Bees!!!!

Here we go again.  I told the story of the "Accidental Beekeepers"  in this post.  The feral hive that lived in our roof eaves for years was removed.  The beekeeper/contractor who we hired to cut them out, accidentally put the queen in the colony after he sprayed her with insecticide in the roof. He was trying to kill any bees he didn't remove so they didn't recolonize in the roof. OOPS.  Three days later, the whole colony died.  Then we bought a hive from a local IFA store  We later discovered that it hadn't really been taken care of very well when we got it; not very many bees. I don't think we fed it enough either and it absconded, which in beekeeper terms means the colony didn't like the accommodations we provided and moved on to greener pastures. This year, armed with more knowledge and hard won experience,  we are trying again; this time with two hives so we can compare the two.

The kitchen garden is providing some nice pollen and nectar right now.  The poppy pollen is bright orange.  It looks nice in the bee frames next to the bright yellow of the dandelion pollen.

One hive is stronger than the other but both are gaining in population and the queens are laying. We've had at least one hatch and this weekend I'll put a second brood box on each hive. The colony needs to more room to grow so the queen has comb to lay new eggs. The average life of a field bee (the foragers that collect nectar for honey) is about 3-4 weeks this time of year. They literally work themselves to death.  It takes 3 weeks for an egg become a bee so it's important the queen is laying well.

There is a great deal of pollen and nectar now and the hives are thriving so cross your fingers and hope we do better this time around.

This starling and his mate pulled out some mortar from the ice house eaves and they have a nest full of baby birds under the roofline.  The bird on the ridge was watching me pretty carefully with a worm in his beak.

And here's a photo of one the beekeepers.  Don't tell him I posted his photo though.  He's camera shy.
We both use a full bee suit when I open up the hive. B's allergic to bee stings and I just don't like getting them!  I could sit all day watching the hives and I don't use a suit for that.

This is the way to "mow" a lawn/pasture in my opinion.  Our neighbor, Peter, borrows his friend's sheep for the weekend. Love this breed and their black faces.
That's a pretty nice view from our back garden, don't you think?

Merry Christmas!

I have not blogged for a long while.
I have a good excuse.
I've been busy.

I can't post photos of it all, because I'd hate to give away all the Christmas surprises.

But my fingers have been flying; I have callouses to prove it.

Here are a few of the things I've been doing:

 Bleaching "once green" bottle brush trees.

 Nougat or Big Hunk...

Sadly, our last remaining large maple on our parkway had to be cut down.  The trees on our street date back to the 1930's and they are just dying.  You may remember a few years ago when a tree on our parking strip broke off at the trunk in a windstorm and buried two of our girls' cars that were parked under it.
The remaining tree had to go.  It was a sad day for us.

Next spring, we'll be planting new ones.
Can you believe it was the middle of December in this photo, taken last week from the front door?  The temperature hit the high 60's.
Where is our snow?????

Fun in the Sun....

I've not been here at the blog for a while.  We've been busy.

 

There's been beekeeping, berry picking (and eating of course), jamming, some really good summertime menus, a bit of vacationing which included yarn and knitting of course,  there was some reading on the veranda.

It was hard to concentrate on anything but the Pacific view, but we managed to tough it out and sit on the veranda quite a bit, morning, evening, and through one slightly foggy afternoon.

There was some wallpaper stripping going on (and a lot more of it that has to happen, unfortunately).

There was even a summer birthday, which is new for our family.  It's fun to add son-in-laws and some new summertime celebrations.
I hope your summer is going as well as ours.  I'll be back.  I'm off for a bit again.

Beekeepers....

For a week or so.

I didn't mean to be gone so long but things have been happening around here.  Not really bad things....well if you don't count someone in the family losing their electronic car key, then borrowing someone else's and losing that one too before getting the first one replaced.  Let's just say a wrecker had to be called to tow the car to the dealer.

And then there were the bees.
We've had bees in our roof/wall at the homestead for a few years.  Lots of beekeepers wanted them but no one could get them out.  Until we found Al.  Al is a beekeeper/contractor who came to take the bees out of the house and put them in a hive.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.  

We waited until the middle of April due to weather and blossoms opening.

Here's Al removing the shingles.  I'm glad I wasn't up on that roof.  It was high.  The stone house has old fashioned high ceilings and Al is up higher than you might think.

After he opened the roof, he found that the bees actually were in the rubble stone wall of the house.

He removed the comb first.

The dark comb is brood and pollen deposits for food around the edges.  The pollen is the yellow pockets toward the bottom.  Al had us taste it and it was sweet.  The whole family was up on the copper part of the roof with Al.  He handed us the comb as he removed it and we put the honeycomb in new 5-gallon buckets.

The new comb is the white comb on the right that B is holding.  The colony was fascinating.

Al vacuumed the bees using a vacuum with a filter and then he dumped the bees into a small hive.  He rated the colony medium sized but most of the bees were out foraging.  Al never put on a suit or gloves.  The bees were docile.

Here they are in the small hive at the back of the property.

Al removed the bees and sprayed the hive to keep any new colonies from setting up a home there until we could get the holes in the mortar sealed up.

As Al was getting ready to put the roof back together, he noticed the queen outside the hive on our roof.  He was excited and so were we.  He scooped her up in his hand and climbed down the ladder and deposited her in the hive.

A week later we opened the hive to check the feeder and the bees and we realized that the queen had probably been sprayed and had crawled out of the hole in the roof while we were relocating the hive.  By putting her back in with the colony, she killed the rest of the colony off.  It was kind of sad.

It's too late to order bees for this season but we're prepared for next year.  The bees were fascinating and we're excited to try again. 

At least they are out of our roof and I do have some comb to harvest honey from.

Eggs.....

My friend Pat keeps chickens and she kindly sold me some eggs this week.  Isn't the hot pink egg carton pretty?  Pat has a condo in Mexico and seems she brought the carton back from there.  I've never seen a colored egg carton in the US.  I'm going to have to give it back to her as I can't bear to put it in the recycle bin.  It deserves to be used again... for eggs.

 Last weekend was spent cleaning up a garden bed that I didn't get to before the snow fell at the Homestead.

It will sure be nice when the iris and other things in the bed flower.  It looks pretty bleak right now but the snow is gone and the sky is blue (the photo's not ehanced in any way) and I think it's beautiful outside even though the temperature is still COLD.

Pumpkin Time!

Nothing says FALL...

quite like pumpkins.

We were at Roger's Gardens in Corona del Mar, California and they had gorgeous pumpkin displays.  If you had to choose, which ones would you take home with you?  "It's a good thing we had a full car", is all I can say. Fall; time for pumpkins.  I love them in all their shapes, sizes and colors.  Rachel took the closeup of one pile that was particularly colorful.  If you had to choose, which ones would you buy?

I couldn't resist piling some gourds into one of my dough bowls at the Homestead.  They make me happy.

Fall is underway.

Saving September...Very Fresh Cream of Tomato Soup

One of my favorite soups is Cream of Tomato.   We grow plenty of tomatoes and soup is a great way to preserve them.

  Look at the beautiful stripes on the Great White Heirloom tomato variety after peeling.  The skin is actually a creamy white but I love the red strip under neath.

As you can see, I had quite a few different varieties of tomatoes on the counter to use up.  The little tomatoes are an heirloom variety called Georgia  Peach that we tried this year.  The funniest thing about them is their fuzzy skin...really it is fuzzy.  The peach tomatoes are quite tasty in spite of their strange skin and a bit off-putting if you are slicing them or eating them raw but soup was the perfect way to use them up.

Here's a real peach on the right of the Peach tomatoes.  You can see the Peach tomatoes are small.  

Cut an X in the blossom end of the tomatoes and put them in a pot of boiling water for 30 seconds.  Plunge them into ice water and the skin comes right off.

 I peeled these with my fingers.  Easy!

Even the peels are photogenic.

This is our favorite tomato soup.  I made two batches; one using just green tomatoes and one batch using the red tomatoes.  Both soups taste the same.  I swirled them together with a bit of Creme Fraiche.
The Creme Fraiche design reminds me of fall leaves just a bit.  That was a happy accident.

Update:  The green tomato soup is made with ripe green heirloom tomatoes, not unripened red ones.  I think I failed to make that clear.  

This soup is great without the swirls and different colors.  I usually just throw all colors of tomatoes in the pot and serve it with grilled cheese sandwiches.  I also often thin the soup with milk and leave out the egg.  The egg and cream add richness but the flavor of the tomatoes stands alone and the milk doesn't dilute the tomato flavor or add calories.
This soup freezes well; I add the milk (or egg if using) when I heat it up.  I have bags of it in the freezer for quick suppers.

Its a great way to Save September.

Very Fresh Cream of Tomato Soup

12 ripe tomatoes, peeled and cut up             

1 cup of chicken stock or water                            

1 cup of chopped celery                     

½ cup of onion, diced                       

¼ cup of minced fresh Italian parsley           

3 Tab. of cornstarch

3 Tab. of butter, melted

2 Tab. of brown sugar

2 tsp. of salt

2 cups of light cream

1 egg yolk, beaten

Freshly ground pepper to taste

Simmer tomatoes, water, celery, onion, and parsley for 30 minutes. Puree and strain.

Mix together butter and cornstarch.  Stir into soup and let simmer over medium heat until thickened slightly.

Add brown sugar, salt and pepper. (Freeze, if desired, at this point.) 

When you are ready to serve, stir the cream and egg into the hot soup and warm.

Makes about 2 quarts.