It was a pretty long weekend. Friday was Wonder Woman night. Posted on that before. Saturday we went to the Haukafell Ostara Blot. We don't get to see The Musons or the Radcliffs as often as we'd like. The kids were adorable. I always, ALWAYS get a kick out of the rabbit sacrifice. The discussion was great. We tended to get side tracked pretty often but it was a great discussion. I learned a lot about some of the food the came after the lean times and we did a bit of comparative studies. Fantastic.

Today the ladies and gents went up to the bee yard to clean and rebuild. fuzzy1313, eretik, mannie711, flying_draugr2, evlilvxn, and chainsaw_larry were all here bright eyed and busy tailed. Mads and I hung out here while they were working and then met them for lunch afterward. For those not on Greg's LJ, one of the colonies is hanging on. Greg found brood and larvae. Cross your fingers. They cleared enough area for about 30 hives if Greg goes that far (which he eventually will). He'll also have a good area to set up the electrical fence.

While they were gone I raked up the leaves and started to clean the garden bed. We're extending it in both directions so as soon as I can we'll start marking the grass to til. We're thinking about renting a tiller instead of hand digging. I like this idea. I've also decided to put a permanent altar to Aristeaus in my garden. Some of my plants and vegetables are pollinated by honey and bumblebees. Sees like an appropriate place. I was thinking about putting small amounts of honey in an offering pot every few weeks for the bees and other insects. Not sure yet. I'll at the very least libate some honey and mead.

I am very tired. The garage door people are coming to install it tomorrow. They'll be here anywhere between 8AM and noon. ::sigh:: I'll be sitting here for X amount of hours waiting.

Eyelids drooping. Going to bed.

Someone went into Greg's apiary and kicked down all of Greg's hive. There were footprints in the snow to the hives. All the bees are dead. The mice got into the comb and chewed it all up. He might be able to save one colony.

It's a total loss.

I am just in tears right now. He's devastated. I'm sure he'll post sometime later.

Jill, Tim, Greg and I went to the Allentown Fair on Saturday afternoon. We always enjoy it. We took a walk through the animal paddocks (pigs smell real bad) and enjoyed being licked by cows. We know that fuzzy1313's moos are quite spoiled, but these are local farmers who are not part of the commercial beef/milk industry. It really takes you to another time seeing those blue ribbons attached to the stalls. It's all "Little House on the Prairie." hehe

Later we went into Ag Hall and saw all the produce and such that were judged. Greg saw the mead entries. They were all cloudy. He's entering next year. He'll win easily. There were categories for everything and I'm going to enter some of my dresses and blankets next year. If I get a good crop of cukes I might enter those. They judge scrapbook pages, antique finds, cakes, table settings, beeswax and honey...just about anything you can think. Greg ordered the book with categories and judging criteria for next year.

How cool would that be? To be able to say "My _______ won first place at the country fair."

Greg was able to make another 110 pound honey harvest two days ago. I'm sure he'll blog about it. It was rather unusual because all those uncapped frames were really alright to harvest. After the nectar stops flowing the bees stop making wax. They just leave the cells uncapped. Thankfully now he has tons and tons of honey for winter brewing. squee

I made a pretty big final harvest a few days ago as well. I'm going to blanch, peel and freeze the tomatoes so we can make home made spagetti sauce. Mmmmm.

( A picture of a portion of my harvest )

Oh yeah, and September 1st marks the beginning of autumn in my house. All the crappy summer decor comes down. I'm madly unpacking all the autumn stuff. YAY! Halloween waits until the third week of September.

Is it really only about eight days until ECT?

Seriously...EIGHT?

Damn. I better get to work. I kind of dropped the ball on this one.

Hi Ho, Hi Ho...and all that jazz.

So I've finally gotten the hang of making votive and small "jelly jar" beeswax candles. It's not as messy as I thought it would be and I'm learning the tips and tricks to reduce wax shrinkage.

My house smells soooooooooo good. We're going to have a very nice supply of beeswax candles for sale. Greg has a little more honey to bottle and hopefully we'll have another harvest before ECT. If not we'll probably have a harvest before the Fall Frolic.

In gardening news I have tons of tomatoes waiting to ripen, I've got three good sized cukes, I harvested a few string beans and the corn has sprouted that hair crap from the top.


Nothing else spectacular going on.

Today was a goodish day. We pulled one single raspberry off our bush. We didn't expect any actually, because this is the first year it's had a solid growth. It was only sticks last year. That raspberry (which tasted damned good) was the first piece of food we've ever grown on our own. My garden is doing well. I have some snowpea pods growing. There are officially tomatoes growing (they are still small and green). The greenbean plants have exploded and the cukes have begun to vine and are simply insane. I've counted about 7 flowers so we'll get at least 7 cukes. The corn is a riot. It's growing but all different sizes. Yesterday I turned in a great deal of rabbit poop. The neighbor gave us, pardon the pun, a shitload of it. The other neighbor told me to push unlit matches down near the roots of my bell pepper plant. He said the sulpher is great for it. ::shrugs:: I'll try it. He has crazy amounts of peppers every year.

Greg spent the last few hours bottling his honey. He also baked a loaf of honey wheat bread with his own honey. It was delicious. Our neighbor Julie came over and offered us a bowl of her first raspberry harvest (hers are older bushes). Greg gave her a small bottle of honey in return. That felt really good. Exchanging gifts of the land. We'll use some of her raspberries in some sort of dish for the blot on Saturday. Greg will bake a fresh loaf Saturday morning.

Friday Greg and Tim are going up to the hive to take off several more boxes of honey. Greg, Tim, Jill and I will harvest. We'll probably make a day of it. I wanted to go to the Farmer's Market Friday after the harvest but they're closed for the 4th of July. I'll have to go Saturday morning. Maddie has an adorable pink hand basket that she takes with us when we shop at the corner market. (We buy a homemade pickle every Friday) She loves the Farmer's Market. Her pre-school goes there for walks every Friday morning.

You know, I feel really content right now. ::knocks on wood::

Viral tonsilitus sucks.

140+ pounds of light golden wildflower honey does NOT suck.

Boo viruses.

Yay bees!

Husband will have full bee update with pictures.



Yes, as a matter of fact I AM still writing my paper.