Frame starter strips

After much deliberation about what type of hive we've decided to stick with the Langstroth hive. Our plans for Top Bar Hives fell through, mostly because of weather. TBH's don't do that well in really cold weather because the bees have a hard time moving horizontally though the hive for food rather than vertically. That might not make sense but take my word for it. Plus with a box of bee's costing $80 in our area, it seemed a risky leap to take concerning those lovely buzzers. So our original goal was to use a Langstroth (typical hive) but no frame foundation. The foundation for the frames is usually made of plastic and is a set size usually worker bee (girl) size. No drone (boy) size. Which can freak out the hive and some have theorized that it adds to CCD (bad bee disease in the news lately).

I follow a blog called Backwards Beekeepers, Kirk demos how we can help them to draw there own comb with out any sort of foundation as a guide. This gives the bee's a --> build here <-- sign.

Frame with pre built foundation. Picture from here.

Now this is what we are doing. I've melted bee's wax from our local no chemicals group. Then I wetted a 16" piece of lumber ( the water makes the melted bee's wax not stick to the wood). I painted a thin layer of wax onto the board then peeled it off the wood and stuck it into the hive frame.

I wedge the thin wax strip into the top groove of the frame like so, then paint with melted wax in the groove to give the wax strip some extra grip so it won't fall out.

I did that with all 40 frames for our 4 hive body's This is the bee's build here sign and will "help" them build in a straight line. Because sometimes they don't like to build straight.... silly girls!

Our bee keeping class went really well, I forgot to update about that because we were doing our flooring project at the same time. Jake and I passed our beekeeping class and are now official State of Washington Apprentice Beekeepers!! Our 2 boxes of girls arrive on April 17, just a little over 2 weeks a way. Jake my engineer has to build the hive stands and we have to cap off a few sprinkler heads in the area we are putting them. Then Bee's!

Garden Seeds 2010

Sorry for the prolonged absence, with this flooring project and spring gardens stuff we're getting kinda crazy around here. This is my garden grow list for the 2010 season. I just wanted to document it before I lost my mind! LOL Happy growing everyone!

Peas
Green Arrow- shelling pea
Amish Snap- snap pea

Lettuces/greens 
Yugoslavian Red- butterhead
Sanguine Ameliore- butterhead
Red Romaine (garden volunteer last year and saved the seeds) - romaine
Monopa spinage
Five Color Silverbeet - swish chard

Broccoli/Cauliflower
DeCicco Broccoli- good keeper and freezer
Romanesco Broccoli- spiraling pattern, prized in Italy grows well in northern gardens
Early Snowball Cauliflower


Beans
Climbing French- stringless, purple seeds, pole habit
Black Valentine- snap bean or dried soup bean, bush habit
Provider- good freezer, canner, bush habit
Hutterite Soup- best soup bean, bush habit

Squash/Cucumber
Black Beauty Zucchini- summer
Yellow Crookneck- summer
Snow Fancy Pickling Cucumber
Delicata- winter
Table Queen-winter
Potimarron-winter
Queensland Blue-winter
Long Pie Pumpkin-winter

Tomato and Family
Green Tomatillo
Applegreen- Eggplant, mild white flesh, non acid , does well in cold areas
Long Keeper- tomato, won't ripen on vine bring inside and wrap in paper for fresh tomatoes into december.
Italian Heirloom- tomato, big slicer
Martinos Roma- paste tomato, heavy set
Cherry Roma- tomato, fresh, or dried
Sheboygan- paste tomato, pink, good canner
Silvery Fir Tree- tomato, slicer, heavy producer, carrot like foliage

Peppers
Wenks Yellow Hots- pepper #3, medium hot, orange --> red ripe.
Quadrato Asti Giallo- pepper #0, sweet pepper, large green bell
Fish- pepper- #3 medium hot, striped technicolor fruit
Joe's Long Cayenne- pepper #3, long skinny and hot
Sweet Chocolate- pepper #0 sweet, Dark brown outside, brick red inside

Root Veggies
Haris Model- parsnip
Detroit Dark Red- beet
St. Valery- carrot
Scarlet Nantes- carrot

Herbs
Triple Curled Parsley
Chives (in place already)
Hyssop
Cilantro
Globe Basil
Thyme (more for the bees than me)
Rosemary
Greek Oregano
Grandma Einck's Dill (again for bees)

Flowers
Ring of Fire Sunflower
Rostov Sunflower
Evening Sun Sunflower
Titan Sunflower
Azureus Sweet Pea
Borage ( should be in place already... but I've yet to see starts)
Jolly Jester Marigold
Sensation Mixture Cosmos
Benary's Giant Zinnia

Onion/Garlic
Yellow Borettana - fresh onion, good kabobs, sweet flesh
Yellow of Parma- late harvest, keeper
Evergreen Hardy- bunching onion
Inchelium Red Garlic- good medium flavor, mid season, softneck
Georgian Crystal- porcelain garlic, large bulbs, mild flavor
Asian Tempest - Fiery garlic, hot, early harvest
Blue Soliaze-leek
Giant Musselburgh- leek

Miscellaneous 
Tall Utah 52/70- Celery

Breast Cancer Portland Dancers

I ran across this video and I am a total sucker for dancing like an idiot for a cause. These guys are brilliant and the whole video just makes me smile! I was amazed at how many different people they got to participate, from all over the hospital.

Particleboard nightmares

By the way this is the particleboard on our staircase. This will be leaving our toxic house too!

New Flooring

6 years ago when Jacob and I had this house built our contractor used the shittiest carpet on the market. During the first year when I would vacuum, bags and bags of carpet would actually pull up. To the point where we had not much of the "nice looking" carpet that was installed. We also made the mistake of choosing WAY to light of a color, off white with brown/black flecks in it. Naturally it didn't say off white for long. Having and unfinished yard and a dog with off white flooring..... well we gave up quickly. In our quest for new flooring many eco-friendly questions came up. Off-gassing, material, processed, LEED requirements, etc. If we choose carpet should it be wool? Do they spray it? Is it dosed in spill proof chemicals? What about Marmoleum? Do we have to lay down a toxic sub floor? Glues? Formaldehyde?

You get the picture. We found a company based in our own state that sells bamboo wood flooring. Upon further checking them out we pounced. The company is called Bamboo Hardwoods. We chose this company because they offered FSC certified bamboo flooring with very low toxic off gassing levels. They are CARB and E-O compliant which means they are about the lowest toxic floor we could find. Accept for maybe real hardwood recycled from a barn or something.... 

Now the fun came, demolition! 

We ripped up the carpet on the in the two bedrooms, stairs and living room, and decided to get that nasty press board and vinyl out of the kitchen too. Our master bath room we are saving to tile later this year... maybe. 

Demolition pictures: Install pictures and stacked bamboo flooring (it has to acclimate) to come later.

Which box are you in?

I love this video, every time I watch it. It just makes sense to me. Act because "we only get to run this experiment once."

Plastic Waste Challenge February

Having stumbled upon Fakeplasticfish I decided I wanted to take the plastic challenge. Simply put I wanted to see what we throw away in plastic waste for a year. I started this in February. Some of the plastic (I am sure there'll be more) I wouldn't normally assemble. But since I am in the process of setting up an emergency kit I'll have a bit more in the way of unrecyclable plastic. The questions that follow are directly from fakeplasticfish's site.


Food
Ketchup bottle (not recyclable in my area, a #7)
cheese wrappers
frozen blueberry bag
flax meal bag
milk bottle tops
soba noodle bag
ziplock bag

Mail/shipping
Tape from a box
several plastic envelope windows
packing slip envelope
Chase fake gift card

Misc.
Empi bag for electrodes
 sunglasses containers clamshell packaging
9 plastic covers for things like toothbrush, sharpie pen, scissors (all for first aid kit)
 random plastic bags

Total weight: 7 3/4 oz or 220g
Total items: 40 (including all envelope windows)


What items can I replace with plastic free or less plastic? 

Ketchup bottle. I plan to make my own this summer when the tomatoes are rolling me over. The cheese and the blueberry bags I can do without. I am working on cheese making to supplement and reduce the plastic there. I can't seem to find any cheese that doesn't come in giant wheels that is wax wrapped. The soba noodles I can buy in bulk and have been. This bag was from my mother who didn't like the noodles.

What items would I be willing to give up if a plastic free alternative doesn't exist?

Most of what I have isn't from any product that comes in plastic. Just household essentials or stuff for the emergency kit.

How many of these items are from "convenience" foods that I could make from scratch?  


None, well if you count cheese as a convenience food then I guess one, but I am working on that.

What Items are essential and do not have a plastic alternative?

None.

What changes might be necessary to reduce my plastic consumption?

Really get on the junk mail delivery. I hate all the crap plastic windows that show up. I did the recent push to get off the junk mail lists, now I have to see what happens with that.

What one plastic item am I willing to give up or replace this week?


Since none of these items are essential I am going to say nothing here.

Are there any other conclusions I can draw? 


I'd say we did really well. Much room for improvement, I plan on going through preserve to get our toothbrushes that should eliminate at least 2 useless plastic pieces every 3 months. I need to make constant choices when out in public or purchasing things. I think knowing what I know about plastic now will keep me "awake" instead of a mindless shopper.

Warning / Computer Sense

Jen and I are going to move to comment moderation now. So if you comment on any of are post and they don't show up, just be patient until we approve them. Since we don't get many comments, this shouldn't be a problem. When we get up to a million follows, we'll go back. LOL. : )

We received 5 comments on our old blog that contained links in some foreign language. I'm 100% sure the links are to spam/porn. I've deleted them but unfortunately, you can't report anyone for doing this (correct me if I'm wrong). They only way to avoid this kind of stuff is to moderate your comments. So, we've chosen to moderate comments for now. I'd feel terrible if someone got a virus or directed to bad sites through our blog, even if it was by accident.

So please use computer sense if you see this on other blogs. If in doubt, DON'T CLICK!!!

Updates on Life without a microwave

So the whole microwave revelation started with pizza and although warmed up pizza in an oven is glorious, it's nothing to compared to pie. See mom made us cherry tarts (from last years frozen cherries thank you) for good ole' George Washington's B-day. I can't remember why to bake a cherry pie but regardless, cherry tarts ensued.  So last night I turned on the oven to 350* placed the tart in the center and set the timer for 20 minutes. When the timer buzzed out came the tart all beautiful and full of itself, smelling like loveliness. We dished up our frozen yogurt, split the tart in half and set to work on enjoyment. The crust got me first all flakey and wonderful nothing like the soggy resemblance of crust in a microwaved slice of pie. Evenly heated every bite was warm, no hot spots. It was one of the few stand out meals that is so exponentially better than it's microwaved counter part I can't even put it into words. Try it, it's brilliant.

Other meals are sometimes easier or harder depending on frozen ingredients and if I had any forethought. It's been a month now since the removal, most of that time was made of pre cooked meals I had on hand for my surgery which got postponed. So the forethought on meal planning was minimal. Take it out frozen stick in oven, cook, eat. Now with most of those meals gone planning for thawing ingredients will be a challenge. I am not looking forward to using the oven when it's like 100* outside this summer. But we are planning on building a solar oven to assist with that. Or we'll just live off food we cook on the BBQ. Further updates on the microwave situation as we progress through this year.

Junk mail

Getting of junk mail is seriously a pain in the ass! I have however found some sites that are truly helpful. I spent much of the morning on the phone or sending emails about being removed from junk mail lists. Here are the sites I found useful.

Privacyrights.org 
DMAchoice.org
41pounds.org

I called DirectTV to (with any luck) get off there mailing lists, since we don't own a TV it seems pointless to keep shredding the paper. At DMA choice I removed myself from all magazines, catalogs, and other random mailings. I however called about the credit card opt out at 888-567-8688, It's through opt-out-preescreen which can be accessed through DMA's website. With any luck I will stop receiving credit card applications from Skank of America. 


Seriously I would love it if I could check my mail only once per week maybe get just the bills from the crapy guys who need to actually mail a bill every month. (thank you city of cheney) My occasional Organic Gardening magazine is the one joy I have when I get the mail. 


Picture and another useful article from stopjunkmail.

Vinegar

In an effort to reduce the amount of plastic that crosses the threshold of this house I think I want to make vinegar. I use that for everything! It just seems such a waste to keep buying it in evermore plastic. But I don't want to make the yummy kind like ACV, or white wine, anything that essentially gets used in cooking. I have found a few recipes and I think I am going to mix them and give em` a go. I have had major success in kombucha brewing, which is a form of vinegar. I think if I can get something really acidic  it can be used in a similar fashion as the store bought white vinegar. We'll see, after all I am not going for edible, just for cleaning and laundry the bulk of my vinegar use. I'll post back with some kombucha pictures and the recipe for the vinegar.

Girlyman

These guys satisfy the inner choir geek in me. I just found them from another blog I follow. Enjoy fellow 3 part harmony dorks!

Toothpaste

Sorry I've been slacking on the blogging and it's not for lack of topics either. Mostly I've been researching flooring, chicken coops, water footprints and humanure. All over the place. I recently came across a blog titled fake plastic fish, Beth, the author of the the blog has been on a remove plastic journey. And that lead me to the great pacific ocean gyre.

I do promise to write about all the things I have been researching but for now I want to document my toothpaste recipe. In and effort to live lighter on the planet and reduce even more our output of garbage I thought homemade toothpaste would be a good idea. There are TONS of recipes online all of which are great but this is what we decided to do.

almost 1/4 c. baking soda
almost 1/4 c. coconut oil
4+ drops of peppermint essential oil (more or less as needed)
about 1.5 Tablespoons of honey
1.5 teaspoons hydrogen peroxide

Mix well.

I mixed all this and put it in an old yeast jar. It is much runnier at first but it thickens up to a crumbly paste. We tried it at first with less coconut oil but the baking soda was way too abrasive. Still, I don't brush directly on my teeth right at first. I add a tiny amount (1tsp or less) of water in my mouth add my toothpaste and swish a little. Just to start the baking soda dissolving. Then I brush with the runny toothpaste. Jake and I switched to an earth friendly brand a while ago so we are used to the lack of foamy toothpaste. But for some it might come as a shock. Like the lack of bubbles in dishwater, without detergents and foaming stuff.

Coupled with our EcoDenT floss, we intend to go green with our toothbrushes too. Preserve has the gimme 5 program that recycles #5 plastics into household stuff.  They make toothbrushes that can be purchased new, and sent back to be re-made into a new toothbrush when you're done with the old.