Colorful Garden, and a Hive Update

Tricolor pepper harvest

Fat buds and flowers on my two Sochi tea plants.

Mushrooms in my schroom bed, but are they the anticipated King Stropheria?

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I did a quick inspection of the hive today and found an amply supply of honey, nectar, and brood in all stages of development. There were lots of newly hatched worker bees – pale, small, their wings still stuck together. A couple of hours  later I witnessed a flurry of orientation flights in front of the hive.

My only concern is that the broodnest is divided between the two boxes. Over Winter, bees eat their way up, (preferably) starting out in the bottom box and ending, by early Spring, in the top one.  I asked for advise on the forum of my beekeeper’s club and will do some research. I think the bees (should) know what they’re doing, and am averse to interfering.

Today’s Kindling

While gathering kindling in the woods behind the house my mind turns to the future. There is enough wood that is down and dead to heat a household or two, perhaps, but not more. It could sustain many more households in kindling, but again we’re not talking of  the feudal forests that could trip up Hansel and Gretel, or the massive forests of a bygone America. This is a narrow woodlot – belonging to the State – in a suburb of Massachusetts.

Once in a while we meet neighbors jogging, or walking their dogs, and we make light of our “cargo”. They  move on – invariably they’re faster than we are – and I wonder if our exchange will stay as friendly, as lighthearted, as the times change. Will we encounter more people gathering “free” wood? Will there be axes? Or worse? Will we discuss our rights to gather? Or will we just take?

I want to gather kindling every day as the weather allows. It’s good physical exercise and it stimulates Amie’s imagination – not always verbalized for me to partake of. It kindles my thoughts as well, summoning a dark picture that is fuzzed, though, at the edges, by the knowledge of how easily these smooth, dead sticks will catch fire in our wood stove, come the cold days.

Fall Mite Count

Again I used the sticky board to count the mites in my hive. The last time I did this was in June, and back then, after the requisite 3 days of waiting I counted 30 mites.

This time I found 68. The threshold – the point at which you need to consider treatment – is a “mite fall” (the amount of mites that fall onto the sticky board as the bees grooms themselves) of 40-50 a day. So we’re still good. I don’t think I’ll do a treatment for varroa destructor. Their populations dwindle in the Fall and throughout Winter anyway. First of all, the queen stops laying eggs and that’s where the mites prefer to hang out, in the capped cells of brood where they can suck to their delight. Secondly, mites can’t stand the cold.

The brood population and the thermoregulation of the nest are related. The queen stops laying eggs in the Fall, and during the broodless period a colony will maintain a surface temperature of around 10 degrees C, just a few degrees above the honeybee’s chill-coma threshold, and 18 degrees C at the core. They only start warming up around the winter solstice, to around 34 C, when the queen starts laying eggs again. (*)

But then there’s the tracheal mite to consider. This sucker usually thrives throughout winter. I’ll have to do some research.

(*) I am reading Honeybee Ecology, by Thomas Seeley, a wonderful book that I most heartily recommend. It’s an academic (but) highly readable book. It’s not about practical beekeeping  but the information it provides makes the practice of beekeeping much more transparent.

Doll Making

Amie is getting very excited about entering Kindergarten – she has an orientation on the 7th and school starts (only!) on the 10th. But she is also getting a little apprehensive. She remembers how she was comforted by a little seal doll during her first days at her preschool, and requested a new doll that  is small enough to take to school in her gigantic backpack. Thhaam obliged.

Some conversation during the project.

A: What’s that?

T: The navel.

A: The nipple?

T: No, not nipple. Navel. Belly-button.

A: And what is this?

T: Those are the buttocks.

A (smiling crazily): Yuck! Buttocks!

Oops: the hair was put on backwards!

T: Thank goodness you have two grandmothers who like stitching.

A: Oma likes stitching too?

T: Yes, she’s very good at stitching.

A: So if you die, then I’ll still have Oma… But what if you die at the same time, what will I do then?

Me: By then you’ll be able to stitch it yourself – for lack of a better answer.

Amie’s model for the face

T: She has a bit of a bald spot. Is that okay?

A: Yes, that’s what makes her so beautiful!

Meet Anya, the school doll.

A: Thhaam, this is the most beautifullest doll ever made!

Riot for Austerity – Month 22

Riot for Austerity fist with Thermometer

This month our household was even more in flux than in July (see this entry for all the coming and goings). In August we averaged 6 people. Last year’s averages (calculated here) are mentioned as a baseline. I use this calculator. Don’t ask me how it works, all I know is it keeps me honest.

Gasoline. The biggest expenditure here is that we drove from Boston to Cape Cod with two  cars, packed to the brim with people and dogs.  DH had to drive into work because the shuttle doesn’t go in Summer. And with so many people around it was tough to consolidate drives, like I usually do, and our sundry crises also necessitated more driving than we usually do. So though I am dividing by 6, our mileage was still quite high.

12.625 gallons per person (pp) in 2 carsi

31 % of the US National Average

(Last year’s yearly average: 24.8%)

Electricity. Even though we had more people in the house, we used less electricity than last month (489 KWh).  The calculator reckons per household, not per person.

417 KWH (all wind).

12 % of the US National Average

(Last year’s early average: 18.2%)

Heating Oil and Warm Water. It’s just our warm water. As there were more of us – more showers – it is up a bit, because this is calculated for the entire household, not per person.

11.05 gallons of oil.

18 % of the US National Average

(Last year’s yearly average: 77%)

Trash. After recycling and composting this usually comes down to mainly food wrappers.We had a huge potluck but used compostable plates and bowls (let’s see if they really do decompose in my hot pile!).

10 lbs. per person

7% of the US National Average

(Last year’s yearly average: 7.3%)

Water. It was pretty dry all month and we had to resort to the tap for a couple of waterings.  At the end of the month we had four days of incessant rain, so the garden and barrels were topped off.

647 gallons of water pp.

22 % of the US National Average

(Last year’s yearly average: 16.5%)

Pain in Its Contexts

I am growing several sweet as well as hot peppers. One evening I witnessed my Bengali family try the Habanero. Now, these are people used to hot and spicy food. At first they claimed not to be impressed with the pepper, but by some fluke they must have tried a part of it that wasn’t very strong.

Soon the expression on their faces changed, to one of sheer pain. It was like they had an acute  and communal tooth ache. Yet their mouths were saying yum and they asked for more. The tiny pepper was cut up into tiny slivers, which were passed around like they were the host. “I am doling out pain,” said DH with a smile, and a tear in his eye. There was wincing and shouting, but it was not appropriate for me to sympathize. Instead I simply said, gratified: “I grew pain.”

Here is one of those Habaneros – still in its green stage (they’ll turn orange soon) – in its first context for tonight’s dinner, a bowl of daal (lentils):

It was kept whole or else the daal would have become inedible for myself. After it had steeped in the daal for a bit, it was transferred, whole again (thank goodness), to the aloo posto (fried potatoes with roasted poppy seeds):

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My dehydrator will be arriving soon – I was gifted an Excalibur for my birthday – and as soon as those peppers ripen, they’ll go in. Don’t worry, I will not have to remind myself to wash and wash and wash my hands after handling them.

Amie’s Summer: School Work, Art Work, Play

Amie is at the moment in her tent, erected with sofa cushions and a sheet in our living room a couple of days ago. With the aid of a flashlight she reading aloud from an Usborne Farmyard Tales book. She has made strides reading. If she keeps it up, she’ll read fluently from, say, Henry and Mudge, in a couple of months. She is also getting better at addition and subtraction, and is “getting” the rudiments of multiplication. One of her favorite sayings these days is “seven plus seven is fourteen. That’s two times seven, you know?” She says this almost once a day. The “you know?” and “right?” are added for  emphasis, or rather coercion. They mean “don’t you disagree with me now!”

I must admit that we haven’t kept up the “bridge schedule” we had planned: 3 pages of  math (we use the average exercise book) and 3 pages of reading/writing (Explode the Code) a day. Our family life  this summer has been in a mess (in a fun way, mostly), and we’ve not been disciplined enough. Especially her writing has suffered, but I’m happy enough with the reading. She is realizing that to be able to read a book yourself is a real treasure and privilege. Now comes our task of finding good books for her.

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There has, of course, also been lots of art making. When Amie’s Dada (paternal grandfather) suggested that she become a doctor – a real doctor, not a Permanent Head Damage kind of doctor like her Mama and Baba – she immediately and vehemently protested that she was going to be an artist.

There was drawing from nature. With Thaam, the few sunflowers I managed to grow despite the squirrels and chipmunks:

The resulting drawing:

The butterfly we caught:

And Thaam (paternal grandmother) watching the fishes (love those kissy mouths):

And lots of drawing from imagination:

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and my favorite:

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Under the influence of her grandmother she has learned all the songs from The Sound of Music. I’ll try to capture her singing “Do a Deer” sometime and post it. It’s very cute, but after the fiftieth time I have ask her to sings something else.

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Amie turned five this August – we both blew out the candles because she was, of course, born on my birthday (it’s all hers now). We had a mega party (potluck). Though she was on the verge of angry tears for a moment, when I told her I had asked people not to bring presents, she bravely listened to the reasons and then agreed. Some people broke the rule anyway (grrr!), so she did get some presents, including the pottery wheel in the picture. It needed some Mama magic to make it work.

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The most important event was that magical two-week play date with her friend from New York City. One week they played and swam in Cape Cod, the next week they spent playing here at home. E. is a year and a half older than Amie and they get along so well. E at 6 is a fluent and voracious reader and that was a great model for Amie. They played intensely and when it didn’t work so well anymore they had no problem separating and finding a spot to be by themselves a bit.

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When you ask her “What will happen in September?” she’ll respond: “Pottery class with Lisa!” I enrolled her in a hand-built clay creations class with my teacher, Lisa Dolliver. Let’s see how much she will insist on working on the wheel -  wheel throwing only starts at age 11. She’ll be getting a break as it is, because the clay creations class only starts at Grade 1… Oh, and then there is, of course, also Kindergarten.

HONEY!

When Tom (the hive inspector) pulled out one of the frames, he said it looked like perfectly good honey and I could  harvest it.There would be another flush of nectar at the end of summer, so whatever I took they would easily rebuild and refill.

So yesterday  I did just that.

The bees only got upset with me taking it when I started brushing off the 200 or so bees that were working on the frame. It was a quick job  and I walked away with a clear frame within minutes. The point, I’ve found, with beekeeping is to set your goal, to go in and act resolutely and confidently, and leave things in order.

One side was entirely capped, the other had about 1/10 of uncapped honey on it. I harvested only the complete side – never harvest uncapped honey because the bees haven’t evaporated it enough and it will ferment your entire batch.

First I sliced/sawed) off the wax caps with a bread knife warmed in a glass of hot water (a serrated knife would have been better, in hindsight). I didn’t want to ruin the comb, so at first I set the frame at and angle and let it drip, but it was soon clear that I’d have to wait days to get enough honey out that way. During that time, the honey would soak up humidity from the air, making it unsuitable.

Letting go of my hopes to keep the comb intact, I pressed the comb with the back of a spoon. The wax of the cells is so fragile , it gave away almost immediately. I squeezed the honey out with the spoon, trying to keep as much wax out as possible. I transferred this honey into a fine mesh colander and let it drip through into a stainless steel pot. Then I scraped off the wax comb – I thought it would take the bees less time to rebuild it from scratch than to clean that mess and rebuild it. This mess still had a lot of honey in it, so I set that to drip in a different colander, for more immediate use, since it took longer to drip out than the first batch.

Altogether we collected 2 lbs. 1 oz. of gold!

Then I returned the frame – the other side  completely untouched – to the hive. The bees weren’t happy but I came away with no injuries. My husband helped carry the tray with the frame. You have to be careful not to leave even one drop of honey on the outside of or anywhere near the hive, because this might attract other bees who will then rob the hive. This can seriously weaken even a strong colony. It’s a good thing I didn’t wait until today to return the frame because even after 4 hours the bees had already built a lot of bur comb and propolis into the gap.

It’s all for Amie – 1 teaspoon a day to combat her allergies – so I won’t be presenting friends and family with jars of liquid gold, yet. But, wow, 2 lbs off one side of a frame! A deep frame, to be sure, but still. When Tom said I could have 100 lbs next year, if all goes well, I was skeptical, but no longer.

How does it taste?

Mmmmm. Incomparable!

Homemade Quince Atchar (Chutney)

You may remember the quinces (2 lb. 4 oz.) I was given by my friend. My MIL tasted them and after her face stopped puckering she happily concluded that we could make an Indian atchar (a kind of chutney) out of them.

I cut and cored the small, hard and dry quinces – peeling them was fortunately not necessary for this recipe. I put them in a jar with a spoonful of salt (for taste) and a little bit of turmeric (anti-septic) (*) and shook them so every surface was coated.

Then we put them on a screen to dry in the sun (that’s the herb spiral behind it: it has grown up!).  The quinces should be dried through and through. This will help in the preservation of the atchar.

This is how they do it in India, and they actually make the entire preparation in the sun. Over here, however, it finally decided to rain, so we had to continue in the kitchen, on the stove.

Mix the dried quince with melted “jaggery” (“gur”) (*), which is raw crystallized cane sugar.  This is stirred on very low heat until big bubbles appear and the contents of the pan no longer stick to the sides of the pan. Then allow it cool. When cool, mix it with 1 teaspoon (or to taste) roasted and then ground “panch  phoron” (*), literally “5 spices,” which are fennel seeds, fenugreek seeds, onion seeds (kala jheera), mustard seeds and celery seeds. Let it set, store.

If possible t, take it through these two stages in full sun in a wooden bowl, until it is a sticky mass. This will take up to five to six days of full sun. Scrape and store in jars.

This yielded 1 pints: one 1/2 pint jar for us and one for my friend.

(*) for sale at the average Indian grocery store. For the jaggeri you can substitute crystallized maple sugar, or raw brown sugar.

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I’ve also made and canned 19 pints of blueberry jam and 8 pints of plum preserves. For my birthday I was given 20 lbs of self-picked, perfect white peaches, half of which were eaten, half of which I want to turn into peach jam peach-cranberry jam tomorrow. I also hope to score some more fruit at the Farmers Market tomorrow. My jams are very popular with our friends and especially their kids, so I am making more than our household can consume in a year.

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Realizing that all the food within the local food shed (friends’, Farmers Market’s) is also sustainable (i.e., “my” food) has been  liberating for me!

One Hectic Summer

Hive inspection by the county inspector

That’s one whole frame full of good honey, both sides. I’ll harvest it when the rain holds up.

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I apologize for the dearth of posts. Our household has been in such a flux and beset by crises these last few months, it has been hard to sit and write something down. Here is what has happened so far.

June

– my 13-year-old nephew arrives, we get him from JFK and bring him home. Car breaks on way home.

July

1 week of farm camp for Amie and my nephew. Have car problem(s) fixed over several visits to mechanic.

– MIL arrives

– chipmunks harvest tomatoes and eggplants

– letter from our Town giving us 2 weeks to fix an unknown leak in the main water pipe

– lice!

– trip to NYC to drop off nephew, come home and have water pipe fixed – but good news: insurance will pay – deductible

August

– FIL arrives

– leave for 1 week on the Cape. Friends (3) from NYC come to visit for 1st weekend, after which the mom leaves, the dad and 6-year-old and 9-year-old golden retriever stay on

– friend from Belgium comes to visit, sleeps in tent because cottage is so packed. Leaves after 3 days

– bring 7 people home

– find out we need to replace all tires on both cars

– surprise for our birthdays: SIL arrives

– mom from NYC arrives

– big birthday party, 50 people in back yard, main drain gets clogged, basement flooded with reeking water. Friend from NYC devotes the evening to cleaning up the basement!

– NYC friends and dog leave. For hours try to fix clogged pipe ourselves, no use

– lice?

– cave and get plumber: he fixes it in 1/2 hour! Clean basement

future

– SIL will leave this week, FIL the week after that. A second visit from my Belgian friend expected, plus a visit from another friend from Belgium. Kindergarten starts. MIL will leave mid September. My parents come in October.

We’ve been loving it: family, friends and fun. Amie basically had a two-week-long, uninterrupted play date with her friend from NYC. But it is hectic, so I haven’t been able to do much of what I planned to do – work (harder) in the garden, build a shed, read more about herbalism, blog.

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{UPDATE 24 August}

add to the list, for today:

car with MIL, FIL and SIL breaks down in the middle of their shopping trip

While I’m trying to get tow-truck and mechanic arranged for them,

Amie wakes up from an uncharacteristic nap with a 102 F fever

It doesn’t end…