The secret lives of bees

Every evening I go out in to the yard in hopes of getting a photo of the flickers that take a dirt bath on our gravel road in front of the driveway. While I was sitting amongst the flowers, trying to blend in- I became distracted by the bees. I also discovered a bee thief in my garden.

This guy is covered with pollen.

(click on photos to enlarge)

This little bee was so tiny I almost didn't see it.

I'm not sure what this guy was up to, but it kept stealing petals and coming back for more!

Stop thief!

Week in review with photos

I love when the purple finch visits my yard!

This is the closest I've ever gotten to a flicker- they are so flighty! This was taken outside my bedroom window. There was a pair of them together on the wire, but again, I was too slow to get a shot of that...oh, I did get a video of it.

Before

Our beds which were very unsuccessful for vegetables last year, turned out to be great for wildflowers!

After

We put down packets of wildflower seeds to attract butterflies and hummingbirds. Next year, we're going to find the "bucket" of wildflowers.

Pizza Friday!

Oops! I was asked to post the recipe for pizza dough last week, but never got around to it. Fridays have become a regular night to make our own pizza for dinner. I really like the Joy of Cooking's pizza dough. You can find the recipe online here.

I used a small desk lamp and let it hover over the dough to add a little warmth and allow the yeast to rise.

Brian does the honor of rolling out the dough. He rolls it pretty thin so the crust isn't too "bready" when baked, which is a common complaint about the recipe. We make 2 pizzas and have enough dough leftover to make another small pizza (which we attempted to freeze and see if we can use it in the future). Once we made the adjustment we were sworn believers in the Joy of Cooking dough recipe being tops.

Pre-baked. Hey- where's the feta cheese?

Another urban wildlife outing

It seems like there is always something different to see when we go to the Union Bay Natural Area. Today we saw a gorgeous kingfisher who was not shy at all. It was busy fishing the entire time we were there and I even got a photo of it catching a fish, but unfortunately the lighting was all wrong and isn't very good. Oh! And we also conjured up a frog. (Now, we are hoping we will conjure up the winning lotto numbers.)

Finally, I got some photos of dragonflies- although I do not know what kind they are...If anyone can identify them, please do!

The Beautiful Untrue- music review

I first saw this cd in Tesco of all places when I was visiting my mother-in-law in Ireland last month. I recognized the artwork of Amanda Atkins who is an Etsy artist that I really like a lot. I had never heard of Jerry Fish & the Mudbug Club so I didn't buy it, but when I got home I followed Amanda's site to Jerry Fish & The Mudbug Club's myspace page and listened to the sample clips of the Beautiful Untrue.

The artwork is very appropriate because the music does have a carnivalesque feel to it. The music and vocals remind me of a lot of different artists from Tom Waits to the soundtrack of Twin Peaks with Julie Cruise to the Wolfgang Press to even Frank Black. Does this show my age? The myspace page likened the music to something that might be on the Amelie or City of Lost Children soundtracks which I do agree with.

Needless to say I bought the album- my first digital download of an entire cd (it does show my age!). Although I was tempted to buy an actual disc so I could have a tangible print of Amanda's artwork, but the immediacy of the download won me over. Check out both Amanda Atkins great art and the music of Jerry Fish & the Mudbug Club!

The one that got away

More photos from the Union Bay Natural Area taken almost 2 weeks ago. The trails were quite overgrown with tall grass and we wish we would've brought our machetes. However, I did get to see a female American Goldfinch gathering fluff for its nest and a gorgeous osprey.

Last week I went on the Twin Falls hike near North Bend. We hiked up to the suspension bridge that overlooked the 2nd waterfall and I saw my first male Western Tanager! What a beauty- it had a bright yellow body and black wings with a fiery orange/red head. It flew down in to the clearing and landed on contrasting dark green boughs of douglas fir- which would've made a great photo with the waterfall behind it, but it flew away just after I got a close look at it through my binoculars.

Jewelry for your farmer's tan

pink agate, rose quartz, aquamarine, cherry quartz

No birds today but I do have some good bird photos for my next post- I promise! In the meantime, here are some of my latest jewelry designs which were inspired during the "heatwave" (hence the farmer's tan) where most of the stones I used remind me of "crushed ice". Necklaces available here.

aquamarine, iolite, peridot, honey calcite

rose quartz, pearl, honey calcite, garnet (near clasp)