tea berry-blue

So, some of you may have noticed the name of the last drink I posted. It was one of those days when what was going on in my life had something to do with how I was feeling about naming things, so I guess I should tell you the exciting thing that happened today in addition to getting chicks on Friday.

Actually, let me just show you.

Do you notice anything special about that picture? Like, say, the presence of two hives instead of one?

Well, that is because my parents got up at the crack of dawn to ACQUIRE A NEW QUEEN. And now we have two hives! So exciting.

The bees are producing crazy honey. Like, we put in some empty spare frames with some comb they made last year but never got around to filling, and it was full within about eight hours. Crazy! I’m excited to see what this honey tastes like compared to the goldenrod honey they made last autumn.

Bees are the most awesome. Check them out!

Love them! That last one was a bee on my leg. They kept landing on me today. At first it was because I was wearing crazy madras shorts which make them think I am a beautiful flower, so I changed into whites and I think then it just meant that they love me. D’aww.

Anyway! I got a ton of work done in the garden today. We went to three garden centers and picked up a bunch of stuff, including a golden raspberry bush and Vietnamese coriander, which is one of my favorite drink-worthy herbs, but we couldn’t find it last year.

Here’s some of my gardening work for today:

That is my mom’s bed of eight basil plants in seven varieties. We bought SEVEN varieties of basil. Who does that?! So now, we have an entire bed of basil. Excellent?

That one is carduni, which is another thing I love (fried!), but that is pretty hard to find. We couldn’t get it last year. Then it’s collards, cauliflower, and brussels sprouts. I was a little disappointed that we didn’t have another vegetable that began with the letter “C” to go in that bed, but it’s cool because I do love brussels sprouts.

Yesterday, Jess came up, and we got invited to a barbecue at the neighbors’ at the last minute. It was fun, but I got massive horrible asthma pretty much the whole time I was there, and ended up sitting on their sofa in their living room the whole time. I felt really badly about it, but there wasn’t much I could do.

Then, this morning, we got up and went to see the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie. It’s sort of crazy, because the last two I went to opening night in costume, and this one, I was only vaguely aware that it had opened. It says something about how my life has changed, and something about how disappointing the last two movies were. This one was cute. It wasn’t as good as the first one, but it was much easier to follow and not as overwrought as the second and third ones. It didn’t actually ever feel like it was a long movie, which is good when something is over two hours.

Then was gardening and beekeeping, hooray! I wore the bee hat today and everything, which I usually don’t do.

Jess was in Chile for a while, and she brought me back a bottle of really good pisco.

Jess tends to like sweeter, fruitier drinks than my mom or I do, and we have a ton of berries in the fridge right now, so I made this for her and then added the pickling liquid for me and my mom.

Ingredients
2.5 oz pisco
1 large strawberry or 2 small
10 blueberries
1 tsp basil jelly
Juice of 1/4 lime
1 tsp pickling liquid from a jar of pickled hot peppers
1 slice lime

Instructions
Cut strawberry into chunks
Add strawberry, blueberries, and pisco to shaker with ice and muddle until fruit is well crushed.
Add jelly, lime juice, and pickling liquid and shake
Pour into chilled cocktail glass and add lime slice

We also dumped the leftover fruit from this into our wine tonight :-P Yum.

Last but not least, I leave you with pictures of the chicks, who are fluffier and cuter than they were last time two days ago!

And our scallop appetizer (with bacon, brown butter, and scallions)

And the second batch of salt & pepper ice cream (made with more brown sugar and less white sugar), served with a 12-year balsamic

Are there ice cream flavors anyone would like to suggest I try? As long as it is a flavor that appeals to me and for which there are ingredients available, I will consider pretty much anything.

Mirrored from Antagonia.net.