Honey

This week for the first time ever I harvested honey from my bee hive.

I could have probably done this sooner, except I didn't have my wonderful bee breeze bee suit til too late last year.. and it would have been suicidal to have attempted it with out proper attire.

Also I had to figure out exactly how I was going to
handle the procedure.

The first hurdle is actually getting the frames of honey into the house with out the bees coming along too.

I did some reading and decided to go with a method
called "Abandonment".
Basically you remove the frames of honey and leave them outside by the hive til after sunset. When the sun goes down the bees on the honey frames will
abandon the frames of honey and return to the hive.

The bee keeper then goes out and collects the
frames, takes them in the house or where ever the
honey will be extracted minus the bees.

It worked like a charm, and I have to say this
bee suit is the greatest thing since sliced bread. I
wasn't stung at all! In fact I'm getting Jerry one so he
can start helping me, you'ld be amazed how heavy the boxes can be with so honey in the frames.








Here's the bee box with the honey filled frames
minus the bees in the house.
I put the box on top of  a ice chest to catch dripping honey.

I  knew I needed to get started on the honey removal right away, so the next morning after I finished all my other chores I got busy.

I covered my counter with freezer paper,
I had a feeling it would be sticky.

I selected a knife, rubber spatula,




a strainer, a salad spinner... and just started.
Most people are fortunate enough to have an extractor but I reasoned that people harvested honey before the days of extractors so I would figure it out as I went along.

I started by cutting off the cappings,

the honey is really dark.... like molasses
















I initially thought the honey would just drip out ...which it would have .... just  not very quickly.. and  I didn't have
days to complete this job...

Then I had the thought to try the salad spinner, I scooped out wax and honey and put some in the spinner...

and spun it around a bit

that worked, but it got so sticky, it wouldn't have been feasible for more than a tiny bit of honey.

In the end the stainer did the job, and there is not photo because my photographer ( Juliette) was mainly talking and eating honey..

I gave the bees the dirty bowls which they cleaned up fine.

I got about 3/4 of a gallon from 3 frames.
The color is so dark!(although not as dark as the photo looks) It tastes kind of like caramel.

I read the color of honey is caused by what the bees fed on, (wild flower mix with golden rod makes dark honey)  I am assuming these bees also reused the cells a few times and there was probably quite a bit of pollen in the cells as well as honey.

The honey in the store is very different, it is ultra filtered to the point where there is no pollen at all,
which is crazy because that's part of what makes honey good for you! but by removing the pollen the honey source is pretty much undetectable... thus honey from China, India etc.. Honey in the store is also heated and watered down....

Kind of makes my dark, pollen loaded honey look a little better, doesn't it?

A Texas Outing

 Yesterday I went with my husband Jerry to
Llano.. (related to Llama?)

He was invited to be the guest player at the Thursday night singer/songwriter get together.


He had asked me ages ago to go with him and I
had never committed, but my daughter was with a friend and my sons are older now so I had no reason not to.

Besides I"m making an effort lately to do more.
I don't mean just do more I mean to get out and
about more. You know... get out of my comfort zone a bit. I've been getting a bit strange lately to be honest...kind of hermitty.

Ok, so off we went and even though Llano is not a big deal I haven't been there in more time than I care to say.... it still counts for an outing.



It took us a bit over an hour to get there and then I insisted on playing the tourist a bit and stopping to take a few photos.

Llano has one of those darling little downtowns from a movie set. It's a darling little place.

 Jerry was playing at a place called The Badu House. He was out on the patio.



We had a tasty little meal on the house..( always nice)

 Watched the host and his buddy play for the first hour....











Then it was Jerry's turn. My stomach always turns
when he gets up on stage. I fully expect him to cry and run off the stage, oh wait! that's me who wants to do that.


He did great.

Here's the beautiful Llano river,
A darling town,
lovely people
good fun
and water! what more could you ask for?

Juliette's Trip

 What a busy June we've had!

My daughter finally went on her Girl Scout Trip


All those days and nights spent selling cookies and
working other events, and they each earned the funds to go to Savannah Georgia.

They left on the first Friday of the month ....guess what time they had to be at the airport?....




 Well the flight left at 6am, so I had to have her there by 4:15, which meant we had to leave our house by 3:45.. in the morning.!!!

We were afraid we would oversleep..
(Years ago I would have still been out at that hour... but that's a subject for another post.)

Juliette was excited to go, 4 nights on her own, ( well without me)
and her first airplane trip!

Yes, that's right, her first airplane trip... myself I hate to fly.. that loss of control, but for this group it was great.

I was only able to see her off to the security check point..
The  girl scouts were searched, fair and square just like any other terrorist suspect.

Then they were off.
The adults sent me constant updates and Juliette herself texted me
frequently.

The trip was all planned out, and although the troop leaders obviously tried to make it educational... the girls still had a great time.

They visited ( of course) the Juliette Gordon Low house.

Visited the Mariner Museum
















On their last day they went to Tybee Island, visited the light house

took an Ecology Tour....

and proceeded to get terribly sunburned.

I think by Tuesday she was ready to be home, and I'm pretty sure she learned her lesson about sun screen.

What Doesn't Kill You

  I have mentioned our POA  and the issues we were having with them.... But I haven't posted much about it for a few reasons...

First of all if you haven't ever had any legal issues at all, which was my story before this.. getting hit with a lawsuit is pretty traumatic. I mean here we were basically minding our own business and we keep getting letters about what our neighbor, Al Blair( also the board President for perpetuity)  who hides behind the POA Board is unhappy about. So, we would get communication from this board and we would feel, well it sounds corny but I personally felt violated.
Then I would start to find someone to blame, and of course if the "authorities" say we are wrong, well we must be, right?

So we start fighting, and I was  lashing out at my kids, my husband. I started spending my time, and I mean ALL of my time reading about court cases, codes, laws etc., days and days of this...

I  felt like I was being watched, I  didn't dare leave a rake out for fear our "neighbor" would complain about the mess. I would tell my husband  who had just worked a 14 hour day to put his mess away for the "neighbor". So this goes on for a while.. this fear, and let me tell you if you do any research at all about the power of these groups you need to have some fear, fear is appropriate in some cases.

But not always... not if you honestly have done nothing to really, honestly be facing a law suit over.
Not if you can look your reflection in the eye and say "wait a minute.. WTF is going on here?"
 and the true answer is ......something stinks...

Because you see, we were (are) being asked to:
pay almost 4000 in attorney fees
pay for a 500 survey
pay 500 a month if we fall in violation again
allow the board to walk our property
go to  a meeting and be properly dressed down by our lords and masters know as the "Board"
Resubmit previous plans ( which they already have)
Tear down any structure they did not approve
Hold no business activity on the property

This is not Belleterra... I mean really every single home out here is in violation of something... but they don't live next door to Al Blair. So we asked the universe for help...
and guess what? We got it.

Out of the blue and I mean out of the blue, an attorney called me by the name of  Bill Davis.
(Well actually I posted a question on a webpage called "HOA Reform Coalition" and the owner sent me his contact information, but hey what are the odds that he would live in Dripping Springs too?)
I can't say enough about this guy, he's brillant and he sees through the distractions to the clear truth.
Also, a very funny, likeable person... 

Oh yeah did I mention he despises HOAs?


I will be writing more and often about this adventure. That's what it has become. An adventure that
I know without any doubt we will come through victorious..

As Juliette and I like to sing to each other, "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, footsteps even lighter"

Greek Yogurt

I

The supplies

One of the things I love to make, that honestly has
the store bought type beat is Greek Yogurt.

I used to make yogurt in a little machine and I would end up with about a quart of yogurt which
would last around a day.

Although it's very easy to make it takes awhile so if I'm going to make it at all I might as well make enough to last at least a few days!

First thing gather your supplies...
Milk, a crock pot, starter yogurt ( I like Fage, because it's pure) a thermometer, and a spoon to stir while the milk is heating.
You'll also need a large towel or something to wrap your crock pot in to keep the temperature stable.

Ok, so first I pour my milk into the crock pot and turn the darn thing to high. I use my cheesemaking thermometer to watch the temp.You need to stir every once in a while the milk is heating..

What I'm trying to do is to raise the temp to 180 degrees. It takes a long time! Sometimes I just raise the temp to 160 and hold it there for a while and it works fine.

Here's the stupid part at least to me.. after the milk gets to temp, you start to cool it down to 110 (turn the crock pot off) degrees. I guess the point of heating the milk is to kill competing bacteria, so when the yogurt culture is added there is no competition to it's growth.

After the milk cools to 110 it's time to add the culture. I confess to not measuring, but to this batch I added 2 spoonfuls. I also sprinkled a tiny amount of natural sugar to feed the micro organisms.

Don't just drop cold yogurt in the pot, mix it in a small bowl with some of the 110 degree milk and mix it well in the small bowl.......

Like this



Then pour this into the crock pot (sorry I don't have a photo, I need a third arm)

Quickly after the yogurt mixture has been added, cover the crock pot with the lid and wrap it all up in a heavy towel. You will be leaving this alone for 8 hours. DON'T MESS WITH IT!!!!!

don't move the pot at all, it will inhibit the growth.







After 8 hours set up your staining gear.
Set a colander over a bowl. This will be catching the whey as it drains out of the yogurt.









Line the colander with a cloth.












Spoon the yogurt into the colander, cover it with a plate and put it in the fridge to drain for a few hours.

The amount of time you choose to allow for draining will determine the consistency of your finished product.







Many times I have to leave to run errands so my yogurt is really thick, but I love it like this especially for cooking with it....










For this batch of yogurt I had black berries from the garden.....










They were a little tart.. so I put a bit of raw sugar in a sauce pan with water and the berries and simmered it for a while.

I put the mixture in the blender...

and added it to the yogurt. It was fantastic! It seems like more effort than it really was, or is to make. Well worth it believe me!
You can do this with store brought milk as well!
Let me know if you do and how it works out for you.
Good Luck

Good Deeds

 I apologize for not posting for such a long time.

Really no excuse for it, except possibly I may have been a little pre occupied with this whole being sued thing. I swear I have read the Texas Property Code,
Contract Law and all about the Corporation and
Non Profit Law til I could just about scream. I'm talking entire days.  I just had to, to understand what we are dealing with...

But....that's not all we've doing..

 My daughter is getting ready for her Girl Scout trip for one thing.That lucky girl is going to Savannah
for 4 nights. She earned the lion's share of the money through cookie sales, but the remainder she earned doing chores....

Now I was never in Girl Scouts, but I don't think they did cool things like trips when I was a child.. I just wasn't really into badges and things like that, you know.. first place ribbon, gold stars. I just never got too excited about them. As long as I had done my personal best... that's what mattered. Still does.

 Fast forward to Juliette, she really doesn't care about the badges
either, but there are some activities she wants to participate in, like this one you see in the photos.

The girls were given the opportunity to make a Fleece blanket for kids
battling cancer in the hospital.

We went to the fabric store and tried to choose a pattern that we
thought all kids would like, and also one that either a boy or a girl would like.

We got a yard and half of a print and a solid.

When we went home we laid them out wrong side together, on top of each other.

Next we cut the edges to be kind of even, and we also cut a little
square out of each corner.

Next step was to cut fringes around the edges, we used a piece of painters tape to guide us so we wouldn't cut too much and to keep the fringes kind of even.

Finally we tied the fringes in knots.




 Then we turned it over, and here it is
a cute little blanket for a sweet little child.

Now we could have done this ourselves, but we just probably  wouldn't have done it with out some one
setting up the drop off and such.
The Girl Scouts has been good for my daughter for this...
 Do you think the blanket turned out well?

We hope it cheered up the little one who got
it, we hope they are getting better too.