bees in the bay breeze

We're now looking right at the year 2019. Thank you for reading my blog. Let's all make 2019 a better year for the planet and all living things on it. We can do this!

Okay, they are a great treat any time of the year. But I think they are exceptionally delicious on rainy winter mornings. This is a tried and true recipe I use from a little cookbook purchased from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, the Pennsylvania Dutch Cookbook. Dutch Pancake: 1 tablespoon organic butter 1/2 cup sifted unbleached organic flour 1 teaspoon sugar 1/2 teaspoon salt 3 organic eggs, well beaten 1/2 cup organic milk 3 sliced organic apples Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. Se

A fascinating video featuring Sir David Attenborough and his observations of plants that have adapted to wet and humid environments and the animals dependent on the plants. How did flowering plants evolve so fast? Watch this!

If you live in the San Francisco Bay Area check out Annie's holiday sale. https://www.anniesannuals.com/ I dare you to leave there with less than 10 plants! This is my FAVORITE place to purchase plants. Last year in January I purchased from Annie's a Ray Hartman Ceanothus seedling that was 5 inches tall. It is now 6 feet tall and 5 feet wide! No water or fertilizer needed for this plant. It's the ideal California native.

When it's cold, dark and rainy, soup is one of the best comfort food I can think of. I don't remember where I found this recipe, and I altered it a bit. It's delicious! Tofu Soup 3 organic garlic cloves, finely grated 1 tablespoon finely grated, fresh organic ginger 2 tablespoons organic, low sodium soy sauce 2 tablespoons toasted sesame oil 1 large block of soft organic tofu 1/2 lb of chopped organic shiitake (or organic mini portabello or white mushrooms) 4 medium, organic

Well look what we have here... With all the rain that we have been getting (thank goodness!), I'm finding plants sprouting in the most unlikely places. This is a natural fiber doormat on a porch in front of our kitchen. It was so soggy that seeds that must have flown in the wind and landed on the mat are now sprouting. Let's see what happens here.

It's that time of year when the ivy produces berries. And when it's not raining, the hum of buzzing fills the air. Here is a honey bee approaching a stalk of ivy berries. Note the orange pollen on its left leg in its pollen basket. And here is another honey bee on another stalk of ivy berries. Note the orange pollen on its right hind leg in the pollen basket. I also observed hover flies and a carpenter bee on the berries, but they weren't still long enough for me to capture g