| Deborah's Doings - Proverbs 31-13 | ||||||
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Wednesday, May 14, 2008 ( 12:46 PM ) Deborah We got our first honey crop! Kurt extracted honey from 6 frames yesterday.  We've never used the extractor before and we thought it would be a simple process. It took much longer than we expected.  Darlene, a friend of ours, sold 2 bottles of our honey before we even had it out of the comb. Finally, this morning I bottled 3 bottles of honey for Darlene to pick up today.  I can't believe how exciting it is to see honey from our own bees jarred up and ready to eat! Here are the wax caps.  They are still draining. Once they are drained, I would like to save the wax to make balms or something. I'll need to find directions on how to render the wax and how to preserve it. I know I need to melt it in a double boiler. I guess I'd better get a double boiler. Mother's Day ended up being a great deal of fun. Kurt fixed the swimming pool.  The old liner was shot and needed to be replaced. Fortunately for us, the prior owners of our home purchased a replacement liner they never installed. It proved to be in good shape, which was a huge blessing. Kurt pulled the pool apart and spent Mother's day trying to put it back together again.  While I knit for the first time in months.  Well, I sort of knit. I added three rows to my socks, figured out I did the first row wrong and then carefully tinked it all out again. The tiny cables were a pain. I eventually added one good row back and ended up with a net gain of one row. At one row per couple of months, the recipient of these socks may be dead by the time they are finished. I need to figure out a way to squeeze knitting back into my schedule. (We are in the end of the year homeschooling crunch for which I have already extended the school year into July and gardening requires a great deal of time too.) I figured out I could just get the stereo speaker out the door.  It was fun to sit out by the pool with praise music blaring, watching my husband doing useful things while I knit. It just doesn't get any better. Or maybe it does. We also grilled grass fed steaks from Wellness Meats. My sister sent these earlier in the year.  We supplemented the meal with baked potatoes and veggies from last year's garden. The kids have been wanting to use the pool for quite some time. So when the clean water started to flow into it, even before Kurt had completely installed the liner, they jumped in.  Of course the water level was just right for Michael.  He loves the water.  Even with a chill in the air, Michael loved splashing and playing.  I wonder how he will do with the pool full now?  Of course Gregory and Gabrielle had as much fun playing as Michael.  They love swimming and plan to spend most of the summer in the pool if possible.  My kids are fish.  Unfortunately, the bees have started using the pool as a water source. So the last time we were at our property in Gulf Breeze, I had Kurt and our friend Mark get the top of the fountain from our property. This had been in my flower garden before the hurricane. I don't know what happened to the base, but the Lord provides. We found a new base at our current house. Gregory and I set up the fountain for the bees.  I filled it with water and floated corks I've been collecting for some time now in it. The bees are ignoring it as a water source, but will probably become more interested when the water gets yucky. Bees like their water fully "fermented." Go figure. It is nice to have a little bit of Gulf Breeze outside. My garden is starting to grow up.  I'm grateful all things considering. We got our soil tested this year. The soil is pretty poor. The lab guy sort of suggested we'd be better off plowing under the garden and fixing the soil before trying to grow any food. But I just have too much work invested in it already to give up.  So I'm going to use some foliar sprays on the leaves of the plants to provide extra nourishment. We actually got some decent vegetables out of the garden last year so I know it won't be a total loss. Comments Sunday, May 11, 2008 ( 10:47 AM ) Deborah Normally, gift buying holidays for the adults in our family get bypassed with nary a thought. We decided long ago, well about the time the price of gas crept past the $2.00 per gallon mark, that we just couldn't justify frivolous expenditures. (Kurt commutes to a different state than the one in which we live for work - a hangover from our hurricane survival days.) But this Mother's Day is different. I actually asked for a very specific gift.  It is a Ruger 10/22. Look at the pretty wood and stainless steel.  Lest you wonder about the location of the pod that houses the real me, let me explain. For the last 2 years, our beautiful flock of layer chickens has freely roamed our property feasting on bugs and green, growing things. However, a couple of weeks ago a family of foxes moved into the portion of the woods next to our property thinking we were offering them an "all you can eat buffet." We've already lost about 5 chickens. One evening, I spotted a coyote stalking my flock. I ran at him screaming, which scared him away from the chickens and off the property. I have not seen him again. The foxes have been more persistent however. After researching the hunting habits of foxes, we've started keeping our chickens in the coop until later in the morning. We've been staying outside in the evenings until the chickens have returned to their coop and have been secured inside. The hen coop is secure with lots of wire. Under the dirt floor, Kurt buried hardware cloth so predators could not dig their way inside. However, our second coop, the one that will house turkeys in 2 weeks, is not so secure. The foxes are going to have to go. The kids and I have been clearing the property line of overgrowth on our side. The old fence is in disrepair. We eventually hope to replace the fence. In the meantime, we are clearing out hiding places so the foxes will have to cross more open land to get to the chickens. And now I am armed. When I first got my gun, I practiced a bit with it so I could aim true. I had to figure out exactly how to line up the two thingies on the barrel. I told Kurt I didn't want a scope or anything high tech. I just wanted a basic 22. I figured out how to aim the gun. We found an egg on the porch laid by an errant chicken. Not knowing how old it might be, I decided to use it for target practice. I blew it away. I think Kurt is suffering from gun envy. Gregory told him my gun was semi-automatic. (Kurt's very nice deer rifle is not.) When we told Kurt I was able to explode an egg from across the yard, he positively started to obsess. Kurt wants to shoot an egg. He is so funny. I don't think he can stand not knowing if he can shoot as accurately as I did. And of course he wants to use my gun to do it. Meanwhile, back to my normal life, I received a most delightful box in the mail from Cary at Serenity Farms.  It is my very first lamb's fleece. I just love the dark, rich color and cannot wait to wash it and start spinning it. We are going to try to make due without air conditioning this summer in an effort to maintain a budget. I have vivid mental pictures of long, lazy days spinning and knitting on my front porch. Recently, most of my time has been put into gardening. We are trying to organically raise as much of our own food as possible for better health and to help with the family budget. After 2 years and now 3 of growing marginal fruits and vegetables on impoverished soil, I am trying to take it to the next level. I am learning about high Brix gardening. Kurt and I even sent off a soil sample so we could find out exactly what our soil needs to be healthy and then produce healthier food for our family. I cannot wait to see how this all turns out. Comments Wednesday, April 02, 2008 ( 4:02 PM ) Deborah I cannot believe it. I just cannot believe it. My family ate a snake.  Even my husband's friend Tim, who was over to help my husband start screening in the porch, had some.  I've always taught the kids not to kill anything they weren't going to eat. But I never intended that rule to apply to snakes. It is just unthinkable. Yesterday, Gabrielle brought the skinned and trimmed snake to the house. When I told her to "get that thing out of here" she told me it was not a thing, it was meat. It ended up soaking in a bowl of ice water on the counter while I prepared dinner, all the while pretending it wasn't there. Today, I was forced to help Gabrielle cut up the snake. (The bones hurt her fingers.) She breaded and fried some of it, some she coated with vinaigrette and some got spicy herbs and pineapple juice. All were cooked outside on a fire the kids built.  Throughout their snake feast, I hid in the house (except for taking the pictures for this post). I admit it. I am a wimp. I would not even try the snake. Not for anything. Comments |
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