It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas

Today was the first morning that I woke up and didn't have to get ready for work or take the kids to school. It was bliss. I opened my eyes and immediately felt jazzed about the day, and the next ten to come. No work, no school. I guess one of the truest perks of working (beyond income) is that it really makes you appreciate spending time with family.

The morning started with cookies being made, honey labelled with ribbons for gifts,and last minute wrappings of some felted ornaments that we have been making in the afternoons and evenings.

We met with friends for lunch at their home, and enjoyed spending time and exchanging gifts. This was one of the handmade gifts from my friend (above.) Isn't she so talented?! It is one of the most beautiful ornaments I have ever received. Today we took pictures of our children in front of the tree for their ninth year together. We have done this every year since they were born, and it is something that is a hallmark of Christmas for me now.

Every year, I remember the years before when they were all so much smaller, when somebody fell apart, when the picture was less than perfect, and we shook our heads and took the picture anyway. It is such a lovely way to capture each year as it passes in a tradition of being together and being who we are.

Presents aren't under the tree in our home yet, but there have been many closed doors in the house though out the past couple of weeks, with whispering and planning. Tomorrow is the day. Things will be wrapped and placed. There will be inspections by the 5 and 8 year old. What has their name on it and does it rattle when shaken?

A gift for our solstice this year from my parents. It is an heirloom that will be cherished. We grew up with one of these on our table every winter, and the candles were always lit for Christmas dinner. I was so touched, and we have lit it each night since the solstice. It has been an unspoken dream of mine to have one for our family, and now we do.

So.... I'd like to wish you all Happy Holidays. It's my hope that they are filled with peace, joy, and love where ever you are in this world. Many blessings.

Honey and bees

Oh... they keep us busy (the bees, I mean.) I've lost track of the number of swarms since this spring. I've also lost track of the number of gallons of honey we've harvested... 30, maybe? (Note that 4 year old ever so gently running his finger down the swarm of bees. Being raised with honey bees = complete comfort with them.)

It's just the busy time of year around here. Maybe it always is. Hmmm. Maybe that's not changing any day soon. Still, I love it.

All I need now is their infinite energy.

Elderberry and Honey

Elderberry syrup is something I meant to rave on and on about last year in this blog space. My friends have all heard an earful about it. We are an elderberry consuming family when cold and flu season comes around. The problem is that I was purchasing each bottle and it was running us broke.

The merits of elderberry and honey can be looked up all over the Internet now. I have no regrets about our consumption, even with the expense of purchased syrup. We are an inordinately healthy family and that is priceless. I'm secretly convinced it's because of a daily consumption of our own honey. Toss in the elderberry syrup during the dreaded cold and flu season, and we've avoided much of what we've been exposed to in the last couple of years.


What finally prompted me to make my own was when I felt the budget was too tight to splurge on the store bought syrup. (The bottle pictured above is what I would recommend if you're not going to make your own.) We quickly succumbed to whatever virus was making its germy way into our household. That's it. Elderberry and honey may not be the answer, but it seems to be a magic wand of sorts. I purchased dried elderberry and here's the recipe we used:

1/2 cup dried elderberries

3 cups water

1 cup honey

I boiled the water and elderberries and then turned down the heat to a simmer for an hour or so. I pureed with my trusty handheld Cuisinart. (I'm in love with this little gem and you can see it in the background of the above pic.) Some may chose to strain seeds with cheesecloth after this, but we skipped it. They are about like raspberry seeds, and pleasantly crunchy. Then we added our honey, using the Cuisinart to stir well. Let it cool and put in a lidded mason jar in the fridge. It will keep for months, but must be refrigerated. (I'm not a health professional, but the doses we use are 1 tsp for our 4 yr old, 2 tsp for 7 yr old, and 4 tsp for adults.)

This is the label for our honey, created by our talented graphic designer friend. It's for sale at tail gate markets around town or you can contact me. What do you think of that design? I gave her the name and she came up with it because she knows us well.

So... after not too much effort and $4.75 worth of berries, we had a huge batch. Easy peasy. I wish I had made my own about a year ago, but such is life. I'm always reminding myself that it's hard to do it all.

Honey, indeed!

Guess what?! We harvested our first round of honey for 2010. It is liquid gold; we finished off the first pint in a day. I suspect that each of us kept sneaking a spoonful here and there. No matter, there's plenty. It's just an extraordinary thing to put honey in your mouth knowing it's from the bees you've been watching. We spun the frames ourselves this time and got about 9 gallons. Can you believe it? The next harvest should be in another 3 or 4 weeks. If you're local and you want some, let me know 'cause we're selling this year baby!

Giving up the goods

Alrighty, then. It's time to share some of what we created before the holidays, now that it's no longer "top secret." There really were some good reasons for why I was so tired the other day. Even though I did simplify, there were still gifts I wanted to make, and I'm glad I did. It is gratifying for me to give handmade. The excitement of making something for someone is what jazzes me up. I love to make things and give them to people, but find I have less and less time for it.

I needle felted an entire flock of birds, but neglected to take pictures of most of them before I gave them away. There was a cardinal, a gold finch, a chickadee, this blue bird, and a brown robin (of course.) Then I got busy on a honey bee for my husband, and this sweet little cat for my sister. Needle felting can be a wee bit obsessive, but I love sitting quietly and being toasty warm when I work. My sewing "porch" is drafty and I would much rather be curled up on the couch or my bed this time of year. Really, these ornaments were my selfish pursuit of evening meditation.

My daughter, who has gotten really good at felting cookie cutter ornaments wanted to make her own three dimensional animal. I explained some of the concepts to her, and she barely paused. She's six and half years old and felted this bunny, almost entirely by herself! Then she needed some food for the bunny...

The month of December is really not complete until my husband and I make beeswax candles. Making candles was one of the nice parts of the snow storm. Between the two of us, we melted and poured almost six pounds of bees wax. That's a lot of candles!

This was my first time to purchase sheets of beeswax for rolled candles from Brushy Mountain Bee Farms. We buy all of our beekeeping supplies and beeswax from them; they are a wonderful North Carolina small business. Then I found some polymer clay "cookie" cutters. We stamped these shapes and my daughter rolled the candles and put different shapes on simply by applying pressure (sometimes with the warmth of a hair dryer to help in melt in a little.) This activity was a little frustrating for my outgoing three year old, but a thrill for my six year old.

During nap time one afternoon, I made peppermint bees wax lip balm. This is something I've wanted to try for a long time. I bought a $20 kit from Brushy Mtn. It was easy peasy and so much fun! Now I want to experiment more with other recipes and try some body balms as well. I was simply amazed at how well the lip balm turned out, and between beeswax candles and beeswax lip balm, I had plenty of teacher and friend gifts. (Just so you know, all the ingredients and the containers, plus the recipe came in the kit.)



For teachers, I made each a little quilted zip pouch with a container of lip balm tucked in side, along with another treat or two.

I had big plans of making more for my friends and sisters, but that was one of the things that got nixed in the interest of simplifying.

Now, if you haven't had enough yet, come back tomorrow and I'll share just a little more.

What our honey bees are lovin'

It is amazing how quickly we have adapted to having thousands of bees in our garden. We all watch out for them as we are working and playing. No one wants to accidentally harm a bee. They are a part of our family, and we can't imagine a time when it wasn't that way.


These volunteer sunflowers were such a lovely gift. They seeded themselves all in a neat row and stand about 8 feet tall, beckoning to us when you look out our bedroom window. I will be so sad when they fade.

Goat's beard, a native plant to this area, turns out to be a favorite of the bees.

Red bee balm is a flurry of activity for the bees and for our increasing population of humming birds.

Our honey is ready to harvest when we get around to it. The poplar flow is over and the sourwood has begun. I grinned with pride the other day when my six year old declared that "My Big Backyard" magazine got it wrong because they identified a honey bee in a picture and called it a "he." Indignantly, she exclaimed, "that bee's a 'she'!" I looked more closely and she was absolutely right. The picture was of a female worker bee, not a male drone. She wants to write them an email... that should be interesting.

Busy little bees

Remember when I told you that we had two hives? Well, now we have eight! It seems that our sweet honey bees have been busy.

I swear... for the past two weeks every time I look up there's another swarm. We've become so hyper vigilant about watching for swarms that my six year old discovered the last one. We've got cricks in our necks from walking around looking up.

This is not the best picture of a swarm ever, but it gives you a pretty good feel. We're pretty sure that all of our swarms have come from "the cabin hive." When you look inside that hive, you can see the queen cells (the new queens that they've been raising.) Some of the swarms have been 75 feet high in trees, others have been lower in dogwood limbs. Good thing my husband is a climber. I've helped with trapping each swarm, and it's pretty intense at times, but I've never gotten stung. In fact, I got stung for the first time the other day when a bee went up my skirt in the garden and got stuck between the fabric.

Our kids are really comfortable around the bees now. They know the differences between the male (drones) and female (workers). They know that males can't sting, and the women can if they're bothered. My daughter will pick up all the bees, female and male. She's got a really gentle touch, and hasn't been stung yet. My little guy has been stung twice, the first time was for trying to squeeze a bee. Ah... lessons. We do have a prescribed epi pen... if you're wondering. It appears there's no allergies around here though.


So... it looks like we'll be able to rob some honey pretty soon. Our sweet girls have been working hard and several supers are full. Somehow we've gone from backyard beekeeping to a small production. It will be interesting to see what the next leg of the adventure holds. This weekend we will be cutting out the bee tree and introducing those bees to a box. Stay tuned.

Change is here

Our spinach is popping up, along with arugula. We're still anxiously watching for our carrots and beets. It's such a great game to play with the kids. "I spy with my little eye..."

These are our "walking onions." Their stalks bend over and root into new plants from the tip.... funny, huh? A dear friend gave these to me years ago (before we had kids.) They just keep reproducing... the onions, I mean.

I was recently alerted to this article; I started jumping up and down when I read it. The presidential family will eat from their own organic garden AND they will have 2 bee hives! How amazing is that?! So many times, I feel on the fringes which is fine. But just once in a while, a girl wants to feel a sense of belonging. Come on, we all do! We learned about it in beginning psych class. So now, my daughter is going to be able to go to school and point out that a segment of her lifestyle is being mirrored by the philosophy and efforts of the presidential family. Finally. Now I just need a chef, a gardener, and a laundry fairy wouldn't hurt either. (You know... to support me in my efforts.)

secret life of bees

I have to tell you that I never envisioned us becoming the caretakers of honey bees. I was initially enthralled when my husband had the opportunity to save the above "bee tree" from being destroyed. Bee trees that are transferred to organized hives are a fairly uncommon event. He came home one evening and asked me how I felt about having a bee hive in the yard. I said "sounds interesting," and our adventure began. That was toward the end of 2008.

A week ago, my husband was told about an old cabin that is to be destroyed for developers. The caretaker of the property told him their were honey bees in the wall. He went to check it out, and sure enough there was a huge hive. Since this cabin will soon be gone, he made plans to move the hive to frames and a box. The following pictures give you an idea of the fascinating process. I wanted to detail some of it, for eager young learners...

First, they smoked their entry hole from the outside. This calms the bees. Then, they went in and had to saw open the wall. Before that, they could see nothing of the hive, only the blank stare of sheet rock. They were pleasantly surprised. Look at the beautiful hive! (It's a little smokey in the picture below.)

Next came the tedious process of moving intact comb from the wall into frames. He said it was really difficult not to injure a bee here and there. There were thousands. He had to use a fish fillet knife to carefully saw the comb from the wall.

The hive was rich with honey. It has a slight bit of orange or citrus taste to me. Most of it will be kept with the bees for them to feed on; we won't harvest it for human consumption yet. We were actually shocked that no bear had broken in and helped himself. The cabin has been abandoned for the last few years. The last person to live there said the bees were in the wall then.

The comb was carefully put in the frames and then in the box. You can see in the picture above how some of the cells are capped with wax, holding in the honey. This is the wax that we use for candles and body products. They let the box sit in the cabin for another day so that the bees could settle and reorganize. In a sense, they were setting up their new home. Yesterday, my husband saw the queen in the box so he knew the hive was ready to move. Last night, after dark, when the bees were all "asleep" in their new home, he brought the box home. Now we're the proud new caretakers of 2 hives that would have been destroyed. So far, it has been a very exciting year.

I said that I was initially enthralled, but now I am enchanted. Yesterday, I got to go in that old cabin. Late day sun was streaming in the windows, and thousands of bees filled the air. There was silence except for the droning of bees. It was magic. The first time I went in the cabin, I had no suit on. Some landed on me or bumped into me, but not a one was bothered by me. I calmed my breath, and after a few minutes it felt like a sort of meditation. It was unbelievably peaceful in that room, removed from all the worries of the world, and surrounded by productivity. Later I went back in with a suit, and got closer to the hive. It was just phenomenal to watch them work. There is a symmetry to their world that fills me with peace. So many times in our thirteen years together, my husband and I have stumbled onto new paths in our lives. This is one of those times when the opportunity has just appeared, and it feels so right.