Homestead Pantry

This morning was sort of productive, we had another big pot of milk to make into cheese or yogurt, so I started 5 gallons of yogurt, and a two gallon pot of apple mint to make into apple mint jelly.  This was supposed to be Laundry Day Monday but I had a bee run call and turned everything off to head out to identify a feral bee problem.  From the homeowners' fearful description it really did sound like honeybees.  When I got there, it only took me a couple of seconds to identify them as yellow jackets!  What a waste.  I'm really going to have to ask for a small fee to cover my gas to do these runs.  Our two college kids need some text books, so I can't afford to spend anymore gas money on free services.  Yes, my friend, Marianne, I really am going to start charging for the services provided!

 We went to the orchard to work (feral hive remove #2)for them on our way home.  These gals were kidnapped off the front of a house where the homeowner's daughter is admittedly paranoid of bees.  She had not known they were there till we arrived to assess the situation.  Oops!  We moved two hives off that house so far.  This house is closer but we will have to start charging for this service for any location farther than 2 miles off our regular errand routes.   Anyway, they now have another feeder to help them get their act together really fast, and in case they find the pasture a bit thin yet.  They have a deep and a medium, they also have a small softball-sized brood nest on a frame.  I snagged that from another hive, and I hope they will raise a queen or two with that brood.  I will try to save several queens to put with other new hives as I continue to pull excess bees from that old house. At the orchard there was a hummingbird humming around in the rafters of the ceiling of the fruit stand shed.  We couldn't get it to leave, despite a lot of attempts at herding it out with a wide broom.  Finally they decided to just let it hum around and hope it found it's way out eventually.  We went back down to the hive and got busy.  Just as I picked up my box of frames, zipped into my bee jacket, and turned to head for the hive with them, a group of women and a little tot ambled by.  I asked them if they were going to be coming out soon, as I expected things to get really exciting shortly.  We decided they might be able to walk around the other side of the barn there, but it looked a little rough.  Just as I picked up my last toys...er I mean tools,...here they came again.  I had just given the hive gals another spray of sugar water to help them calm down when the group was back again.  They were able to walk by without incident.  I was very proud of the beehavior of our new gals.

 The K-22 rangers are doing well.  They are helping me clean up the tomato garden, by eating all the waste tomatoes the other hens and ducks managed to mess up, or totally destroy.  I picked up all the waste and tossed it to them, and they get all the scraps when I make sauce or a sandwich.  I had a sketchy lunch trying to make sure I didn't forget anything I might need for that bee run, as it seemed like I would be able to get the queen and set a hive there for the whole field worker force to come home to, then return after dark, close up the hive and move it to a new location.  Almost any location other than in someone's wall. I really hope to fit in some preserving activities tomorrow.

The Two Tot/Teens managed to find time to do their milking and other homestead chores, as well as collect some more jam and jelly materials.  Then while they milked again we dashed off to check another feral trap-out hive, pickup the two College Kids from the school, take one to get her tennis racket for her PE class, and <gulp!> fill that 34 gallon gas tank on my bee wrangling truck!  I'm going to have to have it painted with honeybees all over it, I think.  In all our busyness we forgot to make supper so it was a $2 meal deal special for our light supper snack tonight. To finish up I am processing pics tonight,...er ...I see that time has swept away my night and it is already 'tomorrow'!  Until next time,...bee well!

What a day!  I snagged my glasses leash on something, which broke it, but with all I had to do today I didn't want to take time to hunt a replacement loop and then restring all those silver and turquoise beads.  I hadn't lost anything  except the loop, so there was no big rush.  What a mistake!  I kept dropping and losing my glasses.  In the garden bent over double, trying to find a foothold amongst the three foot tall tomatoes and cayennes at least that tall, unbeknownst to me I dropped them again!  That really upset me when I realized what I'd done, since I had lost another perfectly good pair in the other garden three years ago.  I still have not found them even though I knew about where I had to have been when they were lost.  

 I had been out in the garden picking lemon boy tomatoes, both good and hen pecked ones, sorting the hen pecked ones into a bucket which I later tipped over the stockade to those good hens and the Rangers in there, which lever get out and peck my tomatoes!  I just hope it doesn't give them all ideas.  I also picked a cart of cayenne peppers and put them in the dehydrator to dry for making cayenne pepper seasoning, and for using to make tobasco sauce.  The College Boy found four cantaloupes loose from their vines, and I'm planning some chicken noodle soup for the guilty parties.  

I sent the kids back to the garden to hunt them for me, and finally the younger boy came back with them.  I hugged and kissed him good and he didn't even mind! So he saved my day, but I was still grouchy about having lost them.  Not a good frame of mind in which to go work with feral honey bees.

Between those grumpy girls and this grumpy girl we managed to get me stung at least three times tonight.  However, it was worth it, as we snagged a nice full hive full of workers out of that feral hive, and we closed down the openings to a more manageable size.  Tomorrow we're going to hunt down a queen, cage her with a candy plug to eat her way out of, (plain white for her, but something tells me that *this queenbee* sitting here typing this is going to be eating her way through some fudge!), and a super with some drawn out brood comb to provide them all a job so they will stay in the hive.  We took the hive and set it up over in an apple orchard about 8.5 miles away from their former feral colony in the porch roof of an older brick home in McKnightstown. 

It was after 11:00 pm when we arrived home, and we still hadn't had supper.I was happy to see that the "Two Tots" had done the milking, strained, and put away the milk.  I really need to come up with a new nickname for those two.  I guess as of next month when there will be yet another birthday here on the Homestead, I will be able to call them the "Two Terrific Teens"...or if they are in trouble that day I suppose I could call them the "Two Terrible Teens".

Slicing into one of those little cantaloupes, about the size of a softball, the juices ran golden yellow all over everywhere.  Sweet, oh so sweet and delicious, we both have sticky hands and chins.  (Mine is swollen, it seems some little bee noticed my bee bonnet had slid back, pulling the face screen against my chin.  I figure I'll look a little like a close relative of Jay Leno for a few days!) We only planted a few of these, and we're very sorry we didn't go overboard and plant a whole bunch!  I'm worrying now that I won't be able to bring myself to make my Patchwork Relish, which was why I had planted them.  It's too late to make another planting, I'm afraid.  Ok, next year I promise myself I will plant a very large patch of these delectable treats! 

 With the cooler temperatures at night comes a reminder of all those spring fleeces yet to be processed, and the wool comforter that needs washing and drying while we have the sunny weather to dry it right.  So I washed it in the washer, and we set up the wash tubs and began washing and soaking the lanolin rich Icelandic fleeces from the past spring.  Several waters later, we decided it needed to soak overnight!

Back into the kitchen I went, and the College Boy helped me with my big 5 gallon pot of yogurt, lifting it out of it's hot water bath and carrying it over to the island to pour it into it's straining cloth, and hang it from the hooks set up for that purpose.  In the morning we will pack the yogurt in quart sized freezer bags for tiding us over through a two month winter layoff we expect to be giving the milk goats.  Everyone loves yogurt, but the College Boy eats more of it than the rest of us put together, so it's good that he helped hang it!

Well, folks, I'm up too late again, which is way too usual this summer.  I really need to work on tightening up my evening routines.  As soon as I get those four feral honey bee colonies a little more 'domesticated' I guess I will be able to manage.  Tonight while trying to finish things up I had this idea to give every full share subscription during 2010 a copy of the recipe book "From the Heart", so I wanted to come in here and write it down so I don't forget it like so  many other great ideas I have, then forget, because it was so late at night and I didn't write the down.  So, off I go, not early to bed tonight, as I will have to shower all these grumpy honey bee sting pheromes off me before I will be able to put compresses on them, and then get some sleep.  Even with the late hour, I still need to be early to rise to feed our Ranger Chickens a good breakfast before we start our day!

So until next time,...