I know...it's been so long!



Funneling the peach-habanero jam into 1/2 pints!


 I know, I know...it's been so long since I've posted (sorry for the long lag in news, Bob! And thank you for the gobs receipes you sent! I'll make them very soon and send some in with Michael for sharing purposes).

We've been travelin', which I'll get into on Friday (with photographic illustrations, no less). But even before our trip, we got unusually busy. Wanna read the whole tale? You can read of our new car adventures and my week of insanity here by clicking on the hyperlinked text.

Tonight, though, we're back in the swing of things...making this hot business called peach-habanero jam, using pepers we ourselves grew and peaches we picked up at McDannell's Fruit Farm on the way back home.

In the canner for a 10-minute bath.



Bun wipes the rims, so the lid truly seals.

  We followed this receipe for the jam, and it is every bit as hot as it sounds. And we added neither extra pith nor seeds. 

Keep on scrolling for a rainbow. No, seriously. There's a rainbow below...


Amazing. We saw a double rainbow on our way back to PA from Mount Vernon!
We just got back from Williamsburg, VA on Monday.
I promise to post trip pictures on Friday. Promise.



This week with the Guzes



Cobbler from some super ripe and fantastic little peaches.



The heat has been vicious here, so we've been performing a lot of indoor activies....first cooking and then preserving; after that, a few garden images....

Banana chocolate chip bread, packaged for Michael's lunch.

Green beans with onions, white sauce, and curry powder

Although we canned one batch of beans, we're
using the Food Saver Mom and Dad got us for
Christmas for this batch.

Michael rocks the Foodsaver

This cute birdhouse was made by an elderly man who
sells them at the Harmony Christmas Market. If we look
a little closer, you'll see it's occupied....

...avian triplets. Michael got this one. They were
camera-shy and hid their heads every time I came close with
the camera.



Lovely lemon-yellow sunflowers, near the top bar.



The bee garden flowers along our back fence.

And a close-up of those pretties...

Another shot of the garden...all sorts of lovelies

Our butterfly bush came back. I was so worried when
its limbs took so long to green this spring.

 

Our stargazer lilies are in full bloom.

Black Raspberry Cobbler

It's raspberry season, kids. Mmmm....black raspberry cobbler.
Check out the receipe for it here.

Goings on over the past few days...

Michael removing the top bar's canvas cover.
Here, he's planning to stretch out the bars by
inserting uncombed bars between the combed ones.



Our lovely yellow api-chicas are pulling down the sugar syrup pretty heartily right now. Personally, I imagine them flying around with syrup beards and rambunctious demeanors, like toddlers plied with Milky Way bars and  Pepsi. Perhaps it's a feeding frenzy before we take the syrup jars off in July. In the top bar alone, they are going through a quart in less than 24 hours.

Last night, Michael and I got out the huge, stainless steel pot we use when we make cheese. And around 7:30, we made what felt like several hundred gallons of syrup. We even used a whole ten-pound bag of sugar (although, to my arms, it felt lighter than 10 pounds...Walmart, are you light-weighting us?). From all that, we got (gasp!) only 2 and a half gallons. I had such high hopes that we'd fill at least four plastic jugs. But alas, no.

Below are some pictures of how things are progressing, along with some other things of interest.....






Some observation seats near the top bar. Yes,
we're right in that flight path, aren't we? I've
learned to duck.




Michael found, when he pulled apart the combs, that
the bees have created a honey font. Unlike
the comb sculptures we remove in the traditional hives
on Bee Hill, we left this one alone, so the ladies can use
their resources as they need to.



One of the top bar combs.



And more comb sculpture.





The ladies almost have all the bars in the window filled with
comb.

 

Here, Michael is on Bee Hill inserting pollen
patty on the frames of our recently
replaced colony. They are doing extremely well, and
are just a week behind the strong colony to its right.

Traffic jam before the tunnels.

It's almost raspberry time here, and a cousin of Michael's
takes his bucket out in the evenings and picks what
is now ripe.

Near Bee Hill, one of our girls peruses the thistle offerings
along the field Glenn recently cut.

Michael harvested a fanny-load of radishes
and that means radish salad, which what
I'm making here: white vinegar, brown sugar
and white and red radishes.



Sometimes, you have to use up things from the
freezer. I had this yummy yellow frosting
taking up space, so I made a chocolate wacky cake.
Fast and easy! With Fourth of July sprinkles.



And, I made strawberry rhubard crisp for breakfast.
Don't let the oatmeal fool you. It was really good.

Bee Stings and Strawberry Harvests

Strawberries and brown sugar in fresh
squeezed orange juice.

Last night, I was able to harvest just enough strawberries to make what my Grandma used to call a 'pudding cake'. Of course, Grandma used canned cherries--the kind in heavy syrup (not the tangy, jelly-like pie filling, which, in my humble opinion, should only be used for mountain pies made over an open fire). No, the kind Grandma used were sweet, dark cherries floating in liquid the color of garnets.

Her pudding cake was one of my favorite meals. Of course, to a kid, it seemed more like having dessert for dinner, which was almost like I getting away with something bad (especially since Mum would regularly explain to me all the complex nutritional reasons why I should be eating my vegetables). I have to admit that, even to an adult, having pudding cake still seems like dessert for dinner. Yet, in our case, it was dessert for breakfast.


So, um, what's the receipe, you ask? Well, I only remember Grandma's cake, its soft and slightly gooey consistency, its sweetness. However, I can't replicate it on my own, and I never really had a receipe for it. But, because of the wonders of the web (and the awesomeness of wireless in our house--a novelty I still can't get over) I take my laptop into the kitchen and find amazing things online. For example, check out The Pioneer Woman's receipe. Of course, I made a few substitutions.



Brown sugar, Smart Balance,
and an egg.

Instead of white sugar, Granola-girl here (um, that's me) has to use brown sugar. In this case, I can't use honey because it upsets the receipe's balance of fluid, and believe me, I have royally screwed up cakes by monkeying with the ingredients, like swapping Canola oil for butter. Girl, you cannot do stuff like that and expect it to bake. *clicking tongue and shaking head*

One improvement I have made is that instead of white flour, I use a mixture of unbleached and whole wheat, so there's at least some complex carbs in the mix. I've found if I use all unbleached white flour, I'm hungry within an hour or so of eating. The whole wheat makes it stay in the system a little longer.

 

The pudding cake in the oven.
It will be ready
for breakfast!


 So, there she is, baking away in the oven. I originally took pictures of the cake after it came out of the oven (with a slice cut out of it because, who can wait until morning to taste it? Heck, not me. And not Bun either.) Long story short, I had some technical difficulties with my phone email after I changed my yahoo password. And since I take pics with my phone and send them...well, you know. They never arrived at the appropriate destination.

So, I mentioned in my previous post that Michael was stung during the beekeeper-supported coup on Saturday (we replaced a weak colony with a strong nuc, evicting the old population from their hive). Through his sock, Michael believed he was stung twice. Later, he was stung in the head, when he had his veil off.


My Baby's bee stings. These actually look
somewhat better than they did the night before!



By the time we got down to the house, his eyelids had begun to swell, and the area beneath his nose started to turn an angry red-purple.  He took Benedryl, and we went inside to rest and see how he responded. We then realized the stinger was not yet out of his scalp, so we removed it. Eventually, the swelling around his eye and beneath his nose went down, to our relief. Still, his ankle became filled with fluid, although we didn't realize this until after he'd been on it several hours later (he'd been putting fence around the blackberries and blueberries and filling buckets for watering). We started applying ice packs to minimize the swelling and itching. He now believes he was very likely stung more than just twice on the ankle, although we're not sure how many times exactly.

The picture here was taken on Sunday night, about 36 hours after the stings. This is actually an improvement from what my poor Baby looked like on Saturday night, when his foot was swollen to an unnatural size. We read this is a normal localized response, but it's incredibly scary to see how the body deals with it. Regular doses of Benedryl seem to be working, thank goodness.  



Rainy in the Panhandle...what's a girl to do?

It's been raining here in the northern panhandle fairly regularly every afternoon. Right now, there's very little productive outdoor work possible. Here's what it looks like from my kitchen window....

Our garden, soggy from all the rain,
through the kitchen window.

What's a Farm Girl to Do on a rainy day? Well, cook of course! Thirty-minute meals? Bah. This will take you fifteen, tops.



Step 1: Put olive oil, washed button
mushrooms, salt, pepper, and a little
water in your skillet. Put a lid on it.

Step 2: To the cooked down mushrooms
and remaining water, I added Hoisin sauce,
an Asian-style plum-based condiment.

Step 3: I added chicken that I'd cooked,
sliced, and froze.This speeds up the process
a bit. What's in the jar? Ginger root!
I grated some over the chicken and mushroom
to enhance the Asian flavor. The root itself
is in a cooking sherry to preserve it. 



The finished product, with a side salad!
Mmmm...blue cheese dressing.