Love Cook Create Knit

Moving a Bee Hive

2010-06-28T08:05:00.000-04:00

A few days before hand, I'd transfered my 'super nuc' into it's own new hive (I'm trying a traditional 10 frame this time), and put Tanya's nuc into her own hive (that I'd borrowed to create my super nuc). We had successfully raised (or rather the bees had) a laying queen that looks great (nice and big, like a date!), and now it was time to transfer the hive to it's new home just a 7 minute drive away. Tanya looked online and said that the info on moving a hive was rather limited, so I'll at least tell you what we did!

My brother, Scott is very handy-dandy so I trusted completely what he came up with.

First: He used packing tape to tape up the cracks between each box.

Second: He used strapping to hold the entire hive together.

Third: Since our drive was only 7 minutes, we stuffed the entrance hole with playdough. Generally, you are supposed to use some type of screening that I guess you'd nail or staple in place. But playdough seemed so simple and easy. Scott taped the playdough in place for good measure.

Fourth: Scott and Victor carried the hive to the car. I'm the type of beekeeper that gets fully dressed to do anything related to my hives. I have no pride about not wanting beestings. So, to see them do all of this without anything makes my skin crawl. When the TRANSFER event approached, I decided that this was a man-job. Sorry ladies. Having never done this, I was happy to have the men take over.

They plunked the hive into the back. As you can see, Tanya put up a quilt for good measure ... but I don't think a bee could get out of that Fort Knox if they wanted to!

Proud new beekeeper!

Carrying the bees to their new home.

Setting her down.

Now ... to unlock Fort Knox.

Success!!

Honey Lemonade and the Apiary

2010-06-28T07:21:00.000-04:00

Honey Lemonade

My bee-friend Sarah introduced me to honey lemonade. Yum. So of course I've been experimenting. Here are a few versions I love:

Honey Mint Lemonade: 1 Cup honey mixed with 1 cup HOT water from the faucet, Juice of 3-4 lemons, 4 Cups cold water, 2 large sprigs mint, ICE. (Crush the mint and strain for a mintier flavor)

Honey Lavender Lemonade: 1 Cup honey mixed with 1 Cup water -- heat over the stove until hot, then throw in a large handful of lavender flowers into the pot. Remove from heat, cover and steep for 15 minutes. Juice of 3 lemons mixed with 4 Cups water. Pour steeped lavender/honey mixture through a strainer into the lemon/water mixture. Add ICE. Enjoy!!

Meanwhile, speaking of HONEY, there has been a lot of activity in what I might officially call my apiary. As I'd mentioned previously, my sister-in-law Tanya was interested in becoming a beekeeper herself. My hives seemed strong enough to split, so we did. I took 3 frames from one of my hives, and 2 from the other and created for Tanya a "nuc". Through this process, the bees will notice they are living without a queen and go about raising their own from fresh eggs on the frames in the nuc. (See previous entry for a lengthy description.)

A week later, my bee mentor Diane came over to inspect my hives with me to see how they were doing. I wanted some more experienced eyes to take a look. "WOW!" she said "There are a LOT of bees in here! These are two very strong hives. You need to split again or you will get a swarm." Alrighty. I didn't have supplies for THAT!! Diane really thought I needed to take more than just 5 total frames out of both hives to have any impact. I needed to create either two nucs, or one SUPER nuc. So that's what we did.

The next day Tanya was good enough to loan me her hive-in-waiting (while the nuc we'd just made the week before was incubating) to use for the super nuc, AND to help me dig into my poor hives AGAIN to create another nuc.

It was a bee-bonanza. The bees weren't thrilled with being bothered yet again, but a beekeeper's gotta do what a beekeeper's gotta do. We took both of those hives all apart looking for all of the essential ingredients that go into a nuc -- then of course, ya gotta put everything back together with bees flying everywhere. Just stay focused on the task at hand and ignore the beezillion bees zipping around you and bouncing off your veil.

We did it.

(This photo was taken just under a month ago after successfully creating our two nucs.)

Splitting a Beehive

2010-05-15T21:55:00.001-04:00

Today was a big day. My hives managed to make it through the winter and thrive this spring. My sister-in-law, Tanya has been interested in becoming a beekeeper herself after moving to 'the country' -- so I offered to give her a split from my two hives. And, today was THE DAY.

To 'split' a hive you are basically taking a total of five frames representing all stages of life of the brood, honey and pollen and creating a mini hive. Some people put these frames right into a regularly sized brood box, however other people (including one of the main teachers in my bee club) believes it's best to create a nuc, which is a mini hive of only five frames. It's easier for the young bees to manage -- to keep warm (as splits are typically done in the springtime) -- and defend. Here is a detailed explanation of what we did. Keep in mind, I am learning and have only been a bee keeper for one year. This was my first split.

What you need:

One nuc -- the same height as the height of the brood box you will be splitting (aka: the parent hive).

A method of feeding your nuc, which may require a shim, or additional box on top of your nuc.

Sugar syrup ready to feed your nuc.

5 extra frames (and foundation) that fit the parent hive brood box.

An extra (empty) brood box. (I didn't have one of these so I used two honey supers stacked on top of each other, this seemed to work fine.)

A queen excluder

A bee brush

A place to put your nuc. If it is going to be the permanent location of the new hive, have the permanent stand set up to use for your nuc.

All of your regular bee equipment ... bee veil, smoker, tool, etc.

I ordered my nuc from Brushy Mountain Bee Farm. It comes in pieces.

This type of 'crafty' is a bit of a push for me . . . but I did it.

I did it! Here it is glued and hammered together.

A coat of primer and white paint.

Okay, we are ready!! Tanya poses in front of the temporary home for her new bees!

I put WAY too many honey supers on my right hive in an effort to be sure the queen felt like she had plenty of room, and therefore wouldn't SWARM!

Here I am beginning the inspection of the left hive. Behind me is the year old raspberry patch.

The first thing we did was go through the two brood boxes in each hive to see if any queen cells (aka: SWARM cells) had been built. What I've heard, is that if queen cells have been created (or started) -- but not hatched -- the queen has already set her mind on swarming and its best to go ahead and put the queen from the parent hive into the nuc. This way, the queen thinks that she's swarmed, and the bees from the parent hive will go ahead and care for and birth the queen cells already in their hive.

If all is well, and there are no queen cells in the hive this is what you need to do:

Choose from the parent hive (I took frames from both hives to lessen the impact on the hives):

1 Frame of honey/nectar

Be sure there is a significant amount of pollen in some of the other frames:

2 Frames of open brood

1 Frame of capped brood

1 Frame with fresh eggs

Once you've identified a frame for your nuc, make sure the queen isn't on it then, shake the bees off the frame in one big motion (or two) then brush off the remaining bees and put the frame into the extra (empty) brood box. Replace the frame from the parent hive with one of the extra (empty) frames -- these are best put on to the ends of your brood box.

Repeat the above process until you have all five frames chosen, de-beed and put into the extra brood box. Then, put the queen excluder on top of the parent hive, put the extra brood box with the 5 selected frames in it, on top of the queen excluder. Put the inner and outer covers on and leave it for an hour or so.

What's happening?

First, young nurse bees care for brood. By shaking off all of the other bees, isolating the frames, then putting the queen excluder under the nuc-to-be frames -- over the next hour, the nurse bees will naturally come up to care for the brood there, and importantly the queen from the parent hive doesn't travel up into the nuc to-be. These nurse bees, sensing that they have no queen, will create special queen cells around some of the fresh eggs and begin feeding them royal jelly to make a queen for their hive. QUITE amazing.

After the hour has passed, remove each frame (which should now have nurse bees crawling all over them) and slide them into your nuc one by one. Put the frame with the fresh eggs in the middle, the frames with honey / nectar / pollen on the outside edges. Don't forget to put your feed on the nuc. Any foragers that made it into the nuc will naturally go back to their original hive. Nurse bees haven't ever left the hive before, so they will stay where they've been put. That said, there won't be any bees in the hive old enough to forage and feed the hive for a few weeks. Button up the nuc, and in 21 days you can open it up and hopefully see that you have a new queen! At this time you can put all of these frames / bees into a new permanent hive.

As I was inspecting the left hive (and searching for two frames to add to the nuc) the right hive already has the queen excluder and extra brood box with three 'chosen' frames (shaken & brushed) on top of the parent hive ... that's why it looks SO tall. I had put on an extra (two total) honey super to discourage swarming. Perhaps it DID help (as silly as it looks) because what I found when I went into the left hive is that it had already swarmed! It has been particularly nasty so I haven't been able to inspect it well -- and that explains it. A hive without their queen can be persnickety! They still weren't thrilled by my presence so I kept it brief -- pulled two frames and buttoned her up. Hopefully as the new queen (which I didn't see) gets established things will settle down. Otherwise, I may have to consider re-queening. Sometimes you just have a crabby one. Because they had already swarmed I only did the queen excluder routine on the right hive.

What actually happened with my hives? Well, the one hive I'd put

Sour Cream Poppyseed Cake Recipe -- The BEST!

2010-05-15T19:14:00.000-04:00

Since drinking my first Lattes at the Trident Cafe and Bookstore in Boulder, CO in the early 90's I've been in search of a certain type of poppyseed cake recipe. Many mornings before work at the first Wild Oats market stores, I'd zip over to "The Trident" and order a latte and a poppyseed muffin. It was a recipe that was different than most lemon or orange flavored versions -- rather it was made with sour cream and was citrus-free! I loved it. Over the years when roaming into cafes or bakeries I'd spy something similar, but alas, they would ALWAYS have some type of citrus either in the batter, or coated on top. Yeck.

Finally, I decided to search around online and found an obscure recipe that looked just about right. I tried it last night to serve at small group and it was FABULOUS! Yea! My first effort was slightly underdone so I didn't snap a picture, but next time -- I promise -- I'll document my creation.

Meanwhile, here is the recipe:

Sour Cream Poppyseed Cake
preheat oven to 350 (I may try 325, and bake it a little longer next time)

Sift:
2 C flour
1 t baking powder
1/4 t salt

Beat:
2 egg whites until stiff, set aside
(use the yokes in butter / sugar mixture below)

Cream:
1 C butter
2 C sugar
2 egg yokes
1/2 t vanilla extract
1/4 t almond extract

Add alternatively to above mixture:
1 C sour cream or yogurt
5 T poppyseeds
Flour mixture

Then fold in gently the beaten egg whites.

Spoon into greased loaf pan.

Bake 350 for 60+ minutes
Cool in pans for 10-15 minutes

Grilled Romaine, Asparagus & Onions, and BEES

2010-04-22T07:37:00.000-04:00

My girlfriend Vivian has gotten me into this strange dish: Grilled Romaine.

Sounds odd, I know. But really it's delish!

What to do: Start up the grill. Drizzle olive oil on both sides of a rinsed head of romaine (do your best). Don't chop so much off the end that the head comes apart. Then add salt and pepper. Throw it on the grill.

I'd say I grill it about 5 minutes each side on medium heat. Use tongs to flip over.

Drizzle a little extra olive oil on top and EAT! Sounds strange, but it's yummy. Throw a few crumbles of feta or blue cheese on top if you like. Lots of freshly ground pepper.

Here are fried onions with braised asparagus fresh from my garden. Just fried up in a little olive oil, salt and pepper.

My bees were going bonkers yesterday. Orientation flights in the afternoon. It was crazy over there!!

See the butt of the honey bee sticking out of this apple blossom?

Welcome Spring!

2010-04-12T13:18:00.000-04:00

Spring has sprung! There is evidence and excitement all over our yard . . .

Rhubarb (now in it's 3rd spring) is showing itself . . .

Swiss Chard, overwintered in cold frames are looking fabulous . . .

Strawberries are coming to life and have been thinned and strawed . . .

Hens (now almost one) are in the full swing of laying motion. Here is Pearl, our best layer.

The hens have been in trouble recently though for raking the nice straw in their nesting boxes, out with they big ole feet!! Silly hens.

This is probably Elizabeth, our medium sized Barred Rock.

The Rocks were very keen on investigating this camera business . . .

Garlic (4 varieties) planted in the fall is looking healthy! Can't wait!

Asparagus (3rd spring) is ready to start picking daily. A wonderful thing.

My honey bees are a-flyin' -- pictured here on a peach tree.

Both hives have made it through the winter.

One has symptoms of Nosema, so I've treated both hives with medicine. Both queens are laying, and there is fresh brood in both hives. We actually saw baby bees being born when we went in for the first time last week!

One of my dwarf peach trees in bloom.

A plum-cot tree in bloom. (plum & apricot combined)

Banana Bread

2010-04-12T12:58:00.000-04:00

cream below:

1 stick butter, room temp

1 C sugar

add in:

2 eggs

sift together then add to above mixture:

1 1/2 C flour

1 t baking soda

1 t salt

combine then add to above mixture:

1 C mashed ripe bananas

1/2 C sour cream or plain yogurt

1 t vanilla extract

stir in 1/2 C walnuts & 1/2 C chocolate chips (if desired)

Bake in one greased loaf pan at 350 degrees for 1 hour.

Cool in pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto cooling rack.

Delish!

Zucchini Bread Recipe

2010-03-03T13:43:00.000-05:00

By request: A delicious, easy zucchini bread recipe given to me by my sister-in-law (from a friend of hers) that even my vegetable fearing son Ripley loves. What a review!!

2 greased loaf pans
Preheat oven to 325 degrees

Beat:
3 eggs
2 C sugar
2 t vanilla
1 C oil (I use canola)
2 C grated zucchini

Sift:
3 C flour
1 t salt
1 t baking soda
1/2 t baking powder
3 t cinnamon
1/2 C chopped walnuts or pecans (if desired)

Mix the top list with the bottom list gently until blended with a wooden spoon for a tender crumb.
Bake at 325 degrees for 55 minutes - 1 hour, until a toothpick comes out clean and/or the bread begins to pull away from the sides of the pan. Set on a cooling rack in the pans for 10 minutes, then turn the bread onto the cooling racks. Yum!! Eat with butter or strawberry jam! Delish!

Honey Bees Flying in March

2010-03-03T06:11:00.001-05:00

Yesterday I ventured under the cover of my hives for the first time. My smaller hive has only the two brood boxes on it, so I was particularly concerned that they may had run out of honey. When I went in, they gave me the 'butts up' sign to communicate their crabbiness -- so it's possible. Since they were a bit crotchety in the first place, I didn't do anything more than put a pile of granulated sugar on wax paper on top of the frames. Some people are opposed to such a thing, some people are 'okay with it'. But after a sugar candy (fondant) making failure, it was my only option. I was finally able to make a successful batch (take 4) last night and as soon as the weather behaves, I'll put some in both hives. My larger right hive has a honey super on top, so I expect they are fine, however I gave them a small pile of sugar as well, just in case. The bees in that hive were down lower in the hive and seemed more cheerful. However, it's as if they were all bored. They were all landing on me! Ooooo .... maybe THIS is a flower?! Or, in the absence of flowers, we may as well go over and check this big white thing out ... Both hives had bees flying, but the right hive in particular looked like a summer afternoon of orientation flights! It made me so happy! I nearly teared up. "We made it through the winter!!" By the time I got my video camera outside things had settled down, but I thought I'd share what I saw. So encouraging!

Ripley skiing February 2010

2010-03-03T05:44:00.001-05:00

While not particularly eco-friendly, we did enjoy a week of skiing up in New Hampshire during school vacation. Now we can all ski together as a family!! No more bunny slopes or magic carpet for us!! Woo-Hoo! Take a look at Ripley's navigation skills . . . .

Bee Debacle

2010-01-29T06:15:00.001-05:00

It has been unseasonably warm here for a few days. On Monday when I pulled in the driveway after dropping the boys off at school, what did I see? My bees were flying! It was in the low to mid fifties and my hibernating bees had decided to take a few investigative flights. I was such a proud mother! I leapt out of the car leaving the door wide open, ran inside and grabbed my camera. My bees were flying!!!

Can you see the one bee coming in for a landing in this picture? This shot doesn't show it, but there were about five to ten bees out and about around the hive. Exciting.

Now, fast forward six hours. That day, driving rain and strange gusty winds were going to be coming through. I'm not sure at what point this happened, and I don't know for how long they were exposed. But, because of the wind and rain, on my way home from an errand I stopped by the bus stop to pick up Benjamin (10). When I pulled in the driveway, I saw a horrifying mess!! The outer covers on both of my hives had blown off completely exposing the inner cover which has a 5x1 inch hole cut out of the top!! The worst part was, on my left hive, even the inner cover had blown off, leaving the frames where the bees live exposed!! Horrible! I raced over there with my bare hands and face and threw everything back together. There were a couple bees around the entrances (thinking to themselves HELP! We've been abandoned and forsaken by our keeper!!!) but they had enough problems to be worrying about me. Plus, it was blowing a gale!

I put everything back together, and slid the bottom boards out so that any moisture could drip out and evaporate more quickly. What a mess. This certainly weakens the hive and who knows how many of my bees have died as a result. Poor things. After two days, I slid the bottom boards out, since the night time weather was going to be below freezing. I did see some flying two days ago when the temps were in the upper 40's. I hope they are okay. I am disappointed.

Now I have TWO LARGE rocks on the tops of both hives . . .

URGENT: Help for Haiti, Calling all Pilots!

2010-01-26T06:09:00.006-05:00

My brother Scott has had a love for flying ever since he could form words. My father was a recreational pilot and earned money to buy his first tail-dragger (plane) white washing fences in Montgomery County Maryland when he was sixteen. So, as early as third grade Scott would sit in the right seat on a booster in planes my father would fly, watching and learning. When he was finally old enough to take flying lessons, Massachusetts had recently changed the driving age (for cars) to 16 1/2, however the age to solo an airplane was still 16. So, Scott would ride his bike to the airport and log time on a rented plane. Next to the Lord, his wife, his family and friends, flying is the love of his life. Not only does he love it, but he is exceptionally good at it.

When it came time to choose a career, my father lobbied hard to have him join the 'family business' (which involves handbags, not planes) and over the years, between the two of them they have managed to have a plane Scott could fly, and meanwhile Scott's skills as manager and leader have blossomed at the family business.

Our church Community Covenant Church has been working with Haiti for the past four years bringing the Leadership Summit to them in the late fall, in hopes of bringing folks from the business, medical, government, and church world together to develop leadership skills, training and encouragement to the people of Haiti -- in hopes of giving them tools so that they can help themselves. Through our contacts and the love we have developed for Haiti, when the earthquake hit our church had to do SOMETHING. So my brother Scott along with our Pastor, loaded up his twin engine MU2 plane with 600 lbs of medical supplies donated by nearby doctors and Partners in Health out of Boston and headed for Port au Prince via Ft. Lauderdale and the Dominican Republic.

As the Lord often does with willing hearts, once Scott and Pastor Dennis were down there, He opened all kinds of doors for them to help. Their story has been life changing for both themselves, the people praying for them, and certainly the people they have been able to supply with everything from antibiotics, IV fluid, food, water and baby food.

However, the relief effort at this time is NOT getting aid to people outside of Port au Prince, except for the help of folks like my brother Scott. He has posted an URGENT call for pilots and their planes to come down to Haiti and help. Here is the post: URGENT: Call for Pilots to Haiti Even if you're not a pilot and don't know one, watch and see some of what he's been running into. And, pass the word. You never know who you will run into that knows someone, who knows someone, who will be able to go and help.

Accomplishment

2010-01-21T06:41:00.001-05:00

This weekend, Victor and I went to Bermuda for the long weekend to participate in the Bermuda Race Weekend. The "destination road race" was an effort to get Victor back "on the road". He has run over 25 marathons and since being married has had a difficult time with work, wife and whipper-snappers (our beautiful, wonderful boys) making time to exercise. To sign up for such a big trip sort-of puts the pressure on to get in shape and somehow make it happen. And he did!

We were blessed with gorgeous weather while we were there. Typically things can get a little raw this time of year with cold wet windy weather around 60 degrees. However, as you can see we had clear mid and high 60 degree days. (The day after the 1/2 and full marathon the weather included gale force winds and driving rain .... crisis avoided!)

The day before our race, in an effort to conserve our legs, we rented mopeds and cruised all over the western part of the island. In Bermuda (which is far off the coast of North Carolina) they drive on the left side of the road, so that was a bit tricky getting used to ... but what a gorgeous, quaint island. The islanders are wonderful, thoughtful and kind. Numerous times we had islanders go out of their way to ask we needed directions, even if we were just pulled over looking at the sites. One family actually drove us through a short cut back to our hotel.

During the Bermuda Race Weekend there are four different races. I was amazed at the percentage of people who participated in the "Bermuda Triangle Challenge". This was a combination of three of the races. A mile race Friday evening, a 10K race Saturday morning, and either the 1/2 or full marathon on Sunday morning. Can you say WOW? Victor and I opted for the 1/2 marathon and playing around the island the rest of our stay. But the whole event was a runners dream. One race after the next with runners scattered all over the island and running conversation seeping out of every restaurant, bar and coffee shop. A lot of running groups went, participating in all three events, and they seemed to be living it up in spite of all of the running! Can you say Rum Swizzle (fruit juices and rum)? Or Dark and Stormy (dark rum and ginger beer)?

Back to the race, the 1/2 marathon course (which is the same loop for the marathon, you just run it twice which has got to be a little demoralizing as you run past all of the 1/2 marathoners finishing, cheering, hugging and high-fiveing), is very hilly. Victor, whose marathons have generally been at "BOSTON", said that the course was more difficult than Boston. The first half of the course has several big hills with nice (you have to be positive) downhills afterwards. However, the back half has numerous, seemingly unrelenting smaller hills, with a short flat, then up again, and then a flat ... but not a whole lot of down for "a rest". It's tough, but thankfully we live in a very hilly area so I had done quite of bit of hill work simply because this is where I run. So, if you go, you just have to be prepared -- that's all. I really felt great the entire way and kept my pace at between 9:00 and 9:15 minute miles (monitored thanks to Victor's new Christmas Gift: a GPS watch) and ended up beating my previous 1/2 marathon time by almost five minutes. I was very proud of my accomplishment particularly because after seeing all of the volcanic hills around Bermuda, planned on just running the race, enjoying the scenery and doing my best. But, I did it! Whoo-Hoo!

During our run, it was bright and sunny and only clouded up afterwards. We stuck around a little bit to see the Elite Marathon Runners come through (shortly after we finished our HALF marathon!) and cheer folks on. We couldn't take our "after" picture until we got back to the hotel and retrieved my camera. Fun stuff. Thanks Bermuda! We had a wonderful time.

Back at the Skating Pond

2010-01-11T06:27:00.001-05:00

L-R: Ripley, Reese and Rosalie

On Sunday, although I had a million and one things to be done at home, I took Ripley and went to my brother's skating pond for some fun while the cold weather is still holding. But THIS TIME I brought along hot chocolate (the homemade kind with milk, chocolate and vanilla) and chocolate chip cookies. [Note: the Chocolate Chip Cookies were made from my own "Tollhouse Tubes" that you might purchase in the grocery store. I made a double batch of cookie dough, lined up a 'logs' of dough on plastic wrap and threw it in the freezer. This way you can have fresh cookies on the fly!]

Here's the skating pond. Isn't it great? This weekend, my brother Scott and a couple of his buddies shoveled snow off the remaining half of the pond. I don't know about the other guys, but Scott was just a wee bit sore. After skating for awhile, the kids put on their boots and went sledding down the hill onto the ice! What fun, fast sledding!

This is (if I do say so myself) an adorable shot of my niece Rosalie and her "Papa", Tanya's father, sledding.

Time for Hot Chocolate and Cookies!

Which'l give you enough energy for some 'Boot Hockey'!

Pictured: Ripley, Tanya's Dad: David aka: Papa, Reese and Scott

Tanya's Balsamic Garlic Dressing

2010-01-10T05:58:00.004-05:00

I am blessed that my brother chose a wonderful, talented, smart, compassionate, kind, dear, thoughtful, fun woman as his wife. It doesn't always work out that way, and I am so thankful. My Sister-in-Law Tanya and I are close friends and love good food. We are always swapping recipes, and if we have a common cookbook, we will call one another and say "Sheesh, if you haven't tried the recipe for such-and-so, you should! It's fabulous!" So, featuring her dressing is, well, very appropriate.

My SIL Tanya, pictured center with my nephew Spencer

at Christmas Eve Dinner where we all enjoyed her dressing.

Victor and I generally use olive oil, lemon, salt and pepper on our salads. It's good for you, doesn't have a lot of those awful ingredients so often found in dressings, and is a lot cheaper ... AND we love it!

But after hangin' with my sister-in-law Tanya over the holidays, I came to love her stand-by dressing as well. It's delish, and she usually makes a decent sized jar of it and uses it for several days. Brilliant!

Here is the recipe in her own words:

Smashed , but not chopped garlic (2-3 cloves).
4 parts good olive oil,
to 1 part balsalmic reduction, balslmic glaze, or just a really nice balslmic vinegar.
One heaping teaspoon of dijon mustard.
Salt and pepper.
Voila!
So simple!

Thanks Tanzerlee!
Love you, Sandstone

The Birds and The Bees

2010-01-08T05:58:00.004-05:00

Awww .... aren't they cute? One of each of my three breeds of hens: Barred Rock, New Hampshire Red, Rhode Island Red. It's snowy around here, and my hens weren't venturing out of their hen house much, so I threw some straw out around their house and they love it. Since then, they get out most of the day and tromp around. Here, my three hens are sunning themselves in the 30 degree weather under the hen house.

In spite of the cold weather and shorter days, my girls are young and laying up a storm. The day before we didn't have any eggs, then yesterday we had seven! So, to catch up, I made a double batch of zucchini bread and quiche for dinner.

Here is a picture of the hen house with the small bit of snow that is still hanging on. (Here, being relatively close to the ocean and the gulf stream, our snow doesn't tend to stick around very long, sadly. For me, if it's going to be cold, I'd just assume have snow for sledding and ice for skating!)

My honey bees are all wrapped up for the winter. In November I finally got to putting up the mouse guard (narrow fencing stapled to the entryway). The thought of stapling a bee hive just didn't sit well with me. Even though it was below freezing (an old timer told me they can't fly below freezing, but I don't know if that's true?) on the day I stapled the fencing to the entrances, I still put on my veil. I couldn't help myself.

The mouse guard, well, prevents mice. Apparently it's very common for mice to find their way into the hive to keep warm. Ugh. Mainly they make a big mess, and sometimes the bees win out and propolis (bee glue) the poor mouse from head to toe, so it looks sort-of mummified.

Finally in December before the big cold snap, I wrapped my hives in roof felting to help them to keep warm. It's not necessary to do this, but a lot of people feel it helps them through the cold winter months. Perhaps then they use up less energy trying to stay warm, which by the way they do in a similar way to the Emperor Penguin where the Queen Bee is in the middle, then they cluster around her in a big ball. The bees take turns being on the warm inside, versus the chilly outside of the cluster. Cool eh?

Some bees do slowly die through the winter. So when they do, as is customary, worker bees push the dead bees out of the hive on a warm (relatively speaking) day. So far I've seen two batches of 10 from each hive over two months. The idea is that before winter you want to have a large strong hive that has plenty of honey stores to make it through to warmer months. I hope mine make it. It will be sad if they don't after all my work, but I have certainly learned a lot and will start over and purchase more bees if they don't.

The Upside of Cold

2010-01-05T05:59:00.002-05:00

The new place that my brother Scott and his wife Tanya just purchased in town has a small manmade swimming hole in the back woods. Yesterday after school, we took advantage of the cold weather and went for a skate! My brother Scott in his customary form purchased a real-deal ice tester. When they emailed a picture of their family on the ice two nights ago, we rushed over the very next day! What fun. It's a crime, truly, that so many of these joys have been robbed of children in fear of crazy law suits. Several ponds around town carry a sign out front "No Skating". In "wining", we've lost. And it's a shame.

Next time I will be sure to save time to brew some hot cocoa! When Scott and I were kids living in both Illinois and Maine where cold weather is a 'sure thing', Mom would bring along a big thermos of hot cocoa to warm us up. What a treat. Fond memories. Next time! We still have a weeks worth of cold weather in the forecast.

Benjamin and Ripley marching into the woods

Brothers skating

My nephews Spencer and Reese, brothers sliding.

What adorable boys, would you just look at Spencer's blue eyes?!

Farewell Holiday Festivities!

2010-01-04T06:00:00.011-05:00

Yesterday was the official ending of the holiday season for us. We returned from our trip to Florida in the afternoon. Our boys raced indoors to play with the Christmas gifts they'd left behind. And we attacked the dirty dishes and general clutter that resulted in packing for a 9 day trip in an hour, the day after Christmas! There is still much to do, not the least of which is taking down the decorations. But, I am happy to be home. I've missed my friends, my home, and weekly routine.

Enjoy scrolling through some of the highlights of our past two weeks . . . .

The Christmas Eve table at our house where we had 22 people!

The Grown-Up Table

The "Big Kids" Table

L-R: Dylan, Michail, Benjamin and Orion

The "Little Kids" Table

L-R: Reese, Rosalie, Ripley (Aunt Shay), and Ian

Grown-ups: Michelle, Carl, Scott, Tanya, Spencer and David

Alex, Bill, Joan, Sandy and Victor

Christmas Day seven miles away at Scott and Tanya's new house in Rehoboth

The joy of watching someone open a gift

Reese (foreground), Spencer, Dad and Mom

Rosalie, Benjamin, Spencer, Scott, Bill, Reese

Dad and Mom

The day after Christmas, we packed up and flew to Florida. Victor's family was also visiting the sunny state, so they all came over for a day to visit and have some fun.

l-r: Victor's sisters Michelle and Maria, and me (Sandy) on board Dad's boat "Tut"

Cousins: Reese and Ripley

Sisters Maria and Michelle

Siblings: Michelle, Victor and Maria

Four cousins in a boat (and one uncle / dad)

My nephew Spencer at the beach

My nephew Reese, photogenic as always

A competitive game of foozeball

One of Grandmama's Christmas gifts was a trip to the tea room in Naples. Although Ripley's expression looks less than impressed, on our ride to the airport heading home he chose TEA as one of his favorite events. Why? Because he could eat all that he wanted. The boy drank an entire pot of strawberry tea!

l-r: Reese, Ripley and Rosalie

Spencer, Benjamin and me (Sandy)

All of us, at Tea.

Benjamin receiving a sailing lesson from Gramp.

Lastly, the ladies favorite afternoon past time:

Playing 'Take Two', however, typically this would include a glass of wine, but we were being particularly 'good' on this occasion.

l-r: Me (Sandy), Mom, Tanya and Rosalie (who was feeling like a photo)

Grandmama and Rosalie snuggling after a full day of fun.

Blessings to all and a happy and healthy 2010!!

Sandcastle Contest

2010-01-01T07:32:00.004-05:00

Every year where my parents live down in Florida they hold a sandcastle building contest.

It is a family event, but when it comes down to details, the 'grown-ups' are the ones who get it done.

In the end, I think it's the adults who have the most fun.

We chose a pirate theme ... with skull and cross bones ...

and treasure chest.

Good clean fun.

Eggs with Kale and Garlic

2010-01-01T07:19:00.002-05:00

My favorite way to eat the fresh eggs from our eight hens is a Kale Scramble. Love it! Love it! Love it!

Make your basic recipe for scrambled eggs: Eggs, Salt, Pepper and a splash of Milk. Set aside.

Meanwhile, drizzle olive oil in a skillet and heat over medium low. Add in chopped garlic and heat until soft. Then add in salt, pepper, red pepper flakes and chopped kale (fresh from the garden, even in winter months).

Toss until the kale is bright green and tender.

Pour in your scrambled egg mixture and gently fold in the eggs as they firm up on the bottom of the pan. Don't over stir. YUMOLA!

Life Goes On

2009-11-25T06:11:00.012-05:00

Where have I been?! Well, typically I get up at 5:30 in the morning to have my steaming hot cup of coffee in peace before the whole house wakes up. During the last school year I had until 7 a.m. to pound away on my computer but THIS YEAR ... my Benjamin, now in middle school, has to wake up at 6:00. Gone are my relaxing mornings and . . . my blogging. I know, I need a new routine -- that doesn't include waking up at 4:30 a.m.! But meanwhile, life has gone on . . .

Here is a sampling of what we have been up to:

My garden is winding down, but the bok choy, arugula, parsley and celery is still going strong.

The bees are put to bed for the winter, and we are hoarding our small honey harvest to try and make it until next summer.

The hens are now all laying. We get 1-5 eggs a day. Helloooooooo Quiche!

My nephew Spencer learned how to walk . . .

The grandkids enjoyed a last northern romp on Gramp's boat (a motorkat) before it headed south for the winter . . .

We saw our last unmarried 'Seinfelder' (long story) tie the knot . . .

(In the photo: The entire Seinfeld Clan L-R: Lori, Jeff, Annie, H.O.G. aka: Bob, Sue, Steven, Tanya, Scott, Victor and me (the photographer) minus 3 -- the two newlyweds, and 'Hand' aka: Jeff Fink, the hand surgeon.)

The Original Seinfelders ... The 'Core Four' minus 'Hand'

We went to a Harvest Party with the classic sack races . . .

and doughnut on a string eating contests . . .

Note to self: avoid the powdered sugar doughnuts-on-a-string . . .

Ripley turned 5, and we threw a party . . .

on Halloween, so it was a costume party!

Later that day, we celebrated Halloween . . . it had been a full day for the chicken . . .

Here is a picture of the chicken in better spirits . . .

Ripley learned how to Rollerblade . . . it took him all of 5 minutes to be on his own . . .

Ripley completed his first Soccer Season, words cannot express how this kid can excel at sport. It's borderline embarrassing. But as his parent, it's also thrilling.

And we've enjoyed quieter moments like listening to Daddy reading a book at the end of the day . . .

Be well, and I'll do a better job keeping in touch.

Hostile Takeover

2009-11-04T06:16:00.003-05:00

I was only able to catch one hen on this swing set on my camera, but there had been five! This shot is from a few weeks ago. Since then I've tried to cut their wings three times, as they'd even gotten into my fenced in garden! Still, every afternoon, I find a few of them roaming around outside of their fencing. So, today I have a neighbor who also has hens and has just successfully trimmed his hens wings, coming over to help me. My hens are out of control. The little whipper-snappers.

However, they have started to give me some good gifts . . .

I don't think my Barred Rocks are laying yet, but my New Hampshire and Rhode Island Reds are just starting. My champion layer so far is my New Hampshire Red, Pearl. Named for her pearlized colored legs -- they are supposed to be yellow at this young age.

Extracting Honey

2009-10-16T07:02:00.003-04:00

Last Friday was my big moment . . . I had the opportunity to go to a friends house (and fellow bee keeper with 6 hives) to use her extractor just before she extracted honey from 8 honey supers (x10 frames each = 80 frames of honey!) As you would expect, I brought along my camera to document the momentous event . . .

Here is the inside of her very nice electric extractor. A lot of extractors are of the cranking variety - which is a lot better than no extractor. But the electric one sure was nice!

First, you have to remove the wax capping that the bees build on top of each cell filled with aged honey. This was a very small splash of honey on one particular frame, but it's a great picture of removing the cappings. You slide the angled metal comb just under the cappings, lift it off, and dump the gooey piece of wax into a bucket.

Here is my friend Diane helping me with my frames.

Using this comb like cappings remover is slow business, but it generally damages the comb that the bees build the least. There are heated knives and slicer things that you can use, but they cut into the comb more than this small hand-held number.

And, here I am!

Diane had everything set up nicely. As a bee keeper in her 5th year, she has gotten this project down to a science. The plastic sheeting was a great idea. She also put some pieces of cardboard down on the ground between the table and the extractor to catch drips. If you don't put some effort into creating a good system, I could see how this would be a HUGE mess! As is was, it was pretty dern sticky!

Here are all of my frames sitting in the extractor. The extractor spins at a high speed, pulling out the honey using centrifugal force. Then, the honey drips down the sides and out through a spigot.

Diane tipped the extractor when it was done spinning to get all of the honey to pour out of the spigot and into my bucket. I used a strainer this year, but next year I may try making the raw honey that is not strained -- and then is creamed in some way. At least I'll try to do some that way. That honey is supposed to be even better for you.

Look at all of that honey! When it was all said and done, I ended up with about 1/3 of a 5 gallon bucket worth of honey. This will have to last me through July of next year. With all of the baking I do with honey, my granola, yogurt and tea I will probably end up buying some in the end. But, my harvest wasn't bad considering I had two swarms this year!

Hen Bliss

2009-10-14T06:21:00.003-04:00

I can't imagine there is a better day in keeping hens than the day you find the first egg. After 21 long weeks, our moment finally arrived! A wee little egg, found yesterday morning. The first eggs that young hens lay are small. We have plastic Easter eggs in their nesting boxes to encourage the hens to lay there.

For breakfast today we will cook up our lonely egg for the boys and split it. It's gotta be good. I'm hoping.

We had friends visit the other day . . .

and they fell in love with our hens.

Give us an afternoon with your kids . . .

and we'll have them begging for hens of their own!

Incidentally, we received another wee-little-egg today.

Wonderful.

Pepper Jelly Recipe

2009-10-07T20:42:00.004-04:00

Pepper Jelly is particularly yummy over cream cheese served with crackers, as an appetizer.

You can also mix the cream cheese together with the pepper jelly for a dip.

(I doubled the recipe listed below and used 1/4 pint jars ... so, for example I used 2 sweet bell peppers, etc.,)

1 cup ground sweet bell pepper, approximately 1 large pepper, including juice

2 to 4 T (depending on how hot you want your jelly, I used 4) finely chopped jalapeno peppers (I used cayenne, jalapeno and sereno)

3/4 C cider vinegar

1/2 C water

1/8 t salt

2 T lemon juice

1 box standard powdered pectin (1 3/4 oz)

2 1/2 C sugar

Seed the sweet and hot peppers (chop, then measure) and then throw in a food processor until "ground", put peppers and the juice into a large pan. Add in and stir together: vinegar, water, salt, lemon juice and pectin. Set the heat on medium-high and bring to boiling. THEN add in the 2 1/2 C sugar. Bring again to a full rolling boil that cannot be stirred down; boil hard for 1 minute. Remove from heat, skim froth, stir. Ladle into sterilized (boil 20 minutes) hot (from being sterilized) 1/2 pint jars, leaving 1/4 inch of headroom. Thoroughly wipe sealing rim of jars with fresh paper towel, put on prepared disk lid, and screw the bad down firmly. Process in a covered pasteurizing water bath at 185 degrees for 10 minutes. Remove jars and set on a dry folded towel where they can cool upright and naturally.

Yum. Yum.

Cooking Edamame

2009-10-07T05:44:00.005-04:00

Aren't they cute? These are edamame picked fresh from my garden. I made them on Sunday to compliment the Patriots game. They were so yummy. I planted these at some point in August, and they are finally ready for picking -- just in time before the frost comes. Chipmunks apparently love Edamame seedlings, and ate several baby plants. But I ended up with enough to keep me cheerful.

I searched online to see how to cook them. It seemed as though they'd be pretty straight forward, but I just wanted to be sure. My favorite explanation was created by a young Japanese woman on YouTube. She was quiet and simple during the presentation, but the best part was that she had obviously learned to cook from her mother or grandmother using observation instead of time to determine 'doneness', and other tips. She said the way to know if your edamame are done, is by looking to see when the pods crack open slightly. Then, she insisted that to cool them off, don't use cold water as this (apparently) hurts flavor. Rather, she fumbles through a cabinet, and whips out a hand held fan to cool them (like everyone must have fans hiding in their kitchens, at the ready). I thought that was priceless. Of course I've been cooling beans with water, even ice water, for years, but I dutifully used a folded piece of paper to cool my homegrown edamame.

Basically, you put about 1 T salt into a pan of water (filled enough to be sure the beans are covered with water) and bring to a boil. When the water is boiling throw the beans into the water for 4-5 minutes (when the pods start to crack open slightly). Drain. Fan to cool, gently stirring to give them all a chance in front of the fan. Toss with one teaspoon or so of kosher or coarsely ground sea salt. They were so yummy, and I was so proud!

Here is the YouTube link: Kirin's Edamame

Take a look at her modern spice drawers -- I want one!

Disobedient Hens

2009-10-01T05:34:00.004-04:00

Do you remember this?

I do. Victor and I worked our rear-ends off to make a protected area for our little hens.

Don't you know that now as many as five of them at one time hop out (flapping, half climbing up the fence) at will and peck around the yard.

Ahem . . . why did we bother?!

They were hopping out so frequently, and so many of them, that one late afternoon Benjamin and I let them all out figuring they'd stay close to home and come home easily at dusk. Nope. Those hens started trekking deep into the woods like a group of mountaineers beginning a expedition to climb Mount Washington. We had to pull out the stale hot dog buns and have Benjamin and Ripley coral them back towards the yard like sheep dogs -- luring them with crumbs. Bad hens.

To top it all off . . . we have no eggs yet. This is the week they start to lay. We are waiting.

Not too patiently.

Victor is already starting to talk about soup . . . and I don't mean egg drop.

We do have pole beans, harriot verts, dried beans, parsley and tons of arugula though!

Turkey Burger Recipe - the best ever!

2009-09-24T11:43:00.002-04:00

We had these last night and they are fabulous. I changed it just a little bit from a Rachel Ray version.

1 lb ground turkey

1 egg

1/4 cup bread crumbs

1/2 t salt

2 t cumin

1/4 t turmeric

1 t paprika

1 t coriander

1/4 t cayenne

1 t curry powder

1 small onion finely chopped, or grated

1 large garlic clove, pressed or minced

1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley or cilantro leaves

1/2 lemon juice and zest

I like to mix all of the spices all together first to be sure they are evenly distributed throughout the burger. Then mix all of the ingredients together and form turkey burger patties. Grill for 5 minutes per side. I served them on whole wheat buns, with mayo, barbecue sauce and bread and butter pickles. Rachel baby serves them with 1/4 C mango chutney (or any), 1/4 C plain Greek yogurt and one sack of shredded cabbage -- mix together to make this slaw, and serve inside a pita bread, or (not as messy) on a whole wheat bun. Eat up and enjoy! Yumola.

Sole Sisters

2009-09-17T05:25:00.006-04:00

(before)

(A group of the Sole Sisters, after running the Willow Tree Half Marathon this spring)

The running group that I'm apart of made it on television, featured to highlight the upcoming Caremark 5K this weekend. As my mother (and husband) stated, I sure know how to "hide" from the camera. Really I wasn't hiding, that's just how it worked out. In the video at first I'm wearing black running shorts and a black running jacket, with my hair down. When we start running (a four mile run apparently, but when you're running with friends, and being filmed for a news piece it sure goes by quickly!) I'm wearing a blue running top and my Princess Leia buns (because my 'pony tail' looks like a small powder puff).

Here is the link to the video:

http://www2.turnto10.com/jar/lifestyles/health_med_fit/article/health_check_cvs_caremark_downtown_5k/23314/

Enjoy! And all of you local aspiring runners out there -- join in!

If you're feeling intimidated, start out with our walk / run group.

You know where to find me . . .

Free-Form Raspberry-Rhubarb Tart

2009-09-16T05:55:00.004-04:00

As you may recall, this spring we planted 12 raspberry plants this year. Some are early bearing, others later -- which is nice because you get a steady flow of gorgeous raspberries. On the first year you can't expect to get much of anything, but perhaps because of all of the rain we received, we have a nice little smattering of raspberries. Even though I figured my rhubarb was tough at this point, a found a few relatively new shoots and cut them off. Together with the raspberries I made a free-form raspberry-rhubarb tart. Boy was it good.

For the filling, a free-form tart is great because it doesn't have to be a certain size and you can just try different things. It takes a lot less time than a pie, and is smaller.

I added:

Approximately 1 1/2 pints of raspberries

4 small stalks of rhubarb, thinly chopped

1/4 cup sugar

1 T flour

shake of cinnamon

shake of nutmeg

few slices of butter for the top

sprinkle sugar on top, including crust part.

mix all of the non-fruit ingredients together first, so you don't damage your raspberries too much when you mix everything together. Then add your fruit and gently fold to mix.

PreHeat oven to 425 degrees.

Basically, you use your favorite pie crust recipe (just for one crust). Roll out into a rectangle shape (or small circle, just as long as it could fit on your cookie sheet). Flip onto a cookie sheet. Pour your filling into the middle. Flip the edges of the tart up and onto the filling with a knife (a flexible one is helpful, like a frosting knife). Make sure that any holes on the bottom edge are pushed back together with your knife or finger -- otherwise the syrup will ooze out. Once all of the edges are flipped up and over onto the tart, put a few thin slices of butter on top, sprinkle with a little sugar and pop it in the over for 25-30 minutes until the filling is bubbling and the crust is golden. Cool slightly (so the filling isn't too soupy) and EAT. Yumola. So good. We serve with vanilla icecream. Enjoy!

Hens, Bees, Peaches and Apples

2009-09-14T06:53:00.005-04:00

How are my little hens doing?

They are almost full grown. In two weeks or so, they should start laying tiny little eggs. How exciting! We have one Barred Rock who likes to exercise her wings. At first we were concerned that she was a he, but other than being slightly larger and able to fly a little bit, she doesn't display any other "he" characteristics. But we're still watching, just in case. She occasionally hops out of their chicken run and waddles around outside, but she wants to be with her friends, so shortly after doing a little exploring she pops back in.

Don't you just love the barred rock feathers?

So pretty.

Here is one of our New Hampshire Reds, Pearl.

Uncharacteristically, her legs are pearl color. Usually, when a chicken is older their legs slowly bleach out. Pearl's legs are literally pearl colored. Recently highlights of brown have shown up.

Here are six of them (out of eight) giving me the one-eye.

My bees. Oh, my bees. As you know if you've kept up with my bee saga since April, my left hive swarmed in spite of all of my efforts to make sure they had "room". I'm starting to think that eight frame hives tend to make bees swarm -- I have got to research it. Has anyone read anything about this? My left hive made their own natural queen who was able to return safely from her mating flight, and starting laying. The hive is calm, thriving, and I happened to see the darling lady two weeks ago, and she's HUGE. Wonderful!

My right hive has been thriving. There have been a TON of bees in there. I have carefully added on supers to give them room, but ultimately I think I had a case of "my queen only wants to travel UP" syndrome. I hadn't gotten down to the bottom box to check in 2 weeks because I was inspecting on my own, which would have been fine, except that I was getting a bit overwhelmed by HOW MANY BEES there were. It was set up just as you see it here and every frame was PACKED with bees. This is when the foragers are out, so at night and early morning there were even more in there. An extremely healthy hive. Anyway, I dutifully went to do a hive check and go down to the bottom box when I'd noticed eggs in the first honey super the week before. I should have done it THAT week, but the bees were crabby with me.

I let a week and a half pass and they had made swarm cells. There were about ten of them. I'd just talked to a life long beekeeper and he'd suggested that at this time of year it is possible to stop a swarm. As a new bee keeper, I was very proud of myself for removing all of these cells. For me, when crazy things happen in the hive, my brain short-circuits and goes to mush. All I can focus on is the crazy thing (whatever that might be). This is where my error was. I didn't look to see if there were fresh eggs in the hive, to know that the queen was still in there. There were still so many bees in there, frankly I couldn't tell that any of them had left. I know, it sounds crazy. What can I tell you, I'm new at this. So, without a queen in the hive, I removed all of the queen cells. What does that give you? A hive without a queen! Not a good thing.

The woman I was working the hive with that day thought that she'd seen some queen cells that were torn open, which would mean that at least one queen hatched. So there was the slight possibility that a virgin queen was in the hive. I checked two days ago for eggs and still saw nothing, so I made the call to get a new queen. Just in case. It's getting a little too close to fall and cold weather to play the waiting game for two long.

So, just yesterday, I put my new queen, in her cage, into the hive. The bees noticed her right away and cruised over. The big question now is, if the hive DOES have a virgin queen in the hive (that should start laying within days), they will kill the new queen. But, I was willing to take the $25 gamble to make sure I got a queen in that large hive pronto.

I'll let you know how it goes.

I wasn't able to use my organic sprays this year because of the lack of time spent at my house, so my fruit trees have had some issues -- but all in all, they are okay. The peaches were finally ready on our two dwarf peach trees.

These apples weren't quite done yet, so they are still doing time.

One apple tree, and Empire, had apples that were ready. It was a very small harvest and each apple had issues. But hey, it's only my second year. Right?

We gardeners live for the hope of the next growing season.

Ripley's first day of school

2009-09-14T06:36:00.002-04:00

At long last, Ripley's preschool finally started up on Wednesday. They hold three days of abbreviated days that nearly drives the parents to skip them all together, but we hung in there and drove back and forth in obedience. Ripley was so happy to go. Benjamin had been for a whole week already! Today, Monday, Ripley's school schedule is as it will be for the rest of the year. He (and I) couldn't be more thrilled!

Labor Day Recipes, by request

2009-09-09T06:20:00.004-04:00

We had a last hurrah, labor day celebration at our little beach house this weekend where five families came and joined in for everything from a trip to the beach to volleyball to croquet. Four of the families pitched tents in our yard and stayed the night. What fun we had!

Here is the "grown-up" table.

L-R: Jon, Ann, Jacob, Michelle, Vivan, Carl, Sue, Dave, Kara and Victor (being a goof in front of the camera, as usual)

What are we eating you may ask . . . well, everyone contributed to the meal -- potluck style.

One of the things I made was pulled pork sandwiches. Here is the recipe, by request:

2 lbs pork (I've used everything from pork butt, to pork tenderloin, to stew pork)
1 thinly sliced onion
2/3 C vinegar
2/3 C water
3/4 t garlic salt
3/4 t celery salt

Mix all of the ingredients besides the pork, then pour over the pork in a oven safe casserole.

Cover tightly with tinfoil, then put in a 350-325 degree oven for 3 hours.

When it comes out, drizzle your favorite BBQ sauce over the top and pull the pork apart with a fork, or smash with a potato masher. Serve with BBQ sauce, Mayo, Bread and Butter Pickles and hamburger buns. This is so easy, and everyone loves it. Yumola!

Chillin' by the campfire, s'mores consumed, kids tucked in.

Here we are enjoying a hide away beach . . .

beautiful!

When we returned from the beach, we enjoyed a late lunch one part of which was a new pasta salad that my husband Victor is in love with. He OOoooos and Aaaahhhhhs when I make it.

Here is the recipe for Late Summertime Pasta Salad:

1/4 cup olive oil
1 small head of garlic -- the whole thing, peeled and minced
1 1/2 t kosher or sea salt
red pepper flakes, to taste -- about 1/4 teaspoon.
1/4 cup toasted or roasted pine nuts.
2 boxes of cherry or grape tomatoes, cut in half
big bunch of arugula, just barely chopped, for easy eating.
big bunch of fresh basil, slightly chopped.
lots of freshly grated parmesean cheese
1 lb. pasta, we used penne, but you could use any shape.
1 T salt, for the pasta water.
Reserve about one cup of pasta water when the pasta is done cooking.

Put water on to boil for your pasta, salt it. Put 1/4 C olive oil in a deep saute pan, on medium low heat. Put crushed garlic, salt and red pepper flakes into the pan. Stir occasionally, until garlic is soft. When the water is boiling, put in your pasta. Turn up the heat to medium high on the pan with the olive oil and put the cut tomatoes into the pan, stirring occasionally. When your pasta is done, pour a ladle-full of hot pasta water into the other pan with the olive oil, garlic and tomatoes -- stir. Drain your pasta and dump it into the other pan, or vise versa. Add in the arugula, basil and pine nuts to the hot pasta mixture. Toss and mix. You will see that the basil and arugula wilt. This is good! Add in about a cup of freshly grated parmesean cheese and toss. Serve immediately, or at room temperature. Yum. Yum. Yum.

For Victor . . .

2009-09-04T08:23:00.002-04:00

My bees, on Victor's flowers.

(Well, okay, there IS a bumble bee on this particular flower along with one of my honey bees.)

I'm hoping to train Victor to become a beekeeper.

He is patient, calm, observant and isn't fazed by buzzing honey bees in the least.

He would be fabulous at it.

Would you just LOOK at those pollen baskets?!

Really, click on the photo to enlarge it. Amazing.

Letting Go

2009-09-03T07:05:00.002-04:00

My first born boy. Off to middle school. For the first time he walks to the end of the road to wait for the bus. Because our town is so rural, school buses pick up children at their driveway all the way through elementary school.

Yesterday Ripley and I walked with Benjamin to the bus stop. Today I just let him go. It seems so silly in retrospect, as I walked to school -- a long way -- from 2nd grade on, with my kindergarden aged brother in tow. Crossing streets without crossing guards. So, walking down the street to the bus stop is nothing compared to that. But it's hard for a momma not used to such a thing. Lord, watch over him. Send your angels to protect his path.

Incidentally, yesterday afternoon Benjamin covered his first school book. We did it the old fashioned way with a used paper bag. Half way through Benjamin says, "Mommy why don't we use the ones you buy?" "Awww," I responded "those paper ones always ripped." "Mommy, now they have plastic stretchy ones, or ones that are like felt that stretch and they're really cool." "Oh" I said. "Well, I like the tradition of the old kind anyway ... and then you get to decorate it! That's fun, right?" I'm going to be 42 in September, is it showing yet? Good grief.

Where to begin?

2009-09-02T04:55:00.008-04:00

It was a lovely summer. We have been away all summer, removed from wifi, facebook, cable t.v. (we receive one network channel and one PBS channel via rabbit ears), shopping, highways, schedules and the rat-race. June and July were rainy, as in record breaking rainy. But finally when August rolled around, the sun decided to come out and we made the most of it. Here are some highlights to get you (and me) back up to speed:

Our Beautiful Summertime Seaside Town

Blowing Bubbles Late into the Night

Chatting by the Bonfire . . . Spontaneous Evenings

Life Long Friends Going For a Sail

Teaching the Small Ones

A Handsome Boy Embracing his Boyhood

Friends on a Rock

Wine after a day's Festivities

(and lessons on the decision to stick your tongue out at the camera)

Beauty

Good Clean (wet) Fun

Sailing School End of Season Cookout

Badly Behaving Bees . . . but that's another L O N G story for another day.

I have a Queen!

2009-08-14T09:11:00.004-04:00

Status of my left hive continued . . .

On Wednesday, my bee friend Sarah and I went into my left hive to see if we could determine if the bees were acting aggressively towards the new queen in her cage, and to look for any evidence of a natural queen from the queen cells made by the bees.

Although it seemed there were plenty of bees around the queen cage, they didn't seem to be angry in any way. So, we set that upper brood chamber aside and went to the lower one where I thought a new natural queen would be laying (if she existed) since the upper chamber is being largely used to store honey.

I went directly into the center three frames (where most of the "action" in the hive takes place first) and on the back of the third frame Sarah saw THE EGGS. Evidence of a new natural laying queen! How exciting. Even though I have been sad about the swarm, it made me overjoyed to learn that a queen had been birthed in the hive, survived her mating flight, returned to the hive and started to lay eggs. Wow. (My other bee friend Diane was happy to have my other now homeless queen for one of her hives.)

Once your hive swarms, any hopes of a honey harvest are dashed. Now, the goal is making sure they reproduce and strengthen enough to make it through the winter. Stay tuned . . .

Bee Update

2009-08-12T09:58:00.004-04:00

Here is a picture of my hives: "The Right" and "The Left". The Left hive, it seems, has swarmed. Although oddly enough, my brother's family is staying at our house for the summer and no one saw them leave even though the hives are situated just to the right side of my garage. Is it possible I had a weak / failing queen and missed the signs? Small number of eggs, larvae and capped brood? I don't know. But, they did make queen cells, and my brother took pictures for you.

In the center of this picture -- slightly to the lower right -- is a queen cell. I found queen cells both on the bottom of one frame, build into the comb on another frame, and on the side of the comb on another frame. One of my "bee teachers" stressed to me recently that bees are just insects, so they don't always "follow the rules" making queen cells IN the comb which are generally "supercedure" cells when you have a failing, weak or dead queen -- even though they are technically being used for swarm cells. Which is when they feel crowded and decide to split off and 50% of the bees leave with the existing queen and create queen cells to produce a new queen for the remaining bees that stay behind.

The frustrating thing is, I may have missed the "signs" of a failing or weak queen, but the one thing I know I paid strict attention to is room in the hive. This hive was never short on room, but for some reason, it appears that they felt the need to leave. I don't know, it's a mystery.

This is a bad photo, but you can see a queen cell at the bottom of the frame.

Another view.

There were a few more queen cells the last time we went in two days before. The bees must have cleaned them off.

Here is a queen cell built into the comb on the side near the frame.

I do remember seeing some unusual comb being built in this hive, but I thought it was drone comb, which is shaped a bit like the puffy end of a piece of popcorn. Next time, I'll take any weird stuff off.

My brother and I looked through the entire brood chamber and didn't find a Virgin Queen. They are very difficult to spot because they haven't mated yet, so their abdomen (the most distinguishing feature on a queen) is relatively small. I looked with my friend Diane, then again two days later with my brother Scott. Nothing. We couldn't find her. So, I purchased a new Italian Queen from one of my bee teachers. He told me to put the queen cage into the hive -- leaving the cap on the opening -- for five days. When I open up the hive again I should look to see if the bees in the hive are trying to kill her with their stingers. Terrific. He said they should be acting very aggressively towards her. This means that there is ALREADY a queen in the hive. In which case, I'll take the queen in her cage and return her. If not, I'll start the releasing process. I have my bee friend Sarah coming over today to help me determine whether or not the bees are acting aggressively towards the queen in her cage. It seems like it would be difficult to determine because ordinarily bees will surround the queen cage because they want to get her out. But, my bee teacher insists it will be a very different sort of behavior. Good grief. Thank God for Bee Friends.

The Good, Bad and the Sad

2009-08-07T09:33:00.005-04:00

(Just a portion of my potato harvest.)

Well, it was another day in the garden, yard and hives.

The Good News:

My right bee hive is thriving. I put on another honey super (now I’m up to a total of three). The bees filled up the second honey super I’d put on two weeks ago, after having to build comb on wax foundation. When I put the second honey super on, I moved the filled honey super to the top and put the empty honey super just above the two brood chambers. This way the bees feel they have plenty of room and don’t become “honey bound”. I should have a good amount of honey from this hive. Before I harvest the honey I have to wait until the bees have capped (put a thin layer of wax over the top of) the honeycomb. Once the honey is capped, you can be assured that the honey is fully prepared and won’t ferment.

My hens are 14 weeks old now. So far we don’t have a crower (aka: Rooster). I read online that roosters can begin to crow as late as 20 weeks, particularly if they don’t have an older chicken to learn from, but generally they begin to crow around 8 weeks. Time will tell. At approximately 20 weeks (the end of September) they will start laying eggs. How exciting!

I have a LARGE amount of potatoes! I harvested them yesterday. My sister-in-law roasted some up with garlic, olive oil and salt for dinner last night and WOW were they good!!

The Bad News:

The reason I harvested my potatoes is that I had THE BLIGHT! Ugh. I’ve been watching my tomatoes and potatoes and didn’t see the tell tale spots on the leaves, but when I went back to work the garden yesterday, it was obvious. The leaves were all dying off, there were large brown spots on some of the tomatoes and stems. Sad. Even if I were to have tried to spray organically to fight the blight, I have a hard time believing that with all of the rain we have received, that the spray would have been able to stay on long enough day to day to be effective. I don’t know. It’s been a bad year for rain, bugs, plant disease, heat-loving vegetables and fruits, and trips to the beach.

So yesterday I pulled up all of my potatoes out of my strange potato towers (it is fine / safe to eat tubers (potatoes) from a plant with blight), and Victor helped me by pulling up all of our tomatoes -- all of those doomed green tomatoes -- all of the effort of nurturing the plants from seed. Bummer. Well, at least now I have plenty of room in my garden for lettuce, beans, carrots, beets, etc., etc.!!

The Sad News:

I mentioned recently that I’ve been concerned about my left hive. Something just wasn’t right. They were slow to build out the wax foundation (make comb) on the brood chambers (there are still about four frames that aren’t finished within the two eight frame brood chambers). Maybe my novice eyes just missed a poor brood pattern? (I guess I did mention my concern about it in my last post.) There were bees being born and capped brood, but perhaps I was missing the severity of its weakness. They’d fallen behind the right hive and then really took a major turn for the worse over the last two weeks. So, I had my wise bee friend Diane come over to look at my hives yesterday. The bottom line is: I no longer have a queen in that hive. It’s been about 2 1/2 weeks since I did a full inspection where I looked at every single frame in the hive. What we found were 4 small swarm cells, and 1 small supersedure cell. Diane felt they almost looked unfinished because they weren’t as long as she’s seen. But what we didn’t find, is a new queen of any kind. So perhaps she is right, the bees tried to make a new queen, but by that point the hive was already too weak. Sad. The good new is, I am getting a new Italian Queen from a local guy in Rhode Island on Saturday morning. I wish he had some Purvis Goldline “organic” bees available, but he doesn’t and Purvis only ships out on Wednesdays and my little hive can’t wait that long. So, I’ll have to live with an Italian. Hopefully she’s nice.

The Month in Review

2009-08-03T09:39:00.009-04:00

Family:

Every Tuesday night is "Family Night". At my parent's condo there is a kid-friendly event and buffet dinner. It's a low maintainence evening that gives us all the chance to spend time together and if the weather is nice, catch a swim in the pool before hand. It has become a tradition to take a picture of all of the grandchildren sitting together on the couch. It's quite a production -- getting all of those kids to smile at the same time. I should video all of the adult shinanigans we go through and post it on You Tube for a good laugh.

Reese, Ripley, Rosalie, Benjamin and Spencer

An impromptu back massage chain. I think Mom is enjoying hers the most.

The Beach:

We are blessed to have a tiny "bungalow" a short walk away from the beach where we stay all summer long.

The best part of our summer is when friends come to visit and enjoy the outdoors along with us.

Isn't it lovely?

Ripley and Ian

Michail and Benjamin

Victor and Sandy

Victor

Sandy and Michelle

The traditional ending to a wonderful summer evening with friends . . . The Roasting of Marshmallows.

Our Friends Vivian and Jacob rented a little place close by for several days . . . It was wonderful to have dear friends around town to "play with".

It is a photograph like this that keeps me at home. I love that my children have time in the summer to read, relax and play -- unstructured, creative.

The Fourth of July

Cousins:

Ripley and Rosalie

Road Race:

Benjamin, Ripley and I ran in the local Road Race.

The kids ran the "Fun Run" and I ran the 4.8 miler.

Here I am with some of my running buddies.

Courtnee, Susan, Chris, Vivian and Sandy

The Garden:

It has not been a banner year for gardening. We have had record rainfall for both June and July. July's record was blown away by 2 inches. We just haven't had a lot of hot sun.

I was however, able to harvest a bunch of carrots!

I harvested the balance of my garlic, braided it and allowed it to cure hanging up in the garage.

It tastes great! Success!

The Bees:

Although I don't have recent photos of my bees, I'll give you the brief low-down.

My right hive is thriving. In spite of the weather. I have a full box of honey on top of my right hive, it's busy and packed full of happy honey bees.

My left hive is not so happy. I put some sugar water on last week to give them an extra boost, because up here a lot of people have had to feed them all summer so far. They are starving. I have my faithful bee friend Diane coming over to take a look at this hive. I want to be sure the queen is in there and laying well enough. I'm concerned that the pattern of eggs being laid was poor -- but I certainly can't profess to be an expert at this point! Fewer bees, less progress building out comb in the honey super, and a lot less activity in front of the hive. Stay tuned!

Regrets:

Sorry for being out of touch. Where we stay in the summer (I visit our Rehoboth home once a week and race around like a mad woman trying to get things done) we have only our cell phones, no cable, no internet, and only one t.v. station through old fashioned rabbit ears. The good news is, we are all doing a lot of reading! I've just finished: The Reader, Sarah's Key, Empire Falls and The Help. Our book club picked a 'light read' for August -- so I've just started Twilight albeit a bit half-heartedly. It's quite the rage, so there must be something to reading about vampires . . . right?

My First Garlic Harvest

2009-07-10T10:58:00.007-04:00

As I have noted, it's been rainy around here. I've read that some people have harvested their garlic early for fear of it rotting underground. You are supposed to harvest your garlic when 50% of the leaves turn brown. I planted three different varieties, so as it just so happens they are browning up at different speeds. I decided to harvest my first variety called: Stuil. All of my varieties are hard neck because I had read that these varieties do better in my colder climate. I may try a soft neck variety next year, just for kicks.

Here is my harvest!

My brother Scott (the photographer) quickly printed off directions for braiding garlic off the Internet. If you have ever made a french braid before, that's how you braid garlic. Of course the green / brown stems are stiffer than hair, but after awhile I got the hang of it.

You lay your next stem of garlic down parallel with the next group of stems to be pulled across to the middle.

It may not be the prettiest braided garlic ever, but not bad for my first effort.

I hung it up in my garage, and let me tell you, as you walk towards the garage door, it smells like a garlic festival is underway.

Life is . . .

2009-07-06T08:17:00.003-04:00

a bowl of cherries.

This is half of the petite harvest of cherries from our cherry tree. It beats last year, the first year for our tree . . . we had one cherry. They are juicy, sweet and homegrown organic. Wonderful.

Also, after weeks of nearly continuous rain, it has been sunny.

Glory be.

It is Finished.

2009-07-01T08:16:00.002-04:00

Thank the Lord. The fence is FINISHED! Today starts the first real day of vacation.

Did I mention it's pouring down rain and thundering?

Oh well, at least I won't be wielding a shovel and pick.

American Gothic

2009-06-30T08:07:00.008-04:00

Have you ever wondered why the man and woman in Grant Wood's American Gothic painting look so solemn?

I've done some research and I can say with a high degree of confidence that they . . .

had been working to put up a chicken run fence.

It has been brutal.

We live in an area of town called "Rocky Hill". Need I say more?

We are digging the good old fashioned way with pick and shovel. No fancy, expensive, rented Bobcat or backhoe, no . . . just the sweat off our brow, and skin off our hands. We are just about done. We started nailing the fencing to the posts late last night and are hoping to finish today.

The kicker is . . . this is Victor's vacation week. Not exactly what every family dreams of . . .

At one point when I was exhausted and demoralized I tried to motivate myself by thinking of people in North Korea who are punished by being sent to hard labor camps. Get a little perspective Sandy and stop feeling sorry for yourself!

In the end, it will be well worth it.

For the love of Hens

2009-06-29T07:54:00.004-04:00

Come out, come out, wherever you are . . .

Careful now, down you go . . .

My boys are loving their pet hens. We've put up a temporary run for them while we construct a sturdier permanent one. It's been fun to see the hens pecking and scratching, zipping around, and generally acting like chickens.

Benjamin is the chief chicken caregiver. He feeds them, waters them, brings them scraps from the kitchen, picks them up, and lets them out. They are creating quite the bond. It's adorable.

Benjamin holding a New Hampshire Red

Even Ripley has gotten up the nerve to pick them up. When they were little balls of downy feathers, Ripley wanted to pick them up, but after a few neck holding events we had to put a stop to it. Now the hens are large enough to take a little boy handling.

Ripley with a Plymouth Barred Rock

Happy Boys . . .

Happy Hens.

Taking a rest and a dust bath.

They all snuggled up together and fluffed in the leaves, dirt and dust.

Apparently this helps them to prevent or combat any pests and bugs.

All lined up . . . a New Hampshire Red, Plymouth Barred Rock and Rhode Island Red.

Homemade Strawberry Jam!

2009-06-28T07:03:00.008-04:00

Although I have two strong rows of strawberry plants this year (second year), they didn't produce enough all at once to support a jam harvest. So, on Friday my Mother (aka: Grandmama), Sister-in-law Tanya and all of the grand kids gathered for our third annual strawberry picking extravaganza.

Ripley was the chief eater in the group and managed to put about ten strawberries into his basket. The rest went into his belly.

Grandmama continued her custom of helping to fill her grandchildren's baskets ... which promptly get consumed. In years past she's likened the experience the feeding baby birds. "Put one in my basket Grandmama. Put one in mine."

Doesn't Rosalie look adorable in her bonnet?

Reese Bow. Another champion consumer.

Benjamin was a great help and managed to fill up 1/2 of a large basket before he decided he'd had enough. Of course there were plenty of strawberries consumed.

Notice Ripley .... CAUGHT, red handed! Quite literally.

I made three different varieties of jam last year. My favorite by far was a recipe adapted from the book How to be a Domestic Goddess, by Nigella Lawson. It has balsamic vinegar in it, which sounds odd, but trust me, it was the best by far. Love. Love. Love. So, I made a truck load. 14 Pounds of strawberries, already hulled, might I add.

Sugar is a very important ingredient for preserving jam. Initially I thought I'd cut back the sugar content, until I learned that the ratio of fruit to sugar is very important. The exciting thing is that Fannie Farmer says that "honey may be substituted for up to one-half the sugar in the recipe". So, one day when I have honey (if the sun ever stays out long enough) I will be able to use some of that! Exciting!

Here is the recipe:

Strawberry Jam

7 lbs. strawberries, hulled

8 Cups sugar

1 lemon, juice and zest

1 1/2 T balsamic vinegar

Much to my chagrin, I have a ceramic top stove. If you do any serious cooking, please steer away from these. The clean up aspect may be tempting, but at least my circa 2001 version takes much longer than a traditional coil electric stove to heat water. No contest. It's possible they have improved the technology, however, I actually read a warning on my pressure canner that I purchased last year (granted, it looks like a tank) that the weight of it all, plus heat, could crack the ceramic top. Good grief.

In any case, it takes longer than it would otherwise to reach high temperatures. Fannie Farmer says that the "jelling point" for strawberries is 238 degrees. Reaching this temperature will help you to determine if your jam is "ready". For the life of me I couldn't reach this temperature with my ceramic top. I had tinfoil wrapping the pot, the cover on . . . . the highest I could get was 215 degree. Granted, this was a very large batch of jam. Regardless, come to find out, strawberries have a low pectin level so reaching a very firm texture is impossible unless you add in commercial pectin. I am fine with a jam that is less firm than what you'd see in the grocery store.

Here are my jars -- freshly sterilized.

Put your jars in the pot, cover them with water and bring to a boil. Boil for 20 minutes.

All done. Yum. Yum. Yum.

I didn't sterilize enough jars for all of the jam I had. I was two jars short. So, that jam went into clean jars that I then put into the refrigerator.

A Break in the Rain

2009-06-26T06:41:00.005-04:00

We didn't see the sun here until 5:00 p.m., but with the exception of a short misty period, it didn't actually rain. Everyone in the surrounding area decided to seized the chance to mow their lawns. As I returned home from an errand, it seemed as if every other house had someone in the yard pushing a mower.

Victor too, when he came home from work, jumped on the bandwagon. His sidekick joined him. Ripley will 'help' Daddy and follow him with his mower until the entire lawn is cut. Now THAT is a commitment. It's the cutest thing ever.

The bees too seized the day. They send out all foragers and had orientation flights. However, they almost looked frantic and disorganized, which was a little unsettling for the bee keeper. They did settle down in time and around 2:30 p.m. after the mist had stopped (although dark clouds did loom), I decided to go in and check to see if the bees were ready for their honey supers.

My plan was to see how their mood was to determine whether or not I'd pull frames out and do a full hive check. I started with the right hive, and as soon as I lifted the inner cover off I had a mad bee buzzing at me. I decided that they weren't up for a full visit and just peered in to see how their comb building was coming along. They had made some progress. They were beginning work on frames 1 & 8 in the upper brood chamber, although they hadn't finished with 2 & 7. So, I decided to add the honey super on. Since I have empty wax foundation, they will need to build comb, and will need extra time to build that comb. So I wanted to give them some space and the opportunity to start moving up and preparing a place to put excess honey.

It's been a tough June for the bees. Not only are plants behind about three weeks because of our lack of sun, but they haven't been able to forage as much as they would have otherwise. They may send out some foragers, but as an outside observer it seems like it's just a handful. On a sunny day there are tons of foragers zzzzz-i-pp-ing in and out of the entrance bringing in nectar and pollen. Hopefully at some point our summer will swing into gear. Although I actually heard a weatherman say "if the weather pattern doesn't change all summer . . . " Have mercy.

The Birds, The Bees and Me

2009-06-25T06:32:00.005-04:00

My birds and my bees have been feeling cooped up. I heard that we have had the second rainiest June on record. The rainiest June was in the 1800's. It's been raining pretty much everyday with the occasional partly sunny day thrown in there. A British friend of mine tells me this weather is just like 'home'. Know that I haven't any plans to pull up stakes and head for Great Britain anytime soon.

Last weekend between rain showers we were able to throw up a temporary fence to let the chicks explore the great outdoors. They loved it!

They pecked and scratched and rrrrrr-a-c-e-d back and forth. Meanwhile, I took the opportunity to empty out and scrub their coop. Gee, that was fun. Not.

Victor started to dig a trench for the permanent 'chicken run'. Since then, it's been raining non-stop so all work has come to a screeching halt. This weekend is d-day though. We've got to get it done. Thankfully there is actually sun in the forecast. None-to-soon as far as the chicks are concerned. They just look too big and cooped up in their roomy hen house to be crammed in there day after day. It's supposed to house up to 14 hens, but still, the girls need to get out and stretch their legs!

Incidentally, I got the biggest giggle when at some point this week Ripley was outside the coop throwing them some green wild blueberries he'd picked, and he called out "Girls . . . . over here . . . " referring to the hens. So cute.

My bees have been most unhappy. The poor things have been doing their best, sending out a handful of foragers in the misty, rainy, overcast weather. Yesterday it was overcast and misting the whole day and you'd think it was 80 degrees and sunny. They had foragers zipping in and out and new foragers 'training' outside the hive doing orientation flights. It was a regular bee party. Poor things. They have had to lower their expectations. Me too.

The unsettling thing is I haven't been able to go in and check on them. At any point now, they well be ready for the honey super (the next box of frames in which they typically put only honey). As I've mentioned before, you don't want your bees to run out of room. However, you can't 'work your hive' in the rain. And, if you work your hives on an overcast misty day after days of rain, they will be most unhappy with you. This strikes me as being worse than cleaning out the hen house. I'm planning to go in today. Sun is in the forecast for the afternoon, but I'll believe it when I see it.

Fathers: Invaluable

2009-06-21T08:38:00.010-04:00

When Victor and I were married, he became a father. A step-father to my son Benjamin from my first marriage. He embraced his role seriously, enthusiastically and thoughtfully. Victor has been more diligent about going to Benjamin's parent-teacher conferences than he has Ripley's (granted, Ripley is only in preschool). He has in his mind, and knows that one day he will get the push-back from Benjamin in a heated moment, probably in his teens: "But you are not my real dad . . . " He thoughtfully and energetically invests time and demonstrates his love and commitment, assuming that that day will come. I will be forever grateful that Victor has been a reliable, committed, loving father figure who has integrity.

At the same time Victor and I are positive and supportive of Benjamin's visits with his biological father. Benjamin visits with him on Wednesday nights and every other weekend. It is hard to share your child. But a child psychologist we consulted when my ex-husband was going through his second divorce said that unless a father is dangerous in some way, any short comings are far outweighed by the importance of having a bond with your father -- flaws and all -- knowing that he wants to spend time with you and loves you in the best way he knows how. Fatherhood is powerful, isn't it?

When Ripley was born, Victor was in awe. I don't think he could believe he'd been given such a miraculous blessing. At first, we had both wanted a girl. But when Victor saw this perfect little bundle arrive through the miraculous process called birth, looking so much like himself with his Portuguese skin tone, his long thin legs, his long slender hands, his dark brown eyes and eyelashes, and much to his relief and my disappointment -- my reasonable nose, he was speechless.

He wouldn't let that baby out of his sight. Victor followed Ripley wherever the nurses or doctors dragged him. Shots. Baths. You name it, Victor followed that bassinet cart and stood outside the door and waited until they brought him his baby back. It was the most precious thing I'd ever seen.

To me, fathers are teachers and doers, and it is their presence and investment in their children that demonstrates their love. I know my perception is stereotypical, but this has been my experience. While moms are throwing dinner together in the kitchen, it is your father who shows you how to mow the lawn. While Mom is bringing wood in for the stove, Dad is teaching you how to split it and stack it. While I am stressed out thinking of the laundry that needs to be folded, or the floor that needs vacuuming, Victor is at peace spending two hours with the boys outside practicing baseball. Maybe it's that sixth-sense that women have about all that needs to be done, and the absence of that sense that many men have that make them good fathers. While I'm throwing the frisbee to the boys, I may pick up the broom and start sweeping the garage. Not exactly what you'd call "present in the moment".

Growing up with a house full of boys and a mother who could managed them all, kill a chicken and be a star at the golf club, my father taught me to be a strong self-assured daring woman for my generation. Even though I was a girly-girl and insisted on wearing dresses and skirts that twirled, my father didn't treat me any differently than my younger brother. He taught me to give a firm handshake and look that person right in the eye. I helped mow the lawn and stack wood. He had no interest in a house full of whiners and insisted that we were 'tough'. We painted and schlepped, sanded and hammered, assisted and cleaned up after him. He taught me to mow without 'holidays', to garden and weed, to churn ice cream and row a boat, roll a sleeping bag and cook bacon, to ski, skate, swim, dive, ride my bike and be brave. While my mother was expressing grave concern on the sidelines during any of our adventures, Dad would say "Ahhhhh, they'll be fine, let them go . . . " He taught me to lick my wound slap a bandaide on it and move on. He taught me the importance of working hard and playing hard. He taught me that you can still be a serious, smart person and occasionally wear a costume.

Whatever your political views, I think it's hard to disagree with President Obama's thoughts on fatherhood and I applaud him for addressing this important issue. Here is an excerpt from an article he wrote for Parade Magazine this week:

"In many ways, I came to understand the importance of fatherhood through its absence—both in my life and in the lives of others. I came to understand that the hole a man leaves when he abandons his responsibility to his children is one that no government can fill. We can do everything possible to provide good jobs and good schools and safe streets for our kids, but it will never be enough to fully make up the difference.

That is why we need fathers to step up, to realize that their job does not end at conception; that what makes you a man is not the ability to have a child but the courage to raise one.

See family photos of Obama
and his daughters

As fathers, we need to be involved in our children’s lives not just when it’s convenient or easy, and not just when they’re doing well—but when it’s difficult and thankless, and they’re struggling. That is when they need us most.

And it’s not enough to just be physically present. Too often, especially during tough economic times like these, we are emotionally absent: distracted, consumed by what’s happening in our own lives, worried about keeping our jobs and paying our bills, unsure if we’ll be able to give our kids the same opportunities we had.

Our children can tell. They know when we’re not fully there. And that disengagement sends a clear message—whether we mean it or not—about where among our priorities they fall.

So we need to step out of our own heads and tune in. We need to turn off the television and start talking with our kids, and listening to them, and understanding what’s going on in their lives.

We need to set limits and expectations. We need to replace that video game with a book and make sure that homework gets done. We need to say to our daughters, Don’t ever let images on TV tell you what you are worth, because I expect you to dream without limit and reach for your goals. We need to tell our sons, Those songs on the radio may glorify violence, but in our house, we find glory in achievement, self-respect, and hard work.

We need to realize that we are our children’s first and best teachers. When we are selfish or inconsiderate, when we mistreat our wives or girlfriends, when we cut corners or fail to control our tempers, our children learn from that—and it’s no surprise when we see those behaviors in our schools or on our streets."

As a mother of two boys, I appreciate the knowledge and understanding that my father has about what it means to be a boy. As a grandfather, although he has high expectations for his grandchildren, he also has a lot of understanding and encouragement to offer a mother beside herself wondering how to manage a bright, intense son. He can see through the challenges of youth through to the gifts that will grow into something fabulous. He, like Victor, can't believe that he's been blessed with five beautiful, healthy, bright Grandchildren to teach and "do" life with. And sometimes I think he's speechless when he thinks about the blessing of having raised two children that through thick and through thin, came out wonderfully. I know he's proud. Now, sometimes, we teach him a thing or two. We are thankful for the privilege of having Dads and a "Gramp" who've taken the time to invest in us, love us, support us and actively be there with us as we "do" life. We love you.

My Bees

2009-06-19T06:12:00.007-04:00

I have a bone to pick with my bees. They have developed a habit that I am none too pleased about. Bees drink water. They will go to a water source and have a little sip as they go foraging from place to place. I set up a little pool (a retired baby pool) by their hives for this purpose. I even installed a little bubbler that tends to attract them, with large rocks for them to set on and lap up the water. But where do my bright little bees decide to go and drink? I'll tell you.

In the upper left hand corner of the picture below you'll see the far left side of my garden -- it's set below the front part of our yard, thanks to a retaining wall, which is kind of nice since walkers-by can't see if I've had time to weed or not. Anyway, there is a little pathway between the fence Victor and I put in, and the potato towers you can see in the picture to the left. Because this area is lower than the front yard, between my irrigation system and the incessant rain that we've been getting (don't get me started) the little pathway is a little . . . 'squishy'. Well, the bees have decided this is a great place to suck up water. So, as I walk back and forth to my garden, or the compost pile for leaves and yard clippings, or to visit my hens, or for the kids to play on the swing set, we have to tromp on this pathway. The other day (ahem, when it was actually sunny) I tried to count how many bees were there sipping away. The pathway was literally buzzing, there must have been about 20 bees there. Which compared to how many bees are in my two hives, is a very small proportion, but HONESTLY!

The thing is, it's not even good fare! The original soil here is like thick clay so it's easy to develop areas with bad drainage. Sometimes it can get a bit . . . uh . . . earthy-smelling (not in a good way). There she is . . . oh brilliant bee of mine. Good grief. So far, they don't seem to mind our tromping through their watering hole - they just fly out of the way, but I am mildly concerned. A couple of them have gotten stepped on accidentally (or run-over by the wheel barrel) and I'm just waiting for one of them to get mad that we nearly stepped on her.

Aside from the smelly clay water sucking habits, they are doing quite well considering we've had about 4 weeks of constant rain. The poor things go bananas when the sun comes out in between rain showers. It's really hard to capture it on film. They are zipping in and out of their hives like there is an emergency. They don't bumble and bump around like their counter parts the bumble bee, the honey bee zips out and zips back in like an F-16 on a mission.

The week after I put the second brood chamber (the upper large box with 8 frames of wax foundation) on both hives the bees in the right hive in particular went to town building comb on the foundation. In one week, they filled 4 frames. I've been waiting for them to make more progress so I can put the next box -- the HONEY SUPER -- on top. On Tuesday when I went into my hives I was fully prepared to put the honey supers on, but they weren't ready. The wax production had come to a screeching halt. So, I lugged them back inside. They made some progress, but it wasn't like the week before. Maybe it's because of the rain. Since they are new in their hives and have to build comb onto the empty wax foundation I am still feeding them sugar syrup (10 lb bag of sugar combined with 5 quarts of hot tap water). From what I understand, the moment you take the sugar syrup off, they really slow down with the comb production and they need to build comb so that the queen can have ample space to lay -- AND eventually stash honey in the honey super for ME!

The good news is that my queens are laying eggs in both the upper and lower chambers, I have capped brood and larvae in both hives, and even some capped honey in the brood chambers for the bees. I may check them in a day or two (if I can find a rain-free day) and see if they are ready for their honey super yet -- just to be sure. You don't want your bees to run out of room. Crowded Bees = Bad.

Precious Boy

2009-06-18T06:42:00.003-04:00

Ripley wants to be big. He wants to read with a vengeance like his big brother. Percy Jackson and the Olympians is one of Benjamin's favorite book series. As soon as the next book in the series comes out, Benjamin jumps on it and consumes it. So of course he has already finished the most recent release The Last Olympian. Now Ripley has picked it up. He takes it everywhere. He sits and stares at the pages while I'm making dinner. He takes it in the car when we go on errands. He brings it to the dentist while I'm having my teeth cleaned. He brings it upstairs to bed with him at night. He looks at all of the letters on the pages, flips the pages and marks "his place" with a bookmark. Precious Boy.

I asked him while I was cooking dinner last night "Aren't you getting bored, honey?" (I was trying to suggest a more age appropriate book.) Ripley replied "No." I asked "Are you looking at all of the different letters and sounding them out?" "Yes." He sat there "reading" for a good half hour.

A Sleepover Birthday Party

2009-06-17T05:56:00.006-04:00

This past weekend Benjamin had his first ever sleepover. It was a belated birthday party celebrating his 10th year. We pitched a three room tent downstairs in our finished basement and told all of the boys to bring their sleeping bags and pillows. What fun!

I've never been much of a babysitter, even when I was 12. And being a single mother for four years probably threw me over the edge. However, one thing I have always loved is hangin' with kids in Junior High and High School. I was a youth leader at my church for about 3+ years and loved it. At 10, Benjamin and his buddies are getting close. They are still a little wild and goofy, but I was able to pull out some old youth leader 'games' to keep things interesting.

Food and entertainment was a 10 year old's dream come true with take-out pizza, fruit punch, fruit salad, make-your-own-sundae, candy & popcorn.

For dinner, I made up little chit-chat cards kind of like the "Ungame" in case conversation needed some help. It was a bit one sided so I got out my pile of homemade cards and had each boy take a turn picking a card and answering a question. Such as:

Can you touch your tongue to your nose? Answer: No
Would you rather go sky diving or bungee jumping (or neither)? Answer: Sky Diving
If you could buy your mom anything, what would you get her? Answer: Infinity Cats
What is your least favorite chore around the house? Answer: Taking out the trash
Do you play an instrument? If so, which one? Answer: Yes. Saxophone.
If you could travel to any country in the world, where would you go? Answer: Madagascar

Yes, the boys are in our dining room, which may seem silly but it's the only table we have (minus the island seating in the kitchen). I kind of like it because we actually use our dining room. As you can see, to conserve my energy level for the event, I caved and used paper plates and each boy got one plastic cup with his name on it.

We also did the classic ice breaker where each person has piece of paper with a famous person's name written on it, taped to their back. They have to go around the room asking their friends yes or no questions to find out who they are. The incentive was: When you figure out who your person is, you get to pick out which box of candy you want for the movie. I had about 10 different 'movie sized' boxes to choose from. They did fabulously, and for Victor and I, it was hilarious to watch. The names we had were:

Princess Liea
George Washington
Thomas Edison
R2D2
Miley Cirus
Benjamin Franklin

After dessert, we started a typical youth leader type game where I broke the boys up into two teams of three, gave each team a ream of paper and two rolls of masking tape, and told them that they had 25 minutes to build a structure. The tallest and sturdiest structure wins. They loved it, and it was hilarious to watch.

The Wild-Crazy and Excitable Team

The Quiet, Methodical, Organized Team

The Quiet Team did change their method part way through, but they worked together and stayed focused the entire time.

The Wild Team had a lot of laughs and changed course throughout the project.

It was a taping, papering extravaganza.

No comments from the peanut-gallery, please.

Needless to say, the quiet methodical team won.

The unwrapping.

One of Benjamin's buddies brought over his Wee Game.

Another buddy brought over his extra controllers, so four kids could play at one time.

It was the most, errrr . . . excitable part of the evening.

They had the chance to vote (secret ballot) on their choice for a movie to make it fair. It was between Star Wars I, The City of Ember and Back to the Future I. It was close, but Star Wars I won. Which of course, they'd all seen before.

I was exhausted. We got everyone pajama'ed and bagged in the tent by 10:45 pm, quietly talking and behaving themselves nicely. I finally had to go to bed because I was falling asleep on the couch upstairs waiting for the boys to settle down. Victor said he'd take the night shift and finally was able to go to bed himself at 1 a.m.

In the morning I made pancakes, bacon and fruit salad for the boys. I think I'm out of shape as a youth leader. Or gee, maybe I'm just getting . . . old. I was exhausted and crabby. I felt like I'd pulled an all-nighter in college followed by a night of partying. It took me two days to recover. The good news is, all of the boys had a great time, no fights broke out, no one wanted to go home in the middle of the night, and we returned all boys to their parents the next day in one piece!

Garlic Scape Pesto

2009-06-16T06:38:00.002-04:00

What on earth is a SCAPE? I didn't know either. And who came up with that name? Anyway, I have them. Scapes are the flower stems that garlic plants produce just before the bulbs mature underground. If you are growing your own garlic, as I am for my first year ever, it is a common practice to cut the scapes off in order to boost the growth of your bulbs. It's wonderful because it is one more thing that you can harvest from your garden at this early point in the season when all there is, is lettuce, peas, strawberries, rhubarb and last fall's kale (which, is not too shabby an assortment, I must say).

Some say to cut your scapes off before they make a full loop, others say wait until they've made two loops. I split it down the middle and trimmed them off after about one loop -- give or take -- and enough to make my first batch ever of Garlic Scape Pesto. Aren't they a bit odd looking?

To make Garlic Scape Pesto, you pretty much follow your favorite basil pesto recipe and in place of the basil, use the scapes. The recipe I adapted from called for a pound of scapes. My first harvest was just shy of that.

Here is the recipe I ended up with:

Before you start, put water on to boil with 1 T of salt.

Garlic Scape Pesto:

1 lb. of garlic scapes, chopped just a little bit so you can cram them into your food processor.

1+ cups of freshly grated Parmesan cheese - first I use the grater attachment, then the attachment that looks like a propeller so the cheese is chopped fine.

1/4 cup toasted or roasted pine nuts, chopped. I toast them in my toaster oven until lightly browned. My brother (a pesto fanatic) roasts them in a pan over the stove.

2/3 cup extra virgin olive oil, or so.

Juice of one lemon (I only had 1/2, but it would have been better with a whole.)

Pinch / Dash of cayenne pepper

1/2 t salt, to taste

plenty of freshly ground black pepper

(I didn't have any basil leaves on hand, but if I did I would have added about 1/4 cup of them just to accent the garlic scapes. You would add them at the same time as the scapes.)

If you want, you can dump everything in together and just pulverize until everything is in tiny bits -- it's fast and easy. But, I don't love the way the pine nuts and the Parmesan cheese get pasty when I do that. So, first I grate the cheese, set aside. Chop the pine nuts with a hand chopper, set aside. Put the garlic scapes, lemon juice, cayenne pepper, salt and pepper into the food processor and chop until the scapes are finely minced. Then, slowly drizzle the olive oil into the food processor while it's running. Run the food processor for about 10 seconds. Personally, I like to mix in the Parmesan cheese and pine nuts in by hand (so things don't get pasty), however you may be content to dump them into your food processor pulse it a few times just to combine everything.

Some folks swear by putting a ladle of pasta water into the pesto before tossing it with your pasta. This makes the pesto stick nicely to the pasta. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese.

This makes a good amount of Garlic Scape Pesto. We cooked a pound of pasta and still had some pesto left over. It was delicious. Victor, my food critic, said that it was very good. And then added a few minutes later that it was really, very good! Enjoy.

Butts Up!

2009-06-15T08:12:00.002-04:00

I went to my friend Diane's house on Saturday to see her work her seven hives. That's a lot of hives! She was speedy and decisive working in her 5th year of bee keeping. A very different experience from hanging out with new-bees where we spend several minutes on each frame. You can imagine with so many hives that it would take an eternity to work your bees if you took that much time on each frame!

Her bees were very well behaved, but after working one hive they were ready for us to leave. How could we tell? When honey bees are fed-up with you bothering them, this is the warning they give you:

Butts UP!

Diane told me early on, that if she opens up one of her hives and they give her the 'butts up' right off the bat, she just closes that hive up for another day.

Aren't they funny looking with their little butts sticking up in the air?

It's a new way of communicating. "Honey, I'm having a bad day. Get lost!"

A Battle for Strawberries

2009-06-10T06:52:00.004-04:00

I have been at battle with chipmunks again. We don't have guns here, but if I did, I'd use them on these little whipper-snappers. (Jacob, Jon, come on over!) They've been going into my strawberry patch and munching one little 'chip' out of each ripe strawberry they see. I've thrown into the woods the same amount of strawberries I've been able to harvest for US.

I've sprinkled dried blood around the perimeter of the garden (yes, available at garden stores), put up two yard-art owls and created a less than heart filled trap. I'm sorry, it had to be done. If anyone would like to trap them and drive them to Iowa, come on over and be my guest.

Chit-chatting around the playground after church on Sunday, I learned that there are new fangled bobble-head owls where the heads turn. Heck, I'm willing to try anything at this point.

Thankfully, we did manage to have four bowls of strawberries and ice cream for dessert last night. Strawberries that I collected like a stealth fighter over several days, picking just before they were perfectly ripe. Why don't chipmunks eat my weeds? Why don't bugs eat weeds? And why do weeds grow with such vigor, compared to my freshly planted pepper seedlings?

Thank you for allowing me to vent. We were thankful and thrilled to have the strawberries we did from our very own garden. Aren't they beautiful?

Bubbles . . . A Gift from a Thoughtful Boy

2009-06-08T06:50:00.005-04:00

Ripley thought: I love bubbles, surely everyone must love bubbles.

Like The Little Drummer Boy, he offers what he can do . . . as a gift.

to four of our little chicks . . .

roaming around outside for the first time.

The chicks loved their field trip.

FYI: Ripley has also drawn a picture for the chicks, that Benjamin helped to tape up in the hen house. Awwwww.

Garden & Hen Progress

2009-06-04T06:21:00.004-04:00

I was hoping that my garden would be a little more 'in balance' this year, being the second year and all. But, I guess it takes longer. I have bazillions of bugs. And I don't mean the good kind.

Here is damage done to a Portuguese Pole Bean that I planted. The seedling had wilted, so I picked it, and what did I find? A wireworm. Commonly found in gardens that were formally grass. That would be mine. There is not a whole lot to be done about them, except to pick them out when you see them.

I also have these black bugs -- flea beetles I think. They eat holes in everything. They particularly love my potato plants, my tomato seedlings, my eggplant seedlings, my cucumber seedlings . . . . yep, pretty much anything that's in my garden. They can apparently be discouraged by soapy water spray. I don't know, it hasn't been that successful.

I also have tons of tiny (a little smaller than the head of a pin) orange hopping bugs that suck the life out of leaves and seedling stems. Does anyone know what these are?

Well, speaking of potato plants, here is one of my infamous potato towers. As you can see, I've had to put composted leaves, grass clippings, straw, a little compost around the plant stems several times already. You are supposed to do this every time the plant stems are about six inches or so above the compost. Well, it seems that as soon as you compost, they shoot up another six inches. I have to admit, it's a bit labor intensive. Mainly because my compost piles are still a little lacking since I'm only 1 1/2 years into this journey. Let's just hope I'm growing potatoes in these things! I have a total of 17 of these towers scattered around my back yard. I will be either the coolest gardener on the block, or the laughing stock of my neighborhood and my husbands family.

My strawberries are starting to ripen. If only we could get several warm sunny days in a row.

Please, enough cold rainy days already.

My lettuce, that I planted in mid-March are about ready and are very happy.

We have been eating salad every night because the lettuce that was growing in my cold frames exploded into gigantic heads of spring lettuce. Lovely.

It doesn't seem that our salad intake will slow up any time soon. But that's a good thing. It's great to be harvesting from my garden so early. I finally let my 2nd year asparagus flower. It was sad to stop picking, but I can see that in the next few years we will have plenty.

Here are the rows of carrots I planted in mid-March.

Still small, but coming along and so much happier since they aren't being attacked by rabbits.

Last week I planted a third row in between these two rows.

My sweet peas -- also planted mid-March -- are flowering!

It won't be long now. Towards the end of March I planted another row (behind this one in the picture), so we will get two 'batches' of peas. These will be great in our salads!

And our baby hens, how are they doing, you ask? Well, they are splendid. We had several families over last weekend so we out-placed our chicks to their very solid hen house out back. They're thrilled.

Here is one of our Rhode Island Reds.

Three Barred Rocks and a Rhode Island Red.

One New Hampshire Red (on the left) and Two Rhode Island Reds.

Don't they look comfy?

It's been a little chillier than usual here, so on those nights we've had two heat lamps going to keep them warm. In the beginning -- directly under the heat lamp -- the temperature should read 95 degrees. Then each week as they get more of their feathers the temperature can decrease by 5 degrees. Now we are down to 85 degrees.

A Tea Party for Kids

2009-06-03T05:50:00.009-04:00

This isn't your typical tea party for kids . . . it's a tea party with purpose. Our second. My mother invented them to teach her grandchildren the importance of grown-up manners. More than just saying "Plleeeeeeeeeease", the boys are required to honor the ladies by escorting them to the table, pulling out their chairs and pushing them in. There is no grabbing for treats across the table, but each person is offered something in time. Did you know a guest isn't to ask for seconds? Drat. Foiled again.

Here is the lovely table setting. I love the colorful ribbon running down the center. And the place cards . . .

My creative, brilliant mother wrote out each persons name in craft glue, then sprinkled -- get this -- crumbled tea leaves on the glue! Is she clever or what?

We were each to bring a treat for the party that the children were to help us prepare. This is a big draw for the whole event. "Oooo . . . you get to have treats and tea before dinner!" Mom got the award though. Again. Here are her cucumber sandwiches with cream cheese and cucumbers cut out with airplane and star cookie cutters. Looking festive, covered in glass.

The strawberry tarts were fabulous. She used 'refrigerator' sugar cookie dough for the crusts, pressed them into the cupcake tins, used a fork to make 'crimping' on the edges, and baked. I'm not sure what the filling is. Mom?

Did you notice that the strawberries are cut into the shapes of hearts? Awwww.

Chocolate dipped strawberries.

Another part of the tea party experience is that everyone is required to dress up. No, you can't aways wear your velcro sneakers and jeans. There are times when you must wear 'cute clothes' as Ripley calls them. A good life lesson.

The importance of wearing cute clothes from time to time was driven home when Ripley decided to have the mother-of-all-meltdowns when we required him to wear cute shoes. He is a sports gear guy and much to my chagrin is in love with sneakers. And, he's hard headed. It was a mess getting them on, but we didn't give in. We stood our ground.

Mom recently purchased navy blazers for all of the grandsons to drive this point home. A boy should be comfortable and 'at home' in a blazer. Spencer, not yet one, will be the proud recipient of all of the hand-me-downs up to age 10. Doesn't everyone need a navy sport coat at 10 months? He does look stunning, I must say.

Here we all are at tea.

Yum.

We made petit-fours from a left over upside down pineapple cake we'd served the night before. Ripley was in charge of cutting the squares (with a little supervision) and I made the chocolate fondant which was very easy. One cup of milk brought to boiling. Remove from heat. Then add in 8 ounces of chocolate chips very finely chopped, and stir until all of the chocolate is melted. That is it. Pour over your cubes of cake. Mine was a tad too thick, but I'm not sure if this was because Benjamin was in charge of bringing the milk to a boil and it took a dog's age. So, perhaps too much steam evaporated? I may add a scant more than one cup of milk next time. Because we were short on time, we just plunked an M&M on top of each one. Left over homemade heath bars chopped up into bite sized pieces also served as another 'offering'. (Thank you Katie!)

Cute.

The traditional 'stair shot'.

L-R: Benjamin, Spencer, Rosalie, Ripley and Reese

After dinner, there were s'mores.

Spencer enjoying a graham cracker with sport coat. Why not?

Victor and Dad.

The perfect ending to a wonderful evening.

Play Date for Bee Keepers

2009-06-01T06:52:00.011-04:00

On Saturday three of us from our bee keeping class got together to do hive checks. Not only do you get more exposure to bees and different hives, but you also have an extra pair of hands to take pictures! At my house, both Benjamin and Victor were able to observe as well. (Ripley played nicely in the driveway.)

Sarah has two hives at her house: her hive and long time friend Joel's hive. It seems as though every hive has its own adventure enclosed. Joel's hive has a lot of drone comb, which when capped makes a little bump-out rather than being flat because drones (boy bees) are larger than the worker bees. (And, isn't it funny that JOEL'S hive has more drone comb than ours?)

See the drone cells below? They look like the round puffy end of a piece of popcorn.

Joel inspecting one of his frames.

The string of bees in between these frames is called "festooning".

They hang or string together when creating wax.

Good little bees.

Sarah going into her hive.

This week Joel and Sarah shook confectioners sugar into their hives to battle the varroa mite (a major problem for the honey bee). We call it "The Sugar Shake". Basically, to take one cup of confectioner's sugar and shake it over your hive either in a thin strainer or flour sifter. Then, you brush the sugar off the tops of the frames down into the hive. We all have screened bottom boards, so when the bees groom the yummy sugar off themselves and each other, the varroa mite falls off the bees and down through the screened bottom board out of the hive. You repeat this every three weeks.

This is just the beginning. A full cup of sugar is a lot. The poor little bees don't look all that happy -- completely covered in powdered sugar.

But, they are pretty funny to watch flying around like white ghosts.

Here is one on a blade of grass trying to determine just what she did to get herself into this mess.

Now, at last, to my hives. You may recall that last week I put on the second brood chambers on both of my hives. Of course every bee keeper has their own opinion on the subject of when to put on your second brood chamber. Seeing as I am a skittish new bee keeper, I went with the most conservative theory. Which is: When the bees have started building out comb on frames 2 and 7 (out of 8 frames) go ahead and add the next brood chamber. This is for frames with foundation (and not built out comb) which is to say, they still need to make the comb before the queen can lay eggs. The reason for this is: it gives the bees a chance to start building out comb on the upper chamber at the same time as they are finishing the lower chamber. In this way, they wont start to feel crowded. A friend of mine in her first year of bee keeping lost her bees to a swarm in this way. Although, bee keeping is not an exact science, more like an art form. Some bee keepers swear by waiting until they are well on their way to working on the last 2 frames before putting on the next chamber.

The good news for me was that the bees in my right hive were working at building comb on one frame in the upper brood chamber! The bees in my left hive were just getting started. So, we've made some progress and they have plenty of room.

Here are the bees busy starting on building comb on their first frame in the upper brood chamber.

In the lower chamber there was a lot of evidence of the birth of new bees. It takes 21 days for a worker bee to be born and my bees were installed on April 26th, my queens released on approximately April 30th, so as of May 21st new bees should be hatching everyday.

On the left side of the picture below you can see "capped brood" which is the last stage of creating a baby bee where the worker bees enclose the larvae in it's individual cell to finish developing.

When the baby bees hatch, you will see empty comb (see the middle of the picture). If you look closely, you can see a baby hatching out! Can you find it?

Here, I'll help you. See?

I saw both of my queens in each of my hives, and freshly laid eggs. A wonderful sight for the bee keeper. All is well.

The big event during my hive check was removing a very large piece of burr comb that the bees in my left hive build and the queen laid eggs into. I didn't have the heart to yank it out before a good number of the baby bees had hatched out. When I was inspecting this frame, Sarah and Victor (looking on without his veil, again) noticed that this burr comb was dangling from a small attached portion at the top. So, with encouragement from 'the crowd' Victor and Sarah grabbed hold of the burr comb with their gloved hands and yanked it off slowly. It was a bit sad because there were still unborn bees in the comb, but it had to be done. I cleaned up the rest of the area with my hive tool. Now this frame sits nicely against it's neighboring frame as it's supposed to. To get the remaining worker bees off the burr comb, I gave it a puff a smoke, and Sarah gave it a good shake or two. The rest found their way back into the hive after we set the comb on the ground next to the front entrance.

Tonight is Pizza Night!

2009-05-29T06:08:00.002-04:00

I made these two pizza's below a couple weeks ago with my pizza dough recipe. The recipe makes these two medium sized pies. Tonight I think I will make a double batch for more left overs! You can start making this dough at 3:00 and it will be ready for dinner. Or make it the day before and put it in the fridge, like you see at the grocery store in the dairy section. Or roll/stretch out four individually sized pies, then stick them in the freezer so you will have them handy.

What is the odd looking right half of the pizza pictured below, you ask? Well, the photo doesn't do it justice really. But let me tell you .... it's scrumptious! Recently at a friend's house I sampled this pizza and immediately started making plans to recreate it at home. Okay, okay, what is it?!

It's caramelized onions, crumbled blue cheese and fresh rosemary. Delish.

This is what I did:

Slice thinly 2-3 large onions and saute in olive oil and 1-2 teaspoons sugar on medium-low heat until soft.

When your dough is stretched and ready, put on the caramelized onions, sprinkle with crumbled blue cheese (spotty, not covered) and fresh rosemary leaves. Then bake. Sooooo good!

For the boys it was pepperoni from the deli with cheese. Victor and I also love pepperoni and fresh spinach -- I still had some from our garden, so I tossed it under the cheese. Yum.

I've been struggling to peacefully get my pizza dough onto my pipping hot pizza stone without major mishaps recently. I do the whole cornmeal on a wooden cutting board thing - then shake-scoot the prepared pie off onto the hot stone. But sometimes it sticks, sometimes it slops over the edge of the stone dripping pizza goo over the sides into the oven ... So what I've been doing that's worked better for me is turn on the oven and heat up the stone, stretch the dough on the counter, then open up the oven, pull out the oven rack as far as it will go, sprinkle cornmeal onto the hot stone, then lay the stretched dough right onto the stone -- you will be able to scoot it around a bit on the cornmeal to make a nice shape. If I'm adding something wet like marinara sauce I'll let the dough cook about 2 minutes before opening up the oven again, pulling the rack out, then adding the marinara, cheese, etc. then, cook the pizza until done.

My Bees get Visitors

2009-05-28T06:02:00.007-04:00

My dad wanted to come by the house to show his brother all of my shenanigans -- the chickens, the garden, the bees. He's pretty proud. He thinks the world needs a 'Sandra Show' -- like Martha, but more down to earth. I told him "Dad, tons of people do this." He wont be moved.

When my parents and uncle pulled up to the house, I offered to suit up in my bee outfit and show off the bees. I have one other 'grown up' suit and veil. My uncle wanted to look from a distance after a bad experience with yellow jackets and his youngest son, now in his forties. Dad jumped at the chance -- he couldn't wait! Checking out the inner workings of a honey bee hive wasn't on his 'bucket list', but he quickly made the addition!

Benjamin, who is often at school when I go into my hives, was thrilled to be able to put on his suit and take a look. Here I am after a long battle with my smoker puffing the front of the hive. Dad is in the back left, Benjamin back right looking on.

Looking at the frames.

Sadly I didn't see the queen -- which always gets me nervous --

because I don't know where she is,

I worry about crushing her when I slide the frames back into place.

One exciting piece of news from my hives -- my first batch of baby bees have been born!

A large patch of capped brood (where the babies do their 'incubating') was uncapped and empty! Yipee!

(Benjamin is hidden behind the right hive.)

And here is Victor, my closet Master Bee Keeper in the making looking on without veil.

I want to get him in these hives, he'd be great at it. So mellow and low key.

The Visitors

Although the queen was feeling shy, all of the bees behaved beautifully during their showing.

Good little bees.

The issue of SPORTS

2009-05-27T06:19:00.006-04:00

This was Benjamin's baseball team last year. I have to admit, it truly was a great experience. And yet, I resented it. This year, both Benjamin and Ripley are playing baseball (well, Ripley is playing T-Ball). So, between the two boys we are racing back and forth to the fields three to four times a week.

Confession: I hate it. I am resenting packing up that many times a week for a 5:45 game (we are supposed to be there 20 minutes early for Benjamin's games, and it's a 15 minute drive to the fields). I resent not being able to sit down to a pleasant leisurely quality dinner together as a family to eat and chat (I just can't bring myself to feed my kids chicken nuggets, boxed mac 'n cheese, cereal or worse - fast food chains 3 nights a week like many have to resort to). I resent that 4:45 is too early for dinner (plus, Victor isn't home yet) and 7:45 is too late! I resent washing uniforms several times a week. I resent sitting there in the freezing cold and rain to watch the games. I resent that I have to 'burn up' four hours of precious time on baseball nights just sitting there.

I am sorry. I know there are some aspects of baseball that are wonderful. Learning to play together with team mates, learning to think of others and 'the good of the team', getting outside and exercising. But three nights a week (and most Saturdays) for three months is a big commitment and I'm just not sold. Is this all really necessary at this age?

So yesterday while getting all of my ducks in a row to make the nightly trip to the field I lost my patience with my boys. I left them 15 minutes to get dressed and get their bags in the car (which they are perfectly capable of doing) while I finished prepping dinner and taking off my garden clothes. They were getting side-tracked, chatting and then arguing. We decided that next time I should leave 30 minutes for them to get ready. But really, the stress and strain comes from my resentment of the entire event. Help me out . . . am I just a bad mother? Am I just selfish? How can I be at peace?!

The moral of the story: Surrender. Leave more time. Get organized. Have snacks ready for when Benjamin gets off the bus at 4:00. Start making dinner and getting organized at 3:30 and keep it simple. Get the boys started on dressing etc. at 4:40. Get in the car at 5:10. Get a lobotomy. Do you think people would snicker if I brought my laundry to fold while I sit there?

Here's to Sweet Briar, Hola! Hola! Hola!

2009-05-25T07:27:00.012-04:00

This weekend I joined with about 25 other women (some managed to escape the group photo) to celebrate our 20th year College Reunion. (And many other women celebrating their 5th, 10th, 15th and so on.)

Twenty-four years ago, from California to Alabama to Massachusetts all of us were preparing to begin our college years at a very remote all women's school for the liberal arts nestled in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. All of us followed different paths to get there. Some out of tradition, some for a quiet personal alternative to the large university (with less than 1000 students total), some for scholarships and grants, some for a safe place to grow and excel, some for it's commitment to empowering women, but certainly everyone appreciated Sweet Briar's beauty. It is a gorgeous place to behold. And this weekend, we took it all in, again.

A view of Sweet Briar from Daisy's grave in whose memory the College was created.

There are 3250 acres of land at Sweet Briar.

Sweet Briar has an impressive equestrian program, so the resulting horses put out to pasture for those of us who ride, but don't ride is a welcome massage to the eye if nothing else.

Need I say more? It is truly lovely.

The boathouse at one of the two lakes on campus.

Until recently, there was a working dairy at Sweet Briar. As we went on long walks around 'the dairy route' which is a 2.5 mile trial that appropriately passed by the Sweet Briar Dairy we would see charming Holstein cows grazing on the rolling hills. At the dining hall we would enjoy our own milk and yogurt (whole, thank you very much). It was sad to see it go. Many of the buildings have been revamped and refitted to house the Fine Arts (of which I was a major) including drawing, painting, printmaking, photography, ceramics and graphic arts. It is a first rate facility - wow!

The new Fine Art buildings (in dark red)

Peony garden at the President's House

I believe someone thought this was a indigenous magnolia tree -- it was stunning.

L-R: Brooke, Latane, Susan

L-R: Michelle, Monica, Brooke, Kathy, Margaret, Latane, Laura

Laura and Latane walkin' the dairy route

More eating

Chatting, Chatting and more Chatting

More Walking L-R: Monica, Sandy, Susan, Laura, Brooke

We all wondered before going how it would be between us all 20 years later, and what we found were the strong roots of friendship, love and admiration that have withstood the test of time.

All of us are glad we choose to go and made an effort to get there, though time and finances were sometimes pulling us back towards home and the present.

We have a renewed appreciation and love for one another and the experience we shared at Sweet Briar.

Hola! Hola! Hola!

Name Suggestions for our Hens

2009-05-21T07:24:00.003-04:00

Constance

Maisy

Beatrice

Prudence

Bitsy

Leisel

Fiona

Victoria

Elizabeth

Hazel

Harriet

Katherine

Sarah

Many thanks to Tanya (my SIL) for the inspiration of old fashioned names. I think they are fabulous. Now of course my boys want 'in' on the name game, but their suggestions are names from friends at school. But, they are still cute. I do get final approval.

Awwwwwwwww . . .

2009-05-19T06:00:00.005-04:00

Yesterday I started plugging away at my list of to do's. I decided I'd start with cleaning the house because it was cold and drizzling outside, and inside I have brought 'my house is a mess' to a whole new level. It had to be done.

I started frantically with the downstairs, first cleaning the kitchen, putting in a load of wash, stripping the beds, folding some laundry, vacuuming the rugs then the floors . . . then I got the call. The "Your chicks are here and ready to be picked up" call. "Oh" I said, "a day early." Good grief, I'm thinking to myself, I haven't even gotten to setting up their little brood box (although I'd purchased everything I needed). That was tonight's project! "Alright then, I guess I'd better swing by and pick them up!"

I immediately dropped the vacuum where it was (it's still in the hall) and raced around setting up their new home in our basement by the window. Mayhem. I needed to pick up Ripley from preschool later that afternoon (Monday is his long day at school) so I had to finish setting up, race over to Agway, pick up the chicks, bring them home and get them settled before taking off to preschool. Needless to say, the house is not clean yet, but I've made some progress.

Afraid to make a complete spectacle of myself I left my fancy camera at home (Oh boy, look at the silly novice Betty, bringin' the camera) and shot this picture with my cell phone. Here is a good portion of the chicks ordered by area folks who want to keep their own hens. These are all supposed to be hens.

Words can't describe how adorable they are, peeping away, stumbling over everything. These are 'day old' chicks. Chicks can survive without food or water for 48 hours after breaking out of their egg. This is when they were popped in the mail, yes, the mail and sent to our Agway. Everyone gives the Postal Service a bad rap, but did you know that they will deliver day old chicks and packages of bees? Not bad.

There were still two large boxes that they hadn't 'unpacked' yet.

These girls had literally just been picked up from the post office.

Here is the little box containing my 8 little chicks.

And here they are. Awwwwwww.

L-R: New Hampshire Red, Rhode Island Red, Barred Rock (or Plymouth Rock)

After their journey, they were a little pooped out.

A lot of books say to dip the beaks of the chicks in the water to show them where and what it is, then do the same for the food. After a few minutes of getting 'situated' they got busy exploring and went right to eating and drinking. No problem.

I've seen a lot of people use paper plates just to get them started, but they immediately started standing in it, then in short order -- pooing in it. So, the plate had to go. After they figured out the plate, I put the chick feeder right next to it and they got the hang of it right away. So, off with the plate.

They were sorry to see it go though, because they sure had fun scratching and pecking in it. I think I will get a little sand for them to sprinkle on top of their litter and maybe their food. All of the books talk about giving your chicks / chickens grit, particularly if you are supplementing their diet with scraps, veggies and fruits, because chickens don't have teeth so they need little pebble-like things to crunch their food up. Plus, it seems to me, they just like pecking and scratching at it. But, my Agway doesn't carry it. I guess most people just use sand? If your birds are outside scavenging around, they find their own 'grit' laying around. But, it's still good to give them a supply, to be sure.

Dangling over their brood box is a heat lamp. Baby chicks need to be warm. In their box they need a range of temperatures from 73-95 degrees (this is why you see the thermometer in the box). You adjust the temperature by raising or lowering the heat lamp. If they all scatter to the outside edges of the box, they are too hot. If they are all huddled in the center under the lamp, they are too cold. If they are meandering all around in different places, eating and drinking . . . they are just right. This has been a bit stressful for me. I can't tell you how many times I've raised and lowered that silly lamp. I'm realizing that I am a worry wart of a mother. Now I understand my Grandmom (Mom's side) better. It comes from loving 'too much' and wanting to do a good job. I worry that when I go downstairs in the morning my chicks will be laying on their sides with rigamortis because I had the heat lamp too low, or too high! I worry that my bees will swarm because of lack of attention on my part. I worry that my children will fall on their heads from the swing set and break their necks. I know, I know, Matthew 6: 25-34!

When I was watching them yesterday it really seemed to me that they needed a gerbil wheel or something. They need some toys. They seemed a bit bored with what I had to offer them. I was dying to put a couple rips of lettuce in there, but I read online that they aren't ready for such things. Too bad. I think they would have had a lot of fun pecking at it.

Names you ask? My boys have never been big on names. They come up with names such as this: For a penguin: Pengy. For a dog: Doggy. Last night when Victor came home he volunteered Tom, Dick and Harry. In unison we all said "They are giiiiiiiiiiiirllllllllssssssss". "Okay, Henrietta then" Victor corrected. Good grief. I can see I'm going to have help with some suggestions.

Friends and Family

2009-05-18T06:23:00.006-04:00

This week is going to be a busy one. On Friday morning I'm leaving for my -- make note -- 20th year college reunion. Yes, indeed. I went to an all women's college (why, I have no idea) so no one brings their spouses. It's kind of sad really, because I'd love to have Victor meet my college friends all of whom live a long distance away, but instead it will be like a big 'ole girls night out -- which will be fun too!

So, not only do I have to pack and skidaddle out of town early Friday morning, but I also have to:

Prep the second half of my garden for planting.
Make dinner for a friend in need.
Celebrate Benjamin's 10th Birthday on Tuesday!
Plant seedlings (after the expected frost tonight) tomorrow.
Prep our little home for the baby chicks downstairs in the basement.
Get day old chicks on Tuesday!
Give Victor a crash course on how to raise baby chicks so they survive my weekend away.
Install new wax foundation in 16 frames for my hives. (A lot of work BTW)
Do a hive check on Thursday and install the second brood chamber with the newly prepared frames.

In spite of my looming to do's we had a nice time over the weekend with friends and family. On Saturday Night we enjoyed some potluck grub with friends . . .

L-R: Dave, Carl, Matt, Victor, Ron, Cheryl, Jon, Ann, Kara, Michelle, Kathy

On Sunday after church, we were treated to an early dinner at Victor's parent's Portuguese Club. It was fabulous. It had closed down for awhile, but now a new couple is managing it. A small team of people cook a fabulous meal for about 60 people every Sunday.

L-R: Braulio, Aldina, Dulce, Michelle, Sandy, Ripley

Ahh, this time we got my father-in-law Mario in.

Really, it's about getting together with friends, with whom you have a lot in common, over dinner and a glass of wine, and celebrating your culture.

Victor and Michelle are on the right, getting coffee.

On this particular Sunday they had music and dancing also -- all Portuguese dancing, of course. It's not like Portuguese Folk Dancing with the costumes and the whole bit, it's a collection of miscellaneous dances most of which accompany music with an accordion. The subtle difference between each of the dances elude me, but my mother-in-law tried to teach me a few.

They had a raffle which everyone jumps to participate in, as a fund raiser. They were raffling off a bottle of pineapple rum. As my sister-in-law Michelle said "yeah, no one wants that." It's all about keeping the club going, certainly not about the random thing they decide to raffle off that day. Ripley, being a young honest boy, was chosen to pick the winning raffle ticket. Being rather reserved, I was surprised that we was willing to go up and draw. But he did. And his "Avo" loved every minute of it!

My Weekly Hive Check

2009-05-16T06:17:00.002-04:00

Victor is in love with my bees. It's not why you might think. In his own quiet way Victor is a free spirit. He doesn't buy into doing things a 'certain way' because 'it's the way it's always been done'. He appreciates people who are living 'outside the box' and doesn't want to be put in one himself. This is where we get to the bee part . . . my bees continue to build comb in ways they are not supposed to, and Victor thinks it's wonderful!

When Victor and I were married on the beach in Florida we wrote our own vows. There is a line in what I wrote that reads: "Victor, I am not a neat house keeper, I am not organized, and I can be a little feisty. But I can promise you this: I promise you my faithfulness. I promise to love, honor, respect and cherish you . . . " Maybe the bees just knew. (Let's just hope they don't adopt my feistiness!) Maybe they've flown by and seen the inside of my house and have adapted the same philosophy: There are way too many things to do in the beautiful outdoors right now to worry too much about how tidy the inside of the house looks.

When I went into the hives, both hives have multiple frames with odd looking burr comb that is actually attached to the foundation towards the top. It's a royal mess. I was able to pull the frames out, and they certainly seemed happy enough, so . . . I left it there.

The good news is, my bees seem to be loving and caring for their young in spite of it all (just like me)! They had capped brood, larvae and freshly laid eggs. They are working on both sides of four frames, so next week I will be putting on the next brood chamber, as I have eight frame hives rather than the standard ten frames.

The tricky part is determining when to put on your next brood chamber. Generally the queen lays in the bottom two large boxes of a bee hive. When your bees have drawn out comb (this is for empty foundation) on 6 of the 8 frames (in my case) or 8 of 10 frames for those who have a traditional 10 frame box, it's time to add on another brood chamber. My bees (now working on four frames) have been working on about 2 frames a week, so by my next hive check I should be ready to put on the next chamber.

The interesting thing that I learned is that on the one hand, the bees may not build out frames 1 & 8 (sometimes bees aren't fond of building out the outside edge frames) it is important if you are putting empty foundation in the next brood chamber, for the bees to start working on building out comb up there. Because if they run out of foundation and the queen has no place to lay eggs (because the bees haven't had time to build out comb on the new foundation in the upper box) the bees will swarm. Not what you want if you want honey, and I do! And who wants a swarm? Not me.

A word of thanks to my friend and fellow bee keeper Diane. I'd called her about an hour before going into my hives in a panic because my bees in the right hive were going bonkers. A large quantity of them were 'flying in place' right in front of their hive and making a loud buzzing noise. I had read that this might be an 'orientation flight' where bees that are 'graduating' to forager take orientation flights to get the hang of things before they are released on their own. But of course I was worried and called Diane. As usual, she set my mind at ease. "Do you need me?" she asked. No I was fine, I said.

As I was starting my smoker, fully clad in my bee suit, who pulls into my driveway? Diane. Dear sweet thing, she was driving by there area on her way home and just thought she should check on me. I loved it. Because I was about to go in the hives she threw on Victor's veil and Benjamin's gloves and observed. It was wonderful to have her there to encourage me and confirm that I should just leave that crazy burr comb in the frames. Thank you Diane!

A Bee Visit

2009-05-14T05:57:00.005-04:00

It's almost like a 'play date', except our bees can't play because they are committed to staying put in their own hives at our two houses. But their bee keepers did, sort-of. When our schedules align, my bee friend Sarah and I have been trying to go over to one another's house when it's time to 'work the bees'. Our theory is that the more we are exposed to it, the more we will learn and the more comfortable we will be. So, in between gardening tasks, after picking up Ripley from preschool, we went over to Sarah's house for her weekly inspection.

I was a bit envious because Sarah is so chilled out and relaxed about going into her hive. I still have butterflies in my stomach, like I'm going to the prom. Excited, but nervous. Sarah didn't even smoke her burr comb, she just scraped it off with the bees right on it. The poor girls just kept about their work as it was being disassembled.

I love these pictures of Sarah working her bees in front of her yellow shed.

(This would be an example of why people say bee keeping can be back breaking work.)

Here is her queen, still dressed in "green".

Sarah had several frames of 'capped brood' which is a baby bee brewing. At some point after the egg has turned into larvae, the bees 'cap' the cell where the baby can continue to develop into a full grown baby bee. See the little larvae in the cells?

Here is a lot of capped brood. Soon, she will have baby bees!

It takes 21 days for a worker bee to fully develop, 24 days for a drone, 16 days for a queen.

While we worked her bees, Ripley happily ate his lunch in the 'fort' of the swing set. Watching his mom and her friend 'work the bees'. Life is good.

You can read about Sarah's bees on her blog: www.bluidshay.blogspot.com

Life's rhythms

2009-05-13T06:11:00.007-04:00

Here in New England, where we have such well defined seasons, life has a certain rhythm to it.

In the wintertime you are hard pressed to see any of your neighbors. Everyone is hunkered down inside of their warm (relatively speaking) houses around the fire. Everything is slow. You would think this quiet time would be a good time for socializing, but really it's not what happens. People keep to themselves. If you want to be social, you've got to make it happen. For the most part, as a society everyone is tucked inside reading, watching t.v., playing video games, playing board games, and perhaps escaping to go out to dinner in between snow, sleet and slush.

When the weather breaks, just like honey bees breaking their 'cluster' to see if it's warm enough to venture outside, you start to see your neighbors. When springtime comes people start going on walks. Suddenly, everyone is working on their yard and the children are outside playing on their driveways. I always forget how busy spring is. As a gardener, as soon as the weather is warm enough I am outside non-stop, unless it's raining. I find myself 'going out into the real world' decked out in my messy gardening clothes, because what's the point of taking them off for 10 minutes just to go and pick up Ripley at preschool? To look at me, people must be worried that I'm losing my faculties, to go out looking so . . . grungy. In the wintertime I would be starved for companionship, for daytime conversation with adults. But in the spring, I am content to be by myself working in my garden all day long. It's wonderful. There is a hope in the air.

In the summertime, it is a social frenzy. New Englanders (I won't speak for the rest of the world) race around to do all that we had hoped and dreamed to do during those long winter months before it starts snowing again! We zip to the beach. We zip to go camping. We race from Bar-B-Q to Bar-B-Q horrified that soon we will be back to cooking and eating indoors. We go out to eat and sit outside and soak in the warm sun. It's a very strange phenomenon. It's almost comical. Trying to schedule time with your friends during the summer months is like trying to get a place on the dance card of the most beautiful girl in the room.

Invariably, as the weather starts to turn again, we try to pack any remaining activities into the warm days that come our way. Autumn is beautiful in New England, but it's a little bit like an old fashioned New Orleans funeral. The music is rich and vibrant, but there is a sadness in the air. A mourning. A quietness that begins to envelop us.

So for now, I will embrace the hope of things to come, of seeds planted, of trees cared for, of plans to be made, of bees to be born and chicks to be raised. If you're wondering where I am, or where I've been, check my garden. You'll find me there digging in the dirt with JOY, and dreaming of the summer fun to come . . .