Trash
The animal pen on the right (orange netting), which is full of tiny roosters, was made almost entirely out of trash. I only bought the screws to put it together. (I apologize for the poor angle. It's impossible to take a decent picture of it.)
37 1/2
pints of honey! And we have our kitchen back. Mostly. I'm still working on cleaning the wax- thus the big pot on the stove.
This is our kitchen. I just want to put in a pitch here for not remodeling your kitchen. This kitchen is still good, still pleasant, still functional, and what's more, the cabinets match the honey! Yes, it has wallpaper. It has cheap countertops. It has dark wood cupboards. And it's really cool, actually. At least, I think so. This house was featured in a 1970's issue of Wisconsin Trails- or so I hear. I've never tracked down the issue.
This is our kitchen. I just want to put in a pitch here for not remodeling your kitchen. This kitchen is still good, still pleasant, still functional, and what's more, the cabinets match the honey! Yes, it has wallpaper. It has cheap countertops. It has dark wood cupboards. And it's really cool, actually. At least, I think so. This house was featured in a 1970's issue of Wisconsin Trails- or so I hear. I've never tracked down the issue.
Macro
Yesterday, we harvested honey.
How to harvest honey:
1. Place a bee trap between the boxes you want to take and the boxes you want to leave, so that the bees are trapped in the bottom boxes, and you can steal the top boxes later in the day.
2. Make sure that, when you are placing the bee boxes, you don't wear very good gloves, and you take too long with whatever you are messing with, and then make the bees very angry to the point that they sting you in the hands, and your husband starts screaming, "RUN! RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!" This way, your six year old daughter who is watching from the truck (with the windows rolled up) will have a good story to tell, later.
3. Several hours later, go back and steal the boxes full of honey. Make sure and take several hundred bees with them. This will make things more interesting, back at the house, later.
4. Carefully cut the honeycomb out of the frame and place into a clean container. Make sure that you don't actually have enough containers, because again, this will make it more interesting. Run in and out of the house a few times to fetch things. Completely saturate doorknobs with honey. Honey makes doorknobs work better.
5. Strain the honey out of the honeycomb by cutting the tops off of the sealed honeycomb and set it over cheese cloth. Under the cheese cloth, place a colender, and under the colender, place a bowl to catch the honey. Put it all in the oven with the light on over an hour or two.
6. Pour honey into jars. This can be done poorly by a small child who is covered in honey.
7. Put lids on the jars.
8. Boil the jars for half an hour, to pasteurize. (Like when you make jam. Or don't make jam. I imagine you probably don't make jam.)
9. Go around the house and catch all of the bees with a butterfly net. Release them.
10. Repeat until you are out of honeycomb.
Note: As of right now, we have 20+ pints of honey, and we are definitely not out of honeycomb. Also, as of now, I am sticky. And sweet.
BAH went to work today so he could get some rest, he said.
How to harvest honey:
1. Place a bee trap between the boxes you want to take and the boxes you want to leave, so that the bees are trapped in the bottom boxes, and you can steal the top boxes later in the day.
2. Make sure that, when you are placing the bee boxes, you don't wear very good gloves, and you take too long with whatever you are messing with, and then make the bees very angry to the point that they sting you in the hands, and your husband starts screaming, "RUN! RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!" This way, your six year old daughter who is watching from the truck (with the windows rolled up) will have a good story to tell, later.
3. Several hours later, go back and steal the boxes full of honey. Make sure and take several hundred bees with them. This will make things more interesting, back at the house, later.
4. Carefully cut the honeycomb out of the frame and place into a clean container. Make sure that you don't actually have enough containers, because again, this will make it more interesting. Run in and out of the house a few times to fetch things. Completely saturate doorknobs with honey. Honey makes doorknobs work better.
5. Strain the honey out of the honeycomb by cutting the tops off of the sealed honeycomb and set it over cheese cloth. Under the cheese cloth, place a colender, and under the colender, place a bowl to catch the honey. Put it all in the oven with the light on over an hour or two.
6. Pour honey into jars. This can be done poorly by a small child who is covered in honey.
7. Put lids on the jars.
8. Boil the jars for half an hour, to pasteurize. (Like when you make jam. Or don't make jam. I imagine you probably don't make jam.)
9. Go around the house and catch all of the bees with a butterfly net. Release them.
10. Repeat until you are out of honeycomb.
Note: As of right now, we have 20+ pints of honey, and we are definitely not out of honeycomb. Also, as of now, I am sticky. And sweet.
BAH went to work today so he could get some rest, he said.
List
1. Wonder Niece left us a beautiful letter about all of the things she learned in her stay with us. One of the things she learned was, "less is more". This puzzles me and BAH both. I thought our lifestyle to be fairly lavish while she was visiting. I wonder if it's just about food? I encouraged her to order less at restaurants. That was just because it's so expensive.
2. Magical Mother-in-Law is coming! Magical Mother-in-Law is coming! Magical Mother-in-Law is coming for an extended stay!
3. I lost the onions. This is something I had never considered possible. The onions were ripening, so I weeded and mulched around them. Onions, I discovered, lose their stems when they are ripe. Then the chickens walked around and kicked the mulch all over them. Then someone in our farm co-op ordered onions, and it took me twenty minutes with a pitch fork to find them- sort of. I only found a pound. I don't know where the rest went.
4. Little Z cried terribly today because a chicken ate the only tomato on her tomato plants.
5. Kids. I mean, give me a break! It's a TOMATO! She said, "It isn't just a tomato!" and I said, "Yes, it is! It's just a tomato!" and that shockingly did not make her feel better.
6. I took Wonder Niece and Little Z to the top of the Sears Tower on Monday and I got really freaked out. My brain kept telling me terrible things about being responsible for these two kids of varying ages at the top of the world. Mostly, though, I think the height was getting to me. I was also worried we were never going to get the trampoline, because it was Little Z's birthday, and we were supposed to go to Illinois to get her a trampoline. I called BAH from the top and I couldn't hear what he was saying. I'm really glad I couldn't, because I asked him after we got home (10 PM) and he said, "I asked you if you got the trampoline!" which of course we hadn't yet, and the people weren't answering their phone in spite of multiple calls. But we got the trampoline, finally, at 8 PM. Little Z had wanted one for a couple of years. She used to call it a "bounce-a-leen". We've been bouncing.
It all worked out. It always does.
I was so freaked out at the top of that tower.
They made us even watch a movie about how great it was, and about how some British shmucks rented out all the floors and renamed it "Willis Tower". I mean, really.
7. I used to work for Sears.
8. The new sheep fence is STILL NOT DONE!
9. Little Z learned how to swim this week. It was like, last week, she couldn't swim, and this week, she could. Except that the way she swims is terrifying. She swims under water for a long time, and then, when she can't hold her breath any longer, she comes up for air and looks for all the world like she's drowning, and then down she goes again to swim under water. So now she just jumps into the deep end without a care in the world. I was so freaked out at that swimming pool.
.jpg)
Little Z says, "I can understand how you would be scared, but I'm not ascared [sic], because I already did it once."
The picture shows her swimming with a responsible adult, but later on she only had me.
10. For the Rule of Threes, I should really think of something else that freaked me out this week, but I can't think of anything.
2. Magical Mother-in-Law is coming! Magical Mother-in-Law is coming! Magical Mother-in-Law is coming for an extended stay!
3. I lost the onions. This is something I had never considered possible. The onions were ripening, so I weeded and mulched around them. Onions, I discovered, lose their stems when they are ripe. Then the chickens walked around and kicked the mulch all over them. Then someone in our farm co-op ordered onions, and it took me twenty minutes with a pitch fork to find them- sort of. I only found a pound. I don't know where the rest went.
4. Little Z cried terribly today because a chicken ate the only tomato on her tomato plants.
5. Kids. I mean, give me a break! It's a TOMATO! She said, "It isn't just a tomato!" and I said, "Yes, it is! It's just a tomato!" and that shockingly did not make her feel better.
6. I took Wonder Niece and Little Z to the top of the Sears Tower on Monday and I got really freaked out. My brain kept telling me terrible things about being responsible for these two kids of varying ages at the top of the world. Mostly, though, I think the height was getting to me. I was also worried we were never going to get the trampoline, because it was Little Z's birthday, and we were supposed to go to Illinois to get her a trampoline. I called BAH from the top and I couldn't hear what he was saying. I'm really glad I couldn't, because I asked him after we got home (10 PM) and he said, "I asked you if you got the trampoline!" which of course we hadn't yet, and the people weren't answering their phone in spite of multiple calls. But we got the trampoline, finally, at 8 PM. Little Z had wanted one for a couple of years. She used to call it a "bounce-a-leen". We've been bouncing.
It all worked out. It always does.
I was so freaked out at the top of that tower.
They made us even watch a movie about how great it was, and about how some British shmucks rented out all the floors and renamed it "Willis Tower". I mean, really.
7. I used to work for Sears.
8. The new sheep fence is STILL NOT DONE!
9. Little Z learned how to swim this week. It was like, last week, she couldn't swim, and this week, she could. Except that the way she swims is terrifying. She swims under water for a long time, and then, when she can't hold her breath any longer, she comes up for air and looks for all the world like she's drowning, and then down she goes again to swim under water. So now she just jumps into the deep end without a care in the world. I was so freaked out at that swimming pool.
.jpg)
Little Z says, "I can understand how you would be scared, but I'm not ascared [sic], because I already did it once."
The picture shows her swimming with a responsible adult, but later on she only had me.
10. For the Rule of Threes, I should really think of something else that freaked me out this week, but I can't think of anything.
2 O'Clock
At two o'clock, I was here:
A little while before that, I stopped the car because four dinosaurs (cranes? egrets?) walked in front of my car, and then wandered into a nearby office park:
A little while before that, I stopped the car because four dinosaurs (cranes? egrets?) walked in front of my car, and then wandered into a nearby office park:
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