Oh, it's May? Already?

The last 7 months have been a bit of a whirlwind, but things seem to be calming down a bit and once I'm past June 8th, I'm free and clear for the rest of the year.

Meanwhile, what's been up?

• Well, I attended Craftcation in April and loved it.
• I'm getting bees.
• I'm almost through with loquat season, which, unfortunately this year has not been nearly as productive (entirely my fault)
• I've planted, but not nearly the spring garden I was hoping for by this point

Over the next couple of weeks I'm planning on replanting my cucumbers as SOMETHING (I suspect squirrels) ate the plants right out of the ground, roots and all. When I told the owner at the garden shop, he barked; 

"REDPEPPERBLACKPEPPERCINNAMONMUSTARD!". 

"All of them?" I asked. 

"REDPEPPERBLACKPEPPERCINNAMONMUSTARD!". 

OK then.  Apparently, I am to encircle the cucumber plants in these spices, which I have now purchased in bulk to sprinkle throughout my garden. I have to replant 2 artichokes as one just died a miserable quick death and another one stuck around looking runty until one of the chickens scratched it right out of the earth. Damn chickens.

All the chickens are doing well. Gave their coop a nice, thorough scrubbing this weekend after attending the UC Pathology lecture on backyard chicken diseases. Frankly, I'm used to medical slides but the necropsy slides from the pathologist...well, I needed to clean the coop. Thankfully, I'm not going to post any pictures.

As for the bees, I'm going to be hosting two hives of my very own at a sanctuary up north a bit near Westlake Village. I'll post photos as I put the boxes and frames together and get them painted up all pretty.