Friday, April 15, 2016

promise & pain of spring



I'm crocheting around my phone cord for fun and also to distinguish it from the others (I use the term crocheting loosely). There are too many charging cables at our house -- why does the shape have to be different for every chargeable device, I wonder.


Violet blossoms are especially abundant this year. I picked quite a few the other day, a good thing because we are expecting 14" of snow over the next few days. Here I made a salad with violet blossoms, tender baby kale leaves growing on second year kale plants, arugula and feta cheese drizzled with olive oil and a bit of violet vinegar left from last year. 


Violet flowers on a violet plate, flower-topped paperclips, and a tiny 9-patch I stitched a while back.


Vinegar was made. Violets are good for soothing both named and unnamed grief -- more about violets here and here. It's called fairy vinegar because violets crossed over from the fairy realm. That's what I believe anyway.


I read recently that the season of Spring is both promising and painful. I'd never thought of it as being particularly painful...until this year. Now I get it. Things end, things don't come back, things die.

The bees died. Just like that. One day they were fine and the next day they weren't. I want to blame the wasp takeover of last fall but really can't say for sure. I've cleaned and scraped propolis, wax, and more from most of the 30 frames inside the foundation boxes and am now hoping to attract a swarm. If not, I'll try to purchase a colony from a local bee supplier.

That's where the promise of Spring comes in. And I'm ready. xx

13 comments:

  1. Oh Peggy, sorry about your bees. My friend lost hers also. It's so weird and sad. Just start again I suppose. I've got violets blooming all over the place. I never thought about putting them in a salad. I'll give that a try tomorrow! Might try out the vinegar too!

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  2. beautiful sentiments and creations, peggy. so sad about the bees. there seems to be a lot about bees these days. nothing good. perhaps your new swarm, whether charmed or purchased, will bring new promise! namaste'

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  3. Oh my dear...the bees...((((sigh))))
    May your sorrows soon be the joys of a new swarm.
    Meanwhile how I love those violets...and I am going to post that vinegar recipe from the first link for friends at face book as well as send it by email to a few friends. you know that abandoned church garden...well, in the back plot, violets pepper the bare ground. You just can't kill what truly wants to live. I'll go out this weekend and take some photos and harvest. Big love to you.

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  4. Oh, so sad to read about your bees. Promising and painful are my days right now. Where did you read that?

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  5. Oh so so sorry Peggy! I'm sure they were garden and almost personal friends too.
    I'd have been devastated to lose them and not to know why must be so frustrating too.
    Can't imagine how awful finding them must have been.
    Hugs to you and sincere hopes that another batch of bees come find you soon.

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  6. I am going to make the vinegar. I like the idea of crocheting around phone cord, too.

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  7. Oh, your bees…I'm so sorry. I hope your beautiful violet vinegar works some fairy magic for you. & can I just say, crocheting the cords is absolutely brilliant, I am definitely using this idea!

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  8. Thanks so much everyone. I was heartbroken about/for the bees. It's taken a bit of time to grieve to even write about them but the work of cleaning up the hive was helpful and hopeful. Cleaning is always my way of working through stuff. xoxoxo

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  9. Cindy and Hazel, you can google how-to-crochet-a-cord if need be, it's out there! Since I pretty much can't read/follow crochet directions I'm faking it.

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  10. All these colours are so lovely, so "spring" .... ;-)

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  11. I've been keeping up with your wonderful blogs, just haven't had a minute to comment, hopefully that will be changing. It's terrible about your bees, we need them so. I hope a new swarm chooses to come. Love all your violet ideas, your violets blooming are ahead of ours. Have a wonderful full moon earth day, I'll be watching for your post.

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  12. Crocheting cable, very cute! I love the idea! Thanks also for the link to Violet Fairy Vinegar. Can I use pansies, I wandered? Hugs Nat

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