To us at least, our community center has started looking a bit run
down, so we arranged for two dates in the month for painting. For
various reasons, the response on the day was less than overwhelming,
though we were grateful to the dedicated few who did come to help
paint. (Thanks again to Doug, Veena, Ricki, Pete, Brittany, Les and
Sharon; and to Linda for both painting and refreshments!
We succeeded in painting the inside. The outside we will try to tackle
again in the late summer. Here is a photo of the inside, taken on the
31st, at the
Memorial Day Dinner. It was a spectacular, hot day on which about 140
townsfolk came to eat roast beef, potatoes and vegetables,
and shoot the breeze. The second photo is of the cooks, servers, wait
staff, and clearer-uppers, taking their meal outside at the end of the
afternoon. (You can see that the outside needs work!)
It often seems that when you start researching a topic, other
similar articles crop up, and the bee condos is one of those. The
honeybee is often the first pollinator to come to mind, when
considering how fruits and vegetables become pollinated, but the
honeybee is a generalist, that can often take the nectar and give
little in return. Other bees, butterflies, birds and even bats can be
more effective. These simple bee condos (see photo below) provide a
nesting site for certain native bumblebees, and if enough people
provide them with habitat, can in turn perform an efficient pollination
service for everything from tomatoes to strawberries.
On May 2nd we held an open house for our big Airstream Ambassador.
After 4 years we wanted to make our almost restored 1955 Flying Cloud
our main recreation vehicle. Despite quite a lot of expressed interest,
only one family came to visit on that Sunday, but they loved it! We
also
loved their idea to take it on a cross-country working vacation. So we
struck a deal and Julia, Mirek and family drove her away two weeks
later.
Apart from that we have been busy working on both making the Flying
Cloud ship-shape, and Phil, with Jack's help, prepared some vegetable
patches for
potatoes, carrots, tomatoes, peppers... We had some trees removed
in the fall, to provide sunlight for the solar hot water panel, and
also for the South-East part of the yard. Cutting through all the old
tree roots is hard work though, and it will take another year to bring
the whole area into production.
Lorna also got invited to talk about Celiac Disease to the Holistic
Mom's Club. This turned into a more general talk about gluten
sensitivity, which affects a much larger number of people, presented at
the Genesis Farm library by both Lorna and Phil. It was well received,
as were the lemon squares and cashew-nut humus with sesame-herb
crackers that Lorna also brought along to show that there can be tasty
food, without gluten and even without any grains at all! (If you want
the recipe, search for the "Gluten Free Almond Flour Cookbook",
by Elana Amsterdam.)
The vacation was a success - and deserves a separate web page. Please
take this link.
