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Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Honey Bees in the Garden

         On our little homestead we have an very small orchard, with apple, plum, cherry, prune and pear trees. Their bloom signifies the beginning of spring and the arrival of every kind of bee around for miles. Amid our apple trees and grapes the mason bees emerge from hibernation to go to work. These amazing bees are hard workers and pollinate all my trees. Of course with the help of the local bumblebees and honeybees also. My husband and I love to watch all the bees working and doing their thing. This is when my husband got it stuck in his head that he wanted honeybees. I, on the other hand, was kind of leery of this idea. I asked him where on earth was he going to put them, we use every inch of this property. He didn't really know, he just wanted honeybees. We did some research and found some building plans for a hive. At this point I was still hoping he would lose interest in the idea of beekeeping. That evening he disappeared and I found him in the garage starting on the hive. At that moment I knew he was very serious.
       We visited the local bee supply store and bought a book on beekeeping. We also checked if we could buy a package of bees, but they were all sold out. ( yay! ) They put us on a waiting list just in case they had any cancellations. ( oh.) Evidently beekeeping is very popular in our area. I could tell my husband was very disappointed, I felt bad for him. So I did a little research, did I say a little, I mean a lot of research on honeybees. My husband in the mean time talked to a friend that has honeybees. He wanted to get some experience working with the bees before we got any. Come to find out the friends hive was about to swarm, so he told my husband he could give us some bees. I was a nervous wreak. Where were we going to put them? We have neighbors, we have children( young and old ), we have dogs. This was me in panic mode. My husband evidently wasn't worried at all. He had it all figured out. My daughter was just as freaked out as I was, she hates bees. My son was okay with it. He was so okay with it that when it was time to get the bees he wanted to watch ( without a bee suit). I didn't want any part of any part of it, so I stayed in the house. After it was all said and done I asked how it went and they all said really good. No one got stung, I was amazed.
      We brought the hive home and got it all set in place. My husband choose to put the hive at the end of our thorn less blackberry row, I was not a fan of this, but that is where they are.


We kept the bees closed up for the night and the next day so they could settle. Then it was time to open the entrances so the bees could get to know their new home. (I was so nervous.) We placed grass and leaves in front of the opening so the bees couldn't just pour out and fly away. Slowly, but surely they all came out and the air was filled with bees flying in a circle around the hive. I stayed quite a distance from the hive still being unsure about them. After awhile they all filed back into the hive and went to work. We watched the hive I would say for hours. The bees were hard at work coming and going getting the new home all clean, feeding, and gathering pollen and nectar. They were so interesting and fun to watch.
        Everyday my husband would come home from work, he would say hi to everyone and go straight out to the garden and his bees. Anytime we couldn't find him we would go out to the bees and sure enough there he would be sitting in a chair watching the bees. This forced me to get to know the bees and get over my nervousness. I am happy to say that I love having the bees, they really are a joy to watch. Our kids even like them and we all help when it is time for hive inspection. Our bees are very gentle we can open the hive with out bee suits. My husband wears a bee jacket, but this is because he is handling them and wants to be protected just in case. It has been a great experience for our whole family. Some evenings we all sit in front of the hive like we would a TV and just watch the bees. Some of our family members think that we have lost our minds, but I know we haven't. We just really enjoy the beauty of what God has created for us to watch, it is magnificent and very calming.
     

Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Dairy- free Gluten-free Brownies

      Okay the other day my daughter and I was looking for a dairy-free brownie recipe and to my amazement there was a ton of them. Some were just dairy-free and others were gluten and dairy-free. So we did some review reading and finally decided on gluten free dairy free brownies from Carla's Gluten Free Recipe Box . My daughter is not gluten free so we just went ahead and made the brownies with all purpose flour. These brownies were very easy to make my daughter makes them all by herself. Her first batch she used olive oil and she thought that it tasted to much like the olive oil, but they were still really good. The second batch she used grape seed oil and this was the winner. These brownies are so good that no one will know that they are dairy free.
     We went to a family thing this last week and my daughter brought her brownies. Sitting among a full table of deserts of all kinds sat her empty plate of dairy free brownies. Luckily my daughter got one for herself before they were all gone. She now has to make a double batch because there is never enough.
     We will be making these brownies gluten free next for those family members that can't have gluten.


Here is the recipe:


Gluten Free Dairy Free Brownies
Rating: 51
Yield: Makes 9 Gluten Free Brownies.
Gluten Free Dairy Free Brownies
A light, yet fudgey, gluten free dairy free brownies recipe that your friends and family will never know are gluten free!
Ingredients:
  • 1/2 cup Carla's Gluten Free All-Purpose Flour Blend Recipe
  • 1/2 cup gluten free Dutch Processed cocoa powder (Rochelle brand)
  • 1/4 teaspoon gluten free baking powder (Featherweight brand for corn-free)
  • 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
  • 1/2 cup cooking oil (I use EVOO or grape seed oil.)
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 2 extra large eggs
  • 1 1/4 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
Instructions:
  1. Preheat oven to 350°F.
  2. In a medium size bowl, whisk together dry ingredients (excluding the sugar); set aside.
  3. In a large bowl, whisk together the oil and sugar until well combined; add eggs and vanilla; whisk just until combined. Be careful not to over mix.
  4. Add the dry ingredients into the oil/sugar mixture; pour into an ungreased 8 x 8-inch pan; bake for about 22 minutes or until sides begin to pull away from the sides of the pan and the top just begins to crack.
  5. Cool completely; loosen edges with a knife; slice and serve. Cover and store at room temperature, or freeze individually wrapped.
Tips
The brownies in the photo were made with a portion of cornstarch, versus tapioca starch. See flour blend recipe link for options.
I plan on trying a double batch of these in a 9 x 13-inch pan, as these were a little low. If you decide to try it before I do, please note that the baking time will need to be increased due to the size and increased thickness. Once I try it, I'll update this recipe for the baking time.
If you do not have any Dutch processed cocoa powder on hand, I suppose you could use a natural, unsweetened cocoa powder, however, you should use baking soda, not baking powder. Natural unsweetened cocoa powder has a higher acidity level and works best with baking soda. The difference between Dutch processed and natural/unsweetened is that the Dutch processed variety has been alkalized (acid level washed out), making it less bitter, and darker. The standard rule for substituting baking powder for baking soda is to use 2/3 less, however, I am unsure how these would be effected with only a pinch of baking soda, when using unsweetened cocoa power. If I were to experiment I would keep it at the 1/4 teaspoon.
UPDATE: See my Gluten Free Substitutes page for substitutions.
 
 
 
 
 

Wednesday, June 26, 2013

The Broccoli Experiment

        Our family loves broccoli we eat it several times a week. We decided to plant this favorite veggie even though I had heard it was hard to grow. This is the first year we have ever planted broccoli. I really didn't know how it was going to do. We planted them in April thinking that we still had enough cool weather ahead of us, boy were we mistaken. Our spring is usually very cold and rainy, but this spring it reach 80 degrees and up for many days. We had the driest spring we have ever seen. This was really bad for our broccoli. Just as they really started to grow that heat wave hit and half of our broccoli bolted.We were so frustrated. A very interesting thing happened though, the broccoli that was planted at the end of the potato rows weren't even affected by the heat. In fact they hadn't grown very much at all. We wondered at this, could it be because the broccoli was surrounded by straw. My dear husband was worried that he made a mistake by planting them there. I told him lets just wait and see what happens. The row that wasn't planted in the straw continued to have trouble. By the time it was ready to eat about 3/4 of the row bolted. The heads were very small and sparse. We weren't very happy with them. The broccoli that was planted in the straw still didn't have a head on them. There was no sign of a broccoli head starting, no side shoots, nothing. This really seemed strange, then again we are new to growing broccoli. Meanwhile we pulled up most of the bolted broccoli, but left a couple to continue flowering in hopes to get seeds. A week passed and finally we saw the beginnings of a head on all the broccoli that was planted in the straw. Slowly but surely the heads developed, it took awhile. When we decided to harvest them they were huge compared to the other broccoli we harvested. The heads on them were about 6-7 inches across and there side shoots were bigger than the heads of our other broccoli. They were beautiful.
          Now that we have harvested most of our broccoli it's time to plant the second season of our broccoli. We have sown the seeds directly in the garden. Once they have grown large enough we are going to surround them in straw and see if this helps them stay cool through our short summer. We are hoping that by the end of the summer we will have some nice sized broccoli to harvest. We will be documenting how our broccoli does in these conditions and post our findings.

 
 
This is close to what our broccoli in the straw looked like. We were so excited to eat it we forgot to take a picture of them. I will remember to take some pictures of our next batch.
 

Monday, June 24, 2013

Barefoot Gardening

            One beautiful Saturday morning I work up at around 7:00 AM to the smell of fresh coffee and a missing husband. This is a little early for me on a Saturday, but I could here my chickens clucking beneath my bedroom window and knew I needed to go feed them. I sat up in bed and discovered our dog Izzy was all sprawled out across my feet. I gave her a good rub and moved her, so I could get up. She just looked at me like "what are you doing, it's to early". My dogs are so lazy. I pulled myself out of bed and went in search of my husband. I wandered into the kitchen thinking a cup of coffee would help wake me up, when I spotted my husband. He was out in the garden enjoying the sun. I made a detour and headed out to say good morning. There he was in the garden barefoot. I garden barefoot, but I never thought I would ever see my dear husband barefoot in the garden. I teased him a bit about it and he laughed. He said it makes him feel more natural, closer to the earth.  Barefoot gardening, what a wonderful way to spend a nice sunny day in the garden. I am sure many people do it, but to my husband we are the first to ever do it.

Saturday, June 22, 2013

How the Garden Grows

 
Its truly amazing to me how fast a garden grows. This morning I woke up and thought I'm going to take some pictures of the garden. I got my camera and went out to the garden. Just as I went to take a picture my camera beeped and told me the memory card was full. So of course I started to delete pictures that weren't worth keeping. I love to take pictures and I take so many. Most of the time I don't even remember taking some of them. So as I was flipping through them, I came across pictures I had completely forgot I took. They were taken back in April when we first started to plant our garden. I loved that I had taken these and now I can compare how much everything has grown. Check it out, the first two pictures were taken in April and the last four were taken today (June 2013).
 
 
 
April 2013 
 
 
 

                                            There's DH watering


 

                                          These are todays (June 2013)









                  one of these days I'm going to paint that chicken coop.


Todays pictures make the garden look like a over grown jungle. I am really happy it has grown so much. We have already harvested our Broccoli, lettuce, carrots, beets, and snow peas. Our strawberries are huge, our raspberries are abundant, and our blackcaps are going crazy. Now if I could just keep the birds from getting into them.

Thursday, June 20, 2013

On the road to being dairy free

      We have very recently learned our daughter, Laikynn can't have any dairy. She has always had a sensitive stomach, but this was different. The older she got the more stomach aches she had. I think that she may have been just dealing with it and not telling me how bad it was.  Lately every time she would eat it would be, " mom my stomach is upset I think I'm going to throw up." She would go lay down and it would pass and she would feel fine. I knew it was food related, but didn't know what food was the cause. The culprit was finally found, (milk, every part of milk.) We are a family that uses a lot of dairy products, yogurt, sour cream, butter, cheese and the list goes on and on. Needless to say it has been very interesting and a huge learning experience trying to find substitutes for some of those products. Through some trial and error we found that soy works the best for her. We tried the almond milk and the coconut milk and the two combined, but those didn't work. I am happy to say she is feeling so much better it is amazing.
        It has been interesting finding foods that she likes and that doesn't have milk in them. Cooking has definitely changed in our home. We have always cooked healthy, but sometimes we would have a meal that had cheese in it. Breakfast has been the biggest trial. You have your traditional breakfast foods like; eggs and bacon, sausage and pancakes, the list goes on. We really don't eat that kind of breakfast, maybe the occasional eggs and turkey bacon. We are more yogurt and berries, cottage cheese and peaches, or smoothies. The kids sometimes eat cereal, but not very often. She has decided that she likes smoothies, soy yogurt, and turkey bacon for her breakfast choices. I bought her, her own personal blender that she can use just for her smoothies and the great thing is she able to make one for herself when ever she likes.

Here is her favorite smoothie: 1 cup mixed fresh berries
                                                 1/2 cup silken tofu or you can use soy yogurt
                                                 1/2 cup juice ( berry mixture)
                                                 1/2 - 1 Tablespoon honey or to taste
                                                 1 scoop unflavored soy protein powder

          Add everything together in blender and blend well. You can alter it to your own taste. Play with it, the possibilities are endless. This is a thick smoothie, so if you would like a thinner smoothie just add a 1/4 cup more juice.

          I love smoothies and I was amazed with the taste of this smoothie. It's like a berry explosion in your mouth.

Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Laikynns skirt

       I love to sew it is one of my many passions. Yesterday I started a skirt for my daughter, Laikynn. She is very hard to find clothing for, so I tend to make a lot of her dresses and skirts. We can always find shirts and pants, but the skirts and dresses are all made either to short or indecent. On top of that she is very petite and picky ( imagine that). Anyways this skirt was something that I have made before, it is a very simple skirt and needs no pattern. It took me just a couple of hours to make, that is including all the interruptions from my daughter and the dogs. I am very rarely able to just sit down and sew something from start to finish without any interruptions. So yesterday it took me a couple of hours, but it should only take about an hour or less to make. It's that simple. It is wonderful to have a skirt that is so easy to make and when it is done it looks like you spent a lot of money on it.
     



                           This is the skirt before making it shorter


         I got the skirt done, but Laikynn wanted it a little shorter. She says," long skirts look bad on me, please make it shorter." That is the great thing about making your own clothing you can adjust them to however you want. You are not limited to what is in style at the time and you can pretty much choose whatever color or patterns you want. So I'll be cutting it off today. When it is all done I'll post the pictures of it. I'll also put up a picture of the first skirt I made like this It turned out beautiful. My daughter didn't think she would like it and thought it would look to fancy, but she loved it.
      

                                   This is after cutting it off.


         The next project I hope to start soon is a skirt for me. I found some material at the fabric store the other day that I loved. The best thing was it was on clearance for 50% off. Yay!


 
This is the first skirt make. The picture doesn't show how pretty it is.