City Hearth

Monsanto buys Beeologics, working to save pollinating bees

2011-10-12T17:55:00.000-07:00

Monsanto buys Beeologics, working to save pollinating bees

Monsanto....this cannot be good....

2011 Hills Garlic Festival in New Denver

2011-09-27T13:47:00.000-07:00

Another beautiful weekend! This year, I walked around before the gates were opened while vendors were still setting unpacking and musicians still warming up! Here are some shots...

This was my knitting and crocheting bits and pieces.

These early sun-lit, autumn morning shots; full of expectation of the day and thousands of people to come, convey some of that special feeling that I look forward to every year!

Thank you Brian and Wendy for sharing this special weekend with us again!

Ambrose Hive - Makes decides on change!

2011-08-23T20:05:00.001-07:00

Although I did promise to add more posts on the hives "soon", with summer being summer one gets lost in it all....so as you know I haven't made many post.

Here's a quick recap....since our last post everything progressed well, queen was laying great, we had rotated the top box to the bottom and vice versa, the queen continued to lay in both boxes, honey and pollen was building up, did checks weekly for a time then decided to skip to bi-weekly. Then not too long ago upon inspection we found some empty queen cells and queen cups which we removed. About a week and a half ago we did a check for Varrao mites and found the numbers that indicated we needed to treat. So we started treating using powder (icing) sugar and dusting the top of the frame and in between. This makes it so the mite can't hold on and fall off the adults. The issue is that most, 85 to 90% of the mites are in the sealed brood cells feeding on the larva so dusting needs to happen every 4 - 5 days to keep on knocking them off the adults as they emerge, thus reducing the overall numbers of mites.

Amid all this mite control we weren't pulling frames and checking the bees since we were really disturbing them with the sugar, turns out this was not the best idea for us but the bees had decided they wanted a change of royalty. Thanks to my keen eyed wife who seen the new queen today....we uncovered the hives plan. (she knew is was new because it had no blue dot marking)

Yup they swarmed.........as the saying goes hindsight is 20-20. As it turns out when we found the empty queen cells on our previous inspection we should have probably inspect more frequently to ensure we did what we could to prevent the hive from creating a new queen & swarming. Thankfully the number of bees lost doesn't seem to be too bad and talking with Vic from Bees Incorporated it is most likely that when we removed the empty queen cells we missed one and only one since it appear we only lost one swarm. The original queen left with some bees and the new queen appears to have taken over and is laying eggs; we have brood of all ages. We need to monitor the developing eggs and brood to make certain she has been fertilized and laying both worker and drone eggs.

So much to learn but thankfully the bees are patient and can adapt as needed and if we lose a swarm now and then it's going to be alright. I think I will be attending another of Vic's course starting this week..... next time we'll have photos I promise.

While making dinner...

2011-08-18T17:14:00.001-07:00

I had a moment that was very grateful and I hope only a little proud, when I looked down at my cutting board at all the items from the garden that were going in the pot! I had to take a photo and here it is!

And while I'm sharing photos, here's one of Gromit with a favourite bone:

And a quilt drying in the sun; which is just so easy on the eye!

How much wood...(part II)

2011-08-07T15:12:00.000-07:00

Last weekend & part of this part week I spent splitting and stacking the wood I was given Yes that's right given by Mr Beetlestone.....here's what it looks like now.....................
.....and the photo doesn't do it justice. Trust me there is at least a full cord of wood which is measured 4' x 4' x 8'. Enough to do some serious BBQing........... unfortunately not until next year 'cause it is too wet and take 8 to 9 month to dry properly.

Lucky for me I've been given some dry maple wood. You see, another thing I did last weekend while splitting wood was cook a bear shoulder for a friend of mine.....along with a few pork tender loins and some pork ribs. In exchange he dropped off some dry maple he knew of that a friend of his had. I didn't do the cooking expecting anything in return and lo and behold he offered to bring me some wood. It turned in to a nice sizable pile much more than I used cooking his bear shoulder (which turned out great I might add) it seems that is really how it goes...if you give freely, expecting nothing in return you alway get back more than you've given.........."a full measure poured in shaken down and over flowing"

Now being some what hooked on cooking with wood you know I had to try the dry maple, if for nor other reason but to know what this glorious free pile of wood is going to be like to cook with. Tonight we're having chicken. Marinaded in Louisiana type pepper sauce with some garlic powder, onion powder and lemon juice added to round it out & cooked with maple hardwood in my Q. God is good...Friends are good......Life is good.

How much wood....

2011-07-29T18:42:00.000-07:00

....would a woodchuck chuck if.............. well you know how the rest goes and I don't really know the answer but I do know that if you're going to have a southern BBQ you need a source of good hardwood to burn. So what this post is about is the connection I made and I must say I certainly made a great connection with a great local businessman. Introducing Mr Beetlestone of Beetlestone Stump Grinding.

The story goes like this a friend of mine who has enjoyed several delicious meals from our BBQ had to take down one of their cherry trees and want us to use whatever we could so I offered to help the guy who was doing it in trade for whatever wood I wanted. In comes Mr Beetlestone who is also a friend of my friend. After we had finished disposing of the tree we got to talking and it turned out that Mr Beetlestone had no outlet for the myriad of wood he cuts down in the course of his work. Of course he cuts down many types of trees and of course some of them are excellent woods for cooking in a BBQ. Maple, Oak, Black Locust, Elm etc.

It so happened that Mr Beetlestone attended the thank you BBQ for the Rev. Wayne and tasted first hand the product of a good long slow cooked pork shoulder.

I don't know if this encouraged him to call but yesterday he did to say he was taking down several trees. (& lucky for me only a few blocks away) One tree was a Maple tree and the other a Black Locust. Both were quite large, 18 to 20 inch diameter trunk. He advised that I was welcome to load up all I wanted. I wanted it all but could only really deal with about 90% which turned out to be 2 large pickup truck loads. The large trunk sections with several branches coming out in different direction would be too difficult to split or even saw in to proper pieces.

This is work I benefit from quite awhile from now........you see this wood can't be burnt in the Q until it is well seasoned, hopefully in a year. One thing I learned from my Dad is that hardwood is best split when it is green otherwise it simply gets too dense and very hard to split without a hydraulic wood splitter. The density of the wood is what makes it so good for cooking or heating. I found out yesterday that splitting some of the pieces is easier said than done so I purchased myself a splitting wedge to go along with my large splitting maul.............the work proceeds. Luckily some of the branch are small enough they won't need splitting but may take long to fully dry and be ready for cooking with.

The smaller diameter pieces have been left long so I piled them in different place and I break out the chain saw to make them into lengths more suitable for stacking, splitting and burning.............a year or 2 from now.

Out heart felt thank you goes out to Mr Beetlestone of Beetlestone Stump Grinding.

Whirlwind of Summer

2011-07-28T10:14:00.000-07:00

Just a few photos snapped in stolen moments of a ridiculously busy Summer.

Remember the potatoes we planted in the spring? We're eating them already; digging as needed. Wonderful! And I really don't think I could improve on my hand model do you? Those chubby baby hands slay me!
The garlic is coming up too and bush beans going in after them - it looks wonderful! This variety is German I believe.
If you recall the Bumble bee hive that we rescued - this is a little one who had passed on. I photographed her to show her remarkable colouring. The Bumbles are thriving in their new home I'm thrilled to be able to say!
The turtles in residence at the Koi pond and Japanese garden in Kelowna - it is always a treat to see them sunning!

Hope you're all enjoying your Summer whether you're struggling to stay cool or molding in the rain!

Cate

Another BIG Day!!!!

2011-07-20T20:43:00.000-07:00

10 pork butts coming right up.....but not really & for 2 reasons; they take about 10 hours to cook not to mention a day or two to let the dry rub soak in. Interesting that they are not butts at all but in fact pork shoulders and I don't really know why they are call butts when they are clearly shoulders but I seem to remember reading something about the folks in Boston and salt pork however the memories are sketchy.

An interesting fact I learned on this go around is that 10 butts will nicely fit in the large Coleman cooler. How you might wonder did I find this out..... well let me tell you. I don't have a fridge large enough to hold 10 butts for the 24 to 36 hours the dry rub settles in so I arrange to keep them in the cooler at our parish kitchen.

(Actual start time shown.) Now since the cooking needs to commence at 5 am I couldn't really go to the church to get the meat that early.........

so I figured I would bring them home the evening before and keep them in the coolers we normally take camping. As it turns I only needed the larger of the 2 coolers like the one pictured....so that's how I found out how many butts fit in this size cooler.

Oh yeah that's another thing that takes some time ahead of time if that makes sense and that is the Mop.

I mentioned it in the post The Big Day the list of the ingredients for the mop...as apple cider, white vinegar, oregano, granulated garlic, black pepper, cayenne pepper mixture. But this time I used malt vinegar and not apple cider. I could say that this was an experiment to analyze the difference between these 2 vinegars but I would be lying. When I bought the ingredients for the malt for some reason I thought I had used malt vinegar...............one of my brain synapse must have gotten connected wrong. Other than the start time being earlier the sequence of events was pretty much the same. 1/2 hour checks on the temperature and shuffling of the 2 end pieces, with the addition of some foil under the relocated end pieces after the first couple hours. The less you open the cooking chamber the more the temperature remains steady and that make even cooking easier.

The mop was applied liberally every 1/2 hour for the last 5 or so hours and like the last post The Big Day, I forgot to take a photo of the finished goods. It's sort of a real flurry of activity in the final 1 or 2 hours after the decisions is made that things are done cooking. 10 pork butts take up quite a lot of space, a little less than when they are raw, due to shrinkage. I read that the weight may reduce as much as 20% but have never done the weight before and after cooking. Getting these very hot, very tender chunks of pork from my place to the church required 2 large pans and several yards of aluminum foil. Luckily I had many good helpers waiting to assist, hands on, to pull the meat from the bones and in to bite size mouth watering morsels of smokey goodness.

Pastrami anyone?!?

2011-07-16T14:29:00.000-07:00

After having built my southern BBQ aka "wood fired" BBQ. Making pulled pork, ribs and brisket. I've decided to try my hand at making pastrami. In the store the pastrami you buy is usually made from beef brisket, but because we have other plans for the beef brisket from the half of beef we bought I've used a different cut of meat.... an outside round roast.........so I guess this is only really "pastrami-esque".
Well, the story actually started about 2 weeks ago because the process involves "brining" the meat with a salt spice water mix. Common to most pastrami recipes on the web is the salt content of the water. I think this is the common salt content for a lot of other "brining" such as bacon, ham & corned beef. You simply dissolve enough salt in the water to float an egg. The balance of the spices added is, as we normally operate, to taste. You could search a dozen recipes and all of them have different spices.

Here's what I put in our pastrami brine.
Warm water - approx 8 cups
Coarse Salt - as mentioned above
1/2 tsp of rosemary
1 tsp of black pepper corns
2 tsps of granulated garlic.

All the ingredients were combined in a 1 gallon glass jar along with the meat and then put in the fridge. The duration of the brine process depends how flavourful the meat you desire. The difference between corned beef and pastrami is what you do after the brining time. Simply put corned beef is boiled and pastrami is cooked with heat & smoke.....thus the southern BBQ.

Like most of the things you cook in a southern bbq other than flat bread or pizza it is done at a fairly low temperature and for a relatively long duration when compared to the things you cook in the oven. For our pastrami I figure a good target temperature is 250F give or take. As it turns out I ended up struggling with keeping it that low and I think the average temperature would come in around 280 or 290.

I cooked this for a total of 4-1/2 hours. 2 hours into the cook I decided I would wrap the meat in aluminum foil....1 to keep the pastrami from getting too smokey and 2 to keep the meat from drying out. Going in to this I was a little concerned about making pastrami that was too salty. I read that some people would soak the meat for any where from a few hours to overnight to cut the salt down. I decided to stay simple, dry off the meat (dry surfaces absorb smoke better) and put it in the BBQ. See above photo.

Now the hard part. Letting the hot pastrami cool! When I opened the foil I was amazed at the amount of liquid that had accumulated in the package. I was quite surprised that so much fluid would be there since it had been cooking unwrapped for 2 hours to start. Well there was only one thing to do and that was to keep the cooked meat and the juice together while it cooled. Hopefully it will re-absorb a certain amount with the balance gelling and hopefully be able to be removed once it is entirely cooled. (and used in another dish yummm!)

After a couple of hours in the fridge the pastrami was somewhat cool and the suspense was killing me...I had to taste it. So without further ado I sliced some pieces off and man was it good, a little too salty but it was really good. The saltiness wasn't unbearable just a little too salty for consuming a lot of it. Well worth the effort and something I will definitely tackle and hopefully perfect.

Bees - Bumbling & pollenating

2011-07-04T16:14:00.000-07:00

We have been less than diligent about posting about our adventures in beekeeping but trust us we have been checking on them and I promise we will be make some posts soon....but for now we have an adventure to relay.

Awhile ago I placed an ad on Castanet for honey bee swarm recovery in exchange for the bees. I really didn't think it would result in anything. Low and behold it did and we were excited. I rounded up some equipment, hive bottom, a couple medium boxes, frames to suit, inside cover, top cover, sugar water in a spray bottle, flashlight, bee veils, staple gun, jute twine and off we went.

When we arrived at the place we met Ralph who told us where the bees were and that if it wasn't for his wife he would leave them be (no pun intended :). Earlier I had spoken with him on the phone and he assured me they were not wasps or hornets so I felt comfortable even going to see what was up. Like most people had these been wasp or hornets they would have simply been exterminated. Wasps and hornets are carnivores, aggressive and really not very nice. They do definitely serve a purpose by controlling spiders, grubs, caterpillar and other bugs......unfortunately they don't have any limits or follow any rules but I digress. We walked around the back of his house and he points to the soffit under the eave where he had removed some to install an outlet for his new bathroom fan. We stood and watch for several minutes before a bee showed up.
Well it wasn't a honey bee but it was a beautiful, fuzzy Bumble Bee with leg laden with pollen for the hive. With these types of bees as with all of them, Bumble bees are excellent pollinator and in fact are able to pollinate many plant other bees can not. These are native North American pollinators. They are very interesting to watch in your garden or other place. It you see one follow it around until it lands on a flower. They normally rummage around licking nectar but they will quite often hunch down and "buzz" their wing muscle which shakes the pollen loose so they can collect more. In fact plants such as tomatoes are entire best pollinated by bumble bees and most green houses will only have resident bumble bees to carry out their pollinating needs. So with Ralph's help we dug out some insulation, found the brood nest & queen. A very impressively large bee. After spraying them with sugar water we put them in a box and brought them home. As it turns out we decide to house them in an old bird house I made that never did get put up. We will keep them in the shade under our deck and see if they decide they like this place enough to hang around for the season.....hopefully they do.

Ambrose Hive - 4 weeks after Bee day

2011-06-06T19:03:00.000-07:00

Well it had been 2 weeks since we had opened the brood chamber on the Ambrose hive and it was going to be interesting to see what had developed. They had been taking quite a lot of syrup and collecting pollen like crazy both of which are needed for comb building. On the last inspection 2 weeks ago they had yet to start drawing comb on the bottom of the medium frame like the Modomnoc Hive

Even though we've been reading and researching beekeeping for sometime you never can over estimate the ability of the bees to do amazing things. From honey & pollen their tiny bodies make wax roughly 1 square millimetre at a time and only several thousandths of an millimeter thick. Again until you actually see what they build it is hard to imagine.

In the past 2 weeks the bees have definitely decided to draw comb on the medium frames in a big way. 2 of the 4 medium frames have very large natural comb on the bottom, I would estimate 3/4 of the frame bottom and the queen has been taking advantage of it by laying eggs in it. This additional comb makes the medium frames into the equivalent of a deep frame almost. At this time I would estimated that the population of this have has more than doubled and would go as far as to say 2-1/2 times in expansion.

I posted these 2 photos in an attempt to give you a glimpse of what forethought and efficiency the bees work with. If you look close at the lighter area of the drawn comb you can kinda' see a passage way from one side of the frame to the other side of the frame. Saves the workers and the queen from having to walk all the way across the comb to get to the other side. If you search natural comb images in the web you'll see how the bees will fill in a space with comb complete with passageways from side to side.

With smiles on our faces and feelings of confidence that your bees were doing fine we put everything back together, including the feeder and watched our bees load up and head to the brood chamber to continue doin' what they do

Modomnoc Hive - 3 weeks from Bee day

2011-06-05T21:38:00.000-07:00

Despite the weather having been cooler than normal recently we decide to do a full hive inspection this weekend and see how the ladies have been progressing. The last time we were here they had just started to drawn comb on the bottom bar on one of the original mediums we received with our nuc, it would be good to see if they were continuing and how they or if they were taking more syrup. Which is critical for a lot of comb building.

In this picture you can see that we have removed the top box, the feeder and the inner cover under the feeder. At the far right corner you can see that the bees are gathered on the box and are actually feeding on the syrup that was leaking from the top box feeder. Since our feeders are re-purposed chicken watering devices and they top bow is not sealed to the inner cover under it we expect some leakage once the daytime temperature and sun was coming out steady. I do have a plan to minimize this by making a vent in the feeder to let the expanding hot air out so this should stop this force push out excess syrup. Once I get this figured out I'll make a post to let you in on the design.

Now back to the 3 week hive inspection. Rather than bore you with all the same pictures of the frames covered with bees I'll show you the highlights of what we found that was now the same as the last inspection.

I have to say we were quite surprised that the bees had drawn out as much comb as they had in one week but then again we had never had bees before. In these 2 photos you can see the amount they had expanded the comb they had started last week.

The little bit of comb they had before was now at least 3 or 4 times larger and the queen had wasted no time on utilizing this new comb to lay eggs. If you click on the picture to enlarge it & look really close you can see some very very small white rice sort of shaped eggs in some of the cells these will soon hatch and in less than 3 threes be full grown adult bees. It has been mentioned to us that this extra comb, being not within a frame, can be cut off prior to emerging and frozen in order to control the varroa mite cycle. The major down side to this is that, as you guessed, the brood is also frozen. I guess we need to decide that sometimes it's better to sacrifice a few to save the colony much suffering.....but it really sucks.

Another new thing we seen and didn't know quite what to think was a queen cell or cup. I've read much about these but it's not quite the same until you see one for sure. The bees had drawn this on the bottom of the frame. There was only one and at the time we didn't know or think to check & see if it contained an egg or not. As it turns out just because they create one of these doesn't mean they are going to swarm I understand that they will create them and take them apart without even anything further....another mystery of the hive life.

After we re-assembled our hive parts and feeder we lingered to see if the forager were collecting much pollen. I thought it would be easy to get some photos of them coming back to the landing board but I was wrong. They really move quite fast and barely pause to enter the small doors.....quite amazing really but flying fast and accurate is what they are designed to do. Until now I've never seen a bee shadow!

Ambrose Hive - 3 weeks after Bee day

2011-06-05T14:49:00.000-07:00

Well due to the possibility that the neighbor to the north is harbouring "foul brood" we moved this hive. So in the week since the last post we've chosen to disturb it very little. We are still feeding 1:1 syrup to assist them in making comb. We removed all the plastic frames with foundation and inserted wired wood frames. The only deep plastic frames we have now are ones either side of the medium frames from the nucleus hive. It will be interesting to look in on them in another week and see how they're doing.....I promise photos soon!

A honey of a story - Kelowna News - Castanet.net

2011-05-30T10:35:00.000-07:00

A honey of a story - Kelowna News - Castanet.net

Cold bees...

2011-05-27T20:13:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, today and tomorrow the forecast is for unseasonably cold weather. When I say cold I mean over night lows of +4 C (39 F) and day time high of 14 C (57 F). warm enough to fly later in the day but too cold to thrive.
Today after work I checked on the bees of the Ambrose hive and found at least 2 dozen on the ground, some by themselves, some balled together. I picked up a few and as soon as they warmed up in my hands them were able to go back in the hive on their own. So I got Cate and we proceeded to retrieve them and put them in the top box were the feeder is. As bees do, those in the box welcomed them and they slowly made their way back into the brood chamber. On a positive note the bees in the feeder box were still taking syrup and looking well.
It seemed that most of them were rather young bees & still quite fuzzy which made us wonder if they lacked the experience of getting back to the hive before they got too cold. There were other bees that seemed to come and go with no troubles. Kinda' strange and really sad.........I hope the temperature warm up in the next few days to something that is more seasonal.
We plan to check the hive again this weekend so more on that later.

The Queen Markings

2011-05-25T20:41:00.000-07:00

In the post on the Modomnoc hive I mentioned the blue dot on the queen which signifies she is from the year ending in 0. This marking colour and scheme is an extablished world wide system to aid beekeeper in remembering when they replaced their queen last.
Some reasons why you would replace the queen is if she is laying eggs in a poor or spotty pattern. If she is producing bees that have more tendancy to be aggresive or if she is older than 2-3 year. After several years her inclination to swarming is higher and really you can't blame her. She has been cooped up in the same hive in the same location for what could be considered most of her life. As a virgin queen she enjoys a brief flight or 6 & returns to the hive to lay eggs. One can understand the urge to go and find another place to live.

Modomnoc Hive - 2 weeks from Bee day

2011-05-22T09:08:00.000-07:00

Well since this is the continuance of the previous post it seems fitting to start the same so here goes...........

The day dawned warm and calm. We awoke with anticipation and excitement to go and see our colonies. It had been pretty much 2 weeks since we had seen the inside of the hives and are really curious about what is happening, did the bees accept the syrup? did the capped brood emerge? did the queen lay a bunch of new eggs? did the hive build more comb? Today is when we find out

The first thing we have been doing when we go to our hives is stand to the side and watch the incoming traffic to see what's happening. At Modomnoc the first thing we noticed was that the incoming bees were quite different than the bees at the Ambrose hive Having pretty sketchy mental notes of how each colony's bees looked we started thinking the worst. Were these robber bees? Crazy how when we recognize our 20/20 hindsight it usually shows we've done things...most likely sub-consciencely.... that we can use for future reference. I say this because I had just recently been reading about identifying robbing activity and robbing bees. Drawing on this newly acquired knowledge I watch the incoming bees and the entrance guard bees and determine that this are likely not robbers.

These bees are simply a different type of bee, darker & slightly larger. Our impression of this hive is that it is slightly "behind" the Ambrose hive in be numbers & comb building.
This is only an impression since there are so many variables that could cause this. Not as many bees in the nuc to start with. More exposure to the cool spring winds. Different genetic behaviour. A little later season in general in Winfield 14 or 15 miles farther north.
But in no way is this a fault of the bees they are working hard only doing what they need to, collecting pollen & nectar, building comb and raising a new generation. Building their hive to the point were they feel they can split and send forth another pollinating power house.

If you look closely at the photo just above you can see the bee responsible for this entire's colony's continued growth She's the one with the blue dot. The blue signifies that she was from the year ending with a 0

Unlike the Ambrose hive we noticed that these ladies are building comb on the bottom of the medium frames. This is what Vic said would likely happen & we could then use this comb for Varroa mite control. Varroa mites are nasty little critters that prey on the developing larva. I'll have to post more on them later.
I forgot to mention in the previous post that we seen our first drone. We wondered if we would recognize one when we seen it but make no mistake, they're hard to miss. Chubby, hairy bees with larger than normal eyes. They sort of look like bumble bees in shape. I mention this because the Modomnoc hive didn't appear to have made any drones yet but on the bottom of this frame there were a few capped cells that were slight taller then the rest and we were wondering if they were drone cells.

This inspection has raised our confidence that our bees will do fine provided we let them do what they need to. This hive has not drawn out the 4 medium frames we started with the same as the other hive but they have started drawing more comb on the deep frames on both sides in order to expand the brood chamber. As you can see in the photo they have covered a good portion cross the top of the frame and on closer observation we can see the small, tiny in fact, bits of bee's wax on the bottom rail of the frame. Millions of these tiny jewels are excreted from the bees bodies, chewed, massaged, manipulated and fashioned into perfect hexagons; filling all the frames and being filled with everything the colony needs to flourish. Bee's wax seals all their food and their most precious: the next generation.

This day started with many questions and may be a little apprehension and in hindsight all for not.

We re-assembled the hive box with feeder, even though they aren't taking too much yet, then we just had to take picture of their cute, sweet little faces all lined up around the access hole to the feeder box. Like the Ambrose hive we had scraped the brace comb off of the top board to keep from crushing any bees.....another small gift...the first from this hive and a true treasure from our wonderful group of elegant ladies.

Ambrose Hive - 2 weeks from Bee day

2011-05-21T18:46:00.000-07:00

The day dawned warm and calm. We awoke with anticipation and excitement to go and see our colonies. It had been pretty much 2 weeks since we had seen the inside of the hives and are really curious about what is happening, did the bees accept the syrup? did the capped brood emerge? did the queen lay a bunch of new eggs? did the hive build more comb? Today is when we find out.

We decided to go the Ambrose hive first since we had not seen the inside of this hive for a full 2 weeks and this hive seemed to be taking more syrup. We slowly remove the outside cover and the inside cover to discover that there we a dozen or so bees happily feeding on the syrup.

The level of the 1 gallon feeder had gone down by about half. This was only since Monday! In this photo you can see we've added some rocks to the feeding tray, the idea is to try to minimize the number of drowned bees. So far so good we have only found a few drowned bees. One nice surprise was that the heat of the past few days didn't cause the air in the feeder to expand enough to cause the syrup to leak out. I have to say this is a bit of relief.

Inside the hive the number of bees had obviously increased. All of the 4 medium frames we received from Vic at Bees Incorporated were covered with bronze, twinkling, buzzing bees. The capped brood that we seen when we gotten our nucs had all emerged now. Practically both sides of all 4 of the original frames had honey, pollen, tiny eggs and brood compare to only to frames when we started. When we first got our bees the 2 outside frames only had honey and not all the comb had been drawn. Now that was not the case.

All the frames we received with our nucleus hive were now fully drawing and basically either full of eggs, brood, honey or honey and pollen. The pollen stores are amazing! Reds, yellows, oranges, browns and blacks.

The bees tuck it in cells here and there and every where but many around the perimeter of the brood cells. It was good to see that there was honey within easy reach of the brood cells as well. This is text book arrangement of a frame.

As you can see in this photo the center of the frame is not capped for the most part and when compared to the photo above which is, it tells me that this side of the frame has emerge, the queen has come around and laid more eggs. Now there are more brood developing continuing the cycle. The frame above along with another we didn't photograph will most likely be emerging in the next week providing the young bees that are best at nursing and comb building.

So our plan is to check these hives again in another few days to see how they are progressing with filling the deep frames with comb to expand the brood chamber beyond the 4 frames we got from our nuc. This photo shows drawing of comb on the first side of the first frame of our first hive's full deep frame. With the continuous increase of the number of bees the comb building speeds up, the queen's laying increases and the population exponentially expands. With a queen able to produce up to 2000 (that is thousand) eggs a day you can imagine what I mean.

In the second photo from the top of this post you can see there are 2 wooden frames. These frames are just that...frames. Pretty much all the photos so far show plastic frames with plastic foundation with a honey comb pattern on it. This pattern is NOT required and in fact contributes to the bees developing larger than they would normally in nature. When given a frame with no foundation they will draw comb with a more natural cell size. I've read they will actually more readily draw comb on an empty frame then a frame with foundation. I'll have to make a more detailed post on this topic soon.

Prior to placing the plywood on top of the bottom super we decided to scrape the brace comb wax off of it to prevent squishing some bees when we put it in place. This is the first gift the bees have for us.....a small ball of pure bee's wax. Thank you ladies for your wonderful gift.

Cate got her first bee sting a random happening or maybe not, bees can sense things beyond our senses; after all they can live in complete harmony in huge numbers. They only do what they're created to do. Maybe someday she will share our revelation about this "random" event.

So after fawning over the hive for a few more minutes and breathing in the magical atmosphere, all our questions answered; we re-assembled the top box and the feeder, make our way back to the truck and head for the Modomnoc hive.

Hive check tomorrow!!!! Yipee.....

2011-05-20T21:13:00.000-07:00

Well....after sitting on our hands for most of the week tomorrow, God willing, we will go and carry out hive inspections. We did visit them on Monday evening just to put larger feeders in the hives but we didn't open up the brood chamber. When the colony is starting out with a small population like ours it's good to check regularly to ensure we provide enough room for the expanding population. Besides we are so enthused by these amazing creatures we want to spend time with them........more to show & tell soon.

Amazing Bees!!

2011-05-14T20:49:00.000-07:00

So May 8th we picked up our 2 nucleus hives and placed them in what is hopefully their basically permanent sites. A nucleus hive consists of a young laying queen, brood in all stages of development and 4 medium frames. (medium frames are roughly 6-5/8" deep x 18" long) As you can see in the photo these are the 4 center frames. We purchased these from Vic at Bees Incorporated and we can not be happier. They are calm, non aggressive hives that will hopefully be with us for many seasons.

During the past week we checked on each hive once and they seem to be doing well. It has taken all we have to not go and disturb them sooner and more often. The weather has been very unsettled and rather wet, with quite heavy rain several nights in a row. The day time temperatures have been in the mid teens to low 20s (C)

Well now I need to get on with why they are amazing. Besides each bee always diligently working doing what is required for the good of the hive and progressing from nursebee to housekeeper bee to close range forager bee to long range field bee. The colony, right now, in early May, is starting with 2 - 3000 bees and by the end of this summer they will have increased by 20 to 30 times. In spite of their small numbers, with shelter from the wind and honey stores from last fall this band of bees survived a period that started last October and ended in April. Huddled together during this time they were able to keep the brood warm, warm enough to continue developing and hatching as fully developed bees. (sorry about the camera strap in the photo..oops)

In this photo you can clearly see the honey these little treasures have put away so far this year. They have scrounged up a little nectar and used the sugar syrup they have access to in order to make this honey store. With pollen they are collecting and this honey they will proceed with making wax from their bodies. Every frame in the hive will be drawn with comb, drawn from the wax their bodies make. All the honey cells and brood cell are capped with wax for protection and preservation. Amazing no?

These 2 photos show the same frame with many capped brood cells on both sides of the frame. As far as I've been able to research once the brood is capped they will emerge within 11 to 13 days so as you can see the population of this hive will increase a lot very soon. Another good sign, which Vic told us to watch for, is the comb building on the bottom of the frame. Because we put these medium frames in a deep hive box (roughly 9-5/8" x 18") with other deep frames the bees will naturally want to make the medium frames "longer".
Bees are certainly particular about the space in the hive, they like using it all, they like using it efficiently. With the 4 frames being shorter than the balance of the box they are compelled to fill that space. If the space is bigger than 3/8 of an inch they will fill it with burr comb or brace comb if it is less than 1/4 of an inch they will fill it with propolis. Amazing no?

I really like this photo as it really shows the way bees keep their space organized. On the far left and far right of the frame you can see some cells that are capped with a lighter colour wax and some have some shiny stuff in them. This is honey that the nurse bees will use to feed the older brood, themselves and the co-workers. The cells across the bottom of the frame are stocked with pollen which is also consumed by the bees to keep them healthy. All the cells in the center of the frame with a slightly darker cap have that brood which will start emerging soon. Amazing no? (we've had the hives for 5 days so emerging should commence soon)

Well we didn't get a photo of the queen, we seen the queen but she was too shy to get a photos of, besides there was a cool breeze blowin' and we didn't want to keep the hive open for too long. We saw many cells with freshly laid eggs and brood in all stages so the hive is looking well.

These little bees fascinate us and humble us in how they do precisely what God created them to do. They don't strive to be famous or wealthy. They strive to make honey collect pollen and support their families all the while providing the world with 2/3 of our food through pollination.......alas, until a little more time has passed we will restrain from bothering our hives again and let them go about doing what they do.

Bee Day!

2011-05-12T12:56:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately we were too excited to remember to take pictures of our two hives as we set them out on Mother's Day! What a wonderful day it was!

And so appropriate - as the Queen bee is the mother of thousands!

One hive is named Ambrose and the other is Modomnoc - two Patron Saints of bees, beekeeping and beekeepers.

I should add that we aren't permitted to keep bees on our own land (even on the roof or such) - as it is less than an acre and a half - but we approached others who did have the permitted land and found suitable paces to keep our hives.

Here are 2 shots I actually did get; both at the Modomnoc hive.

First Beef Brisket

2011-04-16T12:07:00.000-07:00

Well.........after doing quite a few pork shoulders (pork butts) and working on getting my ribs to a point that I'm happy with I've now tackled my first beef brisket!

So far it has been in the "Q" for about 5 hours and looking fine if I do say so. The process to this point is pretty much the same as the pork shoulder. The only exceptions are the rub and injected seasoning. By seasoning I mean only really salt water and a little bit of ground lemon grass powder. The lemon grass powder is totally new to us. We went to the Oriental Supermarket here in town and picked up this along with a couple of different types of chilies and a medium plastic container of Mexican oregano. The rub is very different than the pork shoulder rub I used.

For me pork and a little sweet go together but beef and sweet don't. Having said that I did want some sort of sweet just not in the sugar kind. So here's what I came up with.
1/4 cup coarse salt
1 table spoon of black pepper corns
1 table spoon of rosemary leaves
1-1/2 table spoon of cayenne pepper
3 allspice balls (pods)
1/4 cup coarse ground Ancho chili
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon of ground sage
1/4 cup Mexican oregano
The allspice & cinnamon were the "sweet" I'm hoping for, once the cooking is done I'll know how it worked.

Now here are few things I've learned about the operating of the southern BBQ.
1- The temperature will fluctuate pretty much no matter what you do. That is the nature of fire.
2- That 4 or 5 hours of smoke is a good amount then heat control is important.
3- Lump charcoal is effective for keeping heat up but not required.
4- keep the lump charcoal from falling through the grate is important and a disposable aluminum roasting pan will totally disintegrate.

So taking some of the expanded metal left over from the BBQ build I fashioned a tray to put the charcoal in. As you can see in the photo I've also included some wood pieces to add a little smoke and provide more fuel. The charcoal heat doesn't seem to carry completely through the cooking chamber. I suppose it would be great for grilling over but since that's not what I'm doing I need to be creative.

There is still a few more hours to cook this brisket properly and I plan on making and addition to this post to let you know how my first brisket turned out.........stay tuned.

Shoe campaign seeks old soles - Kelowna News - Castanet.net

2011-04-10T09:58:00.000-07:00

Shoe campaign seeks old soles - Kelowna News - Castanet.net

I'll definitely be asking some family members about this! We have far too many shoes kicking about!

A Murder Most Foul

2011-04-09T13:31:00.000-07:00

This is the scene on my front lawn this afternoon - looks like a serious rose-pruning attack has happened! But it's worse than that...the intention of the pruner was nothing less than total annihilation! But fear not, the victim is nothing less than the most vicious rose to ever grace the Earth and it has lots of fight left in it yet I'd be willing to wager! Nothing less than some kind of chemical warfare is probably going to do the dastardly deed.

Let me tell you the story of this rose. Several years ago a house down the street was being demolished to make way for condominiums. We had always admired the scattering of roses in their yard and a quick phone call allowed us permission to remove the lot. A large selection of roses; mostly heritage varieties were tucked in here and there throughout our yard.

And somebody...not saying whom....ahem....me....thought this would be a good place to plant it:

See the water faucet? It is the only water in the front yard. Yeah, good idea. See the thorns? I've never seen such thorns on a rose and bravely reaching in through meters of angry growth to try to access the water hasn't done anything to improve our opinion of the great beastie.

The most alarming part of the tale is all the healthy little shoots running throughout the bed - gleefully popping up from long-reaching roots, well on their way to world domination! Oh dear.

I've read about salt and vinegaring the plant, drilling a hole in the woody stalks and pouring in stump killer, boiling water, straight bleach...the evil roundup of course...

Does anyone have a means to kindly dispatch this super villain of rosedom? Something that wouldn't kill the soil along with it?

I wish I could promise that I will never thoughtlessly tuck an unknown rose in a stupid place again...but I think I know myself better than that. :)

Pea Bed

2011-04-08T16:12:00.000-07:00

The peas are planted! I have a little bit of space left and I'm thinking of putting sweet peas in that bit - unless I find something that tells me the two won't get along together. :)

Assuming that my pea wall withstands any and all weather that gets thrown at it - the combination may even provide a little shade for the seating area developing behind it.

Potatoes and other signs of Spring

2011-03-29T15:45:00.001-07:00

"Po-ta-toes! boil 'em, mash 'em, stick 'em in a stew." Samwise Gamgee

These are my beautiful organic seed potatoes from http://www.westcoastseeds.com/

We're planting Norkotah, Russian Blue, Sieglinde and Chieftan.

Unfortunately I have more potatoes than garden beds and I'm not permitted to turn all of the earth beneath the thirsty lawn into garden beds - at least not this year until I know if we can all keep up with it. I swear I thought that I bought seeds with economy and reserve!

This is the potato bed - half of what I purchased fit.

I really don't know what I'm going to do with the extras. I'm looking sideways at the front yard and thinking that I always wanted to plant all of the front yard...why not with potatoes and beans? Either that or try to sell them locally? I think I've asked all of my gardening friends...

A dramatic stack of new frames for going inside the new bee boxes!

More about these soon!

Last but not least - the very first shoots of rhubarb pushing up through the leaves - what an exciting sight! The garlic is up too!

Free range egg ban shuts bed and breakfast

2011-03-18T12:04:00.000-07:00

Free-range egg ban shuts bed and breakfast - Prince Edward Island - CBC News

Unbelievable - just step back and think about this. Some kind of crazy.

More Socks!

2011-03-04T12:47:00.001-08:00

This is my second pair of socks! I took a wee break between knitting the first sock of this pair and the second one. I filled that break with knitting my daughter leg warmers as long as her legs and a pair of sheep skin sole booties for the Grandbaby!

I love this wool! Watching the colour variations coming together in the knitted fabric was just joyful! I know some of you will know what I mean! :)

King Cake

2011-03-02T12:50:00.000-08:00

Mardi Gras is fast approaching! We're helping the young adults at our church with another fundraiser - this time in the shape of a MardiGras/Shrove Tuesday Dinner. The pancake dinner tradition is boring beyond belief and unthinkable for a fun family night out. And since they adopted a Blues/Louisiana theme for their last fundraiser evening they weren't much feeling like making more Jambalaya or dirty rice - so spaghetti dinner it is! But to be true to the day - King Cake is a must!

I've been tweaking a recipe by Emeril Lagasse - which was a very fine, more traditional King cake; already embellished with the slightly-more-modern twist of cream cheese filling. My intent was to push the king cake into an even more sweet, light and desert-like confection that would make sense to my Canadian dinners.

Here is the original recipe:

INGREDIENTS

2 envelopes active dry yeast
1/2 cup granulated sugar
12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, melted
1 cup warm milk (about 110?F)
5 large egg yolks, at room temperature
4 1/2 cups bleached all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1 teaspoon grated lemon zest
1 teaspoon vegetable oil
1 pound cream cheese, at room temperature
4 cups confectionerís sugar
1 plastic king cake baby or a pecan half
5 tablespoons milk, at room temperature
3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
Purple-, green-, and gold-tinted sugar sprinkles

Combine the yeast and granulated sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook. Add the melted butter and warm milk. Beat at low speed for 1 minute. With the mixer running, add the egg yolks, then beat for 1 minute at medium-low speed. Add the flour, salt, nutmeg, and lemon zest and beat until everything is incorporated. Increase the speed to high and beat until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl, forms a ball, and starts to climb up the dough hook.
†
Remove the dough from the bowl. Using your hands, form the dough into a smooth ball. Lightly oil a bowl with the vegetable oil. Place the dough in the bowl and turn it to oil all sides. Cover with plastic wrap and set aside in a warm, draft-free place until doubled in size, about 2 hours.
†
Meanwhile, make the filling. In a large mixing bowl, combine the cream cheese and 1 cup of the confectionerís sugar. Blend by hand or with an electric mixer on low speed. Set aside.
†
Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
†
Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface. Using your fingers, pat it out into a rectangle about 30 inches long and 6 inches wide.
†
Spread the filling lengthwise over the bottom half of the dough, then flip the top half of the dough over the filling. Seal the edges, pinching the dough together. Shape the dough into a cylinder and place it on the prepared baking sheet seam side down. Shape the dough into a ring and pinch the ends together so there isnít a seam. Insert the king cake baby or pecan half into the ring from the bottom so that it is completely hidden by the dough.
†
Cover the ring with plastic wrap or a clean kitchen towel and place in a warm, draft-free place. Let the dough rise until doubled in size, about 45 minutes.
†
Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 350?F.
†
Brush the top of the risen cake with 2 tablespoons of the milk. Bake until golden brown, 25 to 30 minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool completely on a wire rack.
†
Make the icing. Combine the remaining 3 tablespoons milk, the lemon juice, and the remaining 3 cups confectionerís sugar in medium-size mixing bowl. Stir to blend well. With a rubber spatula, spread the icing evenly over the top of the cake. Sprinkle with the sugar crystals, alternating colors around the cake.
†
The cake is traditionally cut into 2-inch-thick slices with all the guests in attendance.

http://www.emerils.com/recipe/3082/king-cake

Here is my variation:

INGREDIENTS

2 TBSP active dry yeast
1 cup granulated sugar
6 oz butter, melted
1 cup warm milk
5 large whole eggs
6 1/2 cups bleached all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon lemon extract
1 teaspoon grated lemon zest
1 teaspoon vegetable oil
8 oz cream cheese, at room temperature
4 cups confectioners sugar
5 tablespoons milk, at room temperature
3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
tin of cherry pie filling
Purple-, green-, and gold-tinted sugar sprinkles

Hydrating the yeast - I feel safer if I give them a good start! I also plan on mixing it all by hand as my Kitchenaid cannot handle the volume I'm going to require so I might as well see how it goes by hand!

Beating in eggs! If only I had farm fresh!
I excluded the nutmeg - wanting the bread to have a strong lemon influence alone.

It really didn't take much kneading to get to this glossy-smooth ball of dough.

The cream cheese filling is below the pie filling.

The ring is made! The ring shape is evocative of a crown.

And baked! My goodness it is huge. I may use this recipe to make 2 rings - so the ratio of filling to dough is also more desert-like and easier to serve a less-gargantuan size serving!

And traditional coloured sprinkles! Which I knew David would feel ruined a perfectly good King Cake. (he really does hate chewing sand!)

The lighting was pretty bad by the time I took this shot...but I wanted to be able to show you the inside texture and the way the filling flowed a bit. I'm pretty happy with it! The glaze could be a bit thicker next time. It also improved overnight as it became a little more moist.

I'm debating a couple of other flavours as well; chocolate and apple in particular. I think I need to make this recipe times five. Five this size or ten smaller. When I do the big bake I'll be sure to take photos to share!

Unwanted bikes changing lives - Kelowna News - Castanet.net

2011-02-28T11:17:00.000-08:00

Unwanted bikes changing lives - Kelowna News - Castanet.net

A local story that I just had to share with you all. A project that sprouted in our parish and has grown to be embraced by the entire community. Such a wonderful idea - would be beautiful to see it spread!

Cate

On your mark,,, get set,,, FIRE!!!

2011-02-26T07:47:00.000-08:00

Well it had been several week since I had barbequed and with a fresh batch of fire starters on hand I couldn't resist.

To not be long winded about this I'll show you in pictures how the well fire starters work.

1.

2.

3.

4.

Being totally honest, both splitting the wood and writing this post took longer than starting this fire. Estimated time starting the fire: 2 minutes

Where there's fire......

2011-02-22T17:05:00.001-08:00

.......... it needed to be started.

In our post about our Southern BBQ I mention using a fire starter. You can buy all sorts of these in the many camping sections of the big box stores, they work well but most of them are made from some crazy bad petroleum accelerants. These are OK if your looking for something to put in your back country survival pack but if you plan on starting a fire your want to do a bunch of cooking on ie: Southern BBQ...... I won't take the chance.

The following is how we make our fire starters which we use of any fire we need to start. Yes I admit the paraffin wax we usually use for these is a petroleum product but it's not the volatile stuff a lot of the store bought starters are made from. If you're really concerned about what you use for wax you can source some soywax which is hydrogenated to make it a solid.

My 2 cent is the processing in either case has it's downside and the 1/2 to 1 oz of wax that is used is long gone by the time the fire is ready to cook on or with. Besides what's easier than recycling your old candle stubs?

Here's what you need:
-paper fiber egg cartons
-sawdust (from your table saw or the neighbour's or anyone really....it occurred to me that If you can't get sawdust you could use really dry leaves from your backyard)
-wax (any kind works but "free" or recycled is always best)
-1 old pot coffee or otherwise (preferably with a pouring spout but it's not critical)
-A flat, reasonable level surface to put the egg cartons on.
-Some sort of heat source.

Melt the wax...........

this sounds easy and is rather but there are a few things to please remember.
Only heat the wax on a low to medium low temperature it takes longer but it is better then potentially battling a fire. Check the melting process often once the solid wax melts the temperature rises very quickly. Hot wax will burn your skin and it is impossible to stop the burning since it coats and cools slowly. Paraffin melts at 47 °C and 64 °C (117°F to 147°F) Soywax melts at 49 to 52°C (121-125 F) Hot enough to really burn you. Be very careful when pouring. Don't wear clothing you can't live without since melted wax is extremely hard to get out of cloth.

Trim all the extra bit off the egg carton so that you only have the cups the eggs came in. (be sure to put the waste bits in the recycling

Lay them out so that they are side by side and touching. This makes it really easy to fill them with saw dust and pouring the wax. As a side note: We read about and tried using the lint from the screen in the clothes dryer...seemed reasonable and earth friendly but after burning one and seeing the black sooty smoke and fume coming off of it we decided hmmmm... maybe not. I think to much synthetic junk gets caught in the dryer. Face it most of us don't wear just pure cotton or wool or other natural fiber. Wood is where it's at.

Fill the egg cartons with sawdust. It you have a lot of saw dust fill 'em to the max if not do like I did and only fill them half way. The idea of the sawdust is to soak up some of the wax and provide more fuel for the fire starter. Actually if you look close at the trays on the bottom of the photo I had to "re-purpose" some of the rabbit's bedding to make sure I had enough wood.

So once the wax is all melted, the sawdust in place and your hands steadied it's time to pour. Here's were you run the risk of getting wax on your clothes due to splashing so pour carefully. What I try and do is pour a small amount in each cup starting from one side. This serves two purposes....... one it make sure all cups get a least a little wax. Two, and more importantly by the time you go back to the beginning to pour more wax the first little bit has started to soak in and set, making sure the rest of the wax does seep right through the fiber paper.

Now your basically done you just need to wait until the wax has cooled. Once this it done you can shake any loose sawdust into a pail or bag (for using the next time a batch is needed) then either cut them into their respective cups or leave them together and cut them apart as needed. When you cut them leave the "wings" on them......the little bit of material between each cup and don't worry if all the paper is not soaked with wax 'cause once you light them and the wax starts to melt it won't matter. We have always cut them apart right off the bat so when a fire starter is need it's ready to go.

The nice things about these fire starts is how easy they are to light and how long they will burn. One of these will burn by itself for at least 6-8 minutes. Add some small kindling topped with a little bit larger split wood and you'll have a fire in less than 3-4 minutes. Hope this has been helpful

Non-Toxic Flour & Pantry Moth Traps - Eartheasy.com Solutions for Sustainable Living

2011-02-18T13:33:00.000-08:00

Non-Toxic Flour & Pantry Moth Traps - Eartheasy.com Solutions for Sustainable Living

I just found these while googling natural cleaning tips. I wanted to post them here for my sake as well as any blog readers who may be cursed with the pantry moth's presence!

If these troublesome moths ever reappear in my pantry I must try them. They are beastly-difficult to move along and I'll be eager to try anything that may work well!

Where's my food come from???

2011-01-30T08:45:00.000-08:00

Once in awhile we see something or hear something that make you go "Hmmmm". This video does that. My sister sent me it and it got me thinking.
How many of us, regardless of what country we live in, know where our food actually comes from?
For us in Canada our winter menu would be quite different if we didn't import food but when it is is season we have a bounty to choose from. All locally grown or at least from our own farming families. If we choose and make an effort to support them they could at least have a reasonable return from their efforts and keep the farms going.
If you live where the growing season is longer or pretty much all year I'd be curious to know if your food is from local farms. The food industry does some crazy things when it comes to sourcing its food.
You have to admit, fresh from a local farm or fresh off a truck thats been on the road for many days hauling food thats been in a warehouse for several days, the nutritional value has to suffer.

Just some food for thought.................

The BIG day!!!!!!

2011-01-27T19:24:00.000-08:00

4:45 AM: Alarm goes off. Time to get out of bed and start the fire in the "Q" Reading about how this all works its important to make sure the whole unit is hot. In order to do this the fire is to be started an hour or so prior to putting the meat in. I had split the wood for kindling and starting the night before...... Thought the neighbours would appreciate not waking up to the banging of the splitting maul.
5:00 AM: Place the homemade fire starter (yet another post to come) on the fire grate. Place a big chunk of wood either side of it. Lay the kindling over the top and light the fire starter.
5:10 AM: go in the house, make some coffee, pray a decade of the rosary and drink some coffee. Contemplate the dry rub ingredients and the process of the few day just past:
To make a small batch (enough for one shoulder)
1/2 cup Brown sugar
1/2 cup Coarse Salt
1/4 cup Black pepper
1/2 cup Paprika
1/4 cup Cumin
1/4 cup Granulate Garlic
1/4 cup Granulate Onion
1 tsp Cayenne Pepper
1/4 cup Oregano
1/4 cup Thyme
Okay I have to admit the quantities above are a good guess. That's usually how I cook and it always seem to work out (so far). The dry rub is really a personal thing and the more you do it the more you'll develop your own. The only caution I would give is to go easy in the cumin, it can quickly and easily over power all the other ingredients.
The process that was done in advance is covering all the surface area of the meat with the dry rub at least 24 hour in advance. The best way to do this is to liberally sprinkle the surface then rub it in with you hands, this gets it in all the cracks and crevices. Don't worry you can't really over do the dry rub.
In this case we rubbed the pork shoulders Wednesday night and the cooking started Friday morning.
6:00 AM: After an hour or so the temperature is up to 300F so it's time for the meat to hit the racks.

6:30 AM: check the temperature and the fire; both are doing well. Temperature is holding at 300F and the fire is burning well. I put another round in the firebox and go back in the house.
7:00 AM: check the temperature and the fire; both are doing well. Temperature is holding at 300F and the fire is burning well. I put another round in the firebox and go back in the house. THIS IS PRETTY MUCH HOW THE BULK OF THE MORNING GOES.....
Some time between now and 10:30 I realize my suspicions were correct. The point were the baffle ends and the smoke and heats make the rise into the top of the cooking chamber creates a hot spot so I move some of the shoulders over and swap them out. I'll do this again once more before the day is over.
10:30 AM: Check the temperature and the fire both; are doing well. Temperature is holding at 300F and the fire is burning well. I decide to start applying the mop...an apple cider, white vinegar, oregano, granulated garlic, black pepper, cayenne pepper mixture that was also made in advance and left to get the flavours to all meld together. I put another round in the firebox and go back in the house.

11:00 AM: check the temperature and the fire; both are doing well. Temperature is holding at 300F and the fire is burning well. I apply more mop. I put another round in the firebox and go back in the house. THIS IS PRETTY MUCH HOW THE AFTERNOON GOES NOW WE'LL SKIP TO THE END.....

4:30 PM: check the temperature look the shoulders over. They've been in for 10-1/2 hours and look wonderful. I my haste I forgot to take one last photo so you'll need to imagine the photo above with each shoulder glistening with mop, nice and dark dark brown, sizzling and dripping with flavour.
6:40 PM: We started pulling the meat apart, I had read that these will stay hot for a long time but would never have guessed how long. They were still too hot to handle.
7:00 PM: Dinner was served and was a huge success. Everyone eat their fill, including seconds all 130+ people and we have about 5 - 8 lbs left over. Now I know how much pork to cook for that size of crowd. 10 pork shoulder, bone-in, skin off, pretty much 100 lbs.

First Southern Barbeque (in our Northern Yard)

2011-01-23T17:22:00.000-08:00

Yes that smoke you see is real, real cooking smoke this time. I got up early for a weekend and started the fire at about 7AM. The ideas is to get the "Q" entirely warm and heated up before putting the meat in. The day before I bought a full shoulder roast boned out approximately 8 pounds of wonderful marbled pork. I made up a batch of dry rub and covered it liberally, rubbing it in on all sides and both ends. The rub is another post!

So with out further ado, at 9AM I put the pork roast on the grate.....exciting times! I planned to try and keep the temperature in the 275 to 300 degrees F range but with no experience with the draft and wood burning I was flying at it. Really the worse that could happen was the outside would get a little dark & the inside might get a little dry.

During the whole seasoning process, the firing the day before had taught me some important things the day before such as:
- Split wood burns hotter and quicker than unsplit wood.
- The draft on the firebox can be quite closed and still provide enough air to the fire.
- The cap on the chimney will slow down the flow of smoke and heat to provide a good atmosphere for cooking.
- Using both the draft and the chimney cap is effective in controlling the temperature.

After 7 1/2 hours on the "Q" I determined that the pork was done and eating could commence and WOW was it fantastic!

I was set for the fundraiser in 5 days.

Seasoning the "Q"

2011-01-23T15:12:00.000-08:00

The last step in getting this rig good to go is to season it. Not adding salt or other spices but seasoning it like you do for a cast iron frying pan or skillet. I read some good things online but the simplest and best process I figured was from the site I found my inspiration model, Lang BBQ Smokers here they have a tips & caring section.

For my purposes and because I had access to it I used a tiger torch.......

the photo I robbed from the web and the only thing missing is the propane tank. This made the process much quicker since I was doing this in the middle of winter and had wood to burn.

Basically I cranked the torch up so that it was roaring out the heat and worked my way from one end of the cooking chamber to the other heat and spraying water as I went. Making sure to heat the metal enough to burn off the coating the manufacturer puts on it and cause the water to immediately steam. This same process is repeated but this time using cooking oil in place of the water. The oil pretty much sears on the surface and flashes in to flame.

This being done and having taken a few hours the final step was to break in the firebox.

The idea with having the fire right away, good and hot is to have the smoke permeate the surface of the metal and the seared oil to further seal the cooking chamber.

I tried to keep the fire hot, quite hot 500 to 600 degrees and I put the cap on the top of the chimney about 3/4 covering to get as much smoke in the cooking chamber as possible. I keep it th is way for a good 2 hours or more.

The next step is to cook something..............

Homeward bound

2011-01-23T10:48:00.000-08:00

After some long evenings to finish on time we managed to do just that. The big event for the fund raiser mentioned in my first post was only 7 days away and there were still some very important steps to do. So without hesitation we loaded it in the truck with the overhead crane and headed home..........

.......my only hesitation is getting it out of the truck, did I mention it weighs somewhere between 300 & 350 lbs. But I did think this through... thus the 2" x 6" x 10' boards in the truck. I did some trigonometry & figured out that with the height of the tail gate on my truck to the ground; a 10 foot board would give me about a 25 degree angle which would hopefully make rolling the "Q" down to the ground managable.

With the help of my 2 sons, in the dark, with slushy snow on the ground we wheeled the unit the through the back gate. Tomorrow the seasoning takes place.

Final Assembly

2011-01-22T16:57:00.001-08:00

With all the bits and pieces complete (except the second end of the cooking chamber) the time to put the 2 pieces together had arrived. I decided to cut a 1" notch in the top of the firebox for 2 reasons first to shorten the length a little and second to enable me to get a really sound weld to hold the firebox on. The firebox itself is 40 or 50 pounds so it needs a serious weld.

Now the junk that was in the inside to move outside, is ready to put to use. In the picture you can see the upper shelf I put in. After I did this I had second thoughts just because it is rather small, being roughly only 24" long by 8" wide...... but I guess time will tell.

Once the firebox was welded in place I was able to put the last end plate on the cooking chamber and trace the cut out required to provide the entry of the heat & smoke from the firebox. In the photo below, with the firebox door open, you can see this opening which ended up being an elliptical shape 6" high by 12 or so inches.

Since the entire unit most likely weighs around 300 to 350 lbs putting wheels on one end was the only practical way to support it. I bought the wheels from Princess Auto and each of them are rated to support 450lbs so all should be fine. My son came up with the idea of putting one leg on the firebox so away we went. I figured I could put a nice round bar handle on the firebox which would allow this behemoth to be moved around like a wheel barrow & would also serve as bit of a guard to keep people away from the hot end plate. The final idea was to add a round bar rail to the front partly to keep from in advenantly getting burnt and also to be able to attach a piece of wood for a work surface. This will be a spring project once we get the thing home.

So now we're done & rady to go home............

Closing up

2011-01-21T11:24:00.000-08:00

With the internal parts in place and having blown out all the unwanted bits and dust I was ready to put the end on. This is a straight forward process. The grating supports (main frame welded to the cooking chamber) proved to be useful as it kept the end plate from just sliding in to the pipe. (My apologies for all the junk inside we had loaded it all in there just prior to taking it out for the evening.)

So having the end on I could turn my attention to getting the firebox complete. My son had made a good start with welding an end plate on, installing the grate, cutting the door and tacking the hinges on.

Completing the firebox..........

required that the door be ground smooth, the hinges welded in place and the second end plate to be installed to close up the firebox but first the draft control for combustion air needed to be figured out. We had originally planned to add some sort of fancy overlapping slotted plate when in fact we only needed to combine the ash clean out door with an adjustable screw type control. Using the same hinges as the doors, the ash cleanout / draft control door is removable to make scraping out the bottom of the firebox easy. To control how much it is open I tacked a 3/4" diameter nut on the inside which also act as a stop. In to this nut is threaded a 2-1/2" long bolt with a simple bent round bar handle welded to it. Now to add a simple round bar handle to the door and the firebox is ready the mount on to the cooking chamber.

The Details

2011-01-21T06:54:00.002-08:00

Having continued to dream up the details it was time to make them work. My next objective was to complete the inside so I could put the ends on. On the inside there isn't too many details but what are there is rather important from what I've read and been told.

First the baffle............

Looking at the cooking chamber from the firebox end you can see the baffle running directly away from you. The baffle is on a slight angle in 2 directions. First It raises slightly as it goes to the other end. It stop approx. 8" from the end of the cooking chamber. Primarily I figure this slope will promote the heat and smoke to flow to the opposite end of the chimney on the cooking chamber. Yup.... I know it looks like I put it in crooked but there's a method to my madness, the slope to the right of the picture is to hopefully direct the drippings to that end point for easier cleaning.

Thus the drain...........

Wow!!
I almost forgot to explain the entire purpose of the baffle other than to create more work and catch the drippings. Its purpose is 2 fold & from what I've read and thought about it make sense. The heat and smoke from the firebox will heat the baffle as it rises. The heat will radiate up to the underside of the cooking surface and decrease cooking time. More importantly though the baffle forces the smoke and heat to stay in the cooking chamber longer since it actually lets the smoke into the chamber on the opposite end of the chimney. The heat and smoke then have to travel back over the food to get out and be free. This essential uses the wood fire heat twice, once to heat the baffle and once travelling back to the chimney.

Next the cooking surface..... made from 1" x 1" angle iron and the expanded metal

Here I wasted some time mostly due to laziness and poor math efforts, but it could have worked! I measured the diagonal of the opening I had in the door, compared that to the size I need for the cooking grate and figure that it would work if I made a single frame for each side. WRONG. I could get the one piece frame in the door but couldn't swivel it in place on the supports. The only option was to cut that first frame in half and make it in to 2. Then it was simple.... repeated it for the other end of the cooking chamber. In hindsight if I had cut the door slightly higher on the top, increasing the diagonal measurement by an inch or two, I would have been able to get away with a single frame. These areas need to be removable in order to scrap the drippings down to the drain and clean the top of the baffle off. The exception is the 4" section in the middle of the chamber this piece I simple cut the expanded metal and tack welded it in place.

Knowing whats hot and whats not......... 2 thermometer from the Barbeque Store

Probably the simplest part of this build and easy to install. I figured what the heck...2 must be better than one. Actually, I wanted to know the temperature at the cooking surface and higher up since I put a partial shelf in the top for small items. It's as simple as cutting to small holes, taking the nut off the back of the thermometer, inserting the stem through the hole and putting the nut back on. I bought the short stem thermometer so that it wouldn't project into the cooking area too far, possibly getting in the way or worse, getting broken. I went with the high temperature model to give me the option. A regular smoker thermometer is from 50 to 300 degree F (10 to 149 degrees C) The ones I installed are from 100 to 600 degrees F (38 to 315 degrees C)

So now the insde is done and the end plates can be installed!!! Good times ahead.

Taking Shape

2011-01-09T10:25:00.001-08:00

After a work day I've spent a couple hours each night which has tranformed 1 of the 2 simple pieces in to something that looks more like a southern BBQ. I wanted to get the cooking chamber done and even though I had a week or so for the dancing ideas to work the details out they must have been doing a slow 2 step 'cause I didn't know much more about the detail after the Christmas break. So I'm working them out as I build

My inspiration (posted earlier) only has 1 big door.

I've done 2 partly because I didn't want the door to be too heavy but most so that if I open one small door I should lose less heat and smoke. That's the thinking....not sure if it's sound but it's too late to change it now. Each door is 20" long and about 12" high. I lined the three sides of the door opening with flatbar to help seal them and keep the heat and smoke where it will do it's work. Having lined the door with flatbar not only serves as a stop but also makes installing the door easy.

The hinges I used are truly one of those simple designs that make installing them a breeze & they only cost $4 ea. The cross section shape of these hinges are tear drop. One half of the hinge has a pin the other has a hole to slide the pin into. The little brass washer serves as a simple bearing. When you attach them it's simple..... line them up with the joint, flip the tear drop on one piece the opposite of the other piece and weld them in place. It is critical though that some really strong tack welds be put on both ends of both pieces prior to welding, otherwise the weld can pull them out of alignment and cause the hinge to be very hard to pivot. Another benefit of this simple design is that if the pins are put in the same direction the door can be removed for easier access or in my case to lighten the load when moving this heavy unit.

One tip that I learned from an excellent tradesman I had the pleasure to be business partners with is to place the door where you want it to be and tack weld it in place (small, small tacks) before you align and attach the hinges. Once you have the hinges on grind the tacks off and free the door up volia! the door is in the correct place.

You'll notice I've left the ends off to enable the completion if the inside more easily and since they are really just weled on the ends they can be the last things to attach to the cooking chamber just prior to installing the fire box.

So now the handles need to be fabricated and attached but those details didn't even show up at the dance.

Getting Started

2011-01-08T19:55:00.000-08:00

Just prior to Christmas we tackled the project with a cutting torch and reduced the 24" pipe into the cooking chamber and the fire chamber (box). We put some temporary legs on the cooking part, didn't really want to work on the floor or have to keep the thing from rolling all over the place.

With Christmas upon us we let the visions of BBQ building plans dance in our heads sorting out the details. As I have from year to year, I took the week off between Christmas and New Year, rested up & enjoyed family time.

Cooking chamber

Fire Box parts & Fire box further along

Simple - Fun - Delicious

2011-01-08T19:34:00.000-08:00

Southern Pit BBQ - DIY

photo credit: Lang BBQ Smokers

My inspiration.

For some time now I’ve been thinking of making a southern style BBQ. A real southern BBQ is not like any grilling type BBQ that most of us are a custom to. Southern BBQ is, as they say, cooked low & slow with a generous amount of hardwood smoke. Well, the young adults in our parish are fund raising to go to World Youth Day in Spain this year. (http://www.madrid11.com/en) They were planning to do a pulled pork dinner cooked in slow cookers. I know this would have been a good meal but to do the whole history of pulled pork justice I made the commitment of helping them. This gave me the incentive, the catalyst to put my idea and longing to build a smoker to practical application.
The following is the whole process of the fabrication, seasoning and cooking in this incredible form of culinary equipment. I copied the basics of design from sources on the internet and conversations with other enthusiast of the cooking style. The overall dimensions are based on the material available for the body and fire box everything else is cut to suit that.
My 18 year old son helped and was in charge of the fire box design and fabrication. We had a great time and will use it for many, many exquisite meals.

The list of materials is as follows. All are plain carbon steel.
24” pipe with ¼” thk walls 54” long ( I know really heavy but should last until my 8 month old grandson takes up the cause; if not longer)
40 feet of 1” x 1” x 1/8” angle iron (yup just like it sounds 90 degree steel with 1” long legs on each side 1/8” thk)
20 feet of 1-1/2”w x 3/16”thk flat bar (yup just like is sounds)
1/8” thk checker plate (floor plate check out some of the photos)
1 pc 23” x 44” long
4 pc 24” diameter
Bits and pieces for leg bottoms and door latches
¾”x 9 Flattened expanded metal. (This a little hard to describe, you might have seen it used for security screens or pickup truck racks) Check out some of the photos.
2 pcs 23” x 24”
2 pcs 12” x 24”
2 pcs of 3/16” x 1-1/4” - 14” x 16”serrate bar grating.

Child-Proof Sugar Cookies

2010-12-12T16:56:00.000-08:00

I've been wanting these! It's time!

This one has been around in our family for a while - they aren't the most delicate of sugar cookies - but they are some of the most delicate cookies that can survive rolling and re-rolling of dough, easily handling cut-outs and wielding by sweet, sticky, little pudgy fingers!

One of the best things about this recipe for me is the hand-written copy of it I have in David's hand (complete with the large coffee stain!). I really can't remember the circumstances of how this came about - but I love it!

Child-proof Sugar Cookies

1 1/2 Confectioners Sugar
1 Cup Butter
1 egg
1 tsp Vanilla
1/2 tsp Almond Extract

Mix the above until creamy smooth.

Add:
2 1/2 Cups Flour
1 tsp Baking Soda
1 tsp Cream of Tartar

Make into small balls, roll out and cut...etc...
Bake 8-10 minutes at 350F - (I baked them for 7 minutes)

Glaze with thin icing or whatever you fancy! :)

Dark and Delicious Maid of Honour Tarts

2010-11-08T12:49:00.000-08:00

When one does make pastry...and it has indeed been a while for me...there is inevitably some left over. This time around it was actually my son who made the pastry for some buttertarts he was trading for some work needed on his computer (bartering is alive and well in our house!).

And today David asked if I could bake some cupcakes for his Catechism class - he only needed 12. So extra chocolate cake batter, pastry in the fridge....it's time for Maid of Honour tarts with a dark twist! Traditionally, I believe a white or golden cake is used over strawberry or such jam in a pastry crust. But I'm going to use some (oh so slightly runny - ahem) black current jam I made earlier in the season - with the chocolate I think it should be really nummy.

You can ice them...but you really don't need to. A sprinkling of powdered sugar would be pretty though. :)

I use a ziplock storage container to cut these pastry rounds - turns out to be nearly the perfect size!

Adding the jam.

And then add the cake batter. This is the same chocolate cake recipe I posted earlier. It's always this cake recipe. ;) I seem to remember it is suggested to ensure that the batter touches the pastry all around the edge to lessen volcanic jam eruptions. :)

So not only do these darling little tarts reduce waste - they answer the age old question, Pie or cake? Let's have both! :D

Garlic is planted!

2010-10-29T15:38:00.000-07:00

And thank you God for letting me live in a place where it is still possible to plant your garlic as late as October 29th! I didn't get all the seed garlic we had in the ground; half the bed is Kettle River and the other half is German - both hardnecks. Those two filled up the bed and since we're getting low on our eating garlic anyways we'll just eat the rest of the seed. Next year I think I need another bed devoted to garlic - we'll see!

Here's Gromit watching the goings-on; breaking the cloves off the basal plate, getting ready to plant. Each clove becomes another head of garlic.And the bed all tucked in beneath a layer of cozy mulch!

See you garlics in the Spring!

Green Cleaner

2010-10-28T12:43:00.000-07:00

(I read this on our organic vegtable delivery site this morning! I haven't tried it yet but I mean to!)

Green Cleaner Recipe!
Here is a great recipe for an all-purpose eco-friendly cleaning solution, which we found in the Tidy Tushees (Kelowna-based diaper service extraordinaire!) newsletter!

Borrowed from Green Living Tips

Do you have spray bottles full of various cleaning chemical concoctions - a liquid for this, a potion for that? Here's a recipe contributed by a Green Living Tips reader for an all purpose environmentally friendly cleaning fluid that's very easy to make and costs well under a dollar a bottle! Thanks to Maureen R. for sharing this! Tip: While this is a tried and tested recipe made in green cleaning workshops, always spot test any cleaning fluid before going all out.

Ingredients and supplies
-32 oz. (around 950ml) spray bottle - try to use a bottle made from recycled materials, or that is recyclable.
- White distilled vinegar. It should be vinegar made from grain or plant material. Believe it or not, some vinegar is synthesized from petroleum yes, crude oil!. It gives a whole new meaning to fuel as food. Can you believe this? I had NO idea!
- Genuine lemongrass essential oil. Aside from helping to mask the vinegar odor (which dissipates naturally anyway), Lemongrass has anti-bacterial properties. For increased disinfecting power, you can use Tea Tree oil which also has anti-viral and anti-fungal properties.

Note: While we tend to get a little paranoid about bacteria these days thanks to marketing messages that basically paint the presence of any bacteria as being A Bad Thing, if it's an important issue to you, lemongrass is a far more environmentally friendly option than chemicals like triclosan. These synthetic chemicals should really only be used in professional health care settings due to issues relating to bacteria becoming resistant when products containing chemicals such as triclosan are used excessively and/or incorrectly.
- Earth friendly dishwashing liquid. This can be found in just about any supermarket. The dishwashing liquid is necessary to clean mirrors and glass streak-free where commercial glass cleaners have been used previously. Many commercial window/glass cleaners have chemicals of a waxy nature in them; so when you switch to vinegar/water, there will be streaking unless you have the dish detergent in your cleaner. Once that build-up is gone, dishwashing liquid isn't necessary.

Method
1. Fill bottle half with water
2. Top it up with white distilled vinegar, but leave a little room for the additional ingredients and for shaking
3. Add 10-14+ drops lemongrass essential oil. Maureen says she uses around 30 drops, but started off with 14 to minimize the chance of skin irritability.
4. Add 2-3 drops of the earth friendly dishwashing liquid.
5. Cap and shake. There should be a thin layer of foamy bubbles at the top - but not too many.
6. Label container clearly. Shake before using and store out of direct sunlight.

Uses:
Windows, mirrors, floors, some carpet/clothing/upholstery stains, chrome, as a rinse after using baking soda, cleaning stainless steel and porcelain, to clean toilet area. Also cleans car windows/mirrors, door handles, and much more. Maureen also keeps some in the car and uses it as a hand cleaner.

Important notes from Maureen:
Do not use vinegar on marble. Before you use the cleaner on glass and mirrors that have been previously cleaned with commercial products, Maureen recommends washing the surface with warm soapy water once to remove any wax build-up that can otherwise cause streaking.

Pass this recipe on!
Maureen tells me that this recipe is part of a Pass It Forward Project. Those who use it are warmly encouraged to share the recipe with at least one other person (preferably more!).

More Syrup? Failed Jelly...

2010-10-13T12:53:00.001-07:00

Dear David worked so on his Thanksgiving Monday; pruning grape vines back and harvesting the fabulous smelling green grapes. We have no idea what kind they are; some kind of wine grape. They aren't even technically planted in our yard, but the majority of the growth is - so we happily prune and reap the bounty. He even pushed the grapes through a food mill. I then strained the juice and proceeded to make jelly. Or rather, I attempted to.

Now I had so much luck with jams and jellies when I was a young Mum...I very rarely had to use a batch of oregon grape jelly or such as pancake syrup. Oh how things have changed! This year a lovely combination of rhubarb, black current and blueberry failed to gel and now these white grapes. Phooey. I'm going to try a rebatch. I either add some really high pectin fruit (which white grapes are supposed to be - but we took all the skins and such away - where the bulk of pectin lives - before any cooking) and hope for the best with a recook. Or I could add some acid (like lemon) and just reduce the syrup and hope to create jell...I'm still undecided. At least they sealed! :D

Back to the Garden

2010-09-19T14:38:00.000-07:00

This is the letter I just finished composing to the young adults we cook for at our church:

This year we’re bringing the evolution of our ethical, spiritual, global humanitarian and animal rights responsibility epiphany to share with you though our cooking.
We’ve made a commitment to ourselves in our home to choose to purchase wherever possible food produce that has being grown locally, organically, fair-trade and cruelty-free.
We’re extending that to you here in our meals! Not only will the meals be free of pesticides and genetically-modified ingredients but you can rest assured that animals were raised and butchered kindly. We feel we must support those who locally and worldwide are making efforts to support practices that are healthy to the soil and water - while remembering our brothers and sisters around the world whose lives are impacted by our buying decisions.
So much is affected by our decisions to eat mindfully - socially as well as spiritually. To know that we are nurturing and sustaining our planet and the lives of others by making informed purchases and practices feels like giving all of God’s creation (including ourselves) respectful consideration while eating some gorgeously delicious food!

Everything has been coming together on our home hearthfront in this regard! From choosing to no longer bathe with or clean with chemicals to knowing where our food comes from and whom and what our food has impacted on the way to our table. I'm so excited by these changes and I cannot tell you how good I feel about it!

To share with the young adults we cook for; what we're doing and why, seems like such a positive and natural extension of being aware of your impact on everything; just though the food you eat.

Since we do still live in the centre of a city we have some limits to our ability to be self sufficient but I'm keen to see just how much we can do! And what we can't do for ourselves we can chose to make the best decisions about (always remembering the true cost of 'inexpensive')...and feel good about it!

Rhubarb!

2010-08-12T14:19:00.000-07:00

Thriving on benign neglect in a spot of my garden is a beautiful bounty of rhubarb. This remarkable plant produces oodles of stalks of versatile ruby coloured stems that are treated like fruit in just about anything you can imagine! Every year I underutilize this crop!

Some resources for inspiration for making the most of your (and my!) rhubarb harvest!

http://http//www.savor-the-rhubarb.com/index.html

http://www.rhubarbinfo.com/

Interesting magazine

2010-08-04T14:09:00.000-07:00

http://www.maryjanesfarm.org/magazine.html

I had very little time at the check-out today to flip through this...but it looked interesting enough to try to remember to google it when I got home. Still very interesting!

Making a Fred - (sourdough!)

2010-02-14T15:21:00.000-08:00

Making a sourdough starter! Please feel free to name yours whatever you like! :D
My sourdough starters have been named Fred for years - but unlike some folks I haven't been able to sustain one for years. It is possible though to have a starter decades old - with regular use and feeding!

All you need is yeast, water, flour and a large enough container for Fred to grow.

Disolve yeast in water in a glass jar or crock. Do not use metal.

Let stand 10 minutes or until yeast has bubbled up. Add a sprinkle of sugar if you're concerned about feeding your yeasties.

Nice and happy yeast!

Add the flour...

...and shake or stir in. Cover with a lid or plastic wrap and let stand in a warm place over night or at room temperature for about 2 days, until bubbly and slightly sour-smelling. Let stand longer if you like it more sour. Use for baking, leaving a little in the jar or store, covered in the refridgerator. When you use some, stir equal amounts of warm water and flour back into remaining starter and let stand until bubbly. Stir down before returning to fridge. If starter gets too sour, discard 1 cup and add once 1 cup of water and one cup of flour and let stand as above. Starter will last indefinitely if used at least once a week.

And the thing about a large-enough container? Freds really do expand...be sure to pick a big container! ;)

Interesting Magazine

2010-02-11T12:50:00.000-08:00

http://www.hobbyfarms.com/

I have really enjoyed the couple of issues of Hobby Farm Home that I've seen from these folks. And now I see that they also have a magazine called, Urban Farm which I would love to see a copy of! Looks great! And the website has allot of great stuff too. :)

Gifts of Hope

2009-12-10T09:24:00.000-08:00

Looking for a meaningful gift? How about ....?

- a Mango tree planted in a schoolyard schoolyard, and nurtured by students, these saplings yield much more than fruit. In caring for the trees, children learn gardening and agricultural skills. The delicious, vitamin-packed fruit is shared among all students. And as an incentive for sending girls to school, they are given an extra helping of the ripe harvest to bring home. $12

- A birth certificate. It’s more than just a piece of paper. It’s legal armour: proof of existence, and protection against child trafficking, exploitation and abuse. It’s also a key that opens the door to social, educational and political rights. It’s a simple document we take for granted in Canada, but every year 48 million children are not registered at birth. Slumdog Millionaire star Anil Kapoor donated his entire fee for the movie to Plan’s birth registration campaign. You can lend your support for just $25.

- A Pig. Besides being valuable livestock, pigs also do their part by eating food waste and providing fertilizer to grow lush, plentiful crops. With this Gift of Hope, families also learn how to breed and care for the animals. $40

- Library in a Box. What is childhood without books to spark the imagination and ignite dreams? This gift does exactly that, for hundreds of children and their families. These innovative boxes are entrusted to schools so even the most remote communities can be given the gift of reading. No more can rural living and washed out roads keep children from reading, imagining, dreaming, and one day achieving. $60.00

- Immunize a Community
Against Polio. Here’s what we know for sure: polio can be eradicated; there are only four countries in the world where it is still endemic (Afghanistan, India, Nigeria and Pakistan); a single drop of vaccine is all it takes to prevent it. $175.00

These and SO many other ideas are here:
Gifts of Hope

November is Vegan Awareness Month

2009-11-16T12:21:00.000-08:00

I'm not a Vegan, I'm not even a Vegetarian...though I keep thinking of it. I've got a problem with killing animals to eat them. I really do. It bothers me - though I try to find humanely raised and slaughtered animals to consume - I often end up with supermarket bought meat and Lord knows what it went through. I'm definitely uncomfortable with this and though I love cooking; the hypocrisy of my discomfort and my consumption keeps making me evaluate my choices.

While reading and considering online this morning I came across http://crazysexylife.com/...what a resource for someone like me; considering and in need of information!
A blogger associated with the site, http://crazysexylife.com/author/michael/ wrote the following:
"Donald Watson – a British woodworker – recognized the cruelty involved in raising animals for both meat and dairy and desired to create a movement of like-minded people who abstained from consuming all animal products – not just flesh. Watson believed that vegetarianism was “only a stepping stone between meat eating and veganism” and wanted to invent a new word that would properly define this comprehensive approach to compassionate living."
Who knew?

I did actually eat as a Vegan for 8 months several years ago - but I felt more comfortable telling people that it was a health-related experiment (which it certainly was) than going anywhere near my ethical discomfort.
The health-related reasons are as relevant as they were then...and here I am...thinking and considering again.

Hm.

Another Gift Idea

2009-11-15T12:56:00.000-08:00

I'm a little late posting this - but the Collection Week starts tomorrow - so not too late yet!

We still need to pick up some hard candies, pencil crayons, pencil sharpener and soap but this is what we have so far. :)

How to Pack a Shoe Box
Follow these simple steps...

Select a shoe box
Use a regular-sized shoe box or pliable plastic box. If wrapping your shoe box, please wrap the lid separately.

Boy or Girl?
Determine whether your gift will be for a boy or a girl, and the child’s age category: 2-4, 5-9, or 10-14.

Fill your shoe box
Fill your shoe box with a well-balanced variety of items from the following categories:

School Supplies - Items such as pencils, pens, pencil crayons, note pads, and picture books
Toys & Other Gifts - Items such as stuffed animals, small musical instruments, hair clips, toy jewelry, t-shirts, socks, and candy (loose, individually wrapped hard candy in a sealable bag)
Hygiene Items - Please place soap in a sealable bag
Personal Note - Include a personal note and/or a photo in your shoe box (not inside the donation envelope)

DO NOT INCLUDE:

Toothpaste (due to customs regulations)
Food and any chewy, crumbly, or soft candy: Including gum (due to customs regulations)
Used items (due to customs regulations)
Playing cards
Liquids or items that could leak, melt, freeze, or break – Shampoo, creams, lip balm, bath gels, mirrors, or glass, etc. (these can damage other items in the shoe box).
Items that can scare or harm a child – War-related toys, knives, and toy guns, etc.

Samaritans Purse

Rethinking gifting...

2009-11-01T10:40:00.000-08:00

Now that Halloween is behind us - any restraint that retailers have been using will dissipate overnight and Christmas-spending-inducers will drip from every surface and pour from every speaker.
I love Christmas but I love it in it's own season, after Advent and spent in a season of love for family and sensitive to the needs and comfort of all. While the children were young we tried to keep Christmas in it's own season and keep it beautiful. We're still trying and in this spirit I thought it might be fun here to suggest possible gift ideas for friends and family that challenge every aspect of consumerism.
This is a site that I hadn't heard of until this morning! Talk about a great idea; giving the giftee the power to change lives and the choice to choose how. Very cool.
http://www.kiva.org

Got Soap?

2009-10-27T08:41:00.000-07:00

This last week I've made more soap than I have in the last six years of soap-making! I've been freelancing as a soapmaker for Granville Island Candles; a soy candle company who I'm happy to sometimes work for in candle-related matters. But as they are expanding to offer soap also made from soy, I've been involved with putting together a recipe and getting a test batch through the testing stages. They invested in some of the largest and coolest soap-making equipment I've ever seen and over two days last week I made 120 lbs of soap! Quite a different experience from using my little crock pot at home!
Making soap is really rewarding and a great thing to be able to do for yourself - I can make soap much nicer than than the soap I can usually afford to purchase! And I am able to fulfill my cravings and desires for what I feel like in a soap. The scent I want, the kind of lather, the moisturising qualities...everything. And it's really quite fun too. Kind of cooking/candymaking meets science experiment!

A great reference for the soapmaker of any experience is the above book...I read about it online; as the one book a soapmaker really needed, but only purchased it recently. It really is a good book and I do recommend it.
Soap Naturally

But there are lots of great sites to get you started too - these are a few I've plucked from my favourites file:
http://www.soapnaturally.org/index.html
http://www.millersoap.com/soapallveg.html
http://www.soapcalc.net/default.asp
http://www.aquasapone.com.au/soapmaking/index.html
A quick google will lead you to many more I'm sure! :D

Dishes + Great Book = Not So Bad!

2009-10-08T10:29:00.000-07:00

Audiobooks have been such a pleasure for me the last couple of years! I love books and reading and will always have ink and paper books around me...but discovering books on MP3 that I can listen to while doing mundane and repetitive tasks has brought me so many books and improved those tedious tasks tremendously!
I found books on CD expensive to buy and the selection at the library was pretty good but...then I discovered audible.com.
For $15 a month I get a credit which is usually worth one book download...some are worth two credits...and some titles (like my beloved Harry Potter) aren't available yet...but I'm still loving it! Housework has never been so bearable.

Favourite Old Chocolate Cake

2009-09-24T10:46:00.001-07:00

'You know what would be good? Chocolate cake.' This is what my David has been saying for a while now. It's time to fulfill that craving. :)
This recipe was found in a magazine some twenty years ago and has been the chocolate cake of choice in this house since. It's easy to throw together and tastes better than much more complicated creations.

3/4 cup butter, softened
1 2/3 cup sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
2 cups flour
2/3 cocoa
1 1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 1/3 cup water

Combine butter, sugar, eggs and vanilla in large bowl - beat until well combined. Add flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, salt and water and beat again until well combined. Pour into prepared pans and bake at 350F for 30-35 minutes.
Finish with your favourite icing - they are all good. It's excellent as the base of a black forest-type confection too. Or a chocolaty-trifle thing.

You know what Honey? Chocolate cake will be good! :)

City Chickens

2009-09-22T10:43:00.000-07:00

It was with great happiness - and trepidation that people would be narrow minded - that I heard the following news story this past April:

"It's no yolk. Michele Rule wants to talk chickens. The Kelowna City Councillor served notice Monday she would introduce a motion next week aimed at making it legal for residents to keep chickens in their backyard. "I have been in touch with elected officials in other communities who either have or are considering similar bylaws," says Rule. "I will have information as to what the other bylaws look like." Nanaimo and Surrey are two communities in the province which allow its citizens to own chickens within City limits. Vancouver and Vernon are looking at drafting similar bylaws. Presently in Kelowna, people are allowed to own chickens only if they have a half acre of property or more and have received special zoning."

I believe it was about a week later the motion was defeated with allot of nonsense about stink, noise and avian flu. :(

I can't tell you how badly I would like to keep 3 little hens.
They would be the perfect addition to my household/garden! Not only could we benefit from the fresh, tasty eggs, but the bug control and poop production! The poop is exactly what my compost is needing to get cooking. I'd also enjoy living with the little cluckers! They have such funny little personalities.
I need to just keep hoping that education and common sense will prevail.

Trying this again...

2009-09-21T12:31:00.000-07:00

This is perhaps the third such blog I have created. I cannot recall the names of the other ones, Urban something or another. But the concept for the blogs has always been similar; attempting to live a sustainable, sensitive, socially-just and frugal lifestyle that is still full of simple pleasures - whilst living in the downtown area of a fairly large city. I've always given the blogs up because living the above mentioned lifestyle takes time and so does blogging - bit of a conflict there. But to be honest, mostly I just fall off the band wagon and my personal, ethical beliefs and desires fall to the wayside in the face of just trying to keep home and hearth together.
But it is again Fall; my personal season of renewal. It has always been so for me. The harvest is coming in, the academic year is beginning and the possibility of living as well as possible feels ripe too.
We've managed to maintain our other blog, http://soletluna.blogspot.com/ which is the journal of our creative lives for a while now so I hope the time may be right to try this again. I do find that putting things into words is usually good - and I look forward to sharing with and learning from other folks who are trying to live their good lives the best they can.