I have said in the past that there’s no such thing as too much pesto and I stand by that, but wow the freezer’s getting full and we sure do have a lot of garlic scapes.
We turned to the internet, like you do, and came across this recipe for pickled scapes. We won’t know just how good they are for six whole weeks, but I have a feeling we won’t think we made nearly enough.
Extracting honey is a sticky, messy job.
The first step is to scrape the cappings off the wax so the honey is free to flow when the frames are spun in the extractor. This can be done with a knife or, as above, with a scratching fork. I’ve done it both ways, and find the fork to be the better tool. It’s more precise, allowing me to leave more honey on the frame. I’m also a lot less likely to stab myself with it when trying to maneuver with my wax and honey and propolis-covered hands.
When the frames are spun, the honey collects in the bottom of the extractor tub. We position a double strainer beneath the tub, open the gate, and do our best to keep our tongues out of resulting stream of honey. Fingers are another story.
(photo courtesy of a friend)
Time is the hidden magic behind every beautiful garden you’ve ever seen.
When you first start a garden, it’s not going to look great. It’s going to look spotty and a bit sad, really. The trick is not to get discouraged but to keep plugging at it, planting a snowdrop from a neighbor here and a columbine from your friend there, dividing anything and everything and redistributing as if you know what you’re doing. For a few years you’ll wonder if maybe you’re just not great at making gardens, then, poof, one May your garden will spring to life. All those plants will suddenly look like they’ve been there forever, lush and thick and trying to outdo each other with flowers, and, if you’re anything like me, you’ll feel the itch to get started on another section of your yard so you can experience the ride all over again.
This little swath of bulbs is part of my daughter’s garden, a patch of land she claimed at seven years old and has tended for the sixteen years since. Some years it was meticulously cared for, others overgrown and weedy. These days it’s generally the neatest spot on our property.
“Might I have a bit of earth?” is the question posed by ten year old Mary Lennox in The Secret Garden, and it sums up an almost universal longing. To have a bit of earth is to have a sense of belonging, of being part of the world. What I’ve learned from my bit is that ownership doesn’t necessarily mean, ‘this is mine’, but rather, ‘I care for this.’
Time got away from us this year. Word is that sugar season was short with our unseasonable weather, and we missed it.
But maybe not. I checked the ten day forecast at the beginning of the week and saw what looked like good flow weather. Cold nights, warmer days. Taps went in just in case, rigged with our high-tech system of old milk jugs and wire. We won’t have gallons of syrup, but I’ll be kicking myself a little less than if we got none.
My usual cure for my impatience with early spring – waiting to plant seeds, waiting for seeds to grow – is to buy myself a new houseplant.
Nothing fancy, just a little something to bring life and color and give me a bit of dirt under my fingernails. Cheap therapy. This year I went with a $4 Pothos. Not my favorite plant in general, but I was drawn to these leaves, which have golden spots that give the impression of being filled with light. Just what I need to get me through mud season.
Last year’s experiment with growing stevia left me intrigued by its sweetness but not sold on its aftertaste.
Happily, cold weather worked its sugar magic last fall and the aftertaste disappeared completely. Results of hanging those cold-snapped leaves to dry are good too, so stevia has now earned a spot in our pantry.
I don’t know whether we’ll get the 12″ of snow and power outages predicted for our area tomorrow, but I do know we’ll be eating well.
I did my usual storm-prep cooking marathon today, making everything I could think of that can be eaten as is or warmed on our propane stove. Dishes are done, laundry is clean, firewood is in the house. Throw it at us, mother nature, we’re as ready as we’re going to get.
This recipe makes 24 muffins. If you’re fairly sure you’ll have power over the next few days, you can bake half, stick the rest of the batter in the fridge, then bake the other half when you run out.
Blueberry Muffins
Preaheat oven to 400.
1/2 cup butter
1 cup sugar
2 eggs, beaten
8 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
4 cups flour
2 cups milk
2 cups blueberries, fresh or frozen
Cream the butter.
Add the sugar.
Add the eggs.
Add the dry ingredients alternately with the milk, stirring til everything is well-combined.
Fold in the blueberries.
Pour into lined muffin tin and bake for 22 minutes.
Word to the wise: when choosing a life partner, be sure they like garlic as much as you do. You want them to be so distracted by their own garlic breath they don’t notice yours.
At our house, dinner prep begins with chopping garlic more often than not. That being said, this recipe uses a ton of garlic even for us. Other than that bit of work, though, it’s quick to throw together, and it makes enough to keep us in leftovers for a good while.
You’ll notice I don’t give amounts for the spices. Don’t panic! I’m not cooking dinner, you are, and you’re going to make this your way. If you end up over-spicing, just serve it with some extra rice or wrap it in a tortilla; under-spicing, sprinkle on some more curry powder. Once you’ve made it a couple of times you’ll have found your perfect balance.
Curried Peas
1/2 cup chopped garlic
Olive oil
Curry powder
Ground black pepper
Red pepper flakes (optional)
3 Tablespoons butter
2 bags frozen baby peas
3 cans chickpeas, drained and rinsed
Fill half of a one cup measure with chopped garlic.
Sprinkle a layer of ground black pepper over it.
Add a few red pepper flakes if you like.
Pour olive oil over the garlic to fill the cup measure.
Melt the butter in a very large frying pan on medium high heat.
Sprinkle curry powder over the surface of the butter. Don’t be shy.
Add the olive oil and garlic.
When the oil and garlic are dancing, add the peas.
Before stirring, add another layer of curry powder, along with a bit of black pepper.
Continue to cook at medium high for 5 or 10 minutes, until the peas are warmed through, stirring occasionally.
Add the chickpeas, topping with curry powder as you did with the peas, then stirring and cooking til everything is hot.
Serve with jasmine rice.
In mid-winter, the bees in my hive are hopefully buzzing away in a tight cluster, keeping each other warm.
It’s best not to take the lid off when it’s cold out, so I don’t actually know what’s going on in that box. While I could get lost in a thought experiment of the Schrodinger’s cat variety, instead I don’t think too much about it and order bees to be delivered in April, just in case.
Last year’s winter was long and very cold. My bees did not make it through, so the colony that is currently in the hive is the one I installed this past summer. Their shipment was delayed due to weather issues down South and they didn’t arrive until June, giving the bees a late start in building up their stores.
When keeping bees, the single most humane thing we can do is to limit the amount of honey we steal. Bees work hard to make every drop, and they do so for reasons that have nothing to do with humans having a sweet tooth. They eat their supply of honey all winter long, using the energy to keep their bodies moving. With no central heating, movement is the only way to keep the temperature up.
Many people steal honey from bees in the fall, making their best guess as to how much the bees will need over the winter and how much it’s safe to take. I prefer to wait until early summer to see what’s left, and even then, I leave them a good supply. So I’ve not taken any honey from these bees, and won’t decide for a few months whether I should. The inner workings of a bee colony are incredibly complex and not completely understood. When striking a balance between our wants and the colony’s needs, I’d rather err in their favor, even if it means a little less gold in the pantry.
Abundance Acre 