Wednesday Hodgepodge

1. What would you say is your strongest sense? Smell and taste are close for me.  Since I have to chose one I will go with smell. 

 2. Do you believe in the idea of a 'sixth sense'? Why or why not? I do believe in a "sixth sense".  I think that we all have one.  We get that feeling in our gut and to me that is a sixth sense.

3. When do you most feel like a slave to time? Explain. When I need to get out the door for an appointment or to have one of kids to work. I don't even fret about supper time anymore....  We can eat sandwiches! :-)

4. Have you ever worked in a restaurant? How would you rate the experience? If you could own a restaurant what kind would it be? Yes, I have worked at a restaurant.  I somewhat enjoyed that job.  I learned a lot about dealing with the public and practicing patience. That job gave me experience for my future jobs as a secretary/receptionist. If I owned a restaurant I would do a down home-styled restaurant.  For one, that's the food I know how to cook and I don't like food from packages or the kind that you microwave and eat. 

 5. Ever traced your family tree? Share something interesting you learned there. I haven't actually traced my family tree but family history is a big deal in my family.  Information has been passed through the generations but my brother has traced some of our family history online.  An interesting story he found is that one of our "a lot of great's" uncle was close to George Washington during the Revolutionary War.  Shortened version:

    ::George found our uncle to be a close friend
   ::After the war was over he asked uncle what he could give him for being
      loyal to him during the war
   ::Uncle said that there was a beautiful piece of land that he traveled through
     on his way to one of the other forts
   ::George gifted him the land for his loyalty and service
   ::My kinfolk have been here since
    
 6. What did your childhood bedroom look like?  Exactly the same as now.  My mom still lives in my childhood home and nothing has changed really.  I had a nice bedroom.  It was cold in winter though as there isn't a heat source in there.  My old room has sloped ceilings- kinda like an A but had straight walls about 3 feet to the floor. My kids love to go to my old room and hang out when we go to Mom's.  We go there frequently as mom only lives a couple miles away. 

7. Anyone who knows me knows I love_______________________? TEA!!!!!!  :-)

8. Insert your own random thought here. I have finished canning for the season.  Madilynne and I canned 15 pounds of carrots yesterday.  I will be carrying them to the shelves today and the season is done!

Honey!

   I finally finished the honey!  I ended up with 13 quarts.  :-)   I am pretty happy with the end results!  My dad is the beekeeper.  I only help with the harvest.  ****Now before I continue I will tell you that we are novice beekeepers.  We do not do everything correctly. I can not endorse the way we harvest the honey.  It works for us but I can't state that this is the safest or correct way.****   

 

This year my dad and I decided to try a different approach to harvesting. We have tried several different methods in the past couple years but we struggled with those ways- me more than my dad. Since we thought we should think outside the box my dad decided that we should try to scrape the honey combs off of each section. 

 

 

This was a great idea!  It made much easier work for us- me especially with the filtering process.

 

The only drawback to this method is I was keeping the combs away from me so the honey would only drip onto the table and not make a mess on the floor.  Some of those combs were really heavy and stretched my abdomen muscles...hence I was pretty sore for a couple days! Ack!

 

I filled two nice sized bowls with honey and the wax. 

 

 

If you notice the plate and fork in the upper right hand corner- Ryder was making a quick snack of the honey and wax.  He said that this batch was one of the best harvests ever! :-)

 

I filter the honey through cheesecloth and a stainless steel strainer into a glass bowl.

 

This is some of the filtered honey.  All that is left is wax.  My dad took the wax back up to the bees.  We are experimenting to see if they will reuse the wax and take the leftover honey.

 

I put the filtered honey into clean Mason jars. I used a couple little jars that I recycled in case we need to give some away.  I don't worry about those jars being returned.

 

You can see the difference in colors if you look closely. The darker honey is clover and the more bright yellow honey is goldenrod.

 

Sorry about all the clutter in the pictures.  Ryder was helping me take photos and I just didn't want to take the time to make everything look all tidy!  LOL

 

 

From My Front Porch- October

   We have entered into Autumn.  The temperatures have turned much cooler and we have removed air conditioners in favor of the furnace!  For the last several days we have been getting plenty of rain.  I am happy about it because I think our spring could really use it.  It has been raining here since Thursday evening, if I am remembering correctly.  LOL  Days have been running together lately.  I have been a bit under the weather recently due to some pulled abdomen muscles.  I was working on honey and the combs are heavy when they are full and I was holding them away from my body.  I will post more on that later as I am pretty much back to normal now. 

 

   As you can see from the pictures, the sky is one big cloud!  No sunshine in sight.  If you can make the photos bigger you can see that the leaves are starting to change colors.  Fall is spectacular around here!  

 

   In this photo you can see where the grass is dry and in need of a good watering!  There is also a bit of goldenrod across the road.  The bees are visiting the goldenrod and the clover that remain in the fields.

 

   This photo isn't from the front porch but...  It is of our rain gauge that shows we have been getting a bit of rain.  Not as much as some areas but enough to fill our streams back up.  Most of the creeks and rivers around here were low.

   As I read over this before publishing, I noticed that I referred to the season as Autumn and Fall....  Hum, I am not quite sure what I refer to usually.  Do you call it Autumn or Fall? 

 

Happy Fall Y'all! 

 

or

 

Autumn's Blessings!