archivists were giving memory seminars with members of the audience. The artists have interviewed a number of people in Richmond and collected their stories and memories. Instead of documenting the interviews on film or DAT, the artists created intuitive responses to the stories. The first part of the show is a series of nummbered boxes containing miniature dioramas. Each box coincides with a file card and a folder where you can get a glimpse into the process by reading notes by the interviewers and quotes from the people they interviewed.
For the first workshop, Lois Klassen invited me to complete a sentence about Richmond. I wrote the text down using an old fashioned nibbed pen.
Next, I was to paint the image projected above with ink and tea, allowing myself to interpret it according to my memory.
Then Lois showed me how to layer the text onto the image. Some of the other audience member's results were beautiful.
Jaimie Robson led an exercise on triggering memories with fragrance.
Blindfolded, I was asked to smell a series of three different scents. The first two were very subtle and I kept getting a whiff of something floral. The third fragrance was very spicy.
Next, I was asked to choose the scent I liked best, make a blind contour drawing on a transparency, then write one sentence about a memory triggered by the scent. I chose the spicy scent, redolent of cardamom and cloves. It reminded me of making chai spice gingerbread at Christmas.
Okay folks, now we head to the material that should appear in every archival wunderkammer IMO. Chocolate! Here we were invited to taste homemade truffles by Cindy Mochizuki inspired by the stories of Lulu Island.
We were invited to draw a memory inspired by the chocolate. My truffle was flavored with orange peel, and once again it reminded me of Christmas. We were given the number which corresponded with the original story that had inspired the making of the truffle.
For the rest of the day I was aware of how sensory experiences enrich memory. I stopped often to savor the day and drink in the beauty of what I saw, tasted, and touched. I hope to stop by the show again so I can delve into the whimsical archives a second time and enjoy the layered experience it provides to the viewer.
Yes, it's all a blur now. There's the ice cream cake as requested: a layer of chocolate cookie crumb crust, Island Farms Caramel Cariboo, Homemade strawberry chocolate chip ice cream, and the top layer is Island Farms Bear Claw topped with fresh raspberries. Happy Birthday sweet boy!
A harvest of new potatoes from the vegetable garden--new potatoes sounds so much better than middle-age potatoes, doesn't it?
Yesterday we did more tidying up for the tea party on Sunday. We had an extra helper today, the Balcony Gardener. Under a thicket of tansy, bindweed and thistle we discovered some beautiful piles of willow branches. Nettle Lady was immediately inspired so we all collaborated to create an ephemeral installation under the cedar.
Sharon devised a herringbone pattern to begin with.
I can't believe it's late enough in summer for the echinacea to be blooming. With the late start in the spring our summer seems so short.
Bees love these mint blossoms. We will use some leaves to make tea on Sunday. I also received a cup of Oregon grapes to experiment with. I found recipes for jelly combining oregon grapes with salal berries or crab apples. I don't think the crab apples are ripe yet. I think for Sunday I will boil them with water like I do currants, put them in the moule and make an oregon grape syrup I can make into refreshing spot of iced tea. Rawther! Apparently it's the root of this mahonia that is used to make medicinal teas, but hey, maybe the Vancouver mixologists will start using native berry syrups in their cocktails. Like, we could start a trend. Must bring gin to tea party. (Just kidding.)
As you can see from the photos last week the phacelia is already going to seed. I gathered some of the tiny seeds for Sunday's seed balls. The stems are quite prickly. I love the sensuous ritual of gathering seeds. It's an obsession of mine. I'm a bit of a gleaner, I am.
Good-bye artichoke. Hello parsnip? Is it time for winter gardening already? (Choked sob.)
