The Gritty Girl Blog

not a good excuse but....

2012-02-10T15:16:00.000-05:00

Its been a very very long time since I wrote a post. I feel pretty bad about it. I've done lots of blog-worthy things but just haven't put them down. Its easy for me to get overwhelmed and distracted when things aren't going the way I want them to. And for the past few months, its been one thing after another. I had to move out of my apartment back in June and back into my parent's place. I love them and appreciate them letting their almost-thirty-year-old daughter crash with them, but there is a horrible defeated feeling that goes along with it. I feel bad that I can't afford to be on my own at my age. Absolutely horrible. I went to college thinking that I was going to improve my life and become independent. I'm not where I want to be at all. I lost my job at the end of the year. I saw it coming and decided that I better not get myself into a new lease when I didn't know when or if I would get another paycheck. I've been trying to keep myself busy between the few and far between job openings I apply for and I opened an etsy shop, which you can see here : Its been fun, although I think I might actually be losing money on it.

A lot of people have been asking me about my beehives. Two out of three have made it through the worst of the winter, although one is pretty weak. I will probably go into spring with one good hive. I got some advice from a more experienced beekeeper I recently met and he believes I may be able to preform a "split" on one of the hives; divide it into two in early spring. This makes me hopeful because I really can't afford to buy more bees this spring. Unemployment checks don't leave me with a lot of extra cash. I'll probably only have one or two hives this summer but its better than none. I'll still have bees. I never got around to posting but we got about 90 lbs of honey last summer. I went to a beekeeping class last weekend and met some really nice local people that I can work with and communicate with so I'm looking forward to spring.

Its easy to start feeling sorry for myself when considering the many trials and tribulations that me and my family has been going through lately and it actually takes real effort to feel good sometimes but I try to think about all the things I have to be thankful for. One being my new nephew, who was born a little less than a week ago. He is perfect and a wonderful reminder of all the things I have to look forward to. That's about all I have to say right now. I want to get around to posting some pictures of the bees over the summer and some little side projects I've been working on. I'll do it soon....

One of the things I wanted to do when I first set up this blog is to start putting up songs I like. I was driving around yesterday and heard this one for the first time. I listen to country music all the time but I have never once heard this one and now I know that its been out for a while now. How did I never hear it? I think I've played it 17 1/2 times since I heard it yesterday.

mango magma

2011-08-15T20:56:00.002-04:00

This picture doesn't really show how pretty it is.
I have no photography skills.

A few weeks ago I got my creative juices flowing and created (all by myself..for real) a recipe for a chunky, spicy mango salsa I have lovingly named "Mango Magma". Its great as a glaze for meats like pork chops and chicken and also great on a buttered biscuit. Its great on a blue corn tortilla chip and I bet it would be great in tofu stir-fry. In fact, I imagine it would be great on anything, its that, well, great.

I kind of just starting chopping and stirring and did my best to keep track of the amounts of all the ingredients as I was going but I cannot absolutely promise you that yours will turn out exactly the same as mine did. I'm not perfect. I make mistakes. Hard to believe I know... For me, the recipe made 3, 1/2 pint jars with a bit left over to enjoy immediately.

MANGO MAGMA

Ingredients (to the best of my memory):
2 ripe mangoes, peeled and diced to 1/2" or so
Juice of one lime (no seeds)
2/3 cup sugar
*4 tbs white vinegar (cider vinegar would be fine too)
2 jalapenos chopped (with or without seeds depending how hot you want it)
1/4 cup red bell pepper chopped
1, 1/2 tsp salt
1 c water

Directions:
In a stainless steel pan add the diced mangoes, water, sugar and chiles and bring to boil. Your mangoes will soften and begin to form a thick sauce. Let the mixture boil gently for about 10 minutes so that it thickens and becomes jam-like. You don't have to be precise here. You don't have to worry about the salsa "setting up", so you can cook it until it forms the consistency that you want. Add the lime juice and vinegar and salt and simmer lightly for another 5 minutes and remove from heat, remembering to turn off the burner. :)

If you plan to process your "magma" in canning jars you will need about three, 1/2 pint jars with rings and lids and sterilize them before hand just as you would for other canning projects. Ladle the hot salsa into hot jars leaving about 1/2 inch headspace. Wipe the rim clean and center hot lids on jars. Screw on the rings and adjust until fit is tight but not forced. Process the closed jars in a boiling water canner for 10 minutes (longer for higher altitudes). Then remove the jars and cool completely before handling. Check the lids for seals after 24 hours. Lid should not pop up and down when center is pressed. If you plan to use up the salsa within a few weeks you can skip this step and just store it in the fridge in a tightly closed container, which will be good for a couple weeks.

You can play with the recipe just as I did. A little red onion would be a great addition but I didn't have any at the time.

*If you are going to add any other ingredients like a little red onion, increase the amount of vinegar to 1/4 cup or so. The USDA suggests that when adding non-acidic foods to canning recipes you must also increase the accidity level in order help prevent spoilage in home canned food. Always err on the side of food safety. If the seal is popped, or it looks, smells, or tastes even a tiny bit "off", chuck it.

So what is your favorite kind of salsa? Are you a traditional tomato salsa person or do you like things funky?

the notebook

2011-08-13T21:30:00.000-04:00

yes, those are my feet. This photo is of bad quality
because my cat chewed through my iphone cord.
I had to get very creative in order to get this photo
on here. Thanks Kitty Cat.

You have good weeks and you have bad ones. I will be filing this one in the "bad" cabinet. There were a handful of not-so-great things that occurred this week (arguments with family members, grandma's 2x broken leg, not-so-great work news, loss of one of my beehives to probable colony collapse disorder, etc.,) but rather than dwell on those, I would like to recap all of the good things I accomplished this week.

Overall I am pretty happy with the garden. despite all of the sun gold tomatoes that I planted disappearing, I do have some really nice black cherry tomatoes that taste good. In my desperate attempt to hold onto summer for as long as possible, I decided to slow roast two pints in the oven with garlic, basil and olive oil and bag them up for the freezer. I tasted one and it was delicious. Then I tasted another, and another. Boy those tomatoes shrunk in the oven. Doesn't look like I have two pints worth now, but come January, I can pull out a bag and toss them into some soup or pasta and be reminded of summer and that the sun really does exist.

So far I have picked 5 beautiful eggplants. Some went into curry, some will be dehydrated for later. I also threw lots of hot peppers and Anaheim chiles into the dehydrator. I'd love to make a batch of jalapeno jelly but I always have the best intentions.....

The apricots I got from Traverse City went into 6, 1/4 pint jars of apricot butter. It was my first time making that and I am pretty happy with the result.

Greg and I bottled up 31 pounds of honey one of our healthy hives. It might be wishful thinking but I am hoping that is less than half of the harvest we expect to get this season.

Despite being really excited about something that was supposed to happen for me at work, and then finding out its really not great after all, I did get to do something cool. I attended a workshop that taught us how to use interior design samples in craft projects. I made a notebook out of wallpaper scraps and fabric scraps. I also got to loot a warehouse full of said samples. The the backseat of my rogue is full of unique fabric. Once I learn how to sew, I might open an etsy shop and sell handbags made from reclaimed window curtains. Best intentions......

IDK. I plan on filling my reclaimed wallpaper notebook with all the goals I really wish to fulfill in the short and long term. First for the short term- I want to go to Australia in the year of my 30th birthday (2012=soon). First for the long term- I want to figure out how to be my own boss or just retire early and move to some tropical country where the cost of living is cheap. Its hard to get yourself out of a rut. I've been more than a little displeased with certain areas of my life lately and maybe writing down my goals and mapping out how to obtain them will help me cope. Maybe I need a big change, maybe I just need a therapist.

If you could retire early and move anywhere in the world, where would you go?

summer won't slip away from me this time....

2011-08-07T21:57:00.000-04:00

I got a wonderful but brief visit from Greg last week. We went to Traverse City for a mini-vacation. Its a really beautiful place. It was my first time there but Greg's aunt and uncle have a home there and we were fortunate that they invited us to visit during the Traverse City Film Festival. The Michael Moore one.
We caught a few documentaries and spent the rest of our time there soaking in the scenery. I don't know how many hours we spent sitting on the beach just relaxing. It was wonderful. I think we both needed the R&R. I can't wait to go back.
I wasn't aware of this but northwest Michigan is famous for their cherries. We came home with sweet and sour cherries as well as the best apricots I've ever eaten. The sours are in the freezer, the sweets were cooked down and canned and the apricots are awaiting a delicious fate that will be shared in a later post. Below are just a few pictures of the amazing scenery.

Sleeping Bear Dunes. We were too scared to go all the way down. There weren't any helicopters available to lift us back up.

Greg and his Aunt Kit strolling along a trail at the park

Still Sleeping Bear and still beautiful

Greg's Aunt Kit again showing us the view

I really love this picture. It only captures just a tiny bit of all the fun we had. Sitting next to Greg is his uncle Ron, showing off his bag of dog poop. Love responsible pet owners :)

...damn...

"secret beach"

made me some black raspberry syrup

2011-07-24T22:59:00.000-04:00

homemade soda using black raspberry syrup and sparkling water

Last summer was my first shot at making home made jelly when I helped Greg preserve a batch of wild grapes. He was on a bike ride when he discovered tons of wild grapes growing on trees right along the trail he was riding on. He stuffed his backpack full of tiny little grapes and rode home with them. The idea of making jelly never interested me much (1: I don't really eat jelly. I'm more of a butter girl and 2: I always thought it was too time consuming and technically difficult for me) but the idea of Greg gathering berries on the road side as people drove past, gawking and giving him weird looks and then carefully putting them all in his backpack and riding all the home with them strapped to his back just makes me smile. So when he asked me if I wanted to help him make wild grape jelly I just couldn't say no. I was intrigued by all the work he put into getting them. I mean, do you know how many tiny little wild grapes it takes to make just a few jars of jelly? A whole backpack full.

Anyway, That was the day I learned that jam and jelly making was not only easy, it was fun. I've made (and helped make) several batches since then. I've made elderberry, concord grape, dandelion, and even wild violet jelly among others. My problem is that I like making jam and jelly much more than I like eating it and my family and friends no longer appreciate my jam gift giving as an alternative to real gifts. My cheapness wasn't fooling anyone. So this year, instead of wasting all the wonderful wild berries I have access to, I have gotten the brilliant idea to make several batches of berry syrups. They can be used for all sorts of things; Flavoring drinks like lemonade, iced tea, and sparkling water, drizzling over pancakes, waffles and ice cream, even as base for sauces in savory dishes like chicken and pork. Its satisfies my canning itch and also happens to be useful rather than wasteful. Great!

The last few weeks I have been picking lots of wild black raspberries and made several jars of syrup. In one small batch I threw in a couple split vanilla beans to infuse into the berries while they were cooking. I later found that the vanilla was almost overpowering so next time I'll just use one or maybe even a half a bean. Black raspberries have such a wonderful tart, almost wine-like taste that its kind of a shame to hide it behind too much vanilla which is exactly what I did. Lesson learned.

The recipe I used for the black raspberry syrup was similar to the one at Food In Jars and that can be found here. I made two batches and modified it slightly when I added vanilla to one batch and a bit less lemon juice in the other. Just didn't have enough fresh juice so I only used about two tablespoons of that. I did follow her advice when she suggested adding vinegar to the strained berry seeds to make a berry infused vinegar. You also do not have to process or "can" the syrup if you you aren't ready for that commitment. The syrup can be stored in any container in your fridge for a month. You can also do this with any other fruit I'd imagine. Recipes are out there I bet.

this is the syrup boiling down after the seeds have been strained

pouring into jars

two batches plus two jars of raspberry vineger, which will make some kick ass vinegrette I think.

2-3 tbs syrup + 6 oz sparkling water or club soda = happiness!
Now this is the math I'm good at.

There are now lots of ripe blackberries out there. Unlike black raspberries, blackberry thorns are the approximate size of machetes so I am still contemplating risking my life to get enough berries to make a few, seemingly small, jars of syrup. Not only do I have to wear long pants and sleeves in this 90 degree weather to get to them but I also have to fight off crow-sized mosquitoes as well. For some reason, blackberry syrup doesn't seem so great at this moment in time.

i suck

2011-07-19T20:47:00.000-04:00

I fell off the blog writing wagon. Summer has been hectic. Greg moved to Nebraska to farm much to my despair, I took a week off work to help him, then I came back and went to a week-long training for work, came back again a week later for a huge conference that my office hosted, moved out of my apartment, went back to Nebraska for the fourth of July and now I am trying to catch my breath before I head up to Michigan with Greg for a much needed break. I've done plenty of blog worthy activities-just haven't had time to write about them. This post is a desperate attempt at getting this darn thing updated. After this post I will try harder to get more regular posts up with recipes, how-to's and my usual musings and rambles but I am also going to try to enjoy my summer a little bit.

Gardening:

The garden has been doing okay despite the late and rainy start. My snow peas were basically a bust. It was too wet early on and got too warm too quickly for them to produce more than an few handfuls of pea pods, which I ate immediately after picking. My radishes were ready about the time I went to Nebraska with Greg and the ones I did pull up early enough were really peppery and bitter. I don't know if it was the seed stock, the weather, or me just getting to them too late but they sucked.

garden pot at my parents' house

a couple of my zucchini

my fancy expensive organic heirloom squash...doing nothing

my one and only lonely patty pan

There are dozens-I mean DOZENS- of cherry tomato plants that were planted and there are several varieties. Black ones, green ones, yellow ones, striped ones etc., and it seems like its taking forever for the fruit to ripen. But when the do-we will probably drown in them. In addition to the cherries, there are several other tomato varieties I tried out this year. Amish paste, Mr. Stripey (really, that's the name) Cherokee Purple, Brandywine. We haven't gotten a single ripe tomato from those plants either but there are lots of flowers and green tomatoes.

My heirloom patty pan and round squash aren't producing well. The plants are small and stunted and have hardly produced any female flowers (the ones that produce the fruit) so I have harvested one tiny patty pan and no round zucchini. Those of you that read this and are in my zucchini contest should know that my mom's zucchini has so far produced over a dozen zuccs and there is no end in site. I have been trying to think up some creative ways to use them up so they don't go to waste. I've even tossed around the idea to pickle and can some of them. I've picked 6 off of my plant so far but I'm not too upset because they would probably go to waste anyway, what with my mother's zucchini glut and all. I've heard from a few of you that your zucchini isn't doing so hot either. I think its just that we went from extreme rain to extreme heat and hardly any rain too quickly and its stressed the plants. We can try again next year!

My eggplants look good, despite that only 4 of the dozen or so seedlings I planted survived. They are all beginning to flower so maybe I will have me some eggplant parm in a few weeks? I guess 6 plants is enough. Just like zucchini, you can only eat so much before you get bored with it. My herbs all look good except for the peppermint. I have no idea what's wrong with it. Its leggy and sparse and looks like it is in desperate need...... of more of something. I was hoping to dry lots of it for tea but I don't think that is going to happen. Ironically, mints are notorious for going crazy and taking over your lawn. My luck.

The most exciting thing about my gardening endeavors this year is that my mini watermelons are doing fantastic! There will be some ripe ones in the next week or two and the plants are loaded with them. My only fear is that they will all be ripe at the same time and I will have to find homes for most of them so they won't go to waste rather than eating them here and there as they ripen. My cantaloupes are also doing pretty well. The fruit seem to double in size every day!

the day I discovered the plants had fruit

2 days later

two days after that. I swear my hands are much daintier and feminine than what this picture shows.

Bees:

The bees are awesome. All three hives are doing well. One is doing even better than the other two and the colony has filled an entire honey super (medium sized box) with honey. I think there will be a lot more honey to harvest this year than last and I am excited. Greg is coming back for a short time late next week and we will do a complete inspection together and probably harvest a good portion of the honey. Now the struggle will be how I am going to get my hands on all the jars needed to fill with honey. Okay, maybe I am exaggerating a little bit. I can probably come up with enough jars, but nonetheless there will be a lot more honey than last year. The extra wax will be saved and used for candles, lip balm, homemade furniture polish, etc., for winter projects.

this is the healthiest of the three hives. I went out one hot day to watch them and this is what I found. I panicked and thought that they were swarming. Turns out they do this a lot when its hot. They fan the hive and spread out to cool off.

two honey supers on top. The unpainted one is full of honey and they are working on filling up the other one. Yea! Pay no attention to the straw mess. Its a mulching job in progress to keep the weeds down. Bees don't like lawn mowers.

In a day or so I plan to put a post up about my raspberry canning projects. So now that we're caught up, how are your gardens doing?

cows, bees and pickled asparagus

2011-06-05T20:10:00.000-04:00

I've done a terrible job keeping the blog up to date the last few weeks. My excuse is a combo of being busy or lazy; neither of which are conducive to writing. Anyway, I'm here now so that's the important part, right?

Last week I went with Greg to Nebraska to help him move and settle into the farm life. Even though it was really hard knowing that I have to continue on without him until we figure out the next step, I really had a good time out there. Greg took me to a cattle auction where he will soon be buying his first herd, I got to ride on a big tractor, saw an enormous wind farm (see pics below), went four-wheeling and even "helped" mend fences. I was probably more of a pain in the a** than a help but I learned a lot and Greg looks good holding a chainsaw :). Now that I am home and alone I am trying to keep myself as busy as possible until I get to see him again in a few weeks.Every time I start missing him, which is pretty much every ten minutes, I think about how brave he is to quit a well paying but soul-sucking job to do something he is passionate about and I am extremely proud and happy for him.

found this cow walking down a dirt road. She wasn't very chatty. See the turbines in the background? So many more than the four here in bg.

The weather is finally shaping up so I finally got stuff planted. The zucchinis and pattypan squash are coming up, the tomatoes are slowly growing and the radishes are almost ready to yank. Unfortunately, the terrible May weather took its toll on my carrots, spinach and beets. Hardly any came up. My lovely heirloom eggplants also look pretty pathetic. Ironically, the non organic, non heirloom serrano peppers we bought at home depot have peppers already.


yep, this is of the sideways growing variety. Old computer + new camera = major headache

The bees are doing FANTASTIC! Two of the three have honey supers on them now that the raspberries are flowering. I did an inspection yesterday and am happy to report that all three queens are thriving and there are more bees in the hives than I ever saw last year. I am amazed by the difference. We'll never go back to the place we got them in 2010. Too many things went wrong to blame it on bad luck.


if anyone knows why my pictures show up fine on my computer but load sideways on blogger, please let me know. This is embarrassing and annoying.

Tonight I made my second batch of asparagus. For the first batch I used a recipe from Food In Jars but it turned out a little weird. I didn't like the clove/anise taste so I modified it the second time around (skipping the pickling spice and using garlic, peppercorns and mustard seed only) and added Greg's dried cayenne peppers to make it spicier.

why does technology hate me?

I will be moving out of my apartment soon but haven't found a place yet. Nothing like waiting until last minute to induce a nervous breakdown. Oh well. Probably anything is better than listening to my upstairs neighbor learn how to play the guitar. I'm thinking about buying him professional lessons if he promises to NEVER play at his apartment until I love out.

lots going on!

2011-05-14T19:56:00.000-04:00

Lately I've been finding it hard to find the time to get some blogging done because its been so nice outside. I've been busy with the bees and garden, busy with work and busy worrying about what the next few months are going to do to me. I have to move out of my apartment. Soon. The floors are rotting in both the kitchen and the bathroom and the maintenance people come and go as they please, leaving things messy or broken. I fought with the management enough to get May and June's rent free but I have to be out by July 1. In other news, A few weeks ago Greg decided that he will be moving to Nebraska to help his family farm. They own a lot of land and need the help. This is something Greg has wanted to do since the day I met him so I can be nothing but supportive. Still, Its going to be really hard on me. Unfortunately neither one of us are in the financial position for me to be able to quit my job and relocate out to Nebraska (where jobs are few and far between) anytime soon. We will have to take it a day at a time and just see what happens.

I might not be doing the greatest but at least the bees are doing well! Here are the rest of the pictures of installing the packages.

Sorry, Cody. I didn't get any good pictures of you helping out. I will have to get those from your mom.

took this a few days later on the beehive at on my grandparent's property. The bees were busy collecting from pear blossoms.

I am happy to say that the bees are doing great! All the queens are laying eggs and in a few weeks the populations in each of the three hives will have doubled. I am really hopeful that even though we did not have last year's hives survive the winter, we will still get more honey than we did last year. Even though Greg won't be around as much to help me, I will probably be constantly calling him for advice and to give him updates.

Since the weather has been worm and dryer the past two weeks I have been able to get a lot of my veggies planted. The radishes are already popping up and the carrots and green onions will be (hopefully) making their appearances soon. My heirloom zucchini and scallopini squash are planted as well as beans, peas, cilantro, broccoli, eggplant, golden beets and a few tomatoes. Greg's Thai basil (seeds saved from last year's plants) are also in the ground. I can't wait to be eating dinner entirely from food grown at home.

My aunt and mom arranged a fantastic plant swap and today I brought home bee balm, sedum, and several other bee friendly plants. After the swap and a fantastic lunch with my mom, aunt Sandy, my sister Sara and her munchkin, Trevor, Greg and I visited a local greenhouse and brought home some Serrano and jalapeno peppers and some herbs; lemon balm, thyme, sage, globe basil and peppermint. I hope to be able make teas out of the lemon balm and peppermint and dry the other herbs for later use.

My sister, Leeanna, and I planting kohlrabi in the Konrad Family Garden

Greg's 31st birthday was over two weeks ago and I just got around to giving him his gift. It's not that I forgot, I just wanted to make sure I got him something he would really like.

Its a meat grinder attachment for his kitchenaid mixer. See the smile on his face? He loved it. I also got him a sausage stuffer (insert giggle here) and a book titled "MEAT book" which is all about raising, butchering and cooking ethically raised livestock.

The present works really well. Last evening, we enjoyed home ground hamburgers. Tonight Greg roasted a whole chicken and made a delicious gravy recipe from the "MEAT book".

Along with...

Asparagus. We picked it ourselves from my Grandparents' enormous patch. Sauteed it up with some green onions (past their prime) salt, pepper and olive oil. Nothing better.

the bees have arrived!

2011-05-05T22:20:00.002-04:00

They're here! We picked up our bees last Tuesday. We ordered them from a new place. Although we had quite an interesting experience in Waldo last year, we decided that since we had a string of bad luck with them that may or may not have been coincidences ( lazy bees, lost a queen, had a swarm, a wax moth infestation and finally, frozen bees) it was a good idea to try a new source this go round.

Beekeepers tend to be strange folks. I guess people who willing open up a box full of thousands of stinging angry bees and poke around inside of it have to be a little crazy, and I guess Greg and I fall under that category but still, it seems like every time we have a run in with professional beekeepers they always seem a bit off. We drove two hours to eastern Ohio to pick up our bees. The bee farm was out in the country and as we were searching for the right place we saw a flock of white doves walking around in the road. Like the doves you release at weddings, those white doves. Not something you typically see at the bird feeder. The doves didn't seem to mind that we were about to run over them and they slowly strutted into a driveway next to the road.

The driveway happened to have the same address as the one listed on our order form for our bees.
It didn't take me too long to figure out that these doves must have been some kind of side project that the bee farmers were doing. We parked the car next to a big barn which happened to have even more white doves hanging out inside.This was our first indication that we were in the right place. Like I said, beekeepers are weird. Nice, but weird.

pallets of bee packages. Hundreds of thousands of bees. You can't see it really well but there are tons of loose bees flying around. Often times during shipping packages break open.

We went into a little shop next to the dove barn to tell them we were here to pick up our bees. Inside there was this wall covered with articles, pictures and newspaper clippings all about bees. Like a huge scrapbook.

I bet this tiny girl knows more about beekeeping than I do.
I don't know who she belonged to but with all those bees flying around, I was nervous.
She's carrying an empty bee box, but still. There were TONS of bees flying around.

The bee farmer man putting our queen in the package.

Marking the queen. We decided to pay a few extra bucks to easily find the queen this year.
Last year we were never able to spot her. Maybe we had such a bad year because we didn't even have queens? When I asked the gentleman if it was okay to take pictures he said sure and that he hoped he didn't accidentally let the queen fly away because he would be embarrassed. Sure enough, he accidentally let her go and it took about five minutes of him dancing around trying to catch her again. Free entertainment I guess.

wall o' bees

We added a hive to our little apiary for 2011. This is the new one. Its wax treated and unpainted. Ordered from the same crazy bee farmers.

This creepy beehive rocking chair caught my eye. Yup, beekeepers are weird.

the rogue loaded up and ready to go.

I guess the bee farmers were into turkeys too.

A lot of loose bees flying around the INSIDE of the car on the way home. This happened last year too. Guess you can't avoid it. I was much calmer about it this time around.

I will post the pictures of hiving the bees this weekend. Its bedtime. Did I tell you that Greg and I have an apprentice this year? My cousin Cody is in high school and he is doing his 4-H project on beekeeping. I think he will be a lot of help to us this year. I hope we do a good enough job teaching him so that he will want to get his own hive next year!

dc trip

2011-04-30T12:46:00.001-04:00

The last two weeks have been CRAZY. I had to deal with a home invasion (more on that later) traveled to dc, and then we FINALLY got our bees. I will be blogging about all these things but I decided to do the dc trip first.

On friday, Greg and I left for dc to have Easter and celebrate his 31st birthday with his family. We went downtown, ate blue crab with his family, had Easter Brunch and got to visit Great Falls National Park. I had a great time. The weather was perfect. Sunny and in the low 80's the whole three days we were there.

Greg in front of a giant metal tree in a park

Washington Monument. I took a lot of pictures downtown but
I think everyone has seen all them in one way or another so I won't bother to share.

Greg used to be in this historic building when he worked at the wilderness society. Its really old.

my first time eating blue crab. It was messy but tasty!

Great Falls/Potomac River
I am excited to add this to my growing list of National Parks I've visited!

vanilla! ...and some other stuff

2011-04-17T10:23:00.000-04:00

My whole apartment smells like vanilla! My homemade vanilla extract experiment is a success and I bottled the finish product this morning. It took about 12 weeks for it to be ready but it turned out fantastic. Greg has used it for several batches of homemade brownies. I bottled the finished extract in these cute little recycled glass bottles.

There are lots of vanilla pieces left over. I am going to get another batch going-a few more fresh beans and more vodka and the beans will continue to infuse the alcohol (that's the idea anyway). I think I may also make some lemon extract. Same idea, just put lemon peel inside the alcohol instead of vanilla.

I've been trying to stay busy while we are waiting for our bees. Any day now..... I've transplanted my tomato seedlings into bigger containers. Cardboard milk cartons work great for that. And we have plenty. Greg drinks about a half gallon a day!

And for you animal lovers out there.....

My sister's new puppy, Darla. She's not dead, just sleeping.

My uncle's beast-dog, Smoke, begging me for a bite of my dinner.

dehydrated mushrooms (because they were on sale)

2011-04-11T20:18:00.001-04:00

So I finally got in on the 11 boxes for $10.00 mushroom sale at Meijer. Organic mushrooms for less than a dollar a box is a steal people! We eat a lot of mushrooms so why not stock up? Food prices keep getting higher and higher while my income keeps getting lower and lower. I have to make up for the difference in, well, unique ways, okay? I decided to dry the majority of the cheap mushrooms so I can throw them in soup and risotto whenever I feel like it. Using dried mushrooms I bought on sale and in bulk will save me about 20 bucks.

oh the possibilities

I quartered the baby bella mushrooms

and sliced the white buttons

ready for the cupboard

After they dried in the dehydrator (12 hrs or so) I put them in canning jars with a bit of paper towel in the bottom to absorb any moisture that sneaks in there. Dried mushrooms + moisture=moldy mushrooms. Food saver bags would work well too. I really havent used my dehydrator very much and its really easy. The only thing I've ever really used it for were the hot peppers I grew 2 years ago-which are still delicious in soup, stew, curry, etc. I bet my dehydrator will make several more appearances in this blog. I am just waiting for mangos to go on sale next. Mmm, mango chips....

fyi-you can dry mushrooms (and lots of other things) at a very low temp in the oven if you don't have a dehydrator. Google it.

from scratch: wildflower honey and browned butter ice cream

2011-04-07T20:45:00.003-04:00

With beekeeping season right around the corner, Greg and I wanted to do something fun with the last of our stored honey from last year. I found this recipe quite a while ago and filed it under "rainy day project". Well since it has rained every day since forever ago, last night was the perfect time to pull out that recipe and give it a shot.

We borrowed my sister's antique ice cream machine, gathered the ingredients and prepared the recipe. I'd rather not take credit for someone else's genius (and I have a fear of being sued) so if you would like to try this ice cream you should go here for the recipe. The ingredients are simple: whole milk, cream, honey, butter and egg yolks. It took about 15 minutes to prepare and maybe another 15 to freeze-despite mechanical issues. The recipe made about 3 cups of frozen ice cream (not including the cup or so we couldn't stop ourselves from eating while the ice cream was freezing). The recipe called for unsalted butter but we used salted. Its hard to explain but sometimes adding just a touch of salt to sweet things makes it taste better?

We poured the mix in the barrel of the machine, plugged it in and it immediately made a loud clicking noise- a noise that tells you something is wrong. We unplugged it again, messed with the barrel, thinking the ice was packed to tightly to allow it to spin. We were able to spin the barrel easily by hand so we inspected the motor and discovered that even though it was working, the part that attaches to the barrel and made it spin, wasn't turning correctly. In the time it took to inspect the motor ("when I say inspect" i really just mean looking clueless while scratching our heads) I guess the ice cream got cold enough to freeze

Its hard to describe the taste of heaven but I will give it a shot- creamy, honey-sweet with a touch of buttery caramel. How does that sound?

honey ice cream mix cooking on left, butter browning on right, dirty stove top everywhere

butter sufficiently browned

butter goes in honey ice cream mix

antique ice cream machine....didn't work.

turning the mix by hand

the finished product

Greg decided to try coffee ice cream. That was really good too.
same base recipe as above but 2/3 cup sugar in place of honey
1 cup strong coffee and a few tbs fine grounds

Oh, kitty is still sick. Its a weird kind of sickness though....

maybe its a man cold?

She only seems sick when she knows your looking

she thought I was busy cleaning the kitchen but I managed to sneak this picture.

I'm always on the lookout for recipes with honey. Anybody have any other good ones?

bird bath blue

2011-04-04T21:08:00.001-04:00

got home from work at 8:00pm. I'm tired and chilled. I've been walking around in puddles all day and my pants got soaked up to the knees. I have to make this (yet again) a short post.

Even though I've been exhausted lately I managed to find the time to paint my toes. Its amazing how a little 5 minute paint job improves your mood.
Wet and Wild, Bird Bath Blue, $2.29.

don't make fun of my weird shaped toes. I can't help it.

Kitty is sick. She has a cold but she still manages to wake me up at 4am with her tuna breath.

The Meijer 10/10 and 11th free came back around. I finally got my organic baby bella mushrooms...11 boxes for 10 bucks. That will save me about 20 dollars since they are usually about 2.99 a package. I am going to dry them with the food dehydrator. I freaking love mushrooms, okay? Read about my mushroom madness here. So there will be a post later this week about food dehydrating.

I got three types of melons in the mail the other day. Tiny watermelons (2 lbs) and two types of mini cantaloupe. I couldn't help it. Why are mini versions of things so much cuter and more appealing? Thankfully my parents agreed to expand the garden to accomodate a few melon plants-just a few. Bees love melons. I'm doing it for them.....

tell me this doesn't look amazingly delicious

2 lbs-5 1/2 inches long. pocket sized.

softball sized. I can see a little ball of ice cream nestled in the center.

various topics

2011-03-28T20:45:00.000-04:00

I've been struggling to find the motivation to blog lately. Work has been more chaotic than usual and when I get home I am just a bit too drained to tap into my creative side. The ideas are swimming around in my brain but they just cant break the surface. I'm not going to worry about it too much. There will be plenty to blog about when this darn weather starts cooperating. Most of my seeds have sprouted....

Amish paste and black cherry tomatoes

French breakfast radishes...getting a little leggy. Where are you, sun?
These will be grown indoors. they don't transplant well.
also not shown, my French Alpine Strawberries have come up ahead of schedule
...or they may be volunteer tomatoes from my worm compost bin that sprouted in the pot.
I'll find out sooner or later.

At the top are the radishes
The bottom box was supposed to be spinach and black-seeded lettuce.
Some of it is growing but there is a mysterious empty area where a small animal may have used as a dirt perch.

she looks suspicious

I know this blog post isn't very exciting but I want to be careful not to spend more time blogging about my life than actually living it. So in a nutshell, I've spent the last few weeks enjoying my life. I've read a few good books....

and spent quality time with my family...

walleye fry

spring clean-up day at my grandparents. the whole konrad side showed up to pitch in. Its impossible for cleaning not to be fun when they're around.

And spending time with my sweetheart. Yesterday he helped me clean, we took a looooong walk at sidecut park and then he took the recycling to the center, and put gas in my car. I love that guy. After that, we had a delicious meal....

My mom canned spaghetti sauce from my grandparents homegrown tomatoes last summer.
I may be sentimental but I swear food that has been made and preserved with love
tastes so much better than anything mass produced.

Greg's vanilla custard from scratch...
Tasted like vanillatopia

Thats pretty much it for now until I have some other hairbrained idea I feel neccesary to share with the world. Oh, by the way..there are seven of us participating in the zuchinni challenge. I'm mailing the seeds this week. Bring it people.

bonfires and other things that start with b

2011-03-20T18:49:00.001-04:00

Saturday turned out to be a really mild sunny day. The last full day of winter, in fact. Greg and I picked up some burgers and beer and went over to my parents for dinner cooked over a bonfire.

Greg and my bro-in law, Vic. I don't know what they're saying but I have a feeling it has something to do with making the fire bigger

My Nephew Trevor

Dad enjoying some of our home brew. He says its good stuff but this man has never met a beer he didn't get along with

Cooking burgers

why are bonfires so mesmerizing?

had to get a picture of Greg and I in front of the big moon (supposed to be the biggest in years)

I am looking forward to more days like these. Goodbye Winter!

homemade deodorant or the anti-stink stick

2011-03-13T22:24:00.002-04:00

Several weeks ago I made a batch of homemade deodorant. I had been having problems with some other "natural" brands I had been trying. They either a.) didn't work. I would end up smelling like garden fresh herbs and b.o or b.) they made my underarms break out into a terrible rash, causing me to itch like crazy and be given multiple disgusted looks from various people.

The reason I started using natural brands in the first place was because I was/am paranoid after reading all sorts of articles about how there is a possible link between breast cancer and aluminum in antiperspirants. I can't sit here and say "if you use antiperspirants, you'll get cancer." It's not my place, and it hasn't been proven. But I can say that I am more comfortable avoiding the aluminum all together to just avoid that possible risk. I am also a firm believer in letting ones body do what its was designed to do. When its hot, we sweat so that we can cool down our bodies. If I put something that keeps me from sweating, its preventing my body from cooling itself when it need to.

Anyway, since I haven't found an aluminum free brand that doesn't make me stink or cause itchy pits I thought I'd try making my own. I didn't have much to lose since I already had most ingredients on hand from making my lotion and lip balm.

Here is the original recipe
I had to deviate from the original recipe I found online because I didn't have shea butter. I replaced the shea with half the amount of sweet almond oil since it is a liquid.

Here is mine:

1 1/2 Tablespoons sweet almond oil
3 Tablespoons baking soda

2 Tablespoons corn starch

2 Tablespoons cocoa butter

Essential Oil (I used 20 drops of lavender)

I melted the oil and cocoa butter in a Pyrex measuring cup in the microwave ( 30 sec at time until totally melted) then I mixed in the dry ingredients and essential oil. Eessential oil should go in last so the heat will not cause the scent to vaporize. Then I poured the mixture into an empty deodorant tube that I had saved and cleaned. If you want to try making this, any empty plastic jar or small metal tin will do. You could even use a small jelly jar like the lady used in the original recipe link above.

I sat the container in the fridge overnight to cool and set. It looked like it would be too runny and I was afraid that it wouldn't have the right consistency but it hardened and I was able to use it the next morning. You use it just like you would a regular stick of deodorant. Rub it on your pits.

It works pretty well! Not GREAT, but well. It absolutely does not keep you from sweating but it does a fantastic job keeping you from stinking. It does have a bit of a gritty texture and I didn't really like the lavender smell mixed with the cocoa butter smell. I think next time I make this I will fragrance it with a different oil or not at all. The very best part is that I don't have the itchy pit syndrome anymore.
The second very best part is that it cost me less than 1 dollar in supplies and will probably last me about four months.

challenge!

2011-03-11T18:48:00.006-05:00

I've always been a competitive person. Years ago when I worked at a daycare I would challenge the 5 year olds to occasional nail-biting games of candy land. Sometimes I won and sometimes I didn't. I will not confirm or deny stacking the deck so to draw Queen Frosteen and the little one's to draw Plumpy therefore having to go
back to the starting line. Like I said, I am very competitive.

Now that spring is almost here and veggie gardening is on my mind, I thought I'd see if any of you blog readers would be up for a friendly competition. This will be a great little incentive for anyone who wants to start a vegetable garden but just hasn't gotten around to it. It is also a great way for beginners to get their feet wet!

Before I get into the details I want everyone to know that in order to participate, they do not need a huge yard. All you need is a 3x3 foot plot of dirt or at the very least a 5 gallon flower pot (which you can find very cheaply at the local walmart or garden store) and a sunny spot on a patio or by a window. Yes, you can even do this indoors.

Green Thumb Contest !!!!!(haven't come up with a more catchy name yet-happy to hear suggestions)

It will then be your challenge to try to grow the 1.) largest quantity of zucchini in pounds 2.) the largest single zucchini in pounds and 3.) be the person who comes up with the most unique way to cook and eat thier harvest by July 30th, 2011. If you would like to participate in this contest, I will supply you the seeds so that everyone has the same platform to start from and everyone must plant thier seeds on the same day. No cheating, this isn't candy land..

The reason I picked zucchini is because it is a very versatile and easy to grow vegetable, it produces well and there are so many ways you can cook it. I am trying to make this as easy as possible to encourage folks to supplement their diets with good, healthy homegrown food. I am going to do a little research and find a good hearty variety of zucchini. There are all different kinds but I will be looking for a compact (will take up less space) variety that will be well suited for various soils and conditions. If you absolutely hate zucchini, this may not be the contest for you.

I am still working out the details but everyone that wants to participate will receive the same amount of seeds to start at home. I will mail the seeds (or drop them off if you are local) free of charge. All you have to do is nurture your zucchini and keep track of the total pounds you harvest from your plant. You do need to already have a digital bathroom scale or kitchen scale in order to accurately weigh your zucs. You can do whatever you want in order to get your zucchini to grow. You can fertilize them, sing to them, heck, go ahead and cast magic spells on them if you want. As far as strategy, anything goes. You will just have to choose one plant for the challenge. If you only have the space for one zucchini plant, you can pick out the biggest, healthiest looking of your seedlings and toss the others, or give them away to friends (which is what I would recommend). If you do have room for the others, by all means plant them, nurture them and eat them but you can only use one plant for the competition-the others don't count.

The three winners will receive a basket of homemade beeswax bath and body products or a gardening book and the full glory of being a champion courtesy of yours truly!

I have no idea how many people will be interested in participating in this fun little challenge and since I am cheap and don't want to have to buy truckloads of seeds, so I have to cover my butt and limit the challenge to ten people. If you are interested, you have to leave a comment below with your email address so that I can contact you regarding details/rules and arrange for you to get your seeds. First come, first serve, but anyone that lives here in the US can enter, Even clowns. Even if I don't know you and you secretly follow my blog. Even if you are my Mom. Anyone. If you happen to read my blog and aren't in the US I might be shocked adn amazed enough that you actually read or found my blog to let you enter so you should comment too. I'll give everyone until March 18th to get your comment in and enter the contest. Let me know if you have questions!

what to do with your homegrown mushrooms

2011-03-09T21:18:00.000-05:00

So you may be sick of hearing about the mushrooms so this is the last post on this topic, I swear. At least until the next crop is due a few weeks from now.

We harvested our mushrooms last night and got a whopping 13.8 ounces.

please pay no attention to the messy apartment behind me or my messy hair. Your focus should be on the giant shroom in my hand. Well, I guess its okay to admire my collection of leather bound books.

I said don't look at my messy hair. Gosh.

Pay no attention to the cat sleeping on a towel on the couch behind Greg. Your attention should be on the mushroom collection on the cluttered coffee table.

We thought the best way to enjoy them and not cover up that wonderful fresh mushroom flavor was to prepare them simply-sauteed with butter, salt and pepper.. and put them on a big fat steak. It was glorious.

miscellany

2011-03-05T13:18:00.001-05:00

I guess I have ADD today. I couldn't decide on one single topic to write about so there are several.

1.) Use It or Lose It.
I hate wasting things. It makes me feel guilty. Even though I live fairly frugal, there are so many people out there that have to live on less than me and when I have to toss food that I've neglected in the fridge, I feel like not only am I dishonoring those people, but that I am dishonoring our earth as well. Think of all the resources it took to get that item into your home; time, soil, labor, fuel, etc. So when I can find some good use for anything that otherwise would end up in the trash or compost, I am a happy girl.

The Lemon.

I found this guy at the very back of the veggie bin. It had shrunk to about half its original size, it had been in there so long. I can't compost citrus in my worm bin. They don't like the acid. The juice wasn't quite at its prime anymore so no lemonade. I thought about zesting it and saving the peel for recipes but the skin was so dried out that it was almost impossible to do. I cut the lemon in half to see what it looked like on the inside. It was a little discolored but otherwise okay. Then it hit me. I've used bottled lemon juice to clean my stove top before and was really surprised how well it worked. So I just used the lemon half as I would a scrubber and voila! Clean stove top.

let the juice hang out on there for a few minutes when you have stubborn spots.

The Parmesan Rind.
Saw this on a cooking show. Instead of throwing away the hard rind of Parmesan cheese, freeze it and throw it in when you're making soup. Mine went into a pot of vegetable soup and it was delicious. It adds a salty, cheesy flavor, just as you'd expect. Just don't plan on eating it. It tastes like a wet rubberband after its cooked. Trust me on this. Take it out before you serve.

If anyone has other ideas on this topic. please share!

2.) Mushroom Madness II
Monday evening I came home to find our mushroom patch finally sprouting. Here it is 6 days later. I am hoping for a bumper crop so I can dehydrate some like I talked about in a previous post.

some of them are a little deformed. oh well, a mushroom is a mushroom.

3.) Vanilla Extract.

Its not quite ready yet. Not strong enough. Ordered more beans from MRH and will toss in a couple more, wait a few more weeks and see how it goes. I thought I 'd have to get my vanilla from the grocery store and pay a fortune after a order mix up and an "issue" with their customer service but they ended up shipping my entire order to me for free so all is right with the world. I would have been devistated if I had to stop ordering from them since they have the best stuff. The day that package comes will be like Christmas day.

day one of vanilla extract

several weeks in

Even though the vanilla extract is not as strong as I'd like yet (still smells more like alcohol than vanilla) you can see its come a long way since the first day. I have some pretty little recycled glass bottles to put it in when its finished.

4.) Got my heirloom organic seeds. Very happy.

5.) And in case you were wondering how my weightwachers diet was going for me....

Have a great weekend!

mushroom madness

2011-02-28T23:03:00.000-05:00

There was a sale at Meijer over the weekend. Buy 10 items for 1.00 each and get the 11th free. Organic baby bella mushrooms happened to be one of those items. Organic baby bella mushrooms are usually around three dollars a package. Organic. Baby Bella Mushrooms. One dollar. Don't you know how wonderful that is. I thought about getting 11 packages of mushrooms (because I love them) but knew there was no way Greg and I could eat that many before they would go bad in the fridge. This morning, in the shower (because that is where the best ideas come from) I realized I could buy my 11 packages for ten bucks and dehydrate the ones we couldn't use in a weeks time. Genius!

After work tonight I went back to the store to load my cart. I was so excited about the idea of going home, slicing mounds and mounds of yummy mushrooms (some in thin slices, some diced, some quartered for variety of course) more excited than any normal person would admit to be. And getting the chance to use my dehydrator, which I don't have the opportunity to do very often was just as exciting. I was going to write up a great little blog post about my money saving, mushroom dehydrating adventure. I was even thinking about listing all the wonderful recipes in which you could use dehydrated organic baby bella mushrooms.

When I got to the mushroom isle there wasn't a baby bella in sight. I am guessing a hundred other people had the same idea and beat me to the punch. My heart deflated like a wrinkled old puffball. My hopes and dreams went up in a cloud of spores. Sorry, couldn't help myself.

I got home and you know what I found? a baby shitake mushroom sprouting on our little mushroom patch!

the mushroom fairies have blessed this household

today is grouchy day

2011-02-25T21:08:00.003-05:00

photo from time.com. I don't want to get sued.

Some days I'm just grouchy. Some days I don't have reasons in particular to be grouchy, I just want to be. On those days I think up reasons to be pissed off. I realize this is a bit ridiculous but I think these days are important for our emotional well-being. The great thing about being human is that we can feel and express countless emotions. Being grumpy is an important part of this humanly need to able to experience and express this wonderfully wide range of emotions. Its mentally healthy and fantastically therapeutic. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.

As I mentioned above, I don't think I need specific incidents to make me feel grumpy although rarely something "terrible" does happens. But usually I can't just wake up and feel like being grumpy because it makes me feel guilty. I know that some people's version of "terrible" is way worse than mine. So on days where I want to be grumpy for my mental wellness and I don't have something "terrible" actually happen, I have to think of reasons why I need to be grumpy so the pissiness, sensitivity, short-temperedness and cynicism can spring forth and cleanse my soul.

Today is one of those days. I need to feel grumpy today. I woke up this morning knowing this fact. Honestly, I might have known this sometime between 7:14 p.m eastern time and 9:48 p.m eastern time last evening but that's no matter. So, since I occasionally need to come up with excuses to be grumpy, my day went a little like this:

Wake up due to Kitty attacking feet. Usually be amused by this kitty cuteness but not today. Today I want this to be ANNOYING, as I am still tired and not ready to get up yet. Today is GROUCHY day. Wonder why is cat harassing me this early in the morning? WORRY that she's sick and about to vomit on the floor, which i will ultimately step in as I stumble around the dark to find it. Maybe she wants tuna? Feed cat tuna and go back to bed. Kitty resumes feet harassment (biting, pouncing and scratching) and then proceeds to walk all over my attempting- to- get- back- to- sleep body all the while allowing Greg to sleep in peace. Be PERTURBED that he is blissfully unaware of this kitty cat drama taking place right next to him.

Alarm goes off eventually. Greg gets out of comfy warm bed. COLD now. Ugh. Get up, look out window. See snow and wind in large quantities.(this is an exciting thing for me on most days, today its not because its GROUCHY day) Put on teapot. Remember we are out of the good coffee. Will have to make the other not as good stuff. Life sucks. Turn on tv and watch a billion schools and businesses scroll under "closed" section of ticker.Be JEALOUS of these bratty kids and their snow days. See Wood County under level 2 snow emergency. Don't see county government closed for the day. Not fair. MAD. Be ANGRY because on most days I could call off work but today I can't because I'm filling in for another employee who is on vacation. Roar! JEALOUS! Remember that this "filling in" is not what I got hired to do. ANGRY.

Also be UPSET that Greg has one of those "have to be there" jobs and will also be potentially risking his life for nothing as well. Be WORRIED about him getting to work okay. Be mad at myself for not being very nice to him and realizing its too late to apologize now because he's already gone, but be happy that I got a kiss that tasted like Tom's toothpaste. Be FLUSTERED by this kiss and try to think of something to be BITTER about again. Be POUTY that I will not be drinking the good coffee today. Be JEALOUS that Kitty is now sleeping soundly on the couch and I'm still awake. Get ready for work. Be CONFUSED as to why I can never find matching socks. Check facebook, update status as "today sucks. hope I survive." even though I typically don't like when people complain via status update. Be PISSED that I'm being a hypocrite and be IRRITATED that I missed all the good farmville posts. Be ANNOYED that I even like farmville because its a huge waste of time, yet still be IRRITATED that I didn't get the new caramel apple tree for my fake farm. Caramel apple tree? That's not even real.

Be UPSET that I have to finish getting ready for work and drive in in this CRAP. Be FRUSTRATED that no one has called me yet to say I don't have to come in today. Finish getting ready for work while being GROUCHY and TIRED and good coffeeless. Go to the office, get blown across the parking lot by the wind. Be somewhat IMPRESSED with Mother Nature's prowess. Remember that I need to be GROUCHY today, not impressed. Find out that the locks on the company vehicle are frozen so can't get in. SO MAD NOW. Go inside. Sit at office and wait for co-worker to come in so she can give me keyless entry device for company vehicle. While waiting, try to think of something to be IRATE at her about, conclude that I can't think of a damn thing. She's too nice. Be MAD that she's a better person than me.

Be LIVID toward my other co-worker because she's late per usual. Do following rambling math in head: 250ish physical work days per year x 5 minutes (at least) of late time per day equals 2.6 days of extra vacation that she gets and I don't get because I show up on time. Be EMBARRASSED that I'm not better at math and that my calculations could be wrong. Be FURIOUS with myself that I will never have the nerve to say that to her out loud. Be MAD that I won't even care about this tomorrow but I do today since I'm GROUCHY.

Get keyless entry device and proceed drive to temporary work site while being nervous the whole way because the roads are pretty bad and being NERVOUS makes me feel like I need to pee. Be CONFUSED as to why feel like I gotta pee every time I get NERVOUS. Get to my temporary work site and seesurprised look on co-workers face. Be asked why I showed up. Be asked why I didn't keep my ass at home. Don't I know its a level two outside? Don't I know what that means? Come to the conclusion that they are giving me a hard time because they must be sexist and think that because I am female and blond so I must also not know how to drive in the snow. Be OFFENDED by this even though any other day I would be touched by their concern for my safety. Be asked about the bees and be reminded that they did not survive the winter. Be DEPRESSED about that.

Be BORED. Be MAD that I'm bored. Be UPSET that I'm not home taking a nap. Continue to STEW and sit there for 6.5 hours and only 5 customers show up. Realize that I forgot my lunch at home and will have to go without today. Be HOPELESS and HUNGRY. Receive the following text message: " Know that I am praying for a great day for you and that I got your back and I'm pretty scary, so don't worry about 'nothin :)" from my beautiful friend Whitney and then proceed to be THANKFUL for having a GOOD friend who went out of her way in order to help me turn my day around.

SMILE. HAPPY, WARM feelings. Think more happy, warm thoughts because naturally, this is what happens when I suddenly find myself in a GOOD mood. As day goes by come up with less and less to be MAD about and eventually give up on GROUCHY day. It is the weekend, after all, and it takes a lot more energy to be MAD than it does to be HAPPY. Come to the conclusion that I am a very lucky girl to actually need excuses to be grumpy. I have a good life, I really do and for that I am indescribably grateful.

*Insert deep, joyful sigh.*

seeds and snow

2011-02-24T20:47:00.001-05:00

Even though I am sitting here waiting on another snowstorm, spring fever has hit me like a ton of bricks. I
may be getting a little ahead of myself but today I ordered seeds. I told myself not to get too carried away. I mean, I don't even have a patio let alone a yard with a garden. The plan was to order some eggplants and maybe some heirloom tomatoes that I could tuck into an empty corner here or there in either my parents or my grandparents garden. But I went and got carried away thanks to a place called High Mowing Seeds.

I guess the thought process was that if it was only a few bucks per pack why not throw in a few other interesting seeds? There were so many lovely organic and heirloom seeds and the website boasted such wonderful business practices. The reason I went to their website in the first place was because I was impressed with their catalog which happened to be printed on recycled paper...with soy ink. I was already paying flat rate shipping. Well, a few others turned several others and I got completely carried away. I only hope that my family will be understanding and happily nurture my green thumb. I promise I'll share the bounty.

Here's what I bought:
Beets: Touchstone Gold (like red beets only orangy-gold)
Broccolini: De Cisso (broccoli raab)
Popcorn: Tom Thumb (popcorn duh)
Eggplant: Listada di Gandia (purple and cream color zebra stripes)
Radish: Valentine's mix (red, pink, white and finger shaped)
Squash: Yellow scallopini (pattypan)
Squash: Ronde di Nice (small round and light green)
Tomato: San Marzano (roma/paste type)
Tomato: Black Cherry (chocolate color)

I already have the following left over from last year:
Beets: detroit dark red
Carrot: danvers
Peas: sugar snap
Lettuce: black seeded
Spinach: idk what kind

So yeah, that's a lot of plants for someone who has to own any land. I only hope my family is understanding. Its in my blood. My grandpa is a local celebrity when it comes to tomatoes and my mom and aunt grow the most beautiful flowers. So in my defense, I just can't help it. I'm out of sunny window space at home but I've been so desperate to sprout something that I have a few things started at work already. I may or may not be researching what kind of watermelon will do well in hanging flower pots.

spinach of the office windowsill variety

pea ready to burst forth at any moment!

And I am not the only one who are successful at gardening on plots that don't belong to them. Check out the Guerrilla Gardeners' movement here. At least I ask for permission.....

Anyone out there getting seeds started already? What are you planning on growing this year?

Going a Little Greener: Handmade Body Lotion

2011-02-21T18:00:00.001-05:00

A few weeks ago I stumbled upon a recipe for beexwax body lotion. It had been in the back of my mind as something to try for a long time but every time I started to research it on the internet, I found that the ingredients seemed be hard to find items or the directions were complicated and labor intensive. (There is a science behind the emulsification process; getting oil and water to blend. Its just one of the miraculous properties of beeswax but for the sake of your time I won't go into it in this post. You're welcome.) This recipe seemed really easy. Simple ingredients that I actually already had and simple instructions. My sister was on board to be my assistant and with her help, it turned perfect. The first time! Having said that, I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Greg for letting me use his blender for my little experiment that, given my clumsiness and my knack for not reading directions thoroughly, could have turned out disastrous. But it didn't.

See how happily surprised Leeanna looks? She can't believe that it actually worked.

This pic is a little out of focus but its more like body butter than lotion

Instead of re-writing all the ingredients and directions on my blog I thought it would be easier to just paste the link right here. If you'd like to try this recipe, all of the ingredients can be found at Mountain Rose Herbs, an award winning company that has great quality organic products, low prices and practice what they preach.

It took maybe 10 minutes total. I added a little bit of sweet orange oil for fragrance and mixed with the heavenly-sweet scent the beeswax already had, it came out smelling like citrus and honey. It came out thick and smooth and there was enough of it to fill two 8 oz jars. I've already used almost half of it. It works amazingly, specially in this weather. This is something I look forward to making again soon.

my best frenemy

2011-02-19T12:05:00.000-05:00

I have a love-hate relationship with my elliptical machine. I hate the act of exercising. All the sweating, heavy breathing, aching muscles and I hate the way time seems to slow to a crawl as I am pedaling myself to pure exhaustion. But I do love the extra wiggle room I now have in my jeans.

The elliptical machine was an anti-gift to myself for Christmas. I am embarrassed to amit that in the past couple years I've managed to gain about 20 lbs and 1-1/2 pant sizes. The problem with gaining weight is that it happens so slowly that you almost don't notice it. The realization came when I was having a hard time finding clothes that fit me. Its sad that I was in denial and told myself that the reason I couldn't find stuff to wear was because I needed new clothes. I went out and bought several new items and when I went to hang them up I found that I was out of hangers. Sot then I began cleaning the clothes I don't wear anymore out of my closet. As I was doing this I realized that the items that I was preparing to donate were great clothes but just too snug to wear comfortably. I didn't need new clothes at all. What I needed was a new body. I could blame the gain on a combination of Greg's delicious cooking, cold winters, an underactive thyroid and a hundred other things but really, its my fault and its my responsibility to get healthier.

So with the help of my best frienemy, weightwatchers and stock piles of lean cuisines, I've managed to lose ten pounds in 5 weeks. Half-way to my goal. I feel better, sleep better and now I don't think I will be making that large clothing donation to goodwill just yet....
But maybe the term "frenemy" isn't exactly appropriate because it actually means this.
Maybe the appropriate term for my elliptical is my "enefriend"?

coupons!

2011-02-16T20:16:00.000-05:00

A few months ago I saw a special on TLC about "extreme couponers". They spend hours and hours scouring the internet, and newspapers for amazing deals and coupons. They would to to the grocery store armed with stacks and stacks of coupons and they managed to buy several hundreds of dollars worth of groceries for less than ten bucks; or better yet, free! Although I don't buy a lot of the stuff that these people were buying (a lot of pre-processed, non-organic, not tasty) and I don't have the space to stock-pile, I thought I'd see what the whole coupon craze was about. I haven't mastered the art to the point of the grocery store paying me to shop at their stores, but I've managed to save about 14 dollars in the past few weeks. I don't get a newspaper so I don't get coupons from them, although I've thought about heading over to the recycling center to see if I could find the sunday ads. All the coupons I've used so far i've found on the internet. I've been saving like crazy and slowly, very slowly paying off my college debt. Every dollar counts.

Most people appreciate and use coupons so I thought I'd share what I've found. Get the printer warmed up.
http://www.coupons.com/ -kind of obvious
redplum- same as the coupons in the papers only online
http://www.horizondairy.com/- $1.00 and $0.50 off horizon organic milk products
stoneyfield -yogurt
yoplait-i like yogurt okay? I've been obsessed with the boston cream pie flavor. Eat at least one every day.
Meijer Grocery Store- register and get digital coupons that you can redeem at checkout. They sometimes send you promotional coupons that take dollar amounts off any purchase. I've gotten 2 and 5 dollars off but you have to be careful as there are limits to how many coupons you can use.

If anyone knows of any good coupon tips or sites that I have not listed please feel free to post them on the comments section!

a good weekend

2011-02-13T21:34:00.000-05:00

First, I am excited to announce that Greg got me a new camera for Valentines day. Here is the very first picture I took with it.

Not a good start.....He was a little annoyed with me but took me to the zoo yesterday to get some practice.

Siku the year old polar bear cub. Isn't he adorable?

he's 400 lbs and his paw is bigger than my head

mandarin duck

in the greenhouse

nemo?

a hawk that landed in a tree right in front of us on our way out

Its a really good camera and now that I have the hang of it, its almost hard not to take good pictures.

Its officially been two weeks since we bottled our beer and first thing this morning Greg put a bottle in the fridge so it would be ice cold when it came time to try it. We took a walk to Grounds for Thought, bought this week's supply of coffee, some mocha and lemonade (I ended up drinking both) and a apple fritter. Tonight we had some delicious vegetable soup made with my grandma's home-grown/canned tomato juice and then got grocieries. I saved us $3.55 by using coupons. Yea me. We came home, heated up some homemade vegetable soup and I then had the honor of popping the top off our first bottle of homebrew.

Its good! I give it a 9 out of 10 and Greg gave it a 6 out of 10. It has a very slightly sweet nutty taste, not at all bitter like what I expected. Greg likes the bitter hoppy taste of IPAs so its not surprising that our brew didn't blow him away. Overall, we are proud and pleasantly suprised. I don't think this beer will sit around for too long. We plan on throwing a little tasting party in the next few weeks. Most likely, there will be another batch of Bruielly brew in the near future. Success!

whats going on

2011-02-10T19:57:00.001-05:00

Grandpa, handsome as ever

As of today our shitake patch is "dormant". The shrooms never came so I contacted the manufacturer and they said we needed to "hit the reset button", meaning let it dry out for two weeks, refrigerate it for 3-4 days and then soak it in ice cold water for 24 hrs. Then we can try to grow mushrooms again. I don't know why it didn't work the first time-Hope something happens this time around. Its currently in the dry-out stage. If there was some kind of dance I could do for the mushroom gods to ensure a good harvest I'd be doing it right now.

We will get to crack open our beer this Sunday. Expect a post.

The vanilla extract is still brewing. Its gotten a nice dark amber color but is still a little weak. It still smells more like alcohol than vanilla. I am going to let it set for another couple weeks-might even throw in another vanilla bean or two. Its on the right track though.

On Monday evening, my sister and I made a beautiful batch of homemade beeswax body lotion. It turned out way better than I had expected and I've been slopping it on constantly. I'm OBSESSED. I will get a post up and a link to the directions this soon. I hope to look for a good recipe for homemade deodorant this weekend as well. I've been having allergic reactions to the one I'm using now and I'm tired of shopping around and having half a dozen different brands in my medicine cabinet. A family member has also been making her own laundry detergent and I am intrigued. She gave me some good tips. (Thanks Melanie!)

Two things have been on my mind practically non stop the last few weeks. The first is the bees. Greg and I have decided that we will be adding two more hives to our little apiary this spring. One will go on my parent's property with the other two hives and the other will be placed at my grandparents. My grandpa (now 90) was a beekeeper in the old days and I think he will get a kick out of having a hive back on his land. He's not in the shape to keep up with a hive these days but he happily agreed to letting me. It will be interesting to see how they do. My grandpa puts in an extensive garden (much too big for him to keep up with himself) so i think the bees shouldn't have a problem finding food. I am hoping that since I will be driving out there once a week anyway, I will have time to help with garden chores as well. I might even ask him to let me put out a few of my own veggies. I would love to grow some eggplants and broccoli and have a packet of heirloom carrots that I got last summer stashed in a drawer. Every time I open that drawer I hear the seeds calling, "plant us please!" Its torture to have a green thumb and and none of your own soil. "renting" family members' land to grow your food is less than ideal but I will have to make due for now. I still haven't found a willing person to let me raise chickens in their backyard and free ranging apartment chickens are frowned upon here in BG. Codes Shmodes.

My lease for my apartment is up at the end of April. It would be awesome if I could find a little place outside of town to rent fairly cheap. Anybody know of anything or anybody know anybody who knows sombody?

Going a Little Greener: Laundry Drying Rack

2011-02-08T13:33:00.003-05:00

my 11 dollar walmart laundry drying rack

The great thing about living a more eco-friendly lifestyle is that you usually find yourself saving money too. Since I live in an apartment, I do not have the luxury of an in-home washer and dryer. When I need to do laundry I have to pay 2 bucks a load to wash and "dry" my clothes. Because I live in a college town, my apartment managers have this "don'e expect me to actually do my job" attitude. The sidewalks don't get shoveled or salted in the wintertime, light bulbs in hallways don't get replaced in a timely manner if at all and the clothes dryers in the basement laundry are, well, crap. I've gotten really tired of paying for the dryer to beat up my clothes and not dry them at the same time. When clothes come out of the dryer they are supposed to be dry. When I did the math, I figured I was tossing about 4 dollars worth of quarters every two weeks for the damn driers not to dry my clothes. So this weekend I bought a laundry drying rack. I figure I'd let mother nature dry my clothes for me. Its definitely as cheap as you can get, it actually gets your clothes dry (even if you have to be a little more patient) and is a lot gentler on your fabrics, making them last longer. Think about all the times you've had to clean out the lint trap. All that lint is bits of fabric getting rubbed off your clothes as the dryer spins the life out of them-literally!

I've been thinking about getting a laundry drying rack for some time but I had no idea how much they cost and how much space one would take up in my tiny apartment. But I found this one at wal-mart for 11 dollars and thought it was worth a try. I got it home and took it out and found it to be made of cheap pine and the dowels were a bit too large to fit perfectly in their assigned holes. Did I mention that it didn't come with assembly instructions? After I threw a mini temper tantrum and tossed a few parts across the room, Greg took 10 minutes out of his precious superbowl watching time to put this laundry drying rack together for me. Lets just say he is much better at assembly and troubleshooting than I and I hope he knows how wonderful I think he is :) It doesn't take up a whole lot of room and it collapsible but its not the best quality. If I had the extra cash to spend I would have saved up and bought a nicer one here.

using every possible hangable surface in my apartment to dry my laundry

I tried it out Monday night and am pretty happy with it. Most of the stuff I hung up at around 8pm last night were dry yesterday morning with the exception of a few heavier t-shirts. I found that not large enough to dry two loads so I will have to remember to stagger my laundry loads instead of trying to get all my laundry done in one day. As I write this I have towels hanging all over the apartment because I wasn't smart enough to realize I can't dry more than one load at a time on the rack. Work clothes have to be wrinkle free and the first thing I found out about the drying rack is that although it gets most things dry overnight, it doesn't magically press them over night for you. It doesn't matter if some of the t-shirts, socks and underwear have a few wrinkles in them but we probably shouldn't walk into work looking like we slept under a bridge the night before. I am already paraniod enough with my natural deodorant experiements and all.

snowtopia

2011-02-06T18:53:00.000-05:00

We got quite a bit of snow this week. I know the snow makes for a lot of extra work but it is so pretty! I am of the opinion that if its going to be cold outside, it might as well be snowing. It's nice to watch and there are lots of fun things you can do in the snow. Skiing, sledding, snow fort making, etc. Yesterday, Greg and I went hiking in Oak Openings during a little snow storm. We were one of the only people there because the snow was coming down so quickly making the roads a bit sketchy. After our walk (including several successful tackles into snow banks by both parties) we went into the lodge where they had a "window on wildlife". We sat there watching birds for a long time. It was so peaceful and relaxing. I now understand why those crazy bird watching people do what they do.

OMG hot chocolate

2011-02-02T12:37:00.000-05:00

A month or two ago I accidentally discovered a wonderful recipe for hot chocolate. Greg and I just got in from a winter walk and were craving hot chocolate. We didn't have any mix or Hershey's syrup so I decided to wing it and it turned out fantastic. I took one sip and thought to myself, "OMG this is good". Its pretty simple, takes about 10 minutes and requires just few ingredients. Only problem with it is that it is not easy on the waistline. Its made with whole milk and half and half-oh and don't forget the chocolate. I am currently under a pretty strict health regimen at the moment but this stuff is so good, I only drink half a mug and I'm satisfied.
.

Ingredients (serves two)
1-1/2 cups whole milk
1/2 cup half and half
1/4 cup (heaping) Ghirardelli semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/2 vanilla bean sliced lengthwise (optional)
pinch of salt

Directions
First I have to stress the importance of using Ghirardelli chocolate. It is a higher quality chocolate and a bit more expensive but you should find it at most grocery stores. I've tried making the same hot chocolate with Nestle chips and it did not turn out nearly as delicious. Place liquids in sauce pan and slowly warm it on the stove top on low heat until it is steaming, not boiling. I found out the hard way that if you let your mixture boil, it gets lumpy and slimy so try not to do that.Once its steaming add the chips. If you don't have a vanilla bean on hand, its okay but if you do, cut it in half and reserve half for another time. Take the other half, slice it lengthwise and scrape out the inside into the mix and drop in the scraped out parts too. Add chocolate chips and whisk until it is completely melted and mixed together with the milk. Add the salt, stir and allow mixture to warm over the stove for 5 more minutes then its done. Try it and add more milk if you think its too strong or more chocolate if its too weak. Pour into mugs and enjoy. You can pour the vanilla bean into the mugs because it will continue to infuse your cocoa with vanilla goodness as you drink but don't forget its in there. I cannot be held responsible if you accidentally swallow it and choke....

This recipe also turns out pretty good if you don't have half and half on hand and just use whole milk but I think its creamier with the half and half. If you try this recipe let me know how it turns out for you!

Everything is Amazing

2011-01-31T21:21:00.000-05:00

found this video on Small Measure's blog. Hope you take a minute to watch :)

53 bottles of beer on the wall...

2011-01-30T18:22:00.000-05:00

We bottled the ocktoberfest today. Got some really cool vintage bottles from my dad a few weeks ago and had been saving our empy beer bottles (non-screw top) for a while. We have all different sizes but it totals to an average of 53 12oz bottles. We have to wait another two weeks for the beer to carbonate in the bottles but a tasting party is in the works.

cleaning and sanitizing bottles

see the excitement on my face?

Greg fills the bottles- sideways because blogger won't cooperate with me


the capping doo-dad

Greg dreaming about how good it will taste

its this kind of evening

2011-01-27T20:31:00.000-05:00

you can't really see it in the photo but its snowing like crazy outside. They are calling for 2-3 inches.

one of those evenings that require lots
of tea sipping.

and kitty snuggling.

homemade vanilla extract

2011-01-26T18:03:00.000-05:00

Ingredients:

1 cup (8 oz) vodka, bourbon or Everclear
3-4 vanilla beans
clear glass* jar

Directions
Slice Vanilla beans in half lengthwise. Place them in an empty 8 oz or larger glass jar.*You have to use glass with this. The liquor will corrode plastic or metal. Pour alcohol over the beans. Close jar tightly and give a good shake. You should be able to see the bean pods begin to dispurse throughout the liquid. Continue to shake jar daily (or as often as you can remember) for 4-6 weeks. After that time you may use the extract for cooking/baking purposes just as you would a store-bought extract. All you have to do is run it through a coffee filter to remove the beans and pods. You can then transfer your extract into smaller containers if you want to share, which is what I plan to do. Of course, you can let your extract sit indefinitely; the longer it sits the stronger/better it gets. Due to the alcohol content, it shouldn't ever go bad.

all you need

Notes

I used a homemade everclear (moonshine) that was given to me (original source unknown) for my recipe but any of the above alcohols will make a wonderful extract-so I'm told. I made mine with 5 vanilla beans and 12 oz of alcohol which is exactly the amount of moonshine I had. The vanilla beans I used were from Mountain Rose Herbs. They cost $9.00 for 9 beans or 1 oz. They are organic, sustainably raised and harvested and are about twice the size as the ones you buy in the grocery store. I absolutely love them.

5 bucks for 2 oz of commercially bottled vanilla extract that may or may not be made from real vanilla beans or 5 bucks for 12 oz of homemade and organic vanilla extract? I will take number two please.

whats in my shampoo?

2011-01-24T18:57:00.000-05:00

Wanted to share a thought provoking video I found.

In the past few years I've switched to almost all natural or home made personal care products. I make my own personalized body wash with Dr. Bronner's castile soap and essential oils. I can change the fragrance when my mood changes. Peppermint or sweet orange for when I need a lift and lavender and ylang-ylang when I want to relax. When my skin gets dry I can add jojoba oil (the earth's best moisturizer). I am currently looking for a good aluminum free deodorant.....that works. I've tried quite a few and I don't think I need to explain why I'm still looking. Have any of you decided to switch to" eco" brands? If so, which ones are your favorite?

in the dead of winter

2011-01-22T14:30:00.000-05:00

This is the worst time of year. Its way too cold outside and it keeps me from doing all the things I love to do. I love hiking, beekeeping, birdwatching and wandering around in gardens. All of things things are really unpleasant in the winter. Its two o'clock in the afternoon on a Saturday, 9 degrees outside and I'm bored out of my mind. This is the time of year I feel like I am going a little crazy. I am either depressed or angry and always for stupid reasons. I am not like this any other time of the year and I am one hundred percent certain its because of the lack of warm sun. I cannot watch my favorite channels on tv (discovery, animal planet, food network, travel channel) this time of year because I am so emotionally sensitive that every every time one of those "feed the children" or "save the puppies" ads come on I am rendered to tears and I seriously consider emptying my entire bank account. I often catch myself picking fights just to have something to do. Last night I actually was offended by Greg when he said he would cook his own bison burger. I thought he was insinuating that he didn't like my cooking. When in reality he was just trying to make less work for me. All I want to do this time of year besides complain about the weather is sleep and eat. Its ridiculous. Perhaps I have this seasonal affective disorder (SAD) everyone talks about.

In order to help me combat this disease, I bought an elliptical machine. I've been working out about 4 days a week and it does temporarily make me feel better. Its also making my jeans fit a little better. One problem I do have is that I can only be on the elliptical machine for a half hour or so. What do I do with the other 23.5 hrs of the day? How many of you out there get the winter blues too? What do you do to stay sane when you can't get outdoors?

mushroom patch status

2011-01-22T13:53:00.000-05:00

Still no shiitakes. I hope we get some soon. The guide that came with the kit says it is normal to have darkening. This is what should happen before mushrooms form. It looks like a moldy cake sitting on the coffee table. I hope something happens soon. I'm not sure how much longer I can look at it.

bruielly brew status report

2011-01-22T13:31:00.000-05:00

We've racked off the brew into a clean carboy now that it is done fermenting in order to separate it from the sediment (hops and yeast). The whole fermenting process was quite hairy. It was weird to see how much swirling and stirring going on in there due to the yeast. I wish I had a video camera to post a video of it. It was like watching a bunch of tiny sea monkeys swimming around in the bottle. Yeast is some crazy stuff. There was actually so much foam that we had to drain out some liquid three different times in order to prevent overflowing. The foam was getting so high that it actually filled the airlock twice and popped the lid right off, splashing foam and chunks of beer goo on the wall. In the past two weeks the color has changed from a dark mahogany to a golden color also. Despite the goo splashing episode and the blow out everything is going according to plan. We will wait another 9 days and then its bottling time.

Day 1

about a week and a half in. a few days before beer volcano.

What's left after racking

yurting

2011-01-18T21:24:00.000-05:00

Got back from the yurt excursion safe and sound. It was a fun experience. Due to large quantities of snow, we had to hike into the site about a 1/4 mile. Because I have OCD when it comes to traveling and packing, I originally packed way more than we needed. Having to walk so far in the snow forced us to choose what was important and what was not. A six pack of sierra nevada was more important to Greg than multiple changes of clothing. A bottle of Prosecco was more important to me than multiple changes of clothing also. Warm clothes are way better than clean clothes. The site was very nice, the yurt had a propane wall heater but no plumbing or electricity. There was a solar panel attached to the yurt but winter=no sun=no electricity. We had a great view of a lake with a little creek running into it. During the two days we stayed there we saw a beaver a few times swimming around right outside the yurt. There were lots of ducks and geese too. Unfortunately, the camera that was on loan to me took a crap on me so I do not have many pictures. Technology has been failing me a lot lately in fact. In the past month I've lost my computer due to a virus, my cell phone's battery won't make it past a 15 minute conversation, it takes the microwave 7 minutes or more to heat a bowl of stew, and now the camera. One great thing about roughing it is that it makes you realize how much you can do without when you have to.

There was lots of snow on the ground and my 11 year old winter boots don't have great traction or waterproofing ability anymore. On one short hike alone, I managed to bite it on three separate occasions. It also didn't help that the temps were in the high teens, low twenties. We did have time for the monopoly game however. Greg beat me twice but only because he is a dirty rotten cheater. I don't know how he managed to do it but he did. Whatever, I don't want to talk about it. Overall, it was a great trip. I got to bond with my honey and get away from the distractions of every day life. The trip has me wondering abut the possibility of one living in a yurt on a permanent basis. I am looking into it.

the view from the patio of the yurt

Greg melting freshly fallen snow for our morning coffee

camping essentials

my attempt at an artistic shot

glad the snowflake blotted out my face. no makeup.

2011-01-17T21:44:00.000-05:00

"to men, time is money; to bees, it is honey"

-ll langstroth (beekeeping expert and author)

winter getaway

2011-01-12T21:40:00.000-05:00

We are packing up and headed north for the next few days. I will hopefully be holed up in a cozy yurt in an undisclosed Michigan location until Saturday evening. We won't have electricity or hot running water. Without all the distractions of computers, t.v,s traffic, etc, there will be plenty of time for brisk walks in the snowy forest, heavy reading, herbal tea sipping, and maybe, just maybe...one epic game of monopoly.

living with a monster

2011-01-11T20:44:00.000-05:00

This is Kitty. She becomes more spoiled every day. I don't think she is aware she is a cat and not a human. Greg adopted her about two years ago from the Humane Society. I don't know why she thinks she is so special. She looks just like about a million other gray tiger cats. And I don't know why Greg picked her over 79 other vagrant cats at the shelter that day but he did. He didn't even give her a proper name. Her name is just Kitty. Not Fluffyikins, not Muffin or even Grizabella (which was my suggestion and I still secretly call her because its awesome) Just Kitty the Cat. She is not special but she somehow has this crazy superiority complex and believes she is the queen of the household. She demands that we give her a spoonful of tuna every day. It can't be in too large of chunks either. No. That means she has to chew it and she simply can't be bothered with that kind of work. She refuses to eat it unless she watches us smash it up a little bit in her bowl. She has to know it has been specially prepared for her. If we make her wait for her food longer than is convenient she gets loud and bitey. You reach down to pet her and she tries to tear your thumb off. And its come to the point that every time we set foot in the kitchen she is there meowing, pacing and waiting for us to give her food. She now gets her tuna three or four times a day because we get tired of her begging and just give in. She also has this odd impulse that requires her to try to knock over every half full glass of liquid she comes across. If you sit your glass of water down on the table you have to watch it or she will take a drink and then stick her whole front leg in it and push it around until she is successful in tipping it over. Oh and the toilet? She drinks out of that too, even though her water bowl is replaced daily with fresh ice-cold tap water. When either of us eat cereal she just expects that we are going to save some of the milk for her. She gets as close to you and your bowl as she possibly can. The second you set your bowl down she practically dives into it head first. When she vomits (which she does on a fairly regular basis and probably because we give her too much tuna and cereal milk) she makes sure that it is in a spot where you are most likely to step in it barefooted. I am positive it is premeditated. Sometimes she even lurks in dark corners waiting to ambush you when you walk by. This cat walks all over me. Literally. At five a.m. when i am trying to sleep. If that doesn't work to wake me up, she sticks her wet, cold nose in my face and attempts to pry my eyelids open with her tongue. Funny thing is, I don't think she does this to Greg. I think she likes him more than me. Even though I'm the one who cleans her litter box. And you know what? I sometimes actually feel a surge of jealousy towards her. I catch myself wondering if she gets more affection than I do. Me? Jealous of a cat!? No. not just a cat. A nameless house cat with a sketchy background and bad manners.

foam

2011-01-11T20:09:00.000-05:00

One week in and the beer is looking um, well, beerier .

the cutest little things

2011-01-10T21:28:00.000-05:00

breakfast

Baby carrots, puppies and bread. Three things I think are much more fun in miniature versions. I got a set of four mini bread pans for Christmas from Greg. They are the gift that keeps on giving. I've made little loaves of bread, cornbread and tonight, cinnamon crumb cake. Mini bread and cakes are not only dainty and cute, they serve practical purposes as well. For one, when you live in a household of just one or two people, one little loaf of bread or cake is all you really need. If you have a lot of batter or dough, you can bake several loaves and freeze the extra or give them away as gifts. You are less likely to have your bread/cake go stale or moldy before you get around to eating it all and you have a few extras to pop out of the freezer on lazy or busy days. I don't know about you but I really appreciate homemade gifts and would be happy to be offered a little loaf of rustic bread or delicious pound cake as a gift. Wink, wink.

One of my goals for this year is to eat less processed food, including bread. Did you know that most store bought breads contain more ingredients than actual items we have in our fridge? There are all sorts of flavor enhancers, dyes and preservatives in supermarket bread. All kinds of stuff you don't need or want and I am all about simplicity. Most of the bread we eat is now homemade. It just tastes better. Its easy to do once you get the hang of it and really doesn't take much time. I'd offer a bread recipe here in this post but there are so many easy, simple bread recipes out there so why reinvent the wheel?

I do have a confession though. I never claim to be perfect and just like everyone else, I sometimes feel lazy, tired or just don't have the time to make everything from scratch. Tonight I used a boxed cinnamon crumb cake batter. I've forgiven myself. In my defense, Greg did make us homemade pasta tonight to go with our leftover roast (free-range, ethically raised) chicken.

the mushroom patch

2011-01-09T15:27:00.000-05:00

oh no, it's not cake

I think this is the start of a mushroom

I never met a (edible) mushroom I didn't like. They are delicious, nutritious and can be a great substitute for meat, which I am trying to eat less of. Greg got a little "grow your own" mushroom patch for Christmas last year. They were button mushrooms and it was easy and he got a lot of mushrooms. This year he got a shiitake patch and its growing on our kitchen table. When it comes in the mail you take it out of the box and put it in the fridge for 4 days. Then you soak it in water for 24 hrs. After that you put it in this little tent to keep the humidity high.

You are supposed to get 3 or 4 "flushes" or rounds of mushrooms which will be a couple pounds total. Its been out of the cold and soaking process for a few days now and it looks like something is happening. You can get all sorts of mushroom growing kits at fungiperfecti.com. Hopefully, in the near future there will be posts with delicious recipes for home-grown mushrooms.

my little window garden

2011-01-09T14:53:00.000-05:00

lettuce,bamboo,mint,rosemary,marjoram,parsley,prickly pear cactus,and catalpa tree

january bee update

2011-01-07T11:14:00.000-05:00

Greg and I had one beehive survive going into winter. We lost the other hive (the nice hive) in August. Some kind of mass pandemonium occurred that we cannot put our finger on. The queen died or there was a swarm (where the queen takes off with most of the bees looking for a new home) and the bees that remained very suddenly became infested with wax moth larvae. It was horrible. I can only describe it as a scene similar to opening your fridge and finding hundreds of maggots crawling all over the prime rib you had planned on eating that night. Shocking, revolting, disturbing and most of all, disappointing. I was inconsolable for about two hours, despite my dad's best efforts to make it better.(He even went as far as promising to build beehives from scratch the next go round.) Bless him for trying. Anyway, by the time we discovered the problem it was too late to do anything but cut our losses and pack the hive up for the season. On the upside, we were able to salvage about 20 jars of honey before the disgusting moth larva got to it. We will try again with that hive in the spring.

The mean hive managed to move into fall with a good strong population and lots of honey stores. In November we winterized the hive by placing straw bales around the north and west sides of it to protect it from the wind and placed insulation around the sides as an extra measure.

It was 54 degrees on December 30th so i got the chance to peek in the hive. The bees were still in there. They formed a tight little cluster where they ideally will stay until it warms up in the spring. From what I can see, they are doing what they are supposed to be doing and they look okay. Because the weather was so freakishly warm that day there were even bees flying around the hive. Problem: It appears that there is honey leaking down onto the bottom board of the hive and pooling up around the entrance. I tasted it. I am pretty sure its honey. Unless bee poop looks different in the winter than it does int the summer...and tastes like honey. We have been scratching our heads over what is causing it. We are pretty sure that is not supposed to happen. We aren't sure what could cause honey to leak out of the hive in the winter time but we hope to figure it out soon. If there are any random seasoned beekeepers reading this post, and you know what is going on, these greenhorn beekeepers would really appreciate your advice.

On a lighter note, it looks like the beer is working. We have not seen bubbles in the airlock in the fermentor which tells you that the beer is fermenting but there is some foam forming at the top. A good sign. Yeast+sugar=Fermentation=alcohol.

Bruielly Brew

2011-01-04T20:14:00.000-05:00

Bruielly is pronounced "brew-ly". Haha. For the past few months I've been ranting to just about anyone who would listen to me that I wanted to try homemade beer. Lately I've become more and more interested in making stuff from scratch. I've found that the more work I put into making something from scratch rather than picking it up pre-packaged and processed, makes me enjoy it and appreciate it that much more. I think most people agree that homemade bread is much tastier than store bought bread. So now I am going to see if the same goes for beer. My awesome parents got me a couple kits for Christmas this year. The one we are trying out first is Oktoberfest. When its finished it should make about 50 bottles.

For a novice beer brewer like me, a kit is the way to go. You get all the ingredients you need to make the beer pre-measured so that there is less room for error. You also get a nice set of instructions that for the most part are easy to read and understand...from what I hear. I have to be honest. Greg (a person that I am so unbelievably lucky to have found and who loves to do all the same crazy experiments that I do but that is a whole other blog post) did all of the reading. In fact, I think he probably read the instructions at least a dozen times. But basically you get the kit and round up all the other tools and supplies needed for brewing beer. I was lucky enough to borrow everything I needed from my parents. My mom is an expert wine maker. After you've sanitized everything that will come into contact with the wort (fancy name for beer before it ferments) you basically do the following.

1.)heat 2.5 gal water to 160 degrees in large ass pot
2.)put giant tea bag full of barley mash and steep for a while
3.) remove baggie of soggy, smelly malted barley. Place on counter and forget about until you finally manage to get it to the compost bin (maybe next week)
4.) bring pot to boil for a while
5.)add malt extract (thick smelly syrup)
6.)boil for a really long time
7.) get bored, go play farmville or read some blogs
8.) add bittering hops
9.) boil for a long time
10.) fit in a work out on the elliptical and complain loudly while doing so if you are lucky enough to have someone watch the pot for you
11.) add aromatic hops
12.) boil for 20 more minutes
13.) drink a beer you already have in the fridge because beer sounds really good right about now
14.) worry what the neighbors will think about the strong smell that is wafting from your apartment which is reminiscent of moldy alfalfa pellets and a frat house
15.) cool pot to 60 degrees in a sink full of cold water and ice cubes. It is at this time that your thermometer will stop working right and you will get super-irritated because the beer making process is already taking much longer than expected. You might think its cool enough at 61.9 degrees.
16.) siphon or pour the cooled wort into a 5 gal carboy.
17.) add 2.5 (or in our case maybe two because the rest didn't fit into the container) of cold water
18.) sprinkle and mix in 1 pre-measured package of brewers yeast.

20.) place fermenting cork thingy on the carboy, stare at it for a few minutes and then shrug and question whether or not you did it right and whether it will turn out okay. 20.) go directly to bed. do not pass go. do not collect 200 dollars.

Greg about to drop the barley mash in the pot. Isn't he handsome?

Soaking the mash, looks like tea

adding the dry malt

hops-pelleted

siphoning the beer into a carboy to be fermented. tired.

5 gal of home brew. Waiting for the magic to happen.

I make it sound hard but it wasn't too bad. It just took a long long long long time. We started the process around 6 pm. and we finished at 11 pm. It really helped that Greg had read the directions completely and was prepared to move on to the next step when the previous one was done. I am a "read the directions as you go" kind of girl which I don't recommend being when you are doing a project like this. I am really excited about trying it. Might have to throw a little beer tasting party after its bottled and ready to drink.

The next step is waiting a few days and check to see if air is bubbling in the fermenting cap thingy. Then we know its working. After that we siphon it off into another carboy and do some other stuff to it in two weeks (can't remember what at this point) and then transfer it to another carboy and do some other stuff to it for another two weeks. And then something else two weeks later. It will be ready to bottle in 6 weeks. And ready to drink a few weeks after that. I will try to keep the process updated on the blog so we can see the progress.

Resolution(s)

2011-01-02T21:12:00.000-05:00

This will be my last post in my beekeeping blog. Beekeeping is a fascinating hobby. One that I will most likely have for the rest of my life. However, there are so many other things I want to learn and do. So I've decided that I am going to create a new blog for 2011. One that will act as an electronic diary of sorts. Of all the lessons I learned throughout my first year as a beekeeper, the most important (and one that I'm learning to let carry me throughout my life this year) was one I learned on one of my first days inspecting my hive. One that I would have blogged about right away if I had let it sink in the way it was supposed to.

I was standing behind the wide-open hive. The bees were calm that day, staying inside because the weather was still cool but sunny. Greg was watching me as I was struggling to pry out one of the frames to inspect the comb without crushing dozens of delicate little worker bees. He could see that I was anxious and frazzled and even thought he was a beginner just like me he gave me the best advice I've ever gotten. I've read a handful of beekeeping books cover to cover. I've done hours of research online. I've spent hours listening to seasoned beekeepers lecture on countless beekeeping topics. Despite all that information I've absorbed. The thing that sunk in the most is what Greg said as he was watching me do my first inspection. He said, "Slow down. Be deliberate." What Greg was trying to sat was that I needed to calculate my movements in order to avoid fumbling and making mistakes. To move with patience and purpose. Cool like a cucumber. Those words calmed me down, allowed me to relax, and kept me from pulverizing dozens of my amazing little honeybees as I slid the frame back into place. Best beekeeping advice ever. Even though it came from my partner who was a novice just like me.

Remembering that phrase has helped me become a better beekeeper than I ever expected to be in my first year and now going into 2011, I think it will be my new way of life. I want to encourage people to live their lives in a more conscious and purposeful way-environmentally, emotionally and dare I say, spiritually (but spiritually in the "live a meaningful life" way rather than the "preachy bible-thumping" way that I absolutely despise). All doing so with calm, poise and deliberation and less hurry, worry and stress. There will be posts about beer making, edible mushroom growing (of the legal variety), bread making, traveling, crocheting, knitting, and my early attempts at sewing, beekeeping, gardening, farmers marketing and canning and preserving. There will be posts about imaginative ways to save money, good music, delicious recipes, good advice from good people, raising chickens (as soon as I figure out how to do it while living in a 2 bedroom apartment) and whatever else piques my fancy this year. This is my new year's resolution. Creating a genuine and handmade life, slowly and deliberately.

What do you think?


One of my worker bees on a sunflower, September 2010

Vanilla Honey Body Scrub

2010-09-09T21:35:00.000-04:00

This is my first recipe post, Its Organic Vanilla Honey Body Scrub. It is super easy once you gather the ingredients, smells AMAZING, and makes your skin super soft. The ingredients I used were 100% organic and chemical free-in fact, you can eat it. But you don't have to go that route if you don't want the trouble of looking for organic ingredients. All of them can be found reasonably priced at various places on the internet.

Ingredients:
1/4 cup + 1 tbs vanilla infused sweet almond oil*
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tbs local honey (I used honey from my own hives, yea!)

1/2 vanilla bean

ingredients ready to go

mixing the yummy ingredients

* The vanilla infused Almond oil was made several months in advance. You don't have to do this but it makes the vanilla scent quite a bit stronger. I cut up two organic vanilla beans and placed it in a mason jar with 1 cup of organic sweet almond oil and let it sit and "steep" in a sunny window for almost three months. The vanilla infused oil alone makes a great moisturizer that I use all the time. Its well worth the trouble in my opinion. You could also substitute the sweet almond oil with another light carrier oil such as coconut or jojoba.
Directions
Mix everything together in a bowl except the 1/2 vanilla bean. slice the vanilla bean length wise and scrape out the tiny pods in the center of the bean with a knife-that's the part of the bean you want to use. Put the pods in the bowl with the other ingredients and discard the vanilla bean itself. Pour in pretty container. Done!

got the jar at hobby lobby for a buck

Lesson #12: 10 lbs of Honey Sounds Like a Lot, But Doesn't Look Like a Lot

2010-09-03T15:56:00.000-04:00

First, I am a horrible blogger. I have plenty to talk about but never can seem to make myself sit down and talk about it. I haven't updated in quite a while. There was plenty going on but I just didn't force myself to write. Sorry guys.

We harvested our honey about two weeks ago. The spring was so wet and the summer was so dry that we decided the only honey the bees could spare was about ten pounds. Oh, it seems like a lot but trust me, after over a grand spent and countless hours of toiling and monitoring, ten pounds of honey is hardly any honey at all. I expected 100 pounds. Greg expected none. I guess I should be happy with ten. The Beekeeper down the road from my parents got a whopping one thousand pounds (yes I said one thousand) from 10 hives. So does that mean that next year our two well established hives will make us 200 pounds of honey. I really freaking hope so.

Last weekend I went to a workshop called Women in the Outdoors. I managed to sneak in on the tail end of a beekeeping 101 session and talked to the teacher. He said ten pounds is something a first-year beekeeper should be proud of and that as long as the bees stored enough honey for themselves we did "damn good". Hearing him say that made me fell SO much better. I asked him how a newbee could spot the queen bee among thousands of workers. He had a observation frame in plexiglass with about 300 bees in it including the queen. "Well" he said "You look for the painted dot on her back" "Well" I said "What if you didn't get a marked Queen?" He laughed and said in a round about way that it was impossible. He also demonstrated how to mark your queen bee when you get her. I tried to listen to him but all I could think of was how proud I was of our "damn good" beekeeping efforts this year.

So as far as the honey harvest goes, we made it pretty simple for ourselves. We chose not to buy a 300 dollar honey extractor which spins the honey out of the combs and frames. We decided to just scrape the comb, honey and all right into a bucket and strain it out later using stainers made specifically for honey.

After it strained we jarred it. As you can see above, 10 lbs seems like a lot but really its not. We filled 8.5 jelly jars. One jar went to my parents as a thank you for putting up with thousands of buzzing, stinging bees living on their property. One jar of honey and comb went to my grandpa. He loves comb honey. I have one jar that is down to half already in my cupboard and greg has the rest...at the moment. I think it will be difficult to ration it out all winter long. Its good stuff and hard not to eat by the spoonful right out of the jar. As you can see in the picture above, Greg did not allow any to go to waste!

Lesson #11: Honey From Your Own Beehive Is the Best Honey in the World

2010-07-11T21:02:00.000-04:00

Last week we took a sample of honey from a frame. We opened the hive and scraped a 4 or 5 inch chunk of capped honey from the honey super in hive #1-aka the good hive. As you can see from the pictures its a very pale yellow. Not the typical gold color of honey you get at the grocery store. Greg and I shared the sample with my parents and the consensus was that it was delicious honey. It was sweet, a little flowery-just like honey is supposed to taste. My dad (shown in the pic) really liked it. He took one bite and immediately took off in the house saying he needed to make some toast to go with it. Even though we all together agreed that it was damn good honey, I secretly believe it might be the best honey I've ever tasted. Most likely my pride is influencing my taste buds but Wikipedia says that the paler yellow honey is considered "supreme" quality-yea!

So now that I know that our bees are expert honey makers, my expectations keep getting higher and higher. I bought a special honey straining bucket( its on its way via ups) so that we can strain all the honey from the comb we scrape off the frames. I also keep wanting to buy cases of jars to fill with our buckets and buckets of honey we collect later this summer. I have recycled lib balm tubes and organic sweet almond oil also on the way so that I can make my own lip balm from the wax. I might be getting a little ahead of myself but its fun. We really don't know how much honey we will end up with. Its still the first year and we still have to leave a good chunk of honey in the hive for the bees to eat over winter. Its really their honey after all and they don't intentionally make extra for people to steal. We will have to be conservative as far as how much we harvest this year. Better safe than sorry. I don't think there will be enough to sell but plenty to give as gifts to family members and friends.

As of right now the hives are in pretty good shape. Hive #1 (the good hive) is slowly but surely filling up the honey super we put on a month or so ago. I would love to have to put another one on before the end of the season. Last week Greg put the first honey super on #2 (the bad hive) which has now moved to good hive status. The bees are still angrier, louder, and still more agressive but there are a lot more bees and they are finally starting to store surplus honey. It still amazes me that both hives are Italian bees, they are 50 feet apart from each other, yet their personalities are so different. Maybe the second hive has been crossed with africanized bees. The first hive always seems so calm and quiet when we open the hive. The second always gets pissed and bunches of them end up flying around our heads looking to sting us in the eyeballs I'm sure. We are 3 months in, both hives are doing what they are supposed to be doing, no infestations of mites, mothes or beetles, no chemical treatments, no storm damage, no more rogue queens. We're finally getting the hang of it and really the work left to do is harves honey later this summer or early fall.

I am already planning on adding hives next year. Maybe two or three. I want to put one at my Grandparents. My Grandfather is in his late 80s and still has a massive garden every year. He had a few beehives in the olden days and although he wouldn't be able to manage a hive himself at his age, he said he'd like to have one to help pollenate the garden. I think he would enjoy just going out and watching them every now and then. And he LOVES honey. I took him some of the sample honey to try. I figured as much he loves the stuff, he would be the one to tell me if it tasted off. Like most old people, he is not afraid to be honest either. I gave him a jelly jar about half full with a few chunks of comb. See the big jar in the picture. I assumed he would take a spoonfull and let me know. He had the jar cleaned out, comb and all, in less than five minutes.

Lesson #10: Bee Patient

2010-06-30T19:40:00.000-04:00

Well its been several weeks since my last post. I've been super busy with work (traveling for the last two weeks) and have had various other things going on, including not being able to manage my time well. Its summer. There are so many things that have sounded better than sitting in front of my crappy, virus ridden computer indoors. Hive #1 is doing very well. We have a honey super on it and the frames are getting filled nicely. This weekend we may even take a little honey out to see how it tastes. Hive #2 is catching up. In a week or two we may add a honey super to the hive. Right now they are storing a lot of honey in the hive body (boxes for making baby bees) and they will need some more wiggle room.

Overall we really haven't spent a lot of time doing bee related activities. For the most part, we've left them alone for the month of June (except a little more robbing of one hive to give to the other). Hopefully the weather will be better in July and we will see a lot of honey. You know, the hardest thing about this whole beekeeping endeavor is playing the waiting game. All you can really do most of the time is wait and watch. Giving a colony of bees a pep talk or a lecture on how to make honey faster doesn't really work. Believe me, I've tried. June has been really wet. We've had several, well many severe storms and are lucky not to have seen any damage to the hives. Places in our area have had to deal with lots of downed trees, power outages, roofs blown off etc. Perhaps July will be drier and um flowerier?

Going to order lib balm tubes this coming July. I am thinking with the sample of honey we take off in the next few weeks I can make a test batch of home made lip balm. Who wants to be my lab rat?

Lesson #9: Bees Sting. It Hurts. Avoid If Possible.

2010-05-24T21:40:00.000-04:00

A lot has been going on. You could say I've been a busy little bee. Work (I mean my real, not fun job) has been hectic and by the time I am done either beekeeping, running errands or trying to keep up with my life I've tried to cope with the chaos. So lately I've neglected to keep the blog up to date! Lots has happened. Mostly good and some (especially in the last week or so) not good. I will try to get you caught up.

The colony that had to be replaced (the mean colony) is slowly....slowly........progressing. That is to say they are still alive and the queen is still laying eggs. They've been in the hive for a little less than a month but aren't filling up the frames as quickly as we'd like. On two occasions we've "robbed" full frames of brood or baby bees from the healthy hive and put them in the mean hive to give them a boost. This isn't something I would have done if I was managing the hives on my own but since this is a joint venture I have to be a team player. We don't always have the same opinion on managing the hives and it can be frustrating when I don't feel like my ideas are being considered but I guess there has to be compromise, which is a fancy word meaning someone has to cave. It might as well be me.

Some believe that one reason for the mean hive to be progressing slowly is because we've had some rough weather the last several weeks. Storms and lots of rain which makes it impossible for the bees to get out and forage. If you want my opinion I think we have just a lazy, nasty little colony of bees to deal with. I mean, just because the weather is bad doesn't mean they can't get stuff done in the house you know? They should have been drawing out those frames with comb for the queen to lay her eggs in but they just haven't gotten to it.....It feels good getting that off my chest. Anyway hopefully with a very sunny and warm week ahead we will start to see some improvement. If not, I am giving up on them and leaving them to their own devices. Survival of the fittest. I am putting my foot down and will refuse to steal from a good hive to give to a bunch of ungrateful ill-tempered slacker bees. More on my personal beekeeping views later...unless I forget.

A major event that occurred was Greg's first bee sting. Yep it happened. Last Tuesday we made the dumb decision to replace a pollen patty (extra bee food) inside the mean hive. The weather was crappy-mistake #1 and we were in a hurry-#2 so we decided not to suit up-#3 or smoke the hive-#4. We thought we'd be in and out before they knew it. Wrong. It was Greg's job to open the cover and my job to put the patty on the frames. There were a lot of bees hanging out on top (big surprise) and I didn't want to put it on top of them so I hesitated-#5. That is when one of those evil little monster bees went straight for him and stung him on the top of his hand. I am sure it's my fault. I shouldn't have taken so long. Poor Greg. His hand swelled up and was sore for days. I bet I will get it any day now. They have it out for me. I know it.

The healthy hive has been doing fantastic! So well that we just added a honey super to the hive yesterday. A honey super is a box of frames only for honey storage. Yea! We put a plastic screen down between the brood boxes and they honey super so that the queen can't go laying eggs in our- I mean the- honey. She is too big to fit through the screen but the workers can still get through to store nectar which will eventually turn into honey. The wild raspberries on my parents property are in full bloom so this has been keeping them busy for another week or so until the clover and flowers start blooming.Putting the honey super on also means that the healthy hive has graduated from needing to use the syrup feeders. Now there will be less sugar syrup to make thus less syrup to spill on my clothes and car.

Unfortunately Greg had another mishap yesterday. This time with the smoker. The sides of the bee smoker get really hot. I mean REALLY hot, and he burned the tip of his finger pretty badly when he grabbed it. Poor guy. Yesterday was the first time I've ever seen him dance....he also dropped the f-bomb right in front of my mother. I think she took it pretty well.

Besides tending to the bees we've been busy planting trees, wild flowers and clover in the bee yard...aka my parents' prairie. The deer have been busy eating them down to stubs. I am hoping to get pictures of the hives, flowers and trees up soon...unless I forget.

Lesson #8:Everybody Poops. Even Bees.

2010-05-04T20:57:00.000-04:00

Checked in on the new hive today. I've decided this hive is full of meanies. Since the day we put them in, they've are more aggressive, louder and well, just kinda rude. I've read that bees' temperaments vary from hive to hive. I guess this is true because #1 has a lot more bees but they are nicer, calmer. They don't fly up out of the hive when you open it. They don't go looking for the tiny little open crack in your bee suit and they don't buzz around your face as if they are cursing you out like hive #2 does. Or maybe #2 has just been mimicking Greg's foul mood these last few days....

While doing a rutine inspection of new hive #2 I started feeling a tickle on my leg...inside my suit. Whatever crawly thing that had gotten inside was big but I did my best to stay calm. Bees can smell fear too ya know. I told Greg I had a hunch that a bee was about to go in for the kill and I waited for the fiery burning sting at any moment. But it didn't happen. Greg just laughed at me and told me not to worry- that there wasn't a bee in my suit-how silly. So we carried on with our work. I walked stiff legged from one hive to the other, afraid to pinch the little bee at my knee. Good thing my bee suit is so huge its hard to see what I'm doing under there. I tried to keep my composure while we were finishing up but I was FREAKING OUT on the inside.

We checked the new hive for a good pattern of eggs and there was. If you find more than one egg in a comb cell you know you are in trouble. Its a sign that worker bees are laying eggs because they don't have a queen. Its like they are confused and panicing and lay eggs whereever they find a spot. One little rice-shaped egg in each individual cell is a good sign! The queen is free and doing her work. We also borrowed a frame full of larva and nectar from #1 and gave it to #2 so they could catch up. We read that in a book or something....

Anyway when the inspection was over I hurried back to the house to tear off my suit before that little trapped bee had a chance to let me have it. I took off the suit and shook it out but no bee....nowhere. I do have evidence of her presence however. See that little yellow blotch on the back of my shirt? Bee poop.

Lesson #7: Don't Tell George She's Drunk!!!

2010-05-01T21:42:00.000-04:00

Headed back down to Waldo to up another package of bees last Wednesday. Another 80 bucks. Lost the Queen to hive #2 and couldn't get a new one without 10,000 bees to come along with her. Thought it was going to be a pretty run-of-the mill pick up and installation. Didn't think it was possible to have another story but sure enough, I do.

We had to drive down to Waldo after work and pick up the bees in the tavern. Turns out the beekeeper we bought them from also owns the bar. When we got there we walked in and asked if we were in the right place. Someone pointed to the far end of the bar and stacked up on one of the bar tables was about 10 or so packages of bees. Now with the bee packages they are just metal screened sides so you can see, hear and smell (yes, they have a smell) all of the bees from outside the box. So even as a new beekeeper this was a pretty strange sight to see. I mean if I was a bar owner/beekeeper I would hide the bees in a closet or back corner or Something so I wouldn't scare customers away. But that's just me.

The tavern was fairly small but had a pretty interesting decor and it was pretty dead in there-Maybe two people having drinks (perhaps due to the approx 100,000 bees in close proximity?). My plan was to just pick up the bees and head back home which is about a 1 1/2 hr drive. Greg wanted to get a beer though so we sat down at the bar. I have to admit I really didn't feel like staying but I figured it was just one beer... We weren't sitting there for more than 10 minutes before a lady swung the front screen door open letting it slam. It was loud enough to catch our attention. She kind of stumbled up to the bar and said in an extremely loud and drunken Southern Ohio draw, "Don't tell George I'm Drunk!" Her voice sounded familiar and George being the name of the guy we bought our bees from and also the tavern owner, I put two and two together and realized it must have been his wife. I had talked to her on the phone a few weeks ago when I ordered the bees She seemed much more professional then.

This was just the beginning of what turned out to be a creepy, uncomfortable yet surprisingly entertaining evening. As Greg and I were chitchatting to ourselves a chihuahua appeared out of nowhere and trotted up and down the bar like it was a normal thing for him to do. He was cute and I was amused. I doubt the local health department would approve but who cared. I went with it. He was cute and let me pet him. There was a box of condoms right on the shelf next to all the hard liquor that they were selling for 25 cents apiece. There was a nice little display of home-made pork rinds and cracklings right next to that. On the other side of the room was a bid shelf with Waldo Bee's honey and above that a fake set of boobs hanging on the wall. All these things meld so well together....Oh and there were also children hanging out playing pool behaving as if it is a normal every-day occurrence.

At some point a couple other guys trickled in the bar. On plopped down right next to me. For a while he kept looking over at me and staring at me through the mirror of the bar until he finally worked up the courage to strike up a conversation. He introduced himself as one of George's assistant beekeepers. He was hired to replace the other guy who got fired for getting a DUI on the job. He told that the old assistant punched the cop who pulled him over right in the face. Does anyone else reading this blog agree that this isn't typically something people discuss with complete strangers?

What else did this guy tell us? A lot of stuff I can't remember now. I do remember that he sounded hammered too He slurred his speech and kept spitting on my arm while he talked. Greg just kept asking him questions which made him talk even more about stuff that didn't really make sense. He did say he drove our bees all the way from Georgia. At that point another guy with bad teeth and a bushy mustache (who at some point snuck in without me noticing) chimed in and asked if we've ever been to Georgia. We said only driven through and his response went something like this:

"Stone Mountain. Stone Mountain. Beautiful. You take 75 to 109...or maybe it was 78....anyways you gotta stop at this little ole motel. Its a real hole in the wall but its great. They even give you breakfast. Well you gotta go across the street to the restaurant but its good. Then at the stop sign you take a left and take that road all the way to....ever been to Cherokee? Took my daughter there when she was four months old. Got her picture taken with a real live indian...holdin' her...just like this....Don't ever go down there without a coat because when you come back through Cincinnati you'll get cold." Crazy, random I know.

Shortly after that Greg asked our new beekeeper friend where the restroom was. His response-"Do you want the ladies' or the mens'?" I think it was the booze talking.

Anyways, like I said I can't remember everything we talked about but it was pretty hilarious. I know I am making fun of these people but I am trying to do it in a real lighthearted way. They were complete strangers who spent time actually talking to us and giving us tips. You just wouldn't do that, talk to a stranger, in a bar here in Bowling Green. Even though I was uncomfortable at first, I had a really good time talking to these hillbillies and honestly can't wait to go back next year.

Oh and the bees are in hive #2 getting settled in. Will check back in on them in a few days. Hopefully Greg's bees can keep their queen alive this time or I will have to give them all a lesson in nurturing.

Mountain Rose Herbs Recipe Contest-3 in 1 Happy Herbal Body Balm

2010-04-24T20:31:00.000-04:00

I've decided to enter a fairly new and wonderful Recipe of mine in a contest from Mountain Rose Herbs. They are giving the winners 200 dollars worth of MRH products. I could do all sorts of fun stuff with that! Here is a link to their contest info if you would like to check it out here!

This is a super easy and fun recipe I created for multiple uses. It works great as a skin moisturizer, massage oil and aromatherapy oil. I did a little research on essential oils to find a blend that suited my nose's preference as well as doubled as a stress/anxiety reliever. The essential oils can be substituted for something that you like or whatever oils you have on hand. The end product of this recipe results in a fresh, herbaly,(I made that word up) yet sweet smelling semi-soft solid (melts at body temperature) that will fit in a small container. The sweet orange oil acts as a natural mood lifter and the lavender is excellent for relaxation. There is a hint of ylang-ylang oil in this recipe which is said to be a mood enhancer/anti-depressant and creates euphoria. It is also a well known aphrodisiac so use with caution ;) You may have to beat those of the opposite sex away with sticks.

The finished product will store for 6 months or so in a cool dry spot. All the ingredients except the beeswax (optional in this recipe) were purchased from Mountain Rose Herbs-An Earth Friendly supplier of herbs, oils, teas as well as lots of other fun stuff. Feel free to experiment with this recipe- I prefer to make it in small batches so it will fit in small, on-the go-sized containers but you could double, triple etc. to make the amount you want. I like to rub it on my skin before bed to help me relax and I've also discovered its a great moisturizer for dry elbows and chins. I plan on giving some away as gifts for some friends who could use a natural pick-me-up.

Ingredients
2 Tbs organic cocoa butter, chopped up or grated
1 Tbs organic sweet almond oil
1 tsp organic olive oil
1 tsp organic avocado oil
1 tsp grated beeswax-this is not necessary but I used it out of pure excitement of having my own beehives this year! Adding it makes the end product a little more solid also.
5 drops organic sweet orange essential oil
5 drops lavender essential oil
1-2 drops organic ylang-ylang essential oil (strong stuff, use sparingly!)

Directions:
Using a double boiler method over medium heat, melt all ingredients together. I get a large pan with a couple inches of water and place an empty mason jar in the water and melt all the ingredients in the jar. When adding the cocoa butter and beeswax you can eyeball the amount. Its hard to be exact as these ingredients are hard at room temperature. This is a really simple recipe so you don't have to be precise. Once fully melted, blend with a spoon for at least one minute. Pour into small, covered container and allow to cool fully before use.If its too soft for your taste, melt it down again and add a little more cocoa butter and beeswax. If its too solid for your liking add more olive or avocado oil. Easy huh?

Like I said, it makes an awesome all over body moisturizer and works even better as a massage oil-if you can get someone to give you a massage ;). It literally takes five minutes to make but you can enjoy it for weeks!

Lesson #6: Learn How To Make Fake Honey In Case Your Hives Fail

2010-04-18T09:33:00.000-04:00

And then there was one. Yesterday we had to combine the failing hive with the over-achieving one. We put a layer of newspaper down on the open top of the good hive and put the queenless hive on top of that. The idea is the bees will start chewing their way through the paper while slowly getting acclimated to each other. This should keep a bee massacre from happening. Otherwise the healthy hive would see the queenless bees as a threat and kill them. We will be checking in the next few days to see how the introduction has went. Its a fairly common practice in the beekeeping world so I'm trying not to worry about it too much.

On a more positive note We've already learned how to identify and correct this kind of problem-possibly before it becomes dire. A new package of bees has been ordered to be installed in the empty hive and will be picked up at the bar in Waldo on the 28th. I apologize for not getting some more pictures up. I do not have a good camera and have to rely on other people to get the pictures.

Last night I helped Greg make dandelion preserves. He came across a recipe in the New York Times. After spending hours meticulously picking dandelion petals from the green parts, steeping them, straining them, and boiling that down further into a thick syrup, it resulted in a very pretty gold colored jelly. Guess what? It tastes very similar to honey! This is a good recipe to have on hand in case we don't get any real honey this year. It makes a great substitute. What a great way to get rid of those unsightly (personally, I think they are pretty) yellow weeds in your yard.

ps-if you read (even if its just occasionally) my blog and haven't become a follower yet, please do. You will then get email updates every time I post something new and I can keep track of how many followers I have and decide whether its enough to continue the blog. The link should be to the right of this post. Also don't forget to vote in the poll at the top:)

Lesson #5 Two Hives Are Better Than One

2010-04-15T22:36:00.000-04:00

Tonight Greg and I checked cracked open our hives to see how they were doing. We were looking for brood larvae (baby bees) stored nectar and pollen. These are signs your hives are doing well. The good news is one of the hives is doing fantastic. We saw lots of larvae, lots of stored pollen and lots of nectar. Its doing exactly what its supposed to be doing.

The second hive is sucking-big. The number of bees is a lot lower and there is virtually no stored pollen. Worse-no larvae. This most likely means we've lost the queen in that hive and it will need to be replaced. We are still deciding what to do. I can't stop wondering what we did wrong. Did our little queen bee not measure up? Was she released too early and killed by the workers? Did she just decide she didn't like the interior decorating in the hive and take off? Who knows.

We don't have much time to figure out what to do. If you lose the egg-laying queen the hive doesn't have very long before it starts to decline and you can't save it. At this point I am really glad we paid the extra cash to get a second hive. It would have been really hard to have recognized the queen problem without having another healthy hive to compare it to. Its also nice to know that if the second hive isn't savable we won't have a total loss of honey this year.

Early on in the project I claimed ownership of the healthy hive (before it was healthy, I might add for my defense) and teased that I would train them to steal honey from Greg's hive. I shouldn't have run my mouth. Today Greg said he thinks I've coerced his bees into my hive or have found some way to sabotage his hive. I'm not sure he was joking. Is it my fault that my hive provided a more welcoming and nurturing environment than his?

I think the sooner we learn how not to get discouraged and to handle these types of set backs the better. We are probably going to walk around like we've just lost our puppies for the next few days. We were so hoping for a smooth first year and only three weeks in we have our first hurdle to jump.

Lesson #4: The Sooner You Accept That You Will Always Feel Sticky, The Better

2010-04-11T17:51:00.000-04:00

On March 31, 2010 I became an official beekeeper. I wish I had a very dramatic story for you all but installing the bees into our hives was really the easiest part of this whole endeavor. After bringing home 20,000 bees in the back of my car (50 or so escaped and flew around freely as I drove the last 10 miles home) we installed the bees that evening. It was definitely a family affair. My intimidate family was there to watch, including my sister Sara and her husband Vic. Their new baby, Trevor stayed inside with Grandma. Sara had her very expensive, very nice camera with her and I have her to thank for the awesome pictures.

My beekeeping partner and I had been preparing for this day for weeks. We went to workshops, read books, watched videos online and had frequent and long conversations about how this day would play out. Based on everything that has happened so far, I expected that the bee installation would result in at least a trip to the emergency room. But this did not happen much to my relief!

We put on our bee suits, grabbed the packages, sprayed them down with sugar water so the bees couldn't fly away and just dumped them in. We hung the queen cage in the hive and closed them up. That was it. We kind of just stood there for a while shrugging and wondering if we missed anything but we didn't. That was it. I don't know why everyone isn't a beekeeper. It was really that simple. Well maybe people avoid beekeeping because of the thousands of stinging insects or maybe the fortune it costs to buy the materials. Okay, I don't know why a MORE people aren't beekeepers. If you get the chance, check out Sara's pictures of the installation on my facebook page.

Over the past two weeks Greg and I have been making sure they have sugar syrup in the feeders. They use sugar syrup in place of nectar until the flowers get going in the spring. we have to drive out to our little bee yard and check almost every day. So far my guesstimate is that we've gone through almost 4, 5lb bags of sugar keeping them fed which is a lot more than I've expected. I am going to have to consider buying those huge 50 lb bags that collect dust on the bottom of the grocery store shelves. Now I know why people buy them. I've also discovered that sugar syrup always finds its way out of the containers I put them in. Over the weekend, I had a 1/2 gallon jug of syrup mysteriously spill all over the back of my new Rogue. (I've had it less than a year and bought it with 4 miles on it.) I was pretty upset. How did that happen when I twisted the cap as tightly as I could to make sure it wouldn't leak? I also wonder how sugar syrup winds up all over my counters when I know I didn't spill any. I also manage to get sugar syrup on my clothes, on my hands and in my hair when I am making it and when I am refilling the feeders no matter how careful I am. I suppose I must chalk it up to one of the mysteries of beekeeping.

On Thuesday (and I am calling it Thuesday because my days are running together and I cant remember whether it was Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday) we fired up one of the smokers and checked to see if the queens were released from their cages. They were! This means she is either crawling around the hive making baby bees or that the worker bees have rejected and eaten her. Not confusing at all, right? However, our bees have been busy collecting pollen on the warmer days we've had and so far by the looks of things everything is going well. They are so fun to watch! I could stand out there for hours just watching them fly in and out of the hives with the different colors of pollen they are finding. Just yesterday I considered getting a folding lounge chair and hang out with them for a while. I found out that if I stand close to the hives for too long they start to get irritated. I can tell that they are irritated when they start flying around my face. I think this is there way of cursing me out. I also realized if I'm not careful I am going to turn in to that crazy insect-loving, wacko lady that people don't let their children hang out with.

Today I spent $47.59 on organic ingredients for making lip balm and body butter with the copious amounts of beeswax and honey I hope to get later this summer. I am really excited about it! Next week (if the weather is warm and less windy) Greg and I will open up the hives and check to see if our queens are laying eggs. If not, we will have to scramble and get replacement queens right away. I'm pretty optimistic though. All signs currently point to happy, busy little bees!

Lesson #3: Wear Lots Of Layers When Picking Up Your Bees

2010-04-02T08:27:00.000-04:00

We ordered our bee packages several weeks ago from a small business called Waldo Bees. Greg said when he placed his order over the phone the guy had a really low voice. So logically I came to the conclusion that he was a pirate. Who wouldn't? I was also told we would be meeting the pirate in the parking lot of a bar in Waldo to pick up our bee packages. Thus, this is where the pirate and the bar come into play. Anyway per the usual we got a little lost on the way there because it just wouldn't be a real road trip if we didn't. It didn't take long to find the bar after we figured out the right direction we should be going in. There were several pickup trucks parked there along with a good sized trailer and stacks add stacks of bee packages lined up next to it. I guess we were in the right place.

We had to give each other a little pep talk before we got out of the car. "We can do this, no problem. Its gonna be awesome." There was no turning back after we put two crates of 10,000 bees(3lbs of bees in each box to give you a better idea)in the back of my car. Greg went up and talked to the guy holding the clipboard. You always know who is in charge by who is holding the clipboard. It was the pirate guy with the really low voice. Only he really didn't look much like a pirate to be honest. It would have been a much more exciting story if he had so I was a little disappointed but one thing I did find fairly hilarious about him was the odd contrast of his tattered and dirty bib overalls with his blue tooth headset he was wearing. He was obviously way more technologically advanced than I am despite the fact that he looked like a farmer- the 1900's era farmer, not the 2000's era kind. Shame on me for stereotyping. Lesson learned.

The pirate checked his clipboard and yelled something about being "all paid up" and "two packages" to another guy who was removing the bee packages from the trailer. He had lots of facial hair and was all decked out in camo. Do the bees have a harder time stinging you if you are wearing camo? The guy picked up two packages and followed us to my car. We opened the tailgate and he sat the boxes right on the floor. This is where Greg and I got our very first look at the packages of bees up close and shared a terrified look. It wasn't the thousands of bees crawling around inside the box that frightened us (although it would probably freak out any normal person) it was the 100 or so bees crawling around on the OUTSIDE OF THE BOXES that had us worried. Seriously, there were a whole bunch of bees just hanging on to the outside of the boxes that the camo guy sat in my car. Fun. When Greg tried to put the packages in a box and close the flaps, the guy said "I wouldn't do that if I were you." I barely listened to anything else the guy said to Greg but he certainly didn't offer any useful information about what we SHOULD do. All I managed to hear(I was too busy freaking out) was him explaining that they need lots of air and cool temperatures during transportation. There are so many bees crammed into a little box that they can overheat. I really don't know why the camo guy didn't acknowledge the fact or make any effort to knock or brush off the rogue bees before plopping them down in my car and I don't know why we didn't try to brush them off ourselves or question him about how to keep them confined. I guess we didn't want to look like we didn't know what we were doing. We didn't want to look like we were worried about a hundred loose bees flying around in our car while we are driving 75 miles per hour down the highway. Beekeepers are cool like that.

As soon as the guy walked away we moved the boxes into a couple extra cardboard boxes and closed the flaps. Our game plan was to drive fast, keep the ac on full blast and hope to hell we make it home before they found a way out and came looking for us. It got so chilly in the car that my hands started to go numb, Greg was shivering uncontrollably and we both could see our breaths. We made it about half way home when I heard a buzz and looked through my mirror in time to see a little black shadow pop out of one of the boxes. It was just one bee. We could handle one little bee loose in the car. I started getting the creepy crawlies. I even imagined I was feeling a bee crawling around on my foot. Unfortunately, by the time I had dropped Greg off at his place that one little rogue bee had turned into four or five. Some were just crawling around on the windows and some were airborne. And by the time I got half-way to my parent's place where we were storing them until that evening, there were about twenty bees flying around in my car. Miraculously, I managed to get home without getting stung once! When I got out of the car I found that there were a lot more bee escape artists than I originally thought. First, the imaginary bee crawling around on my foot turned out to be a real one. Second, There were about 20 or thirty bees crawling around the floor and the outside of the cardboard box. And I managed accomplished all of this before 9:30 in the morning!

I got the packaged bees in the garage(don't worry only 30 more or so would get loose in the garage throughout the day)and spent the next twenty minutes trying to get the rogue bees out of my vehicle. On my way to work in the afternoon more bees turned up in my car. I even had one fly out of my purse as I was walking through the parking lot. All in all, a pretty uneventful day. In defense of the bees, it was really amazing how docile they were. I was able to brush some of them out with my bare hands. Luckily for me this was probably partially due to the fact that the inside my car was 35 degrees, which kept them sluggish, but also (hopefully) because we picked a really gentle breed of bee to work with-Italians. There are a variety of breeds of honey bee that you can buy and the Italians are popular for this reason.

My next blog will have some pictures and will be about installing the bees in the hives. Ironically, this is probably going to be the least dramatic story I've posted yet. Stay tuned! If you read my blog and haven't become a follower yet please do. You can get email updates each time I post a new blog. I will also try to get some recipes using honey every once in a while. That should be fun.

Lesson #2: Just Because Someone Says "I Checked To Make Sure Your Oder Is Right" Doesn't Mean They Actually Checked To Make Sure Your Order Was Right

2010-03-21T09:00:00.000-04:00

So after our workshop at the Ohio Beekeepers Association in Wooster, We found out that there is a very short time frame in which you need to get your sh** together if you want to be a beekeeper. Coming out of the workshop, we realized that we should have ordered everything including our bees and queens back in February. So we really had move if we wanted to get started this year. We looked at some supply catalogs and thought the simplest thing to do was order starter kits (includes hives, frames,protective wear, smokers, tools ect.).We also wanted to buy full bee suits rather than rely on hats and gloves alone because as this is our first year, we are a little uncomfortable with the idea of going without full armor. Well all of this stuff we ordered from a company called Dadant. We thought it best to pick them up at their store in Albion, Michigan instead of having everything delivered. The shipping would have cost us a hundred bucks or more because of the weight of all the supplies. It was time for a little road trip.

We got to Dadant after about a two hour drive in the rain. Thank you Greg for getting tired of hearing me complain about driving in the rain and taking my keys away from me. This Dadant place was basically a big warehouse with a very tiny store front. When the employee finished helping a couple, he helped us pick out a bee suit. He is a pretty big guy, I'd say over 6 feet tall and pretty stocky too (to put it nicely). His shirt was way too small for him and in reflection, I think he looked like a human version of Winnie the poo. No wonder he is in the honey business.

When he was ringing us out he started telling us all kinds of stories. Some about beekeeping, some having nothing to do with beekeeping. I mean, this guy talked our ears off. He gave us tips about when to work with the bees. "Whatever you do, don't work with em when its windy, just rained, is about to rain, or is raining." "Don't work with em in the morning or in the evening, and don't wear deodorant." What? No deodorant? Apparently you can't use any scented soaps, lotions, shampoos, deodorants, ect. because it agitates the bees. So now I have to go out and buy unscented toiletries to keep the bees from attacking me. Fantastic.

The worker gave us plenty of no-so-useful tips while he was helping us also. How to please your wife, girlfriend or significant other by making chicken stew for dinner, how he played dirty football in high school (throwing salt or lemon juice in other players' eyes), how he is a diabetic and was recovering from a leg infection and surgeries (gross), and a wide variety of other topics that I can no longer remember.

This still unnamed fellow eventually got around to ringing up our order which came to a whopping 730-some dollars-GASP!! Thank you Greg for taking care of that. I am keeping track of the tab. The guy told us he hoped we had a very large vehicle for our order. He told us to meet him at the overhead door around the other side of the building to load our stuff. He met us outside with a hug pallet stacked with a bunch of huge boxes-our boxes. While Greg was trying to figure out how to put the seats down in my little Nissan Rogue, The man finally introduced himself as "Tiny Tim". How fitting for a giant, human version of Winnie the Poo.

While Tiny Tim stood there watching us struggle to pack my little SUV with enormous boxes he asked me what my name was. When I said "Erica" he said "well Erica, do you like sweet stuff?" Well I thought this was an odd question, but without really reasoning I answered "Yes, of course!" Then he said "Follow me! I have something I think you will like." Greg looked like he was doing a fine job of loading the car and I all I was thinking about was sweet stuff so I followed him back into the warehouse.

All the while I was following Tiny Tim through a very creepy , very dimly lit area of the building I never realized that I had just let a strange and giant man lure me into a dark corner with treats! You'd think this is where my stranger danger sense should have kicked in but I guess I was more concerned with what kind of delicious treat he was about to give me. He took me back to a storage room and showed me a monstrous box of honey candy. He gave me a bag and said I could have as much as I wanted! Awesome. I took a couple huge handfuls-didn't want to be too greedy now. Then Tiny Tim led be back out into the light of day where my friend had just finished up loading the boxes, seeming to have no concern for the fact that a complete stranger-and I mean strange-was successful in tempting me into follow him into a dark deserted building with the promise of candy. Thanks for having my back Greg :) It was only in reflection that I realized the "don't take candy from strangers" rule I learned in kindergarten never sunk in.

Tiny Tim suggested we hit up a little diner on the way out of town. He said, and I quote, " Good food, large portions and nooooo hovering." When he said this he put his arms out and made a hovering gesture that made both Greg and I snicker. He looked like a bear about to attack a hiker or something. You probably would have had have been there to see the humor in it but we thought it was so funny that we repeat that phrase every time we get the chance and I even made Greg do the hovering pose for the photo above. We went to the restaurant and it was pretty marginal. But Tiny Tim was right, the waitress didn't hover. In fact, we only saw her when she took our order and gave us our bill. Personally, I like attentive waitresses. If I need mayo she isn't far away. If my coffee needs warmed up she will notice. If I choke on an olive she is there to perform the Heimlich.

We took all our stuff home, opened the boxes, set up a hive indoors for fun.....and realized a bunch of stuff was missing. about half a dozen (and very important)parts to our kit were m.i.a. This is interesting because Tiny Tim made a point to tell us he checked to make sure our order was right at some point before we left. Funny. Greg was pretty pissed but I wasn't too concerned because I had a bag full of delicious honey candy to keep me content. It is hard for me to be angry at anyone who's given me bags full of sugary sweets. We did get some of our stuff shipped to us last week but are still waiting on a pair of gloves- which should have come with the replacement items and didn't. I have a feeling this isn't the last we will be hearing from Tiny Tim. In all honesty though, he seems like a genuinely kind and helpful person and he really gave us some decent pointers for beekeeping. He also gave us quite the memory of picking up our very first beehives!

Lesson Number 1: I might end up sucking at beekeeping.

2010-03-20T22:03:00.000-04:00

Some of you are may be wondering why I've decided to become a beekeeper. In short, I am doing this because I like honey and want lots of it. But there are other reasons too. We need bees and other pollinators (that are declining in numbers due to habitat loss, climate change, diseases, ect.) to help grow our food and it feels good to support them and all the positive things that come with them. And I like a little challenge now and then.

I've always been interested in beekeeping but never thought I had the nerve, the knowledge or resources to be able to do it until I met Greg, my partner in this crazy project. I have more in common with him than anybody I've ever met and he is the only person who can answer more questions correctly than me while watching Jeopardy. So it is to him that I owe so much gratitude. Without his willingness to try beekeeping with me, I wouldn't have never gotten the courage to take the first step. I am also very thankful to his employer who are much more financially supportive than mine!

A few months after Greg and I met I found out he took a beekeeping class while in college. How awesome is that! We talked about how it would be fun to have a couple hives but nothing ever materialized until January of 2010 when we brought the subject up again. We did an internet search to see if there were any workshops or classes on the subject in our area. Sure enough there was an annual conference and workshop for Ohio beekeepers in early March. I signed us up, we went (along with about a thousand other people) and on our way home we said "Lets do it!" So there you have it. That's how we came about deciding to try out beekeeping for the first time. We didn't ponder it or do much rationalizing. Its not really our style. We just couldn't think of any reason not to try it.

This is the first of (hopefully) many updates about my first year of beekeeping. Once I started telling people that I was going to get a hive, I was really surprised at all the positive feedback I've gotten. I guess a lot of people like honey too! So far, the most important thing I've learned from the books, websites, classes and even a seasoned beekeeper or two is this;I might suck at it. My bees might die or abandon my hive... and I most definitely will get stung. Sounds fun right? I don't know why everyone doesn't keep bees in their backyards!

I have a few more stories to follow soon. Our meeting of "Tiny Tim" and the fiasco of trying to get our supplies will probably be next. I also recently found out that Greg ordered our bees from a pirate and we will be meeting him at a bar to pick them up- so yeah, that is good material for another post as well. Please be forewarned, if my bees die, abandon the hive, don't make any honey or I get stung to death, this blog will come to an abrupt end. So stay tuned.