I wasn't feeling hot today, so I stayed home from work - I haven't had a sick day in a long time, and while it's never fun to be sick, it IS fun to be at home unexpectedly. I got a lot done. I'm not good at resting; I did watch an hour of TV and read a little. But mostly I puttered. I made a black-bottomed banana cream pie for a co-workers birthday, and brownies for the kids. I got bolognese sauce going early on and between all the chocolate and the tomato sauce, the house has smelled good all day. It's sunny and about 75 degrees. Something hard to ignore was all the bee activity in the yard. Big native bees, tiny native bees, and honey bees from the hive. All swirling and buzzing and foraging.

I saw some honey bees taking their first flight outside the hive, so the colony is definitely growing, hooray! We'll need to open it up and take a look this weekend.

But I didn't just gape at the bees. I also WENT TO WAR. Those damn earwigs. They are eating everything! Here are my battle tools:

I got everything on sale, and this was the cheapest olive oil I could find. Everything I read online said to use olive oil, so I went with that instead of something cheaper, but in hindsight, I can't imagine that olive oil is the only oil you could use - the point is just to drown the suckers. I buried the bowls in the dirt, so that they are flush - three to each 4x8 bed. Then I added a layer of oil, a dollop of molasses, and a glug of soy sauce. I'll take a picture in the morning and show you the results. I'm hoping for mass destruction.

a bowl near the spinach. most of my greens are full of holes, this patch isn't awful.

At this point, the greens with large leaves are going to the chickens (we're still eating the young, tender leaves), so it's no big deal if the earwigs eat them. What concerns me is that they are making babies, and every time I disturb the dirt, I notice masses of them. I don't want them here when I begin summer planting in a month. This is a preventative measure for the summer crops.

I'm feeling slightly better, so back to work tomorrow, but my mind will be with the bees, flying in the flowers!