Yolande Brown-Conran

Starting string with a very cool introduction to permaculture course.
It is free as of today you can still as of today. We are on week one.
https://open.oregonstate.edu/courses/permaculture/
Just wanted to share what I found. See you in there if you register. I'm student Yolybear ... Yolande Conran if you want to learn through it together.

My summer in a nutshell

Hi everyone... sorry I have been away so long
I noticed I dropped out of sight about June so let me tell you all that has happened.
Oh what a wonderful ride the summer of  2018 was.
I think I said somewhere in these posts that I got obsessed with bees.
I took a beekeeping year long course and got more intrigued. Then got bees in July while taking the course. Yea alittle late but I am a procrastinators and I wasn't about to let myself talk myself out of this one. It turned out to be a great learning experience and having the support from school showing me what to do... doing it on their hives then going "home" and doing it on mine was very valuable. I cant even begin to describe the difference bewteen being in the beeyard at school with ypur teacher holding your hand every step of the qay feeling nice and safe.... then going home same exact procedure but now its just you and your bees and your self doubt. Especially as it came down to fall with winter coming and the winter preparations. Wow!
And then the realization that after you done your inspections a few times on your own how much you have grown from the first time you opened your box of your bees ...and got over the okay now what! Realising that the bees heard you say it and now they are like oh great we got a newbie. And they were not afraid when to tell me they had enough of me get out our house now please ! Guards!
Then the winter wait.....and it's still not over cause it's still cold now and still snowing a bit.
But I kept busy during winter I got an oppertunity to join as a member a potters studio. So I have been learning pottery and taking workshops to be the best potter I can be. And got to go to an Encaustic Workshop to try out painting with beeswax and that was so much fun. I was missing my bees too so almost all the ceramic pieces I  made had bees and flowers on it. Instagram@ yolybearz has most of the things I made so far.
Kept busy by also making a website that was more me ... literally..... Yolybear.com a blog where I journal what I been up to.

Summer was real amazing fun too I got into paddle boarding a natural progression from Dragon boat ... and wanting to be back on the water and exploring the lakes nearby... this is Canada after all they are everywhere might as well jump in ..fall in...whatever....lol Tried fishing too but the fish just laughed at me.... especially when I casted my rod into the lake..... bye bye rod! ..... anyone else done that? Just me? ....

Oh man great fun!
Other wise still in the city day to day ... still on the grind.... still paying off debt....still only have a shed .... still but a lot happier now knowing I'm working towards something.

Now I'm looking at the weather like Oh come on get warm already!

Thanks for checking in on my guys... how is everyone? How was your winter?

Hi Craig
Thanks for joining the conversation. It has been a very interesting one and continues to be. I spent a few days in Maine a few years ago..... oh gee it's beautiful ..... we were right by the beach and it reminded me so much of home in Jamaica .... only the beach was covered with snow so that took a few minutes to process and I found it a little amusing. I live in Canada now so I really should not be that surprised but it still gets me somehow.

Speaking of finances and practicalities this year will not be a year for building projects. I just don't have the funds for it. And so even though I really want to get started I have to calm my enthusiasm and sit this season out to save and get the debt under control. I can however pass the time by doing some manual labour like cleaning up or planting and other cheap free things like skills building. It also means less trips to visit. But I'll make due with what I can do.

I got the basic mason jar soil test done but I'm not sure what to make of it. The soil is so bark that the layers are not obvious. But here it is. While planting my baby apple and pear tree experiments I grabbed two hand fills of dirt and put it in this bottle, filled it with water and shuck.
I have lots of earthworms everywhere and sorry but I think I got one in my sample ... poor thing you can see his little tail.

Hi all happy Summer

So glad it warmed up I can finally plan some trips.
Checking in with you guys hope you had an amazing winter and spring. Winter was slow and spent mostly on the city with family and eating and just working away and doing some volunteer stuff at the ceramic museum for fun.

For spring I decided to explore my new found fascination with bees by taking a bee keeping course. That was fantastic learned a lot and still obsessed ....  Lol

Also took a Cabin Building class that just finished up. Hoping to practice my improved skills on the shed me and my dad tried to build ... that is more art than a shed *wink*  but it did survive winter intact and all my stuff safe so we did some things right. :)

The greenhouse plants did good. I planted the apple trees i gre from seed . As a newbie in the green house for my first winter season I lost quite a few plants but I feel I learned a lot from the experience. Now to see how far the ones that made it through will get. I planted them out on my property for my first visit. I'll go check on them in a few weeks yo see how they are doing.

Talk soon... thanks for checking up on me :)

Hi all :)

Not much going on this past 2 weeks. We had our first snowfall. The days have been dark and gloomy. Growth rates of the plants have slowed to a crawl.
So visibly not much has changed at the greenhouse.

There are a few note worthy changes. The willows roots looked amazing so i pkanted them in small individual pots. I have new leaves bursting from the buds and one looks like it's trying to flower.... I think it's a bit confused. Poor thing.

I was thinking about my sweet potatoes.  I have 2 slips growing on separate parts now. I have also been craving my Jamaican yellow yam. It's soup season now and it's great in soup. I went to the supermarket and found some.... and bought 2 small  pieces. Cost me $10 :( ... wow mixed feelings. I made my soup had some more for breakfast and saved a piece to see if I could get it to grow and get some enjoyment of watching the process. Get my full $10 worth of entertainment....lol

So now that my plants don't need me as much as they are mostly all asleep. I figured I would keep my mind occupied with my first love. Pottery. .... Yup more playing in the dirt. Gonna make some tiny pots for some cactus I propagated. Gotta work on the size .... that pot is way too big for that little tiny cactus ... lol

Yolande Brown-Conran wrote:On Seed works today


Mr Blackberry is doing well. I am going to be  watching him for a couple of days in my apartment to see what he does. I will also try and sand down my other blackberry seeds very carefully. I had some that i had sanded and were trying to sprout but still could not get out the seed shell and when i tried to pry them out I broke them :(

Update....got 2 now

Is it just me or does anyone else wanna just skip winter and go right to spring? ...lol

Thanks Mike .... yea you are so right :) ....I have thought about this several different ways. And came up with I would have to be very very lucky if I get the apple tasted at the farmers market from the seeds.

From what i learned so far nature and genetics  is all about variability. All would have to work in my favour I made a little drawing.

If all the trees were the same genetic make up. They may be since most farm trees are from genetic stock which are exactly the same in all rows. They don't want variability in their apples either....all of them have to be exactly the same to sell to Wal-Mart....lol
But the farmer these came from has maybe 6 varieties of apple trees. But if my apple came from a tree surrounded by its come trees then I win ....sorta

Then a really lazy bee with the beehive really close to my trees just going to the tree next door to get pollen for my tree. Then i win again! But like i learned recently about need is they will travel 3km to forage.

Then the genetic make up of the seed .... Can the seed made up from clone parents produce the same tree. Then i win! ....Or would it produce some mutant tree that doesn't even produce apples.... my mutant tree may be sterile. Will they even grow passed seedling stage?..... scientist can be mean an engineer the seeds like that so that you have to buy seeds and not propagate your own apples :( .... or am i paranoid.

SOooooo clearly I have been thinking about this too long......lol but it could work out ...they are alive and hopefully next year my greenhouse bench neighbor who started doing the same thing I did 3 years ago has some results he can share on his first mut trees he grew as a novice.

But I got real root stock seeds and pear seeds  from my greenhouse bench neighbour that the supplier said is 98% true. So i will play with those till spring. I guess they have a very controlled tree laboratory. ...lol

Then I'll find myself a few ligit trees. By then I should know lots more about caring for trees.

I'll keep you guys posted if you can stay the course with me for a few years ....lol

Hi all ....it was a slow week.

In the mornings I would do seedworks. So I have found that If I strip the apple and pear seeds of the brown covering they all seem to germinate and faster.
I have been working on stripping all the apple and pear seeds I got from the farmers market that were in the fridge. Just a little each morning till they are all done. Still have a bunch left to go.
The ones that germinated I packed them up to take them to the green house.

Also from the fridge. Remember that squirrel planting the acorns...and how i took a few acorn home and put them in the fridge to see if I could get them to grow. I had wrapped them up in toilet paper individually wet them and put them in a ziplock bag and put them in the fridge. I looked at them this week and to my joy the acorn have split. Yay. I cant wait to see what happen after that. That is the first picture below.

So nothing else new the whole week till I got to the greenhouse on Sunday.
One of the plants i was most interested in this week was the Sweet Potato. The second pic on the bottom half: that is the before ...and the top half is how much that little leaf has grown.

Ok so exciting stuff!!! Remeber my greenhouse bench neighbour who I was talking to about the apples he planted from seeds. He is keeping his lemon trees at the greenhouse. I watered his lemon trees for him cause I don't think he can make the trip in that often. I look at my bench at see a package of seeds and a note in a ziplock bag. The note says thanks for watering the plants and the seeds are in the pic below. Wow! proper root stock. Kindness rewarded is a huge way!. I popped them in the fridge as soon as I got home.

In other news...I expanded the little egg tray seedlings.....all 24 spots with plants now trying to grow.... getting their first starts.

The willows! OMG roots! and already...it has only been one week. I will pot them up next week. The ones at home are rooting too but slower.
I have to remeber the ones at the greenhouse are from the greenhouse willow tree by the river. And the ones i have at home are from the willow tree in the park by museum station.
I will mark them when I pot them (but putting this here just in-case my brain pulls a yoly)

I have 2 update videos for you....sorry about the one above disappearing I didn't set it to not delete the video. These two should be there a while
A video is worth a billion words:---here is what went on on Sunday
https://www.periscope.tv/yolybearz/1ypKdNyOypqJW
https://www.periscope.tv/yolybearz/1dRKZbvLEEDKB


Today is the BeeKeeping association meeting. So excited! I learn so much last time. I;ll let you know what they teach us tonight.
See ya soon ...Thanks for reading
Or you can catch them on twitter: @yolybearz

Thanks Travis .... loved this post. Thanks for sharing. I like the love in the moment and enjoy the project as it goes. Thanks for the reminder that work... life... relationship balance is important.
I also have to remind myself that not everyone is as excited about the things I am excited about and vice versa. So I engage in what gets my husband excited and then surprise he shows up to help me with the plants. Give and take you know... sometimes we need reminding cause it's so easy to have those blinders on.

Thanks again Travis :)